Mary, distinguished by her talent for poetry, was the daughter of a dissenting minister at Bath, and was born at Malinesbury in Wiltshire in 1687. She was bred a milliner, but from her childhood had a turn for poetry, and in her riper years applied herself to the study of the poets. Her poems, for which she was complimented by Mr Pope, breathe the spirit of piety and philosophy. She died in 1745, aged fifty-eight.

Dr Samuel, a learned and respectable dissenting minister, descended from ancestors who had heartily engaged in the cause of religious liberty, and suffered for the sake of conscience and nonconformity, was born at Hungerford in Berks, where his father was a minister of considerable worth and ability. Being by his literary turn destined to the ministry, he was first placed at an academy at Bridgewater, and thence removed to Gloucester under Mr Samuel Jones. Among the pupils of Mr Jones were Mr Joseph Butler, afterwards Bishop of Durham, and Mr Thomas Secker, afterwards Archbishop of Canterbury. With these eminent persons he contracted a friendship which continued to the end of their lives, notwithstanding the different views by which their conduct was afterwards directed, and the different situations in which they were placed.

Mr Chandler having finished his academical studies, began to preach about July 1714; and being soon distinguished by his talents in the pulpit, he was chosen in 1716 minister of the Presbyterian congregation at Peckham, near London, in which station he continued some years. Here he entered into the matrimonial state, and began to have an increasing family, when, by the fatal South Sea scheme of 1720, he unfortunately lost the whole fortune which he had received with his wife. His circumstances being thereby embarrassed, and his income as a minister being inadequate to his expenses, he engaged in the trade of a bookseller, and kept a shop in the Poultry, London, for about two or three years, still continuing to discharge the duties of the pastoral office. He also officiated, with the learned Dr Lardner, as joint preacher of a winter weekly evening lecture, at the meeting-house in the Old Jewry, London; in which meeting he was established as assistant preacher about the year 1725, and then as the pastor. Here, for forty years, he administered to the religious improvement of a very respectable congregation with the greatest applause; and with what diligence and application he improved the intervals of leisure which his pastoral duties allowed him for improving himself and benefiting the world, will appear from his many writings on a variety of important subjects. While he was thus laudably employed, not only the universities of Edinburgh and Aberdeen gave him, without any application, testimonies of their esteem, in diplomas, conferring on him the degree of doctor in divinity, but he also received offers of preferment from some of the governors of the established church, which he nobly declined. He had likewise the honour of being afterwards elected fellow of the Royal and Antiquarian Societies.

On the death of George II, in 1760, Dr Chandler published a sermon on that event, in which he compared King George to King David. This gave rise to a pamphlet, which was printed in the year 1761, entitled "The History of the Man after God's own Heart;" in which the author ventured to exhibit king David as an example of perfidy, lust, and cruelty, fit only to be ranked with Nero or Caligula; and complained of the insult which had been offered to the memory of the late British monarch by Dr Chandler's parallel between him and the king of Israel. This attack occasioned Dr Chandler to publish, in the following year, "A Review of the History of the Man after God's own Heart; in which the Falsehoods and Misrepresentations of the Historian are exposed and corrected." He also prepared for the press a more elaborate work, which was afterwards published in two volumes 8vo, under the following title: "A Critical History of the Life of David;" in which the principal Events are ranged in order of time; the chief objections of Mr Bayle and others against the Character of this Prince, the Scriptural Account of him, and the occurrences of his Reign, are examined and refuted; and the Psalms which refer to him explained." As this was the last, it was likewise one of the best, of Dr Chandler's productions. The greater part of the work had been printed off at the time of our author's death, which happened on the 8th May 1766, at the age