Buckland, Ralph

, a popish divine of some note^ was born at West Harptre, the seat of an ancient family of his name in Somersetshire, about 1564. In 1579, he was admitted commoner in Magdalen college, Oxford, and afterwards passed some years in one of the inns of court. Having at last embraced the popish religion, he spent seven years in Doway college, and being ordained priest, returned to England, acted as a missionary for about twenty years, and died in 1611. He published, 1. A translation of the “Lives of the Saints” from Surius. 2. “A Per. suasive against frequenting Protestant Churches,” 12mo. | 3. “Seven sparks of the enkindled flame, with four lamentations, composed in the hard times of queen Elizabeth,” 12mo. From this book, archbishop Usher, in a sermon preached in 1640, on Nov. 5, produced some passages hinting at the gun-powder plot. The passages are not, perhaps, very clearly in point, nor can we suppose any person privy to the design fool enough at the same time to give warning of it. This Buckland also wrote “De Persecutione Vandalica,” a translation from the Latin of Victor, bishop of Biserte, or Utica.¹