EDWARD BENTHAM, D. D., 1707-1776, a learned divine of the English Church, Regius Professor of Divinity at Oxford, and the author of several works. An Introduction to Moral Philosophy; Reflections upon the Study of Divinity; Advice to a Young Man of Rank on Coming to the University, etc.- REV. JAMES BENTHAM, 1709–1794, a brother of Dr. Edward Bentham, and the author of History and Antiquities of the Conventual and Cathedral Church of Ely, which is highly extolled for its accurate knowledge of architecture in general and of the antiquities of this edifice in particular. He wrote also, in connection with Warton, Grosse, and Milner, Essays on Gothic Architecture.

JOHN JORTIN, D. D., 1698-1770, an eminent scholar and divine of the English Church, wrote several works of value. The following are the chief: Remarks on Authors, Ancient and Modern; Discourse on the Truth of the Christian Religion; Remarks on Ecclesiastical History, 5 vols.; Dissertations on Different Subjects; Life of Erasmus, 2 vols., 4to; Sermons, Tracts, etc., etc.

WILLIAM ADAMS, D. D., 1707-1789, Master of Pembroke College, Oxford, was a particular friend of Dr. Johnson's, and the author of an able Reply to Hume's Essay on Miracles, and of several published sermons.

ROBERT SANDEMAN, 1718-1771, was the founder of the sect of the Sandemanians. He was born at Perth, Scotland. He formed a church or congregation in London, in 1762; emigrated to America in 1764, and gathered a congregation in Danbury, Connecticut. The Sandemanians have not multiplied to any considerable extent, and are now chiefly noticeable from the fact that the late eminent chemist, Faraday, was of their number. Sandeman wrote Thoughts on Christianity; The Sign of the Prophet Jonah; The Honor of Marriage opposed to all Impurities; Letters on Theron and Aspasia; Correspondence with Mr. Samuel Pike.

Bishop Challoner.

Richard Challoner, D. D., 1691-1781, a learned Bishop of the Catholic Church in England, wrote many works, partly controversial, and partly dogmatic and devotional, and is highly esteemed as a writer.

Challoner published an English Bible, being in some sense a new version, and differing considerably in its diction from that of the Rheims-Douay. Dr. Challoner's version has been followed more than any other by English-speaking Catholics since his day, and his influence upon the language of religion and devotion among Catholies has been accordingly very great. His influence in this respect has been still further increased by the great and continued popularity of his books on practical religion, such as "The Catholic Christian Instructed,” “Meditations," and other devotional works, some of which have been circulated by millions. So familiar, indeed, is the language of Challoner to Catholic Christians generally, that whenever, in any diocese, the question arises as to which English version of the Vulgate

shall be authorized for use in that diocese, the preference is given to Challoner's, rather than to the Rheims-Douay, notwithstanding the traditional veneration in which the latter is held. This was the decision of the late Cardinal Wiseman, and has been that of most Englishspeaking Bishops of the Catholic Church for the last hundred years.

Works. The following are Bishop Challoner's principal publications: Church History, 3 vols.; Grounds of Catholic Doctrine; Grounds of the Old Religion; Unerring Authority of the Catholic Church; Memoirs of Missionary Priests; Spirit of Dissenting Teachers; Caveat against Methodism; Meditations for Every Day in the Year; A Manual of Prayer and Other Christian Devotions; The Catholic Christian Instructed; Think Well On't, etc. Dr. Challoner writes with great vigor and freshness of thought, and in a style remarkable for its sparkling clearness and the purity of his English.

Alban Butler, 1700-1773, an English Catholic, educated at Douay, and for a long time President at St. Omer's, spent a large part of thirty years in his compilation of The Lives of the Saints.

Butler wrote several works on practical religion, but the large work just named, in 12 vols., 8vo, is the only one by which he is well known. "It is a work of merit: -the sense and learning belong to the author; the prejudices are those of his profession."-Gibbon. “As it is known what 'prejudices' means in Mr. Gibbon's vocabulary, our author's relatives accept the character."- Charles Butler.

The "Lives of the Saints" was translated into French, Spanish, and Italian, and it has passed through several editions. It is a storehouse of curious learning, both ecclesiastical and secular, and it is written in a style of great purity and beauty. The author appears to have been a man of refinement and culture, singularly inoffensive in manners and spirit, carrying out in his life that amenity of temper everywhere observable in his writings. "He was zealous in the cause of religion, but his zeal was without bitterness or animosity: polemic acrimony was unknown to him. He never forgot that in every heretic he saw a brother Christian; in every infidel he saw a brother man."- Charles Butler.

JAMES ARCHER, a Catholic clergyman, published, in 1789, Sermons for All the Sundays in the Year, in 4 vols.; and, in 1794, Sermons for the Principal Festivals in the Year, in 5 vols. These sermons are highly commended for their popular character, and, not being of a controversial nature, have been much used by Protestants as well as Catholics.

THOMAS PHILLIPS, 1708-1774, was a zealons Catholic, educated at St. Omer's, and resident for many years in the family of the Earl of Shrewsbury. He retired in the decline of life to the English College at Liege, and remained there until his death. He wrote The Study of Sacred Literature fully Stated and Considered; The History of the Life of Reginald Pole; Reasons for the Repeal of the Law against the Papists, etc.

EXTRACTS.

LIGHT THE SHADOW OF GOD.

LIGHT that makes things seen makes some things invisible. Were it not for darkness and the shadow of the earth, the noblest part of creation had remained unseen, and the stars in heaven [had been] as invisible as on the fourth day, when they were created above the horizon with the sun, and there was not an eye to behold them. The greatest mystery of religion is expressed by adumbration, and in the noblest part of Jewish types we find the cherubim shadowing the mercy-seat. Life itself is but the shadow of death, and souls departed are but the shadows of the living. All things fall under this name. The sun itself is but the dark Simulacrum, and light but the shadow of God.- Sir Thomas Browne.

THE MORAL SUBLIME.

Look, then, abroad through nature, to the range
Of planets, suns, and adamantine spheres,
Wheeling unshaken through the void immense;
And speak, oh man! does this capacious scene
With half that kindling majesty dilate
Thy strong conception, as when Brutus rose
Refulgent from the stroke of Cæsar's fate,
Amid the crowd of patriots; and, his arm
Aloft extending, like eternal Jove

When guilt brings down the thunder, called aloud
On Tully's name, and shook his crimson steel,
And bade the father of his country, hail!
For lo! the tyrant prostrate on the dust,

And Rome again is free! — Akenside.

CHAPTER XIII.

COWPER AND HIS CONTEMPORARIES.

DURING the last fifteen years of the eighteenth century, there was no English writer equal in originality and power to the poet Cowper. He is taken, therefore, as the representative man of the period. The great political event of the time was the outbreak of the French Revolution.

The writers of this period are divided into four sections: 1. The Poets, beginning with Cowper; 2. The Dramatists, beginning with Sheridan; 3. Miscellaneous Prose Writers, beginning with Hannah More; 4. Theological Writers, beginning with the Wesleys.

NOTE. At no point in the history of English literature is it so difficult to mark a well-defined period as here. Many writers, whom it is necessary to include in the present chapter, had intimate relations with the writers and the events of the previous period. Many of the writers, on the other hand, survived far into the present century, and had relations with Scott, Byron, Coleridge, and their associates. Yet a careful consideration of their several cases will, it is believed, show that the main connection of these writers, after all, was with the writers and events of the last fifteen years of the eighteenth century. It is still more evident that the popular literature of the period, particularly in its poetical and theological aspects, assumed new and marked features, after Cowper and the Wesleys and the religious movement which they represented had received full and distinct recognition.

William Cowper, 1731–1800, created a new era in English poetry - springing at a bound into a place in the popular heart far more firmly established, far more deeply set, than Pope had ever attained. Pope had been the poet of the wits; Cowper became the poet of the race. The poems of his which first touched the popular heart were The Task, and the ballad of John Gilpin. The impression thus produced was deepened by his Hymns, contributed to the Olney collection, and by his extended work, the Translation of Homer.

Early Life. Cowper, though in moderate circumstances at the time of his birth, was connected, both on his father's and his mother's side, with some of the noblest families in England. He was of a gentle, sensitive nature, and through life he instinctively shrank from whatever required any sort of rude encounter with his fellows. At the age of six, his mother being dead, he was sent for two years to a boarding-school, where he suffered intolerable hardships from the tyranny of one of the older boys. He then went to Westminster School, where he served an apprenticeship of seven years to the classics.

A Law Student. At the age of eighteen, he was articled as a clerk in a law office, his fellow-student being Thurlow, who afterwards became Lord Chancellor. It is easy to imagine what sort of a figure such a character as Cowper would make in a law office. "There was I and the future Lord Chancellor constantly employed from morning till night in giggling and making giggle." In due time, however, he was called to the bar, and he took chambers, but he gained no clients.

Failure of his Plans. His father was now dead, he was in his thirty-second year, and his patrimony was nearly gone. At this crisis, one of his powerful kinsmen procured for him the lucrative appointment of Clerk of the Journals to the House of Lords. The dread of qualifying himself by going through the necessary formalities in presence of the Lords, plunged him into the deepest distress. The seeds of insanity were already in his frame, and after brooding a while over his condition, he became entirely insane, and attempted suicide. In the course of two years, under treatment at a private asylum, the