must have been all the more severe because he was sadly cramped for books in spite of his proximity to Bishop Morley's library. His family preserved a copy of Pearson 'On the Creed,' in which were eight pages neatly transcribed in his own hand, because he could not afford the few shillings requisite to purchase a new copy in the place of his own mutilated one. But never was literary industry less thrown away. Bingham has not only written an invaluable work, but he has secured for the English church the glory of supplying a serious deficiency in ecclesiastical literature. Even Romanists have been forced to confess that the 'Antiquities' is a most important addition to theological libraries, and the fact that it was translated into Latin by a German protestant (Professor Grischovius or Grischow) shows how highly it was appreciated by the reformed churches abroad. Bingham's reward was posthumous. His eldest son, Richard, was presented to the living of Havant in recognition of his father s merits, and the Bishop of London (Dr. Robert Lowth) bestowed a living on his grandson, saying: 'I venerate the memory of your grandfather. He was not rewarded as he ought to have been. I therefore give you this living as a small recompense of his great and inestimable merits.' His biographer tells us that 'his disposition was of the purest and mildest cast, and was never ruffled by the common accidents and occurrences of life.' He had every kind of wisdom but worldly wisdom. All pecuniary matters were managed bv his wife, who, we are sorry to learn, was left dependent upon charity, for she died in 1765 in Bishop Warner's College for Clergymen's Widows at Bromley. The only occupation which diverted him from his studies was the care of his parish, to which he attended conscientiously. Within a short time of his death he was busy collecting materials for a new work, and revising the 'Antiquities,' for a new edition. His second son, Joseph, was educated at the Charterhouse and Corpus College, Oxford. He was a scholar of great promise, and died of over-work at the age of 22.
The order of Bingham's works as published in his lifetime appears to have been as follows:
- 'Three Sermons on the Trinity,' 1695-7.
- 'The French Church's Apology,' &c., 1706.
- The 'Origines Ecclesiasticae,' published volume by volume at intervals between 1708 and 1722.
- 'The Scholastical History of Lay Baptism/ &c., part i. in 1712, port ii. 1714, virtually concluded by the 'Dissertation upon the 8th Canon of the Council of Nice' (1716?).
- The 'Discourse concerning the Mercy of God.' &c., about 1720.
The first collective edition of his works was published in 2 vols, folio in 1726. The misfortunes which haunted Bingham during his life pursued him after death. This edition was not so perfect as it easily might have been made; for, in her poverty, 'Mrs. Bingham was induced to sell the copyright of her late husband's writings to the booksellers, who immediately republished the whole of his works without making any alteration whatever; and though the eldest son undertook the office of correcting the press, he did not insert any of the manuscript additions which his father had prepared; he was then so young that he probably had not the opportunity of examining his father's books and papers sufficiently to discover that any such preparations for a new edition had been made' (Memoir). Bingham also died just too soon to see the commencement of a work for which he had long been anxious. In 1724 appeared the first volume of the 'Origines,' published in Latin by J. H. Grischow at Halle. The other vol umes followed in due course, and the whole appeared under the following title: 'Josephi Binghami Origines, sive Antiquitates Ecclesiasticæ. Ex Lingua Anglicana in Latinam vertit J. H. Grischovius. Accedit Pnefatio J. F. Buddiei. 10 tom. 4to. Halffi, 1724-1729.' Another edition of the same is dated 'Halse Magdeburgicae, 1751-1781.' The best edition of Bingham's full works, including the sermons on the Trinity, &c., was published by Bingham's lineal descendant in 9 vols. 8vo, 1821-9, with a short but interesting memoir prefixed to vol. i. by Bingham's great-grandson, Richard Bingham the elder [q. v.] Another edition of the above, with the quotations at length in the original languages, was published by the Rev. J. R. Pitman, 1838-40. And another edition of the same was published by the Clarendon Press, Oxford, in 10 vols., in 1855. A reprint of the 'Antiquities,' 2 vols. imp. 8vo, was issued by Bohn in 1845 and 1852. As early as 1722 'a summary of christian antiquities, abridged from Bingham's Antiquities,' entitled 'Ecclesice Primitivte Notitia,' was published in 2 vols. 8vo by A. Blackamore.
[Article in Biog. Brit., communicated by his son Richard; Life in Works (1829), by his great-grandson, who was also author of the life in Chalmers's Biog. Dict.]
BINGHAM, MARGARET, Countess of Lucan (d. 1814), amateur painter—a lady who, according to Horace Walpole, 'arrived at copying the most exquisite works of Isaac and Peter Oliver, Hoskins, and Cooper, with a genius that almost depreciates those masters when we consider that they spent their lives
