42 



exercise of the Christian virtues, under very trying circum- 

 stances, he united great learning, acumen, and knowledge 

 of the world. His literary productions are as excellent as 

 they are numerous — the greater part of them heing of a 

 moral and religious nature ;* so that he has heen deemed 

 worthy of the appellation of the " British Seneca." Perhaps, 

 however, he is better entitled to the distinction of having 

 heen the first English satirist, his ardent spirit in early 

 life having led him to embark in controversy and satirical 

 composition.f At the close of the sixteenth century, while 

 a student at Cambridge, he presented to the world a work 

 named Virgidemiarum, containing six books of satires, and 

 he claims for himself in the following lines the merit above- 

 mentioned. 



" I first adventure with fool-hardy might, 

 To tread the steps of perilous despight, 

 I first adventure — follow me who list— 

 And be the second English satirist." 



Proloffiic to Satires. 



He was likewise the author of a satirical work in Latin, 

 entitled "Mundus alter et Idem, sive Terra Australis 

 antehac semper incognita, longis itineribus Peregrini Aca- 

 demici nuperrime lustrata, auctore Mercurio Britannico."| 



This work, composed by Hall in his younger days, was 

 laid aside as a trifle when he began to devote himself 

 seriously to theology. It was published without the au- 

 thor's concurrence by Iris friend William Knight, under the 



» A complete collection of his works has been ably edited by the Rev. 

 Josiah Pratt, in ten volumes 8vo. London, 1808. 



+ See Warton's History of English Poetry, sections 44 and 45. 



J " Another world and the same — or the Southern Continent, " hitherto 

 unknown, but recently traversed and thoroughly explored by the travels of a 

 foreign Academian — by Mercurius Britaunicus." — (Illustrated with maps.) 



N.B. The epithet unknown was in perpetual use among the slovenly geo- 

 graphers and map-makers of that day. But in this case it is not inaptly 

 applied, for in our author's time, nothing was known concerning the great 

 Australasian territories, but that, according to Marco Polo and the Arab 

 travellers, a vast continent occupied all that portion of our globe lying below 

 40" of south latitude, the dimensions and extent of which do human being 

 bad as vet ascertained. 



