Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 21.djvu/64

 amples of a thoroughly good workman in his art. Gastineau also devoted a great deal of his time to teaching, both privately and at various schools. Early in life he built for himself a house, Norfolk Lodge, in Cold Harbour Lane, Camberwell, and continued to reside there until his death on 17 Jan. 1876 in his eighty-sixth year. He was then the oldest living member of the Old Society of Painters in Water-colours. He left a family, one of whom, Maria Gastineau, was also a water-colour painter of some distinction. At the South Kensington Museum there are by him ‘Penrhyn Castle’ and ‘Netley Abbey.’ Few comprehensive exhibitions of water-colour paintings have been without some example of his art. Some views in Scotland by him were published in lithography, which he seems to have occasionally practised himself. His favourite subject was scenery of a wild and romantic character.

[Art Journal, 1876, p. 106; Builder, 1876, p. 108; The Year's Art, 1885; Redgrave's Dict. of Artists; Graves's Dict. of Artists, 1760–1880.] 

GASTRELL, FRANCIS (1662–1725), bishop of Chester, born at Slapton, Northamptonshire, on 10 May 1662, and baptised the day of his birth, was the second of the two sons of Henry Gastrell of Slapton, a gentleman of property, descended from the Gastrells of Gloucestershire, by Elizabeth, daughter of Edward Bagshaw (d. 1662) [q. v.], of Morton Pinkney, Northamptonshire. The father died in early life, and left two sons and two daughters. Edward, the eldest son, inherited the family estate; Francis, the second, was in his fifteenth year admitted on the foundation at Westminster under Busby, and elected student of Christ Church, Oxford, 17 Dec. 1680. He graduated B.A. 13 June 1684, and M.A. 20 April 1687. He was ordained deacon 29 Dec. 1689, and priest 25 June 1690. On 23 June 1694 he proceeded B.D., probably because in that month he was elected preacher at Lincoln's Inn. In 1696 he published anonymously ‘Some Considerations concerning the Trinity, and the ways of managing that Controversy.’ He appears to combat Sherlock, dean of St. Paul's, more as a mediator than a partisan. The ‘Considerations’ were approved by John Scott [q. v.], author of the ‘Christian Life,’ and have been reprinted by Bishop Randolph in his ‘Enchiridion Theologicum,’ 1792. Sherlock replied in 1698, and Gastrell rejoined in a ‘Defence of the Considerations’ in the same year. In 1697 Archbishop Tenison appointed Gastrell Boyle lecturer, much to the mortification of Evelyn, who desired the reappointment of Bentley. Bentley, however, said himself that Gastrell was well fitted for the task. The Boyle lectures were published as ‘The Certainty and Necessity of Religion in general; or the first Grounds and Principles of Human Duty Established,’ 1697. In 1699 he published a continuation entitled ‘The Christian Revelation and the Necessity of believing it established; in opposition to all the Cavils and Insinuations of such as pretend to allow Natural Religion and reject the Gospel’ (2nd edition, 1703). Bishop Van Mildert quotes this book in his appendix to his own Boyle lectures, and styles Gastrell a forcible writer.

These works attracted the attention of Harley, afterwards Earl of Oxford. On 13 July 1700 Gastrell commenced D.D., and in the following year, when Harley was appointed speaker of the House of Commons, he nominated Gastrell chaplain, and in January 1702–3 he was installed canon of Christ Church. On 20 Aug. 1703 he married, at the church of St. Helen, Bishopsgate, his kinswoman, Elizabeth, only daughter of the Rev. John Mapletoft, professor of physic in Gresham College, rector of Braybrooke, Northamptonshire, and vicar of St. Lawrence, Jewry. On 19 Jan. 1704 he preached a sermon, afterwards printed, before the House of Commons upon the fast day ‘for the present war and the late dreadful tempest.’ In 1705 he contributed towards the rebuilding of Peckwater Quad at Christ Church. In 1707 he preached a sermon on religious education at the annual meeting of the charity children, the result of the movement for the education of the poor begun in 1697. In the same year (1707) his ‘Christian Institutes, or the Sincere Word of God,’ one of his most popular works, appeared. It was translated into Latin by A. Tooke, Gresham professor of geometry, 1718. Many abridgments have been published. In 1708 appeared anonymously ‘Principles of Deism truly represented’ (2nd edition, 1709), which has been attributed to Gastrell. In 1711 he was proctor in convocation for the chapter of Christ Church, and was nominated a queen's chaplain. In 1712 he published a sermon preached before the queen, and in 1714 another before the House of Lords. On 4 April 1714 he was consecrated bishop of Chester at Somerset House Chapel. He resigned the preachership of Lincoln's Inn, but was allowed to hold his canonry of Christ Church in commendam. In 1714 he published anonymously ‘Remarks upon the Scripture Doctrine of the Trinity by Dr. Samuel Clarke.’ Clarke, in his ‘Reply to Mr. Nelson,’ acknowledges the fairness and ability of his antagonist. Gastrell had in 1711 been appointed one of the commissioners for building fifty new churches