Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 24.djvu/70

 taken and completed by a student of Christ Church. Hall's correspondence with Dr. Arthur Charlett [q. v.] is preserved in the Ballard collection in the Bodleian Library (xviii. 23–7). His portrait has been engraved by Vertue.

[Gent. Mag. 1734 553, 1800 pt.ii. 1031–2; Chalmers's Biog. Dict. xvii. 45–6, xviii. 281; Oxford Graduates (1851), p. 285; Evans's Cat. of Engraved Portraits, ii. 164.]  HALL, ARCHIBALD (1736–1778), divine, was born in the parish of Penicuick, Midlothian, in 1736. He learned the rudiments of the Latin, Greek, and Hebrew languages from John Brown (1722–1787) [q. v.] of Haddington, completed his arts curriculum at the university of Edinburgh, and studied divinity under the Rev. James Fisher of Glasgow. He was licensed to preach in 1758, and soon after was ordained minister of the associate congregation at Torphichen in West Lothian. In 1765 he became minister of the Secession church in Well Street, London, and in that capacity he exercised a widespread and beneficial influence, not only over the Scotsmen who chiefly composed his congregation, but also over the whole neighbouring community. He died 6 May 1778 in his forty-second year, and was buried in Bunhill Fields. His works are distinguished by practical good sense and clear energetic diction.

Hall wrote: 1. ‘An humble Attempt to Exhibit a Scriptural view … of the Gospel Church,’ Edinburgh, 1769, 2nd ed. London, 1795. 2. ‘Church Fellowship. Being an essay on … the communion of Saints in the Gospel Church,’ Edinburgh, 1770. 3. ‘An Impartial Survey of the controversy about the religious clause of some Burgess oaths.’ Summarised by McKerrow, pp. 212–14. It called forth a letter in reply, published under the pseudonym of Corydon, in 1772. 4. ‘Grace and Holiness, viz. Redemption by Christ without Law and Believer's death to the Law. Being the substance of two Discourses,’ London, 1777; reprinted by John Brown (1754–1832) [q. v.] of Whitburn, in ‘The Evangelical Preacher,’ vol. i. 1802. 5. ‘The Life of Faith exhibited. Being a selection of Private Letters,’ 1828, edited, with a memoir, by John Brown. Dr. Peddie is also said to have edited a treatise by Hall on the ‘Faith and Influence of the Gospel.’

[McKerrow's Hist. of the Secession Church, pp. 212–14, 872–4; Brown's Memoir; Brit. Mus. Cat.]  HALL, ARTHUR (fl. 1563–1604), translator and member of parliament, born at Grantham about 1540, was son of John Hall of Grantham, Lincolnshire, who was surveyor of Calais. On his father's death in his early youth, he became a ward of Sir William Cecil, and was brought up in Cecil's house with Cecil's son Thomas, afterwards earl of Exeter. He seems to have studied for a short time at St. John's College, Cambridge, but took no degree. Roger (whom he miscalls Richard) Ascham encouraged him in his studies, and he became proficient in classics. About 1563 he began a translation of Homer into English, but did not complete it for many years. Subsequently he travelled in Italy and southeastern Europe. In January 1568-9 he returned to England from Constantinople.

Hall seems to have been a well-to-do country gentleman, and in 1582 inherited much property, on the death of a kinsman at Grantham, but he apparently lived in London,, and gained notoriety by his excesses (Cal. State Papers, Dom. 1547-90, p. 46). On 2 April 1571 he was elected M.P. for Grantham, and on 8 May 1572 was returned again for the same constituency to the parliament which sat till 1583. Nine days after his second election the House of Commons ordered him to answer at the bar of the house a charge of having made 'sundry lewd speeches' both within and without the house. Witnesses were directed to meet at Westminster, and deliver their testimony to the speaker in writing. On 19 May Hall was brought by the serjeant-at-arms to the bar. He apologised for his conduct, and was discharged after the speaker had severely reprimanded him. In the following year he was in more serious trouble. He was playing cards in an ordinary in Lothbury (16 Dec. 1573), when he quarrelled over the game with one of his companions, Melchisedech Mallory, whom he seems to have charged with cheating. A temporary truce was patched up, but the quarrel soon broke out with renewed violence. Hall, according to Mallory, declined to fight him; but on 30 June 1574} a serious affray between the disputants and their followers took place at a tavern near Fleet Bridge, and in November Edward Smalley, and other of Hall's servants, attacked and wounded Mallory in St. Paul's Churchyard. Mallory obtained a verdict for 100l. in a civil action against Smalley, and Hall began a libel suit against Mallory. But while the suit was pending, and before Smalley had paid the damages, Mallory died on 18 Sept. 1575. Mallory's executor failing to receive the 100l. from Smalley caused him to be arrested. As the servant of a member of parliament, he claimed immunity from arrest, and the House of Commons ordered his discharge, at