# Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Best, Henry Digby

​BEST, afterwards BESTE, HENRY DIGBY (1768–1836), miscellaneous author, born in Lincoln 21 Oct. 1768, was the son of Henry Best, D.D., prebendary of Lincoln. His mother was Magdalen, daughter of Kenelm Digby, of North Luffenham in Rutland. He was educated in the grammar school of Lincoln. His father, who had been senior wrangler of his year, had proposed sending him to Eton and Oxford, thinking him such a blockhead that he would be plucked at Cambridge. Dr. Best died, however, on 29 June 1782, and his son, in 1784, was sent by his mother to Oxford. He matriculated at University College 17 March 1785, and soon afterwards was nominated a demy of Magdalen. His father had said to him: 'These old women (speaking of some catholic relations) will make a papist of you, Harry.' His discovery of a Douay testament in an old closet of his father's produced in him some leanings to catholicism. He took his B.A. degree in 1788, and his M.A. in 1791, while still residing in Magdalen. He obtained a fellowship six weeks afterwards, and in September 1791 was ordained deacon, and in December was appointed to the curacy of St. Martin in Lincoln. His first works were a treatise entitled 'The Christian Religion briefly defended against the philosophers and Republicans of France,' 8vo, 1793, and a 'Sermon on St. John xx. 23,' preached at St. Mary's, Oxford, on 24 Nov. 1793, a discourse on 'Priestly Absolution,' which was republished in 1874. It is curious that this discourse, which anticipated some of the 'tractarian' arguments, was highly approved by the chief members of the university of Oxford in 1794. Shortly afterwards Beste (as he now wrote his name) read the 'Pluralities Indefensible' of Dr. Richard Newton, the founder of Hertford College, which greatly affected his mental development. On the death of his mother, 10 April 1797, he succeeded to a freehold estate, and had to resign his fellowship at Magdalen. He settled at Lincoln without ecclesiastical duties, and stronger doubts sprang up in his mind as to the spiritual authority of the church of England. These doubts were further strengthened by intercourse with the Abbé Beaumont, then in charge of the small catholic chapel at Lincoln. On 17 May 1798 he was present in London at the high mass in St. Patrick's Chapel, Soho, and was deeply moved. Next day he called on Bishop Douglass, by whom he was introduced to the Rev. Mr. Hodgson as his first confessor, and on 26 May 1789 he was received into the catholic church in the chapel in St. George's Fields. His intimate friend Phillpotts, afterwards bishop of Exeter, wrote to him lamenting the change, but affectionately desiring the continuance of his friendship. In 1838 Bishop Phillpotts spoke warmly to Beste's son of his father's intelligence and kindness. Beste still remained on friendly terms with the president of Magdalen, and he was frequently a guest at his table. After a collision with Dr. Parr at one of these dinners, Beste said, 'Mr. President, the next time you invite a bear to your table, I beg that you will muzzle him.' Dr. Routh, glancing at Parr, who was laughing, remarked, 'He is a clever fellow for all that.' Three years after his conversion Beste married Sarah, daughter of Edward Sealy, Esq., of Bridgewater. For a year or two, then, his time was given up to the management of one of his estates in Lincolnshire. Occasionally at this period he contributed to the periodicals of his coreligionists. In 1818 he left England with his family for the south of France, and published in 1826 'Four Years in France, or Narrative of an English Family's Residence there during that Period, preceded by some Account of the Conversion of the Author to the Catholic Faith,' 8vo. The book, dated 21 March 1826, Clermont en Auvergne, is full of fervour, lit up here and there with quaint and sometimes coarse humour. Cardinal Wiseman had seen him at Rome in the jubilee of 1825, and mentions him in his 'Last Four Popes,' p. 271. Beste published in 1828 'Italy as it is, or Narrative of an English Family's Residence for three years in that Country,' 8vo, the work being whimsically dated at its close Torquay, Chiaja della Torre, Devon, 23 Oct. 1827. In 1829 appeared 'Personal and Literary Memorials,' 8vo. Seven years later Beste died at Brighton in his sixty-eighth year on 28 May 1836. Ten years after his death was published his last ​work, called 'Poverty and the Baronet's Family, a Catholic Story,' 12mo, 1846, a few months previously, in 1845, some papers of his on 'Vices, Sins, and Crimes,' having appeared in 'Dolman's Magazine.'
[Autobiographical writings of Henry Digby Beste, reissued with the reprint in a third edition of his Sermon on Priestly Absolution, 1874, pp. 1–85, and 114–239; Register of the Demies of S. M. Magdalen College, Oxford, 1785, iv. 97; Catholic Magazine for 1838, p. 480; Notes and Queries, 1st series, xii. 227, 314, 3rd series, xi. 57, note.]
C. K.