which is said to have been worse than we could wish to believe, or should choose to publish, being reported to the trustees, they determined to strike at the root of the evil by dissolving the academy.

In the following year, 1799, the institution was revived, and William Parry, M. A. of Little Baddow, Essex, was chosen tutor. A building was purchased for the academy at Wymondley, a village near Hitchin, in Hertfordshire, where it now flourishes. Mr. Burder was for a short time assistant tutor with Mr. Parry. The seminary is supported by ample funds, and since the library has been increased by the removal of the books which were in that belonging to Dr. Savage's academy, at Hoxton, it is thought to be the most valuable among the dissenters.

The dissenting academy in the west of England being dissolved at the departure of Dr. Amory to London, several persons resolved shortly after to establish a seminary, not for the ministry alone, but also for the other learned professions and for civil life. William Mackworth Praed, esq. gave a house at Exeter for the seminary, into which was removed the library of the Taunton academy, much enriched by the books of Dr. Hodge of London, who had bequeathed them to the new institution. It was opened, in 1760, under Samuel Merivale as its superintendant, who was assisted by the celebrated Micaiah Towgood. The former was removed by death 1771, He had been educated under Dr. Doddridge at Northampton, where he was born, and at the expiration of his studies had taken the charge of a congregation at Sleaford, in Lincolnshire, but removed to Exeter, on the commencement of the academy, and was chosen one of the ministers of the arian congregation in that

city, as well as tutor to the seminary. For extensive learning and refined taste, he has been praised by the first scholars, and by his pupils for the mild dignity of his character, and the fairness and perspicuity with which he treated the disputed points in theology, as well as the zeal which he displayed in the cause of truth and piety.

Mr. Towgood died, in 1792, in his ninety-second year: the infirmities of age had compelled him to relinquish his public labours ten years before. Axminster has the honour of being the birth-place of this champion of dissent. Under Mr. Grove he received his education, after which he preached fifteen years at Moreton Hampstead, and twelve at Crediton. He removed, in 1749, to Exeter, where, besides his labours in the pulpit, he gave lectures in the academy on biblical criticism, for which his learning and judgment, though not his orthodoxy, eminently qualified him. Kind and friendly in his disposition, his vivaeity and wit produced those sallies which gave interest to his lectures, and fixed them in the minds of his students. The pre-eminent polemical talents which he displayed in his letters to Mr. White have been noticed in another place. Here we can only regret that his superior powers were wasted in vain attempts to give warmth and animation to a theological system, which is essentially cold as death; presenting a melancholy warning to ministers, that the cause of dissent may find in them ardent champions, while their own souls and their flocks may be fatally injured for want of the vital flame of redeeming love.

The other tutors in this academy were men of talents and erudition. Mr. John Turner, who studied under Dr. Jennings, read lectures at Exeter on ma

:

thematics and natural philosophy. He died in 1770, and was succeeded by Thomas Jervis, who afterwards removed to London. John Hogg, another pupil of Dr. Jennings, succeeded Mr. Merivale, in 1772; he had in the preceding year removed from Sidmouth, where he had been minister since the year 1759, to preach at the Mint meeting in Exeter. Some years after, he abandoned the pulpit, for the table of the money changers, becoming a partner in a banking house. When it had existed thirty years, the academy was dissolved for want of pecuniary support.

But Thomas Kenrick, who had been first a student and then a tutor at Daventry, having succeeded Mr. Towgood in the pulpit at Exeter, was impelled by his grief for the decline of seminaries on what he termed free principles, to open his own house for such an institution. Subscriptions were procured by his influence, and a prospect of success was opening, when he was removed by a sudden death, as he was walking in the fields, near Wrexham, in August, 1804, in his forty-sixth year. The progress of this gentleman's mind shows the tendency of what are called moderate principles to arianism, and thence to socinianism on the utmost verge of deism.

The friends of evangelical doctrine among the dissenters could not be unconcerned spectators of the progress of arianism, which first diseased and then destroyed the academies of Taunton and Exeter. The congregational fund board in London, determined to establish a seminary on orthodox principles in the west of England, and selected for the tutor John Lavington, jun. minister of St. Mary Ottery, Devon. They commenced the institution by sending down four young men who had received a classical education

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at their academy in London. As the rules, by which the employment of time in the seminary was regulated, are dated 1752, this was, perhaps, the year in which it was opened, and as they are signed by twenty-three names, Mr. Lavington probably educated that number for the ministry. This good man was removed from his labours by death, in consequence of a mortification which followed the operation of bleeding in December, 1764. "He was," says his successor, "a man of excellent natural temper, extensive learning, distinguished piety, and great prudence. Well furnished for his work, he applied closely to it, and his mode of communicating knowledge was so easy, that though he kept up strict discipline in his house, and narrowly watched the moral and religious conduct of his pupils, they all loved him as a father." From the pulpit, Micaiah Towgood lamented his death in the following eulogium; "he was more pious, more learned, and more useful than us all."

After Mr. Wheeler, of Axminster, had resisted the solicitations of the London board, James Rooker, of Bridport, consented to succeed Mr. Lavington in the office of tutor. The King's-head society in London for some time allowed an exhibition for the classical education of the young men under Mr. Samuel Buncombe, Mr. Lavington's successor in the pastoral office, previously to their going to attend the lectures at Bridport. A paralytic stroke incapacitated Mr. Rooker for the duties of his office in 1779, and in the following year, which was the fiftieth of his age, he died, leaving a high reputation for superior learning

h Manuscript information, He published an Enquiry into the Nature of the Gospel Offer, and a few sermons. After his death a volume of his discourses on desertion and affliction was printed.

and ardent attachment to evangelical truth, which exposed him to much reproach from those who were fierce for moderation. Thomas Reader, minister of Taunton, succeeded to the vacant chair of this academy, in 1780. For the fourteen years during which he presided, only eighteen students were admitted; so that the reputation, or at least the extensive usefulness of the academy, declined under this tutor. Both Mr. Reader and Mr. Buncombe, who may be called the classical tutor, died in 1794. The latter had been educated in the academy under Mr. Lavington, and was most ardently attached to the deity and atonement of Jesus Christ, which afforded him peculiar satisfaction in his last moments. Mr. Reader was one of three pious ministers, the sons of eminently devout parents, who lived at Bedworth, in Warwickshire. He first went from the tuition of Mr. Kirkpatrick to settle at Weymouth, whence he removed to Newbury, and at last to preach to the extensive congregation at Paul's meeting, Taunton. Early devoted to the Redeemer, he used to pray" that his head might be filled with schemes for the divine glory, his heart with the love, and his hands with the work of God." Though exceedingly earnest as a preacher, he was not eminently successful; for he was excessively fond of expounding the prophecies and the Revelation, an exercise not the most calculated to edify a promiscuous audience. Diligence and piety, rather than eminent talents, distinguished his conduct as a tutor, and impressed their character upon his students.

Mr. Reader was followed by the present tutor, James Small, minister of Axminster, of whose qualifications for the work we, of course, cannot give a testimony. Under the patronage of the London board, he com