Hort, Josiah

, archbishop of Tuam, appears to have been of a dissenting family, as he was educated in a dissenting school, between 1690 and 1695, under the direction of the rev. Thomas Rowe, and was a fellow-student with the celebrated Dr. Watts, who said of him, that he was “the first genius in that seminary.” After his academical studies were finished, he resided some time as chaplain with John Hampden, esq. M. P. for Bucks, and afterwards settled as a dissenting minister at Marshfield, in Gloucestershire. The time of his conformity is not ascertained, though it is evident that he was a clergyman of the church of England so early as 1708, for in that year he published a sermon preached at the archdeacon’s visitation at Aylesbury. In the preceding year he had printed a Thanksgiving Sermon on our national Successes, from Ps. cxlix. 6 8. There is a tradition in the family, that he had so greatly recommended himself to the court by his zeal and services | in support of the Hanover succession, that, as he scrupled re-ordination, it was dispensed with, and the fivst preferment bescowed on him, was that of a bishopric in Ireland. It is certain that he went into that kingdom as chaplain to the lord lieutenant. He was consecrated bishop of Ferns and Leighlin, February 10, 1721, was translated to Kilinore and Ardagh, July 27, 1727, and preferred to the archiepiscopal see of Tuam, January 27, 1742, with the united bishopric of Enaghdoen, in the room of Dr. Synge, deceased, and likewise with liberty to retain his other bishopric of Ardagh. He died December 14, 1751, in a very advanced age. His publications were, 1. in 1738, at Dublin, a volume of Sermons, sixteen in number, in 8vo; they are judicious and impressive discourses. These were reprinted in London, in 1757, with the addition of the Visitation Sermon mentioned before. In this volume is a Sermon preached in the castle of Dublin, before the duke of Bolton the lord lieutenant of Ireland, after the suppression of the Preston rebellion. 2. A Charge entitled “Instructions to the Clergy of the Diocese of Tuam, at the primary visitation, July 8, 1742.” This, after the death of the author, was reprinted in London, with theapprobation and consent of the rev. Dr. Hort, canon of Windsor it is an excellent address. In the preface to the volume of sermons we learn, that for many years prer vious to its appearance from the press, the worthy author had been disabled from preaching by an over-strain of the voice in the pulpit, at a time when he had a cold with a hoarseness upon him. The providence of God, he says, having taken from him the power of discharging that part of his episcopal office which consisted in preaching, he, thought it incumbent on him to convey his thoughts and instructions from the press, that he might not be useless. The solemn promise that he made at his consecration, “to exercise himself in the Holy Scriptures, so as to be able by them to teach and exhort with wholesome doctrine,” was no small motive to that undertaking, as being the only means left him for making good that promise. It appears, that he kept up an epistolary correspondence with his “old friend,” as he called him, and fellow-student, Dr. Watts, to the closing period of the life of each. In Swift’s works we find a humorous paper of Dr. Hort’s, entitled “A New Proposal for the better regulation and improvement of Quadrille,” and some letters respecting it. ¹

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