Hoadley, Sherlock's sparring partner in the Bangorian controversy, became Bishop of Winchester and patron of the young Robert Lowth. He set him up in the living of Overran before he was made Professor of Poetry at Oxford, and when he resigned his chair after ten years he made him Archdeacon of Winchester. Lowth had made his poetic debut while a scholar at Winchester College. Both men were Whigs, Lowth further enjoying the patronage of the great Whig family of Cavendish, accompanying the young Marquis of Harrington on the Grand Tour. His Christianity was appropriately enlightened and allied to the cause of liberty. In a sermon of 1758 he gave his version of Church history. Christianity ‘was published to the world in the most enlightened age’, and had emerged from centuries of repressive superstition

‘Native simplicity’ in religion, brought to light by learned and free literary criticism, is the theme of these famous and splendid lectures.