the preface to which we find Newton Hall, their place of residence, dignified by the name of Collegium Newtoniense.

In August, 1647, Taylor had a last interview with his royal master, and received from him, in token of regard, his watch, with a few pearls and rubies. In the same year, he brought out his Liberty of Prophesying,' a work which Bishop Heber regards as the ablest of all his compositions. With respect to the motives that principally induced Taylor to publish this treatise, he ingenuously confesses, that "he intended to make a defensative for his brethren and himself, by pleading for liberty of conscience to persevere in that profession which was warranted by all the laws of God and their superiors." His object then was to obtain free toleration for all, and every sound dissenter will admire the boldness and force of reasoning with which he contends for the freedom of all Christians to exercise their worship. But, it would appear, that after Taylor's position towards the government was altered, and ecclesiastical honours had begun to flow upon him, his opinions on the subject of toleration must have become very materially modified, or he could never have consented to sit as a member of that privy council from which those most intolerant edicts emanated, by which two thousand of the best men the church of England ever contained, were ejected from their pastoral cures, and in many cases imprisoned, and treated with a harshness that embittered and shortened the remainder of their days.

The next in the list of Taylor's literary labours was his Life of Christ, or the Great Exemplar.' This work, from its practical and devotional character, soon became exceedingly popular. It has been alleged, that it is merely a translation of a work compiled by a Carthusian monk. But Bishop Heber has successfully vindicated its author from this charge, and demonstrated the dissimilarity of the monk's performance to the Great Exemplar.' His next publication was an eloquent and affecting sermon on the death of Lady Carbery, in whose inansion at Llanfihangel he had found an asylum after the failure of his school establishment. Soon after, he published a volume of twentyseven sermons which he dedicated to Lord Carbery. It is by his sermons that Taylor has been chiefly known to succeeding ages. They are uoble compositions, bearing the genuine impress of lofty genius. What, for example, can be finer than the following appeal to a sinner standing before the judgment-seat of God in the great day of final sentence and retribution? "That soul which cries to the rocks to cover her, if it had not been for thy perpetual temptations, might have followed the Lamb in a white robe; and that poor man, that is clothed with shame and flames of fire, would have shined in glory, but that thou didst force him to become partner of thy baseness: and who shall pay for this loss? A soul is lost by thy means; thou hast defeated the holy purposes of the Lord's bitter passion by thy impurities; and what shall happen to thee by whom thy brother dies eternally ?" Again, what can be more awful and sublime than the description of the last judgment in the following passage? "In final and extreme events, the multitude of sufferers does not lessen, but increase the sufferings; and when the first day of judgment happened,-that, I mean, of the universal deluge of waters on the old world, the calamity swelled like the flood; and every man saw his friend perish,

and the neighbours of his dwelling, and the relatives of his house, and the sharers of his joys, and yesterday's bride, and the new-born heir, the priest of the family, and the honour of the kindred,-all dying or dead, drenched in water and the divine vengeance; and then they had no place to flee unto; no man cared for their souls; they had none to go unto for counsel,-no sanctuary nigh enough to keep them from the vengeance that rained down from heaven: And so it shall be at the day of judgment, when that world, and this, and all that shall be born hereafter, shall pass through the same Red sea, and be all baptized with the same fire, and be involved in the same cloud, in which shall be thunderings and terrors infinite; every man's fear shall be increased by his neighbour's shrieks; and the amazement that all the world shall be in shall unite, as the sparks of a raging furnace, into a globe of fire, and roll on its own principle, and increase by direct appearances and intolerable reflections. He that stands in a churchyard in the time of a great plague, and hears the passing bell perpetually telling the sad stories of death, and sees crowds of infected bodies pressing to their graves, and others sick and tremulous, and Death dressed up in all the images of sorrow round about him, is not supported in his spirit by the variety of his sorrow; and at doomsday when the terror is universal, besides that it is in itself so much greater, because it can affright the whole world, it is also made greater by communication and a sorrowful influence; grief being then strongly infectious, when there is no variety of state, but an entire kingdom of fear; and amazement is the king of all our passions, and all the world its subjects; and that shriek must needs be terrible,-when millions of men and women at the same instant shall fearfully cry out, and the noise shall mingle with the trumpet of the archangel, with the thunders of the dying and groaning heavens, and the crack of the dissolving world,-when the whole fabric of nature shall shake into dissolution and eternal ashes!"

The next great work which employed Taylor's pen was his Holy Living and Holy Dying,' in which it has been well observed, all the treasures of ancient literature, all the sterling morality of antiquity, are brought in aid of his impressive subject. Two doctrinal tracts on Bap. tism, and a disquisition on 'the Real presence and spiritual of Christ in the blessed sacrament,' followed next in order.

In 1654, an attempt was made by some of the royalists to overthrow the commonwealth, and replace the Stuarts on the throne. In consequence of this conspiracy, and of several unguarded expressions which Taylor had used in some of his later publications, particularly in his preface to his manual called 'the Golden Grove,' he fell under suspicion, and was committed to Chepstow castle. It is evident, however, from his own statement, that he was treated with great lenity and indulgence. During his imprisonment, he completed his Evo, by the addition of twenty-five sermons, and published his 'Unum Necessarium, or the Doctrine and Practice of Repentance.' The latter work was not received with much acceptance even by the church clergy, who justly viewed the author's explication of original sin and views as to the extent of human corruption as at variance with the articles of the church of England. Dr Warner published a general disclaimer on the episcopalian side; and two ministers, Jeanes and Gaule, assailed him on the presbyterian side. Soon after his liberation, Taylor was induced to

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remove to London, where he officiated for some time to a small congregation of royalists. In 1658, he accepted an alternate lectureship in the town of Lisburne, at the N.E. extremity of Ireland. From Lisburne he seems to have removed to Portmore, where he found a peaceful retreat during the remainder of the interregnum, and brought to conclusion his great work, the Ductor Dubitantiam,' intended to be a rule of conscience in all her general measures, and a great instrument in determining all her cases." Of this work it has been justly said by Mr Hughes, that the author "has handled his subject with more than ordinary powers of argumentation and casuistical reasoning; but his habits of thinking had too much of the imaginative and excursive cast to fit him thoroughly for that severe method of analysis which this particular train of investigation demands. Hence we find some obliquity of sentiment mingled with many right principles: conceptions clear in themselves are overlaid with words and metaphors,-secondary motives are sometimes substituted for primary springs of moral action, -and the determination of several questions is rendered doubtful by overstrained and overstated arguments on both sides."

When measures were adopted to procure the restoration of the Stuarts, Taylor, with many others, hastened to London. His signature was affixed to the memorable 'Declaration of the nobility and gentry,' in which a pledge was solemnly and publicly given that "all rancour and former animosities should be buried,"-a pledge which was soon afterwards as publicly violated. The guilt of this treachery is certainly not to be charged on all who subscribed the declaration, but it must have occasioned Taylor, and every honest man amongst them, deep regret to find that they had given a pledge which they were utterly incapable of redeeming.

Almost immediately after the king's accession, Taylor was presented to the bishopric of Down and Connor, to which was afterwards annexed that of Dromore, 66 on account of his virtue, wisdom, and industry." The composition of several polemical and practical treatises, together with his diocesan duties, seem to have filled up the few remaining years of the bishop's life. His death took place at Lisburne, on the 3d of August, 1667.

Although we cannot agree with those who have assigned to Jeremy Taylor the highest rank amongst his gifted contemporaries, yet we do not think he can with justice be placed very far below the first mind of his age. Milton excepted, we know none to compare with him in luxuriance of fancy, flexibility of imagination, and the boundless com. mand of an exuberant and varied diction. He possessed a powerful, though not always an acute understanding; his disquisitions are often highly ingenious and methodical, and he occasionally exhibits great dexterity in unravelling the intricacies of a difficult question; yet, upon the whole, he is much less characterized by a strong and searching intellect than by a fervent imagination and affluent genius. He is always filled with his subject, and catches his tone from the intrinsic grandeur and loftiness of his theme; sometimes he absolutely labours under the exuberance of his conceptions, and pours forth his "thickcoming faucies" with an energy and prodigality resembling inspiration itself. He always appears to speak from the intimate persuasion of his own heart; hence his language is perpetually rising into the expression

of holy and devout affection. Now and then a tendency towards pious mysticism betrays itself in his writings; but there can be no doubt that the real tone of his mind was sound and vigorous. Perhaps one of the most unpleasing features in the writings of this great and good man is a certain tone of exaggerated sensibility,-an occasional flush of unreal feeling, a tendency to push his emotions a great deal too far for our ordinary sympathies.

John Hales.

BORN A. D. 1584.-DIED A. D. 1656.

THIS eminent divine and critic, usually distinguished by the appellation of the Ever-memorable,' was the fourth son of John Hales of High Church, near Bath, in Somersetshire. His early education was received in the country. In 1597, he was entered of Corpus college, Oxford, where he took his bachelor's degree in 1603. The reputation which our young collegian had acquired for intellectual powers and moral worth, recommended him to the attention of Sir Henry Saville, then warden of Merton college, who procured for him a fellowship on that foundation. Soon after his admission, he was appointed lecturer in Greek to the college; and assisted his friend, Sir Henry, in preparing his edition of Chrysostom's works.

On the death of Sir Thomas Bodley in 1613, Hales delivered the funeral oration at Merton college, where Sir Thomas was buried. It is reprinted in Bates's Vitae Selectorum.' On the 24th of May, in the same year, he quitted his fellowship at Merton, and was admitted fellow of Eton. He was now in orders, and had acquired considerable reputation as a preacher. In 1616, he held a correspondence with Oughtred, the mathematician. In 1618, he accompanied Sir Dudley Carlton, ambassador to the Hague, in the quality of chaplain to the embassy, by which means he procured admission to the synod, then sitting at Dort. His observations on the proceedings of this celebrated assembly are recorded in his Golden Remains.' The effect produced on his own mind by the debates was, that he adopted the Arminian side of the controversy. It does not appear, however, that he was ever a very decided anti-predestinarian. In his sermons he pleads strongly for mutual forbearance and toleration betwixt the two parties. A more weighty charge has been made against him by Dr Heylin, who attri butes two Socinian tractates, which have been printed in the Phoenix,' to the pen of John Hales. This has been disproved, but the biographers of Hales are compelled to admit that he leaned to the Latitudinarian side in polemics.

About 1636, he wrote his tract on Schism.' It was originally compiled for the use of his friend, Chillingworth. Its liberal sentiments drew upon him the displeasure of Laud; but, in a personal conference with the primate, he succeeded in satisfying him that he was a true and orthodox son of the church,-phrases, we presune, which served in those days not so much to disclaim heresy as to distinguish the adherents of the established church from puritans and non-conformists. In 1639, Laud presented Hales with a canonry of Windsor.

After Laud's death, Hales retired from his lodgings in the college to private chambers at Eton, where he remained for a few months in the greatest poverty, having been deprived of the funds from which he had hitherto drawn his support by the sequestration of the college rents. He finally lost his fellowship altogether by his refusal to take the engagement; but soon after he obtained a tutorship in a private family near Colebrook. On the appearance of the proclamation against malignarts, Hales refused to allow his kind patroness, Mrs Salter, to incur any risk on his account; and immediately retired to a humble lodging occupied by the widow of one of his own servants, where he resided until his death, which took place in 1666. It has been alleged by some of Hales' biographers, that he died in extreme poverty. But it is difficult to reconcile such a statement with the fact, that we find him bequeathing by will considerable property, both in money and books, to his executrix, Hannah Dickenson, and others.

Hales does not appear to have published any thing himself except his oration at the funeral of Sir Thomas Bodley. In 1659, however, there appeared a collection of his works with this title, Golden Remains of the ever-memorable Mr John Hales of Eton college,' &c. of which a second edition, with additional pieces, appeared in 1673. This collection consists of sermons, miscellanies, and letters. In 1677, another fasciculus of his works appeared, consisting of a variety of theological tracts, and some short pieces, entitled Miscellanies.' Lord Hales edited a beautiful edition of his works in 1765.

William Spurstowe, D. D.

died a. d. 1666.

Dr WILLIAM SPURSTOWE, one of the authors of Smectymnuus, was master of Katharine-hall, Cambridge, when the Engagement' was enforced upon the universities. He declined to take it, and was ejected from his mastership in consequence. His attainments and character, however, were so universally respected, that he was chosen one of the Savoy commissioners, and attended the negotiations with Charles I. at Newport. Baxter mentions him among "those famous and excellent divines who attended the earl of Essex's army," and adds, that he was chaplain to Hampden's regiment. He died at Hackney in 1666. Besides the part he took in Smectymnuus, he was author of several religious treatises and sermons.

Esaac Ambrose.

BORN A. D. 1591-2.-DIED A.D. 1668.

ISAAC AMBROSE, an eminent non-conformist minister, born 1591-2, was first minister of the town of Preston, in Lancashire, from whence he removed to Garstang, in the same county, where he continued till the passing of the act of uniformity in 1662, when he quitted his living. He died two years after, in the seventy-second year of his