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SOUTH, ROBERT, D.I). 



SOUTH, ROBERT, D.D. 



610 



In February 1829, Sir James was elected President of the Astro- 

 nomical Society, which office, in conformity with the statutes, he held 

 for the two following years. During tbia term, as already stated, 

 the Society received its charter; and while occupying this con- 

 spicuous position, Sir James became the possessor by purchase from 

 M. Couchoix of Paris, of an object-glass of eleven inches and three- 

 quarters in diameter, of exquisite perfection and corresponding 

 power. We refraiu from entering here into the history of the series 

 of unfortunate circumstances and painful discussions, to which this 

 acquisition eventually led; it must suffice to say that, in conse- 

 quence of them, scarcely any observations made witli this beautiful 

 lens have been recorded. 



In the years 1831 and 1832 he communicated to the Royal Society 

 two papers on the extensive atmosphere of the planet Mars, which were 

 published in the 'Philosophical Transactions' for those years. 



The following communications by the subject of this notice are 

 in-eitiul in the 'Memoirs of the Royal Astronomical Society:' 'Ob- 

 servations on the best mode of examining the double or compound 

 Stars ; together with a Catalogue of those [479 in number] whose places 

 have been identified ' (produced in due preparation for the author's 

 own observations of these objects) ; 'Observations on the Collimation 

 Adjustment of a Transit Instrument,' &c. Vol. iii., ' On the Occultation 

 of 5 Piscium by the Moon; references to recorded Observations of 

 Occultations, in which peculiarities have been apparently seen, either 

 at the Moon's limb, or upon her Disk; with an Enquiry into Hypotheses 

 on the subject.' (To the interesting subject of which this paper gives 

 a general view, as then known, the results of Professor Hansen's 

 recent investigations on the structure of the moon, indicating a possible 

 constitution of her atmosphere, which might give rise to the pecu- 

 liarities in question, would appear to impart a new interest.) Vol. 

 iv., ' Observations of Cache's Comet.' Vol. v., other communications. 



For some years he communicated to the 'Annals of Philosophy,' 

 tables of the mean places of certain stars, important in practical 

 astronomy, and he is also the author of similar communications to the 

 ' Quarterly Journal of Science and the Arts,' formerly conducted by 

 Professor Brande. In addition to the British societies indicated in the 

 title of this article, Sir James South is a member of the Imperial 

 Academy of Sciences of St. Petersburg, and of the Royal Society of 

 Sciences of Brussels'. 



*JoiiN F. SOUTH, brother to Sir James, one of the surgeons of 

 St. Thomas's Hospital, sometime President of the Royal College of 

 Surgeons of England (London), is the author of a 'Description of 

 the Bones ; ' ' Dissector's Manual ; ' a valuable popular guide in cases 

 of accidental injury, entitled ' Household Surgery, or Hints on Emer- 

 gencies ; ' and of some zoological works. 



SOUTH, ROBERT, D.D., was the son of Mr. South, an eminent 

 London merchant. He was born at Hackney, in Middlesex, in 1633. 

 In 1<H8 he was a king's scholar iu the college of Westminster, at which 

 time Dr. Busby was master of the school. He read the Latin prayers 

 in the school on the day of the execution of Charles I., and prayed for 

 his majesty by name ; apparently an indication that even then he had 

 embraced those principles of attachment to the established form of 

 government in church and state, of which he was all through his long 

 life a most strenuous and able champion. In 1651 he was admitted a 

 student of Christchurch, Oxford, having been elected at the same 

 time with John Locke. In 1655, in which year he took his degree of 

 Bachelor of Arts, he wrote a copy of Latin verses for the purpose of 

 congratulating Oliver Cromwell on the peace which he had made with 

 the Dutch. Those who have reflected upon South for this compliment 

 to the Protector, need to be informed that the copy of Latin verses 

 was a university exercise of the kind which was then usually imposed 

 on bachelors of arts and undergraduates. He met with some opposition 

 to taking his degree of Master of Arts, in 1657, from Dr. John Owen, 

 who then filled the place of dean of Christchurch, and was favourable 

 to the principles of those who were then in power. In 1658 South 

 was ordained by a deprived bishop, and in 1660 he was made Uni- 

 versity orator, for which he was perhaps partly indebted to his 

 excellent sermon preached before the king's commissioners, entitled 

 the 'Scribe Instructed.' (Matth. xiii. 52.) After describing the 

 qualifications of a scribe as the result of habitual preparation, by 

 study and exercise, he takes the opportunity of observing on the 

 qualifications of the sectarists then lately in power, and this passage is 

 a good sample of the kind of warfare which he carried on to the end 

 of his life against those who dissented from the eccl siustical consti- 

 tution as established by law, and also of his style. The teachers of 

 those days, he says, " first of all seize upon eonie text, from whence 

 they draw something (which they call doctrine), and well may it be 

 said to be drawn from the words, forasmuch as it seldom naturally 

 flows or results from them. In the next place, being thus provided, 

 they branch it into several heads, perhaps twenty or thirty or upwards. 

 Whereupon for the prosecution of these, they repair to some trusty 

 concordance, which never fails them ; and by the help of that they 

 range six or seven scriptures under each head ; which scriptures they 

 prosecute one by one : first amplifying and enlarging upon one for 

 some considerable time, till they have spoiled it ; and then that being 

 done, they pass to another, which in its turn suffers accordingly. And 

 these impertinent and unpremeditated enlargements they look upon as 

 the motions, effects, and breathings of the spirit) and therefore much 



BIOQ. D1V. VOL. V. 



beyond those carnal ordinances of sense and reason, supported by 

 industry and study ; and this they call a saving way of preaching, ;u 

 it must bo confessed to be a way to save much labour, and nothing 

 el-r, that I know of." The Chancellor Clarendon made South his 

 domestic chaplain, in consideration of an oration delivered by South 

 as public orator on the occasion of Clarendon being installed chan- 

 cellor of the University of Oxford. In 1663 he was made a prebendary 

 of Westminster, and took bis degree of Doctor in Divinity ; and in 1670 

 he was made a canon of Christchurch, Oxford. 



Charles II. having appointed Lawrenca Hyde, son of the Chancellor 

 Clarendon, and afterwards Earl of Rochester, as ambassador extra- 

 ordinary to congratulate John Sobieski on being elected king of 

 Poland, the ambassador took South with him as his chaplain. South 

 had been his tutor, and Hyde was much attached to him. A long 

 letter from South, dated Danzig, December 16th, 1677, to Dr. Edward 

 Pococke, Regius Professor of Hebrew in Oxford, contains his remarks 

 on Poland : it is printed in the volume of his posthumous works. 

 This letter, from a man of South's observation and ability, is a very 

 curious and valuable historical record. He says that Sobieski spoke 

 Latin with great facility, and was acquainted with French, Italian, 

 German, and Turkish, besides his own language. Altogether the 

 doctor formed a high opinion of Sobieski'a abilities. South's remarks 

 on the ecclesiastical state and constitution of Poland are marked by his 

 usual penetration and good sense. 



Soon after his return from Poland, South was presented to the 

 rectory of Islip in Oxfordshire by the dean and chapter of Westminster. 

 He rebuilt the channel of the church, as appears from a Latin inscrip- 

 tion over the entrance; and also the parsonage-house. In 1681 he 

 preached before Charles II., being then one of his majesty's chaplains 

 in ordinary, on these words, " The lot is cast into the lap, but the dis- 

 posing of it is of the Lord." This sermon, which is a good specimen 

 of his vehement invective, contains the following singular passage, 

 which is not much in favour of the doctor's good taste, particularly 

 considering the occasion : " And who that had beheld such a bank- 

 rupt beggarly fellow as Cromwell, first entering the parliament-house 

 with a threadbare-torn cloak and greasy hat (perhaps neither of them 

 paid for), could have suspected that in the space of so few years he 

 should, by the murder of one king and the banishment of another, 

 ascend the throne." On which the king fell into a violent fit of 

 laughter, and turning to Lord Rochester, said, " Ods fish, your 

 chaplain must be a bishop, therefore put me in mind of him at the 

 next death." But the chaplain did not preach in order to please 

 those in power, or with a view to promotion in the church. He 

 would not take any preferment either during the reign of Charles or 

 James, or after the Revolution of 1688, though he was often pressed 

 to accept the highest dignities in the church. 



South strongly disapproved of all James's measures towards the 

 restoration of the Roman Catholic religion, being a most zealous 

 upholder of the Protestant Church. But he had also strong opinions 

 of the duty of submission to his lawful prince; and accordingly, when 

 the Archbishop of Canterbury and the bishops who sigued the invita- 

 tion to the Prince of Orange to come over, wanted him to do the 

 same, he replied that " His religion taught him to bear all things ; 

 and however it should please God that he should suffer, he would, by 

 the divine assistance, continue to abide by his allegiance, and use no 

 other weapons but his prayers and tears for the recovery of his 

 sovereign from the wicked and unadvised councils wherewith he was 

 entangled." On the abdication of James and the settlement of the 

 crown on the Prince and Princess of Orange, South at first made some 

 opposition, but ultimately he acknowledged the new government; yet 

 he would accept nothing, though certain persons when in power 

 offered to exert themselves in his behalf on the vacating of several of 

 the sees by the bishops who refused the oath of allegiance to King 

 William and Queen Mary. He declared " that notwithstanding he 

 himself saw nothing that was contrary to the laws of God and the 

 common practice of all nations to submit to princes in possession of 

 the throne, yet others might have their reasons for a contrary 

 opinion ; and he blessed God that he was neither so ambitious, nor iu 

 want of preferment, as for the sake of it to build his rise upon the 

 ruins of any one father of the church who, for piety, good morals, and 

 strictness of life, which every one of the deprived bishops were famed 

 for, might be said not to have left their equal." 



South did not like the Act of Toleration, and he vigorously exerted 

 himself with the commissioners appointed by the king in 1689 for a 

 union with dissenting Protestants, in behalf of the Liturgy and forms 

 of prayer, and entreated them to part with none of its ceremonies. 

 He continued to preach against dissent, exposing the insufficiency of 

 the dissenting ministers, and pouring forth upon them his inexhaustible 

 sarcasm, ridicule and contempt. One of his strongest sermons to this 

 effect was preached in the Abbey Church of Westminster in 1692, on 

 the text, " Now there are diversities of gifts, but the same spirit " 

 (1 Cor., xii. 4). His controversy with Dr. Sherlock, then dean of St. 

 Paul's, who had written a book entitled ' A Vindication of the Holy 

 and Ever-blessed Trinity,' was earned on with great power of argu- 

 ment, and infinite wit and humour, more indeed than suited the 

 solemnity of the subject. South was admitted to have the better in 

 the discussion. The king at last interposed by his royal authority, 

 by directions addressed to the archbishops and bishops, that no, 



