Harwood, Edward

, a dissenting clergyman, was born in 1729, and having passed with reputation through his grammatical learning, he was entered as student for the profession of a dissenting minister, in the academy supported by Mr. Coward’s funds. Upon quitting this place, he engaged as an assistant to a boarding-school at Peck ham, and preached occasionally for some neighbouring ministers in and out of London. During this period of his life he studied very diligently the Greek and Roman classics, to which he was devoted through life. In 1754 he undertook the care of a grammar-school at Congleton, in Cheshire, and preached for some years on alternate Sundays, to two small societies in the vicinity of that town. In 1765 he removed to Bristol, and in about five years he was obliged, as he pretended, to quit his situation on account of his principles as an Arian and Arminian, being for some time scarcely able to walk along the streets of Bristol without insult; but the truth was, that a charge of immorality was brought against him, which he never satisfactorily answered, and which sufficiently accounted for his unpopularity. He had previously to this, in 1768, obtained the degree of D. D. from the university of Edinburgh, and with this he came to London, and obtained | employment as a literary character, and also as an instructor in the Greek and Latin classics. He died miserably poor, in 1794, after having been confined many years in consequence of a paralytic attack. He was author of many works, the most important of which is “A View of the various Editions of the Greek and Roman Classics,” which has been several times reprinted, and has, as well as his “Introduction to the New Testament,” been translated into several foreign languages. His other works were pamphlets on the Arian and Socinian controversy, if we except an edition of the Greek Testament, 2 vols. 8vo, and a “Translation of the New Testament,” into modern English, which exhibits an extraordinary proof of want of taste and judgment. ¹