of curacies he was appointed in 1868 vicar of Kennington, near Oxford, by the warden and fellows of All Souls' College. In 1873 he was presented by Mr. Gladstone with the crown living of Beverston in Gloucestershire, which he retained until his death. In June 1882 his university made him a doctor of divinity. He died rather suddenly in London on 11 April 1884 (Good Friday), and was buried in Battersea cemetery.
In his earlier years Blunt was a constant contributor to church reviews and magazines, and the author of many pamphlets and sermons. In 1855 his first volume on the 'Atonement' was published. He afterwards became a voluminous writer in the fields of theology and ecclesiastical history. His theological dictionaries collect much valuable matter in a convenient form. His 'Annotated Book of Common Prayer' is equally useful. His 'History of the English Reformation' is a solid and careful study of a critical period, and, though perhaps written from a high-church rather than a purely historical standpoint, is generally accurate and thorough. Blunt was a man of great mental and physical energy, and his close application to literary work in all probability hastened his death. The following list includes the more important works of which he was either sole author or editor:
- 'The Atonement,' 1855.
- 'Three Essays on the Reformation,' 1860.
- 'Miscellaneous Sermons,' 1860.
- 'Directorium Pastorale,' 1864.
- 'Key to the Bible,' 1865.
- 'Household Theology,' 1865.
- 'Annotated Book of Common Prayer,' 1866; revised and enlarged, 1884.
- 'Sacramental Ordinances,' 1867.
- 'History of the Reformation,' 1868.
- 'Key to Church History,' 1869.
- 'Union and Disunion,' 1870.
- 'Plain Account of the English Bible,' 1870.
- 'Dictionary of Theology,' 1870.
- 'Key to the Prayer Book,' 1871.
- 'Condition and Prospects of the Church of England,' 1871.
- 'The Book of Church Law,' 1872.
- 'Myroure of oure Ladye,' 1873.
- 'The Beginning of Miracles,' 1873.
- 'The Poverty that makes Rich,' 1873.
- 'Dictionary of Sects and Heresies,' 1874.
- 'Historical Memorials of Dursley,' 1877.
- 'Tewkesbury Cathedral,' 1877.
- 'Annotated Bible,' 1878.
- 'Companion to the New Testament,' 1881.
- 'A Companion to the Old Testament,' 1883.
- 'Key to Christian Doctrine and Practice,' 1882.
- 'Cyclopædia of Religion,' 1884; this work he was engaged upon at the time of his death.
[Communication from Mr. R. G. Blunt.]
BLUNT, JOHN JAMES (1794–1855), divine, was born in 1794 at Newcastle-under-Lyme in Staffordshire, and was educated at the grammar school of that town, of which his father, the Rev. John Blunt, was 'the very able master.' Blunt was admitted a pensioner of St. John's College, Cambridge, in 1812, was elected first Bell scholar in 1813, and in the following year gained the Browne's medal for the Latin ode. He took his B.A. degree as fifteenth wrangler in 1816, and, after having obtained a fellowship in the same year, carried off the first member's prize for a Latin essay in 1818, proceeded M.A. in 1819, and took the degree of B.D. in 1826. Blunt had been appointed one of the Worts travelling bachelors in 1818, and travelled in Italy and Sicily. His attention was especially arrested by the traces of the heathen customs still surviving in the manners of the people; and after a second visit which he paid to Italy in the years 1820-21, he published 'Vestiges of Ancient Manners and Customs discoverable in Modern Italy and Sicily,' 8vo, London, 1823, which was translated into German, but which was not reprinted in England, and is now very rare. Blunt devoted himself for many years to parochial duty at Hodnet, in Shropshire, as curate to Reginald Heber and his successor in the living. He was afterwards curate at Chetwynd. He became a contributor to the 'Quarterly Review,' to which he furnished articles on the 'Life' and 'Journals' of Bishop Heber March 1827, on the 'Works' of Milton June 1827, of Archdeacon Paley October 1828, and of Dr. Parr April 1829, and on the 'Works,' and subsequently the 'Memoirs,' October 1839, of Bishop Butler, These, with others to the number of fourteen in all, were gathered into a volume, and published, after the author's death, with the title of 'Essays contributed to the Quarterly Review,' 8vo, London, 1860. Blunt contributed to Murray's 'Family Library's 'Sketch of the Reformation in England,' 8vo, London, 1832, which was translated into French and German, and which had reached its fifteenth edition in the lifetime of the author, and double that number within two years after his death. Blunt had already published, as the substance of a course of sermons delivered at Cambridge in 1827, 'The Veracity of the Gospels and Acts of the Apostles argued from the Undesigned Coincidences to be found in them when compared (1) with each other, and (2) with Josephus,' 8vo, London, 1828, which two years afterwards was supplemented by a treatise, also adapted from previous university sermons, entitled 'The Veracity of the Five
