HALL, REVEREND ROBERT, was born on the 2nd of May 1764, at Arnaby in Leicestershire, where his father, of the same names, had been settled since 1753 as pastor of a congregation of Particular Baptists. He had come from Northumberland, where his forefathers belonged to the class of yeomanry ; and he is stated to have been a man, though not of much learuiog, of considerable native power of mind. He is the author of several short religious publications : ono of which, entitled A Help to Zion's Travellers,' has been often printed, and is still read.
The subject of this notice was the youngest of fourteen children. It is related that he was two years old before he learned to speak : but after this, the progress be made in all branches of his education was very rapid. Though the circumstance is absurd, it is an evidence of the impression he had made by his precocity—that when he was only eleven years old, a fellow-clergyman of his father's (Mr. Beeby Wallis, of Kettering), to whom he had been taken on a visit, seriously set him to preach to a select auditory assembled in his house. His gift of ready expression had, it would appear, already strongly developed itself. He used to attribute much of his early iutellectual excitement to the conversation of a metaphysical tailor in his native village, a member of his father's congregation.
He lost his mother in 1776, and it appears to have been after this that be was sent to board at a Baptist school in Northampton, kept by the Rev. Dr. John Ryland. Hera he remained for a year and a half, after which he was placed, iu October, 1778, at the Bristol Academy, with the view to his becoming a Baptist minister. It was the practice there, as it is in most Baptist theological seminaries, for the students to commence preaching before they have finished their education ; and Hall was formally set apart as a preacher by his father's congregation in August, 1750. In the autumn of 1781 ho was selected by the authorities of the Bristol Academy to be sent to King's College, Aberdeeu, on Dr. Ward's exhibition ; and there ho studied for the usual period of four winter sessions; preaching, at least occa sionally, in the intervening summers. It was at Aberdeen that Hall and Sir James Mackintosh, then also a student at King's College, became acquainted. They bore a close resemblance in intellectual character, in their powers of mind as well as in their tastes, and the Intimacy which there sprung up between them led to an affectionate friendship, which lasted while they both lived.
Hall did not finally leave Aberdeen till May, 1785 ; but he bad already, during the preceding summer, officiated as one of the regular pastors of the Baptist congregation at Broad:need, Bristol, in associa tion with Dr. Caleb Evans; and in August, 1785, he was also appointed classical tutor in the Bristol Academy. His father died iu 1791, and the same year a difference with Dr. Evans led to his removing from Bristol and accepting an invitation to become pastor of the Baptist congregation at Cambridge on the departure of the Rev. Robert Robinson, who had adopted Unitarian views, to be successor to Dr. Priestley at Birmingham.
Robert Hall had already acquired considerable celebrity as a preacher, but it was not till now that he appeared as an author; and the impulse that sent him to the press was rather political than theological. His first publication (unless we are to reckon some anonymous contribu tions to a Bristol newspaper in 178687) was a pamphlet entitled ' Christianity consistent with a Love of Freedom, being an Answer to a Sermon by the Rev. John Clayton,' 8vo, 1791. Like most of the ardent minds of that day, he had been strongly excited and carried away by the hopes and promises of the French Revolution, and ho appears to have retaloed hie first faith without much alteration for some years. In 1793 he published another liberal pamphlet, entitled ' An Apology for the Frvedo.n of the Press, and for general Liberty, with Remarks on Bishop Iforaley'a Sermon preached 81st January, 1793.' This was largely diffused, and brought him much reputation. The impression that had been made upon him however by the irre ligious character of the French revolutionary movement was indicated in his neat publication, 'Modern Infidelity considered with respect to its Influence on Society, a Sermon,' 8vo, 1800. It was the publication of this able and eloquent sermon which first brought Hall into general notice. From this time whatever he produced attracted immediate attention. The Sermon on Modern Infidelity was followed in 1802 by another on the Peace, which also brought him great reputation.