being always a leader of his companions, as well in as out of school. Walpole, who was his cotemporary, relates, that on one occasion, when other lads stood shivering on the bank of the river, Sherlock plunged in without hesitation, and Warton supposes this to be the incident alluded to by Pope, in the Dunciad, where he calls Sherlock" the plunging prelate."

He removed, in 1693, to Catherine hall, Cambridge; and, after taking his degrees of B. A. and M. A., entered into holy orders. It appears that he was severely reprimanded for being late in attendance on the bishop at his ordination. A fine turbot, intended for the prelate's table, was brought by the same conveyance as that by which Sherlock had travelled; and the bishop was under the necessity of apologizing to his company for the delay that occurred in serving up the dinner, on account of the late arrival of the fish. Sherlock, on this occasion, is said to have remarked, that " he and the turbot had both reached the palace time enough to get into hot water.'

In 1704, he was appointed master of the Temple; and, notwithstanding an impediment in his speech, soon became one of the most popular preachers in the metropolis. In 1714, he took the degree of D. D.: he was then appointed master of Catherine hall, and, in his turn, discharged the duties of vicechancellor. His influence at the university was so great, that Bentley nicknamed him, Cardinal Alberoni; and Middleton, about the same time, gave him the more flattering appellation of "principal champion and ornament of both church and university."

His next advancement was to the deanery of Chichester, which he obtained in 1716; and, soon afterwards, he engaged in the Bangorian controversy. It has been said, however, that in his latter years, Sherlock did not approve of the part he had taken in this dispute, and refused to have his various pamphlets on the subject collected into a volume. In 1726, he printed Six Discoures on the Use and Intent of Prophecy; which he had delivered, in the preceding year, at the Temple church. In 1728, he was elevated to the bishopric of Bangor; and, in 1734, translated to that of Salisbury. During

the interim he had published his celebrated Trial of the Witnesses of the Resurrection of Jesus.

On the death of Archbishop Potter, he was offered the primacy; which, however, he refused on account of his ill-health; but, in the following year, 1747, having in some degree recovered, he accepted the bishopric of London. In 1753, he resigned the mastership of the Temple, on which occasion, he addressed an affectionate letter to the treasurer and benchers, expressive of his gratitude for all their kindness to him, and declaring, that he felt his connexion with them to have been the greatest happiness of his life, as it had introduced him to some of the greatest men of the time. Notwithstanding the infirmities of age, he performed his episcopal duties, with great ability; and, when under the pressure of severe illness, which he bore with great fortitude and resignation, revised and published four volumes of his sermons. On the accession of George the Third, he addressed a dutiful and complimentary letter to the young monarch, which, perhaps, was the last production of his pen. He died at Fulham, on the 18th of July, 1761. Having had no children by his wife, whose maiden name was Judith Fountaine, and whom he married in 1707, his nephew inherited the bulk of his property; which, although Sherlock had been very charitable, amounted, it is said, to upwards of £100,000.

He appears to have possessed great abilities, and very extensive acquirements. His style was correct, pleasing, and animated; and his sermons afford many specimens of pulpit eloquence, which have rarely, if ever, been excelled. He was even more eminent for his piety than his learning. In his Discourses on the Use and Intent of Prophecy, he vindicated Christianity against the objections of Anthony Collins, with as much zeal as talent; and during the principal part of his career, enjoyed the reputation of being one of the most efficient pillars of the church of England, although he was of opinion, to use his own language, "that our liturgical forms ought to be revised and amended only for our own sakes, though there were no dissenters in the land."

In

DANIEL, son of the Rev. Henry Waterland, was born at Waseley, in Lincolnshire, (of which his father was rector,) on the 4th of February, 1683. After having received some preliminary instruction at home, he was sent to the free school at Lincoln; which he quitted in 1699, and went to Magdalen college, Cambridge; where he was elected a scholar, in 1701, and proceeded to the degree of B. A., in 1703. In the following year, he obtained a fellowship; and, in 1706, proceeded M. A. He now became celebrated as a private tutor, and published a work, entitled, Advice to a Young Student, with a Method of Study for the First Four Years; which went through several editions. 1713, he was presented to the rectory of Ellingham, in Norfolk; and, about the same time, was nominated master of his college. In 1714, he proceeded to the degree of B. D.; and, shortly afterwards, became chaplain in ordinary to George the First; who, visiting Cambridge, in 1717, conferred upon him, by royal mandate, the degree of D. D., of which rank he was also incorporated at the university of Oxford. In 1719, he published his orthodox Vindication of Christ's Divinity; being a Defence of some Queries, relating to Dr. Clarke's Scheme of the Holy Trinity; and, in the following year, Gibson, Bishop of London, appointed him first preacher of the lecture founded by Lady Moyer. Soon afterwards he entered into a doctrinal dispute with Dr. Whitby. In 1721, the Dean and Chapter of St. Paul's presented him to the rectory of St. Austin and St. Faith; in 1723, he obtained the chancellorship of York; and having, soon after, printed his History of the Athanasian Creed, in opposition to the opinions supported by Dr. Clarke, he was made a canon of Windsor. He resigned his rectory, on being presented to the vicarage of Twickenham, and the archdeaconry of Middlesex, in 1730; during which year, he produced some remarks on Dr. Clarke's Exposition of the Church Catechism, and thus

involved himself in a controversy with Dr. Sykes, relative to the eucharist.

He next published two works, in defence of revealed religion, against Tindal's Christianity as old as the Creation: the first, entitled Scripture Vindicated; and the second, Christianity Vindicated against_Infidelity; which were supported by Dr. Pearce, and condemned, as being calculated to do more harm than good, by Dr. Conyers Middleton. In 1734, he produced A Discourse on the Argument, à priori, for proving the Existence of a First Cause; in which he endeavoured to refute Dr. Clarke's opinions on that subject. During the same year, he declined the office of prolocutor to the lower house of convocation, and published his celebrated treatise On the Importance of the Doctrine of the Trinity.

In 1736, as archdeacon, he preached a series of charges on the eucharist, in which he argued, on the one hand, against the opinion of Bishop Hoadly, who considered it a mere commemorative feast; and, on the other, against that of Johnson and Brett, who held it to be a proper propitiatory sacrifice. During the latter part of his life, he was afflicted with an acute malady, to which, after having undergone many surgical operations, he fell a victim, in the month of December, 1740. By his wife, a lady of good fortune, whom he had married in 1719, and who survived him, he left no children.

In a funeral sermon, preached on the Sunday after his decease, the character of Dr. Waterland was thus described: "His head was an immense library, where the treasures of learning were ranged in such exact order, that, whatever himself or his friends wanted, he could have immediate recourse to, without any embarrassment. A prodigious expanse of reading, without a confusion of ideas, is almost the peculiar characteristic of his writings. His works, particularly those on our Saviour's divinity, and the importance of the doctrine, and the eucharist, into

which he has digested the learning of all preceding ages, will, we may venture to say, be transmitted to, and stand the examination of, all succeeding ones. He has so thoroughly exhausted every subject that he wrote a set treatise upon, that it is impossible to hit upon anything which is not in his writings, or to express that more justly or clearly which is there."

This sturdy polemic appears to have been one of the most zealous, disinterested, and temperate, of that host of controversialists, for which his times were remarkable. Orthodoxy never

had a more stedfast defender; but his aversion to arianism carried him so far, that he was sometimes charged with evincing an heterodox tendency towards arminianism. He wrote entirely for conscience' sake, and not with a view to attract notice, or to obtain promotion. He never solicited preferment, and once refused a bishopric. Though firm and unflinching in his polemical contests, he treated his adversaries, except in a few rare instances, with courtesy, and gave them credit for sincerity in professing those doctrines which he most vehemently opposed.

CONYERS, the son of William Mid- | dleton, rector of Henderwell, in Yorkshire, was born on the 27th of December, 1683. He passed his boyhood under the tuition of his father, and, when about seventeen years of age, was sent to Trinity college, Cambridge; where, having, in due course, proceeded B. A., he obtained a fellowship in 1710; which, however, he, some time afterwards, vacated, by marrying a rich widow, named Drake. In 1717, George the First, during a visit to the university, nominated Middleton,

among

most

others, for a doctor's degree in divinity; but Bentley absolutely refused to create him, except on payment of four guineas beyond the usual fees. Middleton was naturally of a irritable disposition, and had previously been involved in a quarrel with Bentley, which, it is said, originated from the latter having termed him, on account of his occasionally playing on the violin, "fiddling Middleton ;" and Bentley's illegal demand produced a renewal of their strife. Middleton paid the additional fee under protest, and, immediately appealing to the vice-chancellor, procured an order for its restitution; which, however, Bentley refused to obey, and he was consequently degraded from all his university honours and offices. The conflicting parties afterwards brought the matter before the judges of the court of king's bench; Middleton also

published four pamphlets against his adversary; but the dispute, which appears, for a long time, to have been deeply interesting to the public, terminated, at length, by Bentley's restoration to his rank.

On the death of his wife, in or about 1724, Middleton went to Italy for the benefit of his health; and, on his return, greatly increased the number of his enemies, by publishing a scurrilous pamphlet against the medical profession. Soon afterwards, he exposed himself to a charge of heterodoxy, in a dispute which arose out of the answers of Waterland and Pearce, to Tindal's Christianity as old as the Creation. In 1734, he married a Miss Place, of Dorchester; and, in the same year, abandoning the Woodwardian professorship, which he had previously held, he became librarian to the university. In 1735, appeared his Dissertation concerning the Origin of Printing in England; and, in 1741, he published a Life of Cicero, which reflects considerable lustre on his talents. Two years afterwards appeared his Epistles of Cicero to Brutus, and of Brutus to Cicero; and, in 1747, he involved himself in a bitter controversy with several orthodox writers, by his Free Inquiry into the Miraculous Powers.

Having lost his second wife, he was united, in his old age, to a Welsh lady, named Powell. During his last illness, he is said to have been laboriously

soon afterwards obtained a charter for the erection of a college at Bermuda, and a promise of £10,000, from government. Having also obtained some subscriptions in aid of the design, he embarked, in September, 1728, for Rhode Island, with his wife, who was a daughter of Foster, speaker of the Irish house of commons, and whom he had married in the preceding month; another lady; and two gentlemen of fortune. His plan, however, completely failed; principally, as it was alleged, because government did not furnish him with the promised pecuniary aid; and, after an absence of two years, he returned to this country, a great loser by the undertaking.

In 1732, with a view to the refutation of sceptical systems, he published a series of dialogues, entitled, The Minute Philosopher; with which Queen Caroline was so pleased, that she procured his promotion to the bishopric of Cloyne. About this period, having been informed that Dr. Garth had, on his death-bed, asserted to Addison, that he did not believe in the doctrines of christianity, because Dr. Halley had demonstrated to him, that they were incomprehensible, Berkeley produced his Analyst, addressed to an Infidel Mathematician; in which he contended, that some mysteries in mathematics were more difficult of conception than the articles of faith. A spirited controversy ensued, which gave rise to Colin Maclaurin's Treatise on Fluxions.

In 1744, Berkeley published a work entitled, Siris, in which he zealously advocated the virtues of tar water, a medicine, which, as he said, had cured him of a distressing nervous complaint: and, some years afterwards, appeared his Further Thoughts, on the same subject. In 1745 and 1749, he wrote some able letters to the Roman catholics in his diocese. During the former year, he was offered the bishopric of Clogher, which, however, he declined in these terms:-"I love my neighbours, and they love me; why, then, should I begin, in my old days, to form new connexions, and tear myself from those friends, whose kindness is to me the greatest happiness I can enjoy?"

In 1750, appeared his last work, entitled, Maxims concerning Patriotism. Soon afterwards, for the purpose of

superintending the education of his son, he removed to Oxford; where, on the 14th of January, 1753, while his wife was reading to him a sermon, by Sherlock, he suddenly expired, of what was termed a palsy in the heart. So imperceptibly did he breathe his last, that his body was already cold, and his joints stiff, before Mrs. Berkeley, and her daughter, who were present, became aware of his death. He was buried at Christchurch, Oxford, where a noble monument was erected to his memory. In the early part of his life, he was robust, powerful, and handsome; but constant study, by impairing his health, prematurely destroyed his personal graces and bodily strength; his countenance, however, is said to have retained to the last its original innocent, kind, and enthusiastic expression.

In addition to his more celebrated productions, Berkeley was the author of some "fugitive pieces," which were printed in a volume of Miscellanies, the year preceding his death. His attainments were very extensive: he was ingenious, acute, and imaginative; but, in the opinion, perhaps, of the majority, his writings are too much tinged with that enthusiasm which was so conspicuous in his actions. His letters are excellent; and a high degree of poetical merit has been attributed to his Stanzas on looking towards the Bermudas. His motives were always pure, and his conduct disinterested. Even in the destruction of Mrs. Vanhomrigh's letters, there is no doubt, that, however wrong he may have been, he acted conscientiously. He was invariably zealous; though certainly, on some occasions, far from successful, for the advancement of religion. He is described as having been a pattern of christianity to his flock; a rare example of humility combined with great intellect; and, in the language of Pope, of having possessed "every virtue under heaven!"

His application is said to have been so intense, that although he rarely quitted his studies until midnight, he rose between three and four o'clock in the morning; when, although, like many other eminent men," he had not the least ear for music," he summoned his children to take a lesson on the bass viol, from an Italian, whom he kept in the house for that purpose.