Churches, i. 365–70; Adam Clarke's Wesley imprisonment in Newgate, to stand twice in the pillory, then to have a year's hard labour in Bridewell, and to find sureties for good behaviour during the rest of his life. He is described as 'withered with age' and making no defence. Some liberal minds,' we are told, subscribed to relieve him in Newgate. Archbishop Secker, it is added, afterwards repented so far '-or, according to his friends, showed so much christian charity-as to relieve Annet's wants till the day of his death. Goldsmith procured for him an offer of ten guineas for a child's grammar; but the offer was withdrawn upon Annet's passionately refusing to be anonymous. He kept a small school at Lambeth after his release, where one of his pupils was James Stephen (17581832), afterwards master in Chancery (unpublished papers). Annet died on 18 Jan. 1769. ANNET, PETER (1693-1769), deistical writer, is said to have been born at Liverpool in 1693. He was at one time a schoolmaster, but about the years 1743 and 1744 he published some bitter attacks upon the apologetic writings of Bishop Sherlock and others, and in consequence lost his employment. He was one of the most conspicuous members of the Robin Hood Society, which took its name from the public house-the Robin Hood and Little John in Butcher Row -where its debates were held. Its theological discussions are ridiculed by Fielding in the Covent Garden Journal' (1752). In 1756, as appears by a letter of Annet's (Gent. Mag. liv. 250), he held a small post in some public office, and he says that some one of his way of thinking had offered to make him steward to an estate in the country. He is supposed to have been the author of A History of the Man after God's own Heart' (1761); the preface says that George II had been compared to David by his panegyrists, and the book is intended to show how the memory of the British monarch is insulted by the comparison.' This book seems to have suggested Voltaire's 'Saul,' which is described by its author, with obvious mystification, as translated from the English of M. Huet,' member of the English parliament and nephew of the famous bishop of Avranches, 'qui, en 1728, composa le petit livre très curieux, "The Man after the Heart of God." Indigné d'avoir entendu un ' prédicateur comparer à David le roi Georges II, qui n'avait ni assassiné personne, ni fait brûler ses prisonniers français dans des fours à briques, il fit une justice éclatante de ce roitelet juif.' The book has also been attributed to a John Noorthook (Notes and Queries, 1st series, xi. 204). In 1761 Annet published nine numbers of a paper called the 'Free Enquirer,' attacking the Old Testament history. He was tried for blasphemous libel in the Michaelmas term of 1763, the information stating that he had ridiculed the Holy Scriptures (in the Free Enquirer') and tried to show that the prophet Moses was an impostor, and that the sacred truths and miracles recorded and set forth in the Pentateuch were impositions and false inventions, and thereby to infuse and propagate irreligious and diabolical opinions in the minds of his majesty's subjects and to shake the foundations of the christian religion and of the civil and eccle[Notes and Queries (1st series), x. 405, xi. 214; siastical government established in this king-il. (5th series), viii. 98, 350; European Mag. dom' (STARKIE's Law of Libel, 1876, p. 596). xxiv. 92; Gent. Mag. xxxii. 560, xxxiii. 26, 28, He was convicted and sentenced to a month's 60, 86, 105, liv. 250; Robin Hood Society by Annet's writings are of some interest as forming a connecting link between the deism of the early part of the eighteenth century and the more aggressive and outspoken deism of Paine and the revolutionary period. He is a coarse but forcible writer. A Collection of the Tracts of a certain Free Enquirer noted by his sufferings for his opinions' (n. d.) includes Judging for Ourselves, or Freethinking the great Duty of Religion, displayed in two lectures delivered at Plaisterers' Hall, by P. A., minister of the gospel,' 1739; 'The History and Character of St. Paul examined' (in answer to Lyttelton); Supernaturals examined' (in answer to Gilbert West and Jackson); Social Bliss considered' (an argument in favour of liberty of divorce), 1749; The Resurrection of Jesus considered, in answer to [Sherlock's] the Tryal of the Witnesses, the third edition with great amendments, by a Moral Philosopher' (1744); The Resurrection reconsidered' (1744); The Sequel of the Resurrection of Jesus considered;' 'The Resurrection Defenders stripped of all Defence,' 1745. A volume of lectures of similar character, by the late Mr. Peter Annet, corrected and revised by him just before his death, with the head of the author curiously engraved by his own direction,' has a portrait of Peter Annet, ætat. 75, anno 1768.' Besides these works, Annet was author of a system of shorthand. Priestley learned it at school and entered into correspondence with the author. A copy of verses by Priestley is prefixed to a second edition of the system. Peter Pounce (Richard Lewis), 1756; Bentham's L. S. ANSELL, CHARLES, F.R.S., F.S.A. (1794-1881), known for some years before his death as the father of the profession of actuaries, was born (probably in Essex) in 1794, entered the Atlas Fire and Life Assurance Company in 1808, and took a prominent position on the staff in 1810. In 1823 he was appointed actuary of the life branch of the company, and held the office down to 1861-a period of forty-one years -when he retired from active official life, but still remained the consulting actuary of the company. He also filled a similar post in the National Provident, the Friends' Provident, and the Clergy Mutual Life Offices, and was, likewise, the actuary of the Customs' Annuity and Benevolent Fund. He was on several occasions called upon to advise on various schemes of national finance, notably on the government superannuation scheme, which ultimately fell through. He gave evidence before the select parliamentary committee (1841-43) to consider the law of joint-stock companies, and the select committee on assurance associations (1853). His chief practice for many years was in connection with the actuarial problems involved in the working of friendly societies. He published a work upon that subject in 1835, which attracted much attention at the time, and remained a useful handbook for many years afterwards. It was, indeed, almost a first effort to treat friendly societies from a scientific standpoint. The work was published under the superintendence of the Society for the Diffusion of Useful Knowledge. He gave evidence before the select parliamentary committee on friendly societies in 1849, and before some of the later committees. Many years since he was instructed by the then Bishop of London (Dr. Blomfield) to make some calculations of this class, and he named as his fee 100 guineas. 'A hundred guineas, Mr. Ansell! Why, there are many curates in my diocese who don't get more than that for a year's services. That may be,' was the quiet rejoinder; but actuaries are bishops." The fee was paid. Mr. Ansell resided during the later years of his life at Brighton, but he was only a few years before his death high sheriff of Merionethshire, where he had considerable landed property. He superintended the bonus investigation of the National Provident Association when close upon eighty years of age, and died at the close of 1881, at the age Insurance Cyclopædia, vol. i.] ANSELL, GEORGE FREDERICK and his work on the Royal Mint' was an amplification of this article. This volume first appeared in 1870, and was reissued in the next year; its popularity was somewhat marred by the introduction of the narrative of his quarrels with his colleagues in the office, but it contained much information not to be found elsewhere. Several articles on the subjects in which he took most interest were contributed by him to the seventh edition of Ure's 'Dictionary of Arts,' &c. [Times, 25 Dec. 1880, p. 10; Athenæum, 1 Jan. 1881, p. 24.] W. P. C. ANSELM, SAINT (1033-1109), archbishop of Canterbury, was born at or near Aosta about the year 1033, or two years before the death of Cnut, king of England, and two years before William the Conqueror became duke of Normandy. At the date of Anselm's birth Aosta was on the borders of Lombardy and Burgundy, but was reckoned as belonging to the latter, which had ceased to be an independent kingdom by the death of Rudolph III in 1032, and had become part of the empire. There is some probability that Ermenberga, the mother of Anselm, was a niece of Rudolph III. She was also related to Odo, count of Maurienne, who, by his marriage with Adelaide, marchioness of Susa, added the valley of Aosta to his domains, and became progenitor of the royal house of Savoy. Anselm's father also, Gundulf, who was a Lombard by birth, but thoroughly naturalised at Aosta, seems to have been a kinsman to the Marchioness Adelaide. A comparison of passages in several chroniclers respecting the parentage of Anselm suggests the conclusion that he had royal blood in his veins on his mother's side, but not on his father's. At any rate both parents were well born, and held considerable property under the counts of Maurienne. It probably included the village of Gressan, about three miles south-west of Aosta. Whether a tower at Gressan, called St. Anselm's tower, can have been a part of his parents' dwellingplace, is more than doubtful, but it is likely enough that they had a house here, and the solitary anecdote of Anselm's early childhood bears the impress of the scenery amidst which he must have lived. He imagined that heaven rested upon the mountains; he dreamed that one day he climbed the mountain-side until he reached the palace of the great King, and there having reported to Him the idleness of His handmaidens, whom he had passed, lazily reaping the corn in the valley, he was refreshed with bread of heavenly purity and whiteness by the steward of the divine household (EADMER, Vita Ans. i. 2). It was from his mother that he first learned, as was natural, his religious ideas and love of holy things. She was a good and prudent housewife, as well as a devout woman. His father Gundulf was an impetuous man, liberal and generous to a fault. Anselm seems to have been their only son, and he had an only sister younger than himself, Richera, or Richeza, who married a man named Burgundius, by whom she became the mother of a son who bore his uncle's name. Anselm took great interest in the education of this nephew, and several letters are addressed to him (see esp. Epist. iv. 31, 52). From an early age Anselm was studious, as well as clever and amiable. He made rapid progress in learning, and grew up loving and beloved. He probably received his earliest teaching in the school of the abbey of St. Leger, near Aosta; but after a time he was entrusted to the care of a kinsman as his private tutor, who kept him so closely confined to his studies that his health gave way. He became shy and me lancholy. His mother's good sense saved his reason, if not his life; she brought him home and bade her servants let him do exactly what he liked, until he gradually recovered his health and spirits (Cod. 499, Queen of Sweden's collection in Vatican library, copied by Mr. Rule, Life, vol. i. appendix). Before he was fifteen he began to consider how he might best shape his life according to God, and he became persuaded that there was nothing in the ways of men better than the life of monks. So he went to a certain abbot whom he knew, and begged that he might be made a monk; but the abbot refused on finding that the request was made without his father's knowledge. The boy then prayed for an illness, hoping that it might induce his father to yield to his inclination. The sickness came; he sent for the abbot and implored him, as one who was about to die, to make him a monk without delay. The abbot, however, dreading the displeasure of Anselm's father, still refused; and the lad recovered. A period of reaction followed; his longing for the religious life, and even his ardour for study, cooled; he began to devote himself more to youthful sports, and after the death of his mother, being like a ship parted from its anchor, he drifted yet more completely into a worldly course of life (EADMER, Vita, i. 3, 4). Some passages in one of his Meditations' (xvi.) would, if literally interpreted, imply that he fell into very serious sin; but there is some doubt whether he is speaking in his own person, and, even if he is, the language may be no more than the self-reproaches, rhetorically expressed, of a highly sensitive conscience. For some reason not explained, his father, Gundulf, conceived a great dislike to him, which Anselm's meekness and submission seemed rather to inflame than soften. At last in despair, when he was about twentythree years of age, he resolved to quit his home and seek his fortune in some other land. He set out northwards, accompanied by a single clerk. In crossing Mont Cenis, Anselm was much exhausted, their provisions were spent, and but for his companion moistening his lips with snow, and the timely discovery of a morsel of bread in the wallet, he must have perished on the road. Having spent three years partly in Burgundy, partly in France, he made his way to Normandy, and took up his abode at Avranches about the year 1059. Here Lanfranc had kept a school; but he had now become prior of the abbey of Le Bec. His fame as a scholar had made that house one of the most renowned seats of learning in western Christendom, and to Bec, after a brief sojourn at Avranches, Anselm also repaired. When Anselm came to Bec, Lanfranc had been prior for several years, and the house says were the most ill-written in the world), was at the height of its reputation. Students or in meditation and devotional exercises. flocked to it from all quarters, and the great He did not shrink even from the drudgery of men of Normandy lavished gifts upon it. An- instructing boys in the rudiments of gramselm threw himself heartily into the work of mar, although he owned (Epist. i. 55) that the place. The severity of his studies and the he found this an irksome task. But the work austerities of the monastic rule were almost in which he most delighted and excelled was more than the delicate frame could bear; but that of moulding the minds and characters of he was persuaded that the moral discipline young men. For this he was eminently fitted was good for his soul, and his desire to become by his affectionate sweetness and sympathy a monk increased in strength. But if he be- which won their hearts, by his deep piety came a monk, whither was he to go? If to and powerful intellect, by his acuteness in Clugny, he thought his learning would be discerning character, and his practical wisthrown away, owing to the excessive strict- dom in suggesting rules for moral conduct. ness of the rule. If he remained at Bec, he He compared the age of youth to wax fitly thought it would be so completely over- tempered for the seal. If the wax be too shadowed by that of Lanfranc as to be of hard or too soft, it will not take a clear imlittle use. Meanwhile, by the death of his pression. Youth, being between the two, father, he became the heir of the family pro- was an apt compound of softness and hardperty. Three courses then presented them- ness, which could receive lasting impressions selves for selection. Should he settle at Bec, and be turned to any shape. Similar good or become a hermit, or return to his native sense in the education of the young is manivalley and administer his patrimony for the fested in his advice to an abbot who combenefit of the poor? He took counsel with plained of the difficulty of teaching the boys Lanfranc. Lanfranc advised him to consult brought up in his monastery. They were inMaurilius, archbishop of Rouen, and accom- corrigibly perverse, the abbot said, and alpanied him on a visit to that prelate. Mau- though beaten continually day and night they rilius decided in favour of the monastic life, only grew worse. Beat them, do you?' said and so in 1060 Anselm took the cowl and Anselm; and pray what kind of creatures are remained at Bec. Three years afterwards they when they are grown up?' 'Dull and Lanfranc was made abbot of the new house brutal,' was the reply. You are verily unof St. Stephen at Caen, founded by Duke fortunate,' said Anselm, ' if you only succeed William. Anselm succeeded him at Bec in in turning men into beasts.' 'But what can the office of prior. He held this post for we do then?' rejoined the abbot; we confifteen years, 1063-78. Then Herlwin, founder strain them in every possible way, but all to and abbot, died, and for fifteen years more no purpose.' 'Constrain them, my lord abAnselm governed the house as abbot, 1078-93. bot! If you planted a young shoot in your It was during this period of thirty years garden, and then confined it on all sides, so that his powers developed themselves to the that it could not put forth its branches, full. If Lanfranc was a man of great talent, would it not turn out a strange misshapen Anselm was a man of lofty genius. Both thing when at last you set it free, and all morally and intellectually his character was from your own fault? So these children of a finer type. He had not only more tender- have been planted in the garden of the church ness, more breadth of sympathy, and more to grow and bear fruit for God. But you transparent simplicity of purpose, but far pro- cramp them so excessively with threats and founder and more original powers of thought. punishments that they contract all manner Having an absolute and unshakeable faith in of evil tempers, and doggedly resent all corHoly Scripture, he did not shrink from apply-rection.' After more plain speaking of this ing to it the full force of his reason, and therefore he was enabled, in the words of his biographer Eadmer (Vita, i. 9), to penetrate and unravel some of the most intricate and, before his time, unsolved questions touching the nature of God and of our faith. The whole day between the hours of prayer was often consumed in giving advice orally or by letter to persons, many of them of high rank, who consulted him on questions of faith or conduct; and the greater part of the night was spent either in correcting the books of the monastery (which up to that time Eadmer 6 kind the abbot, with a sigh, confessed that his method of education had been all wrong, and promised to try and amend it (EADMER, Vita, i. 29-31). Anselm's own tact in dealing with the young was illustrated by his management of a youthful monk named Osbern. Osbern was clever, but headstrong, and set himself up as the leader of a small faction which resented the appointment of Anselm as prior. Anselm first softened him by forbearance and small indulgences. Having thus gained his affection, he gradually withdrew the in dulgences, and subjected him at last to the full rigour of monastic discipline, even to the extent of punishing him with stripes. Osbern stood all these tests even in the face of taunts from his companions, and became exceedingly dear to the prior, who rejoiced over his steady growth in goodness. After a while, however, he was stricken with a mortal illness. Anselm watched him by day and night. As the end drew near, Anselm charged him, if it were possible, to reveal himself to him after death. Osbern promised and passed away. When the body was placed in the church and the brethren were chanting the psalms, Anselm retired to a corner of the building to weep and pray in secret, and at length, overpowered by weariness and sorrow, he fell asleep. In his sleep he saw certain forms of most reverend aspect, clad in the whitest of garments, enter the room where Osbern had died, and sit in a circle as if to give judgment. Presently there entered Osbern himself, pale and haggard. Anselm asked him how he fared. Thrice,' said he, 'did the old serpent rise up against me, thrice did I fall backwards, and thrice did the bearward of the Lord deliver me.' Then Anselm awoke and was comforted (EADMER, Fita, i. 13-16). The memory of Osbern never faded from his mind. During a whole year he offered a daily mass for Osbern's soul, and in one of his letters to his friend Gundulf, bishop of Rochester (Ep. i. 4), he writes: 'Wherever Osbern is, his soul is my soul; farewell! farewell! I pray, I pray, I pray, remember me, and forget not the soul of Osbern my beloved, and if that seem too much for you, then forget me and remember him.' Notwithstanding his powerful influence, Anselm shrank with extreme reluctance from the responsibility of ruling others. When he was unanimously elected abbot of Bec on the death of Herlwin, he besought the brethren with the most passionate entreaties to spare him; and it was only in deference to their persistence and the authority of the archbishop of Rouen that he yielded at last. As abbot he gave up most of the secular business of the house to such of the brethren as he could trust, and devoted himself to study, meditation, and the instruction of others. If the monastery, however, was involved in any lawsuit of importance, he took care to be present in court, in order to prevent any chicanery being practised by his own party; but if the other side used craft and sophistry, he heeded not, and occupied his time in discussing some passage in the Scriptures or some question of ethics, or calmly went to sleep. Yet if the cunning argu ments of his opponents were submitted to his judgment he speedily detected the flaws in them, and tore them to pieces as if he had been wide awake and listening all the time (EADMER, Vita, i. 37). He was also obliged occasionally to visit the property of the house in various parts of Normandy and Flanders. These journeys brought him into contact with persons of all ranks and conditions, and many gave themselves and their property to the monastery. For himself he never would accept anything as his private possession (EADMER, Vita, i. 33). He visited England soon after he became abbot, not only to look after the English possessions of his house, but also to see Lanfranc, now primate. He was received with great respect at Canterbury, and, after making an address to the monks of Christ Church, was admitted as a member of the house. Here began his acquaintance with Eadmer, one of the brotherhood, who became his most devoted friend and biographer. He has recorded the great impression which Anselm made at Canterbury by the wonderful way he discoursed and by his private conversation. His large-heartedness also was displayed on this occasion in his decision of a case which the archbishop submitted to him. Lanfranc told Anselm that he doubted the claim of one of his predecessors, Archbishop Elfeah, to martyrdom, because, although he had been murdered by the Danes, he did not die in defence of any religious truth. Anselm, however, maintained that since Elfeah died rather than wring a ransom from his tenants, he had died for righteousness' sake, and that he who died for righteousness would certainly have died for Christ himself who taught it, and therefore he was fully entitled to the honours of martyrdom (EADMER, l'ita, i. 41-44). The almost feminine tenderness of Anselm's nature appeared in his treatment of the lower animals, which he regarded with respect as the product of God's hand. And, as in the love of animals for their offspring he saw an emblem of the love of God for man, so in any cruelty to animals on the part of man he saw a figure of the devil's malice and his hatred to all God's creatures. Thus, one day seeing a bird teased by a boy who had fastened a string to its leg and let it fly a little way in order to pull it back again, he made him release it, saying that was just the way in which the devil served his victims. So also when a hare ran for shelter under the legs of his horse, and the hunters crowded round with noisy delight at its capture, he burst into tears and forbade them to touch it, saying that it was an apt image of the |