i. 531). By the same influence he was elected bishop of Llandaff 7 Aug. 1591, confirmed on the 27th, and consecrated at Croydon on the 29th (Reg. Whitg. i. fol. 77, and Le Neve). Four years later he was translated to the see of Exeter, elected 4 Feb. 1594-5, and enthroned22 March (ibid.) He is severely condemned for having alienated from this bishopric 'the rich and noble manor of Crediton,in the county of Devon,' which Prince pronounces 'an irreparable injury.' Finally, he was nominated by the queen to Worcester, on 30 Aug. 1597, elected 15 Sept., and confirmed4 Oct. (ibid.) Among other subsidiary offices held by him was that of queen's counsel for the Marches of Wales (Fuller). Early in 1600 Babington was believed to favour the Earl of Essex. On 5 March 1599- 1600 Chamberlain wrote to Carleton that Queen Elizabeth had called him to account while he was preaching a sermon before her, because of the hints he made in behalf of the earl. In 1604 Babington was summoned to the Hampton Court conference. He died 17 May 1610, and was buried in his cathedral.
Before and after his advances in the church Babington was a constant preacher and a laborious student. Lovers of Elizabethan literature contend eagerly for copies of his many little quartos, some of the rarest of which are to be found in the British Museum. In 1583 he issued his 'Very fruitful exposition of the commandements by way of questions and answers,' which was republished in 1590, and again about 1600. A similar work on the Lord's Prayer was issued in 1588. In 1584 appeared his 'Briefe conference betwixt man's frailtie and faith wherein is declared the true use and comfort of those blessings pronounced by Christ in the fifth of Matthew. . . . Laide downe in order of dialogue.' This was republished in 1590 and again in 1596. In 1592 the first edition was published of 'Certaine, plaine, briefe, and comfortable notes upon everie chapter of Genesis,' of which an enlarged edition appeared in 1596 and 1602. In 1604 he issued his 'Comfortable notes upon the bookes of Exodus and Leviticus.' Several sermons preached at St. Paul's Cross by Babington were also published. The great folio of his works (edited by Miles Smith, afterwards bishop, and T. C.), having been issued originally in 1615, was republished in 1622 and 1637. The volume consists of Babington's 'Comfortable Notes upon the Five Books of Moses, also an exposition upon the Creed, the Commandments, the Lord's Prayer, with a conference betwixt man's frailtie and faith, and three sermons,' &c. Throughout his multiplied divisions are scholastic and complicated; his reading extensive and varied. He was well acquainted with Hebrew and Greek, and his style is quaint and pleasant. Some passages from Babington's treatise on the commandments, in which the vices of his age are forcibly exposed and attacked, are reprinted in the New Shakspere Society's edition of Stubbes's 'Anatomy of Abuses,' pt. i. pp. 75-93. A sermon preached by Babingtonin 1590, and published in his 'Works,' was reprinted by Sir Richard Hill as an appendix to his 'Apology for Brotherly Love,' in 1798,
[In addition to authorities quoted, see Willis's Survey of the Cathedrals, 1727; Godwin de Praesul., 1616; Hooker's Catalogue of the Bishops of Exeter; Strype's Whitgift; Berkenhout's Biogr. Literaria, i. 244-5; Cal. State Papers (Dom.), 1595, 1600, 1608.]
BABINGTON, HUMFREY, D.D. (1615–1691), divine, the second son of Humfrey Babington of Rothley Temple, Leicestershire, was educated at Trinity College, Cambridge. He succeeded Sanderson, on his appointment to the bishopric of Lincoln, as rector of Boothby Painel in Lincolnshire. He preached a sermon at the Lincoln assizes, which, at the request of his hearers, was published at Cambridge in 1678. It is a curious instance of the style of the time, being elaborately learned and crammed with quotations in Latin and Greek, and even Hebrew. Its political views may be estimated by its assertion that 'monarchy is the best safeguard to mankind, both against the great furious bulls of tyrannical popery, and the lesser giddy cattle of schismatical presbytery.' This sermon probably procured him the degree of D.D. per literas regias in 1669. He afterwards became vice-master of Trinity College, built two sets of rooms for the use of the Babington family in the college, and founded the Barrow Hospital.
[Notes and Queries, 2nd series, ix. 152, 195; Brit. Mus. Cat.]
BABINGTON, JOHN (fl. 1635), mathematician and gunner, published in 1635 a folio volume, entitled 'Pyrotechnia, or a Discourse of Artificiall Fireworks,' to which. was added a 'Short Treatise of Geometrie . . . with the tables for the square root to 25,000, and the cubick root to 10,000 Latus, wherein all roots under those numbers . . . are extracted onely by ocular inspection.' The first
part of the book, which dealt with the use of fireworks for military purposes as well as for amusements, was dedicated to the 'Earl of Newport, Master of his Majesties Ordnance,' and in the preface the author says of him-
