John, 1787, 4to; reprinted 1790, 1792, 8vo). For other manuscript treatises and miscellaneous collections by Hale see the catalogue of the Hargrave MSS. in the British Museum, and the catalogue of the Hale MSS. in Lincoln's Inn referred to above.
Hale was a diligent student of Fitzherbert, and reading habitually pen in hand, he covered the margin of his copy of the 'Novel Natora Brevium' with manuscript notes, which formed a complete commentary on the treatise, and were published as such in the 'New Natura Brevium, with Sir Matthew Hale's Commentary,' London, 1730, 4to; reprinted 1794, 2vols. 8vo. Hale also made frequent annotations in his copy of 'Coke upon Littleton,' which he gave to one of his executors, Robert Gibbon, from whom it passed to his son, Phillips Gibbon (M.P. for Rye, d. 1762), a friend of Charles Yorke (lord chancellor 1770). Yorke copied the notes, and a transcript of his copy was made for Sir Thomas Parker (lord chief baron 1740-72), from which transcript they were printed by Hargrave and Butler in their edition of 'Coke upon Littleton' in 1787 (Nichols, Lit. Anecd. viii. 558 n.; The First Part of the Institutes of the Laws of England, authore Ed. Coke, ed. Hargrave and Butler, vol. xxvi.)
Baxter edited from the original manuscript 'The Judgment of the late Lord Chief Justice, Sir Matthew Hale, of the Nature of True Religion, the Causes of its Corruption, and the Church's Calamity by Men's Additions and Violences, with the desired Cure. In three several Discourses,' &c., London, 1684, 4to (re-edited by E. H. Barker in 1832, 8vo). The same year appeared a collection of various fugitive pieces by Hale entitled 'Several Tracts, viz. : 1. A Discourse of Religion on Three Heads : (a) The Ends and Uses of it, and the Errors of Men touching it; (b) The Life of Religion and Superadditions to it; (c) The Superstructions upon it, and the Animosities about it. 2. A Treatise touching Provision for the Poor. 3. A Letter to his Children advising them how to behave themselves in their Speech. 4. A Letter from one of his Sons after his Recovery from the Small-Pox.' Four years later appeared 'A Discourse of the Knowledge of God and of Ourselves, (1) by the Light of Nature, (2) by the Sacred Scriptures. Written by Sir Matthew Hale' (with other tracts by Hale), London, 1688. A pious 'Meditation concerning the Mercy of God in preserving us from the Malice and Power of Evil Angels,' elicited from Hale by the trial of the supposed witches, was published by way of preface to 'A Collection of modern relations of matter of fact concerning Witches and Witchcraft upon the Persons of the People,' London, 1693, 4to. At Berwick in 1762 appeared 'Sir Matthew Hale's Three Epistles to his Children, with Directions concerning their Religious Observation of the Lord'sDay, to which is prefixed An Account of the Author's Life,' 8vo; reprinted with a fourth letter and an edificatory tract as 'The Counsels of a Father, in Four Letters of Sir Matthew Hale to his Children, to which is added The Practical Life of a true Christian in the Account of the Good Steward at the Great Audit,' London, 1816, 12mo. His 'Works Moral and Religious,' with Burnet's ' Life r and Baxter's ' Notes' prefixed, were edited by the Rev. T. Thirlwall, London, 1805, 2 vols. 8vo. This collective edition contains; (1) the 'Four Letters' to his children, (2) an 'Abstract of the Christian Religion,' (3) 'Considerations Seasonable at all times for Cleansing the Heart and Life,' (4) the 'Discourse of Religion,' (5) ' A Discourse on Life and Immortality,' (6) 'On the Day of Pentecost,' (7) 'Concerning the Works of God,' (8) 'Of Doing as we would be done unto,' (9) the translation of Nepos's 'Life of Atticus,' (10) the 'Contemplations Moral and Divine', with the metrical effusions on Christmas day. A compilation from the New Testament entitled 'The Harmony of the Four Evangelists,' edited by John Coren in 1720,. is attributed to Hale on the strength of 'a. tradition in the family whence it came.'
Portions of Hale's edificatory and apologetic writings have also been from time to time edited for the Religious Tract Society, and by individual religious propagandists, whom it is not necessary to particularize. Besides the portrait in the Guildhall already referred to, there is one by an unknown painter in the National Portrait Gallery, to which it was presented by the Society of Serjeants-at-Law in 1877.
[The principal authorities for Hale's biography are Burnet's Life and Death of Sir Matthew Hale, London, 1682, 8vo; and the brief account given in Wood's Athenae Oxon. ed. Bliss, iii. 1090-6. Of more recent lives the most ambitious is Memoirs of the Life, Character, and Writings of Sir Matthew Hale, knt., Lord Chief Justice of England, by John (afterwards Sir John) Bickerton Williams, LL.D., F.S.A., London, 1835, a careful compilation marred by the author's painful desire to edify. See also Campbell's Lives of the Chief Justices, and Foss's Lives of the Judges.]
HALE, RICHARD, M.D. (1670–1728), physician, eldest son of Richard Hale of New Windsor, Berkshire, was born at Beckenham, Kent, in 1670. He entered at Trinity College, Oxford, with his younger brother,
