BAXTER, RICHARD. 



BAYARD, PIERRE DE TERRAIL. 



that be had no choice between sacrificing bis opinions or 

 quitting their communion. 



It wae expected that on the restoration of the king moderation 

 would have prevailed in the councils of the nation, and a conciliatory 

 policy have been adopted with regard to religious opinions. Some 

 indication of such a aptrit appeared in the appointment of Presbyterian 

 divines among the king's chaplains, and Baxter along with the rait 

 Many who had access to the king strenuously recommended concilia- 

 tion, and for a time their advice prevailed against the intritcues of court 

 influence. Among other measures a conference was appointed at the 

 Savoy, consisting of a certain number of Episcopalian and Presbyterian 

 divines, to devise a form of ecclesiastical government which might 

 reconcile the differences and satisfy the scruples of the contending 

 parties. Baxter and the Presbyterians were extremely desirous of 

 bringing thia commission to a successful issue ; and Baxter himself 

 drew up a reformed liturgy, which with some alterations he presented 

 at this conference. The Presbyterians would have accepted Bishop 

 Usher's scheme as a model, with any alterations which might be 

 mutually agreed upon ; but the bishops were secretly opposed to the 

 arrangement, and finally frustrated it by carrying a declaration to this 

 effect, that although all were agreed upon the ends contemplated in 

 thia commission, they disagreed about the means. Having thus 

 defeated the object of the conference, the next rtep was to sequestrate 

 the livings of those divines who had been inducted during the Pro- 

 tectorate. Oaths and subscriptions, which had been suspended while 

 there was any prospect of a union of parties, were again called for by 

 the bishops and their adherents. lu accordance with this demand a 

 law was passed in 1662, called the Act of Uniformity, so strict in its 

 requisitions upon the debatable points of ceremonial wonhip, that it 

 had the effect of banishing at once two thousand divines from the pale 

 of the English Church. Of this number was Baxter. Previous to the 

 passing of thia measure he had refused the bishopric of Hereford and 

 other preferments offered him by Lord Clarendon, asking one favour 

 only in lieu of them to be allowed to return to his beloved flock at 

 Kidderminster ; but the favour was not granted. 



On the 25th of May 1662, three months before the day on which 

 the Bartholomew Act, as the Act of Uniformity was called, from its 

 coming into operation on St Bartholomew's day, Baxter had preached 

 in London his last sermon, under a regular engagement in the church ; 

 and, finding his public duties at an end, he retired in July 1663 to 

 Acton, in Middlesex, where he employed most of his leisure in writing 

 for the press. Some of his largest works were the fruits of this seclu- 

 sion. His two most popular treatises, ' The Saints' Everlasting Rest, ' 

 and ' A Call to the Unconverted,' were published before he left Kidder- 

 minster. Several attempts were made by the ejected ministers and 

 their friends in parliament to get the rigorous restrictions against them 

 removed, but without success. The persecutions continued with 

 unabated violence. Even those who, like Baxter, disliked separation, 

 and attended the wonhip of the church, suffered penalties for having 

 morning and evening prayers at their own houses. In the midst of 

 those awful calamities, the plague and the fire, which raged with such 

 frightful devastation in two successive yean, the services of the puritan 

 diviues to the inhabitants of the metropolis were so conspicuous, that 

 the current of opinion turned in their favour, and led to new efforts 

 in thrir behalf, which ended for the time in the Indulgence granted 

 in 1672. This drew Baxter from his retirement at Totteridge, to 

 which place he had removed on the suppression of his ministry at 

 Acton. He settled again in London, and preached as a lecturer in 

 different parts of the city, but more constantly at Pinner's Hall and 

 Fetter-lane. An ineffectual attempt which he made at this time to 

 combine the Protestant interests against Papal ascendancy exposed 

 him to various misrepresentation*, to remove which he published a 

 vindication of himself in a tract entitled 'An Appeal to the Light,' 

 but without eradicating the unfavourable impressions. 



His time was now divided between writing and preaching. For a 

 while be bad regular audience in a room over St. James's market- 

 house, and at other places in London. But hi* public duties were 

 frequently suspended by those rigorous enactments to which the 

 Nonconformists wen subjected during the last two reigns of the 

 BtnarU, 



In 1482 the officers of the law bunt into his bouse, at a time when 

 be laboured under severe indisposition, with a warrant to seixe his 

 person for coming within five miles of a corporation, and would have 

 hurried him before a justice of the peace in this condition, had they 

 not been met by his phyrician, whose interference probably saved his 

 life u well as obtained his pardon. Two yean later, while his health 

 was still in a precarious state from a chronic disease, he was again 

 hsrvaed by dintrainte and penal proceedings. Still later it was his 

 bftntuas) to be on* of the unhappy victims of Jefferiaa. He was 

 apprehended on a lord chief justice's warrant, on a charge of sedition 

 and being hostile to episcopacy. The charge was founded on some 

 passages in bis ' Paraphrase of the New Testament' On the trial, 



, not content with using language the most opprobrious to the 

 piieuoer and his counsel acted the part of prosecutor as well a judge, 

 and scrupled not to gain his ends by silencing the accused, by insulting 

 his couna*!, by refusing to bear his witnesM*. and by triumphing over 

 hie Maienee. His punishment was a fine of 400 marks, to lie in prison 

 !!! it wee paid, and to be bound to his good behaviour for seven yean. 



For the non-payment of this heavy penalty be was committed to the 

 King's Bench prison, where be lay until the 26th of November in the 

 following year (1686), having been confined for nearly eighteen months. 

 His pardon wan obtained by the mediation of Lord Powis, and the 

 fine was remitted. The solitude of his prison was enlivened on this, 

 as on former occasions, by the affectionate attentions of his wife. 

 Baxter bimelf lived to see that favourable change in reference to 

 religious toleration which commenced at tho Revolution of 16S8. He 

 died on the 8th of December 1691, and was buried in Christ Church. 



The literary career of Baxter U not the least extraordinary part of his 

 history. He published a body of practical and polemical divinity 

 with a rapidity almost unequalled; the excellence of some of his 

 practical writings secured them an unexampled popularity, and thus 

 laid the foundation of a new theological system which still retains his 

 name. The catalogue of his works is not easily described. It contains 

 nearly 168 distinct publications. (See list in Orme'a ' Life,' prefixed 

 to the edition of his works, London, 1 830.) His fame chiefly rests on 

 bis two most popular works, and on his ' Methodius Theologite ' and 

 'Catholic Theology,' in which his peculiar views are embodied. Baxter 

 left behind him a ' Narrative of the most Memorable Passages of his 

 Life and Times,' which was published in a folio volume after his death 

 (1696) by his intimate friend Mr. Matthew Sylvester, under the title 

 ' lieliquim Baxterianse.' It is here that we find that review of his 

 religious opinions written in the latter part of his life, which Coleridge 

 speaks of as one of the moat remarkable pieces of writing that have 

 come down to us. 



BAXTER, WILLIAM, nephew of the celebrated Richard Baxter, 

 was born in 1650, at Laulugaii in Shropshire. His education is stated 

 to have been so entirely neglected in his early years that at the age of 

 18, when he went to the school of Harrow-on-the-Hill in Middlesex, 

 he knew not one letter in a book, nor understood one word of any 

 language but Welsh ; but he soon retrieved his lost time, and became 

 a man of great learning. He applied himself chiefly to the study of 

 antiquities and philology. 



His first publication was upon Latin grammar ' Do Analogia, sive 

 Arte Latino) Lingual Commentariolus : in usum Provectioris Ado- 

 lescentite,' 12mo, London, 1679. In 1695 he edited Anacreon, 

 ' Auacreontis Teii Carmina, Or. Lat Subjiciuntur etiam duo vetustis- 

 sima Poctrise Sapphus elegant ifsima Odaria, una cum corrections 

 Imiaci Vossii : et Theocriti Anacreonticum in mortuum Adonin," 

 12mo, London, 1695; reprinted with improvements in 1710. In 1701 

 his edition of Horace made its appearance, of which a second edition 

 was finished by him but a few days before his death, and was publislind 

 by his eon John, under the title of 'Q. Horatii Flacci Eclogto, una cum 

 acholiis perpetuis,' 8vo, London, 1725. This for a long time was con- 

 sidered the best edition of Horace which had been published in 

 England. It bore so high a character upon the continent as to be 

 reprinted by Qesner at Leipzig, with additional notes, in 1752, and 

 several times subsequently. In 1719 Baxter's ' Glossarium Antiqui- 

 tatuui Britnnnicarum ' appeared, dedicated to Dr. Richard Mead, 

 accompanied with a portrait of the author, engraved by Vertue from 

 a picture by Highmore, painted when Baxter was in his 69th year. 

 The Rev. Moses Williams aUo published Baxter's glossary of Roman 

 antiquities, containing the letter A only, under the title of ' Reliquin 

 Baxterianee, sive Willielmi Baxteri Opera posthuma : Promittitur 

 eruditi A victoria Vita) ii seipso conscriptte Fragmentum,' 8vo, London, 

 1726. 



These form the whole of Baxter's printed works. Baxter also wrote 

 some letters on subject* of antiquity, which were printed in the ' Philo- 

 sophical Transactions,' Noa. 806, 31 1, and 401 ; and in the first volume 

 of the ' Archicologia' of the Society of Antiquaries. 



Besides Latin and Greek, Baxter is allowed to have been skilled in 

 the British and Irish tongues, as well as in the Northern and Hebrew 

 languages. The greater part of his life was passed in the education 

 of youth Nichols, in his ' Literary Anecdotes,' states Baxter to have 

 kept a boarding-school at Tottenham High Cross in Middlesex ; but 

 Dr. Robinson, in the ' History of Tottenham,' says he was the master 

 of the Free Grammar school there. He was resident at Tottenham 

 before 1697, and remained there till he was chosen master of the 

 Mercers' school in London, which situation he held above twenty 

 years, but resigned it before his death. He died May 81st, 1723, and 

 was buried at Islington. 



BAYARD, PIERRE DE TERRAIL, known by the honourable 

 appellation of ' the Good Knight, without fear and without reproach ' 

 (' lo bon Chevalier, sans peur et sans reproche'), was born, in the year 

 1476, at the Chateau de Bayard in l)auphin& Almost all bis immediate 

 ancestors died on the field of battle : his great-great-grandfather fell 

 at Poictiers; his great-grandfather at Cressy; his grandfather at 

 Mnntlhery ; and his father also received many wounds in the wars of 

 Louis XL With a view to being educated for the profession of anna, 

 he was placed, when thirteen yean old, in the household of the Duke 

 of Savoy as page, in which capacity he continued for five years. Bayard, 

 when only eighteen yean of age, carried away the prize in a tournament 

 againit one of the most experienced knights in France. When he had 

 completed his eighteenth year be entered into actual service. 



In the latter end of the year 1494, Bayard accompanied Charles VIII. 

 in his expedition against Naples, and greatly distinguished himself at 

 the battle of Foruovo, fought on the 6th of July in the next year. He 



