BATHURST, Ralph, M.D., uncle of the preceding, was born in the year 1620. He studied divinity in Trinity College, Oxford; but, on the breaking out of the civil war, 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. To the accomplishments of an orator, philosopher, and poet, he added an inexhaustible fund of wit. Ridicule—of which he was an absolute master—was the weapon with which he used to correct the delinquents of his college. His poetical pieces in the Musa Anglicana are excellent in their kind; besides which he wrote several poems, both in English and Latin. He died June 14, 1704, in his eighty-fourth year.