JAY, WILLIAM, D.D., the author of some of the best and most widely known manuals of domestic devotion that have appeared in England in this century, was born at Tisbury in Wiltshire, May 6, 1769. His father, a mason by trade, was unable to give him any but the poorest education; and at an early age he began active life as his father's apprentice. Near the village where he was born, the author of Vattek was at this time building his splendid mansion of Fonthill Abbey. Jay had been assisting his father for an entire year in the work as an ordinary stonecutter, when he attracted the notice of Cornelius Winter, a dissenting clergyman, who occasionally preached at Tisbury. Pleased with the young mason's intelligence and piety, this benefactor persuaded him to put himself in training for the church. He was himself at the head of an academy in Marlborough, where he prepared young men for the ministry. Though his own resources were small, he undertook that his new protege should be put in the way of pursuing his theological studies without interruption. How he effected this is not exactly known. It is most likely that he interested some of his wealthiest personal friends in his new pupil. To one of them, John Thornton, the friend of Cowper and Wilberforce, and a leading member of what is known in religious history as the "Clapham Sect," he appealed for aid, and that munificent benefactor contributed liberally to the support of the poor student as he passed through his academic course. Jay, in after life, acknowledged his obligations to Winter by writing his life; a work which became one of the most popular, as it is certainly one of the best, pieces of religious biography that this century has seen. Jay left the training school of Marlborough towards the close of 1788, after three years' and a half of unbroken study. His first call was to Christian Malford where he remained for a year, and was rewarded for his services with a stipend of £35. He was then called to Hope Chapel in the Hot-Wells of Bristol, where also he remained for a year. At the end of that time he was translated to Bath, and in this town he taught, preached, and wrote, during the remainder of his life. He died December 27, 1853, in the eighty-fifth year of his age and sixty-third of his ministry.

Jay had been for some time an author before his works attracted any notice. The first work that made his name known, was his *Mutual Duties of Husbands and Wives*; and the fame which he gained by this publication was fixed and extended by the four volumes of his *Short Discourses for the Use of Families*. This work had a very large circulation in England, and a still larger in America, where the college of New Jersey honoured itself and him by sending him the diploma of D.D. Still greater, however, was the success of his morning and evening *Exercises for the Closet*, which, since it first appeared, has run through very many editions, and has found its way into nearly every English home. Like all Jay's works, these *Exercises* are earnest, homely, and strongly practical. Breathing a spirit of high and pure devotion, they are also marked by a concise neatness of diction, great aptness, and abundance of illustrations. They always keep in view the purpose they are intended to serve; and so well adapted are they to their end, that while they do not fall below the requirements of the most highly educated, they meet the wants of the least instructed minds.