GEORGE, a clergyman of the church of England, and author of several learned works, was born about the year 1710. He was educated at Wadham College, Oxford, and took the degree of A.M. in 1773. The first ecclesiastical preferment he obtained was that of curate of Islip, in Oxfordshire. In 1747 he published, in 8vo, some observations tending to illustrate the Book of Job. In 1750 he published two dissertations: one on the meaning of the word Kesita, mentioned in Job (chap. xlii. ver. 11); and another on the signification of the word Hermes. In 1752 he published in 8vo; at Oxford, Dissertationes dua Critico-sacrae, quarum primum explicatur, Ezeh. xii. 18, altera vero 2 Reg. x. 22. In 1775 he wrote a letter to Dr. Birch, which is preserved in the British Museum, respecting the meaning of the phrase sphera barbarica. Some time after this he undertook to publish a second edition of Dr. Hyde's Historia Religiosum veterum Persarum, eorumque Mogomorium, which was accordingly printed under his inspection and with his corrections, at the Clarendon Press at Oxford, in 4to. In 1760 Mr. Costard's extensive learning having recommended him to the notice of Lord Chancellor Northington, he obtained, by the favour of that nobleman (in June 1764), the vicarage of Twickenham, in Middlesex; in which situation he continued till his death. In 1797 he published, in one volume quarto, The History of Astronomy, with its application to Geography, History, and Chronology, and occasionally exemplified by the Globes. This work was chiefly intended for the use of students, and contains a distinct view of the several improvements made in geography and astronomy. In 1778 he published, in 8vo, A Letter to Nathaniel Brassey Halhed, Esq., containing some Remarks on his preface to the Code of Gentoo Laws. This appears to have been the last of his publications. It contains criticisms which were intended to invalidate the opinion which Mr. Halhed had conceived concerning the great antiquity of the Gentoo laws; and also arguments against a notion which had been adopted by several writers, drawn from the observation of natural phenomena, that the world is far more ancient than it is represented to be by the Hebrew chronology. Mr. Costard died on the 10th of January 1782. He was a man of uncommon learning, and eminently skilled in Grecian and oriental literature.