in Hebrew. When starting on his last round of confirmations and visitations in 1813, at the age of eighty-four, he said that he preferred to die in the discharge of his duty rather than to live a little longer by neglect of it.
Madan was twice married, first to Lady Charlotte, second daughter of Charles Cornwallis, first earl Cornwallis (d. 1794, aged 68, buried in the Abbey Church at Bath), by whom he had two sons, Spencer, who is separately noticed, and William Charles, who became a colonel in the army, and a daughter (Charlotte). In 1796 the bishop married, secondly, Mary Vyse, daughter of William Vyse of Lichfield and sister of William Vyse (1741-1816), archdeacon of Coventry. Madan left no issue by his second marriage.
Madan only published, besides single sermons in 1795 (two), 1799, and 1803, 'Observations on the Question between the present Lessee of the Prebendal Estate of Sawley and the Curate of that place,' a scandalous case, 1810. There is an engraving of Madan by T. Cheesman from a picture by J. Barry.
[Cumberland's Memoirs of Himself, p. 105; Gent. Mag. 1813 pt. ii. pp. 509, 703, 1814 pt. ii. p. 99, 1815 pt. i. p. 275; Nichos's Leicestershire, iv. 760.]
MADAN, SPENCER (1758–1836), translator of Grotius, born in 1758, was the eldest son of Spencer Madan [q. v.], bishop of Peterborough, by his first wife, Lady Charlotte, second daughter of Charles, earl Cornwallis. He became a king's scholar at Westminster School in 1771, and was elected to Trinity College, Cambridge, in 1776. He obtained Sir William Browne's medal for Latin epigram in 1778, and on 11 Dec. of the same year was created M.A. In 1782 his poem ‘The Call of the Gentiles’ (Cambridge, 1782, 4to) gained the Seatonian prize. He undertook, ‘as a preparatory exercise for holy orders,’ a translation of Grotius's ‘De Veritate,’ &c., which was published in 1782 as ‘Hugo Grotius on the Truth of Christianity, translated into English’ (8vo). Other editions followed in 1792 and 1814.
Madan was curate of Wrotham, Kent (1782–3), and in 1783 became rector of Bradley Magna, Suffolk. He afterwards (1786) was presented by his uncle, the Bishop of Lichfield, to the prebend and vicarage of Tachbrook, Warwickshire, but soon exchanged the prebend for the rectory of Ibstock, Leicestershire, which he held till his death. In 1787 he was given the rectory of St. Philip's, Birmingham, and resigned the Tachbrook vicarage. He succeeded his father in 1788 as chaplain in ordinary to the king. In 1790 he became canon residentiary of Lichfield, in 1794 chancellor of the diocese of Peterborough, and in 1800 prebendary of that cathedral. While at Birmingham he promoted a subscription for the erection there of ‘a free church … for the use of the lower classes,’ and himself contributed 500l.
Madan had a controversy in 1790 with Priestley, who published ‘Familiar Letters addressed to the Inhabitants of Birmingham,’ in answer to Madan's sermon on ‘The Principal Claims of the Dissenters considered.’ Madan replied with ‘A Letter to Dr. Priestley’ [1790], 8vo. In 1809 he proceeded D.D. at Cambridge, and on resigning St. Philip's in the same year through ill-health was presented to the living of Thorpe Constantine, Staffordshire, which he held till 1824. In October 1833 he was attacked with paralysis, from which he only partially recovered. He died on 9 Oct. 1836 at Ibstock, aged 78, and was buried in a family vault at Thorpe. His children erected a tablet in Lichfield Cathedral to his memory. Madan was a kindly and courteous man. Anna Seward described him when a young man as ‘unaffected, graceful, interesting’ (Gent. Mag. 1857, pt. i. p. 206). Madan married in 1791 Henrietta, daughter of William Inge of Thorpe Constantine, and had eleven children.
[Gent. Mag. 1837, pt. i. pp. 205–7; Brit. Mus. Cat.; Welch's Alumni Westmonast. p. 406.]
MADDEN, Sir FREDERIC (1801–1873), antiquary and palæographer, was born at Portsmouth 16 Feb. 1801, and was the seventh son of William John Madden, a captain of royal marines, and nephew of General Sir George Allan Madden [q. v.] His family was of Irish extraction. From an early age he displayed a strong bias towards antiquarian and literary pursuits. He mastered Norman-French and Anglo-Saxon, languages little studied at the time, and in 1825 showed his acquaintance with the latter by collating the manuscripts of Cædmon for the university of Oxford. He was subsequently engaged, together with William Roscoe, in cataloguing the Earl of Leicester's manuscripts at Holkham, but the catalogue, though completed in eight volumes folio, remains unpublished. In 1826 he was engaged by the British Museum to assist in the preparation of the classified catalogue of the printed books, commenced under the superintendence of the Rev. T. Hartwell Horne [q. v.] He laboured for two years at this abortive undertaking, and his reports of progress are still preserved at the museum. In 1828 he obtained a position on the staff
