Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 07.djvu/314

From Wikisource
Jump to navigation Jump to search
This page has been proofread, but needs to be validated.
Burgess
308
Burgess

from his illuminated manuscripts and antiquities, the latter consisting principally of European and oriental armour.

[Transactions of the Roy. Inst. of Brit. Architects, 1881-2; Academy, 30 April 1881; Athenæum, 30 April 1881; British Architect, 29 April 1881; Builder, 30 April 1881, 10 May 1884, pp. 683, 684.]

W. W.


BURGESS, ANTHONY (fl. 1652), divine, was a son of a schoolmaster at Watford, but not related to Cornelius Burgess the minister, or John Burgess [q. v.] his predecessor at Sutton Coldfield. He entered St. John's College, Cambridge, in 1623, and became fellow of Emmanuel. Here he was a tutor of the famous John Wallis, who mentions him with respect in the autobiographical notes prefixed to Hearne's edition of 'Langtoft.' He became vicar of Sutton Coldfield, Warwickshire. During the civil war he took refuge in Coventry, and lectured the parliamentary garrison. He was a member of the Westminster Assembly. After the Restoration he was ejected from Sutton Coldfield, and lived at Tamworth. The bishop of Lichfield (Hacket) is said to have begged him to conform, declaring that he was fit to be professor at a university.

He published various separate sermons, including a funeral sermon on Thomas Blake, which Wood had not seen, but a copy of which is in the British Museum, and 1. 'Vindiciæ Legis, a Vindication of the Moral Law . . . (against Antinomians) in twenty-nine lectures at Lawrence Jury,' 1646. 2. 'The True Doctrine of Justification asserted . . . (against Arminians, &c.), in thirty lectures at Lawrence Jury,' 1648. 3. 'Spiritual Refining' (120 sermons), 1652. 4. 'Expository Sermons (145) on the 17th chapter of the Gospel according to St. John,' 1656. 5. 'The Scripture Directory ... a Practical Commentary upon the whole third chapter of the First Epistle of St. Paul to the Corinthians, to which is annexed the Godly and Natural Man's Choice, &c.,' 1659. 6. 'Doctrine of Original Sin asserted,' 1659.

[Palmer and Calamy, iii. 350; Wood's Athenæ (Bliss), iii. 432; Chronicle of Peter de Langtoft (Hearne), 1725, i. cxlviii; Sylvester's Baxter, iii. 93.]

BURGESS, DANIEL (1645–1713), presbyterian minister, was born at Staines, Middlesex, in 1645. His father, Daniel Burgess, who, after holding the livings of Staines and of Sutton Magna, Wiltshire, was appointed rector of Collingbourn Ducis, Wiltshire, through the influence of his brother Isaac Burgess, high sheriff of the county, was ejected in 1662, and was probably the author of the sermon on Eccl. xii. 1 (1660, fol.) mentioned by Watts and Allibone. Burgess was placed under Busby at Westminster School in 1654, and entered commoner of Magdalen Hall, Oxford, in 1660. He studied hard, but did not graduate, declining to conform. The statement that he took orders at Oxford needs confirmation; deacon's orders he may have had, but more probably only the license of a presbytery. Leaving the university, he acted as domestic chaplain to Foyl of Chute, Wiltshire, and afterwards to Smith of Tedworth. In 1667 Roger Boyle, first earl of Orrery, lord president of Munster, took him to Ireland, where he remained seven years. He was head master of the school founded by Lord Orrery at Charleville, co. Cork, and had pupils from the Irish nobility and gentry. He afterwards acted as chaplain to Lady Mervin, near Dublin [? Susanna, daughter of Sir William Balfour, widow of Baron Glenawley (d. April 1679), and wife of Henry Mervyn of Trelick, county Tyrone (Archdall, Lodge's Peerage of Ireland, 1789, ii. 300).] He was ordained by the Dublin presbytery. At Dublin he married. In 1674 his father's state of health took him to Marlborough; he preached there and in the neighbourhood, and was sent to Marlborough gaol. He came to London in his fortieth year (1685), and ministered to a large congregation at a hired meeting-place in Brydges Street, Covent Garden. He had influential friends; the Countess of Warwick chose him as tutor for her grandson, the future Lord Bolingbroke: in July 1688 Rotheram, one of the new barons of exchequer, took him as his chaplain on the Oxford circuit (letter in 5th Rep. of Hist. Manuscripts Commission, p. 378; Burgess is described as 'a man of extraordinary ripe parts'), and in 1695 he preached the funeral sermon for the Countess of Ranelagh. His congregation moved in 1695 to a meeting-house in Russell Court, Drury Lane, and in 1705 a meeting-house was built for him in New Court, Carey Street, Lincoln's Inn Fields. Before it was paid for differences arose in his congregation, ending in a large secession from his ministry. On 1 March 1710 the Sacheverell mob gutted Burgess's meeting-house, and made a bonfire of its pulpit and other fittings. The government offered a reward of 100l. for the apprehension of the rioters, and repaired the building. Burgess's fame as a preacher was great, and his exuberant animation was something new in the London pulpit. He was a conspicuous example of pith and vivacity at a time when a dry dignity was beginning to be exacted of preachers as a virtue. Swift, who admits his ability, unjustly taxes him with