6

moir written by him, On the Episcopal Coins of Durham, and the Monastic Coins of Reading, minted during the reigns of Edward II. and III. appropriated to their respective Owners.'* He died of a confirmed dropsy at Hertford, March 2, 1787; and his only son, a gentleman much esteemed for his amiable simplicity of life and manners, came to a melancholy end about seven months afterward. His library was sold in the same year. (See Gent. Mag. for 1787, 277., and Nichols' Literary Anecdotes, I. 97, 98.

7. BAYNES RALPH

Was born at Knowsthorp, and educated at St. John's College, Cambridge. In 1555, he was appointed Bishop of Coventry and Lichfield. He is described as the Restorer of Hebrew literature, in the age in which he lived; and was, in consequence, elected Regius Professor of Hebrew at Paris in the reign of Francis I., the great period of the revival of letters. After occupying his see nearly five years, he was deprived in the beginning of Queen Elizabeth's reign; and died at Islington, under extreme torture from the stone, in 1660. He lies buried in the Church of St. Dunstan's, London. (See Stow's Survey, 431.; Rymer's Fœdera, XV. 407, 410; and Fuller's Worthies, II. 502.

* This has been recently reprinted, in a very neat manner, at Newcastle.

8. BENTHAM THOMAS,

A native of Sherburn in Yorkshire, was educated at Magdalen College, Oxford; where he took the degree of B. A. in 1543, and that of M. A. in 1547, having been chosen Fellow of his College in the preceding year. He embraced the doctrines of the Reformation in the reign of Edward VI.; and on the accession of Queen Mary, being deprived of his fellowship by her visitors, retired to Basil in Switzerland, where he expounded the Acts of the Apostles to the English exiles. Previously to the Queen's death however, on the invitation of a protestant congregation called the London Conventiclers,' he returned to England, and incurred in conse-. quence considerable danger.

He was created D. D. at London (along with Parkhurst Bishop of Norwich, Downham of Chester, Davis of St. David's, and Best of Carlisle) by Lawrence Humphrey, D. D. and John Kennall, L. L. D., the Commissioners appointed for that purpose by the University of Oxford, October 30, 1566.

Of the same respectable family was descended Edward Bentham, D. D. Canon of Christ Church, Oxford, and Regius Professor of Divinity in that University in the eighteenth century, who is said (in the inscription upon his monument) to have

been born ex antiquá familiâ de Bentham in Com. Ebor. patre, avo, proavo, abavo Clericis.

He succeeded Ralph Baynes, Bishop of Lichfield and Coventry, in 1559; and died at Eccleshall in Staffordshire, February 21, 1578, aged sixty-five years.

His piety and zeal are much commended; and he was greatly celebrated for his knowledge of the Hebrew language. His works are,

I. An Exposition of the Acts of the Apostles, MS.

II. A Sermon on Christ's Temptation. London, 8vo.

III. An Epistle to M. Parker, MS.; and,

IV. The Psalms, Ezekiel, and Daniel, translated into English, in Queen Elizabeth's Bible.(See Fuller's Worthies, II. 503.)

9. BENTLEY RICHARD

Was born at Oulton, in the parish of Rothwell, in 1662. His ancestors possessed an estate, and had a seat, at Heptonstall in the parish of Halifax. As his grandfather, James Bentley, was a captain in the royal army during the civil wars, his estate was confiscated, and he himself died a prisoner in Pontefract Castle. His son Thomas married the daughter of Richard Willis of Oulton near Wakefield, who had been a Major in the same forces. This lady, a woman of excel

lent character, taught her son Richard his Accidence; and to his grandfather Willis he was indebted for other parts of his education. He was for a short period, after taking his degree of B. A., assistant at the Free Grammar School at Spalding in Lincolnshire.

In 1692, by the joint recommendation of Bishops Lloyd and Stillingfleet (to the son of the latter of whom he had been tutor) he was appointed the first Preacher of the Lecture founded by Mr. Boyle, in defence of Natural and Revealed Religion. The admirable Discourses, which he preached upon this occasion, fully established his theological reputation: though his mistaken assertion, that the moon did not revolve around her axis, because she always shows the same face to the earth! exposed him to the raillery of Dr. Keill.

He was appointed Keeper of the Royal Library at St. James', in 1693. At that period the Hon. Charles Boyle (son of the Earl of Orrery) then resident at Christ Church, Oxford, was preparing an edition of the Epistles of Phalaris for the press. Bentley, having demanded the return of a MS. borrowed from the royal library, as sufficient time had been allowed for the collation, gave occasion to the celebrated controversy, which terminated however decisively in his favour.

He succeeded Dr. Mountague in the Mastership of Trinity College, Cambridge; became

Archdeacon of Ely, June 12, 1707; and was successively Chaplain to King William, and to Queen Anne.

Wit with the edge of her sharpest instruments attacked the fame of Dr. Bentley: but he remained invulnerable, and still stands pre-eminent among his countrymen, for his critical acuteness and profound erudition in Greek and Roman literature.

See Nichols' Collection of Poems, IV. 71; Gent. Mag. for 1773, 499; and for 1780, 221; Warton's Pope, IV. 162; Nichols' Literary Anecdotes, passim, and the British Plutarch, V. 365.

As a specimen of his controversial stile, I give the following passage. "The word 'Cotemporary' is a downright barbarism. For the Latins never use Co for Con, except before a vowel, as Coequal, Coeternal: but before the consonant they either retain the N as Contemporary, Constitution; or melt it into another letter, as Collection, Comprehension. Cotemporary is a word of Mr. Boyle's own Coposition, for which the learned world Cogratulate him."-(Diss. on Epistles of Phalar.)

10. BINGHAM JOHN,

Usually called 'the learned' Bingham, was born at Wakefield. In his writings, we have an ao