There is not probably on record another authentic instance of such early intellectual development as that of Wotton. He translated chapters from the Hebrew, Greek, and Latin into English at the age of five. He was admitted to College, Catherine Hall, Cambridge, at the age of nine years and eight months, the record of him by the Head of the College being Gulielmus Wottonus, infra decem annos, nec Hammondo nec Grotio secundus, “William Wotton, less than ten years old, and not inferior to Hammond or to Grotius." When scarcely twelve, his skill in Hebrew, Arabic, Syriac, Chaldee, Greek, and Latin, in arts, sciences, logic, philosophy, mathematics, and chronology, was celebrated by the learned Head of Magdalen College in a Latin poem, In Gulielmum Wottonum, stupendi ingenii et incomparabilis spei puerum, vixdum duodecim annorum, "On William Wotton, a boy of amazing genius and incomparable hope, not yet twelve years old." At the age of twelve years and five months he took his degree of Bachelor of Arts, being then acquainted with twelve languages. He took his Master's degree at seventeen, and was elected Fellow at nineteen. He did not die young, as is often the case with those of precocious genius, but lived to the age of sixty.

Wotton wrote several important works, but his achievements were not in proportion to the prodigious promise of his boyhood. The following are the chief: Reflections upon Ancient and Modern Learning, occasioned by Sir William Temple's essay on that subject; A History of Rome; Discourse on the Confusion of Language at Babel; Miscellaneous Discourses on the Traditions and Usages of the Scribes and Pharisees in the Time of Our Blessed Saviour Jesus Christ.

THOMAS WILSON, D. D., LL.D., 1663-1755, was for fifty-seven years Bishop of Sodor and Man. On account of his extraordinary merits, he received from the King frequent offers of promotion to other dioceses, generally considered more desirable, but he uniformly declined, and remained in his original Episcopal charge, fulfilling its duties, to the ninety-third year of his life.

Bishop Wilson's publications are held in great respect: The Principles and Duties of Christianity; Short and Plain Instructions for the Better Understanding of the Lord's Supper; The Knowledge and Practice of Christianity made easy to the Meanest Capacities; Observations on Reading the Historical Parts of the Old Testament; Parochialia, instructions to the clergy in the discharge of their parochial duty; Maxims of Piety and Christianity; Plain Sermons on the Sacraments; Private Meditations. "During the fifty-eight years that he had the bishopric, he never failed, unless on occasion of sickness, to expound the Scriptures, to preach, or to administer the sacrament, every Sunday, at one or other of the churches in his diocese; and if absent from the island, he always preached at the church where he resided for the day."— Life. "His style and language are adapted to the understanding and capacity of all orders

and degrees of men: at the same time, he delivered his sentiments with all the dignity and authority of an inspired apostle."- Rev. P. Moore.

THOMAS RYMER, 1638-1714, a scholar of Cambridge, was appointed in 1692 historiographer to William III. In this capacity he published the collection of documents relating to the transactions between England and foreign powers, in twenty volumes folio, commonly known as Rymer's Foedera. The last five volumes, it must be observed, were published by Sanderson after Rymer's death. The treaties in this work extend from 1101 to 1654. It is perhaps unnecessary to say that Rymer's Foedera is indispensable in the historian's library, Clark's attempt to amend and enlarge it having failed. It is, as yet, the only collection that gives, in an accessible and continuous form, the documents relating to England's foreign policy. Besides his labors as an editor, Rymer made some pretensions to being a critic, publishing a few essays on the English dramatists of the sixteenth century, which earned from Macaulay the epithet, "the worst critic that ever lived." Rymer made also a few translations from the Greek, Latin, and Italian.

JOHN HARRIS, D. D., 1667-1719, was the earliest English encyclopedist. He published in 1704 Lexicon Technicum, or a Universal Dictionary of Arts and Sciences, 2 vols., fol. He made also a valuable collection of Voyages and Travels, 2 vols., fol., and some other antiquarian works.

Ephraim Chambers, bers's Cyclopædia.

1740, was the author of Cham

Chambers began as an apprentice with Mr. Senex, a globemaker in London. Acquiring, while in this business, a strong taste for scientific pursuits, he withdrew from the work of globemaking, and gave himself up entirely to the preparation of his dictionary. It was published by subscription, in 2 vols., fol., and had a large sale, bringing the author both money and fame. The work was enlarged from time to time, and finally led to, or was merged in, Rees's Cyclopædia, 45 vols., 4to.

"While the second edition of Chambers's Cyclopædia, the pride of booksellers and the honor of the English nation, was in the press, I went to the author, and begged leave to add a single syllable to his magnificent work; and that, for Cyclopædia, ho would write Encyclopædia. I told him that the addition of the preposition en made the meaning of the word more precise; but Cyclopædia might mean the instruction of a circle, as Cyropædia is the instruction of Cyrus; but that if he wrote Encyclopædia, it determined it to be from the dative of cyclus, instruction in a circle."W. Bowyer.

IV. THEOLOGICAL WRITERS.

Butler.

Joseph Butler, D. D., 1692–1752, a learned Bishop of the English Church, wrote several important works, but the others are thrown into the shade by that one with which the world is familiar, The Analogy of Religion, Natural and Revealed, to the Constitution and Course of Nature.

Butler's Analogy has been accepted almost universally as a standard work on the subject of which it treats, and it is used as a text-book in a large proportion of the higher institutions of learning. The distinction which it has gained is due, however, more to the soundness of the argument than to the lucid or attractive style in which the argument is presented. It has been alleged, indeed, that the difficulty referred to is owing entirely to the abstruse character of the subjects discussed. But this is a mistake. His style is not to be commended or imitated. He is dry, obscure, and dull, where Locke, Berkeley, or Brown would have been vivacious and lucid.

"No thinker so great was ever so bad a writer. Indeed, the ingenious apologies which have lately been attempted for this defect, amount to no more than that his power of thought was too much for his skill in language. How general must the reception have been of truths so certain and momentous as those contained in Butler's discourses, with how much more clearness must they have appeared to his own great understanding, if he had possessed the strength and distinctness with which Hobbes enforces odious falsehood, or the unspeakable charm of that transparent diction which clothed the unfruitful paradoxes of Berkeley." - Sir James Mackintosh.

"Bishop Butler is one of those creative geniuses who give character to their times. His great work, The Analogy of Religion, has fixed the admiration of all competent judges for nearly a century, and will continue to be studied so long as the language in which he wrote endures." - Bishop Wilson.

Leslie.

CHARLES LESLIE, 1650-1722, a native of Ireland, and a graduate of Trinity College, Dublin, was ordained in the English Church, but being a strong Jacobite, and refusing to take the oath of allegiance to William and Mary, he applied himself to the use of his pen only.

Leslie wrote much, both on political and religious subjects. Of the latter, the works most known are A Short and Easy Method with the Deists; A Short and Easy Method with the Jews; and The Snake in the Grass, against the Quakers. His "Short and Easy Method with the Deists" has acquired great celebrity, and is always quoted in lists of works on the evidences of Christianity.

"His abilities and his connections were such that he might easily have obtained high preferment in the Church of England. But he took his place in the front rank of the Jacobite body, and remained there steadfastly through all the dangers and vicissitudes of three-and-thirty troubled years. Though constantly engaged in theological controversy with Deists, Jews, Socinians, Presbyterians, Papists, and Quakers, he found time to be one of the most voluminous political writers of the age. Of all the nonjuring clergy he was the best qualified to discuss constitutional questions; for before he had taken orders he had resided long in the Temple, and had been studying English history and law, while most of the other chiefs of the schism had been poring over the Acts of Chalcedon, or seeking for wisdom in the Targum of Onkelos."-Macaulay.

THOMAS SHERLOCK, D. D., 1678–1761, a celebrated divine and Bishop of the English Church, was born in London and educated at Cambridge. His Works complete are

published in 5 vols., Svo. The following are the two most noted: The Use and Intent of Prophecy; Trial of the Witnesses of the Resurrection of Jesus. "The Sermons of Sherlock are masterpieces of argument and eloquence. His discourses on Prophecy and the Trial of the Witnesses are perhaps the best defences of Christianity in our language." Dr. Joseph Warton.

THOMAS SECKER, LL D., 1693-1768, Archbishop of Canterbury, was held in high esteem both as a writer and a preacher. His writings have been published in 12 vols., Svo. Of these, one volume consists of Charges to his clergy, and 2 vols. are Lectures on the Catechism; the remaining nine are Sermons.

THOMAS STACKHOUSE, 1680-1752, a theologian of the English Church, is well known for his Complete Body of Divinity, published originally in folio, and more recently in 3 vols., 8vo, and for his History of the Bible, published originally in 2 vols., folio, and afterwards in 6 vols., 8vo. Besides these, his chief works, he published also The Miseries and Great Hardships of the Inferior Clergy in and about London; Reflections on the Nature and Property of Languages; Defence of the Christian Religion; Memoirs of Bishop Atterbury, etc. The two works first named form a part of the standard literature of theology.

JOHN STRYPE, 1643-1737, a learned clergyman of the English Church, was a most laborious student and writer. He died in his ninety-fifth year. His works have been printed in 27 vols., Svo. They are chiefly historical, and though valuable as storehouses of information, are of the Dryasdust order. The following are the chief: Annals of the Reformation in England, 4 vols., folio; Ecclesiastical Memorials, 3 vols., folio; Lives of Archbishops Cranmer, Grindal, Parker, and Whitgift, each in 1 vol., folio; Lives of Bishop Aylmer, 8vo, of Sir Thomas Smith, Svo, and of Sir John Cheke, 4to, with a great number of Sermons.

WILLIAM WAKE, D. D., 1657-1737, Archbishop of Canterbury, was born at Blandford, Dorsetshire, and educated at Oxford. He published Au Exposition of the Doctrines of the Church of England; Present State of the Controversies between the Churches of England and Rome; The Genuine Epistles of the Apostolical Fathers, Translated; The Authority of Christian Princes over their Ecclesiastical Synods; An Appeal in behalf of the King's Supremacy; Preparation for Death; Sermons and Discourses.

WILLIAM FLESTWOOD, D. D., 1656-1723, a Bishop of the English Church, was the author of several valuable works: Essay on Miracles; Chronicum Preciosum, an account of money, prices, etc.; Sermons. Bishop Fleetwood's Sermons are highly praised: "surnamed the silver-tongued ;-remarkable for easy and proper expressions."-Doddridge.

WHITE KENNETT, D.D., 1660-1728, was an eminent Bishop of the English Church, and a zealous antiquary. His publications were very numerous. Among these the following are noted: Parochial Antiquities of Oxford and Bucks, 2 vols., 4to; A Complete History of England, with the Lives of all the Kings and Queens thereof, 3 vols., fol.; Register and Chronicle, Ecclesiastical and Civil, towards discovering and correcting the True History of England, from the Restoration of Charles II., fol., etc.

JOHN BALGUT, 1686-1748, a theological writer who flourished in the early part of the last century, attacked Lord Shaftesbury in A Letter to a Deist. His other publications were: The Foundation of Moral Goodness, being an answer to Hutcheson's theory of the origin of our ideas of Beauty and Virtue; Brief Inquiry concerning the Moral Perfections of the Deity; and An Essay on Redemption. The last was one of his

most popular works. — THOMAS BALGUY, D. D., 1716-1795, son of John B., and archdeacon of Winchester, wrote several works on religious subjects: Divine Benevolence Asserted and Vindicated from the Reflections of Ancient and Modern Sceptics; Discourses on Various Subjects.

REV. JOHN BAMPTON, 1689-1751, has a place in English letters, not for what he did himself, but for what he has caused to be done by others. He left his estates in trust to the University of Oxford, for the endowment of eight Divinity Lectures, to be delivered yearly, in confirmation and establishment of the Christian faith. These Bampton Lectures began in 1780, and a new volume has been published every year since, with only two or three exceptions.

RICHARD ARNALD, 1696-1756, a Fellow of Emanuel College, Cambridge, was the author of a Commentary on the Apocrypha, which is held in high estimation. This commentary is usually printed with those of Patrick, Lowth, and Whitby, the whole making a continued exposition of the whole of the Sacred Volume. Arnald published several other treatises, chiefly theological, but the Commentary on the Apocrypha was his chief work.

THOMAS BENNETT, 1673-1728, an eminent English divine, engaged largely in theological discussion. His works are directed chiefly against the Catholics and the Quakers. Discourses on Schism; A Confutation of Popery; A Confutation of Quakerism; A Brief History of Set Forms of Prayer; Annotations on the Book of Common Prayer; Essay on the Articles.

Waterland.

DANIEL WATERLAND, D. D., 1683-1740, is a standard writer on the Arian controversy. He was born in Lincolnshire, and educated at Cambridge. He held various ecclesiastical preferments, and was, at the time of his death, Archdeacon of Middlesex.

Waterland's writings are mostly on the divinity of Christ, and are in high repute: Vindication of Christ's Divinity; Defence of the Divinity of Our Lord Jesus Christ; Case of Arian Subscription Considered; Critical History of the Athanasian Creed; Scripture Vindicated, an answer to Tindal's book Christianity as old as the Creation; " Importance of the Doctrine of the Holy Trinity. Dr. Waterland also wrote on The Eucharist, and Regeneration. His Works have been printed in 12 vols., 8vo.

JOSEPH BINGHAM, 1668-1723, one of the most learned and laborious of English divines. His great work, to the preparation of which he devoted more than twenty years of labor, was his Origines Sacræ, or The Antiquities of the Christian Church, in 10 vols. "It discovers a prodigious fund of reading, especially in the Fathers, united with great judgment, sincerity, and candor. It remains to the present day the text-book on the important subject of which it treats."— Darling.

HENRY DODWELL, 1641-1711, a native of Ireland, educated at Trinity College, Dublin, adopted London as his place of residence, and was chosen Professor of History at Oxford. He was a man of great learning and industry. His most important works were in Latin. The following are his English works: Separation of Churches from Episco