Page:A new and general biographical dictionary; containing an historical and critical account of the lives and writings of the most eminent persons in every nation v1.djvu/178

 '4* A L D H E L M.
 * pomp of his language." The monkSfti authors, according

to cuftom, Jiave afcribed feveral miracles to Aldhelm ; and Sc^pT'BHt the y te!1. us > tnat > in order to P ut his virtue to trial, he ufed ent.iln.g3/ re 3 uem Jy to l a y a ^ ni g nt with a young woman, and yet without violating his chaftity. He is faid to have been the firft Englishman who ever wrote in Latin, and, as he himfelf tells us in one of his treatifes on metre, the firft who intro- duced poetryinto England : " Thefe things," fays he, < have I ! ed with much labour, but whether ufeful I know not ; " though I am confcious to myfelf I have a right to boaft as " Virgil did [A] : I firft, returning from th' Aonian hill, Will lead the Mufes to my native land." GuKMai- William of Malmefbury tells us, that the people in Aldhelm's fupra. time were half-barbarians, and little attentive to religious difcourfes : wherefore the holy man, placing himfelf upon a bridge, ufed often to flop them, and fing ballads of his own compofition : he thereby gained the favour and attention of the populace, and infenfibly mixing grave and religious things with thofe of a jocular kind, he by this means fucceeded better than he could have done by auftere gravity. A'dhelm lived in great efceern till his death, which happened AJ ay the 25th, 709. [A] Haec de metrorum generibus ct fruftuose, colle>a, quamvis mihi con- fchematibus pro militate ingenii mei fcius fum me illud Virgilianum pofle habes, multum laboriosc, nefcio fi jaftare, Primus ego in patriam mecum, modo vita fuperfit, Aonio rediens dsducam vertice Mufas. Cul. Malme/b. ibid. ALDRICH (HENRY), an eminent fcholar and divine, was fon of Henry Aldrich of Weftminfter gent, and bcrn Athen. there in 1647. He was educated at Weftminfter under the famous Bufby, and admitted of Chrift Church, Oxford, in 1662. Having been elected ftudent, he took a mafter of arts degree in April 1669; and, entering foon after into orders, he became an eminent tutor in his college. Feb- ruary 1681, he was infta'led canon of Chrift Church; and, May following, accumulated the degrees of bachelor and doctor in divinity. In the controverfy with the Papifts, un- der James II. he bore a c onfiderable part ; and Burnet ranks him among thofe eminent clergymen, who " examined all " nefs of arguing, a depth of learning, and a vivacity of
 * written concerning the kinds and meafuresof verfe,co]lect-
 * the points of Popery with a folidity of judgment, a clear-
 * c writing,