Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 20.djvu/261

 of Hebrew, which his travels had interrupted, and became so proficient as to be deemed ‘in the opinion of learned Jews better versed in that language than any English christian of his day.’ Priestley devised in 1789 a plan for a new translation of the scriptures, and through 1790 Frend was engaged on translating the historical books of the Old Testament. He also became very intimate with Robert Robinson, the learned dissenting minister of Cambridge, who died in 1790, and he corrected the press of Robinson's posthumous volume of ‘Ecclesiastical Researches.’ In 1793 he wrote a tract, printed at St. Ives but sold at Cambridge, entitled ‘Peace and Union recommended to the Associated Bodies of Republicans and Anti-republicans,’ in which he denounced many of the existing abuses and condemned much of the liturgy of the church of England. On 4 March certain members of the senate met on the invitation of the vice-chancellor, Dr. Isaac Milner, at his lodge in Queens' College, resolved that Frend should be prosecuted in the vice-chancellor's court, and deputed a committee of five to conduct the proceedings. On 23 April a summons was issued by that official requiring Frend's presence in the law schools on 3 May to answer the charge of having violated the laws and statutes of the university by publishing the pamphlet. After several sittings and a long and able defence, the vice-chancellor and heads gave their decision on 28 May that the authorship had been proved and that Frend had offended against the statute ‘de concionibus.’ Gunning, in his ‘Reminiscences’ (i. 280–309), reprints an account of the trial, and, while condemning the tone of the pamphlet, describes the proceedings as a party move and vindicates the tract from the accusation of sedition. He adds that the vice-chancellor was biased against the accused, and that the undergraduates, among whom S. T. Coleridge was conspicuous, were unanimous in his favour. Two letters from Dr. Farmer to Dr. Parr on this trial are in Parr's ‘Works’ (i. 447–8), and in the same set (viii. 30–2) is a long letter from Frend on the treatment which Palmer of Queens', another reformer, had just received. Frend was ordered to retract and confess his error, and as he declined was ‘banished from the university’ (30 May). An appeal against the sentence followed, but it was unanimously affirmed by the delegates on 29 June, and on 26 Nov. 1795 the court of king's bench discharged a rule which Frend had obtained for restoring him to the franchises of a resident M.A. The master and fellows of Jesus College decided, on 3 April 1793, that in consequence of this pamphlet he should not be allowed to reside in the college until he could produce satisfactory proofs of good behaviour. He thereupon appealed to the visitor, but on 13 July the appeal was dismissed, nor was he more successful in his application to the king's bench for a mandamus requiring the visitor to hear and determine the appeal. In spite of these proceedings he enjoyed the emoluments of his fellowship until his marriage, and remained, while he lived, a member of his college and of the senate of the university. Many years later, in 1837, Frend furnished Crabb Robinson with some anecdotes about his trial, and said that the promoters wished to expel him from the university, but that he demanded a sight of the university roll, when on reference to the original document it was discovered that an informality existed which made his expulsion invalid. On leaving Cambridge he came to London, and maintained himself by adding the profits of teaching and writing to his fellowship. In 1806 he exerted himself actively in the formation of the Rock Life Assurance Company, to which he was appointed actuary. A severe illness in 1826 compelled him to tender his resignation, which was accepted in the ensuing year, and an annuity of 800l. per annum was conferred upon him. His health subsequently recovered, and he resumed his active life until 1840, when he was attacked by paralysis, under which he lingered with almost total loss of speech and motion, though with the ‘smallest possible decay of mind or memory.’ He died at his house, Tavistock Square, London, on 21 Feb. 1841. As a unitarian and a whig he gloried in the spread of the opinions which he advocated. All reformers, such as Burdett and Horne Tooke, were numbered among his friends, and he maintained an active correspondence with the chief supporters of radicalism. He was frequently consulted by Palmer in support of his claim for a public grant for his services in improving the transmission of letters. Frend thought that the rate of postage should be reduced to a fixed charge of 2d. or 1d., and drew up a statement to that effect which reached a member of Peel's cabinet, but nothing came of it at that time. Disinterested benevolence and chivalrous assertion of his opinions were the leading traits in his character. He had been a pupil of Paley, and among his own pupils were E. D. Clarke, the traveller, Copley (afterwards Lord Lyndhurst), and Malthus; he was himself the last of ‘the learned anti-Newtonians and a noted oppugner of all that distinguishes Algebra from Arithmetic.’ In 1808 he married a daughter of the Rev. Francis Blackburne, vicar of Brignall in Yorkshire,