HURD, RICHARD (172o-18o8), English divine and writer, bishop of Worcester, was born at Congreve, Penkridge, Stafford shire, on Jan. 13, 172o, and educated at Emmanuel college, Cam bridge, of which he became a fellow. He was ordained in and in 1748 he published some Remarks on an Enquiry into the Rejection of Christian Miracles by the Heathens (1746), by William Weston, a fellow of St. John's college, Cambridge. He prepared editions, which won the praise of Gibbon, of the Ars poetica and Epistola ad Pisones (1749), and the Epistola ad Augustum (17 51) of Horace. A compliment in the preface to the edition of 1749 led to a lasting friendship with William War burton, through whose influence he was appointed one of the preachers at Whitehall in 175o. In 1765 he became preacher at Lincoln's Inn, and in 1767 archdeacon of Gloucester. In 1768 he delivered at Lincoln's Inn the first Warburton lectures, which were published in 1772 as An Introduction to the Study of the Prophecies concerning the Christian Church. He became bishop of Lichfield and Coventry in 1774 and two years later tutor to the prince of Wales and the duke of York. In 1781 he was trans lated to the see of Worcester. He built at Hartlebury Castle a fine library, to which he transferred Pope's and Warburton's books, purchased on the latter's death. In 1783 he declined the primacy.
Hurd's Letters on Chivalry and Romance (1762), written in continuation of a dialogue on the age of Queen Elizabeth which was included in his Moral and Political Dialogues (1759), had some influence in stimulating the romantic movement ; two later dialogues On the Uses of Foreign Travel were printed in i 763.
Hurd edited the Works of William Warburton, the Select Works (1772) of Abraham Cowley, and left materials for an edition of Addison (6 vols., 1811) . His own works were published in 8 vols. in 1811. See Francis Kilvert, Memoirs of . . . Richard Hurd (186o) .