calculated either to rouse the thoughtless, or to comfort the disconsolate. Lowth is not to be regarded as a theologian, therefore, in the highest acceptation of the word,-as a teacher called of God to lead mankind into the way of righteousness. To this distinction, his works prefer no claim whatever. But, viewed in another light, even those of least pretension among them, are not without considerable value. As the maxims of worldly prudence and morality, many of his remarks are truly admirable. For accuracy and propriety of diction, perhaps, he is surpassed by no English writer of any age or class. And whether in philology or ethics, in controversy or exhortation, in prose or verse, the characteristics of the acute reasoner, the tasteful critic, and the accomplished scholar, will be equally recognised and admired.

As a suitable Introduction to the Memoir of Bishop Lowth, some account of his venerable father may be not unreasonably expected. And as the Memoir inserted in the " Biographia Britannica" of Dr. Kippis, is acknowledged to have been communicated by the son, it may be well to give that narrative entire, subjoining the notes, exactly as they stand in the original :—

"William Lowth, a very learned writer, son of William Lowth, apothecary and citizen of London, and Mary his wife, daughter of William Short, of Westminster, Esq. was born in the parish of St. Martin's, Ludgate, in the city of London, September 11, 1661'. He was descended from a family 1 Register of Ludgate parish.

originally of Lincolnshire, and afterwards settled at Sawtrey, in the county of Huntingdon, whose estate, about two hundred years ago, the entail being cut off, passed away to an heiress, married to a younger son of Sir John Cornwallis'. His father was a great sufferer in the dreadful fire of London, in 1666. At the time of this great calamity his son William was in Berkshire, under the care of his grandfather, Mr. Simon Lowth, Rector of Tylehurst, in that county, to whom he had probably been sent the year before, on occasion of the plague then raging in the city of London. His grandfather took great care of his education, and initiated him very early in letters. He was afterwards sent to Merchant Taylors' School in London, where he made so great a progress in learn

1 It appears by a letter of his grandfather, Simon Lowth, (who is hereafter mentioned in the text,) to Elias Ashmole, Esq. Windsor Herald at Arms, at Reading, holding there his visitation of Berkshire, (which letter is dated at Tylehurst, March 25, 1665,) "That the said Simon Lowth's grandfather was second son of - Lowth, of Lincolnshire, Esq. whose estate was once entailed on the heirs male, but was by a fine and recovery cut off, and settled upon a daughter, an only child, and so passed away with her, married to one of the family of Cornwallis." Agreeably to which we find in Collins's Peerage*, that "Richard Cornwallis, third son of Sir John Cornwallis, (steward of the household to Edward VI. when Prince of Wales, who died April 23, 1544,) married, according to the appointment of his father, Margaret Lowth, daughter and heir of Lionel Lowth, of Lawtrey, in Coun. Linc. Esq. and was father of Sir Thomas Cornwallis, groom-porter to Queen Elizabeth and King James, who died November 18, 1618, leaving issue by Elizabeth his wife, daughter of John Molineux, of Thorp, in Coun. Nott. Esq. three sons and one daughter." There is a mistake in this account: it should be, Sawtry or Saltrey, in Coun. Huntingdon, Lincoln Diocese.

* Vol. iv. p. 285.

ing, that he was elected from thence into St. John Baptist's College, in Oxford, in June, 1675, being then not fourteen years of age. He took the degree of Master of Arts, March 31, 1683, and of Bachelor in Divinity, October 17, 1688. His eminent worth and learning recommended him to the favour of Dr. Peter Mew, Bishop of Winchester, who had been president, and ever continued to be the kind patron of St. John's College: he made him his chaplain, and conferred upon him a prebend in the cathedral church of Winchester, in the year 1696, and the rectory of Buriton, with the chapel of Petersfield, Hants, in the year 1699. He published-"A Vindication of the Divine Authority and Inspiration of the Old and New Testament, in answer to a treatise lately translated out of French, intitled, Five Letters concerning the Inspiration of the Holy Scriptures;" Oxford, 1692, 12mo. and a second edition, "with amendments, and a new preface, wherein the antiquity of the Pentateuch is asserted and vindicated from some late objections;" Lond. 16991. "Directions for

1 Mons. Le Clerc, famous for his extensive learning and numerous writings, as well as for his freedom in delivering his sentiments on the most important points, was the author of the "Five Letters." They are a part selected by the translator from two works of his, both written in an epistolary form: the one entitled, "Sentimens de quelques Theologiens de Hollande sur L'Histoire Critique du Vieux Testament composée par le P. Richard Simon de l'Oratoire; Amsterd. 1685;" the other, "Defense des Sentimens, &c. contre la Reponse du Prieur de Rollville; Amsterd. 1686." They make, in the French, the 11th and 12th Letters of the Sentimens; and the 9th, 10th, and 11th of the Defense. In the letters of which the Sentimens consist, the author pretends to give his correspondent an account of several conferences, which himself and three of his friends had held together on the subject

the profitable reading of the Holy Scriptures: together with some observations for the confirming

of Father Simon's book. As he indulged himself in the liberty of hazarding many conjectures and opinions, which he was sensible would not easily meet with assent in the learned world, and which, perhaps, he himself might not always think proper to maintain, he chose to publish them rather as the sentiments of his imaginary friends, than his own. In the 11th and 12th letters of the Sentimens, he takes the further precaution of making the whole of what he delivers upon the inspiration of the Holy Scriptures, to be an abridgment of a memorial of one Mons. N. communicated by a friend. In the 9th and 10th of the Defense, the same Mons. N. explains more distinctly, and maintains his opinion against several objections that had been made to it. The 11th is a further defence of Mons. N. in the

person of the author of the Letters. M. Le Clerc thought it not proper to set his name to either of these works. "Il composa son ouvrage en forme de Lettres, et comme si c'eut été le resultat de quelques conferences qu'il avoit eies avec trois de ses amis. Mais la verité est, que tout étoit de lui. Et s'il prit ce tour, ce fut à cause de certaines questions, sur lesquelles il proposoit des pensées, qu'il prévoyoit bien qu'elles paroîtroient hardies, et que cependant il ne donnoit que pour des imples conjectures, prét à les abandonner dès qu'il seroit convaincu qu'elles n'étoient pas bien fondées. Effectivement il en détruisit lui-même depuis quelques unes, et j'en indiquerai plus bas un exemple." The instance in which Le Clerc afterwards retracted and confuted his own opinion, which the author of the Eloge here refers to, was concerning the author of the Pentateuch. In one of the dissertations prefixed to his Commentary on Genesis, he proves that Moses is the author, contrary to the hypothesis which he had advanced in the 6th Letter of the Sentimens. "Dans une des trois Dissertations Critiques, qui traite de l'Auteur du Pentateuque, il prouve fortement, que c'est Moise; et il refute tacitement ce qu'il avoit lui-même avancé dans les Sentimens de l'Histoire Critique +." This is what Mr. Lowth had confuted in the new preface to the second edition of his book, which he concludes with some animadversions also on a position which the great Mr. Locke had advanced in his Reasonableness of Christianity, "That the Epistles are not of equal authority with the Gospels, nor to be appealed to, for the explaining the fundamentals of the Christian Faith."

Eloge Historique de Mons. le Clerc. Amst. 1736, p. 36. + Eloge, p. 52.

"On

"On

their Divine authority, and illustrating the difficulties thereof;" Lond. 1708, 12mo. and several editions since. "Religion the distinguishing character of human nature," on Job xxviii. 28. and "The wisdom of acknowledging Divine revelation," on Matt. xi. 19. "Two sermons preached in the cathedral church of Winchester," at the assizes, in the year 1714. "A Commentary on the prophet Isaiah," 4to. Lond. 1714. "Jeremiah," 1718. "On Ezekiel," 1723. Daniel and the Minor Prophets," 1726: afterwards republished together, with additions, in one volume, folio, as a continuation of Bishop Patrick's Commentary on the other parts of the Old Testament; in which form it has had several editions. "The characters of an Apostolical Church, fulfilled in the Church of England, and our obligations to continue in the communion of it;" a sermon preached in the church of Petersfield, in the county of Southampton, June 17, 1722. London, two editions. This sermon was occasioned by the erecting of a new meeting-house, for the Protestant Dissenters, in the town of Petersfield. The author thought it his duty to preach it, in order to confirm his parishioners in their communion with the Church of England; and, by the desire of several friends, was prevailed with to publish it, not thinking it proper to deny the request of those to whom he was a debtor, to promote their edification by the best means he could'." This produced "Remarks on a Sermon preached at Peters

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1 Answer to Mr. Norman, p. 1.