to Higden:
- ‘Expositio super Job.’
- ‘In Cantica Canticorum.’
- ‘Sermones per annum.’
- ‘Determinationes sub compendio.’
- ‘In litteram calendarii.’
The ‘Mappa Mundi’ assigned to him by Bale is only the first book of the ‘Polychronicon,’ which is chiefly geographical in character; the treatises ‘Ex Gulielmo Stephanide’ (Bale) and ‘Ex Stephano Langton’ (Tanner) are also merely extracts from the larger work.
[Bale, vi. 12; Leland's Collect. ii. 368; Tanner's Bibl. Brit.-Hib. p. 403; Macray's Cat. Brit. Hist.; Hardy's Descriptive Cat. Brit. Hist. vol. iii.; prefaces by Drs. Babington and Lumby in Rolls Series edition of the Polychronicon; Gairdner's Early Chroniclers of England, pp. 274–279.]
HIGDEN, WILLIAM (d. 1715), divine, was matriculated sizar of King's College, Cambridge, on 5 April 1682 (University Matriculation Register), and graduated B.A. in 1684, M.A. in 1688. After the revolution he refused to take the oaths, but eventually conformed, and published in defence of his conduct ‘A View of the English Constitution, with respect to the sovereign authority of the Prince and the allegiance of the Subject. In vindication of the lawfulness of taking the oaths to her Majesty by law required,’ 8vo, London, 1709, which he supplemented in the following year by ‘A Defence of the View of the English Constitution … by way of Reply to the several Answers that have been made to it,’ 8vo, London, 1710 (reissued together in 1710 as a third edition and in 1716 as a fifth edition). Hearne said that Higden ‘was always reckoned a man of Parts and Honesty,’ but he considered that Higden's ‘View’ was completely confuted. ‘Nor,’ Hearne adds, ‘is the government like to thank him for his Performance, since he resolves all into Possession, and makes all Usurpers have a title to Allegiance, not excepting even Oliver himself.’ Higden took the degree of D.D. in 1710, and became prebendary of Canterbury in May 1713. He died on 28 Aug. 1715, and was buried on 5 Sept. in the new chapel, Westminster (Hist. Reg. Chron. Diary, 1715, p. 66; Le Neve, Fasti, ed. Hardy, i. 49–50). He wrote also: 1. ‘The Case of Sureties in Baptism’ [anon.], 4to, London, 1701. 2. ‘Occasional Conformity a most unjustifiable Practice’ [anon.], 4to, London, 1704. 3. ‘The Case of the Admission of Dissenters to the Holy Communion before they renounce their Schism. The Second Edition,’ 4to, London, 1715. He had likewise a share in the translation of ‘Tacitus,’ 3 vols. 8vo, London, 1698.
[Brit. Mus. Cat.; Hearne's Collections, ed. Doble (Oxf. Hist. Soc.), ii. 284, &c.; Lathbury's Hist. of the Nonjurors, p. 230.]
HIGFORD, WILLIAM (1581?–1657), puritan, was born of a good family in the neighbourhood of Alderton in Gloucestershire about 1581. On 14 Jan. 1596–7 he matriculated at Oriel College, Oxford (Reg. Univ. Oxf. ii. ii. 218, Oxf. Hist. Soc.) Wood says that he entered in 1595 as a fellow-commoner. He subsequently migrated to Corpus Christi College, where he says he had for his tutor Sebastian Benefield [q. v.] He graduated B.A. 16 Feb. 1598–9 (ib. ii. iii. 215, where he is called Hichford). Wood states that ‘by the benefit of good discipline and natural parts he became a well qualified gentleman,’ and that after taking his degree in arts he retired to his father's seat at Dixton, near Alderton, was appointed a justice of the peace, and was highly respected by the neighbouring nobility and gentry, particularly Grey Brydges, lord Chandos [q. v.]
He married Mary, daughter of John Meulx of the Isle of Wight, by whom he had a son John, born in 1607. Higford, who is stated to have been ‘a zealous puritan,’ died at his residence at Dixton on 6 April 1657, in the seventy-seventh year of his age, leaving behind him, ‘beside other matter fit for the press,’ a large manuscript, entitled ‘Institutions, or Advice to his Grandson, in three Parts,’ which was revised by Clement Barksdale [q. v.], and published in London in 1658, 16mo. A second edition appeared in 1660, 8vo, under the title of ‘The Institution of a Gentleman, in Three Parts,’ dedicated to Lord Scudamore, and containing ‘An Address to the Generous Reader’ by Barksdale, together with an ‘Epitaphium Gulielmi Higford,’ and his praise in English verse, headed ‘Fama loquitur.’ It was also printed in the ‘Harleian Miscellany,’ vol. ix.
[Wood's Athenæ (Bliss), iii. 429; Rudder's Hist. of Gloucestershire, p. 220.]
HIGGINS, BRYAN, M.D. (1737?–1820), physician and chemist, was born in co. Sligo about 1737. On 5 Oct. 1765 he entered Leyden University and proceeded M.D. (Leyden Students, Index Society, p. 49). He then commenced practice in London. In July 1774 he opened a school of practical chemistry in Greek Street, Soho, and published a syllabus of his first course of lectures in 1775. During that year he had a dispute with Priestley, whom he accused of having plagiarised some of his experiments on air. Priestley replied in a lengthy pamphlet entitled ‘Philosophical Empiricism,’ 8vo, 1775. In 1776 Higgins published a part of his
