HAMPDEN, RENN DICKSON, D.D., 1793-1868; bishop of Hereford; b. Barbadoes; educated at Oxford. Having left the university in 1816, he held successively the cura des of of Newton, Faringdon, and Hackney, and in 1827 he published An Essay on the Pltilosopical Evidence of Christianity, followed by a volume of Parochial Sermons illus trative of the importance of the Revelation of God in Jesus Chriqt. In 1828 he returned to Oxford as tutor of Oriel, and after having twice acted as public examiner in classics, he was selected to preach the Bampton lectures in 1832, when he chose for his subject The Scholastic Philosophy considered in its Relation to Christianity. Notwithstanding a charge of Arianism, he became principal of St. Mary's hall, and professor of political economy, and in 1836 regius professor of divinity. There resulted a widespread and violent though ephemeral controversy, after the subsidence of which lie published a Lecture on Tradition, which has passed through several editions, and a volume on The Thirty-nine Articles of the Church of England. His nomination by lord John Russell to the vacant see
of Hereford in Dec., 1847, was again the signal for a violent and organized opposition; and his consecration in March, 1848, took place in spite of a remonstrance by many of the bishops and the resistance of Dr. Merewethcr, the dean of Hereford, who went so far as to vote against the election when the conge d' dire reached the cathedral. Among the more important of his later writings were the articles on Aristotle, Plato, and Socrates, contributed to the eighth edition of the Encycloyedia Britannica, and afterwards reprinted with additions under the title of The Fathers of the Greek Phi losophy (Edinburgh).