HENRY, the name of several emperors of Germany, and kings of England and France. See England, France, and Germany.

Henry IV. king of France and Navarre, commonly styled the Great, was the son of Antony de Bourbon, chief of the branch of Bourbon, so called from a fief of that name which fell to them by marriage with the heiress of the estate. His mother was the daughter of Henry d’Albert, king of Navarre; a woman of masculine genius, intrepid, simple, and even rustic in her manners, but deeply versed in politics, and a zealous Protestant. He was born in 1553 and in 1569, when scarcely sixteen years of age, he was declared the Defender and Chief of the Protestants at Rochelle. The peace of St Germain, concluded in 1570, [7:11:233] recalled to court the lords in the Protestant interest; and in 1572 Henry was married to Margaret de Valois, sister to Charles IX. king of France. It was in the midst of the rejoicings on account of these nuptials that the horrid massacre of the Protestants took place at Paris. By this infernal stroke of barbarous policy, Henry was reduced to the alternative of either changing his religion or being put to death; he chose the former, and was detained a state prisoner for three years. In 1587 he made his escape, and putting himself at the head of the Huguenot party, he exposed himself to all the risks and fatigues of a religious war, being often in want of the necessaries of life, and enduring all the hardships of the common soldiers; but this year he gained a victory at Courtras, which established his reputation in arms, and endeared him to the Protestants. On the death of Henry III. religion was urged as a pretext for one half of the officers of the French army rejecting him, and for the leaguers refusing to acknowledge him. A phantom, the Cardinal de Bourbon, was set up against him; but his most formidable rival was the Duke de Mayenne. However, Henry, with few friends, fewer important places, no money, and a very small army, supplied every deficiency by his activity and valour. He gained several victories over the duke, particularly that of Ivri in 1590, memorable for his heroic admonition to his soldiers: “If you love your ensigns, rally by my white plume; you will always find it in the road to honour and glory.” Paris held out against him, notwithstanding his successes. But he took all the suburbs in one day, and might have reduced the city by famine, if he had not humanely suffered his own army to relieve the besieged; yet the bigoted friars and priests in Paris all turned soldiers, excepting four of the Mendicant order, and held daily military reviews and processions, with the sword in one hand and the crucifix in the other, on which they made the citizens swear rather to die with hunger than submit to Henry. The scarcity of provisions in Paris, however, became at last universal famine; bread had been sold, whilst any remained, for a crown the pound; at last it was made from the bones of the charnel-house of St Innocents; human flesh became the food of the obstinate Parisians, and mothers devoured the dead bodies of their children. In fine, the Duke of Mayenne, convinced that neither Spain nor the League would grant him the crown, determined to assist in giving it to the rightful heir. He engaged the state to hold a conference with the chiefs of both parties, which ended in Henry’s abjuring the Protestant religion at St Denis, and being consecrated at Chartres in 1593. The following year Paris opened its gates; in 1596, the Duke of Mayenne was formally pardoned; and in 1598, peace was concluded with Spain. Henry now showed himself doubly worthy of the throne, by his encouragement of commerce, the fine arts, and manufactures, and by his patronage of men of ingenuity and sound learning of every country. But though the ferment of bigotry had been assuaged, the leaven was not destroyed. Scarcely a year passed without some attempt being made on his lite; and at last the dagger of Ravaillac reached his heart whilst in his coach, in the streets of Paris, on the 14th of May 1610, in the fifty-seventh year of his age and twenty-second of his reign.

Henry VIII. king of England, was the second son of Henry VII. by Elizabeth, the eldest daughter of Edward IV. He was born at Greenwich, on the 28th of June 1491; on the death of his brother Arthur, in 1502, he was created Prince of Wale's; and the following year he was betrothed to Catharine of Aragon, Prince Arthur’s widow, the pope having granted a dispensation for the purpose. Henry VIII. ascended the throne on the 22d of April 1509, and his marriage with Catharine was celebrated about two months thereafter. In the beginning of his reign he left the government of his kingdom entirely to his ministers, and spent his time chiefly in tournaments, balls, concerts, and other expensive amusements. Nevertheless he was not so totally absorbed in pleasure as not to find leisure to sacrifice to the resentment of the people two of his father’s ministers, Empson and Dudley. A house in London, which had belonged to the former, was, in the year 1510, given to Thomas Wolsey, who was now the king’s almoner, and who from this period began to insinuate himself into Henry’s favour. In 1513, Wolsey became prime minister, and from that moment governed the king and kingdom with absolute power. In this year Henry declared war against France, gained the battle of Spurs, and took the towns of Terouenne and Tournay; but before he embarked his troops he beheaded the Earl of Suffolk, who had long been confined in the Tower. In 1521, he sacrificed the Duke of Buckingham to the resentment of his prime minister Wolsey, and the same year obtained from the pope the title of Defender of the Faith.

Henry, having been eighteen years married, grew tired of his wife, and in the year 1527 resolved to obtain a divorce; but after many fruitless solicitations, finding it impossible to persuade the pope to annul his marriage with Catharine, he espoused Anne Boleyn in the year 1531. During this interval his favourite Wolsey was disgraced, and died; whilst Henry threw off the papal yoke, and burned three Protestants for heresy. In 1535, he put to death Sir Thomas More, Fisher, and others, for denying his supremacy; and suppressed all the lesser monasteries.

Having now possessed his second queen about five years, he fell violently in love with Lady Jane Seymour. Anne Boleyn was accused of adultery with her own brother, and with three other persons, and having been condemned, was beheaded on the 19th of May 1536. The day following he married Jane Seymour. In 1537, he put to death five of the noble family of Kildare, as a terror to the Irish, of whose disloyalty he had some apprehensions; and in the following year he executed the Marquis of Exeter, with four other persons of distinction, whose only crime was corresponding with Cardinal Pole. In 1538 and 1539, he suppressed all the monasteries in England, and seized their revenues for his own use. The queen having died in child-bed, he this year married the princess Ann of Cleves, but disliking her person, he immediately determined on a divorce; and his obsequious parliament and convocation unanimously pronounced the marriage void, for reasons too ridiculous to be stated.

His majesty being once more at liberty to indulge himself with another wife, fixed upon Catharine Howard, niece to the Duke of Norfolk, who was declared queen in August 1540; but they had been privately married some time before. Henry, it seems, was so entirely satisfied with this lady, that he daily blessed God for his present happiness. But his felicity was of short duration. He had not been married above a year, when the queen was accused of frequent prostitution, both before and since her marriage; and having confessed her guilt, she was beheaded in February 1542. In July 1543, he married his sixth wife, Lady Catharine Parr, the widow of John Neville Lord Latimer, and lived till the year 1547 without committing any more flagrant enormities; but finding himself now approaching his dissolution, he made his will; and, that the last scene of his life might resemble the rest of the piece, he determined to end the tragedy with the murder of two of his best friends and most faithful subjects, the Duke of Norfolk and his son the Earl of Surrey. The earl was beheaded on the 19th of January, and the duke was in like manner ordered for execution on the 29th, but he fortunately escaped by the king’s, death which, happened on the 28th. They were condemned without the shadow of a crime; but Henry’s political reason for putting them to death was his apprehension that, if they were suffered to survive him, they would counteract [7:11:234]some of his regulations in religion, and might be troublesome to his son. Henry died on the 28th January 1547, in the fifty-sixth year of his age, and was buried at Windsor.

Lord Herbert tries to palliate his crimes, and exaggerates what he is pleased to call his virtues. Bishop Burnet says, “he was rather to be reckoned among the great than the good princes but he afterwards acknowledges that “he is to be numbered among the ill princes,” yet adds, “I cannot rank him with the worst.” Sir Walter Raleigh, with more justice, says, “If all the pictures and patterns of a merciless prince were lost to the world, they might again be painted to the life out of the history of this king.”

Henry of Huntingdon, an English historian of the twelfth century, was canon of Lincoln, and afterwards archdeacon of Huntingdon. He wrote, 1. A History of England, which ends with the year 1154; 2. A Continuation of the History of Bede; 3. Chronological Tables of the Kings of England; 4. A short treatise on the Contempt of the World; 5. Several books of epigrams and love-verses; 6. A poem on herbs. All these productions were written in Latin.

Henry the Minstrel, commonly called Blind Harry, an ancient Scottish author, distinguished by no particular surname, but well known as the author of an historical poem reciting the achievements of Sir William Wallace.

It is difficult to ascertain the precise time in which this poet lived, or when he wrote his history, as the two authors who mention him speak somewhat differently on these points. Dempster, who wrote in the beginning of the seventeenth century, says that he lived in the year 1361; but Major, who was born in the year 1446, says that he composed this book during the time of his infancy, which we must therefore suppose to have been a few years posterior to 1446; for if it had been composed that very year, the circumstance would probably have been mentioned. As little can we suppose, from Dempster’s words, that Henry was born in 1361; for though he says that he lived in that year, we must naturally imagine that he had then attained the years of maturity, or had begun to distinguish himself in the world, rather than that he was only born at that time.

We are in entire ignorance of the family from which Henry was descended; though, from his writings, we should be led to suppose that he had received a liberal education. In these he discovers some knowledge of divinity, classical history, and astronomy, as well as of the languages. In one place he boasts of his celibacy, which seems to indicate his having engaged himself in some of the religious orders of that age. From what Major says of him, we may further suppose his profession to have been that of a travelling bard; though it does not appear that he was skilled in music, or that he had no other profession than that just mentioned. His being blind from his birth, indeed, makes this not improbable; but even this circumstance is not inconsistent with the supposition of his being a religious mendicant. “The particulars,” says Major, “which he heard related by the vulgar, he wrote in the vulgar verse, in which he excelled. By reciting his histories before princes or great men, he gained his food and raiment, of which he was worthy.” It is thus probable that he was a frequent visitor at the Scottish court; and welcomed by those great families who could boast of any alliance with the hero himself, or who took pleasure in hearing narrated either his exploits or those of his companions.

According to the most early account of Henry, it appears to have been at least fifty-six years after the death of Wallace that Henry was born; yet he is said to have consulted with several of the descendants of those who had been the companions of that hero whilst he achieved his most celebrated exploits, and who were still capable of ascertaining the veracity of what he published. His chief authority, according to his own account, was a Latin history of the exploits of Sir William, written partly by Mr John Blair and partly by Mr Thomas Gray, who had been the companions of the hero himself. Henry’s account of these two authors is to the following purpose: “They became acquainted with Wallace when the latter was only about sixteen years of age, and at that time a student at the school of Dundee; and their acquaintance with him continued till his death, which happened in his twenty-ninth year. Mr John Blair went from the schools in Scotland to Paris, where he studied some time, and received priest’s orders. He returned to Scotland in 1296, where he joined Wallace, who was bravely asserting the liberties of his country. Mr Thomas Gray, who was parson of Libberton, joined Wallace at the same time. They were men of great wisdom and integrity, zealous for the freedom of Scotland; and were present with Wallace, and assisted him, in most of his military enterprises. They were also his spiritual counsellors, and administered to him ghostly comfort. The history written by these two clergymen was attested by William Sinclair, bishop of Dunkeld, who had himself been witness to many of Wallace’s actions. The bishop, if he had lived longer, was to have sent their book to Rome, for the purpose of obtaining the sanction of the pope’s authority.”

The book which Henry thus appeals to as his principal authority is now lost, so that we have no opportunity of comparing it with what he has written. The character given of Henry by Dempster, however, is more favourable than that given by Major. The former tells us that “he was blind from his birth; a man of singular happy genius; he was indeed another Homer. He did great honour to his native country, and raised it above what was common to it in his age. He wrote, in the vernacular verse, an elaborate and grand work, in ten books, of the deeds of William Wallace.” But in this account there is a mistake, for the poem contains twelve books; but Dempster, who wrote in a foreign country, and had not a printed copy of Henry’s work by him when he composed his eulogium, is excusable in a mistake of this kind. It is conjectured that he wrote his Actis and Deidis of Shyr William Wallace about 1446, when he must have been an old man.

If we compare Henry’s Wallace with Barbour’s Bruce, the result must be a decision in favour of the latter work. The Bruce of Barbour is evidently the work of a politician as well as a poet. The characters of the king, his brother, Douglas, and the Earl of Moray, are carefully discriminated, and their separate talents always employed with judgment, by which means every event is prepared and rendered probable; but the Actis and Deidis of Shyr Wilham Wallace is a mere romance, in which the hero hews down entire squadrons with his single arm, and is indebted for every victory to his own physical strength. Both poems abound with descriptions of battles; but in those of Barbour our attention is successively directed to the cool intrepidity of the king, the brilliant temerity of his brother Edward, and the enterprising stratagems of Douglas; whilst in the work of the Blind Minstrel we find little else than a disgusting picture of hatred, revenge, murder, and bloodshed. Asa poetical story-teller,however, he has considerable merit; and the numerous editions through which his Wallace has passed sufficiently attests, if not the genius of the poet, at all events the popularity of his subject. The only known manuscript of this poem, from which all the printed copies have been taken, is that in the Advocates’ Library, which bears date 1488. The first printed edition was that of Edinburgh, 1570; but perhaps the best and most correct is that published by the Rev. Dr Jamieson, Edinburgh, 1820. Morrison’s edition, Perth, 1790, is also deserving of commendation, as being the first in which the text was given with any regard to accuracy.
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Henry Prince of Wales, eldest son of King James VI. of Scotland, by Anne, sister of the king of Denmark, and one of the most accomplished princes of the age in which he lived, was born on the 19th of February 1594. Besides his knowledge of the learned languages, he spoke the French and Italian; and he had made a considerable progress in philosophy, history, fortification, mathematics, and cosmography, in which last branches he was instructed by that excellent mathematician Mr Edward Wright. He aspired to know something of every thing, and to excel in what was most excellent. He had a just opinion of the great abilities of Sir Walter Raleigh; and is reported to have said, in allusion to the long imprisonment of Raleigh, that no king but his father would keep such a bird in a cage. That eminent writer, soldier, and statesman, had a reciprocal regard for the prince, to whom he had designed to address a discourse on the Art of War by Sea, which his highness’s death discouraged the author from finishing. He had also intended, and, as he expresses it, hewn out a second and third volume of his History of the World, which were to have been dedicated to his highness; “but it has pleased God,” says he, “to take that glorious prince out of this world,” a prince, “whose unspeakable and never-enough-lamented loss hath taught me to say with Job, Versa est in luctum cithara mea, et organum meum in vocem flentium” The prince died in November 1612. Dr Welwood, in his Notes on Wilson’s Life of King James I. informs us, though without giving any authority, that when the prince fell sick, the queen sent to Sir Walter Raleigh for some of his celebrated cordial, which she herself had taken some time before in a fever with remarkable success. Raleigh sent it, together with a letter to the queen, in which he expressed a tender concern for the prince; and, boasting of his medicine, said, “that it would certainly cure him or any other of a fever, except in case of poison” Sir Anthony Weldon suggests that the prince was poisoned; and the same notion is countenanced by Wilson and by Dr Welwood. Bishop Burnet likewise informs us, that Colonel Titus had heard King Charles I. declare, that the prince his brother was poisoned by means of Viscount Rochester, afterwards Earl of Somerset. But it will perhaps be sufficient to oppose to all such suggestions the unanimous opinion of the physicians who attended the prince during his sickness, and opened his body after his death; from which, as Dr Welwood himself observes, there can be no inference drawn that he was poisoned. To this may be added the authority of Sir Charles Cornwallis, who was well informed and above all suspicion in this point, and who pronounces the rumours spread of his highness having been poisoned as groundless; affirming that his death was natural, and occasioned by a violent fever.

Henry, Philip, a pious and learned nonconformist minister, son of Mr John Henry, page of the back stairs to James duke of York, was born at Whitehall in 1631. He was admitted into Westminster school at about twelve years of age; became the favourite of Dr Bushby; and was employed by him, with some others, in collecting materials for the Greek Grammar which he afterwards published. From Westminster he removed to Christ-Church, Oxford, where, having obtained the degree of master of arts, he was taken into the family of Judge Puleston, at Emeral, in Flintshire, as tutor to his sons, and preacher at Worthenbury. He soon afterwards married the only daughter and heiress of Daniel Matthews of Broad-oak, near Whitchurch, by whom he became possessed of a competent estate. When the king and episcopacy were restored, he refused to conform, was ejected, and retired with his family to Broad-oak, at which place, or in the immediate neighbourhood, he spent the remainder of his life, relieving the poor, employing the industrious, instructing the ignorant, and exercising every opportunity of doing good. His moderation in his nonconformity was eminent and exemplary; and upon all occasions he bore testimony against uncharitable and schismatical separation. In church-government he wished for Archbishop Usher’s reduction of episcopacy. But he thought it lawful to join in the common prayer in public assemblies, which, during the time of his silence and restraint, he devoutly and reverently attended along with his family.

Henry, Matthew, an eminent dissenting minister and author, was the son of the former, and was born in the year 1662. He continued under his father’s care till he was eighteen years of age, by which time he had become well skilled in the learned languages, especially Hebrew, which his father had rendered familiar to him from his childhood; and from first to last the study of the Scriptures formed bis principal employment. He completed his education in an academy kept at Islington by Mr Doolittle, and was afterwards entered as a student of law in Gray’s Inn, where he became well acquainted with the civil and municipal law of his own country; and from his application and great abilities it was thought he would have become very eminent in that profession. But at length, resolving to devote his life to the study of divinity, he, in 1685, retired into the country, and was chosen pastor of a congregation at Chester, where he lived about twenty-five years, greatly esteemed and beloved by his people. He had several calls from London, which he constantly declined; but he was at last prevailed on to accept an unanimous invitation from a congregation at Hackney. He wrote, 1. Expositions of the Bible, in five vols. folio; 2. The Life of Mr Philip Henry; 3. Directions for daily Communion with God; 4. A method for Prayer; 5. Four Discourses against Vice and Immorality; 6. The Communicant’s Companion; 7. Family Hymns; 8. A Scriptural Catechism; and, 9. A Discourse concerning the Nature of Schism. He died of apoplexy, at Nantwich, in 1714, and was interred at Trinity Church, in Chester.

Henry, Er Robert, author of the History of Great Britain, was the son of James Henry, farmer at Muirtown, in the parish of St Ninians, North Britain, and of Jean Galloway, daughter of Mr Galloway of Burrowmeadow, in Stirlingshire. He was born on the 18th of February 1718; and having early resolved to devote himself to a literary profession, was educated first under Mr John Nicoson at the parish-school of St Ninians, and for some time at the grammar-school of Stirling. He completed his course of academical study at the university of Edinburgh, and afterwards became master of the grammarschool of Annan. He was licensed to preach on the 27th of March 1746, and was the first licentiate of the presbytery of Annan after its institution as a separate presbytery. Soon afterwards he received a call from a congregation of Presbyterian dissenters at Carlisle, where he was ordained in November 1748. In this situation he remained twelve years, and on the 13th of August 1760 became pastor of a dissenting congregation at Berwick-upon-Tweed. Here he married, in 1763, Ann Balderston, daughter of Thomas Balderston. surgeon in Berwick, by whom he had no children, but with whom he enjoyed to the end of his life a large share of domestic happiness. He was removed from Berwick to be one of the ministers of Edinburgh in November 1768; officiated in the church of the New Grey Friars from that time until November 1776; and then became colleague-minister in the Old Church, and remained in that situation till his death. The degree of doctor in divinity was conferred upon him by the university of Edinburgh in 1770; and in 1774 he was unanimously chosen moderator of the general assembly of the church of Scotland, being the only person on record who had obtained that distinction the first time he was a member of assembly.
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These facts contain the outline of Dr Henry’s life, which, in fact, exhibits few events interesting to the biographer. Though he must have been always distinguished amongst his private friends, he had few opportunities of being known to the public until he was translated to Edinburgh. The composition of sermons must have occupied the chief part of his time during his residence at Carlisle, as his industry in that situation is known to have rendered his labours in this department easy to him during the remainder of his life. But even there he found leisure for other studies; and the knowledge of classical literature, in which he eminently excelled, soon enabled him to acquire an extent of information which qualified him for something more important than he had hitherto in his view.

Soon after his removal to Berwick, Henry published a scheme for raising a fund for the benefit of the widows and orphans of Protestant dissenting ministers in the north of England. This idea was probably suggested to him by the prosperity of the fund which had about thirty years before been established as a provision for ministers’ widows in Scotland. But the situation of the clergy of Scotland was very different from the circumstances of the dissenting ministers in England. Annuities and provisions were to be secured to the families of dissenters, without subjecting the individuals, as in Scotland, to a proportional annual contribution, and without such means of creating a fund as could be the subject of an act of parliament to secure the annual payments. The acuteness and activity of Dr Henry surmounted these difficulties; and, chiefly by his exertions, this useful and benevolent institution commenced about the year 1762. The management was intrusted to him for several years; and its success exceeded the most sanguine expectations which were formed of it.

It was probably about the year 1763 that he first conceived the idea of his History of Great Britain; a work which has long been established in the public opinion, and will probably be regarded by posterity, not only as having enlarged the sphere of history, and gratified our curiosity on a variety of subjects which fall not within the limits prescribed by preceding historians, but as one of the most accurate and authentic repositories of historical information which this country has produced. The plan adopted by Dr Henry is sufficiently explained in his general preface. In every period, it arranges, under separate heads or chapters, the civil and military history of Great Britain; the history of religion; the history of our constitution, government, laws, and courts of justice; the history of learning, of learned men, and of the chief seminaries of learning; the history of arts; the history of commerce, of shipping, of money or coin, and of the price of commodities; and the history of manners, virtues, vices, customs, language, dress, diet, and amusements. Under these seven heads, which extend the province of the historian greatly beyond its usual limits, every thing curious or interesting in the history of any country, may be comprehended. But it certainly required a more than common share of literary courage to attempt on so large a scale a subject so intricate and extensive as the history of Britain from the invasion of Julius Caesar. That Dr Henry neither overrated his powers nor his industry, could only have been proved by the success and reputation of his works.

But he soon found that his residence at Berwick was an insuperable obstacle to the minute researches which the execution of his plan required. His situation there excluded him from the means of consulting the original authorities; and though he attempted to find access to them by means of his literary friends, and with their assistance made some progress in his work, his information was notwithstanding so incomplete, that he found it im possible to prosecute his plan to his own satisfaction, and was at last compelled to relinquish it.

By the friendship of Mr Gilbert Laurie, lord provost of Edinburgh, and one of his majesty’s commissioners of excise in Scotland, who had married the sister of Mrs Henry, he was removed to Edinburgh in 1768; and it is to this event that the public are indebted for his prosecution of the History of Great Britain. His access to the public libraries, and the means of supplying the materials which these did not afford him, were from that time used with so much diligence and perseverance, that the first volume of his History, in quarto, was published in 1771, the second in 1774, the third in 1777, the fourth in 1781, and the fifth in 1785. The sixth volume was published after his death. These volumes comprehend the most intricate and obscure periods of our history; and when we consider the scanty and scattered materials which Dr Henry has digested, and the accurate and minute information which he has given us, under every chapter of the work, we must entertain a high opinion both of the learning and industry of the author, and of the vigour and activity of his mind; especially when it is added, that he employed no amanuensis, but completed the manuscript with his own hand, and that, excepting the first volume, the whole book, such as it is, was printed from the original copy. Whatever corrections were made on it were inserted by interlineations, or in revising the proof sheets. He found it necessary, indeed, to confine himself to a first copy, from an unfortunate tremor in his hand, which made writing extremely inconvenient, obliged him to write with his paper on a book placed on his knee instead of a table, and unhappily increased to such a degree that in the last years ol his life he was often unable to take his victuals without assistance. An attempt which he made after the publication of the fifth volume, to employ an amanuensis, did nol succeed. Never having been accustomed to dictate his compositions, he found it impossible to acquire a new habit: and though he persevered only a few days in the attempt, it had a sensible effect on his health, which he never afterwards recovered. An author has no right to claim indulgence, and is still less entitled to credit from the public, for any thing which can be ascribed to negligence in committing his manuscripts to the press; but considering the difficulties which Dr Henry surmounted, and the accurate research and information which distinguish his History, the circumstances which have been mentioned are far from being uninteresting, and must add considerably to the opinion formed of his merit amongst men who are judges of what he has done. He did not profess to study the ornaments of language; but his arrangement is uniformly regular and natural, and his style simple and perspicuous. More than this he has not attempted, and this cannot be denied him. He believed that the time which might be spent in polishing or rounding a sentence was more usefully employed in investigating and ascertaining a fact Hence, as a book of facts and solid information, supported by authentic documents, his History will stand a comparison with any other similar work of the same period.

But Dr Henry had other difficulties to surmount than those which related to the composition of his work. Not having been able to transact with the booksellers to his satisfaction, the five volumes were originally published at the risk of the author. When the first volume appeared, it was censured with unexampled acrimony and perseverance. Magazines, reviews, and even newspapers, were filled with abusive remarks and invectives, in which both the author and the book were treated with contempt and scurrility. When an author has once submitted his works to the public, he has no right to complain of the just severity of criticism. But Dr Henry had to contend with the inveterate scorn of malignity. In compliance with the [7:11:237]usual custom, he had permitted a sermon to be published which he had preached in 1773 before the Society in Scot land for propagating Christian Knowledge, a composition containing plain good sense on a common subject, from which he expected no reputation. This was eagerly seized on by the adversaries of his History, and torn to pieces with a virulence and asperity which no want of merit in the sermon could justify or explain. An anonymous letter had appeared in a newspaper vindicating the History from some of the unjust censures which had been published, and asserting, from the real merit and accuracy of the book, the author’s title to the approbation of the public. An answer appeared in the course of the following week, charging him, in terms equally confident and indecent, with having written this letter in his own praise. The efforts of malignity seldom fail to defeat their purpose, and to recoil upon those who direct them. Dr Henry had many friends, and till lately had not discovered that he had any enemies. But the author of the anonymous letter was unknown to him, till the learned and respectable Dr Mac-queen, from the indignation excited by the confident petulance of the answer, informed him that the letter had been written by him. These anecdotes are still remembered. The abuse of the History, which began in Scotland, was renewed in some of the periodical publications in South Britain; though it is justice to add, without meaning to refer to the candid observations of English critics, that in both kingdoms the asperity originated in the same quarter, and that paragraphs and criticisms written at Edinburgh were printed in London. The same spirit appeared in Strictures published on the second and third volumes; but by this time it had in a great measure lost the attention of the public.

The progress of his work introduced Dr Henry to more extensive patronage, and in particular to the notice and esteem of the Earl of Mansfield. That nobleman thought the merit of Dr Henry’s History so considerable, that, without any solicitation, after the publication of the fourth volume, he applied personally to the king to bestow on the author some mark of his royal favour. In consequence of this, Dr Henry was informed by a letter from the secretary of state, of his majesty’s intention to confer on him an annual pension for life of L.100, “considering his distinguished talents and great literary merit, and the importance of the very useful and laborious work in which he was so successfully engaged, as titles to his royal countenance and favour.” Dr Henry had kept very accurate accounts of the sales of his work from the time of the original publication; and after his last transaction conveying the copyright to a London bookseller, he found that his profits had amounted in all to about L.3300; a striking proof of the intrinsic merit of a work which had forced its way to the public esteem, in spite of the malignant opposition with which it had to struggle.

The prosecution of his History had been Dr Henry’s favourite object for almost thirty years of his life. He had naturally a sound constitution, and a more equal and larger portion of animal spirits than is commonly possessed by literary men. But from the year 1785 his bodily strength became sensibly impaired. Notwithstanding this, he persisted steadily in preparing his sixth volume, which brings down the history to the accession of Edward VI. The materials of this volume were left in the hands of his executors almost completed. Scarcely any thing remained unfinished but the two short chapters on arts and man ners; and even for these he had left materials and authorities so distinctly collected, that there was no great difficulty in supplying what was wanting. This sixth volume was published in the year 1793, with a life of the author prefixed; and it was found entitled to the same favourable reception from the public which had been given to the former volumes. Dr Henry’s original plan extended from the invasion of Britain by the Romans to his own times; and men of literary curiosity must regret that he did not live to complete his design; but he has certainly finished the most difficult parts of his subject. The periods after the accession of Edward VI. afford materials more ample, better digested, and much more within the reach of common readers. Till the summer of 1790 he was able to pursue his studies, though not without some interruptions. Butat that time his health greatly declined; and, with a constitution quite worn out, he died on the 24th of November of that year, in the seventy-third year of his age.