Heber

Heber, REGINALD, an English poet, and second Bishop of Calcutta, was born at Malpas, Cheshire, 21st April 1783. It was as a student of Brasenose College, Oxford, that he produced his prize poem Palestine (1803), the only prize poem perhaps which holds a place in English literature. In 1807 he was inducted into the family-living at Hodnet, in Shropshire. He was a frequent contributor to the Quarterly Review, his political views being those of a Tory and High Churchman, and in 1812 he published a volume of Hymns. He was appointed Bampton lecturer in 1815, a prebendary of St Asaph in 1817, and in 1822 was elected preacher of Lincoln's Inn. In the following January he accepted the see of Calcutta. The apostolic zeal with which he conducted his episcopacy was suddenly terminated by his death, of apoplexy, at Trichinopoly, on 3d April 1826. He was a voluminous writer, and published sermons, A Journey through India, &c., and he edited Jeremy Taylor's Works (1822). As a poet, his fame rests upon Palestine and his Hymns (new ed. 1878), which include such well-known favourites as 'Lord of Mercy and of Might,' 'From Greenland's Icy Mountains,' 'Holy, Holy, Holy, Lord God Almighty!' 'The Son of God goes forth to War,' &c. See Lives by his widow (1830) and G. Smith (1895).—RICHARD HEBER, his half-brother, was born in Westminster in 1774, and died in 1833. He was a famous bibliomaniac. Dibdin estimated his collection in England at 105,000 vols., in addition to which he possessed many thousands of books on the Continent, the whole having cost him £180,000.