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WORDSWORTH, REV. CHRISTOPHER, D.D. 



WORDSWORTH, WILLIAM. 



803 



of the Scriptures in these last publications, denying the reality of the 

 miracles wrought by Christ, brought upon him a prosecution by the 

 attorney -general. This prosecution was stopped at the intercession 

 of Mr. Whiston. Nothing daunted, he proceeded in proclaiming his 

 views as to the allegorical character of the miracles, in ' Six Discourses 

 on the Miracles of Christ/ which were addressed to six bishops 

 Gibson, bishop of London ; Chandler, bishop of Lichficld; Smalbroko, 

 bishop of St. David's ; Hare, bishop of Chichester ; Sherlock, bishop 

 of Baugor ; and Potter, bishop of Oxford. In these discourses much 

 irony against the bishops whom he addressed, and against the clergy 

 in general, was mixed with the heterodox doctrine which they were 

 written to support ; and the tone of ridicule and banter in which the 

 miracles were treated of aggravated the offence given. Woolston was 

 again made the object of a prosecution, and having defended himself 

 on his trial, was sentenced by the court of King's Bench to a year's 

 imprisonment and a fine of 1001. At the expiration of the year, being 

 uuable to pay the fine, he continued in confinement. Attempts were 

 made by some of his friends to procure his release ; but Woolston 

 would not consent to give security not to offend again by similar 

 writings. By the assistance of a brother, an alderman of Northampton, 

 he was enabled to purchase the liberty of the rules of the King's 

 Bench, and was partly supported by him during the short remainder 

 of his life. He had lost his fellowship at Cambridge some years before 

 by non-residence. He died on the 27th of January 1733, after a 

 .very short illness. He was buried in St. George's Churchyard, 

 Southwark. 



WORDSWORTH, REV. CHISTOPHER, D.D., was born June 9, 

 1774, at Cockermouth, Cumberland. He was the youngest son of 

 John Wordsworth, and the youngest brother of William Wordsworth 

 the poet. He was educated at Hawkshead grammar-school, and at 

 Trinity College, Cambridge, where he went in 1792, and took his 

 degree of B.A. in 1796. He was elected Fellow of Trinity College, 

 October 1, 1798, and in 1799 took his degree of M.A. In 1802 he 

 published ' Six Letters to Qranville Sharp, Esq., respecting his 

 Remarks on the Uses of the Definitive Article in the Greek Text of 

 the New Testament,' 8vo, a volume which was praised by Bishop 

 Horsley and Bishop Middleton, and procured him the patronage of 

 Dr. Manners Sutton, Archbishop of Canterbury, who appointed him 

 his domestic chaplain. He married October 6, 1804, Priscilla, 

 daughter of Charles Lloyd, Esq., banker, of Birmingham, and in the 

 same year was preferred to the rectory of Ashby and Obey-with-Thirne 

 in Norfolk, whence he was promoted to the deanery of Booking, in 

 Essex, May 30, 1808. In 1809 appeared the first edition of his 

 ' Ecclesiastical Biography, or the Lives of Eminent Men connected 

 with the History of Religion in England,' 6 vols. 8vo, which was 

 reprinted in 1818, and again in 1839, with additions, in 4 vols. Svo. 

 He received by royal mandate the degree of D.D. in 1810, and in that 

 year Dr. Wordsworth published his ' Reasons for declining to become a 

 Subscriber to the British and Foreign Bible Society,' a ' Letter to Lord 

 Teignmouth,' in vindication of his ' Reasons,' and a ' Second Letter 

 to Lord Teignmouth.' In 1814 he published ' Sermons on various 

 Occasions,' 2 vols. Svo. He was appointed rector of St. Mary's, Lam- 

 beth, Surrey, and of Sundridge in Kent, April 10, 1816. Soon after- 

 wards he served as chaplain to the House of Commons. On the 26th 

 of July 1820, he was installed Master of Trinity College, Cambridge. 

 In the same year he exchanged the livings of Lambeth and Sundridge 

 for the rectory of Buxted, with Uckfield, in Sussex. In 1824 and 1828 

 he produced two elaborate volumes on the authorship of ' Icon Basi- 

 Iik6/ which he unhesitatingly ascribed to Charles I. The first volume 

 is entitled ' Who wrote \Ktav Ba<n\iK^, considered and answered,' 8vo ; 

 the second, ' King Charles the First the Author of Icon Basilik6 

 further proved, in a Letter to his Grace the Archbishop of Canter- 

 bury, in Reply to the Objections of Dr. Lingard, Mr. Todd, Mr. 

 Broughton, the Edinburgh Review, and Mr. Hallam,' Svo. Dr. 

 Wordsworth's last important literary work was his ' Christian Insti- 

 tutes,' 4 vole. Svo, 1837, designed specially for the use of students in 

 the university aud candidates for holy orders. He resigned the 

 Mastership of Trinity College in 1841, and was succeeded by the 

 present Master, Dr. Whewell. From that time he resided at Buxted, 

 where he died February 2, 1846. He was buried in Euxted Church- 

 yard. He had three sons. 1, Rev. John Wordsworth, born July 1, 

 1805, was Fellow of Trinity College, Cambridge, and died there 

 December 31, 1839. 2, Rt. Rev. Charles Wordsworth, M.A. and 

 D.C.L., graduated at Christchurch, Oxford, was second master of 

 Winchester College, and is now (1857) Bishop of the United Diocese 

 of St. Andrews, Dunkeld, and Dunblane, Scotland, to which he was 

 consecrated in 1853. 3, Rev. Christopher Wordsworth, the subject 

 of the following notice. 



WORDSWORTH, REV. CHRISTOPHER, D.D., was born about 

 1808, and is the youngest of the three sons of the late Dr. Christopher 

 Wordsworth. He studied at Trinity College, Cambridge, where, in 

 1827 he wrote the 'Druids,' a poem, which obtained the chancellor's 

 medal ; in 1828 he received the Browne's medals for the best Latin 

 ode and Greek epigram, and was again a chancellor's medallist in 1830, 

 in which year he took his degree of B.A. In 1832-33 he travelled in 

 Greece. Having graduated M.A. and taken holy orders, he was elected 

 a Fellow of Trinity College, Cambridge, and in 1836 public orator 

 in the university. In 1835 he became head-master of Harrow School, 



a situation which he retained till November 1844, when he was 

 appointed a canon of Westminster Cathedral. In 1850 he was pre- 

 ferred to the vicarage of Stanford-in-the-Vale, Berkshire. 



Dr. Wordsworth's literary works are numerous. The following list 

 comprises the most important of them, with the dates in which they 

 were successively published. ' Athens and Attica, Journal of a liesi- 

 dence there,' Svo, 1836. 'Ancient Writings copied from the Walls 

 of the City of Pompeii, with Fac-Similes,' Svo, 1838. 'Greece, Pic- 

 torial, Descriptive, and Historical,' roy, Svo. ' Sermons preached at 

 Harrow School,' Svo, 1841. 'The Correspondence of Richard Bentley, 

 D.D., Master of Trinity College, Cambridge, with Notes and Illustra- 

 tions,' 2 vols. Svo, 1842. ' Theophilus Anglicanus, or Instruction for 

 the Young Student concerning the Church, and our own Branch of it,' 

 8vo, 1843. 'Prajces Select; Prayers for Harrow School,' 18mo, 

 1843. ' Theocritus, Codicum MSS. ope recensitus et emeudatus, cum 

 Indicibus Locupletissimis,' Svo, 1844. 'Diary in France, mainly on 

 Topics concerning Education and the Church,' Svo, 1845. ' Letters 

 to M. Gondon, author of "Mouvement Religieux en Angleterre," &c., 

 on the Destructive Character of the Church of Rome both in Religion 

 and Policy,' Svo, 1847. 'Sequel to Letters to M. Gondon,' Svo, 1848. 

 ' On the Canon of the Scriptures of the Old and New Testament, and 

 on the Apocrypha, Eleven Discourses preached before the University 

 of Cambridge, being the Hulsean Lectures for the year 1847,' Svo, 1848. 

 The second edition in 1851, with an additional lecture, is entitled ' On 

 the Inspiration of the Holy Scriptures, or, on the Canon,' &c. ' Lec- 

 tures on the Apocalypse, Critical, Explanatory, and Practical, delivered 

 before the University of Cambridge, being the Hulsean Lectures for 

 the year 1848,' Svo, 1849. 'Elements of Instruction concerning the 

 Church and the Anglican Branch of it, for the Use of Young Persons,' 

 12mo, 1849. This is the 'Theophilus Anglicanus,' in an abridged 

 form. ' Occasional Sermons preached in Westminster Abbey,' 2 vols. 

 Svo, 1S50, &c. ' Memoirs of William Wordsworth, Poet-Laureate, 

 D.C.L.,' 2 vols. Svo, 1851. 'St. Hippolytus and the Church of Rome 

 in the earlier Part of the Third Century (from the newly-discovered 

 Philosophumena),' Svo, 1853. 'Remarks on M. Bunsen's Work on 

 St. Hippolytus, particularly on the Preface to his new Edition,' Svo, 

 1855. ' Babylon, or the Question examined, Is the Church of Rome 

 the Babylon of the Apocalypse,' 12mo, 3rd edit., 1856. 



WORDSWORTH, WILLIAM, was born at Cockermouth, Cumber- 

 land, on the 7th of April 1770, the second son of John Wordswoth, 

 attorn ey-at-law, and law-agent to Sir James Lowther, afterwards Earl 

 of Lonsdale, by Anne, only daughter of William Cookson, a mercer at 

 Penrith. The Wordsworths came originally from Peniston in York- 

 shire, where they had been settled from the Norman Conquest ; and 

 the name of Wordsworth's maternal grandmother was Crackanthorpe, 

 of the Crackanthorpes of Westmorland. The poet was therefore by 

 pedigree a thorough North-of-England man. He had three brothers 

 Richard, who was two years his senior, and who became a London 

 attorney, and died in 1816; John, who was nearly three years his 

 junior, and who became commander in the navy, and perished by ship- 

 wreck off Weymouth in 1805 ; and Christopher, the youngest, noticed 

 above. [WORDSWORTH, REV. CHRISTOPHER.] He had also a sister, 

 Dorothy, born between William and John. The mother of the family 

 died in 1778, when the poet was only eight years old ; the father died 

 in 1783, when the poet was but thirteen. 



Till about the time of his mother's death, Wordsworth's early life 

 was spent partly at Cockermouth and partly with his parents at Pen- 

 rith, where he attended a dame's school ; but about that time he was 

 sent, with his elder brother, to a public school at Hawkshead, in Lan- 

 cashire, whither his two younger brothers followed him. Here he 

 remained till 1787, left very much at liberty to read what he chose, 

 and to wander about in the neighbourhood. " I read," he says, " all 

 Fielding's works, ' Don Quixote,' 'Gil Bias,' and any part of Swift that 

 I liked ; ' Gulliver's Travels ' and the ' Tale of a Tub ' being both much 

 to my taste." Here also he first began to write verses, as school- 

 exercises, and to store his memory with observations of English 

 rural nature. He became a fair Latin scholar, and was taught some- 

 thing of mathematics; but, upon the whole, the acquisitions possible 

 at the school were not great. On the death of Wordsworth's father, 

 which occurred while he was still at school, it was found that the prin- 

 cipal part of his property consisted of a debt of 50002. owing to his 

 estate by Lord Lonsdale ; a considerable part of what there was 

 besides was expended in a lawsuit with a view to recover this ; but 

 enough remained, when scraped together, to complete the education 

 of the children, under the guardianship of two uncles. By them 

 Wordsworth was sent, in October 1787, to St. John's College, Cam- 

 bridge, of which college he continued a student till January 1791, 

 when he quitted Cambridge altogether, having taken his B.A. degree. 

 His recollections of his Alma Mater were by no means affectionate or 

 reverential. He says 



" I did not love, t 



Judging not ill perhaps, the timid course 



Of our scholastic studies ; could have \vished 



To sec the river flow -with ampler range 



And freer pace " 



and, in particular, he was repelled by the mechanical manner in which 

 religious forms and exercises were gone through. " Intellectually," 

 says his nephew and biographer, " he and the university were not in 





