Many great Devonshire men, including some of the earliest who became distinguished, were churchmen or divines, not a few of whom are also famous as authors. Such, for example, was Winfrid, otherwise Saint Boniface, and known as the Apostle of Germany, who, born probably at Crediton in 680, began his career as a Benedictine monk at Exeter, and after spending many years in converting the wild German tribes to Christianity, was appointed archbishop of Mainz, and was afterwards murdered by the Frisians in 755. Such were Leofric, the first bishop of Exeter, Warelwast the builder of the Norman cathedral, Quivil the designer of the magnificent fabric that replaced it, Stapledon and Grandisson his able successors, Reynolds the leading Puritan divine at the Hampton Court Conference of 1604, whose proposal of a new translation of the Bible led to the Authorised Version of 1611, Trelawney, one of the Seven Bishops whose trial and acquittal formed one of the most memorable events of the reign of James II, Jewel, Bishop of Salisbury, one of the fathers of English Protestantism, the "Judicious" Hooker, author of the _Laws of Ecclesiastical Polity_, Barclay, who translated Brant's satiric allegory under the title _The Shyp of Folys_, Prince, author of the _Worthies of Devon_, Dean Buckland the famous geologist, author of _Reliquiae Diluvianae_, who died in 1856, and Charles Kingsley, born at Holne in 1819, distinguished as an able and eloquent preacher and as a strenuous worker for the good of mankind, as poet, novelist, and naturalist, author of many books, and especially of _Westward Ho!_ and the _Water Babies_, and of the words of many beautiful songs, such as the _Three Fishers_. Not a native of the county, but Bishop of Exeter in 1551, was Miles Coverdale, whose translation of the Bible appeared in 1535. To him many of the finest phrases in our Authorised Version of 1611 are directly due. [Illustration: Charles Kingsley] The most distinguished of the many Devonshire men of letters is Coleridge, poet and dreamer, philosopher and critic, who was born at Ottery St Mary in 1772. That, however, was his sole connection with the county. It was chiefly during his three years' residence at Nether Stowey, in Somerset, that the finest of his few masterpieces, especially the _Ancient Mariner_ and part of _Christabel_, were written. Amongst other authors who were born in Devon may be named Gay, writer of plays, fables, and songs, among them the _Beggars' Opera_ and _Black-eyed Susan_; Ford the dramatist; William Browne, the author of _Britannia's Pastorals_; Kitto, the deaf compiler of Biblical literature; Merivale the Roman historian; Rowe and Risdon, each of whom wrote books on the county; and Froude the historian, author of many books, and especially of the _History of England from the Fall of Wolsey to the Defeat of the Spanish Armada_.