Advantages of Biography.
William of Wykeham.
Martin Luther.

Miles Coverdale.
Philip Melancthon.
Bernard Gilpin.
Richard Hooker.
Bishop Hough.

Sir Isaac Newton.
Sir Henry Wotton.
Countess of Pembroke.
John Evelyn.
Prince Henry.
George Herbert.
Queen Elizabeth.
Sir Francis Bacon.

The Two Dukes of Buckingham. William Mompesson.

Sir Isaac Newton.

Dr. Johnson.

His Last Days.

Gibbons the Artist.

Captain Cook.

Sir Robert Peel.

Lord Nelson.

Dr. Jenner.

Lord Exmouth.

Sir Humphry Davy.
Sir Alexander Ball.
Æsop and his Fables.
Bishop Heber.

Sir Stamford Raffles.

PHY.

THE Christian community at large owes a great debt of gratitude to the recorded examples of its purest and holiest members. Individually exhibiting the beauty and excellence of the gospel principles by which they are governed, and collectively embodying a living and substantial representation of that fulness of stature to which a disciple of Christ may attain, they grow into an exhaustless treasury of motives and inducements to holy living, and of models of Christian deportment, which diffuses its richness over the church, and counteracts the persevering endeavours of the world to debase the standard of Christian faith and holiness.

To such sources, blessed by the fertilizing influences of that Holy Spirit which works in us to will and to do, many have owed their first religious impressions, many more have been advanced and strengthened in the way of peace; and while the church lasts, and the stores of Christian example increase, still more extensive and salutary effects may be expected to flow from the lives of the servants of God.

There each member of the church, alike the pastor and the flock, may contemplate a variety of bright and shining patterns of active piety, and devoted love of God; he may behold after what manner the worthiest of his kindred men have lived and breathed the gospel. He may calmly and profitably examine the trials and temptations they endured, the armour with which they were provided, the victories they gained, and their last great triumph as more than conquerors. He may learn a lesson scarcely less instructive from the records of their weaknesses, deficiencies, and falls, which, like buoys floating over perilous shoals, in the ocean, give warning of the course in

And by the whole survey of their characters, he may be excited to renewed diligence and watchfulness, and stimulated to grow in the Christian graces of faith, hope, and charity.

There the pastor may discern the solemn views of ministerial obligation, which have been entertained by holy men, bound by the same vows to watch for souls, and the conscientious manner in which they have executed the trust committed to them. He may be present at their studies and their prayers, may observe the workings of their plans of usefulness, may sympathize in their successes and disappointments, their trials and consolations. And thus the flame that glowed within them, may kindle a spark in his own heart, and impel him to greater labour and prayer, in feeding his Master's flock, in hedging them about against the assaults of evil, and in preparing to deliver up the sheep intrusted to his care, as his joy and crown of rejoicing, in the presence of our Lord Jesus Christ at his coming.

And there the Christian bishop may trace the footsteps of those who, from the primitive times downwards, have most magnified their apostolic office by their manner of discharging its duties; who have given special attendance to reading, to exhortation, to doctrine; who have been examples of the believers, in word, in conversation, in charity, in spirit, in faith, in purity: who have taken care of the church of God, as stewards for him; labouring to render their function instrumental in the highest degree, to the spiritual efficiency of the church of which they are the responsible overseers. -From HONE's Lives of Eminent Christians.

WILLIAM OF WYKEHAM. WE hear much said of the exorbitant wealth of churchmen of former times; while the beneficial purposes to which that wealth was frequently applied are passed over in silence. The subject of this memoir is a noble instance of liberality and munificence. We do not propose to enter at any length into the private and personal history of William of Wykeham, although it is by no means destitute of interest. He was born of humble parents, at Wykeham, in Hampshire, about the year 1324, in the reign of Edward the First. He received his education through the kindness of Nicholas Uvedale, a neighbouring landholder; and in his twenty-second or twenty-third year, was received into the service of Edward the Third, at first, for the purpose of superintending the buildings then going on at Windsor Castle. Such, however, were the prudence, assiduity, and intelligence displayed by Wykeham, that he gradually advanced in the favour and confidence of the king, until, after having passed through some inferior employments, he was made, in the year 1366, in the forty-second year of his age, Bishop of Winchester, and Lord High Chancellor of England.

The latter office, however, Wykeham did not long retain. Soon after his appointment to his bishopric, he retired to the charge and superintendence of his diocese. And, although, in the troubles and disturbances which occurred in the latter days of Edward the Third, in the reign of Richard the Second, and the early part of the reign of Henry the Fourth, Wykeham was often called upon to take a share in public affairs, and never undertook them without credit to himself and advantage to the nation, yet he rather wished to devote himself to the duties of his episcopal office,

and to the execution of the great design, which he was anxiously revolving in his mind.

This design was the creation of his two Colleges, of Winchester, and New College, Oxford.

At an earlier period, the liberality of pious men had vented itself in the foundation and endowment of monasteries. These institutions, although not without their use in the dark and rude ages when they arose, were less suited to the advancing spirit of the times, and had become liable to gross abuses and corruptions. Learning, at the time of which we are now speaking, was beginning to revive; and the great demand was for institutions, not to form recluses and hermits, but men who should be qualified to take an useful part in life, and, more particularly, to fill, in an adequate manner, the office of secular priests.

This was the want which Wykeham designed to supply; a design, which he prosecuted with unwearied diligence and boundless liberality. For this purpose he founded his two Colleges. The first, that at Winchester, beside a Warden and ten Fellows, was endowed for the education of seventy poor scholars, who should be instructed in the learning suited to their years, and current in the times: the second, at Oxford, which consisted also of a Warden and seventy Fellows, was to receive the same scholars, as they advanced towards manhood, and to instruct them in Theology, Canon and Civil Law, Philosophy, Medicine, and in the various sciences most useful for the practice of social life. There was, besides, a noble establishment of clerks, choristers, and inferior officers; and the whole was endowed with funds on the noblest scale of munificence.

To this great work Wykeham devoted himself for many years. That the benefits of his design might