Plumptre, EDWARD HAYES, was born in London, August 6, 1821, and educated privately and at University College, Oxford, graduating with a double first-class in 1844. The same year he was elected fellow of Brasenose College. He became chaplain at King's College, London, in 1847, and afterwards professor of New Testament Exegesis there. In 1863 he was given a prebend of St Paul's, and from 1875 to 1877 he was principal of Queen's College, Harley Street. He was select preacher at both universities, Boyle Lecturer in 1866-67, and one of the Old Testament Company for the Revision of the Bible. In 1869 he was presented to the rectory of Pluckley in Kent, which four years after he exchanged for the vicarage of
Bickley, and in 1881 he was installed Dean of Wells. He received the D.D. degree from Glasgow in 1875. He died after a short illness, February 1, 1891. Of his numerous contributions to theology may here be named King's College Sermons (1860), his Boyle Lectures, Christ and Christendom (1867), Biblical Studies (1870), Exposition of the Epistles to the Seven Churches of Asia (1877), Introduction to the New Testament (1883), and The Spirits in Prison (1884), in which he spoke out eloquently his belief in the Wider Hope and an Intermediate State of Probation. He contributed Proverbs to the Speaker's Commentary; Matthew, Mark, Luke, Acts, and 2 Corinthians to Bishop Ellicott's New Testament Commentary for English Readers, as well as Isaiah, Jeremiah, and Lamentations to the same editor's Old Testament Commentary; Ecclesiastes, James, 1 and 2 Peter, and Jude to the Cambridge Bible for Schools; and 1 and 2 Timothy to Dr Schaff's Popular Commentary on the New Testament. Besides these, his contributions to Smith's Dictionaries and the theological and literary journals were numberless. Dean Plumptre's name is also widely known by his admirable verse translations of Sophocles (1865), Æschylus (1868), and the Commedia of Dante in the metres of the original (1886); as well as by several volumes of original verse, among them Lazarus (1864), Master and Scholar (1866), and Things New and Old (1884). His Life and Letters of Bishop Ken (1886) is less happy.