(Dr Benjamin), well known in the learned world for his elaborate edition of the Hebrew Bible and other valuable publications, was born at Totnes in Devonshire in the year 1718. With the rank and character of his parents we are entirely unacquainted; but it is certain they were unable to satisfy that thirst for knowledge which they could not but discover in their son. Some opportunities of early improvement must, however, have been afforded him, or (which we sometimes see) the natural vigour of his mind must have superseded the necessity of them. For in the year 1743, he wrote A Poem on the Recovery of the Hon. Mrs Eliz. Courtenay from her late dangerous Illness; and this probably recommended him to the notice of those gentlemen who afterwards sent him to Oxford and supported him there. In judging of this performance, they may be supposed to have considered not so much its intrinsic merit, as the circumstances under which it was produced. For though it might claim just praise as the fruit of youthful industry struggling with obscurity and indigence, as a Kennicott, poem it never rises above mediocrity, and generally sinks below it. But in whatever light these verses were considered, the publication of them was soon followed by such contributions as procured for the author the advantages of an academical education. In the year 1744 he entered at Wadham college; nor was it long before he distinguished himself in that particular branch of study in which he afterwards became so eminent. His two dissertations, On the Tree of Life, and The Oblations of Cain and Abel, came to a second edition so early as the year 1747, and procured him the singular honour of a bachelor's degree conferred on him gratis by the University a year before the statutable time. The dissertations were gratefully dedicated to those benefactors whose liberality had opened his way to the University, or whose kindness had made it a scene not only of manly labour, but of honourable friendship. With such merit, and such support, he was a successful candidate for a fellowship of Exeter college, and soon after his admission into that society, he distinguished himself by the publication of several occasional sermons. In the year 1753 he laid the foundation of that stupendous monument of learned industry, at which the wise and the good will gaze with admiration, when prejudice, and envy, and ingratitude, shall be dumb. This he did by publishing his first dissertation, On the State of the Printed Hebrew Text, in which he proposed to overthrow the then prevailing notion of its absolute integrity. The first blow, indeed, had been struck long before, by Cappellus, in his Critica Sacra, published after his death by his son, in 1650—a blow which Buxtorf, with all his abilities and dialectical skill, was unable to ward off. But Capellus having no opportunity of consulting MSS. though his arguments were supported by the authority of the Samaritan Pentateuch, of parallel passages, and of the ancient versions, could never absolutely prove his point. Indeed the general opinion was, that the Hebrew MSS. contained none, or at least very few and trifling variations from the printed text: and with respect to the Samaritan Pentateuch very different opinions were entertained. Those who held the Hebrew verity, of course condemned the Samaritan as corrupt in every place where it deviated from the Hebrew; and those who believed the Hebrew to be incorrect, did not think the Samaritan of sufficient authority to correct it. Besides, the Samaritan itself appeared to a very great advantage; for no Samaritan MSS. were then known, and the Pentateuch itself was condemned for those errors which ought rather to have been ascribed to the incorrectness of the editions. In this dissertation, therefore, Dr Kennicott proved that there were many Hebrew MSS. extant, which, though they had hitherto been generally supposed to agree with each other, and with the Hebrew text, yet contained many and important various readings: and that from those various readings considerable authority was derived in support of the ancient versions. He announced the existence of six Samaritan MSS. in Oxford only, by which many errors in the printed Samaritan might be removed; and he attempted to prove, that even from the Samaritan, as it was already printed, many passages in the Hebrew might undoubtedly be corrected. This work, as it was reasonable to expect, was examined with great fidelity.

(William), an author of considerable abilities, was the son of a citizen of London, and brought up, it is said, to a mechanical employment. This, however, he seems early to have abandoned; and to have devoted his talents to the cultivation of letters, by which he supported himself during the rest of a life which might be said to have passed in a state of warfare, as he was seldom without an enemy to attack or to defend himself from. He was for some time student at Leyden, where he acquired the title of J.U.D. Not long after his return to England, he figured away as a poet in Epistles Philosophical and Moral, 1759, addressed to Lorenzo; an avowed defense of infidelity, written whilst under confinement for debt, and with a declaration that he was "much less ambitious of the character of a poet than of a philosopher." From this period he became a writer by profession; and the Proteus shapes under which he appeared, it would be a fruitless attempt to trace. He was for a considerable time a writer in The Monthly Review; but quarrelling with his principal, began a New Review of his own. When our great Lexicographer's edition of Shakespeare first appeared in 1765, it was followed in a fortnight by a pamphlet, intitled, "A Review of Dr. Johnson's new Edition of Shakespeare, in which the ignorance or inattention of that editor is exposed, and the poet defended from the persecution of his commentators, 1765." This pamphlet was followed by an Examination of it, and that by a Defence in 1766; in which year he produced his pleasant comedy of Falstaff's Wedding, at first intended to have been given to the public as an original play of Shakespeare retrieved from obscurity, and is, it must be acknowledged, a happy imitation of our great dramatic bard. With the celebrated English Roscius Dr Kenrick was at one time on terms of the strictest intimacy: but took occasion to quarrel with him in print, in a mode too unmanly to be mentioned. In politics also he made himself not a little conspicuous; particularly in the dispute between his friends Wilkes and Horne. He was the original editor of The Morning Chronicle; whence being ousted for neglect, he set up a new one in opposition. He translated in a very able manner the Emilius and the Eloia of Rousseau; KEN

Rousseau; the Elements of the History of England by Milot (to injure, if possible, a translation of the same work by Mrs Brooke); and produced several dramatic performances, together with an infinite variety of publications both original and translated. To him also the public are indebted for the collection (imperfect as it is) of The Poetical Works of Robert Lloyd, M.A. 1774; 2 vols 8vo. Dr Kenrick died June 9, 1777.