FRANCIS ATTERBURY was born at Milton, on the sixth of March, 1662. He was educated for the university at Westminster school, and in 1680 was elected a student of Christ Church College, Oxford, where he soon distinguished himself by his fine genius and extensive knowledge of polite litera

He gave early proofs of his poetical talents in a Latin version of Dryden's Absalom and Achitophel, an Epigram on a Lady's Fan, and a translation of two Odes of Horace; and as a defender of the Protestant religion, he also, at this time, acquired considerable celebrity. Soon after he left Oxford, in 1691, he was elected lecturer of St. Bride's, London, and made chaplain to William and Mary. With the eloquence of a popular preacher, he possessed the obstinacy of a controversialist, and, therefore, his sermons and other works, when published, drew upon him the animadversions of Hoadly, of Bentley, of Wake, and many others. His zeal, however, in the service of the church, and in support of the rights of convocation, was rewarded by the thanks of the Lower House of Convocation, and by a diploma of the degree of doctor of divinity, from the university of Oxford. Preferment and distinction now followed each other in quick succession; and in 1713 he attained the height of his ecclesiastical dignity, by being made bishop of Rochester, and dean of Westminster.

When George the First, however, succeeded to the throne, the bishop was treated with coldness and indifference; and he imprudently resented the affront, and displayed his attachment to the House of Stuart, by refusing to sign the declaration of the bishops, and by opposing in parliament, with vigor and eloquence, the measures of the government. This decided and hostile conduct proved the beginning of his misfortunes; for, being suspected of favoring the Pretender, he was arrested on the twenty-fourth of August, 1722, as a traitor, and confined in the Tower. On the twenty-third of March following, a bill was brought into the House of Commons to inflict penalties on Francis, Bishop of Rochester, and he was ordered to prepare his defence. He declined using his influence among the commons, but, as he wrote to the speaker, he reserved the vindication of his conduct in that house, of which he had the honor of being a member, to himself. The trial lasted more than a week; and though the bishop was supported by all the learning and eloquence of the bar, and spoke in his own cause with all the energy of the persuasive powers which he was known to possess, still he was condemned by a majority of eighty-three to forty-three votes; and the king, on the twenty-seventh of May, confirmed the decision.

Atterbury met the disgrace of banishment with unusual firmness and dignity. He took an affectionate leave of his friends, and on the eighteenth of June, 1723, from the Aldborough man-of-war, was landed at Calais, where he met Lord Bolingbroke, whom the royal pardon had just recalled to England, upon which he observed, with his usual facetiousness, 'then his lordship and I am exchanged.' Persecution did not, however, cease with the bishop's fall; for in his exile he was pursued with more vindictiveness than had followed him even in England. He resided, first in Brussels, and afterVOL. II.-Q

wards at Paris, continuing to correspond with Pope, Bolingbroke, and other friends, till his death, which happened in Paris on the seventeenth of Feb ruary, 1731. His body was carried over to England and privately in terred in Westminster Abbey, on the twelfth of the following May.

The works of this accomplished, but restless and aspiring prelate, consist of four volumes of sermons, some visitation charges, and his epistolary correspondence, which was very extensive. His style is easy and elegant; and he is represented, by the Tatler, to have been the most impressive and successful preacher of the age. His good taste is evinced in his admiration for Milton, before fashion had sanctioned the great poet's applause. Atterbury's letters to Pope breathe the utmost affection and tenderness. The following farewell letter to the poet was sent from the Tower on the tenth of April, 1723:—

DEAR SIR-I thank you for all the instances of your friendship, both before and since my misfortunes. A little time will complete them, and separate you and me forever. But in what part of the world soever I am, I will live mindful of your sincere kindness to me; and will please myself with the thought that I still live in your esteem and affection as much as ever I did; and that no accident of life, no distance of time or place, will alter you in that respect. It never can me, who have loved and valued you ever since I knew you, and shall not fail to do it when I am not allowed to tell you so, as the case will soon be. Give my faithful services to Dr. Arbuthnot, and thanks for what he sent me, which was much to the purpose, if any thing can be said to be to the purpose in a case that is already determined. Let him know my defence will be such, that neither my friends need blush for me, not will my enemies have great occasion to triumph, though sure of the victory. I shall want his advice before I go abroad in many things. But I question whether I shall be permitted to see him or any body, but such as are absolutely necessary towards the dispatch of my private affairs. If so, God bless you both! and may no part of the ill fortune that attends me ever pursue either of you. I know not but I may call upon you at my hearing, to say something about my way of spending my time at the deanery, which did not seem calculated towards managing plots and conspiracies. But of that I shall consider. You and I have spent many hours together upon much pleasanter subjects; and, that I may preserve the old custom, I shall not part with you now till I have closed this letter with three lines of Milton, which you will, I know, readily, and not without some degree of concern, apply to your ever affectionate, &c.

Some natural tears he dropped, but wiped them soon;
The world was all before him where to choose

His place of rest, and Providence his guide.

To this letter we add the following remarks on church music :

USEFULNESS OF CHURCH MUSIC.

The use of vocal and instrumental harmony in divine worship I shall recommend and justify from this consideration: that they do, when wisely employed and managed, contribute extremely to awaken the attention and enliven the devotion of all serious and sincere Christians; and their usefulness to this end will appear on a double account, as they remove the ordinary hindrances of devotion, and as they supply us further with special helps and advantages towards quickening and improving it.

By the melodious harmony of the church, the ordinary hindrances of devotion are removed, particularly these three; that engagement of thought which we often bring with us into the church from what we last converse with; those accidental distractions that may happen to us during the course of divine service; and that weariness and flatness of mind which some weak tempers may labour under, by reason even of the length of it.

When we come into the sanctuary immediately from any worldly affairs, as our very condition of life does, alas! force many of us to do, we come usually with divided and alienated minds. The business, the pleasures, or the amusement we left, sticks fast to us, and perhaps engrosses that heart for a time, which should then be taken up altogether in spiritual addresses. But as soon as the sound of the sacred hymns strike us, all that busy swarm of thoughts presently disperses: by a grateful violence we are forced into the duty that is going forward, and, as indevout and backward as we were before, find ourselves on the sudden seized with a sacred warmth, ready to cry out, with holy David, 'My heart is fixed, O God, my heart is fixed; I will sing and give praise.' Our misapplication of mind at such times is often so great, and we so deeply immersed in it, that there needs some very strong and powerful charm to rouse us from it; and perhaps nothing is of greater force to this purpose than the solemn, and awakening airs of church music.

For the same reason, those accidental distractions that may happen to us are also best cured by it. The strongest minds, and best practised in holy duties, may sometimes be surprised into a forgetfulness of what they are about by some violent outward impressions; and every slight occasion will serve to call off the thoughts of no less willing though much weaker worshippers. Those that come to see, and to be seen here, will often gain their point; will draw and detain for a while the eyes of the curious and unwary. A passage in the sacred story read, an expression used in the common forms of devotion, shall raise a foreign reflection, perhaps, in musing and speculative minds, and lead them on from thought to thought, and point to point, till they are bewildered in their own imaginations. These, and a hundred other avocations will arise and prevail; but when the instruments of praise begin to sound, our scattered thoughts presently take the alarm, return to their post and to their duty, preparing and arming themselves against their spiritual assailants.

Lastly, even the length of the service itself becomes a hindrance sometimes to the devotion which it was meant to feed and raise; for, alas! we quickly tire in the performance of holy duties; and as eager and unwearied as we are in attending upon secular business and trifling concerns, yet in divine offices, I fear, the expostulation of our Saviour is applicable to most of us, 'What! can ye not watch with me one hour?' This infirmity is relieved, this hindrance prevented or removed, by the sweet harmony that accompanies several parts of the service, and returning upon us at fit intervals, keeps our attention up to the duties when we begin to flag, and makes us insensible of the length of it. Happily, therefore, and wisely is it so ordered, that the morning devotions of the church, which are much the longest, should share also a greater proportion of the harmony which is useful to enliven them.

But its use stops not here, at a bare removal of the ordinary impediments to devotion; it supplies us also with special helps and advantages towards furthering and improving it. For it adds dignity and solemnity to public worship; it sweetly influences and raises our passions whilst we assist at it, and makes us do our duty with the greater pleasure and cheerfulness; all which are very proper and powerful means towards creating in that holy attention and erection of mind, the most reasonable part of this our reasonable service.

Such is our nature, that even the best things, and most worthy of our esteem, do not always employ and detain our thoughts in proportion to their real value, unless they be set off and greatened by some outward circumstances, which are fitted to raise admiration and surprise in the breasts of those who hear or behold them. And

this good effect is wrought in us by the power of sacred music. To it we, in good measure, owe the dignity and solemnity of our public worship; which else, I fear, in its natural simplicity and plainness, would not so strongly strike, or so deeply affect the minds, as it ought to do, of the sluggish and inattentive, that is, of the far greatest part of mankind. But when voice and instruments are skillfully adapted to it, it appears to us in a majestic air and shape, and gives us very awful and reverent impressions, which, while they are upon us, it is impossible for us not to be fixed and composed to the utmost. We are then in the same state of mind that the devout patriarch was when he awoke from his holy dream, and ready with him to say to ourselves, 'Surely the Lord is in this place, and I knew it not! How dreadful is this place! This is none other but the house of God, and this is the gate of heaven.'

Further, the availableness of harmony to promote a pious disposition of mind, will appear from the great influence it naturally has on the passions, which, when well directed, are the wings and sails of the mind, that speed its passage to perfection, and are of particular and remarkable use in the offices of devotion; for devotion consists in an ascent of the mind toward God, attended with holy breathings of soul, and a divine exercise of all the passions and powers of the mind. These passions the melody of sounds serve only to guide and elevate toward their proper object: these at first calls forth and encourages, and then gradually rises and inflames. This it does to all of them, as the matter of the hymns sung gives an occasion for the employment of them; but the power of it is chiefly seen in advancing that most heavenly passion of love, which reigns always in pious breasts, and is the surest and most inseparable mark of true devotion; which recommends what we do in virtue of it to God, and makes it relishing to ourselves, and without which all our spiritual offerings, our prayers, and our praises, are both insipid and unacceptable. At this our religion begins, and at this it ends; it is the sweetest companion and improvement of it here upon earth, and the very earnest and foretaste of heaven; of the pleasures of which nothing further is revealed to us, than that they consist in the practice of holy music and holy love, the joint enjoyment of which, we are told, is to be the happy lot of all pious souls to endless ages.

Now, it naturally follows from hence, which was the last advantage from whence I proposed to recommend church music, that it makes our duty a pleasure, and enables us, by that means, to perform it with the utmost vigour and cheerfulness. It is certain, that the more pleasing an action is to us, the more keenly and eagerly are we used to employ ourselves in it; the less liable are we, while it is going forward, to tire, and droop, and be dispirited. So that whatever contributes to make our devotion taking, within such a degree as not at the same time to dissipate and distract, it does, for that very reason, contribute to our attention and holy warmth of mind in performing it. What we take delight in, we no longer look upon as a task, but return to always with desire, dwell upon with satisfaction, and quit with uneasiness. And this it was which made holy David express himself in so pathetical a manner concerning the service of the sanctuary: 'As the hart panteth after the water-brooks, so panteth my soul after thee, O God. When, oh when, shall I come to appear before the presence of God?'

The ancients do sometimes use the metaphor of an army when they are speaking of the joint devotions put up to God in the assembly of his saints. They say we there meet together in troops to do violence to heaven: we encompass, we besiege the throne of God, and bring such a united force, as is not to be withstood. And I suppose we may as innocently carry on the metaphor as they have begun it, and say, that church music, when decently ordered, may have as great uses in this army of supplicants, as the sound of the trumpet has among the host of the mighty men. It equally rouses the courage, equally gives life, and vigour, and resolution, and una nimity, to those holy assailants.

WILLIAM WHISTON, a man of very remarkable genius and great learning, but of a singular and extraordinary character, was born at Norton, in Leicestershire, on the ninth of December, 1667. He was kept at home till he was seventeen years of age, and instructed by his father, who was a learned and pious man, and rector of Norton parish. In 1684, Whiston was sent to Tamworth school, and two years after admitted into Clare Hall College, Cambridge, where he pursued his studies, particularly mathematics, with the greatest diligence, until 1693, when he took his master's degree and was chosen fellow of his college. He now designed to establish him self in the university as a tutor, but was soon after induced to relinquish that object, and become chaplain to Dr. More, bishop of Norwich, with whom he remained four years. In 1696, while he was chaplain to the bishop, Whis ton published his New Theory of the Earth, the design of which was to show that the Mosaic account of the Creation was agreeable to philosophy and reason.

In 1698, Whiston was presented, by his patron, Bishop More, to the living of Lowestoft, in Suffolk, where he devoted himself assiduously to his parochial duties, till he was invited, in 1700, to Cambridge, to become deputy to Sir Isaac Newton, whom he soon after succeeded in the Lucasian professorship of Mathematics. About this time his attachment to the principles of the church of England beginning to waver, he pretended to discover that the two first centuries of the church were truly Eusebian or Arian, and that afterwards, doctrines less congenial to the genuine spirit of Christianity had been adopted. These opinions, which were heard with astonishment by his friends, engaged much of the public attention; but he disregarded the opposition and censures of his former associates, and wrote several works in support of his sentiments, and in vindication of his conduct. This drew upon him the severe displeasure of the university; and in 1710, he was deprived of his professorship, and banished from the precincts of Cambridge. Regardless of the disgrace, he retired to London, where he maintained himself by giving lectures on philosophy, astronomy, and divinity, and by writing on his favourite topic of primitive Christianity. In 1747, Whiston left the church of England entirely, and united with the Baptists; but he soon after set up what he conceived to be a more primitive congregation himself. He did not, however, long survive this experiment, but died soon after he commenced it, on the twenty-second of August, 1752.

'Whiston,' according to Bishop Hare, 'was a fair unblemished character, who all his life had cultivated piety, virtue, and good learning. Constant himself, in the private and public duties of religion, he promoted virtue in others, and such learning as he thought would conduce most to the honour of God, by manifesting the greatness and wisdom of his works.' Had Whiston confined himself to mathematical studies, he would have acquired a high name in science; but his time and attention were dissipated by his theological pursuits, in which he evinced more zeal than judgment. He was an elaborate writer, and produced, besides the 'Theory of the Earth,' al