sible, that I plainly told the Lord Archbishop of Canterbury, [Laud] that rather than I would be obnoxious to these slanderous tongues of his misinformers, I would cast off my rochet: [his episcopal garment]. I knew I went right ways, and would not endure to live under undeserved suspicion." Notwithstanding our Author was thus reckoned a favourer of puritanism; yet, at the beginning of the troubles in this kingdom, he wrote with great strength and elegance in defence of episcopacy. His pieces upon that subject were, I." Episcopacy by divine right asserted." London, 1640, 4to. This treatise was occasioned by the then Bishop of Orkney's renouncing his episcopal function openly, before the whole body of the clergy assembled at Edinburgh, and craving pardon for having accepted it, as though he had thereby committed some heinous offence. II. He published "An humble remonstrance to the high Court of Parliament. By a dutiful son of the church." London, 1640, 4to. in behalf of the liturgy and episcopacy. To this Stephen Marshall, Edmund Calamy, Thomas Young, Matthew Newcomen, and William Spurstow, jointly wrote an answer, under the name of Smectymnuus, composed of the initials of their own; which they called, 'An Answer to a book entitled, An humble Remonstrance. In which the original of liturgy and episcopacy is discussed, and quæries propounded concerning both, &c.' London 1641, 4to. Whereupon Bishop Hall wrote, III." A Defence of the humble Remonstrance, against the frivolous and false exceptions of Smectymnuus: Wherein the right of liturgy and episcopacy is clearly vindicated, &c." London, 1641. Smectymnuus replying in A Vindication of the Answer to the humble Remonstrance, from the unjust imputations of frivolousness and falsehood: Wherein the cause of the liturgy and episcopacy is further debated.' London, 1641, 4to Bishop Hall concluded the dispute with, IV" A short Answer to the tedious Vindication of Smectymnuus. By the author of the humble Remonstrance." London, 1641, 4to. These several pieces of our Author are written in a very handsome, lively, and witty manner: As his adversaries too much distinguished themselves by a peculiar fierceness of spirit, and asperity in language. In short, they wrote with confidence, like persons supported by the secular arm, and who could depend upon stronger and more irresistible arguments than those upon paper.

6

On the 15th of November 1641, he was translated to the see of Norwich, vacant by the death of Dr. Richard

Montague.

Montague. But, on the thirtieth of December following, having joined with the Archbishop of York and some other bishops, in the protestation against the validity of all laws made during their forced absence from parliament, he was voted among the rest to the Tower, and committed thither the thirtieth of January, in all the extremity of a dark frosty evening, at eight o'clock. This their protestation is printed in Rushworth and Nalson's collections, and in Lord Clarendon's and Rapin's histories, and other places, which will excuse us from inserting it here; and to which we refer. But Bishop Hall having mentioned some curious particulars relating thereto, it will be proper to lay them before our readers. 66 Upon our resolved forbearance from the parliament, says he, the Archbishop of York [Williams] sent for us to his lodgings, laid before us the dangerous condition we were in, and advised us for remedy (except we meant utterly to abandon our right, and to desert our station in parliament) to petition both his majesty and the parliament, that, since we were legally called by his majesty's writ to give our attendance in parliament, we might be secured in the performance of our duty and service against those dangers which threatened us, and also to protest against any such acts as should be made during the time of our forced absence, for which he assured us there were many precedents in former parliaments, and which, if we did not, we should betray the trust committed to us by his majesty, and shamefully abdicate the due right both of ourselves and successors. To this purpose, in our presence, he drew up the said petition and protestation, avowing it to be legal, just, and agreeable to all former proceedings; and being fairly written, sent it to our several lodgings for our hands, which we accordingly subscribed, intending yet to have some farther consultation concerning the delivery and whole conduct of it. But ere we could suppose it to be in any hand but his own, the first news we heard was, that messengers were provided to fetch us into the parliament, upon an accusation of high-treason. For, whereas this paper was to have been delivered first to his majesty's secretary, and, after perusal by him, to his majesty, after which, from his majesty to the parliament; and, for that purpose, to the Lord Keeper, Littleton, who was the Speaker of the House of Peers;-all these professed not to have perused it at all: But the Lord Keeper, willing enough to take this advantage of ingratiating himself with the House of Commons and the faction, to which he knew

himself

himself sufficiently obnoxious, and finding what use might be made of it by prejudiced minds, read the same openly in the House of Lords; and when he found some of the faction apprehensive enough of misconstruction, aggravated the matter, as highly offensive, and of dangerous consequence; and thereupon, not without much heat and vehemence, and with an ill preface, it was sent down to the House of Commons, where it was entertained heinously. Glynn, with a full mouth, crying it up for no less than high-treason, and some comparing, yea, preferring it to the powder-plot :-though, when it came to be debated, one of their oracles being asked his judgment concerning the fact, professed to them, that they might with as good reason accuse us of adultery." See the Bishop's "HARD MEASURE," subjoined to his " SPECIALITIES."

Shortly after the commitment of the bishops to the Tower they were impeached of high-treason by the Commons, and, when they should have made their defence, were told, that, it being then late, they should have another day; but that day never came. At length, about June 1642, they were released upon giving five thousand pounds bail; whereupon our Author withdrew to Norwich. Here he was received with more respect than he could have expected in such times, and frequently preached to numerous audiences, enjoying peace till the beginning of April 1643. But then the ordinance for sequestering notorious delinquents' estates being passed, wherein he was included by name, all his rents were stopped, when he was in hopes of receiving the foregoing half year for the maintenance of his family; and, a very few days after, some of the sequestrators came to seize upon his раlace, and all his estate, both real and personal. Of this transaction, and the severe usage he met with upon that occasion, he gives us the following account in his " HARD MEASURE," p. 54. "The sequestrators sent certain men appointed by them (whereof one had been burned in the hand) to appraise all the goods that were in my house, which they accordingly executed with all diligent severity, not leaving so much as a dozen of trenchers, or my children's pictures out of their curious inventory: Yea, they would have appraised our very wearing apparel, had not some of them declared their opinion to the contrary. These goods, both library and household-stuff of all kinds, were appointed to be exposed to public sale: But in the mean time, Mrs. Goodwin, a religious good gentlewoman, whom yet we had never known or seen, being moved with compassion,

compassion, very kindly offered to lay down to the sequestrators the whole sum at which the goods were valued; and was pleased to leave them in our hands, for our use, till we might be able to re-purchase them. As for the books, several stationers looked on them, but were not forward to buy: At last Mr. Cooke, a worthy divine of this diocese, gave bond to the sequestrators, to pay them the whole sum whereat they were set; which was afterwards satisfied out of that poor pittance, which was allowed me for my maintenance."

Thus deprived of all support, he applied to the committee at Norwich, which allowed him four hundred pounds a-year out of the episcopal revenues. And yet this was ineffectual; for before he could receive one quarter, there came down an order from the superior committee for sequestration at London, under the hand of serjeant Wild, the chairman, and procured by Miles Corbet, forbidding any such allowance, and telling the Norwich committee, That neither they, nor any other, had power to allow him any thing; but, if his wife needed a maintenance, upon her application to the committee of Lords and Commons, she should have a fifth part. Accordingly, upon her petition, though after long delays, it was granted her: But so confused and imperfect an account was brought into the sequestrators by their solicitor and collector, of both the temporal and spiritual revenues, that the bishop could never get a knowledge what a fifth part meant, and therefore, it seems, was obliged to take what they thought fit to give him; and, which was still harder, while he received nothing, something was required from him. For they were not ashamed, after they had taken away and sold all his goods and personal estate, to come to him for assessments and monthly payments for that estate which they had seized, and took distresses from him upon his most just denial. Nay, they vehemently required him to find the arms usually furnished by his predecessors, when they had left him nothing; and, upon many occasions, offered him insolent affronts and indignities. Of this he himself gives us two instances: The first, That, one morning before his servants were up, there came to his gates a London trooper, attended with others, requiring entrance, and threatening, if they were not admitted, to break open the gates. The pretence for their coming was, to search for arms and ammunition; and though the bishop told them he had only two muskets, yet, not resting upon his word, they searched round about

the

the house, looked into the chests and trunks, and examined the vessels in the cellar. Finding no other warlike furniture, they took away one of the bishop's two horses, though he told them his age would not allow him to travel on foot. At another time, the mob beset his palace, at a very unseasonable hour, for having ordained some persons in his own chapel, and had the insolence to demand his appearance before the mayor. Still he remained in his palace, though with a poor retinue and maintenance: But at last he was forced to quit it at three weeks' warning, (though his wife offered to pay rent for it out of her fifths) and might have lain in the street; such was the inexorableness of his merciless enemies! had not a neighbour in the close quitted his own house, to make room for him and his family. This was his Hard Measure, as he expresses it in his essay on the subject, which we have before referred to. Shortly after his expulsion he retired to a little estate, which he rented at Higham, near Norwich; where, notwithstanding the narrowness of his circumstances, he distributed a weekly charity to a certain number of poor widows. In this retirement he ended his life on the 8th of September 1656, in the eighty-second year of his age, and was buried in the church-yard of that parish, without any memorial: observing in his will," I do not hold God's house a meet repository for the dead bodies of the greatest saints." And how humbly he thought respecting himself, appears from the title of his last will and testament, which begins thus: "In the name of GOD, Amen. I, Joseph Hall, D. D. not worthy to be called Bishop of Norwich, &c."

He is universally allowed to have been a man of great wit and learning, and of as great meekness, modesty, and piety. He was so great a lover of study, that he earnestly wished his health would have allowed him to do it even to excess. His works are filled (says Mr. Bayle) with fine thoughts, excellent morality, and a great deal of piety, and shew that he was very zealous against popery neither was he more favourable to those who separated from the church of England without an extreme necessity. He lamented the divisions of protestants, and wrote something with a view of putting an end to them.

His Writings (besides those already specified, and the others mentioned by Mr. Bayle in his dictionary, under the Author's name) make in all five volumes in folio and 4to. The first volume, printed, or rather collected together, in 1617, and again in 1621, contains, 1. "Meditations

and