centuries, did not support the doctrine of the Trinity. Priestley, in a series of letters on the subject, confidently repeated all his former assertions. He was so precipitate, however, in the contest, that he committed various errors in quotation and reference, of which Horsley, in his reply, took triumphant advantage, by adroitly appealing to the reader, whether so careless an historian were to be relied on in a question of such moment. Priestley continued the controversy by another series of letters, to which Horsley replied with great acuteness and learning; supporting the general belief by numerous proofs taken from the works of the purest ecclesiastical historians, and primitive fathers of the church.

He was shortly afterwards presented, by Lord Thurlow, to a prebendal stall in Gloucester cathedral; where, in his ordination discourse, which attracted much notice, and excited some controversy, he maintained that human learning had been substituted, by divine will, for miraculous gifts, on the cessation of the latter, as a qualification for the ministers of the Christian church.

In 1784, the president and council of the Royal Society having dismissed the learned Hutton from the post of secretary for foreign correspondence, to the great indignation of the mathematicians, a long dispute ensued, in which Horsley advocated the cause of the latter, with great zeal and ability; and printed a work, entitled, An Authentic Narrative of the Dissensions of the Royal Society. Finding, however, that it was impossible to weaken the power of the president, he withdrew from that temple, to use his own words on the occasion, where philosophy once reigned, and Newton presided as her officiating minister.

In 1788, he was raised, on the recommendation of Lord Thurlow, to the see of St. David's. In his primary charge to the clergy of his diocese, delivered in 1790, he strongly maintained the doctrine of justification by faith alone; and stigmatized those who preached mere morality, as enemies to vital religion. In 1793, he was translated to the see of Rochester, and made Dean of Westminster; on which occasion, he resigned all his other preferments.

On the 30th of January, in the same year, he preached an impressive sermon before the house of lords; and, in 1802, he was promoted to the bishopric of St. Asaph, which he held during the remainder of his life. At the latter end of September, 1806, he was seized with a violent bowel complaint, which completely baffled the skill of his medical attendants, and he died at Brighton, on the 4th of the following month.

In the early part of his life, on account of his close intimacy with Dr. Maty, and others of similar opinions, he was suspected of Socinianism; and the patronage bestowed on him by Bishop Lowth, excited a considerable degree of surprise; but the suspicion appears to have been unfounded. Throughout the whole course of his public life, he was, apparently from principle, a determined enemy to innovation. The excess of his zeal for the doctrines of the established religion, occasionally led him to the brink of intolerance. He dreaded an attack on the church through the bosom of the state; and denounced political change, with as much bitterness as he did religious heresy. His apprehensions lest the opinions of the free-thinkers at home, and the bold propositions of the new school of philosophers abroad, should triumph over the orthodoxy and loyalty in this country, rendered him, on some occasions, a somewhat mischievous alarmist : but no doubt exists of the purity of his motives, and the uprightness of his conduct.

He possessed a considerable share of scientific knowledge, biblical learning, eloquence, and acuteness. His reasoning is often powerful, and his style, in general, elegant, although sometimes rather too lofty to please a reader of taste. In public, his manner was dictatorial; but, in private life, he is described as having been particularly pleasant and agreeable. Although irascible, he was easily appeased. For his children he entertained the fondest affection, and frequently shared in their most trifling amusements. "His charity," according to one of his biographers," was more than prudent; for he often wanted himself what he gave away."

His conduct, as a reformer of the abuses in the bishopric of St. David's,

merits unqualified approbation. On his elevation to that see, he found that some of the churches were served for ten, and others for five pounds per annum. He immediately compelled the non-resident beneficed clergy to allow their curates more adequate stipends; and thus obviated the necessity of one man performing divine

service in several parishes on the same day, in order to obtain the means of existence. He personally examined candidates for holy orders; frequently preached in parish churches during his progresses; was always exceedingly hospitable to his clergy; and exerted all the means in his power to ameliorate the clerical condition of his diocese.

THIS celebrated prelate was born at Haversham, in Westmoreland, in the month of August, 1737. His father had been master of the free grammar school, at Kendal; where, under his parent's successor, who appears to have been but an indifferent classic, young Watson was educated. Never having been taught to make Greek or Latin verses, it cost him, in after-life, as he states, more pains to remember whether a syllable was long or short, than it would have done to comprehend a whole section of Newton's Principia. On the 3rd of November, 1754, he was admitted a sizar of Trinity college, Cambridge; where he applied himself to study with great eagerness, knowing that his future fortune was to be wholly of his own fabrication; his father, who died during the same year, having been enabled to leave him only £300. this time, he was remarkable for his singular attire, which consisted, partly, of blue yarn stockings, and a coarse, mottled, Westmoreland coat.

At

After he had been six months at Cambridge, he was asked, during a college examination, whether Dr. Clarke had demonstrated the absurdity of an infinite succession of changeable and dependent beings? "I answered," he says, "with blushing hesitation, Non.' The head lecturer, Brocket, with great good-nature, mingled with no small surprise, encouraged me to give my reasons for thinking so; I stammered out, in barbarous Latin, that Clarke had inquired into an origin of a series, which, being from the supposition eternal, could have no origin; and into the first term of a series, which, being from the supposition infinite,

could have no first." This incident caused him to be cried up, he relates, as a great metaphysician; and, four years after, procured him the friendship of Dr. Law, from which he subsequently derived much advantage.

On the 2nd of May, 1757, he obtained a scholarship. He had, by this time, much improved himself in Latin, and Greek; acquired some knowledge of Hebrew; and made considerable proficiency in the mathematics and natural philosophy. His perseverance was remarkable. "I never," he says, "gave up a difficulty in a demonstration, till I had made it out, proprio marte; though I have been stopped, at a single step, for three days." For some time, however, he relaxed in his application, and became convivial, until, excited by the industry of a fellow-student, at whose window he invariably saw a light, on returning from his festive associates, he gave himself up wholly to the acquirement of learning. In 1758, having, on one occasion, to support the negative of anima est suâ naturâ immortalis, his belief in the affirmative was rather shaken, as he states, by discovering, during his search for authorities, an account, in an old French author, of a man who had come to life after having been six weeks under water!

Early in the next year, he proceeded to the degree of B.A.; on the 1st of October, 1760, he obtained a fellowship; and, in the following month, became assistant college tutor. He soon afterwards entertained an idea of accepting a proposal to become chaplain to the factory at Bencoolen; which, however, the master of his college prevailed on him to reject; observing, that he was

too good to die of drinking punch in the torrid zone. In 1762, he took his degree of M. A. and was elected junior moderator; and, in the following year, he officiated in the same capacity for another person. In February, 1764, he proceeded to Paris, on a friendly visit to Mr. Luther, formerly his pupil, but then member of parliament for Essex; who subsequently bequeathed him a legacy of £20,000. At this time, Luther was separated from his wife; and Watson is said to have travelled twelve hundred miles, and crossed the channel four times, for the purpose of bringing about a reconciliation between them; which he, at length, succeeded in effecting. At the latter end of the same year, he was elected senior moderator; and, although he was wholly ignorant of the science, professor of chemistry; but he was tired, as he states, of mathematics and natural philosophy; the vehementissima gloriæ cupido, stimulated him to try his strength in a new pursuit, and the kindness of the university animated him to extraordinary exertions. "I immediately sent to Paris," he adds, "for an operator; buried myself in my laboratory; and having, in October, 1765, been, a fourth time, elected moderator, in fourteen months from my election I read a course of chemical lectures in the university, to a very full audience."

No salary being attached to his professorship, he presented a petition on the subject, in March, 1766, to the Marquess of Rockingham, then at the head of public affairs; which, however, for some time, met with no attention. In July, "waiting on the Duke of Newcastle," he says, "his grace asked if my business was done? I answered, 'No!'-much vexed at the delay. He then asked, 'Why?' I answered, Because Lord Rockingham says, your grace ought to speak to the king, as chancellor of the university; and your grace says, that Lord Rockingham ought to speak to the king, as minister.'' The duke "stared with astonishment," but immediately wrote to Lord Rockingham, who, although his dismissal from office had then been determined on, procured from the king, an offer to settle on Watson £100 per annum, for life; which, however, the latter declined accepting,

longer than he should hold the professorship.

In 1767, he became one of the head tutors of his college. At this time, so extraordinary was his application, that he frequently read, as he states, three public lectures in Trinity college, beginning at eight o'clock in the morning; spent four or five hours with private pupils; five or six more in his laboratory, every day; besides the incidental business of presiding in the Sophs' schools. In 1768, he composed and printed his Institutiones Metallurgica; and, about the same time, was elected a fellow of the Royal Society, to which he had previously communicated some observations respecting the various phenomena attendant on the solution of salts. He appears to have been at Paris during the riots occasioned by the proceedings against Wilkes; whom, he says, he disliked, although he liked

his cause.

In 1771, he obtained the regius professorship of divinity, which had long been the object of his secret ambition, with the valuable rectory attached to that office. On this occasion, he was created D. D., by royal mandate. Being, to use his own language, totally indifrent as to the opinions of councils, fathers, bishops, and other men, as little inspired as himself, he restricted his theological studies entirely to the Bible. In the course of the same year, (1771,) he printed, for private circulation only, a chemical essay, which he was unjustly charged by the editors of the Journal Encyclopedique, who, however, subsequently confessed their error, with having taken from Le Système de la Nature.

In 1772, he addressed two letters signed A Christian Whig, to the members of the house of commons. On the 21st of December, in the following year, he married the eldest daughter of Edward Wilson, Esq., of Dallum Tower, in Westmoreland ; and, on the following day, took possession of a sinecure rectory, in North Wales, procured for him, of the Bishop of St. Asaph, by the Duke of Grafton; which, on his return to Cambridge, he exchanged for a prebend of Ely. Having previously declared that his opinions were hostile to the American war, he opposed, in 1775, an university address to the king,

urging its continuance; and, soon afterwards, in a letter addressed to his patron, the Duke of Grafton, he animadverted with some severity on the course pursued by Junius.

In 1776, he rendered himself particularly conspicuous by publishing two sermons, which he had preached before the university, one of which was entitled, The Principles of the Revolution Vindicated, and the other, On the Anniversary of the King's Accession. Shortly afterwards, appeared his famous Apology for Christianity, in answer to Gibbon. In January, 1780, he became Archdeacon of Ely; and in May, delivered a primary visitation sermon to the clergy of the diocese, in which, he strongly recommended the formation of a society at Cambridge, for the purpose of making and publishing translations of oriental manuscripts. In the following August, Bishop Keene presented him to the rectory of Northwold, in Norfolk. During the next year, appeared the first two volumes of his Chemical Essays, of which, he subsequently published three others.

In 1782, the Duke of Rutland, who had been his pupil, presented him to the rectory of Knapcroft, in Leicestershire, and procured his elevation to the bishopric of Llandaff, with which, he was permitted to hold his professorship, archdeaconry, and other preferments. Soon afterwards, he addressed a letter to the Archbishop of Canterbury, recommending an equalization of the value of church benefices; and, in 1785, he published a selection of theological tracts from various authors. In the following year, he received the legacy of £20,000, which had been bequeathed to him by Mr. Luther. During the king's illness, in 1788, he was a zealous advocate for conferring an unrestricted regency on the heir-apparent; and, it has been hinted, that his opposition to the measure proposed by Pitt on this occasion, might, perhaps, be attributed to a hope of obtaining from the prince, on his elevation to sovereign authority, the see of St. Asaph, which had recently become vacant by the death of Dr. Shipley. His motives were, however, apparently disinterested; but the opinions which he supported were fatal to his hopes of further promotion; and he seems, during the latter part of his

career, to have felt that he was unjustly neglected.

In 1790, appeared his Considerations on the Expediency of Revising the Liturgy and Articles of the Church of England; and, in 1796, he stood forward again as the champion of revealed religion, and published "his most seasonable, strong, judicious, and beautiful Apology for the Bible;" the effect of which, as it has been aptly observed, was considerably enhanced by his adopting the popular manner and style of his antagonist, Paine. In 1798, appeared his able Address to the People of Great Britain, in which he animadverted severely on the principles which had led to the French revolution.

Wakefield printed a reply to this performance, for which, he was prosecuted and imprisoned for sedition; but Watson, much to his honour, took no part in the proceedings against his learned opponent. In 1804, he again denounced French principles; and, at the same time, warmly recommended a liberal attention to the catholic claims, in the printed sketch of a speech, which he had intended to have delivered to the house of lords, on the 22nd of November, in the preceding year.

In 1807, he printed two sermons, which he had preached at the chapel royal, St. James's, in defence of revealed religion; and, in 1813, appeared his Brief State of the Principles of Church Authority, in which, he strenuously vindicated non-subscription to articles of faith. His last work, Miscellaneous Tracts on Religious, Political, and other Subjects, appeared in 1815. He amused himself during the decline of life, by making large plantations of timber trees, in the neighbourhood of his country residence; for which, he had received a medal from the Society of Arts, so early as the year 1789. Besides the works already mentioned, he published a sermon preached in 1804, before the Society for the Suppression of Vice; a communication to the board of agriculture on the planting of waste lands; several papers in the Transactions of the Manchester Literary and Philosophical Society, of which he was one of the earliest members; and many charges and sermons on local or occasional subjects. He died, leaving a large family, on the 4th of July, 1816.