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The work which, more than any other, has raised Whitby's fame, is his Paraphrase and Commentary on the New Testament,' first published in 1703, in two volumes, folio. The tenth edition appeared in 1807, in quarto. The author informs us in the preface that this work cost him the labour of fifteen years' study, and it is truly a noble monument of his learning and industry. Another of Whitby's most popular works is that on the Five Points' of Calvinism, in which he labours to confute those doctrines. In the year 1718, Whitby published his 'Disquisitiones Modestæ,' being a reply to Bull's defence of the Nicene Creed. Bull had argued that the Antenicene fathers entertained the orthodox faith respecting the person of Christ and his equality with the Father. Whitby combated this theory, and aimed to establish the fact, that it was the prevailing faith of the three first centuries, that Christ was derived from the Father, and subordinate to him. Waterland wrote against the Disquisitiones Modestæ' on the side of Bull, and Whitby replied at considerable length in two separate answers.

Religious liberty was never without a zealous advocate in Whitby when occasion demanded one, and it was natural that he should be inlisted as an able supporter of Hoadly in the 'Bangorian Controversy.' He wrote an answer to Dr Snape's Second Letter to the Bishop of Bangor,' and defended in a separate treatise the principles contained in Hoadly's famous sermon on the church or kingdom of Christ.

The work which closed the long and distinguished labours of Whitby as an author, was his ، Last Thoughts. It was first published in 1727, the year after his death; and, although it was a posthumous work, it was by his own hand entirely prepared for publication. It was designed to correct several mistakes-as he regarded them-in his Commentary. A second edition of the Last Thoughts' was published the next year after the first, and to this was prefixed a short account of the author, by Dr Sykes. Five Discourses were appended to the original edition.

Besides the publications already mentioned, Whitby was the author of many others, especially on practical and polemical divinity. He published two volumes of Sermons on the attributes of God, and three or four volumes more on various subjects; a work on The Necessity and Usefulness of the Christian Revelation,' A Dissertation in Latin on the Interpretation of the Scriptures,' 'A Confutation of Sabellianism,' and Reflections on Dodwell's Whimsical Notions of the Natural Mortality of the Soul.' He, moreover, wrote tracts on politics, was a warm friend of the Revolution, and approved and defended the oath of allegiance required on the accession of William III.

Bishop Kennett.

BORN A. D. 1660.-DIED A. D. 1728.

THIS learned prelate was born at Dover on the 10th of August, 1660. After having acquired the rudiments of education at Eleham and Wye, he was removed to Westminster school, and, in 1678, was entered of St Edmund's-hall, Oxford. In 1680 he gave offence to the whigs by publishing, A Letter from a Student at Oxford to a Friend in the

Country,' and, in the following year, aggravated them farther, by producing a tory ballad on the dissolution of parliament. He took his degree of B. A. in 1682, and soon afterwards published a translation of Erasmus's Moriæ Encomium,' or Panegyric upon Folly. In 1684 he printed a 'Life of Chabrias,' and became curate of Burrester. In 1685 he proceeded M. A., and was presented to the vicarage of Amersden by Sir William Glynne, to whom, in 1686, he dedicated a translation of Pliny's Panegyric upon Trajan,' which was by some considered as an indirect eulogium on James II.

To the reflections made against this performance, we find the following answer by the author, in a postscript to the translation of his convocation sermon in 1710: "The remarker says, the doctor dedicated 'Pliny's Panegyric' to the late King James: And what if he did? Only it appears he did not. This is an idle tale among the party, whọ, perhaps, have told it till they believe it: when the truth is there was no such dedication, and the translation itself of Pliny was not designed for any court-address. The young translator's tutor, Mr Allam, directed his pupil, by way of exercise, to turn some Latin tracts into English. The first was a little book of Erasmus, entitled, Moriæ Encomium,' which the tutor was pleased to give to a bookseller in Oxford, who put it in the press while the translator was an under-graduate. Another sort of task required by his tutor was this 'Panegyric of Pliny upon Trajan,' which he likewise gave to a bookseller in Oxford, before the translator was M. A., designing to have it published in the reign of King Charles; and a small cut of that prince, at full length, was prepared, and afterwards put before several of the books, though the impression happened to be retarded till the death of King Charles, and then the same tutor, not long before his own death, advised a new preface adapted to the then received opinion of King James's being a just and good prince. However, there was no dedication to King James, but to a private person, a worthy baronet, who came in heartily to the beginning of the late happy Revolution.'"

In 1689 he received a severe injury from the bursting of a gun, which rendered the operation of trepanning necessary, and occasioned him constantly to wear a black velvet patch over the injured part. In 1691, having previously become tutor and vice-principal of his college, he was chosen lecturer of St Martin's, Oxford; and, in 1693, he obtained the rectory of Shottesbrook in Berkshire, but still continued to reside at the university, devoting a great portion of his time to antiquarian researches, and the study of Saxon and the northern tongues. About this time he wrote a life of Somers, and subsequently published 'Parochial Antiquities,' and Sir Henry Spelman's History and Fate of Sacrilege,' with additional authorities. Having been admitted B. D. in 1694, he proceeded to the degree of D. D. in 1699. In 1700 he was appointed, without any solicitation on his part, minister of St Botolph, Aldgate. In the following year he became archdeacon of Huntingdon, and acquired great reputation among the low-churchmen, by engaging in a dispute with Atterbury on the rights of convocation. In 1703 he created much clamour by a discourse on clerical privileges; and, two years after, preached Dr Wake's consecration sermon, which chief-justice Holt said, "had more in it, to the purpose, of the legal and christian constitution of the church, than any volume of discourses." In

1706, some booksellers having undertaken to print a collection of English history as far as to the reign of Charles I., Dr Kennett was employed to carry the history down to the reign of Queen Anne, which he did; and the whole was published, in 1706, in three folio volumes, under the title of 'A Complete History of England.' In the following year he was appointed a royal chaplain, and preached a funeral sermon on the first duke of Devonshire, of which it was said, that he had "built a bridge to heaven for men of wit and parts, but had excluded the duller part of mankind from any chance of passing it." This singular charge was grounded on the following passage:-speaking of a late repentance, he says, "This rarely happens but in men of distinguished sense and judgment. Ordinary abilities may be altogether sunk by a long vicious course of life: the duller flame is easily extinguished. The meaner sinful wretches are commonly given up to a reprobate mind, and die as stupidly as they lived; while the nobler and brighter parts have an advantage of understanding the worth of their souls before they resign them. If they are allowed the benefit of sickness, they commonly awake out of their dream of sin, and reflect, and look upward. They acknowledge an infinite Being; they feel their own immortal part; they recollect and relish the holy scriptures; they call for the elders of the church; they think what to answer at a judgment-seat. Not that God is a respecter of persons, but the difference is in men; and the more intelligent nature is, the more susceptible of the Divine grace." Such a passage as this is well calculated to do infinite injury to those whom it may have been originally intended to compliment and soothe.

The new duke of Devonshire now procured for Kennett the deanery of Peterborough. He declined to join in the London clergy's address to the queen in 1710; and surprised and mortified his old tory friends by the part which he took against Sacheverell. Among other offensive expedients adopted by the high-churchmen to render him odious, he was depicted as Judas Iscariot, in an altar-piece, representing the last supper, at Whitechapel church, to which vast crowds were consequently attracted, until the bishop of London properly directed that the painting should be removed.

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In 1713, he made a large collection of books and maps, for the purpose of preparing a History of the Propagation of Christianity in English America; and, about the same time, founded an antiquarian and historical library at Peterborough. In 1715, he published a discourse 'On the Witchcraft of the Rebellion; and, although his conduct and doctrines were in some respects offensive to the new government, he was promoted, in 1718, to the bishopric of Peterborough, which he held during the remainder of his life. He died on the 19th of December, 1728. The marquess of Lansdowne purchased the whole of his valuable manuscripts, which were, eventually, deposited in the British Museum.

Samuel Clarke.

BORN A, D. 1675.-died a. D. 1729.

THIS learned divine of the episcopal church of England, was born at Norwich, October 11th, 1675. His father, Edward Clarke, was an alderman at Norwich, and represented that city in several successive parliaments. The mother of Dr Clarke was the daughter of Mr Samuel Parmenter, merchant in the same city. The subject of this memoir received his early education at the grammar-school of Norwich, a seminary which has sent forth some of our ablest scholars. He is said to have given early promise of his subsequent intellectual greatness; and, in particular, to have been distinguished by his youthful proficiency in the study of the classics. At the age of sixteen he was sent to the university of Cambridge, and became a member of Caius college. Here he was placed under the tuition of Mr, afterwards Sir, John Ellis. At the age of twenty, he engaged in a great and somewhat hazardous undertaking; in which, however, his ingenious audacity was crowned with complete success. The physics of Des Cartes were then the orthodox philosophy of Cambridge; although they had been powerfully assailed by Barrow in one of his college-exercises, and had received a still ruder shock by the publication of the Principia' of Newton, in 1687. The university was slow to adopt the demonstrated discoveries of the greatest of her sons; and, some years after, we find Whiston complaining that when Gregory had already introduced the Newtonian physics at Oxford, "we at Cambridge, poor wretches, were ignominiously studying the fictitious hypotheses of the Cartesians." The Cambridge textbook in natural philosophy was at that time the physics of Rohault, “a work," says Professor Playfair, "entirely Cartesian." "A new and more elegant translation of the same book," continues the Professor, "was published by Dr (Mr) Samuel Clarke, with the addition of notes, in which that profound and ingenious writer explained the views of Newton on the principal subjects of discussion, so that the notes contained virtually a refutation of the text: they did so, however, only virtually, all appearance of argument and controversy being carefully avoided. Whether this escaped the notice of the learned Doctors or not is uncertain; but the new translation, from its better Latinity, and the name of the editor,' was readily admitted to all the academical honours which the old one had enjoyed. Thus the stratagem of Dr Clarke completely succeeded; the tutor might prelect from the text, but the pupil would sometimes look into the notes; and error is never so sure of being exposed, as when the truth is placed close to it, side by side, without any thing to alarm prejudice, or awaken from its lethargy the dread of innovation." Having fixed upon divinity as his profession, Mr Clarke applied very closely to the study of the scriptures

The learned Professor here commits an error. "The name of the editor" could have been no recommendation to the book when first published; for Clarke was then a young and undistinguished man. This error probably arose out of Mr Playfair's mistake respecting the date of this publication. It was not 1718, as he states, but 1697, See Hoadly's Life of Clarke. Brewster's Life of Sir Isaac Newton,

in the original tongues, and of the early Christian fathers. Soon after his ordination, he was appointed domestic chaplain to Dr John Moore, bishop of Norwich. This situation he retained twelve years; during which period, and, indeed up to the death of Dr Moore, the warmest friendship subsisted between the bishop and his clerical subaltern. At his death, Dr Moore left all the affairs of his family to be arranged and settled by Mr Clarke,—a striking mark of respect and affection.

In 1699 appeared the first theological works of Mr Clarke; one of them entitled Three Practical Essays on Baptism, Confirmation, and Repentance; the other, which was anonymous, 'Some Reflections on a Book called Amyntor.' These publications gave little promise of Clarke's subsequent performances. They are destitute of originality and acuteness; nor is there any thing in the style to compensate for mediocrity of thought and illustration. In 1701, he published his paraphrase upon the Gospel of Matthew; which was speedily followed by paraphrases upon those of the other evangelists. Of this work, his biographer Hoadly speaks in terms of high commendation; and it may, without exaggeration, be described as a well-reasoned and luminous exposition of the gospels. It has little, however, that is original, and little that might not have been produced by an understanding greatly inferior to Clarke's. It is certainly by no means free from the besetting sins of all paraphrases, prolixity and repetition. About this time. he received from his patron, Bishop Moore, the rectory of Drayton, together with the parish in the city of Norwich; but the aggregate value of both these preferments was small. In 1704, Mr Clarke was appointed to the lecturship then recently instituted by Mr Boyle. Accordingly he delivered a series of lectures on the Being and Attributes of God, which were afterwards published in the form of a continuous dissertation, bearing the following title: A Demonstration of the Being and Attributes of God; more particularly in answer to Mr Hobbes, Spinoza, and their followers.' Of this celebrated demonstration very different opinions have been entertained. By some it has been extolled as a miracle of metaphysical acumen; by others it has been condemned as a mere mass of verbal subtleties. Bishop Hoadly declares that "all is one regular building, erected upon an unmoveable foundation, and rising up from one stage to another, with equal strength and dignity." "These," says Dr Reid," are the speculations of men of superior genius; but whether they be as solid as they are sublime, or whether they be the wanderings of imagination in a region beyond the limits of human understanding, I am unable to determine." Mr Dugald Stewart, after acknowledging that "the argument, à priori, has been enforced with singular ingenuity by Dr Clarke," confesses that it "does not carry complete conviction to his mind." By Dr Thomas Brown, on the contrary, the subtile speculations of Clarke are treated with the utmost contempt. "The abstract arguments," says he, "which have been adduced to show, that it is impossible for matter to have existed from eternity, by reasonings on what has been termed necessary existence, and the incompatibility of this necessary existence with the qualities of matter, I conceive to be relics of the mere verbal logic of the schools, as little capable of producing conviction, as any of the wildest and most absurd of the technical scholastic reasonings on the properties, or supposed properties, of entity and non-entity." On a subject so profound,