who had hitherto been the prey of gamesters, and who might as well be the prey of friars.’ In January 1688–9 he was committed to the Tower as a popish recusant (ib. 493), but the prosecution was finally waived (ib. ii. 123). His name was forged by Robert Young to a document purporting to be that of an association who had bound themselves to take arms for King James, and to seize on the Prince of Orange dead or alive. On this account he was on 7 May 1692 committed to the Tower (ib. 444), but nothing being proved against him his bail was finally discharged in the court of king's bench (ib. 629). He died 25 Oct. 1693, leaving an only son, three years old (ib. 388), who succeeded him as fifth earl. He was buried at Hatfield on 29 Oct.
[Luttrell's Diary; Reresby's Memoirs; Sprat's Relation of the late Wicked Contrivance of Stephen Blackhead and Robert Young, 1692; Macaulay's History of England; Clutterbuck's Hertfordshire; Chauncy's Hertfordshire; Collins's Peerage, 5th ed. iii. 149.]
CECIL, RICHARD (1748–1810), divine, one of the leaders of the evangelical revival, was born at his father's house of business in Chiswell Street, in the parish of St. Luke's, Old Street, London, 8 Nov. 1748, and was baptised in the parish church on the 30th of the same month. His father, Thomas Cecil, a descendant of Cecil, lord Burghley, was scarlet-dyer to the East India Company, a lucrative calling in which he had been preceded by his father and grandfather, who established their dye-works on their freehold property in Chiswell Street. His mother's maiden name was Tabitha Grosvenor. She was the only child of a London merchant, a pious dissenter. Richard was the youngest child of his parents, and was born after his mother was fifty years old. He was allowed to relinquish business for literature and the fine arts. He wrote poetry and cultivated music, becoming a proficient on the violin, but his chief passion was for painting, which he pursued insatiably, attending all the picture sales in London and practising at home. He made a clandestine visit to the continent to see the pictures of the best masters, and would have gone to Rome if his funds had proved sufficient. He acquired great influence among his youthful associates, and gloried in being an apostle of infidelity and a leader in every kind of profligacy. Like Augustine he was brought back to faith and purity by the prayers and holy example of his mother. On his conversion he resolved to devote himself to the work of the christian ministry. To this his father made no serious objection, only insisting that he should not leave the church of England. If he connected himself with ‘dissenters or sectaries,’ his father would ‘do nothing for him living or dying.’ Cecil commenced residence at Queen's College, Oxford, 19 May 1773, and took his B.A. degree, we are told, ‘with great credit’ in the Lent term of 1777. His ordination, both to the diaconate and priesthood, preceded his B.A. degree, the former taking place in the chapel of Buckden Palace at the hands of Bishop Green 22 Sept. 1776, and the latter 23 Feb. 1777. His title was given him by the Rev. John Pugh, the incumbent of Rauceby and Cranwell, near Sleaford, Lincolnshire, at that time one of the most influential members of the evangelical party in the church, and one of the originators of the Church Missionary Society; his stipend was 40l. From Lincolnshire he was speedily removed to Leicestershire, then also comprised within the diocese of Lincoln, to take temporary charge of the parishes of Thornton-cum-Bagworth and Markfield, then vacant through the incumbent's decease. Early in 1777, through the interest of powerful evangelical friends, he was offered the two small livings of All Saints and St. Thomas of Canterbury at Cliffe in the town of Lewes in Sussex, to the former of which he was instituted 27 Feb. of that year, the combined income of the two rectories being only about 80l. per annum. Here he took up his residence and fulfilled the duties of his ministry with great zeal and earnestness until the dampness of his rectory produced a severe rheumatic affection in his head, when he returned to London, making his home at Islington. Cecil held his two Lewes livings for twenty years, and certainly did not reside upon them or perform the duty personally for more than half that period. He resigned St. Thomas's early in 1797 to the curate who had done his work, and All Saints at the end of 1798. His fame as an earnest evangelical preacher had preceded him in the metropolis, and he was speedily engaged to undertake various lectureships, one at St. Margaret's, Lothbury, at 6 a.m., an evening lecture at Orange Street Chapel, which subsequently became a nonconformist place of worship, and others. He shared the charge of Long Acre Chapel with the Rev. Henry Foster, another of the fathers of the evangelical movement, a friend of Newton and Scott, and in 1787 he undertook the evening lecture at Christ Church, Spitalfields, which he held alternately with Mr. Foster, the lectureship being only tenable for three years consecutively, till 1801. The sphere of duty with which Cecil's name is most prominently connected is St. John's
