SAMUEL

See also:

• HORSLEY, JOHN (c. 1685 – 1732)
• HORSLEY, JOHN CALLCOTT (1817-1903)
• SAMUEL HORSLEY (1733-1806)
• HORSLEY, WILLIAM (1774–1858)

HORSLEY (1733-1806)  , English divine, was born in London on the 15th of September 1733 . Entering Trinity College, Cambridge, he became LL.B. in 1758 without graduating in arts, and in the following year succeeded his father in the living of Newington Butts in Surrey . Horsley was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society in 1767; and secretary in 1773, but, in consequence of a difference with the president (Sir Joseph Banks) he withdrew in 1784 . In 1768 he attended the eldest son of the 4th earl of Aylesford to Oxford as private tutor; and, after receiving through the earl and Bishop Lowth various minor preferments, which by dispensations he combined with his first living, he was installed in 1781 as archdeacon of St Albans . Horsley now entered in earnest upon his famous controversy with Joseph Priestley, who denied that the early Christians held the doctrine of the Trinity . In this controversy, conducted on both sides in the fiercest polemical spirit, Horsley showed the superior learning and ability . His aim was to lessen the influence which the prestige of Priestley's name gave to his views, by indicating inaccuracies in his scholarship and undue haste in his conclusions . For the energy displayed in the contest Horsley was rewarded by Lord Chancellor Thurlow with a prebendal stall at Gloucester; and in 1788 the same patron procured his promotion to the see of St David's . As a bishop, Horsley was energetic both in his diocese, where he strove to better the position of his clergy, and in parliament . The efficient support which he afforded the government was acknowledged by his successive translations to Rochester in 1793, and to St Asaph in 18o2 . With the bishopric of Rochester he held the deanery of Westminster . He died at Brighton on the 4th of October 18o6 .

Besides the controversial Tracts, which appeared in 1783–1784–1786, and were republished in 1789 and 1812, Horsley's more important

works are:—Apollonii Pergaei inclinationum libri duo (177o) ; Remarks on the Observations ... for determining the acceleration of the Pendulum in Lat . 7o° 51' (1774); Isaaci Newtoni Opera quae extant Omnia, with a commentary (5 vols . 4to, 1779–1785) ; On the Prosodies of tke Greek and Latin Languages 0796); Disquisitions on Isaiah xviii . (1796); Hosea, translated ... with Notes (1801); Elementary Treatises on ... Mathematics (1801); Euclidis elernentorum libri priores XII . (1802); Euclidis datorum liber (1803); Virgil's Two Seasons of Honey, &c . (1805); and papers in the Philosophical Transactions from 1767 to 1776 . After his death there appeared—Sermons (1810–1812); Speeches in Parliament (1813); Book of Psalms, translated with Notes (1815); Biblical Criticism (1820) ; Collected Theological Works (6 vols . 8vo, 1845) .