CAMPIAN, EDMUND, a celebrated English Jesuit, born of indigent parents at London in 1540. From Christ's Hospital he removed to Oxford University, where he took a degree. He was admitted to holy orders in the English Church, and held the responsivity of the philosophical act at St Mary's Church. When at school he had been selected to make an oration before Queen Mary on her accession, and now when at college he did the same before Queen Elizabeth. On leaving college he went to Ireland, where he wrote the history of that country, and joined the Church of Rome. Betraying too great zeal in proselytizing to his new faith, he drew down on himself the suspicions of the government, and was committed to prison; but soon after escaped to the Low Countries, when he settled at Douay, and passed his novitiate as member of the Society of Jesus. After residing for a short time at Brune, Vienna, and Prague, where he taught philosophy and rhetoric, he was sent by Gregory XIII, along with Father Parsons, on a propagandist mission to England. Scarcely had he arrived in England in 1581, and entered on his duties by challenging the universities and clergy to dispute with him, when at the instance of Secretary Walsingham he was apprehended along with Parsons and two other agents at Lyford in Berks, and thrown into the Tower, on a charge of having excited the people to rebellion, and holding treasonable correspondence with the foreign powers. Having been found guilty, he was condemned to death, and executed at Tyburn, Dec. 1, 1581, with several others of his order. He is admitted to have been a man of great abilities, an eloquent orator, a subtle philosopher, and able diplomatist; and he is praised by all writers, whether Protestant or Popish, not only for his talents and acquirements, but likewise for the amiableness of his disposition. Besides the History of Ireland already mentioned, he wrote a Chronologia Universalis; Conferences at the Tower, 4to, 1583; Narratio de Divortio; Orationes; Epistola Varia; and De Imitatione Rhetorica.