of which is in some degree extenuated by the provocation he had received.

On the death of Fleetwood, bishop of Ely, who had all along refused to interfere between Bentley and his college, the fellows of Trinity resolved to renew their complaints against the master. After long and vexatious litigation, in which enormous expenses were incurred, the cause was finally referred to the decision of the house of lords. Meanwhile, Dr Bentley had sent forth that immortal chef-d'œuvre of absurdity and arrogance, his edition of the Paradise Lost:' in which he has extirpated or altered many hundreds of lines, alleging, on the ground of their supposed inferiority, that they had been interpolated or corrupted by the person to whom Milton, by reason of his blindness, had committed the transcription of the poem. As it is impossible to suppose that Bentley himself believes this absurd hypothesis, we can only wonder by what judicial infatuation he should ever have been led to propound it seriously to his readers. To have excepted openly against the passages which he fancied he could improve, would have been infinitely more rational and manly than thinly veiling the audacity of his tasteless criticisms under so jejune and extravagant a fiction. As a specimen of his offered emendations, the following may, perhaps, suffice. In place of the celebrated line,

"No light, but rather darkness visible,"

he proposes to substitute this exquisite improvement :

"No light but rather a TRANSPICUOUS GLOOM."

We willingly acknowledge, however, that there are some acute remarks, and not infelicitous conjectures to be found in this extraordinary volume; the occasional "flash and outbreak," of that "fiery spirit" which, in its native regions, always blazed out with an effulgence

This

After a minute and protracted examination of the articles exhibited by the fellows of Trinity against the master, the lords commissioned Dr Greene, the bishop of Ely, to try Dr Bentley upon twenty out of the sixty-four. After a few more delays interposed by the untameable master, the bishop finally sentenced him to be deprived of his mastership. Even this was insufficient to subdue the adamantine resolution of Bentley. Having discovered that the sentence of the visitor could, according to the letter of the statute, be put into execution by none but the vice-master, he introduced into that office his devoted follower, Walker, who was prepared to sacrifice every thing in the master's cause. "fidus Achates," in spite of rescript, commination, mandamus, &c. &c. obstinately refused to stir a step against his patron. The death of Bishop Greene in 1738, put an end to all the proceedings against the master, and left him in undisputed possession of the victory. Immediately after the termination of this protracted struggle, Dr Bentley sued his old adversary, Colbatch, for arrears due to the former in his capacity of archdeacon of Ely, and gained his cause. During these unhappy and disgraceful altercations, Dr Bentley had been engaged with great ardour upon his proposed edition of the New Testament;

which, however, never saw the light. The Homeric poems seem to have occupied much of his attention, from the year 1726, to the close of his life. By the splendid discovery of the Digamma-a letter which had been lost out of the Greek alphabet for more than two thousand years he had been guided to many inestimable emendations of the Homeric verses; and in the true Bentleian spirit of enterprise, at the age of seventy, he pledged himself to Lord Carteret to prepare a new edition of the Iliad and the Odyssey. This pledge, however, he did not live to redeem. The great critic was ridiculed with unsparing rancour by Pope and Arbuthnot, to whom, however, he seems to have given no provocation beyond a not uncharitable judgment upon the Homer of the bard of Twickenham. He did not, however, vouchsafe any thing in the shape of a reply. In 1739, Dr Bentley published his long promised Manilias:' a performance, the merits and blemishes of which closely resemble those of all his editions of the Roman poets. A short time before the death of Bentley, appeared the famous satire against him contained in the fourth book of the Dunciad; of which, however, we can scarcely hesitate to say that the wit is less pungent than the malignity is odious. For the last few years of his life, Bentley is said to have been disabled by paralysis. In July, 1742, he was seized with a pleurisy, and expired on the 14th, having exceeded the age of fourscore by nearly seven months.

It is unnecessary to enter upon any extended analysis of the intellectual and moral character of Dr Bentley. He stands undoubtedly the very first among all the philological critics of every age and nation, "in shape and gesture proudly eminent." No single individual ever contributed so much to the actual stores of the learned world, or gave so strong an impulse to the study of the ancient classics. With little either of sensibility or imagination, he possessed an understanding which for compass, strength, and subtlety, has rarely been matched. He was by no means destitute of generosity; but all his better qualities were strangled by an arrogant and haughty spirit, which frequently carried him to the most indecent excesses of temper and acts of violence. His theological creed appears to have embraced all the leading doctrines of the gospel. It is melancholy to add, that of that sanctification of the Spirit through the belief of the truth which lifts the soul above the world, forms it to the image of God, and fixes its regards on eternity, no traces are found in the records of his life and conversation. He left behind him a son, and two daughters, one of whom was the mother of the dramatist Cumberland.

John Hough, D. D.

BORN A. D. 1651.-DIED A. D. 1743.

JOHN HOUGH,' an eminent and spirited prelate of the church of England, was born in London on the 12th of April, 1651, and received his education at the free school of Birmingham. He entered at Magdalene college, Oxford, on the 12th of November 1669, and

'Pronounced Huff.

was subsequently elected a fellow of the same foundation. He was ordained deacon in 1675; and, in 1678, became domestic chaplain to the duke of Ormond, whom he accompanied to Ireland, where the duke was then lord-lieutenant. Mr Hough lived four or five years in this noble family. In 1682 he returned to England, and was collated, in 1685, to a prebend-stall in the cathedral of Worcester, and soon afterwards presented to the living of Tempsford in Bedfordshire.

In March, 1687, the presidentship of Magdalen college became vacant, and notice was given conformably to the statutes of the college, that the fellows would proceed to the election of a new president on the 13th of the ensuing April. But before the appointed day arrived, a mandamus was sent to the fellows, through a Roman catholic, Robert Charnock, recommending them to elect one Anthony Farmer. The fellows addressed a humble representation to the king, in which they urged that Farmer had never been a fellow of the college, and had not any of the qualifications for the office which the statutes required. No answer was returned to their petition; and having waited till the 15th of April-which was the farthest delay allowed by the statutes-they elected the Rev. John Hough to the vacant office, observing all the forms contained in the statutes. On the 17th of the same month the new president was solemnly installed in the chapel of his college. But on the 22d of June following, notwithstanding the intercession of the duke of Ormond, Mr Hough's election was declared void by King James's commissioners for ecclesiastical causes,—a body of men appointed by royal authority only. The court finding, however, that Mr Farmer, whom they had before designed for the office, was a man of bad character, had not the effrontery to persist in their prior declaration in his favour; but, on the 27th of August, issued a mandamus to the fellows to elect Dr Samuel Parker, bishop of Oxford, who was a papist. This the fellows refused to comply with. The king, being in Oxford in September, endeavoured to intimidate the refractory collegians, and, addressing them in no very courteous terms, threatened them with the utmost severity of his displeasure if they did not immediately choose the bishop of Oxford for their president. But they still persisted in their disobedience, with a constancy which did honour to the whole body, and especially to their president Hough. William Penn, the quaker, amongst other persons, attended King James to Oxford on this occasion, and seems to have made an effort to soften the incensed sovereign, and obtain for the fellows that liberty of conscience which he so highly valued. On the 9th of October a deputation from the college, of whom Dr Hough was one, had a conference with Mr Penn at Windsor, and submitted for his perusal the several papers necessary to elucidate the case. "These," says Dr Hough, "he seemed to read very attentively, and after many objections, (to which he owned I gave him satisfactory answers,) he promised faithfully to read every word to the king, unless peremptorily commanded to forbear." But whatever influence he might have had with the king, it was on this occasion, if exerted at all, exerted without effect, for Dr Hough and the fellows of Magdalen college were cited to appear on the 21st of November before certain lords commissioners appointed specially to visit the college. Dr Hough behaved with great temper and firmness in his examination. No solicitation, no menace, no hope nor fear, could induce him to violate his oath

and betray his trust. Notwithstanding the repeated demands of the commissioners, he refused to deliver up the keys of his lodgings to the person whom the king had selected for president; and, finally, before they withdrew, he came again to court, and boldly appealed against all their proceedings as illegal, unjust, and null, exclaiming, "I appeal to my sovereign lord the king, in his courts of justice !" The commissioners proceeded to deprive the refractory fellows of their fellowships, and only two of them were found willing to make any submission to the king. To such a height did the spirit of resistance rise, that the very demies refused the vacant fellowships, and the university, in full convocation, refused degrees to three persons who were recommended by his majesty. This noble resistance on the part of Dr Hough and the fellows of Magdalen to the arbitrary mandates of James, had a powerful effect in modifying the slavish obedience which prevailed among the clergy of that day, and in kindling a general spirit of opposition to the tyrannical measures of a bigot king; and, consequently, in preparing the way for a better settlement of the government under King William. When the declaration of the prince of Orange reached England the following year, the court perceived it necessary to yield to the spirit of the times; and on the 11th of October, 1688, the bishop of Winchester, as visitor of Magdalen college, received orders “to settle that society regularly and statuteably," and to strike out the names of all the popish intruders, both fellows and demies.

In April, 1690, soon after the Revolution, Dr Hough was rewarded for the firmness with which he had resisted the arbitrary measures of King James, by the bishopric of Oxford, which he was allowed to hold in conjunction with his presidentship of Magdalen, which he did not resign till he was translated to the diocese of Lichfield and Coventry, in 1689. In 1702 the bishop married the relict of Sir Charles Lee of Billesly, in the county of Warwick, and daughter of Thomas Fisher, Esq. of Walsh Hale near Meriden, in the same county. This lady died in November, 1722. The bishop appears to have regarded her with uncommon affection. "He kept the day of her decease with a religious veneration as long as he lived, and made it his rule to fast on that day; so that his friends, in the latter years of his life, remonstrated against this practice as injurious to his health." Bishop Hough, though he lived to complete his 92d year, and entered upon his 93d, appears to have preserved his intellectual faculties entire to the last. He expired at Worcester on the 8th of May, 1743, and was buried in the cathedral, where there is a very fine monument to his memory by Roubilliac. He does not appear ever to have devoted himself with any degree of assiduity to literary pursuits; he published, during his lifetime, eight sermons only, and left strict injunctions that nothing should be printed from his MSS. after his decease. In his charitable donations and bequests, he was exceedingly munificent.

Seward's Biographiana, vol. ii. Life by Wilmot.

John Balguy.

BORN A. D. 1668.-DIED A. D. 1748.

JOHN BALGUY was born at Sheffield, August 12th, 1686, and educated in the grammar-school in that town, of which his father was master. After his father's death he became a pupil of the Rev. Charles Daubrez, the author of a Commentary on the Revelation,' who had succeeded to the school. In 1702 he was admitted of St John's college, Cambridge, where he took the degree of M. A., in 1726. In 1708 he was taken into the family of Mr Banks, and became tutor to Joseph Banks, Esq. of Raresby, Lincolnshire, grandfather of the celebrated voyager and philosopher. In 1711 he obtained a small church donative at Lamesly and Temfield in the county of Durham. In 1718 he engaged in what was called the Bangorian controversy, in which he defended Dr Hoadly against several assailants. In the three pamphlets which he wrote in this controversy, he assumed the name of Silvius. Dr Stebbing and Dr Sherlock were the persons against whom he wrote. In 1727 he was presented by Bishop Hoadly with a prebend in Salisbury cathedral. Soon after, he preached an assize-sermon at Newcastle-upon-Tyne,-the subject was party-spirit, and the judges ordered its publication. In 1729 he was preferred to the vicarage of North Allerton, Yorkshire. He died September 21st, 1748, at the age of 63. Besides his tracts in the Bangorian controversy, his chief publications were A Letter to a Deist; The Foundation of Moral Goodness,' in two parts; 'Divine Rectitude,' a second letter to a deist; The Law of Truth;'Essay on Redemption; Six Sermons;'-these, with fifteen others, were published in a posthumous volume. Mr Balguy was distinguished as an author by great perspicuity, simplicity of style, and force of argument. He inclined to the ethical, rather than to the scriptural school of theology; and, from the side which he took in the Bangorian controversy, it will be seen that he belonged to what was then called the liberal party. Throughout his writings he places the grounds of virtue and religion, rather in reason, than in the authority of revelation. The prevailing vice of the divines of his age, was the love of ethical, and what was termed rational theology: Balguy is, however, one of the ablest of this class of divines.

Esaac Watts, D. D.

BORN A. D. 1674.-DIED A. D. 1748.

ISAAC WATTS was born at Southampton on the 17th of July, 1674. He was the eldest of nine children, and named after his father, a decided nonconformist, who had suffered not a little persecution for conscience sake at the hands,-not of "the nation," as Dr Southey, in a memoir prefixed to a recent edition of the 'Hora Lyricæ, gently insinuates, but of the high-church clergy. It is affirmed of young