BRIDGEWATER
783
BRIDGEWATER
Lady s Dowry", showing by many illustrations from
history and literature the devotion of medieval Eng-
land to the Mother of God. In this and in "The His-
tory of the Holy Eueharist in Great Britain", a work
on the same plan published in 1S81. the author shows
a learning which is truly encyclopedic. The " Life of
Blessed John Fisher", which led to a correspondence
with Mr. Gladstone, followed in 1SS8; "The True Story
of the Catholic Hierarchy deposed by Queen Eliza-
beth", a work written in conjunction with Father Ivnox
of the Oratory, came out in 1SS9; "Blunders and
Forgeries", a very fine piece of cross-examination, in
1890; and the "Life of Blessed Thomas More", his
most popular work, in 1891. Father Bridgett also
pubhshed devotional verse of considerable merit,
both in a collection which he edited called "Lyra
Hieratica", and in "Sonnets and Epigrams", an
entirely original work. He died after a long and
painful illness and was buried in the Catholic ceme-
tery at Mortlake, near London.
RvDER, Life of thamas Edward Bridgett (London, 1906); I he Messenger (New York, June, 1907): The Tablet, files(Lon- don, Feb. 1S99).
Harold Castle.
Bridgewater, Johx, kno^-n also as Aqtjapon- T.\Nrs, historian of the Catholic Confessors under Queen Elizabeth, b. in Yorkshire about 1.532; d. probably at Trier, about 1596. He proceeded M. A. at Oxford in 15.56, was ordained priest, and in 1563 became Rector of Lincoln College in that university. He also held several other important preferments, all of which he resigned in 1574, when with several of his students he crossed over to Douai, preferring "the old form of religion" to the novelties of those whom he styled "Calvinopapists and Puritans". He probably never returned to England, but lived at various places on the Continent (Reims. Paris, Rome, Trier); in 1.588 and 1594 he resided at Trier. Ribadaneira, followed by Father Southwell and Brother Foley, accounts him a member of the Society of Jesus, though there is no proof of the fact (Records of English Catholics, I, 408). He refuted (Trier, 1589) a Protestant work on the pope as Antichrist and wrote also an ".\ccoimt of the Six Articles usually Proposed to the Missioners that Suffered in England", and against which he voted in 1562. Bridgewater is best known as the earliest mar- tyrologist of Catholic England. His work, conceived in the spirit of Eusebius as a triumphant apology for Catholicism, is entitled "Concertatio Ecclesiae Catholica; in Anglia adversus Calvinopapistas et Puritanos sub Elizabetha Regina quorundam homi- num doctrina et sanctitate illustrium renovata et recognita, etc.," i. e. The Battle of the Catholic Faith in England under Queen Elizabeth, renewed in the lives of certain men illustrious for learning and sanctity, among them more than one hundred martjTS, and a very great number of others dis- tinguished for their (religious) deeds and sufferings; confirmed also by the retractations of apostates, by new edicts of the persecutors, and by the writings of very learned Catholics against the Anglican, or rather female, pontificate, and in defence of the au- thority of the Roman pontiff over Christian princes (Trier, 1.588, about 850 pp. in 8vo). Another edition was brought out (ibid.) by Cardinal Allen in 1.594; it served thenceforth as an original record of EngHsh Catholic sufferings for the Faith an<l Dodd, Challoner, and Lingard used extensively its reliable biograpliical and liistorical data. Its rather inificellaneous contents are described in the Chetham Society's Remains (XLVIII, 47-50).
GiLLow, BM. Diet, of Eno. Calh., I. 294-295; Cooper in Did. of Sat. Biogr., s. v.; Douaj/ Diaries. 99, 119. and passim; Life and Letters nf Cardinal Allen. 77; Dodd, Ch. Hist, of Eng , 1. 510; 11. eo: Wood. Athena: Oxon., ed. Bi.iss, 1, 025: Folky Records, IV, 481-482, 485; VII, 299.
Thomas J. Shahan.
Bridgewater Treatises.— These publications de-
rive their origin and their title from the Rev. Francis
Henrj' Egerton, eighth and last Earl of Bridgewater
who, dying in the year 1829, directed certain trustees
named in his will to invest in the public funds the
sum of £8,000, which sum with the accruing di\-'-
dends was to be held at the disposal of the president,
for the time being, of the Royal Society of London,
to be paid to the person or persons nominated by
him. It was further directed that those so selected
should be appointed to write, print, and publish one
thousand copies of a work: "On the Power, Wisdom,
and Goodness of God as manifested in the Creation,
illustrating such work by all reasonable arguments,
as, for instance, the variety and formation of God's
creatures, in the animal, vegetable and mineral king-
doms; the effect of digestion and thereby of conver-
sion; the construction of the hand of man and an
infinite variety of other arguments; as also by dis-
coveries ancient and modern in arts, sciences, and
the whole extent of modern literature".
The President of the Royal Society was then Davies Gilbert, who with the advice of the Arch- bishop of Canterbury, the Bishop of London, and a nobleman who had been intimate with the testator, determined that the money should be assigned to eight several persons for as many distinct treatises. The works produced in consequence were the fol- lowing: (1) "The Adaptation of External Nature to the Moral and Intellectual Constitution of Man", by Thomas Chalmers (1833); (2) "Chemistrj-, Meteo'- rology, and Digestion", by William Prout, M. D. (1834); (3) "History, Habits, and Instincts of Ani- mals", by Wilham Kirby (1835); (4) "The Hand, as Evincing Design", by Sir Charles Bell (1837); (5) "Geology and Mineralogy ", by Dean Buckland, (1837); (6) "The Adaptation of External Nature to the Physical Condition of Man", by J. Kidd, M. D. (1837); (7) "Astronomy and General Physics", by Dr. William Whewell (1839); (8) "Animal'and Vege- table Physiology ", by P. M. Roget, M. D. (1840). The nature of the Treatises is clearly indicated by Lord Bridgewater's instructions, and by their several titles.
The selection of writers was somewhat severely criticized at the time, and the treatises are un- doubtedly of unequal merit, but several of them took a high rank in apologetic literature, the best known being probably those by Buckland, Bell, and Whewell. At the present day, however, they are wellnigh for- gotten and their value for the purpose they were designed to serve is verj' small. This is partly because the marvellous advances of recent years have made much of their science antiquated and out of date, but still more because of the almost total abandonment of the point of view on which their authors founded arguments to demonstrate the ex- istence of design in nature. It is now generally felt to be an unsatisfactory, or, at lea,st,less satisfactory, method, to argue from particular examples in which analogy can be traced between the mechanism found in nature and that contrived by man, as. for instance, to take one specially mentioned by Darwin, in the hinge of a bivalve shell, as though it were in such cases alone that the operation of Mind manifested itself. The best modern apologists insist rather on the note of law and order stamped everywhere upon the universe, inorganic no less than organic, upon the reality and ubiquity of which the viilidity of all scientific methods wholly depends, while the progress of scientific discovery does but immensely enhance the weight of the argument based upon it. At the same time, it cannot be admitted that the old- fashioned natural theology of the Treatises is so devoid of value a.s many modern critics pretend. The marvellous contrivances which we meet every- where in organic nature remain wholly inexplicable
