Mr. Baxter died Dec. the 8th, 1691, and was interred in Christ-church, whither his corpse was attended by a numerous company of persons of different ranks, and many of the dissenters upon that account. My venticle with your annotations, nor your snivelling parson neither. lord, says Atwood, I conceive this to be expressly within Roswell's case, lately before your lordship. You conceive, says Jefferies, you conceive amiss; it is not. My lord, says Mr. Atwood, that I may use the best authority, permit me to repeat your lordship's own words in that case. No, you shall not, says he; You need not speak, for you are an author already; though you speak and write impertinently, Says Atwood, I cannot help that, my lord, if my talent be no better; but it is my duty to do my best hfor my client. Jefferies thereupou went on, inveighing against what Atwood had published; and Atwood justified it to be in defence of the English constitution, declaring that he never disowned any thing that he had written. Jefferies several times ordered him to sit down, but he still went on. My lord, says he, I have matter of law to offer for my client; and he proceeded to cite several cases, wherein it had been adjudged that words ought to be taken in the milder sense, and not to be strained by inuendos. Well, says Jefferies, when he had done, you have had your say. Mr. Williams and Mr. Phipps said nothing, for they saw it was to no purpose. At length, says Mr. Baxter himself, My lord, I think I can clearly answer all that is laid to my charge, and I shall do it briefly. The sum is contained in these few papers, to which I shall add a little by testimony. But Jefferies would not hear a word. At length the chief justice summed up the matter in a long and fulsome harangue. "Tis notoriously known," says he, "there has been a design to ruin the king and the nation. The old game has been renewed, and this has been the main incendiary. He is as modest now as can be; but time was, when no man was so ready to bind your kings in chains, and your nobles in fetters of iron; and to your tents, O Israel. Gentlemen, for God's sake don't let us be gulled twice in an age, &c." And when he concluded, he told the jury, that if they in their consciences be Mr. Rotheram sitting down, Mr. Atwood began to shew, that not one of the passages mentioned in the information ought to be strained to that sense which was put upon them by the inuendos, they being more na. tural when taken in a milder sense, nor could any one of them be applied to the prelates of the church of England without a very forced construction. To evidence this, he would have read some of the text: But Jefferies cried out, You shall not draw me into a con clergymen of the established church. He wrote a great number of books. Mr. Long of Exeter says fourscore; Dr. Calamy, one hundred and twenty; but the author of a note in the Biographia Britannica tells us he had seen an hundred and forty-five distinct treatises of Mr. Baxter's: his practical works have been published in four volumes folio. Of these his "Saint's Everlasting Rest," and his "Call to the Unconverted," are the most popular, but excepting the last, we know not of any of his works that have been reprinted for a century past, doubtless owing to his peculiar notions on points about which the orthodox dissenters are agreed. Bishop Burnet, in the History of his own times, calls him "a man of great piety;" and says, "that if he had not meddled with too many things, he would have been esteemed one of the most learned men of the age; that he had a moving and pathetical way of writ ing, and was his whole life long a man of great zeal and much simplicity, but was unhappily subtle and metaphysi→ cal in every thing." This character may be justly applied to Mr. Baxter, whose notions agreed with no church, and no sect. The consequence was, that no man was ever more the subject of controversy. Calamy says that about sixty treatises were opposed to him and his writings. What his sentiments were, will appear from the following sketch drawn up by the late Dr. Kippis. "His Theological System has been called Baxterianism, and those who embrace his sentiments in divinity, are styled Baxterians. Baxterianism strikes into a middle path between Calvinism and Arminianism, endeavouring, in some degree, though perhaps not very consistently, to unite both schemes, and to avoid the supposed errors of each. The Baxterians, we apprehend, believe in the doctrines of election, effectual Jieved he meant the bishops and clergy Baxter told my lord chief justice, who had so loaded him with reproaches, and yet continued them, that a predecessor of his had had other thoughts of him: Upon which he replied, "That there was not an honest man in England but what took him for a great knave." He had subpœnaed several clergymen, who appeared in court, but were of no use to him, through the violence, of the chief justice. The trial being over, sir Henry Ashurst led Mr. Baxter through the crowd (I mention it to his honour), and con veyed him away in his coach. calling, and other tenets of Calvinism, and, consequently, suppose that a certain number, determined upon in the divine counsels, will infallibly be saved. This they think necessary to secure the ends of Christ's interposition. But then, on the other hand, they reject the doctrine of reprobation, and admit that our blessed Lord, in a certain sense, died for all; and that such a portion of grace is allotted to every man, as renders it his own fault, if he doth not attain to eternal happiness. If he improves the common grace given to all mankind, this will be followed by that special grace which will end in his final acceptance and salvation. Whether the Baxterians are of opinion, that any, besides the elect, will actually make such a right use of common grace, as to obtain the other, and, at length, come to heaven, we cannot assuredly say. There may possibly be a difference of sentiment upon the subject, according as they approach nearer to Calvinism or to Arminianism. Mr. Baxter appears likewise to have modelled the doctrines of justification, and the perseverance of the saints, in a manner which was not agreeable to the rigid Calvinists. His distinctions upon all these heads we do not mean particularly to inquire into, as they would not be very interesting to the generality of our readers. Some foreign divines, in the last century, struck nearly into the same path; and particularly, in France, Mons. le Blanc, Mr. Cameron, and the celebrated Mons. Amyrault, For a considerable time, the non-conformist clergy in England were divided into scarcely any but two doctrinal parties, the Calvinists and the Baxterians. There were, indeed, a few direct Arminians among them, whose number was gradually increasing. Of late, since many of the dissenters have become more bold in their religious sentiments, the Baxterians among them have been less numerous. However, they are still a considerable body; and several persons are fond of the name, as a creditable one, who, we believe, go farther than Mr. Baxter did. The denomination, like other theological distinctions which have prevailed in the world, will probably, in a course of time, sink into desuetude, till it is either wholly forgotten, or the bare memory of it be only preserved in some historical production." 1 Biog. Brit.-Life by Sylvester, fol. written by himself, and containing a history of his times.-Abridgement of ditto by Calamy.-Long's Review of his life, @vo. - &c. &c. BAXTER (WILLIAM), an eminent grammarian and critic, and nephew to the preceding, was born in 16,50, at ? Lanlugan in Shropshire. His education appears to have been more irregular and neglected than that of his uncle, since at the age of eighteen, when he went to Harrow school, he could not read, nor understood one word of any language but Welch, a circumstance very extraordinary at a time when education, if given at all, was given early, and when scholars went to the universities much younger than at present. Mr. Baxter, however, must have retrieved his loss of time with zeal and assiduity, as it is certain he became a man of great learning, although we are unacquainted with the steps by which he attained this eminence, and must therefore employ the remainder of this article principally in an account of his publications. His favourite studies appear to have been antiquities and physiology. His first publication was a Latin Grammar, entitled "De Analogia, sive arte Linguæ Latina Commentariolus, &c. in usum provectioris adolescentiæ," 1679, 12mo. In 1695, . he published his well-known edition of "Anacreon," afterwards reprinted in 1710, with improvements, but those improvements are said to have been derived from Joshua Barnes's edition of 1705. Dr. Harwood calls this edition an excellent one," but, according to Harles and Fischer, Baxter has been guilty of unjustifiable alterations, and has so mutilated passages, that his temerity must excite the indignation of every sober scholar and critic. Mr. Boswell, in his Life of Dr. Johnson, mentions a copy of Baxter's edition, which his father, lord Auckinlech, had collated with the MS. belonging to the university of Leyden, accompanied by a number of notes. This copy is probably still in the library of that venerable judge. 66 In 1701 Mr. Baxter's celebrated edition of Horace made its appearance, of which it is said that a second edition was finished by him a few days before his death, and published by his son John, but not until 1725. In it there were some corrections, alterations, and additions introduced. Dr. Harwood bestows the highest praise on it, as "by far the best edition of Horace ever published." He adds, “I have read it many times through, and know its singular worth. England has not produced a more elegant or judicious critic than Baxter." Gesner, entertaining the same sentiments, when he was requested to give an edition of Horace, made Baxter's labours the foundation of his own, and published his edition, thus improved in 1752, and again in 1772, the latter still more improved by a collation of some MSS. and some very early editions which do not appear to have been consulted by Baxter. On the appearance of this last edition, Dr. Lowth, the late learned bishop of London, pronounced it the best edition of Horace ever yet delivered to the world. In 1788, Zeunius republished it, preserving all Baxter's and Gesner's observations, adding a few of his own, and availing himself of the labours of Jani and Wieland. Of this a very elegant edition was published in 1797, by Mr. Payne, of Pall Mall, printed by Mundell of Glasgow, in 8vo. But what can we say to the uncertainties of criticism? Harles and Mitscherlich do not concur with Dr. Harwood in his opinion of Baxter's edition of 1725, and they both under-rate his labours, Harles blaming him for his "ribaldry and abuse of Bentley." Baxter was certainly irritated against Bentley, probably on account of some remarks introduced by Bentley into his edition of Horace, which had been published in the interval between 1701 and the time of his death. Gesner makes all the apology that can now be offered: he thinks that Baxter might feel Bentley's contempt, than whom no man could deal out contempt more severely, or Baxter might himself be affected with somewhat of the irritability of age. In 1719, Baxter published his Dictionary of the British Antiquities, under the title of "Glossariuin Antiquitatum Britannicarum, sive Syllabus Etymologicus Antiquitatum veteris Britanniæ, atque Iberniæ, temporibus Romanorum, &c." dedicated to Dr. Mead, and with a fine head of the author by Vertue, from a picture by Highmore, when Baxter was in the sixty-ninth year of his age. The collectors will be glad to hear that in some of the earliest impressions, the painter's name is spelt Hymore. This painting was done for a club-room, where Mr. Baxter presided, in the Old Jewry, but the landlord removing, took it with him, and it has never been heard of since. It is, perhaps, of more importance to add, that this work was published by the Rev. Moses Williams, who also, in 1726, published Baxter's Glossary or Dictionary of the Roman Antiquities, under the title of "Reliquiæ Baxterianæ, sive W. Baxteri Opera Posthuma." This goes no farther than the letter A, but has a fragment of the life of the author written by |