James Blenkarne, M. A. vicar of St. Helen's, London, and head master of the Royal Grammar School of St. Olave, Southwark.She was a sincere christian, a constant communicant, a most affectionate wife, and a tender parent. At Twinstead in Essex, Mrs. Gray, wife of the Rev. Robert Gray. In his 65th year, the Hon. Thomas Pownall, of Everton House, Bedfordshire, and formerly governor of New Jersey. He left directions to be buried in Walcot Church, and that he might be laid in an oaken coffin, without ornament or inscription; that eight men should carry him to the grave without any pall, and that a new suit of clothes should be given to them, of any colour they might choose. He was attended only by his house-keeper and man servant. His body was opened, and it was ascertained that his death was not from any decay of the system, but that a gangrene had formed about the heart, which had stopped the circulation, At Reading, of a decline, aged only 26, the Rev. Charles Higgs, Fellow of New College, Oxford. In her 72d year, the Right Hon. the Countess Dowager of Dartmouth. At Lower Barton, near Preston, Lancashire, aged 95, Jeannett Green, mother, grand-mother, and great-grandmother to 202 children. The Rev. Richard Wickham, vicar of Sulgrave, in Northamptonshire, and of Newton Purcell in Oxfordshire. Lately, at the Royal Military Academy, Woolwich, in the 17th year of his age, Mr. Price Dewsnap, a cadet. Previous to his admission into that Seminary, he had been several years a pupil at the Boarding School, Chipping Norton, under the direction of the Reverend J. Handley. His death will long be a source of grief and lamentation to his numerous surviving relatives; and is sincerely and deservedly regretted by a large circle of juvenile acquaintance, to whom he had endeared himself by his conciliating manners and amiable disposition. His graceful person, and strong manly sense, gained him universal admiration. He excelled, not only in the ordinary scholastic attainments, but in se veral of the present fashionable and polite accomplishments. His life, though short alas! may justly be said to have been spent unstained with any one vice, and marked with every virtue that can adorn the juvenile state: "Durum : sed levius fit patientia, Quidquid corrigere est nefas." TO CORRESPONDENTS. The Book defended by Scrutator, we are of opinion does not merit the distinction it has received. To the other sentiments of our Correspondent, however, we cannot object. We recommend it to our friend, who favoured us with a letter on Sunday Drills, to give it a revision, The Extract from Cave shall be inserted. We must have the whole of the Essay on the Church, before we can insert a part. That which we have received is unobjectionable. We shall be glad to be favoured with the other Letters of Bishop Wren. Mr. Evanson's two Letters have been received. Joma, or the day of Atonement; Eusebius on the state of Methodism in Clerkenwell; F.R. S. on Balaam; and other valuable favours, came too late for the present Number, but will certaily appear in our next. ORTHODOX CHURCHMAN'S MAGAZINE AND REVIEW, FOR APRIL 1805. Persecuted out not forsaken; cast down but not destroyed—ii Cor. iv. 9. BIOGRAPHY. THE LIFE OF MATTHEW WREN, D.D. SOME TIME Lord bishop OF ELY; With two original Letters of his, now first printed. Having been favoured by a Correspondent with some original manuscript letters of this persecuted and eminently learned Prelate, we thought it would be suitable to prefix to them a memoir of the author. ` ATTHEW Wren was the son of Francis Wren, a M. citizen of London, but of a family in the bishop rick of Durham. He received his academical education at Pembroke Hall, Cambridge, of which he became fellow, and soon after chaplain to that excellent prelate, Dr. Lancelot Andrewes, bishop of Winchester. For his learning he was chosen Master of Peterhouse, and Vice Chancellor of Cambridge. He was also chaplain to Charles the first, when Prince of Wales, and in 1628, was preferred to the deanry of Windsor. On the promotion of Bishop Juxon he was made clerk of the closet to the king; in 1634, prebendary of Westminster, and shortly afterwards bishop of Hereford, from whence the year following he was translated to Norwich. In 1636, he was appointed dean of the chapel royal, and in 1638, removed to the see of Ely. He discharged his public duty with great diligence and zeal; but his pressing uniformity with earnestness brought upon him the hatred of the puritanical party. He was one of the earliest sufferers among the clergy in the rebellion, and was the first bishop deprived by the long parliament. In 1640, a committee was appointed to draw up a charge against him on a petition from the inhabitants of Ipswich, and in consequence he was not long after voted unworthy Fol. VIII. Churchm. Mag. April 1805. I i to to hold any spiritual promotion. He joined with his brethren, the bishops, in the petition and protestation to the king and lords, in consequence of their being prevented by the popular tumult from attending the house of peers; and for which they were all sent to the Tower on a charge of treason, but were afterwards released on bail. Bishop Wren then retired to his house at Downham, where he was soon after apprehended by a party of soldiers, and sent again to the Tower, where he continued till the end of the year 1659, without any charge or accusation being preferred against him during that long and tumultuous period. In his confinement he had no other books but the Bible, and a Greck Lexicon, which he had ased at school, yet without any other help than these and a strong memory, well supplied with various reading, he drew up a complete refutation of Socinianism, which was printed in 1660, under the title of Increpatio Bar. Jesu: sive Polemicæ adsertiones locorum aliquot S. Scripturæ ab imposturis perversionum in catechesi Racoviana, 4to. This work was afterwards reprinted in Pole's Synopsis Criticorum. The triumphant party were not content with imprisoning the bishop, but they sequestred his property, reduced his family to the greatest distress, and even deprived him of his books and papers, but the few he saved by stealth. To such a miserable condition indeed was he reduced, that in 1660, when his son Thomas was created M. D. at Oxford, the Chancellor's letter for that purpose acquaints the convocation, "that the pressures under which his father lay for seventeen years together, were such that he could not (his estate being taken away) allow his children bread, much less supply their expences for living in colleges, and the taking their degrees." At the restoration the bishop recovered his diocese, and though he had suffered so much, he performed several munificent actions, one of which was the building an elegant chapel at Pembroke Hall, which he consecrated himself, and in which he was interred in 1667, aged about 81 years. He endured his greatest troubles with remarkable patience and magnanimity, as his several letters evince. He was a man of great learning, and particularly versed, says lord Clarendon, in the old fiturgies of the Greek and Latin churches, on which account he was employed by Archbishop Laud in preparing the Liturgy and Canons for the church of Scotland. .1 Besides Besides his book against the Socinians, he printed a few sermons; and some of his letters are in Colomesius's collection, entitled Epistolæ variæ ad viros doctiss. The bir shop was uncle to the celebrated architect and mathema tician, Sir Christopher Wren. TO MR. BEAUMONT*. EGERIME impero dextræ meæ, ut conditionem omnium mihi funestissimam nunc exaret. Benedictus tamen semper sit Deus, qui telum jam intorsit mihi, quod penitus sauciat et tantum non enicat. Cætera omnia hactenus mihi (O) levia fuere, habitaque ferè pro nihilot Captivum abduxerant? Animus tamen remansit liberrimus. Fœdis calumniis onerârant? Sed Triumphus mihi succrevit à Veritate. Bona omnia harpagârant? Et minore cum molestiâ pòst carui, quam fruebar anteà. Verum nunc quòd lectissimam, fidissimam, piissimam ; σugʊyo, omnium optimam diu expertam, dehinc carendum eâ sit, sola Divina gratia præstare potest, ut huic dolori ferendo par sina. Dicat ille mihi, (pronus veneror) Apres oor in xapes us. Succlament, qui mihi benè velint, TT. Tu vero, pro tuâ prudentiâ, adsis comitèr meis, ut sciant quantam jacturam fecerint, solando tamen, firmandoque, quantum poteris, ne tanta procellâ absorbeantur. Edoce eos, quò destitutiores facti sunt opis humanæ, eò alacriùs impensiusque confugiendum esse ad aram Supremi Numinis. Tantum est, quod impræsentiarum inter secretos singultus poteram. Valete. The following Letter has no Direction. Seposta Curarum mearum (hac præsertim calamitosâ tempestate, non paucarum) reliquâ mole, ad unam illam * This person is supposed to have been Joseph Beaumont, fellow of Peterhouse, who was ejected in 1644 by the Earl of Manchester. He was at that time also Rector of Kelshall in Hertfordshire. In 1664, being then D.D. he was presented to the rectory of Bailey in the same county, He became master of his college; regius professor of divinity at Cambridge and prebendary of Ely. He died in 1699, aged 84. Dr. Beaumont wrote an allegorical poem entitled Psyche or Love's mystery folio; and a collection of his poems was printed in 1749, in 4to. et omnium et omnium fere primam, quam tuæ jampridem fidei commisi, animum hodie visum est appellere. Scire autem ex te áveo, non solum, quid agat filius, aut per decem jam (plus minus) menses rure egit. Quid in Græcis, quid in Dialecticis atque philosophicis profecit; Verum etiam quo semper animo, atque affectu se gerat; summine Numinis assiduum super omnia se Cultorem sanctè præstet; Post Deum, an in Parentum Obsequia totus feratur; cujus rei (quia ipsi absumus) existimandæ copiam ea res dat, Si præceptorem sancti debere Parentiš, (ut Poeta egregiè) agnoscat. Ne me celes igitur rogo, ut se hæ res habeant. Die apertè an studeatur, non quasi in mapipye, sed totâ navâque operâ; An prima et præcipua studia in iis rebus collocentur, quæ tibi (atque ex meo jam sæpe mouitu) videntur præferendæ persequendæque: An in Notatis (quicquid agat) primum deligendis, dein colligendis, desudetur sine fraude, aut fastidio; An quæ ex aliquâ interdum incuria aut ignavia obrepunt in studiis ejus ύςερήματα, sive opúaμara, mox per ingenuam, mitemque animi indo, (lem, perque suaves et morigeros affectus, et per subsequentium dierum ultronea officia, atque industriam abundè reparentur; Uno verbo, An opera assidua ab ipso detur, tales profectus faciendi, qui votis meis paternis respondeant, sic ut haud facile mihi fuerit arbitrari, filium habeam doctiorem an probiorem, optimisque literis, an moribus excultiorem. Quâ in re, quò disertum à te responsum referre possim, quid jam jam expertus sis, et quid de futuro optimè vel speres vel formides, hoc ipsum quod scribo monstres ei velim, ut ipse clarè sentiat, quid à te, quid ab illo postulem, quid cupiam, voveamque. Deum porrò veneror, ut conceptas de ipso spes meas intelligam neque decollâsse, neque emarcuisse. Valeatis verò usque cum Bono Deo. On |