(Dr Glover), was of the same family with Dr Nicolas Ridley, Bishop of London, and Martyr to the Reformation. (See Ridley, Encyc.) He was born at sea, in 1702, on board the Gloucester East Indiaman; to which circumstance he was indebted for his his Christian name. He received his education at Winchester school, and thence was elected to a fellowship at New college, Oxford, where he proceeded B. C. L. April 29, 1729. In those two seminaries he cultivated an early acquaintance with the muses, and laid the foundation of those elegant and solid acquirements for which he was afterwards so eminently distinguished as a poet, an historian, and a divine. During a vacancy in 1728, he joined with four friends, viz. Mr Thomas Fletcher (afterwards Bishop of Kidder), Mr (afterwards Dr) Eyre, Mr Morrison, and Mr Jennens, in writing a tragedy called "The Fruitless Redress," each undertaking an act on a plan previously concerted. When they delivered in their several proportions at their meeting in the winter, few readers would have known that the whole was not the production of a single hand. This tragedy, which was offered to Mr Wilks, but never acted, is still in MS. with another called "Jugurtha." Dr Ridley in his youth was much addicted to theatrical performances. Midhurst, in Sussex, was the place where they were exhibited; and the company of gentlemen actors to which he belonged consisted chiefly of his coadjutors in the tragedy already mentioned. He is said to have performed the characters of Marc Antony, Jaffier, Horatio, and Monefes, with distinguished applause; a circumstance that will be readily believed by those who are no strangers to his judicious and graceful manner of speaking in the pulpit.

For great part of his life he had no other preferment than the small college living of Welton in Norfolk, and the donative of Poplar in Middlesex, where he resided. To these his college added, some years after, the donative of Romford in Essex. Between these two places the curricule of his life had (as he expressed it) rolled for some time almost perpetually upon postchaife wheels, and left him not time for even the proper studies of economy, or the necessary ones of his profession. Yet in this obscure situation he remained in possession of, and content with, domestic happiness; and was honoured with the intimate friendship of some who were not less distinguished for learning than for worth.

In 1740 and 1741 he preached "Eight Sermons at Lady Moyers Lecture," which were published in 1742; 8vo. In 1756 he declined an offer of going to Ireland as first chaplain to the Duke of Bedford; in return for which he was to have had the choice of promotion, either at Christ-church, Canterbury, Westminster, or Windsor. His modesty inducing him to leave the choice of these to his patron, the consequence was, that he obtained none of them. In 1763, he published the "Life of Bishop Ridley," in 4to, by subscription, and cleared by it as much as brought him £300. in the public funds. In the latter part of his life he had the misfortune to lose both his sons, each of them a youth of abilities. The elder, James, was author of "The Tales of the Genii," and some other literary performances. Thomas, the younger, was sent by the East India Company as a writer to Madras, where he was no sooner settled than he died of the smallpox. In 1765, Dr Ridley published his "Review of Philips's Life of Cardinal Pole;" and in 1768, in reward for his labours in this controversy, and in another which "The Confessional" produced, he was presented by Archbishop Secker to a golden prebend in the cathedral church of Salisbury (an option); the only reward he received from the great during a long, useful, and laborious life, devoted to the duties of his function. At length, worn out with infirmities, he departed this life in 1774, leaving a widow and four daughters. His epitaph, which was written by Bishop Lowth with his usual elegance, informs us, that for his merits the university of Oxford conferred upon him the degree of D.D. by diploma, which is the highest literary honour which that learned body has to bestow.