JOHN**, one of the most eminent English writers among the Socinians, was born in 1615, at Wotton-under-Edge, in Gloucestershire, and educated in the free school of that place. Before he had completed his twentieth year, he published a translation of Virgil's Bucolics, and the first two satires of Juvenal. In 1634 he was entered at Magdalen Hall, Oxford, where he took his degree of M.A. In 1641 the magistrates of Gloucester elected him master of the free school of that city; in which office he acquitted himself to their entire satisfaction. But having expressed some peculiar opinions concerning the Trinity, he suffered various persecutions and imprisonments in the time of the Commonwealth. During one of these confinements, which lasted for several years, being reduced to great indigence, he was employed by Roger Daniel of London to correct the impression of the Septuagint Bible, which that printer was about to publish, and wished to render as accurate as possible. The general act of oblivion passed in 1651 restored him to liberty; but he was afterwards imprisoned on account of his tenets; and, at last, in October 1655, the protector banished him for life to the castle at St Mary's, one of the Scilly isles. In 1658 he was again set at liberty. But after the restoration of Charles II., he was fined in L100, each of his hearers being amerced in L20, and he was condemned to lie in prison till the fine was paid. Here the severity of his confinement brought on a disease, of which he died on the 22d of September 1662, in the forty-seventh year of his age. The Life of Biddle was published in Latin in 1682, by Mr Farrington of the Inner Temple, who represents him as possessed of extraordinary piety, charity, and humility. He had so happy a memory, that he retained word for word the whole New Testament, not only in English, but in Greek, as far as the fourth chapter of the Revelation of St John. (See also Toumin's Life of Bidde.)