often show, not only that the author has read and considered the theories of others, but also that his aim is something so much higher than the display of knowledge, that he does not care to exhibit to the multitude how much he knows. His learning enables him to avoid the many sunken rocks that lie around, and thus warned and guided he looks into men's hearts and examines the course of nature, and what he finds there he describes and uses in a manner that would seem cold were it not for its extreme truthfulness. He did not wish to cover those with confusion who were in error, but rather to make the truth so clear that no one should be able to doubt of it. He always speaks with great respect of à priori reasoning, in which, however, he never indulges, thinking it, though a higher and better style of argument, one not so level to the capacities of men in general.

In private life his friends describe him as a most delightful companion, from "a delicacy of thinking, an extreme politeness, a vast knowledge of the world, and a peculiar something to be met with in no one else." His retiring modesty, which allowed him to come forward only when he had something really of value to impart, while it gives an additional charm to what we know, almost prevents the com

The same calmness seems to have distinguished him in spoken controversy. John Byrom, after relating a discussion he had with him on the respect due to authority in matters of faith, says: I wished I had Dr. Butler's temper and calmness, yet not quite, because I thought him a little too little vigorous." Byrom had maintained the absolute supremacy of authority in all conceivable cases, and perhaps Butler felt that to be equally "vigorous" on the other side would only have been to be equally mistaken. See "John Byrom's Diary," March 27th, 1737. Butler afterwards invited him to come and see him when in London.

pilation of anything like a complete biography,we know so little, where we desire to know so much.

JOSEPH BUTLER was born at Wantage, in Berkshire, on the 18th of May, in the year 1692. He was the youngest of eight children. Thomas

Butler, his father, had been a linendraper in the town, but had for some time retired from business, and then lived in a house, now still standing, called the Priory, where Joseph Butler was born. As a boy he was sent to the grammar-school at Wantage, of which the Rev. Philip Barton was then master. It is a pleasing evidence of the respect with which this teacher impressed his pupil, that some forty years afterwards, when Dean of St. Paul's, Butler presented Mr. Barton to the living of Hutton, in Essex, where he survived his patron by ten years, dying there in 1762.

Thomas Butler was a Presbyterian, and finding that his son made good progress in learning he removed him to a Dissenting Academy at Gloucester, under the charge of Mr. Samuel Jones, that he might be trained for the ministry. Jones was a man of considerable learning, and had amongst his pupils many who were afterwards famous for their attainments and success. Among these Nathaniel Lardner, whose ponderous defence of the New Testament has been the common storehouse whence Paley and so many others have drawn their chief arguments, Jeremiah Jones, who distinguished himself in the same department of controversy, and Samuel Chandler, an acute and copious theological writer, were all celebrated as Dissenting Ministers. Lardner was two years, the others but one year, younger than Butler. There were besides Lord

Bowes, Chancellor of Ireland, and Thomas Secker, ever after a firm friend of Butler's, who died Archbishop of Canterbury in the year 1768.

The state of religion in England was at this time one to call forth all the powers of those who were capable of forming an opinion upon the subject. The controversy with the Non-jurors was not over, the Bangorian controversy was beginning, infidelity was making rapid strides among the higher classes of society, while in the Church Arianism and Socinianism were gathering proselytes, and among Dissenters the Presbyterians, as we know, became, not long after, completely Unitarian. Nathaniel Lardner, who did such good service against infidelity, was a Socinian, and Dr. Samuel Clarke, who distinguished himself in another branch of the defence of Christianity, was almost, if not quite, an Arian.

Dr. Clarke was born in 1673, and in the years 1704 and 1705 he preached, and afterwards published, a series of lectures, containing his Demonstration of the Being and Attributes of God. This work was intended to crush all the atheistical' notions which were beginning to show themselves in society, and to many minds it seemed thoroughly well fitted to do so. Amongst other careful readers, Butler, who had in the meantime followed his inaster to Tewkesbury, examined every link in the "Demonstration," and found two which seemed to him defective, and they are the two which have since been generally considered the most faulty, although Butler afterwards confessed himself satisfied. The first turns upon the assertion that necessary existence implies omnipresence, and the second relates to the deduction of the unity of God from the oneness of space and time. These objections were

communicated to Dr. Clarke in a letter carried by Secker to Gloucester, and a correspondence ensued, which was appended to after editions of the "Demonstration," as the correspondence with a gentleman in Gloucestershire, so much did the learned author value the acuteness of his young opponent. Thus began an acquaintance which led to very important results.

In one of the letters from Gloucester, Butler had said, that he designed to make the pursuit of truth the business of his life, and soon he began to feel that he could not remain in the ranks of the Presbyterians. His father was very anxious to remove his scruples, and several Presbyterian Ministers were called in to confer with him, but in vain. It seems to have been in the agitation of this time of controversy that he wrote the despairing letter to Dr. Clarke, in which he says that he had left Gloucester three weeks before, and was saddened by the thought that he must give up those studies which had a direct tendency to divinity. No such fate, however, befell him, for on the 17th of March, 1714, he was entered as a commoner of Oriel College, Oxford.

While there he won the friendship and esteem of Mr. Edward Talbot, and was by him introduced to his father, Bishop Talbot, who left the See of Oxford to succeed Bishop Burnet in that of Salisbury in the year 1715, and was seven years afterwards translated to Durham.

The group of young men which gathered round Bishop Talbot at this time, and continued through life closely united, is one too remarkable to be passed over without notice. The eldest of the party was Martin Benson, at that time a Student of Christ Church, of whom it was afterwards said:" His piety, though

awfully strict, was inexpressibly amiable. It diffused such a sweetness through his temper and such a benevolence over his countenance, as none who were acquainted with him can forget. Bad nerves, bad health, and naturally bad spirits, were so totally subdued by it, that he not only seemed, but really was the happiest of men. He looked upon all that the world calls important, its pleasures, its riches, its various competitions, with a playful and goodhumoured kind of contempt; and could make persons ashamed of their follies, by a raillery that never gave pain to any human being. Of vice he always spoke with severity and detestation, but looked on the vicious with the tenderness of a pitying angel." Benson was descended from a clerical family, his father having been Rector of Cradley and his grandfather Dean of Hereford. At Oxford he was noted for his application to mathematics, and his good taste and love for the fine arts. In the year 1717, he went into Italy as tutor to Lord Pomfret, and at Florence became acquainted with George Berkeley, afterwards the famous Bishop of Cloyne, and thus Butler was introduced on their return to his great philosophical contemporary.

On

his way home Benson met at Paris with Thomas Secker, who, having shared Butler's dislike of Presbyterianism, without feeling so ready to conform to the Church, had applied himself to the study of medicine, and for that purpose was then visiting the great medical schools on the Continent. Secker was a man of considerable learning, especially as a Hebrew scholar, prudent, amiable, and devout, not perhaps so saintly as some, or so able as others of the group, but with a clear attractive style and a winning manner, that told more quickly in his favour with most men than their deeper merits. Secker