COX. 417 consisting chiefly of presbyterians, whom of all men Mr. Biddle most dreaded, he retired privately into the country. On the dissolution of the parliament he returned to his former station. Butthis period of tranquillitywas of very short continuance. Upon the restoration of Charles II. all dis- senters from the episcopal worship were treated on the same 'intolerant principles. Their liberty was taken away, and their assemblies were punished as seditious. Mr. Biddle endeavoured, however, to avoid the threatening storm, by restraining himself from public to more private assemblies. Nevertheless, June 1, 1662, he wasdragged from his lodgings, where he and a few of his friends were met for divine wor- ship, and carried before Sir Richard Brown, a justice of the peace, who committed them all to prison, without admitting them to bail. Mr. Biddle was doomed for some time to a dungeon ; but the recorder afterwards released them on giving security for their appearance. Accordingly, theywere tried at the following sessions, whenhis hearers were fined in a penalty of twenty pounds a piece, and Mr. Biddle himself in one hundred; and they were ordered to lie in prison till their several penalties were paid. But in less than five weeks, Mr. Biddle, through the noisomeness of the place and the want of fresh air, contracted a disease which presently cut him off. He died September 22, 1662, aged forty-seven years.* His life was irreproachable, and, according to Wood, there was little or nothing blame-worthy in him, excepting his opinions. He was ahard student, an exact Grecian, a ready disputant, and had a prodigious memory.t It is, indeed, said, that he retained all the New Testament in his memory, and could repeat it verbatim, both in English and in Greek, as far as the fourth chapter of Revelation.$ In addition to the articles already mentioned, Mr. Biddle published a piece upon the Apocalypse, and several translations of other men's productions. BENJAMIN. Cox, A. M.-This learned divine appears to have received his education at Broadgates-hall, Oxford, where he took his degree of master of arts in the year 16174 He had a parochial charge in Devonshire, where, for some time, he wasparticularly zealous for the superstitious rites and ceremonies of the established church ; but afterwards he Life of Biddle, p. 70-100. 1 Wood'sAthence Oxon.vol. ii. p. 197-202. $ Life of Biddle, p. 13. Wood's Atheii Oxon. vol. i. p. 827. VOL. III. E .111110410,
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