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possession, though this happened in the very height of their despair; and Ward's acquaintance rallied him upon it, telling him that they would not give him half a crown for his precentorship. But the professor knew that, let things take what turn they would, he was now safe; and that, if the king ever returned, it would be a valuable promotion, and in fact it afterwards laid the foundation of his future riches and preferment.

In 1654, both the Savilian professors performed their exercise in order to proceed doctors in divinity; and, when they were to be presented, Wallis claimed precedency. (See WALLIS.) This occasioned a dispute; which being decided in favour of Ward, who was really the senior, Wallis went out grand compounder, and by that means obtained the precedency. In 1657 he was elected principal of Jesus-college by the direction of Dr. Mansell, who had been ejected from that headship many years before; but Cromwell put in one Francis Howell, with a promise of 80%. a year to Dr. Ward, which was never paid. In 1659 he was chosen president of Trinity-college, although absolutely disqualified for the office, and was therefore obliged, at the restoration, to resign it. At that time, however, he was presented to the vicarage of St. Lawrence-Jewry: for, though he was not distinguished by his sufferings during the exile of the royal family, yet he was known to be so averse to the measures of the late times, and to be so well affected to the royal cause, that his compliances were forgiven. He was installed also, in 1660, in the precentorship of the church of Exeter. In 1661 he became fellow of the Royal Society, and dean of Exeter; and the following year was advanced to the bishopric of that church. Dr. Pope tells us, he was promoted to that see, without knowing any thing of it, by the interest of the duke of Albemarle, sir Hugh Pollard, and other gentlemen, whom he had obliged during his residence at Exeter.

In 1667 he was translated to the see of Salisbury; and, in 1671, was made chancellor of the order of the garter, being the first protestant bishop that held that office, which he procured to be annexed to the see of Salisbury, after it had been held by laymen above a hundred and fifty years. Bishop Davenant had endeavoured to procure the same, but failed, principally owing to the troubles coming on. Ward's first care, after his advancement to Salisbury, was to repair and beautify his cathedral and palace;

and then to suppress the nonconformists and their conven ticles in his diocese. This so enraged their party, that, in 1669, they forged a petition against him, under the hands of some chief clothiers; pretending, that they were persecuted, and their trade ruined: but it was made appear at the council-table that this petition was a notorious libel, and that none of those there mentioned to be persecuted and ruined, were so much as summoned into the ecclesiastical court *.

Bishop Ward was one of those unhappy persons who have the misfortune to outlive their faculties. He dated his indisposition of health from a fever in 1660, of which he was not well cured; and, the morning he was consecrated bishop of Exeter in 1662, he was so ill, that he did not imagine he should outlive the solemnity. After he was bishop of Salisbury he was seized with a dangerous scorbutical atrophy and looseness: but this was removed by riding-exercise. Yet, in course of time, melancholy and loss of memory gradually came upon him; which, joined with some difference he had with Dr. Pierce, the dean of his church, to whom he had refused an unreasonable request, and who pursued him with great virulence and malice, at length totally deprived him of all sense. He lived to the Revolution, but without knowing any thing of that event, although he subscribed in May 1688 the bishops' petition against reading king James's declaration of liberty of conscience, and died at Knightsbridge Jan. 6, 1-689, in the seventy-second year of his age. He was interred in his cathedral at Salisbury, where a monument was erected to his memory, by his nephew, Seth Ward, treasurer of the church. The bishop died unmarried. Mr. Oughtred, in the preface to his "Clavis Mathema

"Let this be said once for all, that he was no violent man, nor of a persecuting spirit, as these petitioners represented him; but if at any time he was more active than ordinary against the dissenters, it was' by express command from the Court, sometimes by letters, and sometimes given in charges by the judges of the assizes, which councils altered frequently, now in favour of the dissenters, and then again in opposition to them; as it is well known to those who lived then, and bad the least insight into public affairs. It is

true, he was for the act against conventicles, and laboured much to get it past, not without the order and direction of the greatest authority both civil and ecclesiastical, not out of enmity to the dissenters persons, as they unjustly suggested, but love to the repose and welfare of the government; for he believed if the growth of them were not timely suppressed, it would either cause a necessity of a standing army to preserve the peace, or a general toleration, which would end in popery, whither all things then had an apparent tendency." Pope's Life of Ward.

tica," calls him "a prudent, pious, and ingenious, person; admirably skilled, not only in mathematics, but also in all kinds of polite literature." Mr. Oughtred informs us, that he was the first in Cambridge who had expounded his "Clavis Mathematica," and that, at his importunate desire, he made additions to, and republished that work. Bishop Burnet says, "Ward was a man of great reach, went deep in mathematical studies, and was a very dexterous man, if not too dexterous; for his sincerity was much questioned. He had complied during the late times, and held in by taking the covenant; so he was hated by the high men as a time-server. But the lord Clarendon saw, that most of the bishops were men of merit by their sufferings, but of no great capacity for business. So he brought Ward in, as a man fit to govern the church; and Ward, to get his former errors to be forgot, went into the high notions of a severe conformity, and became the most considerable man on the bishops' bench. He was a profound statesman, but a very indifferent clergyman."

In the House of Lords he was esteemed an admirable speaker and a close reasoner, equal at least to the earl of Shaftesbury. He was a great benefactor to both his bishoprics, as by his interest the deanry of Burien, in Cornwall was annexed to the former, and the chancellorship of the garter to the latter. He was polite, hospitable, and generous and in his life-time, founded the college at Salisbury, for the reception and support of ministers' widows, and the sumptuous hospital at Buntingford, in Hertfordshire, the place of his birth. His intimate friend, Dr. Walter Pope, has given us a curious account of his life, interspersed with agreeable anecdotes of his friends. Pope's zeal and style, however, provoked a severe pamphlet from Dr. Thomas Wood, a civilian, called "An Appendix to the Life," 1679, 12mo, bound up, although rarely, with Pope's work.

Bishop Ward's works are, 1. "A Philosophical Essay towards an Eviction of the Being and Attributes of God, the Immortality of the Souls of Men, and the Truth and Authority of Scripture." Oxford, 1652, 8vo. 2. "De Cometis, ubi de Cometarum naturâ disseritur, Nova Cometarum Theoria, & novissimæ Cometæ historia proponitur. Prælectio Oxonii habita." Oxford, 1653, 4to. 3. "Inquisitio in Ismaelis Bullialdi Astronomiæ Philolaicæ fundamenta." Printed with the book "De Come

tìs." 4. "Idea Trigonometriæ demonstratæ in usum juventutis Oxon." Oxford, 1654, 4to. 5. " Vindiciæ Academiarum containing some brief Animadversions upon Mr. John Webster's Book styled The Examen of Academies." Oxford, 1654, 4to. To this book is prefixed an Epistle written to the Author by one who subscribes himself N. S. and who is supposed to be Dr. John Wilkins, those two letters being the last of both his names.

66

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6.

Appendix concerning what Mr. Hobbes and Mr. William Dell have published on the same Arguments." Printed at the end of "Vindicie Academiarum." 7. "In Thomæ Hobbii Philosophiam Exercitatio Epistolica. Ad ampliss. eruditissimumque virum D. Johannem Wilkinsium S.T.D Collegii Wadhamensis Gardianum. Cui subjungitur Appendicula ad Calumnias ab eodem Hobbio (in sex Documentis nuperrimè editis) in Authorem congestas, Responsio." Oxford, 1656, 8vo. 8. "Astronomia Geometrica, ubi methodus proponitur, qui primariorum Planetarum Astronomia, sive Elliptica, sive circularis possit Geometricè absolvi." London, 1656, 8vo. 9. Several Sermons as I. Against Resistance of lawful Powers, preached November the 5th, 1661, on Rom. xiii. 2. II. Against the Anti-scripturists, preached February the 20th 1669, on 2 Tim. iii. 16. III. Concerning the sinfulness, danger, and remedies of Infidelity, preached February the 16th, 1667, on Heb. iii. 12. London, 1670, 8vo. IV. Sermon before the House of Peers at Westminster, October the 10th, 1666, on Eccles. ii. 9. V. Sermon concerning the strangeness, frequency, and desperate consequence of Impenitency, preached April the 1st, 1666, soon after the Plague, on Revel. ix. 20. VI. Sermon against Ingratitude, on Deut. xxxii. 6. VII. An Apology for the Mysteries of the Gospel, preached February the 16th, 1672, on Rom. i. 16. Some of which Sermons having been separately printed at several times, were all published in one volume at London, 1674, 8vo. VIII. The Christian's Victory over Death, preached at the funeral of George duke of Albemarle in the Collegiate church of Westminster, April the 30th, 1670, on 1 Cor. xv. 57. London, 1670, 4to. IX. The Case of Joram, preached before the House of Peers, January the 30th, 1673, on 2 Kings vi. last verse. London, 1674, 4to.

That by which he has chiefly signalized himself, as to astronomical invention, is his celebrated approximation to

the true place of a planet, from a given mean anomaly, founded upon an hypothesis, that the motion of a planet, though it be really performed in an elliptic orbit, may yet be considered as equable as to angular velocity, or with an uniform circular motion round the upper focus of the ellipse, or that next the aphelion, as a centre. By this means he rendered the praxis of calculation much easier than any that could be used in resolving what has been commonly called Kepler's problem, in which the coequate anomaly was to be immediately investigated from the mean elliptic one. His hypothesis agrees very well with those orbits which are elliptical but in a very small degree, as that of the Earth and Venus: but in others, that are more elliptical, as those of Mercury, Mars, &c. this approxi mation stood in need of a correction, which was made by Bulliald. Both the method, and the correction, are very well explained and demonstrated, by Keill, in his Astronomy, lecture 24.

WARD (THOMAS), whom we mentioned under the article Edward Ward, as being the real author of the Hudibrastic poem called "England's Reformation," was, according to Dodd, a learned schoolmaster, who becoming a Roman catholic, in the reign of James II. published several books concerning religion. Dodd says that in these "he was so successful, that, though a layman, he was able to give diversion to some of the ablest divines of the church of England. He some time rode in the king's guards; and it was no small confusion to his adversaries, when they understood who it was they engaged with; imagining all the while, they were attacking some learned doctor of the Roman communion." After the revolution he retired into Flanders, where he died soon after. He left two children, a daughter who became a nun, and a son whom Dodd speaks of as "now (about 1742) a worthy catholic clergy

man."

The "books concerning religion" which Dodd ascribes to him, are, 1. "Monomachia; or, a duel between Dr. Tenison, pastor of St. Martin's, London, and a catholic soldier." 2. "Speculum Ecclesiasticum." 3. "The Tree of Life," taken from a large copper cut, 4." Errata's of the Protestant Bible," 1688, 4to. 5. "The controversy of

Life by Pope.-Biog. Brit.-Hutton's Dictionary.-Granger,-Ath. Ox. vol. II.-Warton's Life of Bathurst, p. 52-54, 145.

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