BATHURST, RALPH, M. D. an eminent physician, poet, and divine, was born in the year 1620. He studied divinity in Trinity College, Oxford; but the civil commotions ensuing, he changed the course of his studies, and applying himself to physic, took a doctor's degree in that faculty. By dint of assiduous application, he soon rose to eminence in his profession, and in the time of the commonwealth was appointed physician to the state. At the restoration, however, he quitted the practice of physic; was elected a fellow of the Royal Society, and president of his college; and, having entered into holy orders, was made chaplain to the king, and afterwards dean of Wells. Soon after, he filled the office of vice-chancellor of Oxford, and was nominated by King William and Queen Mary to the see of Bristol; but this honour he declined. His learning and talents were various. To the accomplishments of an orator, philosopher, and poet, he added an inexhaustible fund of wit, and was a facetious companion at eighty years of age. Ridicule was the weapon with which he used to correct the delinquents of his college; and he was so absolute a master of it, that he had it always at command. His poetical pieces in the Musæ Anglicanæ are excellent in their kind. He wrote several poems, both in English and Latin, and died on the 14th June 1704, in the eighty-fourth year of his age.