and educated at Eton school, whence he went in 1595 to King's college, Cambridge. He was endowed with considerable powers of mind, and by close application to study, accumulated a great fund of learning. Such was his ardour and regularity in his literary pursuits, that during his first three years, he slept only one night out of college, and for nine years never missed college prayers at halfpast five in the morning, unless when from home. It was his invariable rule to read fifteen chapters in the Bible every day, at three times. When chosen reader of logic and philosophy in the college, he was equally precise in regularity of duty and attendance. Having taken his degrees, and been admitted into orders, he was in 1608 preferred to the rectory of St. Anne's Blackfriars, London, where he became extremely popular; and having instituted a lecture on Wednesday mornings, it was frequented by many persons of the first rank. Having, however, imbibed some of the prejudices which were then so common against the church of England, he was occasionally censured, and at one time threatened with a prosecution in the Star-chamber for having become a member of a society for the purchase of impropriations; but this did not take effect, and the subsequent disturbances relieved him from any farther molestation. In 1643, he was nominated one of the assembly of divines, and took an active part in the various proceedings instituted by the then ruling powers for the reformation of the church. But when in 1648, he saw the lengths to which their reformations tended, he united with a large body of his brethren in declaring against putting the king to death. For forty-five years, says Granger, he was the laborious, the exemplary, and the much loved minister of St. Anne's Blackfriars, where none ever thought or spoke ill of him, but such as were inclined to think or speak ill of religion itself. He died Dec. 12, 1653. He appears, indeed, to have had the suffrages of all his contemporaries, and is honourably mentioned by many foreign divines. He was at one time offered the provostship of King's college, but declined it; his usual saying was, that it was his highest ambition "to go from Blackfriars to heaven." He published several pious tracts and some sermons, which bishop Wilkins classes among the most excellent of his time; but his principal work was "A Commentary on the Epistle to the Hebrews,"

1655, fol. He had also a share in the commentary on the Bible, usually called "The Assembly's Annotations." 1

GOUGE (THOMAS), son of the preceding, was born at Bow, Sept. 19, 1605, and was educated at Eton school, whence he was chosen to King's college, Cambridge, in 1626. Here, after taking his degrees, he was chosen fellow of his college, and afterwards presented with a living at Colsden near Croydon, in Surrey, where he continued about three years. In 1638, he was removed to the living of St. Sepulchre's, London, and the year after married one of the daughters of sir Robert Darcy. During a period of twenty-four years he discharged the duties of his profession with the most exemplary zeal. Besides preaching twice every Sunday, and often on week-days, he visited his flock, catechised their children, inquired into and relieved the wants of the poor, and devised plans for their employment. Such of the poor as were able to work, he employed in spinning flax and hemp, which he bought for the purpose, and paying them for their work, got it worked into cloth, which he sold, as well as he could, chiefly among his friends, bearing himself whatever loss was sustained. By this wise and humane scheme he diverted many from begging, and demonstrated to them, that by industry they might soon become independent of charity; and he thus is said to have given the hint which produced the humane and benevolent institutions of Mr. Firmin, which have been referred to in the memoir of that excellent citizen. When the act of uniformity took place, he quitted his living of St. Sepulchre's, being dissatisfied respecting the terms of conformity; but after this he forbore preaching, saying there was no need of him in London, where there were so many worthy ministers, and that he thought he might do as much or more good another way, which could give no offence. Accordingly his time was now zealously devoted to acts of beneficence and charity. He employed his own fortune, which was considerable, in relieving the wants of his poorer brethren, who, on account of their nonconformity, were deprived of their means of subsistence; and he was a successful applicant to the rich, from whom he received large sums, which were applied to that humane purpose. In 1671, he set about a plan for intro

Clarke's Lives at the end of his Martyrology.-Funeral Sermon by Jenkyn 4to.-Wood's Fasti, vol. I.

ducing knowledge and religion into the different parts of Wales, which at that period were in the most deplorable darkness. He established schools in different towns where the poor were willing that their children should be taught the elements of learning, and he undertook to pay all the expences which were incurred in the outset of the business. By degrees these schools amounted, to between three and four hundred, and they were all annually visited by Mr. Gouge, when he carefully inquired into the progress made by the young people, before whom he occasionally preached in a style adapted to their age and circumstances in life, for, being in his latter days better satisfied with the terms of conformity, he had a licence from some of the bishops to preach in Wales. With the assistance of his friends, whose purses were ever open at his command, he printed eight thousand copies of the Bible in the Welsh language; a thousand of these were distributed freely among those who could not afford to purchase them, and the rest were sent to the cities and chief towns in the principality, to be sold at reasonable rates. He procured likewise the English liturgy, the "Practice of Piety," the "Whole Duty of Man," the Church Catechism, and other practical pieces, to be printed in the Welsh language, and distributed among the poor. During the exercise of this benevolent disposition, he meddled nothing with the controversies of the times, and partook in no shape of the rancour of many of his ejected brethren against the church of England, with which he maintained communion to the last, and, as he told archbishop Tillotson, "thought himself obliged in conscience so to do." He was accustomed to say with pleasure, "that he had two livings which he would. not exchange for two of the greatest in England." These were Wales, where he travelled every year to diffuse the principles of knowledge, piety, and charity and Christ's Hospital, where he catechised and instructed the children in the fundamental principles of religion. He died suddenly Oct. 29, 1681, in the seventy-seventh year of his age. His death was regarded as a public loss. A funeral sermon was preached on the occasion by Dr. Tillotson, afterwards archbishop of Canterbury; who, at the conclusion of an animated eulogium on his piety and virtue, observes, that "all things considered, there have not, since the primitive times of Christianity, been many among the sons of men, to whom that glorious character of the Son of

God might be better applied, that "he went about doing good." And Mr. Baxter, in his Narrative of his own Life and Times, says of Mr. Gouge, "I never heard any one person, of whatever rank, sort, or sect soever, speak one word to his dishonour, or name any fault that they charged on his life or doctrine; no, not the prelatists themselves, save only that he conformed not to their impositions; and that he did so much good with so much industry." This eminent divine published a few practical pieces, of which the following may be mentioned: "The Principles of Religion explained;" "A Word to Sinners;" "Christian Directions to walk with God;" "The surest and safest Way of Thriving, viz. by Charity to the Poor;" "The Young Man's Guide through the Wilderness of this World.". These were collected in an 8vo volume in 1706, and published at London, with a fine portrait by Van der Gucht, and archbishop Tillotson's Funeral Sermon and Life of him. prefixed.'

GOUGH (RICHARD), the CAMDEN of the eighteenth century, and one of the most illustrious antiquaries England has produced, was the only son of Harry Gough, esq. of Perry-hall. This gentleman, for whom his son ever preserved a reverential affection, was born April 2, 1681, and in his eleventh year, went with his uncle sir Richard Gough, to China, where he kept his accounts. In 1707, he commanded the ship Streatham, of which his younger brother Richard was purser in 1709. He continued to command this ship till 1715, when he retired with a decent competency, and was elected a director of the East India company about 1731. In this situation, his knowledge of the company's affairs, the result of his many voyages in their service, and his zeal for their interests, joined to habitual activity and integrity, gave him great weight. He became also a representative in parliament in 1734, for the borough of Bramber, for which he sat until his death. His political career was marked by independence of spirit. Although attached to, and in the confidence of, sir Robert Walpole, he refused several offices from that minister, and yet supported him to the last. He died in 1751, and was buried in the rector's vault in St. Andrew's church, Holborn. In 1717, he purchased of the lady of sir Richard Shelley, one moiety of the Middlemore estate

Life by Tillotson, ubi supra.-Calamy.-Clarke's Lives of Sundry Eminent Persons, 1783, folio.

in Warwickshire (the other moiety of which he before possessed), which afterwards descended to his son and heir Richard, together with the property at Enfield, which he purchased in 1723. In 1719 he married Elizabeth, daughter of Morgan Hynde, esq. of London, an eminent brewer.

By this lady, who died May 27, 1774, he had an only. son, the subject of this article, who was born Oct. 21, 1735, in a large house in Winchester-street, on the site of the monastery of the Austin friars. He received the first rudiments of Latin and Greek under the tuition of one Barnewitz, a Courlander; and afterwards, on his death, was committed to the care of the rev. Roger Pickering, a dissenting minister, a man unfortunate in life, but an accomplished scholar, who died in 1755*; when Mr. Gough finished his Greek studies under Mr. Samuel Dyer, the friend of Dr. Johnson and of the contemporary literati. Under these instructors, Mr. Gough has not left us to question his proficiency, nor that early ambition to know and to communicate, which forms the instructive editor and author. At the very early age of eleven he commenced a task which would have reflected credit on any period of life, and he completed it with a perseverance of which there is probably no other instance in our literary annals. This was "The History of the Bible, translated from the French," (of an Amsterdam edition of 1700)" by R. G. junior," printed at London in 1747. Of this curious

volume, consisting of 160 sheets, in folio, his mother, delighted at such a display of laudable application, bore the expence of printing twenty-five copies, as presents to a few friends; and when completed at the press, it was marked, by way of colophon, "Done at twelve years and a half old," after which, in the copy now before us, follows, "A short Chronology of the Holy Scripture," in

*From this most accomplished, as well as learned man," says Mr. Gough in a fragment of his own memoirs, "I must acknowledge myself to have derived great advantage; and had he been left to indulge the liberality of his temper, uncontrouled by female and maternal partiality and peculiarity, I might have been forwarded in that style of life to which it was his ambition to train me, and to which I ever after wanted both the spur and

the guide." This may probably allude to some early view Mr. Gough entertained of rising in public life; and he afterwards gives hints of being long restrained and controuled in the pursuits to which he subsequently was led by inclination, and which became habitual. In another place he says, "The year 1774, by the death of my mother, made me completely master of myself."