HALL, JOSEPH English bishop and satirist, was born at Bristow park, near Ashby de la Zouch, Leicestershire, on July 1, 1574. He was sent (1589) to Emmanuel college, Cam bridge, where he wrote his Virgidemiarum satires written after Latin models. The claim he put forward in the prologue to be the earliest English satirist : I first adventure, follow me who list And be the second English satirist— gave bitter offence to John Marston, who attacks him in the satires published in 1598. He was presented (I 6o1) by Sir Robert Drury to the living of Halsted, Essex. His devotional writings had attracted the notice of Henry, prince of Wales, who made him one of his chaplains (16o8) ; other preferments followed. In 1616 the king nominated him dean of Worcester, and in 1617 he accompanied James to Scotland, where he defended the five points of ceremonial which the king desired to impose upon the Scots. In the next year he was one of the English deputies at the synod of Dort. In 1624 he refused the see of Gloucester, but in 1627 became bishop of Exeter.
He took an active part in the Arminian and Calvinist contro versy in the English Church. He did his best in his Via media, The Way of Peace, to secure a compromise. In spite of his Calvinistic opinions he maintained that to acknowledge the errors which had arisen in the Catholic Church did not necessarily imply disbelief in her catholicity, and that the Church of England having repudiated these errors should not deny the claims of the Roman Catholic Church on that account. This view com mended itself to Charles I. and his episcopal advisers, but Laud sent spies into Hall's diocese to report on the Calvinistic tend encies of the bishop and his lenience to the Puritan and low church clergy. His defence of the English Church, entitled Episcopacy by Divine Right (1640), was twice revised at Laud's dictation. This was followed by An Humble Remonstrance to the High Court of Parliament (164o and 1641), an eloquent and forceful defence of his order, which produced a retort from the syndicate of Puritan divines, who wrote under the name of "Smectymnuus," and was followed by a long controversy to which Milton contributed five pamphlets, virulently attacking Hall and his early satires.
In 1641 Hall was translated to the see of Norwich, and in the same year sat on the Lords' Committee on religion. On Dec. 3o he was, with other bishops, brought before the bar of the House of Lords to answer a charge of high treason of which the Com mons had voted them guilty. They were finally convicted of an offence against the Statute of Praemunire, and condemned to forfeit their estates, receiving a small maintenance from the parlia ment. They were immured in the Tower from New Year to Whitsuntide. On his release Hall went to his new diocese at Nor wich, the revenues of which he seems for a time to have received, but in 1643, when the property of the "malignants" was seques trated, Hall had difficulty in securing the maintenance (i400) assigned to the bishop by the parliament and was compelled to retire to Higham, near Norwich, where he spent the time preach ing and writing until "he was first forbidden by man, and at last disabled by God." He died on Sept. 8, 1656. Thomas Fuller says: "He was commonly called our English Seneca, for the purenesse, plainnesse and fulnesse of his style. Not unhappy at Controversies, more happy at Comments, very good in his Char acters, better in his Sermons, best of all in his Meditations." It is by his early work as the censor of morals and the unsparing critic of contemporary literary extravagance and affectations that Hall is best known. Virgidemiarum. Sixe Bookes. First three Bookes. Of Toothlesse Satyrs. (I) Poeticall, (2) Academicall, (3) Morall (1597) was followed by an amended edition in 1598, and in the same year by Virgidemiarum. The three last bookes. Of byting Satyres (reprinted . If he was not the earliest English satirist, Hall was certainly one of the best. He writes in the heroic couplet, which he manoeuvres with great ease and smoothness. In the first book of his satires (Poeticall) he attacks the writers whose verses were devoted to licentious subjects, the bombast of Tamburlaine and other tragedies, the laments of the ghosts of the Mirror for Magistrates, the metrical eccentricities of Gabriel Harvey and Richard Stanyhurst, the extravagances of the son neteers, and the sacred poets. In Book II. Satire 6 occurs the well-known description of the trencher-chaplain, who is tutor and hanger-on in a country manor. Book VI. consists of one long satire on the various vices and follies dealt with in the earlier books. If his prose is sometimes antithetical and obscure, his verse is remarkably free from the quips and conceits which mar so much contemporary poetry.
He also wrote The King's Prophecie; or Weeping Joy (5603), a gratulatory poem on the accession of James I. ; Epistles, both the first and second volumes of which appeared in 16o8 and a third in 1611; Characters of Virtues and Vices (16o8), versified by Nahum Tate (1691) ; Solomons Divine Arts . . . (1609) ; and, probably, Mundus alter et idem sive Terra Australis antehac semper incognita . . . lustrata 0605? and 1607), by "Mercurius Britannicus." Mundus alter is an excuse for a satirical descrip tion of London, and is said to have furnished Swift with hints for Gulliver's Travels. For the arguments in favour of the authorship by Alberico Gentili, see E. A. Petherick, Mundus alter et idem, reprinted from the Gentleman's Magazine (July 1896) . His con troversial writings include :—A Common Apology . . . against the Brozernists (161o) ; Episcopacie by Divine Right (164o) ; A Short Answer to the Vindication of Smectymnuus (1641) ; A Modest Confutation of . . . (Milton's) Animadversions (1642) .
His devotional works include : Heaven upon Earth, or of True Peace and Tranquilitie of Mind (16o6), reprinted in John Wes ley's Christian Library (1819); The Devout Soul (1644), often since reprinted; Christ Mysticall (1647), of which General Gordon was a student, and others.