In 1786 he published a catechism, valuable as indicating the departure from the old standards of doctrine, already hinted at in the terms of his subscription. The questions are precisely those of the Westminster Shorter Catechism; the answers are naked extracts from Scripture, without comment. In the second edition, 1825, a further progress is made; some of the Westminster questions are omitted, others are altered. Bankhead was moderator of synod in 1800. On 30 July 1812 William Glendy (d. 24 July 1853, aged 71) was ordained as his assistant and successor. In 1829 Glendy took the congregation with him to join the heterodox remonstrant synod; but Bankhead remained on the roll of the general synod till his death, which occurred on 5 July 1833, he being then in the ninety-sixth year of his age, and the seventieth of his ministry (the inscription on his tombstone overestimates on both points). It is remarkable that the whole period of 220 years (1613–1833) in the history of Ballycarry congregation is spanned by the pastorates of four men, the interstices between their ministries amounting collectively to seventeen years. Bankhead was a man of much natural ability. A satirical poem of 1817 (‘The Ulster Synod,’ by Rev. William Heron, of Ballyclare) describes him, in his eightieth year, as ‘scattering bright wit, sound sense, and Dublin snuff.’ He published: 1. ‘Faith the Spring of Holiness’ [Hab. ii. 4], Belf. 1769 (funeral sermon for Arch. Edmonstone of Redhall, who left Bankhead his library). 2. ‘A Catechism,’ &c. Belf. 1786, 12mo (the date is misprinted 1736); 2nd ed. Belf. 1825, 12mo (described above). He was twice married, (1) to Jane Martin, (2) in February 1812 to Mary Magill, and was the father of twenty-two children, nineteen of whom reached maturity, and some found distinction. His eldest son was John Bankhead, M.D., a leading physician of Belfast. Another was James Bankhead, ordained 23 March 1796, presbyterian minister of Dromore, co. Down (d. 10 Jan. 1824). Another son, Charles Bankhead, M.D., was private physician to the celebrated Lord Londonderry, who expired in his arms in 1822; he died at Florence, aged 91, and was father of Charles Bankhead, British envoy to Washington. The latest survivor of the twenty-two children was William Bankhead, unitarian minister at Brighton and Diss, Norfolk (1837–43), who left the ministry, and died in Edinburgh, 1881, aged 69.
[Belfast News-Letter, 12 July 1833 (see letter proving the year of his birth); Chr. Unitarian, 1863 (extracts from original records of Templepatrick presbytery); Witherow's Hist. and Lit. Mem. of Presbyterianism in Ireland, 2 ser. 1880; Min. of Gen. Synod, 1824; information from a descendant.]
BANKS, —— (fl. 1588–1637), a famous showman, to whose ‘dancing horse’ allusion is made by all the best-known authors of his day, was a native of Scotland. He is stated in ‘Tarlton's Jests’ (1600) to have originally served the Earl of Essex, and to have exhibited his horse ‘of strange qualities … at the Crosse Keyes in Gracious-streete’ before 1588. The animal went by the name of Morocco or Marocco. His feats, which are briefly described in an epigram in Bastard's ‘Chrestoleros’ (1598), included, among many like accomplishments, the power of counting money, to which reference is made by Shakespeare (Love's Labour's Lost, i. 2, l. 53), by Bishop Hall (Toothless Satyrs, 1597), and by Sir Kenelm Digby (Nature of Bodies, 1644, p. 321); of singling out persons named by his master (Tarlton's Jests; Brathwaite's Strappado for the Divell, 1615); of dancing, to which very frequent allusion is made by the Elizabethan dramatists. At the end of 1595 there appeared a pamphlet, of which only two copies are now extant, entitled ‘Maroccus Extaticus, or Bankes Bay Horse in a Trance, a discourse set downe in a merry dialogue between Bankes and his beast, anatomizing some abuses and bad trickes of this age, written and intituled to mine host of the Belsavage, and all his honest guests, by John Dando, the wier-drawer of Hadley, and Harrie Runt, the head ostler of Bosomes Inne, 1595.’ A woodcut represents Banks in the act of opening his entertainment, and the horse standing on his hind legs, with a stick in his mouth and dice on the ground. From the title-page it appears that Banks was at the time exhibiting his horse at the Belsavage Inn without Ludgate, where such entertainments were frequent, and where, as was his custom, Banks charged twopence for admission to his performance (Brathwaite's Strappado). The dialogue, of which the pamphlet consists, deals with the hypocrisy of the puritans and other alleged abuses. It promises a second part, which never appeared. About 1600 the horse is reported to have performed his most famous but hardly credible exploit—that of climbing the steeple of St. Paul's. In the ‘Owles Almanacke’ (1618) it is stated that ‘since the dancing horse stood on the top of Powles, whilst a number of asses stood braying, below seventeen yeares.’ References to the event are to be found in many of Dekker's plays and prose tracts, in Rowley's ‘Search for Money,’ and elsewhere. In 1601 Banks crossed the Channel, and exhibited his horse at Paris; and the best account of
