under Man,’ 1654, 8vo, translated from the Latin of Michael Mayerus. 4. ‘Hierocles upon the Golden Verses of Pythagoras; Teaching a Vertuous and Worthy Life,’ posthumously published in 1657, with commendatory verses by Richard Lovelace and others. The ‘Paradoxes’ and ‘Lusus Serius’ were published under the disguised name ‘J. de La Salle.’ In 1647 Hall edited Robert Hegge's [q. v.] ‘In aliquot Sacræ Paginæ loca Lectiones.’
Hall died on 1 Aug. 1656, leaving several unpublished works. At the time of his death he was engaged upon a translation of Procopius. He wrote very rapidly, and is reported to have had a marvellous memory. Hobbes, who frequently visited him, had a high opinion of his abilities; another of his friends was Samuel Hartlib [q. v.] According to Davies, he greatly objected to taking exercise, so much so that in 1650 and 1651, ‘being inclined to pursinesse & fatnesse, rather than he would use any great motion, he thought fitter to prevent it by frequent swallowing down of pebble-stones, which proved effectuall.’ Wood observes that, ‘had not his debauchery and intemperance diverted him from the more serious studies, he had made an extraordinary person, for no man had ever done so great things at his age. So was the opinion of the great philosopher of Malmesbury.’
[Memoir by John Davies of Kidwelly prefixed to Hall's Hierocles upon the Golden Verses of Pythagoras, 1657; Wood's Athenæ, ed. Bliss, ii. 457–60; Brydges's preface to Hall's Poems, 1816.]
HALL, JOHN (d. 1707), divine, was elected a fellow of Trinity College, Cambridge, in 1658, proceeded B.A. and M.A. in due course, and B.D. in 1666. He was collated on 11 March 1663–4 to the rectory of Hanwell, Middlesex. On 11 July 1664 he was collated to the prebend of Isledon in the church of St. Paul, and on 20 Feb. 1665–6 to the rectory of St. Christopher-le-Stocks, London. On 5 Oct. 1666 he was collated to the rectory of Finchley, Middlesex. On 21 March 1666–7 he exchanged the prebend of Isledon for that of Holywell, alias Finsbury. He was president of Sion College, London, and died towards the close of 1707.
He was the author of: 1. ‘Grace leading unto Glory: or a Glimpse of the Glorie, Excellencie, and Eternity of Heaven. … Written by J. H.,’ London, 1651. Dedicated to Elizabeth Cecil, countess dowager of Exeter. 2. ‘Jacobs Ladder: or the Devout Souls Ascention to Heaven, in prayers, thanksgivings, and praises. In four parts, viz. Private Devotions, Family Devotions for every day in the week, Occasional Devotions, Sacred Poems upon select subjects. With Graces and Thanksgivings. Illustrated with sculptures,’ 2nd edit., enlarged, London, 1676, 24mo; 9th edit. London, 1698; 14th edit. London, 1716; 16th edit. London, 1728; 19th edit. London, 1764. The work contains accounts of the Gunpowder plot, the plague, and the fire of London.
[Cantabrigienses Graduati, 1787, p. 173; Le Neve's Fasti (Hardy); Newcourt's Repertorium, i. 162, 168, 325, 606, 628; Notes and Queries, 3rd ser. v. 497, 530, vi. 37; Watt's Bibl. Brit.]
HALL, JOHN (d. 1707), criminal, born of poor parents in Bishop's Head Court, Gray's Inn Lane, London, was brought up as a chimney-sweeper, but soon turned pickpocket, and in January 1682 was convicted of theft at the Old Bailey, and whipped at the cart's tail. He was sentenced to death in 1700 for housebreaking, but was pardoned on condition of removing within six months to America. He managed to desert the ship in which his passage was secured, and in 1702 was sentenced to be burnt in the cheek and to undergo two years' imprisonment for stealing portmanteaus from behind a coach. On his return in 1704 he joined, with two companions, Stephen Bunce and Richard Low, in a series of daring burglaries, and managed for a time to escape arrest, and when arrested in 1705, and again in 1706, was acquitted for want of evidence. In 1707 he and his two friends, Bunce and Low, were convicted of breaking open the house of Captain Guyon, near Stepney, and were hanged at Tyburn on 17 Dec. 1707. Luttrell, in his ‘Brief Relation,’ vi. 115, mentions the conviction of Hall, ‘a notorious highwayman,’ on 10 Dec. 1706, but the ‘Newgate Calendar’ gives 1707 as the date of Hall's death. Hall is credited with composing before his execution: ‘Memoirs of the Right Villanous John Hall, the late famous and notorious robber, penn'd from his own mouth,’ published in London in 1708. This is a general account of a thief's life in and out of Newgate, with interesting lists of thieves' technical terms. A fourth edition of the same year contains some verses by Hall and his two friends, and an elegy and epitaph in verse upon him. In 1714 another edition, also called ‘the fourth,’ was issued.
[Knapp and Baldwin's Newgate Calendar, i. 47–8; Hall's Memoirs.]
HALL, JOHN, D.D. (1633–1710), bishop of Bristol, son of John Hall, vicar of Bromsgrove, Worcestershire, and Anne his wife, was born at his father's vicarage on 29 Jan. 1632-3. He was admitted into Merchant
