Among the principal contributors to the _Athenian Gazette_ were Daniel Defoe, already sketched, Dr Norris, Nahum Tate, Dean Swift, Sir William Temple, and Mrs Rowe.[43] John Norris was born at Collingborne-Kingston, in Wiltshire, in 1657, and died at Bemerton, in the same county, in 1711. He was educated first in Winchester School, and afterwards in the same college, at Oxford, as that which Samuel Wesley entered. He was elected Fellow of All Souls’ College, and, shortly after Wesley left Oxford, he was presented to the rectory of Newton St Loe, and, two years later, to that of Bemerton. He was a pious, learned, and ingenious man, but had a tincture of enthusiasm in his nature, which led him to imbibe the principles of the idealists in philosophy and of the mystics in theology. A late writer says of him, “In metaphysical acumen, in theological learning, and in purity of diction, Dr Norris acknowledges no superior. He carries the whole circle of the sciences in his head, and piety and religion illustrate all his actions. Never was any question proposed by ingenious malice or curiosity, but, with the utmost readiness and facility, he gave not only fair and amusing ideas of it, but full and most evident demonstrations. He was good, great, and learned; and a worthy companion of so great a man as Samuel Wesley.”[44] His greatest work is “The Theory of the Ideal World,” but, besides that, he published several others. ----- Footnote 43: It has been said that Matthew Wesley was a member of the Athenian Society; but, after a careful examination of the evidence alleged in proof of this, I strongly doubt it. Footnote 44: _Athenian Oracle_, vol. iv. p. 26–7. ----- Nahum Tate was poet-laureate to King William III. He was born in Dublin in 1655, and educated in the Dublin University. On coming to London, he fell into pecuniary difficulties, from which he was relieved by the Earl of Dorset. He was the author of nine dramatic pieces, and of a variety of miscellaneous poems, now deservedly forgotten. His name is principally known by his version of the Psalms, generally affixed to the Liturgy of the Church of England, and in the composition of which he was assisted by Dr Brady.