know not very particularly what other branches of the art he cultivated, but he was distinguished also with the title of a scrivener, as if he had some time professed the business of writing contracts, or drawing deeds, or other instruments, unless the signification of that word was not then confined, as it is now, to that particular business.

t

It has been said that Bales was engaged in the earl of Essex's treasons in 1600, but he appears to have been entrapped by one John Danyell of Deresburie, esq. who, resolving out of the distresses of his lord to raise a considerable addition to his own substance, induced Bales to imitate some of that earl's letters; but Danyell was sentenced in the Star-chamber, upon the evidence of Bales and other witnesses, in June 1601, to pay a fine of 3000l. for which his whole effects were extented, also to be exposed on the pillory, and endure perpetual imprisonment besides, for his forgery, fraud, and extortion. Bales was, indeed, for a short time, under some confinement, that they might be certain of his evidence at the trial; and we find also that he wrote a large declaration to the countess of Essex, and, it seems, at her request or command, in which he set forth the whole manner of his engagement, and the justification of his conduct in this business. We have little more of Bales after this, except that he is supposed to have died about 1610.1

BALEY, or BAILEY (WALTER), an English physician, the son of Henry Baley of Warnwell in Dorsetshire, was born in 1529, at Portsham in that county, educated at Winchester school, and admitted perpetual fellow of New college in Oxford, in 1550, after having served two years of probation. Having taken the degrees of B. A. and M. A. he studied physic, and was admitted to practise in that faculty in 1558, being at that time proctor of the university, and prebendary of Dultingcote or Dulcot in the church of Wells, which preferment he resigned in 1579. In 1561, he was appointed the queen's professor of physic in the university of Oxford. Two years after he took the degree of doctor in that faculty, and at last was appointed physician in ordinary to her majesty. He was esteemed to be very skilful in theory and successful in practice. He died March 3, 1592, at sixty-three years of age, and was buried

Biog. Brit. the notes to which contain much curious historical matter.-Ath. Ox. vol. I.—Tanner.-Massey's Origin and Progress of Letters.-Ritson's Bibliographia Poetica.

in the inner chapel of New college, Oxford. His poste rity, Mr. Wood tells us, subsisted at Ducklington near Whitney in Oxfordshire, and some of them had been justices of the peace for the said county. His works were, 1. A discourse of three kinds of Pepper in common use,' 1558, 8vo. 2. "A brief treatise of the preservation of the Eye-sight," printed in queen Elizabeth's reign in 12mo, and at Oxford in 1616 and 1654, 8vo. In the edition of 1616 there is added another "Treatise of the Eye-sight," collected from Fernelius and Riolanus, but by what hand we are not told. They both pass under Dr. Baley's name. 3. "Directions for Health, natural and artificial, with medicines for all diseases of the Eye," 1626, 4to. 4. "Explicatio Galeni de potu convalescentium et senum, et præcipuè de nostræ alæ et biriæ paratione," &c. in MS. 4to, in the library of Robert earl of Aylesbury.

1

BALGUY (JOHN), an eminent divine of the church of England in the last century, was born on the 12th of August 1686, at Sheffield in Yorkshire. His father, Thomas Balguy, who died in 1696, was master of the free grammarschool in that place, and from him he received the first rudiments of his grammatical education. After his father's death he was put under the instruction of Mr. Daubuz, author of a commentary on the Revelations, who succeeded to the mastership of the same school, Sept. 23, 1696, for whom he always professed a great respect. In 1702 he was admitted of St. John's college, Cambridge, under the care of Dr. Edmondson and of Dr. Lambert, afterwards master of that college. He frequently lamented, in the succeeding part of his life, that he had wasted nearly two years of his residence there in reading romances. But, at the end of that time happening to meet with Livy, he went through him with great delight, and afterwards applied himself to serious studies. In 1705-6, he was admitted to the degree of B. A. and to that of M. A. in 1726. Soon after he had taken his bachelor's degree, he quitted the university, and was engaged, for a while, in teaching the free school at Sheffield, but whether he was chosen master, or only employed during a vacancy, does not appear. the 15th of July 1708, he was taken into the family of Mr. Banks, as private tutor to his son, Joseph Banks, esq. af terwards of Reresby in the county of Lincoln, and grand

1 Wood's Ath. vol. I.-Biog. Brit.

On

father of the present sir Joseph Banks, K. B. so eminently distinguished for his skill in natural history, and the expences, labours, and voyages, he has undergone to promote that part of science. Mr. Balguy, in 1710, was admitted to deacon's orders, and in 1711 to priest's by Dr. Sharp, archbishop of York. By Mr. Banks's means, he was introduced to the acquaintance of Mr. Bright of Badsworth, in the county of York, and was by him recommended to his father, sir Henry Liddel, of Ravensworth castle, who in 1711 took Mr. Balguy into his family, and bestowed upon him the donative of Lamesly and Tanfield in that county. For the first four years after he had obtained this small preferment, he did not intermit one week without composing a new sermon; and desirous that so excellent an example should be followed by his son, he destroyed almost his whole stock, and committed, at one time, two hundred and fifty to the flames. In July 1715, he married Sarah, daughter of Christopher and Sarah Broomhead of Sheffield. She was born in 1686, and by her he had only a son, the late Dr. Thomas Balguy, archdeacon of Winchester. After his marriage he left sir Henry Liddel's family, and lived at a house not far distant, called Cox close, where he enjoyed, for many years, the friendship of George Liddel, esq. member for Berwick-upon-Tweed, a younger son of sir Henry, who usually resided at Ravensworth castle. The first occasion of Mr. Balguy's appearance as an author, was afforded by the Bangorian controversy. In 1718 he published, without his name, "Silvius's examination of certain doctrines lately taught and defended by the Rev. Mr. Stebbing;" and, in the following year, "Silvius's letter to the Rev. Dr. Sherlock." Both of these performances were written in vindication of bishop Hoadly. Mr. Stebbing having written against these pamphlets, Mr. Balguy, in 1720, again appeared from the press, in the cause of the bishop, in a tract entitled "Silvius's defence of a dialogue between a Papist and a Protestant, in answer to the Rev. Mr. Stebbing; to which are added several remarks and observations upon that author's manner of writing." This also being answered by Mr. Stebbing, Mr. Balguy had prepared a farther defence; but Dr. Hoadly prevailed upon him to suppress it, on account of the public's having grown weary of the controversy, and the unwillingness of the booksellers to venture upon any new works relating to it, at their own risk. For a different reason the bishop per

suaded him, though with difficulty, to abstain from printing another piece which he had written, called "A letter to Dr. Clarke," of whom, through his whole life, he was a great admirer. In 1726 he published "A letter to a deist concerning the beauty and excellence of Moral Virtue, and the support and improvement which it receives from the Christian revelation." In this treatise he has attacked, with the greatest politeness, and with equal strength of reason, some of the principles advanced by lord Shaftesbury, in his "Inquiry concerning Virtue." On the 25th of January, 1727-8, Mr. Balguy was collated, by bishop Hoadly, to a prebend in the church of Salisbury, among the advantages of which preferment was the right of presenting to four livings, and of presenting alternately to two others. The best of them did not fall in his life-time. But two small livings were disposed of by him; one to the Rev. Christopher Robinson, who married his wife's sister; the other to his own son. In 1727 or 1728, he preached an assize sermon at Newcastle-upon-Tyne, the subject of which was party spirit. It was printed by order of the judges, and either inscribed or dedicated to Dr. Talbot, bishop of Durham. "The foundation of Moral Goodness, or a farther inquiry into the original of our idea of Virtue," was published by him in 1728. This performance, which is written in a very masterly and candid manner, was in answer to Mr. Hutcheson's " Inquiry into the original of our ideas of Beauty and Virtue;" and its design is to shew that moral goodness does not depend solely upon instincts and affections, but is grounded on the unalterable reason of things. Mr. Balguy acquired, about this time, the friendship of Dr. Talbot, bishop of Durham, for which he was chiefly indebted to Dr. Rundle, afterwards bishop of Derry though something, perhaps, might be due to his acquaintance with Dr. Benson, Dr. Secker, and Dr. Butler. Through the assistance of his friends in the chapter of Durham, supported by the good offices of bishop Talbot, he obtained, on the 12th of August 1729, the vicarage of North-Allerton in Yorkshire, at that time worth only 270l. a year, on which preferment he continued to his death. This was, in some measure, his own fault, for he neglected all the usual methods of recommending himself to his superiors. He had many invitations from Dr. Blackburne, archbishop of York, and Dr. Chandler, bishop of Durham; but he constantly refused to accept of them. In the same year he published

"The second part of the foundation of Moral Goodness; illustrating and enforcing the principles and reasonings contained in the former; being an answer to certain remarks communicated by a gentleman to the author." The writer of these remarks was lord Darcy. His next publication was "Divine Rectitude; or, a brief inquiry concerning the Moral Perfections of the Deity, particularly in respect of Creation and Providence." A question then much agitated was, concerning the first spring of action in the Deity. This is asserted by our author to be rectitude, while Mr. Grove contended that it is wisdom, and Mr. Bayes, a dissenting minister of Tunbridge, that it is benevolence. The difference between Mr. Grove and Mr. Balguy was chiefly verbal; but they both differed materially from Mr. Bayes, as they supposed that God might have ends in view, distinct from, and sometimes interfering with the happiness of his creatures. The essay on divine rectitude was followed by "A second letter to a deist, concerning a late book, entitled Christianity as old as the Creation,' more particularly that chapter which relates to Dr. Clarke." To this succeeded "The law of Truth, or the obligations of reason essential to all religion; to which are prefixed some remarks supplemental to a late tract entitled Divine Rectitude.'" All the treatises that have been mentioned (excepting the assize sermon, and the pieces which were written in the Bangorian controversy) were collected, after having gone through several separate editions, by Mr. Balguy, into one volume, and published with a dedication to bishop Hoadly. This dedication was reprinted in the late edition of the works of that prelate, together with two letters of the bishop relating to it, one to Mr. Balguy, and the other to lady Sundon. The greatest regard for our author is expressed by Dr. Hoadly in both these letters, and he acknowledges the pleasure it gave him to receive the sincere praises of a man whom he so highly esteemed. In 1741 appeared Mr. Balguy's "Essay on Redemption," in which he explains the doctrine of the atonement in a manner similar to that of Dr. Taylor of Norwich, but Hoadly was of opinion he had not succeeded. This, and his volume of sermons, including six which had been published before, were the last pieces committed by him to the press *. A posthumous volume was afterwards

"To a person that was praising his of our pursuits after Knowledge, he reDiscourses on the Vanity and Vexation plied, I borrowed the whole from ten