Hall, JOSEPH

Hall, JOSEPH, bishop and divine, was born 1st July 1574, at Ashby-de-la-Zouch, Leicestershire. He was educated at Emmanuel College, Cambridge, of which he became a Fellow in 1595. Taking orders, he held successively the livings of Halstead and Waltham, in Essex, and the deanery of Worcester. In 1617 he accompanied James to Scotland to help establish Episcopacy, and in this and the next year was one of the English deputies to the synod of Dort. He was consecrated Bishop of Exeter in 1627, and in 1641 was translated to Norwich. The later years of his life were saddened by persecution. He was accused of Puritanism, though he zealously defended Episcopacy, and he incurred the enmity of Archbishop Laud. In 1641, having joined the prelates who protested against the validity of all laws passed during their enforced absence from parliament, he was committed to the Tower, and threatened with a prosecution for high-treason, but was set at liberty at the end of seven months, on finding bail for £5000. Shortly after his return to Norwich his revenues were sequestered and his property pillaged. Thereafter he rented a small farm at Higham, near Norwich, to which he retired in 1647. There he died 8th September 1656. His works, including Contemplations, Christian Meditations, Episcopacy, and Mundus Alter et Idem, a Latin satirical romance of an unknown country in Terra Australis, were edited by the Rev. Josiah Pratt (10 vols. 1808), and by Peter Hall, a descendant (12 vols. 1837-39). His poetical Satires: Virgidiomarum (1597-98) Pope calls 'the best poetry and the truest satire in the English language.' Hallam, however, accuses him of being harsh and rugged, obscene, and ungrammatical. See Life by George Lewis (1886).