ANDREW, a very ingenious metaphysical writer, the son of a merchant in Old Aberdeen, was born in 1686 or 1687, and educated in King's College there. His principal employment was that of private tutor to young gentlemen; and among his pupils were Lord Gray, Lord Blantyre, and Mr Hay of Drummedzier. About 1724 he married the daughter of a clergyman in Berwickshire. A few years afterwards, he published, in quarto, but without date, *An Inquiry into the Nature of the Human Soul*, wherein its immateriality is evinced from the principles of reason and philosophy. In 1741 he went abroad with Mr Hay, and resided several years at Utrecht, having Lord Blantyre also under his care. From this place he made excursions into Flanders, France, and Germany, his wife and family residing in the mean time chiefly at Berwick-upon-Tweed. He returned to Scotland in 1747, and resided till his death at Whittingham, in the county of East Lothian. He drew up, for the use of his pupils and his son, a piece entitled *Matho, sire Cosmoeoriae purilis, Dialogus, in quo prima elementa de mundi ordine et ornato proponuntur*, &c. This was afterwards greatly enlarged, and published in English in two volumes 8vo. In 1750 was published an appendix to his *Inquiry into the Nature of the Human Soul*, in which he endeavours to remove some difficulties which had been started against his notions of the *vis inertiae* of matter, by MacLaurin, in his *Account of Sir Isaac Newton's Philosophical Discoveries*. To this piece Mr Baxter prefixed a dedication to Mr John Wilkes, with whom he had commenced an acquaintance abroad. He died on the 23rd April 1750, after suffering for some months under a complication of severe disorders, of which the gout was the chief.

Baxter's learning and abilities are sufficiently manifested in his writings. He was also greatly esteemed for the benevolence and candour of his disposition, and had numerous friends and correspondents of eminence, among whom was Dr Warburton, bishop of Gloucester. He left many manuscripts behind him, and intended, had he lived, to complete his work upon the human soul. A second edition of it was published in two volumes 8vo in 1737, and a third in 1745.

RICHARD, an eminent Nonconformist divine, was born in the village of Rowton in Shropshire, on the 12th November 1615. His father's example fostered the principles of serious piety in his youthful mind. After receiving a competent education he was sent to London, under the patronage of Sir Henry Herbert, master of the revels; but he soon returned into the country to study divinity, and in 1638 received ordination in the Church of England; but as he conscientiously refused to subscribe to the oath of universal obedience to the doctrines of the church, he left the establishment.

When the civil war broke out he sided with the parliament, and after the battle of Naseby acted as chaplain in Colonel Whalley's regiment. Although serving under the parliament he professed himself friendly to the Church of England. In consequence of ill health he retired from his military chaplaincy in 1647. Upon the opening of the Long Parliament he was chosen vicar of Kidderminster. But in the heat of the civil wars he removed from that town to Coventry, and preached to the garrison and inhabitants. When Oliver Cromwell was made Protector, he once preached before him, but he declined complying with his measures; and even once told him in a conference that the people of England deemed the ancient monarchy a blessing.

He came to London just before the deposition of Richard Cromwell, and preached before the parliament the day previous to that on which they voted the return of Charles II. The king, on his restoration, appointed Baxter one of his chaplains in ordinary; and he assisted at the conference in the Savoy as one of the commissioners for settling the fundamentals in religion, and reforming the liturgy. He was offered the bishopric of Hereford, which he refused, desiring no higher preferment than the liberty of continuing minister of Kidderminster. This, however, was denied him, for he was not permitted to preach there above twice or thrice after the Restoration. He accordingly returned to London and preached occasionally in or about the city till the Act of Uniformity passed. In 1662 he married Margaret Charleton, daughter of Francis Charleton, Esq., of the county of Salop. This lady was a woman of great piety, entered thoroughly into her husband's views concerning religion, and cheerfully shared all his sufferings both in and out of prison. During the plague in 1665 Baxter retired into Buckinghamshire; but afterwards returned to Acton, where he staid till the act against conventicles expired, when his audience became so large that he wanted room. After this he was committed to prison; but having procured a habeas corpus, he was discharged. After the indulgence in 1672, he returned to London; but in 1682 he was seized for coming within five miles of a corporation. In 1684 he was again seized; and in the reign of James II., in 1685, he was committed prisoner to the King's Bench, and tried before the infamous Judge Jeffreys for his Paraphrase on the New Testament, which was called a "scandalous" and "sedition" book against the government. Mr Macaulay (History of England, vol. i. p. 487) gives the following graphic sketch of the character and trial of Baxter:

"About the same time a culprit, who bore very little resemblance to Oates or Dangerfield, appeared on the floor of the court of King's Bench. No eminent chief of a party has ever passed through many years of civil and religious dissension with more innocence than Richard Baxter. He belonged to the mildest and most temperate section of the Puritan body. He was a young man when the civil war broke out. He thought that the right was on the side of the houses; and he had no scruple about acting as chaplain to a regiment in the parliamentary army; but his clear and somewhat sceptical understanding, and his strong sense of justice, preserved him from all excesses. He exerted himself to check the fanatical violence of the soldiery. He condemned the proceedings of the High Court of Justice. In the days of the commonwealth he had the boldness to express, on many occasions, and once even in Cromwell's presence, love and reverence for the ancient institutions of the country. While the royal family was in exile, Baxter's life was chiefly passed at Kidderminster in the assiduous discharge of parochial duties. He heartily concurred in the Restoration, and was sincerely desirous to bring about a union between Episcopalians and Presbyterians. For, with a liberality rare in his time, he considered questions of ecclesiastical polity as of small account when compared with the great principles of Christianity, and had never, even when prelacy was most odious to the ruling powers, joined in the outcry against bishops.

"The attempt to reconcile the contending factions failed. Baxter cast in his lot with his proscribed friends, refused the mitre of Hereford, quitted the parsonage of Kidderminster, and gave himself up almost wholly to study. His theological writings, though too moderate to be pleasing to the bigots of any party, had an immense reputation. Zealous churchmen called him a Roundhead; and many Nonconformists accused him of Erastianism and Arminianism. But the integrity of his heart, the purity of his life, the vigour of his faculties, and the extent of his attainments, were acknowledged by the best and wisest men of every persuasion. His political opinions, in spite of the oppression which he and his brethren had suffered, were moderate. He was friendly to that small party which was hated by both whigs and tories. He could not, he said, join in cursing the Trimmers, when he remembered who it was that had blessed the Peacemakers.

"In a commentary on the New Testament he had complained, with some bitterness, of the persecution which the dissenters suffered. That men who, for not using the prayer-book, had been driven from their homes, stripped of their property, and locked up in dungeons, should dare to utter a murmur, was then thought a high crime against the state and the church. Roger Lestrange, the champion of the government, and the oracle of the clergy, sounded the note of war in the Observer. An information was filed. Baxter begged that he might be allowed some time to prepare for his defence. It was on the day on which Oates was pilloried in Palace Yard that the illustrious chief of the Puritans, oppressed by age and infirmities, came to Westminster Hall to make this request. Jeffreys burst into a storm of rage, 'Not a minute,' he cried, 'to save his life. I can deal with saints as well as with sinners. There stands Oates on one side of the pillory; and if Baxter stood on the other, the two greatest rogues in the kingdom would stand together.'

"When the trial came on at Guildhall, a crowd of those who loved and honoured Baxter filled the court. At his side stood Doctor William Bates, one of the most eminent of the Nonconformist divines. Two whig barristers of great note, Pollexfen and Wallop, appeared for the defendant. Pollexfen had scarce begun his address to the jury, when the chief justice broke forth: 'Pollexfen, I know you well. I will set a mark on you. You are the patron of the faction. This is an old rogue, a schismatical knave, a hypocritical villain. He hates the liturgy. He would have nothing but longwinded cant without book?' and then his lordship turned up his eyes, clasped his hands, and began to sing through his nose, in imitation of what he supposed to be Baxter's style of praying, 'Lord, we are thy people, thy peculiar people, thy dear people.' Pollexfen gently reminded the court that His late Majesty had thought Baxter deserving of a bishopric. 'And what ailed the old blockhead then,' cried Jeffreys, 'that he did not take it?' His fury now rose almost to madness. He called Baxter a dog, and swore that it would be no more than justice to whip such a villain through the whole city. Wallop interposed, but fared no better than his leader. 'You are in all these dirty causes, Mr Wallap,' said the judge. 'Gentlemen of the long robe ought to be ashamed to assist such factious knaves.' The advocate made another attempt to obtain a hearing, but to no purpose. 'If you do not know your duty,' said Jeffreys, 'I will teach it you.' Wallop sat down; and Baxter himself attempted to put in a word. But the chief justice drowned all expostulation in a torrent of ribaldry and inventive, mingled with scraps of Hudibras. 'My Lord,' said the old man, 'I have been much blamed by dissenters for speaking respectfully of bishops.' 'Baxter for bishops!' cried the judge, 'that's a merry conceit indeed. I know what you mean by bishops—rascals like yourself, Kidderminster bishops, factious snivelling Presbyterians?' Again Baxter essayed to speak, and again Jeffreys bellowed, 'Richard! Richard! dost thou think we will let thee poison the court? Richard! thou art an old knave. Thou hast written books enough to load a cart, and every book as full of sedition as an egg is full of meat. By the grace of God, I'll look after thee. I see a great many of your brotherhood waiting to know what will befall their mighty Don. And there,' he continued, fixing his savage eyes on Bates, 'there is a doctor of the party at your elbow. But, by the grace of God Almighty, I will crush you all!' Baxter held his peace. But one of the junior counsel for the defence made a last effort, and undertook to show that the words of which complaint was made would not bear the construction put on them by the information. With this view he began to read the context. In a moment he was roared down; 'You shan't turn the court into a conventicle.' The noise of weeping was heard from some of those who surrounded Baxter. 'Snivelling calves!' said the judge. Witnesses to character were in attendance, and among them were several clergymen of the Established Church. But the chief justice would hear nothing. 'Does your lordship think,' said Baxter, 'that any jury will convict a man on such a trial as this?' 'I warrant you, Mr Baxter,' said Jeffreys; 'don't trouble yourself about that.' Jeffreys was right. The sheriffs were the tools of the government. The juries, selected by the sheriffs from among the fiercest zealots of the tory party, conferred for a moment, and returned a verdict of Guilty. 'My lord,' said Baxter, as he left the court, 'there was once a chief justice who would have treated me very differently.' He alluded to his learned and virtuous friend Sir Matthew Hale. 'There is not an honest man in England,' answered Jeffreys, 'but looks on thee as a knave.'

The sentence was, for those times, a lenient one. What passed in conference among the judges cannot be certainly known. It was believed among the Nonconformists, and is highly probable, that the chief justice was overruled by his three brethren. He proposed, it is said, that Baxter should be whipped through London at the cart's tail. The majority thought that an eminent divine, who, a quarter of a century before, had been offered a mitre, and who was now in his seventieth year, would be sufficiently punished for a few sharp words by fine and imprisonment."

Baxter continued in prison two years; but was at last discharged, and had his fine remitted by the king. He died on the 8th of December 1691, and was buried in Christ Church. His works consisted of 112 separate publications, which were collected and published in four volumes folio in 1707.