HURD, RICHARD, D.D., Bishop of Worcester, was born in 1720. Bishop Hurd is eminent rather as an elegant scholar than a divine, and is more spoken of on account of his connection with Warburton than for his owu merits, which were however of no menu order. Ile was born iu Staffordshire, the son of John and Helmuth Hurd, " plain, honest, and good people," as he himself has described them, renting a considerable farm in that county. It was the good fortune of Hurd to live in his childhood near a well conducted grammar.school, that of Brewood, where he had an excellent master, who prepared him well for the university. Ile went to Cambridge at a much earlier age than is now the custom, about fifteen ; and his history from that time is that of a scholar, university man, author, and divine, taking his degrees, being ordained, gaining some little preferment, which is followed by greater, and publishing sundry sermons, tracts, and books. An ample detail of all this may be read in the sixth volume of Nichols's 'Literary Anecdotes of the Eighteenth Century.' Dr. Hurd continued to reside at Cambridge as a Fellow of Emmanuel till 1757, when he became rector of Tburcaston in Leicestershire, where he went to reside. In 1765 he was made preacher of Lincoln's
Ion, and in 1767, archdeacon of Gloucester, by his friend Bishop Warburton. In 1775 he was made bishop of Lichfield and Coventry, whence, in 1731, he was translated to Worcester, where he continued till his death, declining the offer which was made him of becoming archbishop of Canterbury on the death of Archbishop Cornwallis iu 1783. He died in 1808. The writings of Bishop Hurd aro too many to be particularly named. The most remarkable are his ' Dialogues,' his 'Lettere on Romance and Chivalry,' his ' English Commentary on the Epistle of Horace on the Art of Poetry,' and the ingenious Essays published with it, his 'Twelve Discourses on the Prophecies,' his Sermons, and his Life of his friend Bishop Warburton. There is also an octavo volume of the correspondence between Warburton and Hurd, a very pleasing book, and calculated to remove some portion of the ill opinion which many persons have formed of the real character of Warburton, and of the nature of that friendship which so long subsisted between "Warburton and a 1Varburtonian."