PORTEUS, BEll.nv, late bishop of London, and an eminent divine, was born at York, in 1731, of American parents. From Rippon, where he received the rudiments of his classical education, he went to Christ's College, Cambridge, where he was admitted to the degree of B. A. jn 1751, and he carried off the second of two honorary medals, given as a reward for eminent attainments in classical literature. In the same year he was elected a fellow of the college, and took up his residence at Cam bridge. In 1755 he took his degree of M. A. and in 1757 was ordained deacon, and soon after appointed one of the preachers of 'Whitehall chapel.
In the year 1759 Mr. Porteus obtained the Scatonian prize for the best poetical Essay on Death, which was published, and gave high earnest of his future celebrity. The first of his prose publications was a sermon, preached before the university of Cambridge in 1761, entitled, " The Character of David, King of _Israel, impartially consider ed." Dr. Seeker, archbishop of Canterbury, was induced, by the perusal of this sermon, to appoint him one of his domestic chaplains; and he soon afterwards presented him to two rectories in Kent, and one in :Middlesex, and also to rt.prebend's stall in the cathedral church of Peterbo rough.
• In 1765 he married Miss Hodgson, a lady of small for tune, from Ashbourne, in Derbyshire. In 1767 he was wade rector of Lambeth, and in the same year he obtained the degree of D. D.
Upon the death of the archbishop in 1767, Dr. Porteus, in conjunction with Dr. Stinton, edited Dr. Seeker's works, in seven volumes, to which was prefixed a life of the au thor, from the pen of Dr. Porteus. • The queen, having become acquainted with the charac ter and talents of Dr. Porteus, recommended him to the king as his chaplain ; and he soon after became master of the hospital of St. Cross, near 'Winchester, dean of the Chapel Royal, and provincial dean of Canterbury.
He was soon after raised to the see of Chester ; and in the year 1783, he published a volume of sermons on va rious subjects, which underwent several editions.
Upon the death of Dr. Lowth in 1787, Dr. Porteus was translated to the bishoprick of London ; and in 1790 he published the charge which he delivered on the first visita tion of his diocess. A second volume of his sermons ap peared in 1777, and, during the Lent of 1778, he began a series of Discourses on the Truth of the Gospel History, which he delivered every Friday, to crowded audiences, at St. James's Church, Westminster. In 1802 these dis courses were published, under the title of " Lectures on St. Matthew's Gospel," in 2 vols, Bvo. The last work which bishop Porteus published, was entitled, " The Beneficial Effects of Christianity on the Temporal Concerns of Man kind, proved from History and Facts," which appeared in 1806. Having been long in a weak state of health, his bo dily frame began to experience a rapid decline of strength, and on the 14th May, 1808, he expired in the seventy-eighth year of his age.
The benevolence and liberality of Dr. Porteus were no less distinguished than his character and conduct as a pre late. During his life he transferred 70001. in the 3 per cents to the archdeacons of the diocess of London, as a permanent fund for relieving the wants of the poorer clergy of his diocess. He likewise bequeathed three gold medals to Christ's Church, to be contended for annually by the students of the college ; one, valued at fif teen guineas, for the best Latin dissertation on any of the chief evidences of Christianity ; another, of equal value, for the best English composition on some moral precept in the Gospel ; and one of ten guineas to the best reader in, and the most constant attendant at, chapel. He likewise left a library for the use of his successors in the see of London, and a liberal sum for erecting a building to re ceive it, at the Episcopal Palace of Fulham. At Hydehill, near Sundridge, in Kent, where he had a country house, he built a chapel, beneath which he directed his remains to be deposited ; and he ehdowed this chapel with an an nual income ()f NSW. a year. See Hodgson's Life of Porteus.