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J. S. Hughes, Printer, 66, Paternoster-row.

LIFE OF THE AUTHOR.

WILLIAM JONES was the son of Morgan Jones, a Welsh gentleman, descended from Colonel Jones, who married a sister of Oliver Cromwell, and was born at Lowick in Northamptonshire, in the year 1726. He early discovered an inquisitive temper, and industry in acquiring knowledge, and when he was of a proper age, was admitted a scholar at the Charter-house, in London, where he made a rapid progress in the Latin and Greek languages. Here also he gave indications of a turn for philosophical studies, and copied some tables and calculations of Mr. Zachary Williams, the father of Dr. Johnson's Mrs. Williams, belonging to a magnetical theory which that gentleman had formed, but which was never given to the public. When Mr. Jones was about eighteen years of age, he was entered of University College, Oxford, on a Charter-house exhibition, and in that seminary pursued the usual course of studies with unremitted diligence. He was admitted to

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the degree of B. A. in the year 1749, and soon afterwards received Deacon's orders from the Bishop of Peterborough. In 1751, he was ordained priest by the Bishop of Lincoln, and on quitting the university became curate at Finedon, in Northamptonshire. While he was in this situation, he published, in 1753, his "Full Answer to Bishop Clayton's Essay on Spirit," or rather the essay which his lordship adopted; in which he endeavoured to support the cause of orthodoxy by an appeal to the religion and learning of heathen antiquity, particularly the notions of the Hermetic, Pythagorean, and Platonic trinities.

In the year 1754, he formed a happy matrimonal connection, and went to reside at Wadenhoe in Northamptonshire, as curate to his brother-in-law, the Rev. Brooke Bridges. In this place he drew up and published, in what year we are not informed, his "Catholic Doctrine of the Trinity," octavo; which was favourably received by the orthodox world, and was enlarged in the third edition, which appeared in 1767, by a "Letter to the common people, in answer to some popular Arguments against the Trinity." Here also he engaged in a course of experiments, neces

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