Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 52.djvu/381

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montischen Stahl-Brunnen,’ inserted a eulogy on Slare, 1719 (p. 49).

In an appendix to Dr. Perrott Williams's ‘Remarks upon Dr. Wagstaffe's Letter against inoculating the Small-pox’ (1725), Slare defends inoculation (which had been introduced in England in 1721), and mentions having attended a son of Sir John Vanbrug[h] [q. v.], after inoculation, in May 1723. In addition to the books mentioned and the papers quoted in Maty's ‘Index to the Philosophical Transactions,’ Slare wrote two papers in Hooke's ‘Philosophical Collections’ (pp. 48, 84).

Slare's work occupies a unique position between that of the earlier physicians, who often neglected clinical observations for fantastic interpretations of chemical and physiological experiments, and the almost exclusively clinical school of Sydenham.

[Munk's Coll. of Phys. i. 433; Foster's Alumni Oxon.; Birch's Hist. of the Royal Soc. iii. 61, 493, iv. 148, 168 passim; Thomson's Hist. of the Royal Soc. xxvii.; H. Jones's Abridgment of Phil. Trans. iv. (pt. ii.) 204; Brit. Mus. Cat.; Gmelin's Gesch. der Chemie, passim; Kopp's Gesch. der Chemie; Hoefer's Hist. de la Chimie; Maty's Index to the Phil. Trans. (in which the name appears by mistake as Francis Slare); Slare's own papers. Slare is described by Foster as ‘Palatino-Germanus,’ which it is difficult to reconcile with his statement that he was born in Northamptonshire.]

P. J. H.

SLATE, RICHARD (1787–1867), divine, probably the son of Thomas Slate, chip and Leghorn hat manufacturer, of 36 Noble Street, London, was born in London on 10 July 1787. In his seventeenth year he joined the congregation at Founders' Hall, Lothbury, and was a Sunday-school teacher in connection with the London Itinerant Society. In 1805 he entered Hoxton Academy, which he left in 1809 to become minister of the independent church at Stand, near Manchester, where he was ordained on 19 April 1810. Here he remained until September 1826, when he accepted the pastorate of Grimshaw Street Chapel, Preston, Lancashire, a charge which he retained for thirty-five years. He took part in all movements for the good of the town, and was active in the denominational work throughout the county. He died at Preston on 10 Dec. 1867, and was buried at Stand. He married Ann Watkins in 1810; she died in 1851.

He published: 1. ‘Select Nonconformists' Remains: being Original Sermons of Oliver Heywood, Thomas Jollie, Henry Newcome, and Henry Pendlebury. Selected with Memoirs of the authors,’ Bury, 1814. 2. ‘Memoirs of the Rev. Oliver Heywood,’ Idle, 1825 (forming the first volume of Heywood's ‘Works’). 3. ‘A Brief History of the Lancashire Congregational Union, and of the Blackburn Independent Academy,’ 1840. He contributed to Halley's ‘Lancashire Nonconformity’ and other local works, and wrote the notices of R. Frankland's students in Turner's edition of ‘Oliver Heywood's Diaries,’ vol. iv.

[Congregational Year-book, 1869; Nightingale's Lancashire Nonconformity, i. 53 et passim; Hewitson's Our Churches and Chapels, p. 164; Preston Newspapers.]

C. W. S.


SLATER. [See also Sclater.]


SLATER, SAMUEL (d. 1704), nonconformist divine, was the son of Samuel Slater, minister of St. Katherine's in the Tower of London. He was educated at Emmanuel College, Cambridge, whence he graduated B.A. in 1647 and M.A. in 1658. Having been ordained, he was first appointed minister at Nayland in Suffolk, and afterwards lecturer at Bury St. Edmunds, where he and Nicholas Clagett the elder [q. v.] were summoned at the first assizes after the Restoration for not reading the Book of Common Prayer. In consequence of the Act of Uniformity he was ejected in 1662, and proceeded to London. Upon the death of Stephen Charnock [q. v.] in 1680, Slater succeeded him as minister of the congregation in Crosby Square, Bishopsgate Street. There he died on 22 May 1704, leaving a widow, Hannah, daughter of Harman Sheafe of London, and formerly wife of one Hood. His portrait was engraved by R. White in 1692 (Bromley, Catalogue of Portraits, p. 228).

Besides numerous sermons, Slater was the author of: 1. ‘Poems,’ London, 1679, 8vo. 2. ‘An Earnest Call to Family Religion,’ London, 1694, 8vo. The poems are sometimes attributed to his father, but they may be confidently placed to the credit of the son. They are divided into two parts: first, ‘An Interlocutory Discourse concerning the Creation, Fall, and Recovery of Man;’ secondly, ‘A Dialogue between Truth and a doubting Soul.’ In his preface Slater says: ‘I was much taken with learned Mr. Milton's cast and fancy in his book—viz. “Paradise Lost.” Him I have followed much in his method, but I have used a more plain and familiar stile.’ Slater's estimate of his style will not be disputed.

[Funeral Sermons by William Tong and Daniel Alexander; Calamy's Nonconformist's Memorial, ed. Palmer, iii. 257; Noble's Hist. of England, i. 127; Wilson's History of Dissent-