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 T!/'/ruiAUiii.']
 
 TO 
 
 JOHN MAKER, ESQ. 
 
 OF RALLENKEELE, IN THE COUNTY OF WEXFORD, 
 
 THIS DEDICATION, 
 
 (an ECHO OF THE POPULARITY WHICH, 
 
 AS AN INDEPENDENT PUBLIC CHARACTER, 
 
 AND EXCELLENT RESIDENT LANDLORD, 
 
 HIS MERITS HAVE JUSTLY OBTAINED IN HIS OWN LOCALITY,) 
 
 IS OFFERED, 
 WITH SINCERE FEELINGS OF ESTEEM AND AFFECTION, 
 BY HIS GRATEFUL RELATIVE, 
 
 THE AUTHOR.
 
 BIOGRAPHICAL ILLUSTRATIONS 
 
 OF 
 
 WESTMINSTER ABBEY. 
 
 BY 
 
 GEORGE LEWIS SMYTH, 
 
 AUTHOR OF " BIOGRAPHICAL ILLUSTRATIONS OF ST. PAUL'S CATHEDRAL," 
 
 &C. &C. 
 
 LONDON: WHITTAKER AND CO., AVE MARIA LANE. 
 
 MDCCCXLIII.
 
 ' c • t t \ «
 
 33A 
 
 BIOGRAPHICAL ILLUSTRATIONS 
 
 OF 
 
 WESTMINSTER ABBEY. 
 
 PART I. 
 
 24m ii4
 
 CONTENTS. 
 
 PART I. 
 
 PAGE 
 
 Sketch of the History of the Abbey Church of St. Peter, 
 
 Westminster 1 
 
 Geoffrey Chaucer S 
 
 Margaret Beaufort, Countess of Richmond and Derby... 14 
 
 Edmund Spenser IG 
 
 Isaac Casaubon 18 
 
 Francis Beaumont 19 
 
 AVilliam Shakspeare 21 
 
 William Camden 23 
 
 Howard, Earl of Nottingham, K.B 27 
 
 Villiers, Duke of Buckingham 29 
 
 Michael Drayton 33 
 
 Ben Jonson 35 
 
 Devereux, Earl of Essex 3S 
 
 Peter Heylin 40 
 
 Abraham Cowley 42 
 
 Sir William Davenant 44 
 
 Montague, Earl of Sandwich, K.B 46 
 
 Monk, Duke of Albemarle, K.G 48 
 
 John Milton.. 53 
 
 Henry Lawes 58 
 
 Isaac Barrow, D.D ib. 
 
 Samuel Butler 61 
 
 Thomas Thynne 63 
 
 Sir John Denham 64 
 
 Second Villiers, Duke of Buckingham, K.G 60 
 
 Butler, DukeofOrmond 69 
 
 Aphara Behn 73 
 
 Richard Busby, D.D 75 
 
 PAGE 
 
 Henry Purcell, M.D 77 
 
 John Dryden 78 
 
 Sir Cloudesly Shovel 82 
 
 John Philips •. 84 
 
 John Blow 87 
 
 Thomas Betterton 88 
 
 The Earl of Godolphin 91 
 
 Dr. Sprat, Bishop of Rochester 92 
 
 Montague, Earl of Halifax 95 
 
 Robert South, D.D 96 
 
 Nicholas Rowe 97 
 
 Joseph Addison 99 
 
 Sheflield, Duke of Buckingham 102 
 
 James, Earl of Stanhope 104 
 
 James Craggs 106 
 
 Sir Godfrey Kneller, Bart ib. 
 
 Sir Isaac Newton 108 
 
 William Croft H2 
 
 William Bartleman 113 
 
 William Cougreve 114 
 
 Matthew Prior 117 
 
 John Freind, M.D 119 
 
 John Woodward 121 
 
 Hugh Chamberlen, M.D 122 
 
 Francis Atterbury, D.D 124 
 
 Jolm Gay 126 
 
 Barton Booth 129 
 
 Savile, Marquis of Halifax 132
 
 CONTENTS. 
 
 PAGE 
 
 Sketch of tlie History of the Abbey Church of St. Peter, 
 
 Westminster 1 
 
 GeotTrey Chaucer 9 
 
 Margaret Beaufort, Countess of Richmond and Derby... 14 
 
 Edmund Spenser 1*^ 
 
 Isaac Casaubon 18 
 
 Francis Beaumont 1" 
 
 William Shakspeare 21 
 
 William Camden 23 
 
 Howard, Earl of Nottingham, K.B 27 
 
 Villiers, Duke of Buckingham 29 
 
 Michael Drayton 33 
 
 Ben Jonson 35 
 
 Devereux, Earl of Essex 38 
 
 Peter Heylin 40 
 
 Abraham Cowley 42 
 
 Sir William Davenant 44 
 
 Montague, Earl of Sandwich, KB iti 
 
 Monk, Duke of Albemarle-, K.G 48 
 
 John Milton 53 
 
 Henry Lawes 58 
 
 Isaac Barrow, D.D ib. 
 
 Samuel Butler fi! 
 
 Thomas Thynne ()3 
 
 Sir Jolin Denham ('4 
 
 Second Villiers, Duke of Buckingham, K.G 06 
 
 Butler, Duke of OiTuond 69 
 
 Aphara Behn '3 
 
 Richard Busby, D.D 75 
 
 Henry Purcell, M.D 77 
 
 John Dryden '8 
 
 Sir Cloudesly Shovel 82 
 
 John Philips — 84 
 
 John Blow 87 
 
 Thomas Betterton 88 
 
 The Earl of Godolphin 91 
 
 Dr. Sprat, Bishop of Roclicster 92 
 
 Montague, Earl of Halifax 95 
 
 Robert South, D.D 96 
 
 Nicholas Pvowe 97 
 
 Joseph Addison 99 
 
 Sheffield, Duke of Buckingham 102 
 
 James, Earl of Stanhope 104 
 
 JameH Cratrgs 106 
 
 Sir Godfrey Kneller, Bart ib. 
 
 Sir Isaac Newton 108 
 
 William Croft 112 
 
 PAGE 
 
 William Bartleman 113 
 
 William Congreve 114 
 
 Matthew Prior 117 
 
 John Freind, M.D 119 
 
 John Woodward 121 
 
 Hugh Chamberlen, M.D 122 
 
 Francis Atterbury, D.D 124 
 
 John Gay 126 
 
 Barton Booth 129 
 
 Savile, Marquis of Halifax 132 
 
 Archbisliop Boulter 133 
 
 John, Dukeof Argyle 134 
 
 James Cornewall 137 
 
 Sir Charles Wager 138 
 
 James Thomson 139 
 
 Isaac Watts 141 
 
 Sir Peter Warren 143 
 
 Dr. Mead 146 
 
 Admiral Watson 147 
 
 Admiral Vernon 131 
 
 Handel us 
 
 General Wolfe Ifil 
 
 Pulteney, Earl of Bath 163 
 
 Mrs. Cibber 104 
 
 Thomas Gray 1C5 
 
 Oliver Goldsmith 168 
 
 Samuel Foote 172 
 
 Pitt, Earl of Chatham 176 
 
 David Garrick 185 
 
 Major Andre 191 
 
 Admiral Kempenfelt 193 
 
 Sir Eyre Coote 194 
 
 Jonas Ilanway 196 
 
 Sir R. Taylor 199 
 
 Ephraim Chambers ib. 
 
 Edward Cooke 201 
 
 John Bacon 203 
 
 The Earl of Mansfield 204 
 
 James Macpherson 207 
 
 William Mason 208 
 
 Bishop Warren 211 
 
 Sir George L. Staunton ib. 
 
 Samuel Arnold 212 
 
 Christopher Anstey 214 
 
 Thomas Banks 215 
 
 William Buchan 216 
 
 William Pitt 217
 
 CONTENTS. 
 
 PAGE 
 
 Charles James Fox 221 
 
 Pascal de Paoli 228 
 
 Agar, Earl of Normanton 230 
 
 Spencer Perceval 231 
 
 Richard Cumberland 233 
 
 Granville Sharp 236 
 
 James Wyatt 239 
 
 Charles Burney .' ib. 
 
 Dean Vincent 242 
 
 Richard Brinsley Sheridan 243 
 
 Charles, Earl of Stanhope 24? 
 
 Francis Homer 249 
 
 Warren Hastings ib. 
 
 PAGE 
 
 James Watt 254 
 
 Henry Grattan 256 
 
 Matthew Baillie 2G1 
 
 John Philip Kemble 262 
 
 William Gifford 265 
 
 SirT. S. Raffles 267 
 
 George Canning 270 
 
 Sir Humphrey Davy 273 
 
 Andrew Bell 276 
 
 William Wilberforce 277 
 
 Thomas Telford 279 
 
 Abbots, Priors, and Deans 281 
 
 Prebendaries 282
 
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 BIOGRAPHICAL ILLUSTRATIONS, 
 
 SKETCH OF THE HISTORY OF THE ABBEY CHURCH OF ST. PETER, 
 
 WESTMINSTER. 
 
 Upon the origin of Westminster Abbey much has 
 been written, and yet but little that can be said to 
 be probable, is known. The monks traced its 
 history far back into the ages of antiquity, and 
 confused their accounts, as well with the fables of 
 Paganism, as the miracles of Christianity : even 
 the chronicles of more recent authors are replete 
 with particulars which are now rejected by com- 
 mon consent as false and impossible. From the 
 many legends that have involved the subject in 
 obscurity, all that has been collected with any 
 pretensions to sense and reality, is briefly this : — 
 Sebcrt, a king of the Eastern Saxons, who, with his 
 uncle Ethelbert, was converted to Christianity by 
 St. Austm, and died in the year fJlG, cleared away 
 the ruins of a temple in honour of Apollo, which 
 had been thrown down by an earthquake, and 
 stood west of the city of London, on Thorney 
 Island, and there built a church in memory of St. 
 Peter. To one part of this version, however. Sir 
 Christopher Wren* has objected, inasmuch as, if 
 the present structure had ever been raised upon 
 the foundations of a Roman edifice, some fragments 
 of the architecture, common to such works, must 
 almost of necessity have remained about tlie walls; 
 and he examined these diligently when he was com- 
 missioned to repair the Abbey, in the reign of 
 William and Mary, but not a stone or relic of the 
 description alluded to could he discover even in the 
 oldest parts of the masonry. 
 
 Nor are the stories which have been handed 
 down to us respecting the consecration of the Ab- 
 bey less conflicting or more natural. King Sebert 
 
 * " The Romans," Sir Christopher writes, " did not 
 use, even in their colonies, to build so slightly ; the ruins of 
 ancient times show their works to this day : the least 
 fragment of cornice or capital would demonstrate their 
 handywork. Earthquakes break not stones to pieces, nor 
 would the Picts be at that pains ; but I imagine the 
 monks, finding the Londoners pretending to a temple of 
 Diana, where St. Paul's now stands, (horns of stags, tusks 
 of boars having been dug up there in former times ; and 
 it is also said in later years,) would not be behind hand 
 in antiquity : hut I must assert that, having changed all 
 the foundations of old St. I'aul's, and upon that occasion 
 having rummaged all the ground thereabouts, and being 
 very desirous to find some footsteps of such a temple, I 
 could not discover any ; and can therefore give no more 
 credit to Apollo than to Diana." 
 
 is said to have ordered the solenmity to be per- 
 formed by Mellitus, then bishop of London ; but 
 the ceremony, according to others, was eminently 
 miraculous. For it has been reported, that, on 
 the night preceding the day appointed for the con- 
 secration, St. Peter descended from heaven, in 
 disguise, and, alighting at Lambeth, was rowed 
 over to the island, then deeply flooded round from 
 heavy rain, by the waterman of the ferry, who was 
 also a fisherman. Upon his landing, he was joined 
 by an embassy of winged angels, and amidst the 
 refulgence of extraordinary lights from heaven, 
 and a loud chorus of sweet music, in person bap- 
 tized the new building holy ! To the fisherman 
 he then revealed his pame, and the nature of his 
 being, commissioning him at the same time to 
 let Bishop Mellitus know all he had seen and 
 heard. Farther to convince the astonished man 
 of the divine interposition, St. Peter is recorded 
 to have blessed his net, and given him a miraculous 
 draught of salmon, a species of fish in catching 
 which he also promised that no Thames fisherman 
 should ever fail, so long as the fraternity approved 
 the piety of their intentions, by presenting every 
 tenth fish that should come to net for the use and 
 benefit of the new church. 
 
 Incredible as this tale appears, there are two 
 royal charters still upon record which aff'ord con- 
 clusive evidence of the implicit belief which it 
 continued to receive for a long period of time. The 
 first of these was one given by king Edgar, which 
 recites that the Abbey church was consecrated by 
 no less a personage than St. Peter, the prince of 
 Apostles, who also named it to his own honour. 
 The other is a charter from king Edward the Con- 
 fessor, which declares, with minute care, that the 
 Abbey church of Westminster was dedicated by 
 St. Peter himself, with the attendance of angels, by 
 the impression of the lioly cross, and the anoint- 
 ment of the holy chrism. As to the custom of 
 offering salmon to the monks of Westminster Ab- 
 bey, it was observed by watermen of the Thames to 
 a date as recent as tli(> fourteenth century. 
 
 From various traditions, such as these, the foun- 
 dation of the first Ablx'y in Thomey Isle, or the 
 island of Thorns, has been generally fixed in iho. 
 sixth century, and in the reign of Sebert.* After 
 
 • Sebcrt's tomb — it was not erected until the year 1.108 — 
 is to be seen on the south side of the choir. It is chiefly 
 
 n
 
 SKETCH OF WESTMINSTER ABBEY. 
 
 his death, the edifice fell into ruin, in consequence 
 of the relapse of his sons into paganism ; and was 
 soon after totally overthrown by the Danes. It was 
 next repaired, and much augmented, by OfTa, king 
 of Mercia, who added the first monastery. The 
 charter of Edgar already mentioned, was granted 
 upon the occasion of fresh endowments conferred 
 by him, after some farther and violent ravages 
 perpetrated during an incursion of the Danes, 
 about the year 9(59. The charter of Edward the 
 Confessor also took its rise from a similar occur- 
 rence. During his reign, the violated remains 
 of the old building were levelled, and a new one, 
 planned upon a much larger scale, in the form of a 
 cross, was completed about the year 1066. Here 
 again a miracle is brought forward to invest the 
 pious work with due solemnity. Edward, wlien an 
 exile in Normandy, had vowed that if he should 
 recover his kingdom, he would undertake a pil- 
 grimage to Rome in honor of St. Peter. He did 
 recover his kingdom, but did not find it convenient 
 to fulfil his vow. Pope Leo absolved him from 
 the obligation, provided he built a monastery to 
 the Apostle. At this juncture Wolsinus, a monk, 
 announced that St. Peter had appeared to him in a 
 vision, saying, " There is a place of mine in the 
 west part of London, which I choose and love, 
 which I formerly consecrated with my own hands, 
 honored with my presence, and made illustrious by 
 my miracles. The name of the place is Thorney, 
 which, having for the sins of the people been given 
 to the power of'the barbarians, from rich is become 
 poor ; from stately, low ; and from honorable, 
 contemptible. This let the king, at my command, 
 restore as a dwelling for monks, stately build, and 
 amply endow. It shall be 'no other than the 
 house of God, and the gate of heaven.' " Of 
 this church it is particularly related, that it consti- 
 tuted the model for all similar structures through- 
 out the kingdom. The presents made to it were 
 rich in the extreme ; its relics were many and 
 peculiarly strange, including, amongst other varie- 
 ties, a piece of the manger in which Christ was 
 born, of the bread which he blessed, and some of 
 the milk with which the Vu-gin suckled him. The 
 king increased its wealth, and extended its immu- 
 nities, by granting to it fresh lands and new privi- 
 leges. It was upon the report of all this splendour 
 that Pope Nicholas I. issued a bull, by which the 
 Abbeychureh of Westminster was appointed the sole 
 place for the coronation of the kmgs of England. 
 Of them, William the Conqueror was the first who 
 received the crown within its walls. Upon that occa- 
 sion the politic conqueror showed his regard for the 
 memory of his late friend, king Edward, by offering 
 a sumptuous pall to cover his tomb ; and proved his 
 sense of the dignity of the monks, by presenting 
 them with a rich cloth for the high altar, with fifty 
 marks of silver, and two caskets of gold. 
 
 Henry III. is the next monarch whom pride 
 or devotion led to make additions to this magni- 
 ficent establishment. On the Saturday precedino- 
 his coronation, in the year 1220, he laid the first 
 stone of a chapel to be dedicated to the blessed 
 Virgin ; and after the lapse of some score years, 
 upon a representation made to him of the decay 
 into which the towers had fallen, pulled down 
 
 remarkable for its oil paintings, in compartments, two of 
 which are visible— representing Sebert himself and lien. HI. 
 
 all the old edifice. The memorable task of rebuild- 
 ing this great monument upon an enlarged design, 
 was commenced in the year 1245. The work pro- 
 ceeded but slowly ; for at the death of Henry only 
 four arches west of the middle tower had been 
 finished. After this date, the periods at which, 
 and the princes under whom, the principal sections 
 were raised, have never been ascertained. It is 
 only known, that at the Reformation the whole was 
 still imperfect, for neither the great tower, nor the 
 turrets to the west, were then in being. The 
 church, however, of the present day is the church of 
 Henry III., finished with some additions. £30,000 
 are computed to have been expended upon it within 
 fifteen years after the first commencement of the 
 building. 
 
 It was in the year 1502 that Henry VII. set to 
 work at the construction of that admirable piece of 
 workmanship, the chapel, which is still distinguish- 
 ed by his name. The Prior of St. Bartholomew's, 
 Smithfield, is said to have been the architect. The 
 purpose for which it was raised was to furnish 
 a burial-place for himself and his heirs ; and the 
 better to preserve it from less noble occupancy, he 
 introduced a clause into his will, by the terms 
 of which the bodies of those only who were of 
 royal blood were to be interred within its precincts. 
 For an endowment suitable to the majesty of 
 this trust, he procured a bull from the Pope, by 
 which he was empowered to attach to the founda- 
 tion a chauntry of three monks and two laymen. 
 He also obtained permission to appropriate the 
 collegiate church in St. Martin's-le-Grand — since 
 subverted to make room for the new Post-office — 
 and the manor of Tykill, in Yorkshire, for the 
 maintenance of these new members of the establish- 
 ment. It was from this circumstance that the 
 jurisdiction of the Dean and Chapter of West- 
 minster Abbey over St. Martin's-le-Grand took its 
 rise ; and, by an equitable reciprocity, the in- 
 liabitants of the latter street obtained the privilege 
 of a vote at the election of the members in parlia- 
 ment for Westminster. 
 
 Henry the Seventh's Chapel is generally esteemed 
 the most exquisite specimen of ornamental Gothic 
 architecture, not only throughout all Great Britain, 
 but also throughout the world. The ascent to it is 
 at the eastern extremity of the Abbey, of which it 
 forms no part whatever, though at a hasty view it 
 may seem to belong to it. It stands upon the site of 
 the chapel ah-eady said to have been built by Henry 
 III. ; and consists, like a cathedral, of a nave, 
 aisles, and side chapels, all built of solid stone, and 
 cut with matchless ingenuity and richness. In 
 length it runs to 100, in breadth to 66, and rises in 
 height to 54 feet. No description can convey a pic- 
 ture, and no praise exceed the merits which are to be 
 traced over every part of this beautiful work. 
 Whether the eye regards the varied delicacy with 
 which the turreted buttresses on the outside are 
 cut, the fine carving on all the interior wainscoting, 
 the deep figuring of the lofty ceiling, or the curious 
 frame- work of the brazen gates and oaken screens, 
 the same taste is every where discovered, and the 
 same admiration consistently excited. The nave 
 is hung with the banners of the knights of the 
 Order of the Bath, for whose installation this 
 chapel has generally been used since the revival of 
 the order by George I. in the year 1725. The 
 stalls of the knights are ranged along either side of
 
 SKETCH OF WESTMINSTER ABBEY. 
 
 the nave, and may be distinguished by bi-ass plates, 
 engraved with tlie arms of the knight to whom the 
 pew belongs, and hung with his sword and helmet. 
 Beneath each stall are also seats for the esquires, 
 of whom each knight is allowed three. The style 
 of deep and forcible expression into which the 
 brown wainscoting of these stalls and seats is 
 carved, has been extolled for happiness and dex- 
 terity. It has even been asserted that there now 
 exists no artificer capable of producing the curious 
 variety of saints and angels with which it is orna- 
 mented. Refined and sumptuous as the handicraft 
 on every stone of this chapel undqubtedly is, and 
 exclusively as the high order of its merit would 
 seem to represent it as a royal work, j'et there 
 remains a part of it to be mentioned, which a pri- 
 vate individual had the honour of superadding to 
 its manifold beauties. This is the pavement, laid 
 in black and white marble, by Dr. KUligrew, who 
 is described by an inscription on the floor as hav- 
 ing been a prebendary of the Abbey. The original 
 cost of Henry VIl.'s chapel was £14,000. The 
 cost in repairing the exterior alone, at the public 
 expense, in 1809, was £42,000. 
 
 Reverting to the history of the Abbey itself, it 
 appears that nothing more was done for it during 
 the reign of Henry VI 1. By his successor, still 
 less can be supposed to have been effected. The 
 tastes of Henry VIII. lay in other dii'ections. 
 When, in the furtherance of that reformation 
 in religion to which the spirit of his lust had first 
 excited him, this king determined to subvert every 
 religious house in his dominions, Westmmster Ab- 
 bey, with all its wealth and all its honours, was 
 among the first plunder that fell into his ungodly 
 grasp. A formal surrender of the place — its 
 revenues and patronage — was made into his hands 
 in the year 1539, by William Benson, abbot, and 
 thirteen monks. The income delivered in amounted 
 to 3,977'- Cs. id. a year ; a sum estimated at nearly 
 equal to 20,000/. of the currency of the present 
 time. This calculation does not extend to its posi- 
 tive or intrinsic wealth, such as reliquaries, statu- 
 ary, fixed ornaments in tombs, altar furniture, 
 &c., of which probably no account was ever taken, 
 for no particulars have been recorded. Yet the 
 value of this property must have been immense. 
 The more available wealth was drawn from 216 
 manors, 17 hamlets, and 97 towns and villages. As 
 to the rank of the Abbey, though only the second 
 in the kingdom, yet in point of state and influence 
 it wa.s decidedly without a parallel. The abbot of 
 Westminster had a seat and a voice in the House 
 of Lords. 
 
 The first use made by the arrogant Harry of 
 Westminster Abbey, was the establishment of a 
 college of secular canons, under the government of 
 a dean. Ever prone to change, he created it 
 a bi.shojjric in less than two years after, which was 
 again dissolved by his son, Edward VI., who gave 
 the administration of its afiairs to a dean. In 1557, 
 queen Mary, among her other Catholic changes, 
 restored the full dignity of the ancient monastery ; 
 and in 15fJ0, queen Elizabeth made tlie final altera- 
 tion in its state, Ijy erecting it into a college, under 
 the control of a dean and twelve prebendaries. 
 Attached to it, upon an endowment given by h(U', 
 was a school for forty scholars, still in high repute, 
 in which the classics ajul sciences are taught. Tlie 
 Htudents on the foundation are provided with 
 
 all the necessaries of life, clothes only excepted, of 
 which however they are presented with a cloak or 
 gown once a year. 
 
 With the reign of Elizabeth ceased all royal 
 benefactions to this ancient pile. It was abandoned 
 for several years to accidents, plmider, and the 
 decay which time must ever bring with it, until 
 the reign of William and Mary, during whieli the 
 attention of parliament was at last directed towards 
 its fallen condition. A suitable grant was then 
 voted for the repair of the parts already built, and 
 the final completion of the original design. This 
 task was entrusted to Sir Christopher Vi'ren, who 
 failed to sustain in Westmmster Abbey the high 
 reputation he had acquired at St. Paul's. The 
 outside was coated with new stone, and the orna- 
 ments of the interior were renovated ; the west- 
 ern extremity was fm-nished with two stately 
 towers, which are generally objected to as inhar- 
 monious and inelegant ; at the same time the 
 present large window was placed in venerable 
 beauty at the end of the south aisle. Such are the 
 moi'e prominent services rendered to this ancient 
 fabric by the genius which had no competitor in 
 the production of St. Paul's Cathedral. 
 
 The length of Westminster Abbey, from east to 
 west, internally, is 383 feet ; inclndmg Henry the 
 Seventh's chapel, it is 511 feet ; the length of the 
 transepts, including the choir, is 203 feet ; and the 
 breadth of the nave is KiG feet; and side-aisles 72 
 feet. The length of the chou* is 155 feet ; its 
 breadth 38 feet, and the height 101 feet ; and from 
 the pavement of the choir to the lantern 140 feet. 
 
 Attached to Westminster Abbey, or rather 
 included in it, are nine chapels, which are thus 
 entitled: — St. Edward the Confessor's, St. Bene- 
 dict's, St. Edmund's, St. Nicholas', Henry VIl.'s, 
 St. Paul's, St. John the Evangelist's, St. John the 
 Baptist's, and Islip's Chapel. Of these the Chapel 
 of Edward the Confessor stands east of the choir, 
 and seems more parted from than added to the 
 body of the Abbey. The leading feature of curi- 
 osity contained in it is the ancient shrine erected 
 to the memory of Edward the Confessor, and last 
 king of the Saxon race, by Henry III. Edward 
 died in 1065, and was canonized in 1269 by 
 Pope Alexander III., who addi-essed a bull upon 
 the occasion to Lawrence, Abbot of Westminster, 
 and the monks in his charge, by ^\hich he and they, 
 with the Christian world, were specially enjoined 
 to honour Edward's body on earth as his soul was 
 glorified in heaven. Of the monarch thus commend- 
 ed, the old monks were most proud for his insen- 
 sibility to all mortal enjoyment and worldly pleasure. 
 At the early age of eighteen, he took to his wife one 
 of tlie fairest and most accomjilished women f)f the 
 age, daughter of Earl Godwin, and nevertheless 
 permitted this attractive wife to live and die a 
 virgin. His tomb, which is composed of three 
 tiers of pillars, was richly studded with stones of 
 the most precious brightness; and jirofusely decora- 
 ted with the finest gold. In ancient times lamps 
 were always kept burning before it, and it was 
 arrayed with a shining crowd of the most valuable 
 statues. On one sich; stood a silver inuige of the 
 Blessed Virgin, presented, with two largo jewels of 
 considerable worth, by Queen Eleanor, wife of 
 Henry 111. To correspond, on the other side, was 
 a second image of the Virgin in ivory, which was 
 offeri'd by the celebi-ated Tliomas i\ Becket, Arch- 
 B 2
 
 SKETCH OF WESTMINSTER ABBEY. 
 
 bishop of Canterbury. To tliis sliriiie Edward I., 
 upon his return witli victory from Scotland, gave 
 the regalia and chair of state in whieli the kings 
 of the latter country were anciently crowned at 
 Scone ; and to it Alpiumso, his third son, tendered 
 the jewels and golden coronet of Llewellyn, Prince 
 of Wales. The chair has ever since been used at 
 the coronation of the sovereign. Underneath it is 
 the ancient stone, said to have been brought from 
 Ireland, and with which the prophecy is connected, 
 which says, that wherever it is preserved, a king of 
 Scotch descent will reign.* 
 
 Great was the glory of this tomb in the remote 
 ages of our ancestry ; but now there remains no 
 trace of its splendour, vvhetiier to excite admiration 
 or abate regret, excepting the mosaic pavement, 
 which was exquisitely finished by a Roman artist, 
 who is supposed to have been brought into England 
 by the Abbot de Waref, who visited Rome about 
 the year 1256, and provided in that city the stones, 
 with whicli the pavement of the choir, as well as that 
 of this chapel, is formed. Melancholy indeed are the 
 thoughts which arise u])on tlie view of this worn- 
 out memorial of all that was splendid in reli- 
 gion, popular in fame, and great in monarchy. If 
 such be the fate of a sovereign and a saint, how 
 vilely must we not conclude that the subject and the 
 sinner will change after death ? A hollow piece of 
 common stone- work is all that at present exists of 
 the sumptuous shrine of King Edward the Confessor. 
 Soon after the coronation of James II. it was 
 accidentally broken ; and in consequence laid en- 
 tirely open. Within it were discovered a number 
 of bones, a crucifix richly enamelled, and a gold 
 chain twenty-four inches long. A report of these 
 contents was made to the king, who kept the orna- 
 ments, and put new planks to the old coffin, which 
 was strongly bound with iron. South of the shrine 
 of St. Edward lies the tomb of Editha, his queen, 
 who survived him eight years, and proved all the 
 bitter consequences of those political changes which 
 were the result of that cold spirit of chastity which 
 induced her lord and master to deny himself the 
 gratification, and his country the advantage, of a 
 Imeal heu* to the throne. Her interment by the 
 side of her husband took place at the express 
 orders of William the Conqueror, who treated her 
 with nuich kindness in her latter days, and allowed 
 her apartments in Winchester Palace. 
 
 Close to the staircase, within a plain unpolished 
 marble, are the remains of Edward I. The appro- 
 priate inscription, as Sir Walter Scott called it, is 
 Edwardus Primus Scotorum Malleus Hie est. 1308. 
 Pactum Serva. 
 
 Adjoining this is the tomb of Henry III. ; the 
 panels were polished porphyry, bordered with 
 
 * This is the stone or "marble fatal chair," which Gath- 
 elus, it is said, son of Cecrops, king of Athens, sent from 
 Spain with his son, when he invaded Ireland; which Fergus, 
 son of Eric, won in Ireland, and conveyed to Scone, and on 
 which Fordun informs us the following Leonine couplet was 
 cut: 
 
 Ni fallat fatum, Scoti quocunque locatum 
 Invenient lapideni, regnare tenentur ibidem. 
 
 t Richard de Ware was buried in the choir ; some years 
 ago there was a stone over his grave with the lines comme- 
 morative of his mosaic : 
 
 Abbas Richardus de Wara, qui requiescit 
 Hie, portat lapides, quos hue portavit ah urbe. 
 
 mosaic of scarlet and gold ; the pillars wreathed, 
 gilt and enamelled; and high upon the sarcophagus 
 remains a brazen statue of the king, which is said 
 to have been the first cast of the sort made in 
 England: it is remarkable for the spirit with which 
 it is executed. At the feet of Henry III., a 
 tabular monument with a rough head, in relief, 
 points out the grave of Elizabeth Tudor, the infant 
 daughter of Henry VII. Eastward is an altar tomb 
 to Eleanor, queen of Edward I., who reposes in the 
 plain coffin of grey marble near at hand. The 
 effigy, which was formerly gilded, has been uni- 
 versally admired for grace and loveliness, and has 
 been lately pronounced the work of Torelli, an 
 Italian. Queen Eleanor died at Hareby in Lin- 
 colnshire, November 28, 1291, and was conveyed 
 with profuse state to the metropolis for interment. 
 The piety of Edward prompted him to erect me- 
 morial crosses at every stage where the body rested 
 on its way to the grave, and thus became founded 
 Lincoln, Grantham, Stopford, Geddington, Nor- 
 thampton, Stony Stratford, Waltham, Tottenham, 
 and Charing Crosses. 
 
 In the south of tliis chapel stands a Gothic 
 canopy surmounting the grave of Edward III., 
 whose tomb encloses the remains of his wife, 
 though there is a distmct monument in her honour 
 close by. The monarch is represented recumbent 
 upon a table of grey mai-ble ; and the whole was 
 decorated with effigies of his children. Near this is 
 the monument in black marble of his affectionate 
 wife, the mother of his fourteen children. Queen 
 Philippa, who lived a signal life of two and forty years 
 with this monarch. Edward's sorrow for her loss was 
 violent, though his respect for her memory cannot 
 be regarded as either pure or e.xemplary : on her 
 death-bed she had requested, that where she was 
 interred he would also direct himself to be laid ; 
 and they were accordingly buried together. The 
 tomb was raised as the just tribute of a husband's 
 gratitude to the memory of a wife's virtues ; and 
 of no work in all the Abbey has a more sumptuous 
 account been given. No expense v/as grudged, no 
 labour spared, no time refused, to make the under- 
 taking worthy of the character of the wife ; but the 
 attachment of the husband vanished in the arms of 
 a worthless mistress, who plundered his property 
 the moment he expired. No less than thirty 
 statues in brass, including every monarch, poten- 
 tate, and noble, with whom Queen Philippa was 
 connected by the ties of relationship, were placed 
 around as honorary supporters of her tomb. Not 
 one of these has escaped destruction. The effigy 
 of the queen herself, in alabaster, however, has 
 been preserved. 
 
 The only remaining monument to royalty in this 
 ancient chapel is erected to the memory of Richard 
 II., who was murdered at Pomfret Castle, on 
 Valentine's Day, in the year 1399, and his first 
 consort Anne. The workmanship of his statue 
 deserves particular attention; it is curiously wTought 
 in peashells, open and emptied, which have been 
 supposed to indicate the contrast between that 
 possession which Richard once had of a crown and 
 country, and the vain title with which alone he met 
 his death. The canopy of wood above the statue 
 is also remarkable for an ancient painting, still 
 darkly visible, of our Saviour and his Virgin 
 Mother. Another specimen of early art is to be 
 traced along the frieze of the screen of this chapel.
 
 SKETCH OF WESTMINSTER ABBEY. 
 
 wliich repi-esents fourteen carved subjects from the 
 life of Edward the Confessor. The first of these is 
 the trial of Queen Emma ; the second, the birth of 
 Edward; the third gives his coronation ; the fourth 
 pictures the cause which moved liim to the aboli- 
 tion of the Dane-gelt, and which was an apparition 
 of the devil dancing upon his money casks ; the 
 fifth gives the stoi'y of Edward watching the thief 
 who robbed his treasmy ; the sixth represents a 
 legendai'y revelation, which he is said to have re- 
 ceived of our Saviour ; the seventh shows the 
 Danish king drowning, through which an invasion 
 of the country by his followers was frustrated; the 
 eighth gives a quniTel between Tosti and Harold, 
 when boys, by which the nature of their subsequent 
 fortunes is predicted ; the ninth describes the 
 king's vision of the seven sleepers ; the tenth his 
 interview with St. John the Evangelist, disguised 
 as a pilgrim ; the eleventh describes the miracle 
 of his cui'ing the blind, by washing their eyes in 
 dirty water ; in the twelfth, St. John delivers to 
 some pilgrims a ring, which the king had given 
 him as an alms in the meeting already recounted, 
 and the return of which was accompanied with a 
 warning of approaching death ; in the thirteenth, 
 the pilgrims fulfil theh' trust, restore the ring, and 
 communicate the message ; the fourteenth conse- 
 quently expresses the exertions made by the mon- 
 arch to finish this chapel, before his earthly career 
 drew to a close. 
 
 The mausoleum of Henry V. adjoins the chapel of 
 Edward the Confessor, and used to be divided from 
 it by an iron screen, guarded as it were on either 
 side by images of ancient sculpture, wrought in the 
 full size of life. Within stand the shattered re- 
 mains of the monument erected in admiration of 
 his valorous exploits by Henry VII. ; it is of a 
 black marble, surmounted with his statue, appro- 
 priately cut from the heart of an oak, and protected 
 by a beautiful inclosure of iron, moulded in the 
 Gothic style. The head of the statue was of beaten 
 silver, crowned ; and a sceptre and other regalia 
 of the same metal decorated the work ; but every 
 ornament that was valuable about it, was sacrile- 
 giously pilfered after the Reformation. Ascendmg 
 from this chapel on either side is a circular flight 
 of stairs up a turret of wrought iron, spi-eading into 
 roofs of unusual elegance, and leading to a chauntry, 
 where a helmet, shield, and saddle, said to have 
 been used by Henry at the battle of Agineourt, are 
 preserved. The section of the Abbey, visible from 
 this elevation, was executed from the designs of 
 Sir ChristopherWi"cn,and can never be seen without 
 profound admiration. Here, too, are collected toge- 
 ther all the models produced by that great architect 
 and others for the repair and enlargement of parts 
 of the Abbey, as time and circumstances favoured 
 the labour of improvement. On the north side of 
 this clia\intry, as it once was, there is some excellent 
 sculpture;, of which a favorable view may be ob- 
 tained in front of the steps leading up to Henry 
 VI I. 's Clia|)cl. The arch that faces the spectator 
 in that position "is adorned," s.-iys Flaxman," with 
 u[)wards of fifty statues." On tlie nortli face is the 
 coronation of Henry V., with his uoIjIcs attending, 
 re])resented in lines of figures on each side. On 
 the south face of the arch, the central object is the 
 king on horseback, armed cap-a-pie, riding at full 
 Bpeed, attended by the companions of liis expedition. 
 The sculpture is bold and charaetcristic; the C(iue8- 
 
 trian group is furious and warlike ; the standing 
 figures have a natural sentiment. 
 
 The chapel of St. Erasmus was formerly 
 tliickly set with ancient tombs, of which there 
 are now but few traces; William de Colchester 
 and Bishop Millyng, both Abbots of Westminster, 
 and Ruthall, Bishop of Durham, are still to be 
 recognized. A curious brass figure, representing 
 an abbot in full canonicals, was appropriated to the 
 tomb of John Faseet, an eminent benefactor to the 
 old chui'ch, who died in the year 1498. Amongst 
 the more splendid of his recorded donations, were 
 two images gilt for the altars of St. Peter and Paul, 
 and another of the same kind for the chapter-house. 
 The screen of this chapel was built by his liberality; 
 and by his taste, too, was the fine window at the 
 west of the church first studded with painted glass. 
 In I7O6, during some repairs of the chapel, the 
 coffin of Abbot Faseet was discovered, and acci- 
 dentally broken open. The appearance of the body 
 upon this occasion was highly curious and interest- 
 ing : the face was in some degree discoloured, but 
 the legs and arms were whole, fresh, and firm. 
 The corpse was di'essed in a gown of crimson silk, 
 girdled romid the waist with a black belt ; the legs 
 were drawn into silk stockings, the face was covered 
 with a clean napkin of fine weft, doubled up, and 
 set cornerways ; and the coffin was richly quilted 
 with yellow silk. Colonel Popham's monument in 
 this chapel is the only tribute to the memory of a 
 republican that was not ignominiously removed at 
 the Restoration. This indulgence is said to have 
 been owing to the court interest of his wife's family. 
 Cary, Lord Hunsdon, and Thomas Cecil, Earl of 
 Exeter, have large and ponderous monuments 
 here. 
 
 In the chapel of St. Nicholas, the Protector 
 Edward, Duke of Somerset, who was himself allied 
 to royalty, as the brother of the Lady Jane Seymour, 
 third wife to the tyrant Henry VIII., and thereby 
 uncle to the juvenile king Edward VI., commemo- 
 rated his wife. This monument is composed of 
 varied marbles, and the effect is stately. The in- 
 scription upon it recounts the nobility of the lady's 
 lineage, and the circumstances of her premature 
 death in the nineteenth year of her age. At a 
 short distance is a tribute of the affection which 
 another great man paid a departed wife — it is the 
 monument raised by Cecil, Lord Burleigh, to the 
 memory of Milred, Lady Burleigh. The work is 
 striking : the design consists of a temple, raised 
 upon two compartments, and composed of porphyry 
 and marble gilt. Upon the higher tier an old man 
 in the robes of the Order of the Garter is kneeling 
 earnestly at Ids devotions ; the figure is said to be 
 designed for Lord Burleigh. In the compartment 
 beneath, the deceased lady is seen folding her 
 daughter, Lady Jane, in her arms ; while the 
 statesman Cecil, and the rest of her children are 
 formally represented on their knees, some at her 
 head, aiul others at her feet. The inscription is 
 long, very flattering, and very tiresome: according 
 to it, the lady was learnedly versed in scriptural 
 writings, but more particularly in the (J reek fathers, 
 and highly cluiritaiilc : amongst other remainiiig 
 proofs of h(!r liberality, is the foundation she laid 
 of a scholarship at St. John's College, Oxford. 
 Near the door is the monument of her daughter- 
 in-law, the Countess of Salisbury ; and here also is 
 inten-ed Sir Henry Spclman, a man of unwearied
 
 SKETCH OF WESTMINSTER ABBEY. 
 
 application and deep leai'iiing, who died in the 
 eightieth year of liis age, with the reputation of 
 being the greatest antiquary of the seventeenth 
 eentuiy. He was born at Congham, in Norfolk, in 
 1562, and educated at a grammar school in his own 
 counti-y, and afterwards at Trinity College, Cam- 
 bridge. He entered Lincoln's Inn, but soon 
 abandoned the law, and returning to his estate, 
 married, and lived a studious and domestic life for 
 some years. Embari'assments, caused by the de- 
 mands of a numerous family, roused him to exer- 
 cise his talents. He found employment as a land 
 commissioner in Ireland, and was afterwards ap- 
 pointed to enquire into the fees exacted in the civil 
 and ecclesiastical courts of that kmgdom. This 
 oflBce produced his learned treatise De Sepultura, 
 for which he was knighted. He bought the lands 
 of two suppressed monasteries, but was troubled 
 with a law suit respecting them, and scruples of 
 conscience respecting the propriety of the purchase. 
 From all this resulted his work, De Temerandis 
 Ecclesiis. His more celebrated works are the great 
 Archajologial Glossary — Archiseologus in modum 
 Glossarii ad rem antiquam posteriorum, fol. 1626; 
 his History of English Councils, 1639 ; and his 
 History of Teniu-es by Knight's Service, 1639. 
 He died in 1641. 
 
 The area near the chapel of St. Edmond contains 
 the rough and mouldering relics of some of the 
 finest, and certainly the most ancient memorials of 
 standard merit erected in Westminster Abbey. Of 
 these the most venerable in years is that one which 
 is pointed out as the monument of Sebert, the 
 tributary king of the Eastern Saxons, who died in 
 July, 616, and has been mentioned as the probable 
 founder of this church. From several names of 
 high royalty and note which are to be read within 
 this area, those of two queens remarkable for their 
 sufferings are peculiarly striking. The first is the 
 grave of Anne of Cleve, married and divorced from 
 Henry VIII. She survived the indignity, and her 
 unwoi-thy husband; but lived and died in becoming 
 seclusion. Close to her ashes are those of another 
 Anne, the daughter of the great Earl of Warwick, 
 and wife of Richard III., who poisoned her, to 
 gain the hand of his own niece, Elizabeth, daughter 
 of Edward IV., a union which his sudden death 
 upon the defeat of Bosworth Field prevented him 
 from consummatmg. Near these fiiir namesakes, 
 and the suffering wives of tyrants, is the tomb of 
 Edmond Crouchback, son of Henry III., who gave 
 the house of Lancaster their claim to the crown of 
 England. This king is by some erroneously sup- 
 posed to have derived his surname from a deformity 
 in his person ; but the probability is that he ob- 
 tained it from the crouch or cross worn in the 
 Holy Wars, in which both he and his brother took 
 an active share. At the base of this tomb may be 
 observed the relics of the oldest paintmg known to 
 exist among us. It is much defaced, but evidently 
 represents ten knights, cross-belted, and bearing 
 banners and siu-coats of armour. This number 
 coi-responds with the attendants Edmond had on 
 his expedition to the Crusade, which, according to 
 Matthew Paris, consisted of himself, his brother, 
 four earls, and foiu- knights ; it is a likely conjec- 
 ture, therefore, that the painting commemorated 
 these parties, and their feats in this expedition. 
 The monument itself must have originally been 
 sumptuous ; it was evidently richly gilt, as well as 
 
 finely painted, and inlaid with varieties of stained 
 glass. The canopy, which the effect of time has 
 dulled into an unseemly shade of red, appears to 
 liave represented a starry firmament. Other 
 xuonuments here deserve a brief notice. That to 
 Lord Francis Holies, second sou of the Earl of 
 Clare, is by Nicholas Stone, an English artist, and 
 has been praised by Horace Walpole, and used to 
 be admired by Sir F. Chantrey. Amongst several 
 tombs of the Russell family, one to Lord John 
 Russell, of the date of 1584, affords a decided proof 
 of the learning of English ladies in former days ; 
 there are upon it various inscriptions in Greek, 
 Latin, and English, all written by his widow. 
 
 Within the chapel of St. Edmond is a tomb par- 
 ticularly remarkable for the svimptuous style in 
 wliich it is ornamented, and the admirable cha- 
 racter of the workmanship upon it. It lies to the 
 right of the entrance, next to the antique effigy of 
 William de Valence, once a work of extraordinary 
 beauty, and was raised to the honour of Edward 
 Talbot, eighth Earl of Shrewsbury, and his Coim- 
 tess, Jane. The structure itself is of varied mar- 
 ble, surmounted with a tablet of alabaster, on 
 which robed figures of the Earl and Countess are 
 stretched in black marble. The inscription, after 
 recording that the Earl died Febmary 8, 1617, 
 recites his titles, and gives his character in sound- 
 ing terms. Here is also a royal tomb for John of 
 Eltham, second son of Edward II., who took his 
 designation from Eltham, in Kent, where he was 
 born. He died in Scotland, in the nineteenth year 
 of his age ; and is represented as an anned knight, 
 in a statue of white alabaster, with a wreathed 
 coronet on his brow, which has been remarked as 
 bemg the first of that kind which has both large 
 and small leaves entwined together. The magnifi- 
 cence of his funeral must have been gi'eat indeed, 
 as there is a record that 100^., which in that pri- 
 mitive age was a little fortune, was charged by 
 the convent for the horse and armour used on the 
 occasion. 
 
 Two monuments, of William of Windsor and 
 Blanche of the Tower, children of Edward III., 
 who took surnames from the places of their birth, 
 and died in their infancy, deserve attention, be- 
 cause they appear dressed after the manner of that 
 time. The boy is habited in the loose short doub- 
 let, which Chaucer's Parson condemns as so inde- 
 cent, and the girl has the horned head-dress, so 
 much censured for hideousness by Stowe. 
 
 We have next to take a short notice of the royal 
 and noble remains which distinguish what Le- 
 land terms the " Wonder of the World " — Henry 
 VII. 's Chapel. Midway, in the east end of the 
 nave, rises the tomb of the founder, and his queen 
 Elizabeth ; a splendid work, beautifully protected 
 by a fine screen, wrought in brass, and ornamented 
 with rows of statuary, which have been sadly muti- 
 lated and destroyed. Images of the royal couple 
 reposing in their robes of state upon a table of 
 basaltic stone are seen withm. The head of the 
 tomb is supported by a red dragon, which was the 
 armorial ensign of Cadwallader, the last king of the 
 ancient Britons, from whom Henry vainly traced 
 his pedigree : at the foot lies an angel. Various 
 devices are appropriately mtroduced distinctive of 
 the subject, such as roses twined and crowned, in 
 memory of the union of the long conflicting houses 
 of York and Lancaster ; portcullises, m signification
 
 SKETCH OF WESTMINSTER ABBEY. 
 
 of the relationship of the Beaufoi't family, and 
 crowns in bushes, in allusion to the head-piece of 
 Richard III., which was found under a hawthorn, 
 after the battle of Bosworth. Within this brazen 
 grate formerly stood an altar of basalt, which was 
 subverted by the Puritans as a monument of i)apal 
 supei-stition. To this altar Henry gave a relic, 
 which may be best accounted interesting in the 
 precise language of the gift. He styles it " our 
 grete piece of the holie cross, which, by the high 
 provisiou of oiu* Lord God, was conveied, brought, 
 and delivered to us from the Isle of Cyo, in Greece, 
 sette in gold, and garnished with perles and pre- 
 cious stones : and also tlie precious relique of oon 
 of the legges of St. Geoi'ge, set in silver parcel- 
 gilte, which came into the hands of our broder and 
 cousyn, Lewys of France, the time that he wan and 
 recovered the citie of Millein, and given and sent 
 to us by our cousyn, the Cardinal of Ambroise." 
 No vestige of these superb curiosities is now to be 
 seen. 
 
 At the head of the grave of Henry VII. were 
 interred the remains of his grandson, Edward VI. 
 His memory was consecrated with a splendid monu- 
 ment, erected by the affection of his sister. Queen 
 Mary, but afterwards demolished by the Puritans 
 as the vain work of a Popish adherent. This wan- 
 ton zeal is much to be regretted : whatever may 
 have been the eiTors of Catholic Mary, her remem- 
 brance of her brother's virtues, and this memorial 
 of his reign, was a grateful labour, which no man 
 of good heart and feeling would quarrel with. This 
 loss is still more to be regretted, for the merit with 
 which we are told it was executed ; the sculpture 
 around was admirably chiselled in high relief, and 
 represented the passion, death, and resurrection of 
 our Saviour. Upon the tomb itself lay the youth- 
 ful monarch, with an angel on either side, pi-aying 
 over him. 
 
 In the extremity of the north aisle is raised an 
 interesting monument, with a Latin inscription, to 
 " Edward V., King of England, and his brother 
 Richard, Duke of York, imprisoned in the Tower, 
 and there smothered with pillows. They were 
 secretly and meanly interred by the command of 
 their traitorous uncle, Richard, the Usurper. Their 
 bones, long sought for and desired, after lying for 
 201 years in the ruins of the stairs lately leading to 
 the Chapel of the White Tower, were, on the 7th 
 July, \(}T4, by undoubted proofs, recognized, deei)ly 
 buried in that place. Pitying their disastrous fate, 
 Charles II. ordered these unfortunate Princes 
 to be here inten'cd, among their ancestry, in the 
 twentieth year of his reign, and of our Lord the 
 lC78th." 
 
 Two monuments to rival queens, erected with 
 the most stoical impartiality by James I., must 
 long continue to attract considerable attention. 
 The first, surmounted by a lofty canopy, and iinely 
 worked, rises in honour of Queen Klizabetli, so 
 celebrated for striking fortunes and signal ability ; 
 tjje second, magnificently executed, stands to tlic 
 memory of Mary, Queen of Scots, so popular for 
 her beauty and misfortunes. The inscription upon 
 the toinlj of Elizabeth is a paradox of eulogy ; no 
 tlioughtfui visitor can possibly meditate upon the 
 unf)aralleled excellencies of every sort here at- 
 triiiuted to her person and her mind, without 
 exclaiming in astonislinient against tin; degeneracy 
 of modern times, and the Christian perfection of tlie 
 
 age, in which a son could thus admirably com- 
 mend the destroyer of his mother. The tomb (it 
 is the work of Cornelius Clure) of that mother may 
 be regarded with gentler feelings. It is well 
 known, that after being beheaded at Fotheringay 
 Castle, in Northamptonshire, she was pompously 
 interred by Elizabeth's command in the Cathedral 
 Church of Peterborough ; but the fact is not so 
 often mentioned, that her son James, not satisfied 
 with the honours of this interment, had her remains 
 thence removed, after his accession to the English 
 throne, and here committed to the comjiany of her 
 equals. Two monuments to Dukes of Richmond, 
 and one, by Sir R. Westraacott, to the Due de 
 Montpensier, brother of Louis Philippe, king of 
 the French, deserve particular attention. Those 
 to the Dukes of Buckingham and the excellent 
 Margaret Beaufort, Duchess of Richmond, will be 
 noticed in the biographical sketches. 
 
 Under Henry VII.'s Chapel are royal vaults, 
 in which are the coffins of Charles II., William 
 and Maiy, Queen Anne, George II. and his Queen 
 Caroline, Frederick Prince of Wales, father of 
 George III., and the Duke of Cumberland, who 
 fought the sanguinary battle of Culloden. 
 
 In the chapel of St. Benedict, the eye is princi- 
 pally attracted by the tombs of Cranfield, Earl of 
 Middlesex, one of the favorites of James I., and 
 Frances, Countess of Hertford. Here Simon Lang- 
 ham, Archbishop of Canterbury, Cardinal Bishop 
 of Preneste, in Italy, is represented on an altar 
 tomb covered with a slab of Petworth marble, with 
 the sides covered by quatrefoils and shields of arras. 
 The prelate is lying iii pontifical\bus on a mattress, 
 his hands crossed in prayer, and his crozier at his 
 side. The statue, which is of gypseous alabaster, 
 is still in good preservation, and an interesting 
 specimen of ancient art. Round the edge is tliis 
 imperfect inscription : — 
 
 Hie jacet Dominus Simon de Langh'm quondam 
 Abbas hujus loci, Thesaurarius Anglife, electus 
 London, ep'c Elien. Canceller. Angliie, Archiepc. 
 Cantuar. Presbyter Cardinalis et Postea Cardenalis 
 ep'c Prenestrin. 
 
 According to Flete, another Latin ejiitaph gave 
 these and some further particulars of his life, as 
 that he was Monk, Prior, and Abbot of West- 
 minster, Bishop elect of London, while Chancellor 
 of Ely, Primate of the kingilom, a great minister. 
 Lord Treasurer and Chancellor, a Cardinal Priest 
 at Rome, then Bishop of Preneste and l\apal Nun- 
 cio in England. To these facts it will suffice to 
 add, that this eminent clun-chman was a native of 
 Rutlandshire, and that though chosen Bishop of 
 London he never filled that see, preferring Ely, to 
 which he was concurrently elected. His name oc- 
 curs in history as a leading opponent and denouncer 
 of Wickliffe. Edward III. took violent offence 
 when the Pope conferred the Cardinal's hat upon 
 him. The king seized the temporalities of the 
 Archbishopric, and the prelate sought safety in 
 flight. It was that circumstance that led to his 
 Italian preferments. He was a liberal benefactor 
 to Westminster Abbey, beijueathing it, amongst 
 other gifts, the funds out of which the south and 
 west cloisters wei'o originally built. 
 
 Here also are momnn(-nts to several dignitaries 
 of the Abbey, as tiiat, black and decayed, to William
 
 8 
 
 SKETCH OF WESTMINSTER ABBEY. 
 
 Bell, the first Protestant Dean in the reign of 
 Elizabeth ; that to Gabriel Goodman, Dean in 
 ICOl ; and that to Dean Vmcent, who died in 1815. 
 Under his auspices and exertions, as his epitaph 
 sets forth, the restoration of Henry the Seventh's 
 Chapel was begun, in 1809. 
 
 Of the remaining chapels we shall not speak, 
 because their character, as chapels, has been en- 
 tirely destroyed by the number of monuments 
 erected in them. This is much to be regretted, as 
 more than one of them afforded choice specimens 
 of architectural beauty, now lost, or rather dis- 
 figured, by a motley and crowded assortment of 
 tributes to the dead, admitted without taste, order, 
 or good effect. We are far from considering West- 
 minster Abbey or St. Paul's Cathedral inappro- 
 priate places for commemorating, by suitable works 
 of art, the merits of eminent persons, whose lives 
 have shed a lustre on the history of our country ; 
 but when we observe the rapid increase of the 
 monuments, particularly in Westminster Abbey, 
 the confusion, and worse still, the artistic incon- 
 gruity that prevails amongst them ; the total ab- 
 sence of all just pretension to the honour, on the 
 part of many of those upon whom the honour has 
 been conferred ; and lastly, the charge for admis- 
 sion demanded by the showmen in clerical gowns, 
 it is impossible not to feel that this is a bad public 
 exhibition, from which neither religion, nor the 
 national taste for the fine arts, are likely to derive 
 a small benefit. 
 
 Upon this subject it is the less necessary to en- 
 large, because every person who now writes upon 
 Westminster Abbey feels compelled to make similar 
 remarks. It is enough here, therefore, that we 
 echo the general voice. All the points to be put 
 have been exhausted by a writer in Knight's 
 " London, " who says, at page 129, " The author of 
 the Sketch Book, after a visit to the Abbey, re- 
 marks, ' I endeavoured to form some arrangement 
 in my mind of the objects I had been contemplating, 
 but found they were already falling into indistinct- 
 ness and confusion. Names, inscriptions, trophies, 
 had all become confounded in my recollection, 
 though I had scarcely taken my foot from off the 
 threshold.' This passage describes but too truly 
 the general effect, even on the most intelligent 
 minds, of a first or occasional visit to the Abbey 
 memorials. And the causes, no doubt, are to be 
 found partly in the very multiplicity of the objects 
 that meet the eye, but much more in the entire 
 absence of any systematic arrangement. Indeed, 
 whilst there are two features in particular which 
 invest Westminster Abbey with an interest and a 
 value that belong to no other English structure ; 
 the one of universal character, — the burial in it of 
 so many of our great men ; the other limited to the 
 lovers of art, — the knowledge that it presents an 
 unbroken series of examples of the history of sculp- 
 ture for five or six centuries ; — these are precisely 
 the features which are the least attended to in the 
 Abbey, and which therefore appear with the least 
 possible effect. The Englishman, proud of his 
 country, comes here to gaze upon the last resting- 
 place of the men whose achievements have given 
 him cause for his pride ; but finds not only that 
 remarkable men of every degree of intellectual 
 power, of evei-y variety of occupation and period, 
 are confusedly mingled togethei-, with the addition 
 
 of a sprinkling of those remarkable only from the 
 circumstance that their remains should be here at 
 all ; but that in reality he cannot discover, with 
 any thing approaching to general accuracy, the 
 great men who were really buried in the Abbey 
 fiom those who have merely had honorary memo- 
 rials erected to them. The student's case is still 
 more hopeless : what instruction can he possibly 
 derive from the visible history of art, however 
 rich, where the facts or monuments of which it is 
 composed are dispersed throughout a vast build- 
 ing, in such order that, if their respective posi- 
 tions had been decided by lot, they could hardly 
 have presented a greater chaos : — here the colossal 
 statue of Watt, in the beautiful little chapel of St. 
 Paul's, and by the side of the Gothic tomb of 
 Henry V.'s standard-bearer ; — there the effigies of 
 some of the ancient abbots, on their altar-tombs, 
 overshadowed by the gigantic pile of masonry 
 erected to an able seaman of the last century, who, 
 we suspect, would have been in no slight degree 
 astonished if he could have foreseen that he would 
 be stuck up here in effigy in the garb of a Roman 
 soldier. The Abbey, too, suffers sadly from these 
 circumstances. We may enjoy the grandeur of 
 its architecture, may gaze and gaze till we re- 
 sign ourselves to that feeling which Coleridge so 
 finely describes — unconsciousness of the actualities 
 around, and expansion of the whole being into the 
 infinite, — may listen whilst 
 
 " every stone is kiss'd 
 By sound, or ghost of sound, in mazy strife ; 
 Heart-thrilling strains that east before the eye 
 Of the devout a veil of ecstasy ;" — 
 
 may, in short, leave the heart and soul to wander 
 where and how they please, whilst we notice no- 
 thing individually : but the moment we attempt to 
 luxuriate in the details of the building, which are 
 only less wonderful than the whole, the ' actualities' 
 of the Abbey become too much for us. What 
 senses of sublimity and devotion can withstand the 
 sudden appearance of some preposterous effigy, 
 connected generally with some still more prepos- 
 terous pile, such as you are liable to meet with in 
 almost every part of the Abbey — transepts, ambu- 
 latory, chapels, and nave — every where but in the 
 choir, and in the chapel of the kings ? But it is 
 not such monuments only that injure the grand 
 harmony of the structure ; with the exception of 
 Westmacott's Duke de Montpensier, in Henry 
 VII. 's Chapel, we do not remember a single monu- 
 ment placed in the Abbey, for a century or two 
 past, that would not be again removed from it, if 
 the purity of architectural taste which existed when 
 the Abbey was built should be ever thoroughly 
 revived. And the chief cause of such wholesale 
 exclusion may be found, we think, in the very cir- 
 cumstance that sculptors have most congratulated 
 themselves upon — the raising the effigies of the 
 dead fi-om then* former recumbent position. But 
 in this, as in many other cases in which we have 
 departed from the practices of our ancestors, we 
 live to find, after a long period of complacent in- 
 dulgence, that we did so through ignorance of the 
 princiides upon which they worked. Let any one 
 walk through the chapel of the kings, or along the 
 ambulatory, and he cannot but notice how the 
 tombs, even the stateliest and most gorgeous, bar-
 
 BIOGRAPHICAL ILLUSTRATIONS. 
 
 monize with, nay enhance, the eft'eet of the Abbey ; 
 let hira then look upon hiter monuments, and his 
 most favourable judgment will be that, where they 
 have not an absolutely injm-ious effect, they liave 
 at least a negative one. Is there am' secret in 
 this most important difference ? Surely not. In 
 the one class you are seldom reminded of any thing 
 but the life, or the mere circumstances of its close ; 
 in the other you can never forget that the end of 
 all has come, and that king, prelate, warrior, states- 
 man, and courtier have alike forgotten the vanities 
 of the world, in this kind of beautiful and toucliLng 
 communion with their JIaker, which they are con- 
 tented to share in common with their lowliest 
 fellow-creatures. Their deeds may be recorded on 
 their monuments by grateful hands for us to read 
 and think of, but even then w-e see that they think 
 only of God. This it is that makes the old monu- 
 ments of the Abbey essentially a part of the Abbey: 
 they exhibit the same magnificence, the same re- 
 pose ; they inculcate the same impressive lesson. 
 Would we then banish from churches all monu- 
 ments that have not recumbent effigies ? That 
 were to be guided by the letter rather than the 
 spirit. We should certainly be glad to see the 
 iiile systematically enforced, that only monuments 
 of an unmingled and unmistakeable devotional 
 character should be received into the Abbey ; and 
 if that result can be obtained in better or in more 
 various ways than of old, it is very desirable such 
 modes should be adopted. The sculptors are even 
 
 more interested than the public in this matter. 
 Their skill in monuments of a diftcrent class is in 
 a great measm-e wasted here, wanting the chiirm 
 of fitness : the Abbey is as unsuitablefor them as 
 they for the Abb^y. Loi-d Mansfield's monument 
 in the chief court of English judicature, Cannini^'s 
 in the halls of parliament, and Watt's in the 
 meeting-place of the merchant-princes of England 
 would be so impressive as to raise the art itself at 
 once to a higher level : we should begin as a 
 people to feel, what for centuries as a people we 
 have not felt, the importance of the sculptor's 
 mission." 
 
 In conclusion, we have only to notice, that 
 although the monuments in Westminster Abbey 
 are much more numerous than those in St. Paul's 
 Cathedral, comparatively few of them h.ave been 
 erected at the public expense. A parliamentary 
 retuini specifies the names of the persons and cost of 
 erection, from the year 1750 to 1837, as follows : — 
 
 £ 
 
 1. General Wolfe 3,000 
 
 2. Lord Chatham C,000 
 
 3. Lord Robert IManners, Captain Ba\iie, \ 
 
 and Captain Blair ) ^'"'^" 
 
 4. Captain Montague 3,675 
 
 5. Captain Harvey and Captain Hutt.. ., 3.150 
 
 G. William Pitt 0,300 
 
 7. Spencer Perceval 5,250 
 
 Total amount £ 31,375 
 
 BIOGRAPHICAL ILLUSTRATIONS. 
 
 CHAUCER. 
 
 A i.iTTi.E to the right of the entrance into the 
 Poet's Corner of Westminster Abbey are the 
 relics of a Gothic tomb, in black stone, which 
 is now greatly mutilated, and destitute of inscrip- 
 tion or symbol by which the object of its erection 
 may be known. Yet this ruin was once a handsome 
 memorial of the fame of Geoffrey Chaucer, the 
 venerable father of English poetry ; whose earthly 
 remains, as well as can be conjectured from the 
 desci-iption of the spot given by Caxton the printer, 
 were deposited somewliere near the front of the 
 contiguous monument to Dryden. There are few 
 readers who can contemplate the modern neglect 
 of such a grave without a feeling of honest sorrow ; 
 nor can any friend to literatm-c learn without 
 indignation, that a name which was just!}' honoured 
 l)y former ages with the most signal tributes of 
 regard, should be thus abandoned to utter decay 
 by the present generation. Caxton is reported to 
 have been the first who offered homage to the 
 spot : he employed Stephanas Surigonius, who is 
 described as Poet Laureate of Milan, to write a long 
 elegy in Latin, whicii was hung u]) on one of the 
 opposite pillars. Of this coni|)().iition, only two 
 veraes, and they are in ail probability the openmg 
 
 ones, have been preserved : they may bo thus 
 translated : — 
 
 Here Geoffrey Chaucer, bard, and the first pride 
 Of motlier verse, in holy ground I bide*. 
 
 About the year 1055 or 1050, according to 
 Wood, Jlr. Nicholas Brigham, w ho was a student 
 in the University of Oxford, and a writer of verses, 
 went to the expense of that erection which, in 
 fact, still exists. Above the sarcophagus he placed 
 a picture of the poet, copied from the head in 
 Occleve's book, and upon it inserted a Latin 
 inscrii)tion, which was legible in 1760, and in 
 English may run thus : — 
 
 Of old the bard who struck the noblest strains — 
 Great Geolfrey Chaucer, now this tomb retains. 
 If for the periods of his life you call, 
 The signs are under that will note you all. 
 
 In the year of our Lord 1400, on the 25tli day of 
 
 October. 
 Death is the repose of cares. 
 
 • Galfridus Chaucer, vates et fama pocsis 
 
 Matcrna:, hie sacrS sum tunuil.itus liiinio.
 
 10 
 
 WESTMINSTER ABBEY. 
 
 N. Brigham charged himself with this expense in 
 the name of the Muses*. 
 
 Along the ledge of the tomb, or more probably 
 on a fillet of brass with which we are told it was 
 bound, three lines were engraved to this effect : — 
 
 What erst I was some fame may haply say, 
 If not, for earthly glories die away. 
 
 These records scanf. 
 
 The biography of Chaucer has repeatedly been 
 inquired into, and as often been written with par- 
 ticular merit, yet notwithstanding all the industry 
 and talent applied to the subject, every accoimt of 
 his works, and many incidents of his life, remain to 
 this day in a lamentable state of contradiction and 
 uncertainty. The time and place of his birth, and 
 the cu'cumstances of his parentage, have been 
 variously related. According to some he was the 
 son of a knight, resident m London ; to others, of a 
 vintner, and of a general merchant. Again, there 
 have been those who mauitamed that he was born 
 in Berkshire, at Oxford, and in London. This 
 latter is the one now generally received, because 
 the fact is fairly deducible from his Testament of 
 Love, in which, speaking of London, he says, 
 " The city that is to me so dear and sweet, in which 
 I was forthgroim, and more kindly love have I to 
 that place than any other on earth (as every kindly 
 creature hath full appetite to that place of his 
 kindly ingendure.)" If to this be added a conjecture, 
 that his father was a tradesman in the city, (be- 
 cause his arms, which were long preserved in the 
 College of Heralds, indicate no sign of nobility,) 
 all that is most probable respectmg his descent 
 will have been stated. As to the period of his 
 birth, it is almost concurrently fixed in the second 
 year of Edward III., A.D. 1328 ; and the locality 
 of his education is nearly as universally adopted 
 from Leland, who affirms that he studied first at 
 Cambridge, and afterwards at Oxford. While at 
 this latter university he translated Troilus and 
 Cressida, which he dedicated to his fellow students 
 Gower and Strode. Of the colleges to which he 
 belonged nothing more is known than is contained 
 in a tradition preserved by Wood in his Annals, to 
 the effect that " when Wickhffe was warden of 
 Cantei'bury College, he had for his pupil Jeffery 
 Chaucer, father of Thomas Chaucer, Esq., of 
 Ewhelme, in Oxfordshire, who, following the steps 
 of his master, reflected much upon the corruption 
 of the clergy.'' 
 
 At this period Chaucer is desci-ibed by Leland 
 as a ready logician, a smooth rhetorician, a pleasant 
 poet, a grave philosopher, an ingenious mathe- 
 matician, and a holy divine, — deep and comprehen- 
 sive attainments, of which, lest we should doubt 
 the reality, his biographers have been careful to 
 remark, that his "Discourses of the Astrolabe," 
 an instrument for taking the altitude of the stars, 
 
 * Qui fuit Anglorum vates termaximus dim, 
 Galfridus Chaucer, conditur hoc tumulo: 
 Annum si quaeris Domini, si tempora vitae, 
 Ecce notee subsunt quae tibi cuncta notant. 
 A.D. 1400. Die Mensis Octob. 25. 
 yErumnarum requies Mors. 
 N. Brigham hos fecit Musanim nomine sumptus. 
 
 t Si rogites quis eram, forsan te Fama doeebit ; 
 Quod si Fama negat, mundi quia gloria transit, 
 Ha:c monumenta lege. 
 
 show his acquaintance with astronomy ; — that his 
 " Tale of the Chanon's Yeoman" exhibits him 
 versed in the hermetic philosophy ; and that his 
 " Parson's Tale" proves his knowledge of scholastic 
 divinity. Such then were his accomplishments 
 when he took leave of a university Ufe, and with a 
 view to more worldly knowledge, visited Paris, 
 then, and long after, the great centre of learning 
 and refinement ; and travelled through France and 
 the Low Countries ; an event, which is sufficiently 
 accredited, though unconfii-med by the minor 
 particulars of time and dates. Upon his return to 
 England, he is supposed to have become a student 
 at law, as Speght relates that he was fined two 
 shillings by the benchers of Gray's Inn, for beating 
 a friar in Fleet-street. 
 
 The next scene in which Chaucer is found to 
 figure, is the court of Edward III., where he 
 began his career with the post of valettus, or page 
 to his Majesty, with a salary of twenty marks per 
 annum. For this preferment he stood mdebted to 
 the interest of John of Gaunt, Duke of Lancaster, 
 a prince to whom it appears he rendered some 
 confidential services in that amorous suit by which 
 he ultimately obtained the hand of Blanche of 
 Lancaster in marriage. The poet celebrated the 
 event by composing the piece entitled " Chaucer's 
 Dream." The intimacy thus formed was strength- 
 ened in process of time by other circumstances : 
 attaching himself to the political views of his 
 patron, he was alike caressed by him and the 
 Duchess, and spent a considerable portion of his 
 time with them at Woodstock, where he inhabited 
 a square stone house, long distinguished by his 
 name, near the Park Gate. In 1359, he attended 
 the Earl of Richmond in the formidable expedition 
 sent by Edward III. against France. About the 
 year ] 360, a period at which we are informed he was 
 reputed one of the handsomest men about court, 
 he married Philippa Rouet, the sister of Catherine, 
 widow of Sir Hugh Swyuford, knight. This latter 
 lady was then an inmate of the household of John 
 of Gaunt, nominally as the governess of his children, 
 but in reality as his mistress. The connexion has 
 been remarked upon by some as a disparaging cir- 
 cumstance to Chaucei', who derived notwithstand- 
 ing an immediate accession of wealth and honours 
 from it. His pension was doubled ; he was nomi- 
 nated, by patent, a Gentleman of the King's Privy 
 Chamber, and after the lapse of about twelve 
 months, was made Shield-bearer to his Majesty, a 
 post long suppressed, but then of particular distinc- 
 tion. An extant king's Avrit, dated June 20, 1370, 
 shows that he visited the continent during that year, 
 on the king's business. In Nov., 1372, he was 
 again despatched with two envoys on a commission 
 to treat with the republic of Genoa, respecting the 
 establishment of a factory. The execution of this 
 duty must have been satisfactory, as upon his 
 return to England, letters patent, dated at Windsor 
 Castle, April 23, in the 48th year of Edward's reign, 
 were issued, by which the butler of England was 
 commanded to serve Chaucer with a pitcher of 
 wine daily out of the port of London. It was on 
 this journey to Italy that Chaucer is supposed to 
 have met Petrarch, then seventy years old. A 
 ]3assage in the tale of Patient Griselda has led to 
 this conclusion, where Chaucer says, he 
 
 " Lerned (it) at Padowe of a worthy clerk 
 Francis Petrark "
 
 CHAUCER. 
 
 11 
 
 Petrarch had himself translated the tale from the 
 Latin, so late as 1373. 
 
 Tlie ease aud competence produced by these high 
 and valuable rewards for litei'aiy excellence begot 
 no relaxation of the exercises by which they had 
 been originally obtained. Notwithstanding the 
 constancy of his attendance at court, Chaucer con- 
 tinued to study and write with the natural enthu- 
 siasm of genius, and thus his fortune and reputation 
 still increased in parallel degrees. He was soon 
 after appointed Comptroller of the Customs in the 
 Port of London for wool, wool-fells, aud hides — an 
 office alike reputable and lucrative, of which, as 
 the patent stipulated, he discharged the duties in 
 person, aud kept the accounts with his own hand. 
 Upon his merit in these functions he plumed him- 
 self not a little, and apparently with some cause ; 
 for the Customs, towards the close of Edward IIL's 
 reign, were the subject of several prosecutions for 
 heavy frauds, and gross embezzlements, comiected 
 with no one of which is the name of Chaucer to be 
 found. He had not been a year in this situation, 
 before the king gave him the wardship of the lands 
 and body of Sir Edward Staplegate, of Kent, for 
 which he received £104, equal to £1372 modern 
 money, and some greater pecuniary advantages, 
 which, with his other receipts, enabled him to pro- 
 vide an income of a thousand pounds a year, aud 
 thus live, according to his own words, with dignity 
 in office, aud with goodwill among his neighbours. 
 
 Tliis was the summit of Chaucer's official fortune; 
 aud with it, the plenitude of his poetical fame was 
 concurrent. It may be as well, therefore, to make 
 some mention, in this place, of those productions 
 by which a condition so happy was established. 
 * The Complaint of the Black Knight ;' the ' Com- 
 ' jilaint of Alary Magdalen,' taken from Origen, and 
 ' Chaucer's A, B, C,' which was written for the 
 Duchess Blanche ; are conjectured to have been 
 the first of the compositions he finished about the 
 period of his introduction to court. The ' House 
 of Fame,' the ' Assembly of Fowls,' and the 
 ' Cuckow and Nightingale,' of which the scene is 
 perceptibly laid in Woodstock Park, are supposed 
 to have followed next iu order. After a variety of 
 elegies, ballads, &c. addressed to Margaret, Coun- 
 tess of Pembroke, and other ladies attached to the 
 court, ' Troilus and Cresseide,' a poem m five 
 books, and the longest of his works, has by some 
 authors been ascribed to this time of his life, 
 thougli different critics are not wanting who affirm 
 that it was composed at an earlier pci'iod. Ac- 
 cording to an old representation, it was a digested 
 translation from LoUius, historiographer to the 
 city of Urbini), in Italy ; but Sir Francis Kynaston, 
 who turned the poem into Latin verse, asserts that 
 it was not taken from any particular writer, but 
 was an original project, glancing at some characters 
 about tlie court of iOdward 1 1 1. This latter ojiinion 
 does not, li(nvuver, appear very jn'obablc — it is sup- 
 ])orteil by no facts; and as to tlie former, whatever 
 may liave been l)(n'rowcd from liollius, a great 
 deal was also adopted from otlicr ]ioets, of whom 
 the chief was Boccaccio, who also Kupi)lied liis 
 i'alemon and Arcito. It is observalile that in 
 «ome editions a sixth book is added to 'i'roilus and 
 CroHsoide — that is the perfonnance of II(;nderHf)n. 
 
 iJy tills time WIcklKfe had eft'ectively broached 
 tliose doctrines of religious rcf'oi'malion, wliieh 
 have nui<l(; his name memora))lc, and Cliawcer 
 
 aided the labour by successfully satirizing all lazy 
 monks, ignorant priests, and insolent churchmen. 
 To this part he must have been strongly inclined 
 by natural liberality and experience ; but perhaps 
 he found a more direct instigation in the counte- 
 nance which his patron, John of Gaunt, thought 
 proper to bestow upon the cause. It must not, 
 howevei', be inferred from this partizanship, that 
 the poet was indifferent to the sanctity of religion, 
 or discontented with the peculiar tenets of the 
 Catholic Chm-ch. For both lie always professed 
 strong attachment and reverence ; his faith in them 
 is indicated as well by his writings as his actions, 
 and his opposition was not levelled against the 
 Church itself, but against that worst array of 
 enemies to it, wlio, although endowed with a 
 privileged character for the advantage of religion, 
 yet struck the most fatal blows against its interests, 
 by monstrously abusing their office. The principal 
 of Chaucer's j)erformances in this way, was the 
 ' Romaunt of the Rose,' the much prized translation 
 from the French already mentioned. As now pre- 
 served, there is more than one hiatus in this poem : 
 it does not appear to have ever been concluded, 
 and is chiefly remarkable for the violent invectives 
 it contains against religious orders. Most critics 
 have affirmed, and a few denied, that Cliaucer was 
 also the author of the ' Ploughman's Tale,' and the 
 satire of ' Jack Upland,' pieces which bear very 
 hard upon the vices of the clergy, and which, aa 
 in abstract opinions they concur with the avowed 
 sentiments of the poet, are usually inserted in his 
 works. 
 
 In London, the cause of Wickliffe was supported 
 by the gentry, while the clergy were defended by the 
 populace, who after much dissension broke into 
 tumultuous riot, and demolished the palace of John 
 of Gaunt, iu the Savoy. After this outrage, the 
 quarrel was awhile composed by the interfei-ence 
 of the king, and Chaucer was again employed 
 on the Continent with two envoys. Sir Guichard 
 d'Angle and Sir Richard Stan, probably to nego- 
 ciate a man'iage between Richard, Prince of 
 Wales, and Mary, daughter of the French king. 
 This was the last state employment which he is 
 known to have held, although it has been observed 
 that a gold chain, which hangs round his neck in 
 some old portraits, seems to warrant a belief that 
 he filled a higher dignity than any existing records 
 describe. 
 
 The death of Edward III., June 21, 1377, was 
 the downfall of Chaucer's fortune. Every circum- 
 stance attending tiiis event seemed to promise not 
 only a continuance, but an increase of })rosperity ; 
 for .John of Gaunt obtained the active administra- 
 tion of affairs, on account of the minority of his 
 nephew, Richard II. Things, however, took di- 
 rectly a contrary turn, nor has there been any 
 information preserved which can cxjilain the cause 
 and manner of his subseciuent vicissitudes. It 
 appears that the late king's grant of twenty marlis 
 a year, was confirmed by letters jjateut, dated 
 March 3, 1.'{7'I ; that the; daily jiitcher of wine was 
 also i^ivcn under similar authority on the 18(li day 
 of A])ril following ; and to his office in the Customs 
 of Comptroller of Wool, was added the comptrol- 
 lershl]) of th(! small customs. And yet iu a very 
 short time after, his affairs became so embarrassed 
 that he was obliged to resort to his majesty's pre- 
 rogative for protection against his creditors. For
 
 12 
 
 WESTMINSTER ABBEY. 
 
 this extreme of adversity many biographers have 
 attempted to assign reasons, but at this distance of 
 time it is impossible to explain the matter. 
 
 The loss of wealth, however, produced no change 
 in his political principles, for he was extremely 
 active in abetting the pretensions of Alderman 
 Comberton, citizen and draper, familiarly called 
 John of Northampton, who undertook to reform 
 the city of London, at the instigation of Wickliffe. 
 This design was vehemently resisted by the clergy, 
 and great distm'bances took place, when, upon the 
 conclusion of the Alderman's mayoralty, it was 
 attempted to invest him with the chief power for a 
 second year. Upon this occasion, the proceedings 
 assumed so formidable a character, that the kmg 
 sent an armed force into the city, which committed 
 great severities ; and after putting several to death, 
 imprisoned Comberton, and the leaders of his party. 
 Chaucer was particularly denounced to the com- 
 manding officer, and great exertions were made to 
 discover him ; but he eluded pursuit, and reached 
 Hainault in safety. Thence he passed into France, 
 was pursued, and finally penetrated into Zealand. 
 In this exile his conduct was highly generous, for 
 as long as he had money left, he supported some 
 other refugees from the venffeance of the court. 
 Utter distress, however, soon fell upon him ; his 
 remittances from England were stopped, and after 
 many sufferings, he was at last obliged to venture 
 home, in order to avoid starvation abroad. Being 
 immediately detected and seized, he was thrown 
 into prison, and treated with great rigour. His 
 distress was so sharp, that he was obliged to apply 
 to the king for leave to sell his pension. After an 
 imprisonment of two years, his fortitude gave way, 
 and to obtain his liberty, he impeached his party. 
 By this act of delinquency he regained his liberty, 
 but forfeited the countenance of the Duke of Lan- 
 caster, and was persecuted with a heavy load of 
 popular obloquy and abuse, which appears to have 
 oppressed and grieved him sorely. 
 
 At this unhappy conjuncture, his wants becoming 
 urgent, and his spirit wholly broken, he withdrew 
 to Woodstock, which had been the scene of his 
 brightest days. Tliere he consoled his afflictions 
 by revising the productions of his former studies, 
 and writing a work in prose, entitled the ' Testa- 
 ment of Love,' which is taken from the celebrated 
 treatise by Boethius, ' De Consolatione Philoso- 
 phise.' There, too, he composed, (probably in 
 1391), a 'Treatise on the Astralobe,' for his son 
 Louis, who was a student at Cambridge, though 
 only ten years old, — a performance by which the 
 versatility of his talents, and the extent of his 
 reading, have been signally attested. 
 
 Suddenly as the tide of wealth and favour ebbed 
 away from Chaucer, it flowed back again as un- 
 expectedly in the decline of his life. In the course 
 of about four years more, John of Gaunt retm-ned 
 from Castile loaded w^ith wealth, and having lost 
 his Duchess, Constance, took for a third wife 
 his old mistress, Cathei'ine Swynford. The poet 
 speedily participated in the prosperity of his sister- 
 bi-law. He obtained a fresh annuity of twenty 
 marks, an immunity from his creditors, and a pipe 
 of wine a year, which was to be delivered by his 
 eldest son, now advanced to the post of Chief 
 Butler. Thus replaced in affluence, and sur- 
 rounded by prosperous friends, he devoted himself 
 to the composition of his celebrated " Canterbury 
 
 Tales." But his happiness was depressed by other 
 events : through the death of John of Gaunt he 
 lost an old friend, a gi\icious patron, and a kind 
 brother ; and by the usurpation of his nephew, . 
 Henry IV., he was awhile disti'essed for the re- 
 ceipts of his pension. But the new monarch soon 
 proved as kind as his predecessors had been ; for, 
 within the first year of his reign, he renewed the 
 former letters patent, and settled his pension at 
 forty marks a year during life. 
 
 After the demise of John of Gaunt, Chaucer 
 changed his residence to Dunnmgton Castle, near 
 Newbury, and there spent two years. At the ex- 
 pu'ation of that term, he was obliged to come up 
 to the metropolis, in consequence of that law which 
 made void all the acts passed by Richard dm-ing 
 the twenty- first year of his reign. He now ap- 
 pears to have determined upon living in London, 
 as he took a lease for fifty-five years of a house 
 in the garden of the Dean and Chapter of 
 Westminster, on the site of which Henry VII. 's 
 Chapel is supposed to stand. Here he expired 
 October 25, 1400. He bore his final malady with 
 sound senses and an unimpaired mind, composing 
 on his death-bed an ode, of which a manuscript is 
 preserved in the Cotton Library, Otho, A, XVII., 
 and is entitled " A Ballade, made by GiftVey Chau- 
 cyer, upon his Dethe Bedde, lying in his grete 
 anguysse." 
 
 Chaucer's death and memoi'y have been ho- 
 nom'ed by many warm tributes of condolence and 
 admiration — feelings which have only sunk deeper, 
 and grown stronger, as accruing centuries have 
 made his name and writings more venerable. Nor 
 are the grounds upon which this esteem and praise 
 are challenged either few or inconsiderable ; his 
 integrity in office, and his liberality in politics and 
 religion, render him as conspicuous in a public 
 light, as high genius and varied attainments make 
 him glorious in the more modest lucubrations of 
 authorsliip. Light in humour, and warm in dis- 
 position, he may have fallen into the follies natural 
 to youth, and customary with the age he adorned ; 
 but he reformed as his years ripened to maturity, 
 and became so grave m his old age, that his friend, 
 the Countess of Pembroke, rallied his seriousness 
 by observing, that his absence brought more mirth 
 than his conversation. The changes wrouglit in a 
 language naturally variable and still imperfect 
 have robbed his style of many a charm, and his 
 versification of much harmony ; but this injury is 
 somewhat compensated by a contrary advantage, 
 for he holds a rank somewhat like that of the classic 
 of a dead language amongst the English poets. 
 Thus he has been paraphrased and translated, and 
 even critically imitated, by numberless followers, 
 whom it is sufficient to characterize by reminding 
 the reader that Spenser, Dryden, and Pope stand 
 foremost on the roll. Dryden was about the first 
 who reviewed his versatile productions with appro- 
 priate zeal and talents, as the following extract will 
 show : — 
 
 " As he is the father of English poetry, so I hold 
 him in the same degree of veneration as the Gre- 
 cians held Homer, or the Romans Virgil : he is a 
 perpetual fountain of good sense, learned in all 
 sciences, and therefore speaks properly on all sub- 
 jects : as he knew what to say, so he knows also 
 when to leave off, a continence which is practised
 
 CHAUCER. 
 
 13 
 
 by few writers, and scarcely by any of the ancients, 
 excepting Virgil and Horace. Chaucer followed 
 nature every wliere, but was never so bold to go 
 beyond her : and there is a gi-eat difference of 
 being * jjoeta et nimis j)octa,^ if we may believe 
 Catullus, as much as betwixt a modest behaviour 
 and affectation. The verse of Chaucer, I confess, 
 is not harmonious to us, but it is like the eloquence 
 of one whom Tacitus commends, — it was ' aurlbtis 
 utiiis temporb accommodata.' They who lived with 
 him, and some time after him, thought it musical ; 
 and it contLuues so, even in our judgment, if com- 
 pared with the numbers of Lidgate and Gower, his 
 contemporaries. There is the rude sweetness of a 
 Scotch tune in it, which is natural and pleasing, 
 though not perfect. It is true, I cannot go so far 
 as he who published the last edition of him, for he 
 would make us believe the fault is in our ears, and 
 that there are really ten syllables in a verse, where 
 we find but nine ; but this opinion is not worth 
 confuting ; it is so gross and obvious an error, that 
 common sense (which is a rule in every thing but 
 matters of faith and revelation) must convince the 
 reader, that equality of numbers in every verse, 
 wliich we call heroic, was either not known, or not 
 always practised, in Chaucer's age. It were an 
 easy matter to produce some thousands of his verses 
 which are lame for want of half a foot, and some- 
 times a whole one, and which no pronunciation can 
 make otherwise. We can only say, that he lived 
 in the infancy of our poetry, and that nothing is 
 brought to perfection at the first. We must be 
 children before we grow men. There was an En- 
 nius, and, in process of time, a Lucilius, and a 
 Lucretius, before Virgil and Horace ; even after 
 Chaucer, there was a Spenser, a Harrington, a 
 Fairfax, before Waller and Denham were in being ; 
 and our numbers were in their non-age till these 
 last appeared." 
 
 As Dryden's prose is not often read in the pre- 
 sent age, we shall venture on another extract. 
 
 " He must have been a man of most wonderful 
 comprehensive nature, because, as it has been 
 truly observed of him, he has taken into the com- 
 pass of his ' Canterbury Tales ' the various manners 
 and humours, as we now call them, of the whole 
 English nation in his age. Not a single character 
 has escaped him. All his pilgrims are severally 
 distinguished from each other, and not only in their 
 inclinations, but in their very j)hysiognomius and 
 persons. Baptista Porta could not have described 
 their natures better, than by the marks which the 
 poet gives them. The matter and manner of their 
 tales, and of their telling, are so suited to their 
 different educations, humours, and callings, that 
 each of them would be inqu'oper in any other 
 iiiovith. Even the grave and serious characters 
 ar(! distinguished by their several aoi'ts of gravity ; 
 their discourses are such as belong to their age, 
 their calling, and their breeding ; such as are 
 becoming of them, and of them only. Some of his 
 persons are vicif)us, and some virtuous ; some are 
 unlearned, or (as Chaucer calls tht^n) lewd, and 
 some are learned. Even the ribaidi-y of the low 
 characters is different ; the rei^ve, the miller, and 
 the cook, are several men, and distinguished from 
 each other, iis nuicli as the iiiineiiig la<ly jirioress, 
 and the broad-speaking, ga|)-toothed wife of JJatli. 
 But enough of this: there is such a variety of game 
 springing up before nic, that 1 am disti'acted in 
 
 my choice, and know not which to follow. It is 
 sufficient to say, according to the proverb, that 
 here is God's plenty. We have our forefathers and 
 great grand dames all before us, as they were in 
 Chaucer's da}s ; their general characters are still 
 remaining in mankind, and even in England, thourrh 
 they are called by other names than those of monks 
 and friars, of canons, and lady-abbesses, and nuns ; 
 for mankind is ever the same, and nothing is lost 
 out of nature, though every thing is altered. — 
 Boccaee lived in the same age with Chaucer, had 
 the same genius, and followed the same studies ; 
 both writ novels, and eacli of them cultivated his 
 mother-tongue. — In the serious part of poetry, the 
 advantage is wholly on Chaucer's side; for, though 
 the Englishman has borrowed many tales from the 
 Italian, yet it appears, that those of Boccaee were 
 not generally of his own making, but taken from 
 authors of former ages, and by him only modelled ; 
 so that what was of invention in either of them 
 may be judged equal. But Chaucer has refined on 
 Boccaee, and has mended the stories which he has 
 borrowed, in his way of telling, tliough prose allows 
 more liberty of thought, and the expression is more 
 easy when unconfined by numbers. Our counti'y- 
 man carries weight, and yet wins the race at dis- 
 advantage." 
 
 By way of contrast to this piece of admb'able 
 criticism, we give the comments of a modern poet. 
 
 " Chaucer, notwithstanding the praises bestowed 
 on him, I think obscm'e and contemptible. He owes 
 his celebrity merely to his anti(juity, which he does 
 not deserve so well as Pierce Plowman, or Thomas 
 of Ercildoune." Such is the recorded opinion of 
 Lord Byron in his Life by Moore, and he is perhaps 
 the only English poet of standard reputation who 
 has underrated Chaucer. It should not be concealed, 
 however, that his lordship was in Ins twentieth year 
 when he put this opinion on paper. 
 
 Chaucer had two sons, Thomas and Louis. Re- 
 specting the latter no account exists from which his 
 station in life, or the time and manner of his death, 
 can be learned. Of the former, however, a parti- 
 cular history is preserved. Besides the office of 
 chief butler granted to him by Richard II. and 
 confirmed for life by Henry IV., he was thrice 
 presented speaker of the House of Commons, and 
 charged with three embassies tt) the court of France. 
 He was also shoritt' of Oxfordshire and lU^rkshire ; 
 constable of Wallingford and Knaresborough cas- 
 tles ; and had his public services rewarded by a 
 life-grant of the manors of Woodstock, Hane- 
 bi'ough, Wott(m, and Stantcsfield. He died at his 
 seat Ewelin, in Oxfordshire, April 28, 1484, leaving 
 one daughter, nanu'd yVlice, who was married, first, 
 to Sir John Phili])s, knight; secondly, to Thomas 
 Montaeute, Earl of Salislniry, and thirdly, to the 
 well-known William do la Tole, Earl, and after- 
 wards Duke of Suilolk, who was nmrdered in the 
 straits of Dover, during the reign of Henry VI. 
 
 The works of Chaucer are too voluminous even 
 for emnneration here ; they were preserved in 
 manuscript for seventy years, and began to be 
 jirinted in 147(», when Caxton gave an edition of 
 tlu! Canterbury Tales. They have since apjieared 
 in various forms, and under different editors, of 
 whom the last iind best is by IJrrie, in eight vols. 
 8vo., 1721. 'I'lie Canterbury Talcs have more re- 
 (reiitly been jiresented to tin; public with elaborate 
 notes, glossary, connnentaries, and essays, by Mr.
 
 14 
 
 WESTMINSTER ABBEY. 
 
 Tyrwliitt, who has thus effected all that can be 
 undertalien for ine illustration of the author and 
 his text. A small and very agreeable volume, the 
 Poems of Geoffrey Chaucer, has lately been pub- 
 lished with an excellent introduction by Mr. R. H. 
 Home, and a Life by Professor Leonhard Schmitz. 
 We cannot perhaps make a better close of our own 
 imperfect sketch than by inserting the concluding 
 paragraphs of the learned German's biography. 
 
 " For the well-known portrait of Chaucer we are 
 indebted to an old MS. of the Canterbury Tales, 
 belonging to the fifteenth centui\y, which is at pre- 
 sent in tbe possession of the Marquis of Stafford. 
 This MS., at the commencement of the tale of 
 MelibcBUS, represents the poet riding on horseback, 
 in a vest or gipon of dark velvet, with a bonnet of 
 the same colour, with gilt anclace, or dagger, black 
 boots, and with the trappings of his horse partially 
 gilt. In the part of the tale of Meliboeus in which 
 the poet pourtrays himself, he hints that he was 
 rather corpulent, and was in the habit of looking 
 down on the ground. He also gives a similar por- 
 trait of himself in the Prologue to the ' Rime of 
 Sire Thopas.' But, notwithstanding this tendency 
 to be corpulent, his appearance conveys the im- 
 
 pression of great delicacy. He seems to have been 
 short of stature. His countenance, calm and com- 
 posed as it was, appears to have been expressive of 
 a high degree of ndite humour. 
 
 " The character and temperament of Chaucer are 
 clearly and beautifully set forth in his own works. 
 He was cheerful, kind, open and serene to the last 
 moments of his life, and gained the affections of all 
 with whom lie came in contact ; his social habits 
 were formed by the various circumstances and 
 spheres in which he had lived and moved. He was 
 natm'ally social, and even convivial, and, like many 
 other poets, he paid little regard to his financial 
 means; hence we find him involved in difficulties 
 at times, when, considering his ample income, we 
 should have least expected it. But, notwithstanding 
 this carelessness about his own affairs, Chaucer 
 was, in the highest degree, strict and punctual in 
 the performance of all his official duties. 
 
 " Great poet ! neither the obliteration of the mo- 
 numental tribute to thy honour, nor the ages that 
 have rolled over thy quiet ashes, can ever erase 
 one letter from the bead-roll of thy fame, or cover 
 with the desert sand of time the records of thy 
 spirit which thou thyself hast left us." 
 
 MARGARET BEAUFORT, COUNTESS OF RICHMOND AND DERBY. 
 
 Foremost and leaning from her golden cloud 
 
 The venerable Margaret see ! 
 
 " Welcome, my noble son !" she cried aloud, 
 
 To this thy kindred train and me ; 
 
 Pleased in thy lineaments we trace 
 
 A Tudor's fire, a Beaufort's grace." — Gray. 
 
 Next to the mausoleum of Mary Queen of Scots, 
 in the south side of Henry the Seventh's Chapel, is 
 a table monument of black marble and touchstone, 
 panelled with coats of arms, and surmounted with 
 a female effigy in robes doubled with ermine ; — the 
 whole finely wrought in gilt brass. On a fillet of 
 the same metal, round the cornice of the table, is a 
 Latin inscription, written by the celebrated Eras- 
 mus — his fee for it was twenty shillings — which 
 thus expresses the purposes of the tomb : — 
 
 MargareTjE. Richemondise. Legitimi. Henrici. 
 Matri. Octavi. .^vise. Quae. Stipendia. Constituit. 
 trib. hoc. Coenobio. Monachis. et. Doctor!. Gram- 
 matices. Apud. Wymborn. Perq. Angliam. Totam. 
 Divini. Verbi. Prteconi. Duob. Item. Interpretib. 
 Litterar. Sacrar. Alteri. Oxoniis. Alter!. Canta- 
 brigife. ubi. et. Collegia. Duo. Christo. et. Joanni. 
 Discipulo. eius. struxit. Moritur. An. Dom. m.d.ix. 
 
 III. KAL. IVLII. 
 
 To Margaret of Richmond, Mother of the 
 Seventh Henry, and grandmother of the Eighth ; 
 who founded a revenue for three monks in this 
 Abbey, established a monastery and grammar 
 doctors at Wyraborne, and over all England a 
 preacher of the divine word. She also appointed 
 two expounders of the Holy Bible, one at Oxford, 
 and one at Cambridge, where she moreover built 
 two Colleges — to Christ and his disciple John. 
 She died on the Kalends of July, MDIX. 
 
 To the particulars here given of this illustrious 
 woman, a few facts are to be added. She was born 
 
 at Bletshoe, m Bedfordshire, during the year 1 44 1, 
 and was the sole daughter and heiress of John 
 Beaufort, Duke of Somerset, who was the son of 
 the celebrated John of Gaunt, Duke of Lancaster. 
 While yet in her fifteenth year, her hand was 
 solicited in marriage by the Duke of Suffolk, for 
 his son ; and by Henry VI. for his half-brother, 
 Edmund of Hadham, Earl of Richmond. The 
 latter nobleman was preferred, and upon an influ- 
 ence, according to the story of Sir Francis Bacon 
 and Bishop Fisher, no less extraordinary than the 
 following. Perplexed in her choice between the 
 two suitors, Margaret requested the advice of 
 an elderly gentlewoman, who sagely decided that 
 she ought not to consult her heart upon the occa- 
 sion, but refer herself in prayer to the patron of 
 virgins, St. Nicholas, who after due suit appeared 
 to the pious maid in his episcopal robes, and pro- 
 nounced for Earl Edmund. By this match Mar- 
 garet had a son, afterwards Henry VII., and 
 within the short term of fifteen weeks after his 
 birth was left a widow. In the. course of time, 
 however, and without any miraculous interference, 
 she obtained two more husbands, but had no fur- 
 ther issue by them. Her second lord was Henry 
 Stafford, a son of the Duke of Buckingham : he 
 died in 1481 ; and her third, Thomas, Lord Stan- 
 ley, she married in 1485. The last nobleman, after 
 greatly aiding Henry VII. in his descent upon 
 England, put the crown on his head on Bosworth 
 field, and was created Earl of Derby. He was the 
 richest subject in the realm, and a nobleman of 
 manifold deserts. Ilis step-son, whom he had so
 
 MARGARET BEAUFORT. 
 
 15 
 
 vigorously helped to place on the throne, ordered 
 him to be executed for high treason, ou a charge of 
 corresponding with rebels abroad. After depriving 
 her of her husband in this monstrous manner, 
 Henry Yll. affected great respect and honour for 
 his mother. A distant visit he paid her in 1490 
 afforded Perkjii Warbeek an opportunity for his 
 disastrous landing at Deal. 
 
 Such was the rank, and such the condition of 
 Margaret Beaufort : but the history of her actions 
 is by no means so brief ; for, according to Stowe, a 
 volume would hardly suffice to recapitulate aud 
 describe her virtues and gi-eat acts. Notwith- 
 standing those feuds of kindred which convulsed 
 the age, she was invited to carry the train of queen 
 Anne, at the coronation of Richard III. ; and it has 
 been asserted that she is entitled to the merit of 
 having conciliated, if not projected the union of the 
 red and white roses, by engagmg Elizabeth Wood- 
 ville, the first commoner, and the queen of Eng- 
 land, widow of Edward IV., to marry her eldest 
 daughter Elizabeth to the Earl of Richmond. For 
 her zeal in this affair Richard compelled Lord 
 Stanley to hold her pei-son in restraint ; but the 
 usurper perished; and being easily prevailed upon 
 to waive her pretensions to the crown in favour of 
 her son, she soon after renounced the mazes of am- 
 bition, and devoted her life to works of charity and 
 virtue, amongst which the patronage of learning 
 usurped a distinguished share. The detail of her 
 munificence begins with her receiving twelve dis- 
 tressed objects under her own roof, where they were 
 fed and clothed. As the one dropped off, another was 
 admitted ; so that the number relieved continued 
 always the same. The lecturers in divinity at the 
 Universities of Oxford and Cambridge were lier 
 next care : the articles of their endowment, which 
 was in perpetuity, were dated September 8, 1502 ; 
 and provided, that the professors should be chosen 
 every second year, by the doctors and bachelors of 
 divinity assembled together in full convocation, 
 and that the salary of each lecturer should be 
 twenty marks a-year. The bequest to Cambridge, 
 it may be added, was further augmented, July 5, 
 15f;6', to the sum of 20/. ; and August 2G, 1G05, by 
 the rectory of Terrington, in Norfolk — a gift from 
 James I. The most singular of her foundations 
 was that of a preacher of the gospel for all Eng- 
 land ; tlie date of the articles for it was August C, 
 1504; the patronage was vested in Cambridge, the 
 salary fixed at 10/. a-year, and the conditions, at 
 least six sermons animally in the dioceses of Lon- 
 don, Ely, and Lincoln. The duties of this office, 
 however, have been since materially abridged by 
 a somewhat degenerate royal dispensation, which 
 exempts the preacher from all but one sermon, to 
 bo delivered before the University at the com- 
 mencement of Easter term. In honour of the 
 s])Ot where her parents were interred, and to secure 
 a constant trilmte of prayer for tli(! rcjiose of thciir 
 souls, she now attached a [icrpctuid ('hantry to tli(! 
 parish cliurcli of \Viinl)oriR', in I)orsetsliii-e, with 
 the provision that grammar should bo taught free 
 in it to all who should demand, while the world 
 endured, by a priest whose stipend was rated at 
 10/. a-year. 
 
 Tile erection and endowment of Christ's College, 
 Caiiibriilgi-, followed in 1505. Oi'iginally this was 
 ail ii).si,iiiiti(jn for a master, twelve fellows, and 
 forty-seven scholars, Ijuilt upon the site of a small 
 
 hotel, called God's House, which had been appro- 
 pi'iated to four fellows by lieni-y VI. The funds 
 attached for its support were considerable, and 
 comprised, amongst other lands and rents, the 
 manors of Malton, Melred, and Beach, in Cam- 
 bridgeshire ; the manors of Diteswoi-th, Kegworth, 
 Hathern, and Walton, in Leicestershire; the abbey 
 of Creke in Norfolk ; the manor of Roydon, in 
 Essex ; and the impropriation of Manibere, in 
 Wales. To the ample revenue thus derived, it 
 may not be misplaced to state, that several addi- 
 tions were afterwards made. Of these the first 
 was by Edward VI., who gave another fellowship, 
 from a scruple that the master and twelve fellows 
 might be supposed to constitute a profane allusion 
 to our Saviour and his twelve apostles. During 
 the same reign, the crown exchanged the rents of 
 Bromwell Abbey for the manor of Roydon above- 
 mentioned ; and three more scholarships were 
 created by the monarch, upon benefactions be- 
 queathed for the purpose, by Bishop Fisher, Sir 
 Walter Mildmay, Richard Bunting, and otliei-s. 
 At the present day, the endowments of Christ's 
 College, Cambridge, are for fifteen fellows and fifty- 
 six scholars. 
 
 Mai'garet commenced the construction of St. 
 John's College in 1508, and chose her situation 
 upon a spot formerly covered by Nigel, second 
 Bishop of Ely, with an hospital for canons regular, 
 but converted into a priory by another bishoj), 
 Hugh de Balsham. The constitution of this estab- 
 lishment was originally for a master and fifty 
 fellows and scholars, whose maintenance was pro- 
 vided for by a deed, settling on them the issues 
 and profits of the foundress's estate and lands in 
 the counties of Devon, Somerset, and Nortliamp- 
 ton, at that time amounting to 400/. a-year ; also 
 by the revenues of the old priory, then valued at 
 80?. Is. 10(/. a-year ; and by a licence of mortmain 
 for 60/. a-year. The charter of the foundation was 
 dated April !), 151 1 ; and the college, after costing 
 between 4000/. and 6000/. in building, was opened 
 July 29, 151G. This was a magnificent institution; 
 but it suffered considerable losses after the death 
 of the countess, when her grandson, Henry VI 11., 
 sued for and recovered the estates as heir at law. 
 By this proceeding the income of the college was 
 reduced to the proceeds from part of an estate at 
 Fordliam, in Cambridgeshire, and the revenues of 
 the former jn-iory. Bishop Fisher, however, shortly 
 afterwards ]irocured for it the hospital of Ospring, 
 in Kent ; and other benefactors, of whom the most 
 liberal were archbishops Morton and Williams, in 
 the course of time so far compensated for those 
 deprivations, that the former fulness of the funds 
 was moi'e than restored. St. John's College is now 
 one of the wealthiest in the University, and con- 
 sists of fifty-nine fellows and one hundred and 
 fifteen scholars. 
 
 But e\cn here Margai'et's bounty was not ex- 
 hausted. Obs(,'rving, during nn occasional visit to 
 lier |)ro])(rty in thi- ncighliourliood, the gi-ent dls- 
 t;inc(? Ijctween the ))ars(mage-house and cliureh of 
 Torrington, in Devonshire, she transferred to the 
 iiicuniijcnt and his successors her own manor- 
 hous(! and the land around it, which innnediately 
 adjoined the church. She also built and endowed 
 an almshouse for poor women, near Westminster 
 Alibcy, and established a fund, by the conditions 
 of which a long table is spread every Saturday in
 
 16 
 
 WESTMINSTER ABBEY. 
 
 the south cross of the abbey, at which her charity 
 is partaken of by forty poor women, who receive 
 individually two-pence, a pound and a half of beef, 
 and a fourpenny-loaf'of bread. 
 
 The private life of Margaret of Beaufort was 
 disciplined with a rigidity that fully supported the 
 character of her public actions. Her every care 
 was for the good of others ; and she may thus be 
 instanced as a favorite pattern of that ascetic devo- 
 tion, which the Catholic church delighted to incul- 
 cate in the days of its enthusiastic prosperity. It 
 was her habit to rise at five o'clock in the morning, 
 and occupy herself in prayer and meditation until 
 ten, at which hour she descended from her closet 
 to dinner. After this refreshment she resumed 
 her devotions until noon, and spent the rest of the 
 day in reading and acts of charity. It was a con- 
 stant rule with her to relieve every poor person 
 who claimed her aid, and tend upon eveiy sick one 
 who solicited her ministration. In this latter 
 capacity she performed the most servile offices, 
 and accustomed herself to the most distressing 
 scenes — always watching her patients even to the 
 last agony, in order, as she said, that she might 
 learn how to die ; and following them all to the 
 grave, that she might attest her humility, and pre- 
 pare for that equality, to which death levels us 
 all. Bishop Fisher, who was her confessor, wrote 
 her eulogy, in which he describes her as possessing 
 a tenacious memory, a piercing wit, and great 
 sagacity. Her temper was firm and equal, even in 
 tlie vicissitudes of fortune ; and her strongest pas- 
 sion, a lively tenderness for her son, whose perse- 
 cution, coronation, and death, she witnessed with 
 feelings of strong emotion. 
 
 Margaret was also an author : — she had a know- 
 ledge of Latin ; and translated from the French 
 " A Mirror of God for the Sinful Soul," which was 
 printed in 4to, with cuts on vellum, by Richard 
 Pynson ; and also the fourth book of " Dr. Jerson's 
 Imitation of Christ." Bythe command of Henry VII. 
 she drew up " Orders for Great Estates of Ladies 
 and Noble-women, for their Precedence, Attires, 
 and Wearing of Barbes at Funerals, over the chin, 
 and under the same." Her name also appears to 
 two other publications of black-letter value, the 
 first of which is, " Waltere Hylton's Scala Perfec- 
 tionis, Englished, and printed by command of Mar- 
 garete, Countesse of Richmond and Derby, in Wil- 
 liam Caxton's hous, by Wynkjii de Worde, Anno 
 Salu'tis 1504 :" and the second, " An Exposition of 
 the Seven Penitential Psalms ; compyled by the 
 Right Reverend Fader in God, John Fisher, D.D., 
 &c.. Bishop of Rochester, at Exhortation and 
 Stourying of the most excellent Princess Margarete, 
 &c. Imprinted, &c., 7th August, 1 51 0." Her library 
 is represented to have been both numerous and 
 highly valuable, at a period wheni printing was in 
 its first infancy, and but a few of the nobility had 
 attained even the accomplishment of penmanship. 
 
 Thus exemplary in virtue and conspicuous m 
 learning, she continued to deserve the admiration 
 
 of her contemporaries, until the austerity of her 
 devotional habits brought on a decline, which 
 snatched her from the service of her fellow-creatures 
 at the age of 68. She expired at Westminster on 
 the 29th June, 1509, just three months after the 
 accession of her profligate grandson, Henry VIII., 
 to the throne, and was buried directly under the 
 spot now covered by her tomb. Mr. Sharon Turner 
 ascribes to Margaret the merit of having comi- 
 selled her grandson Henry VIII. in the choice of 
 his first ministers, the best probably by whom he 
 was served. Upon this subject Mr. Turner might 
 have spoken with more emphasis than he has done; 
 the truth being that Margaret, as Henry's guardian, 
 by his father's will, positively appointed his first 
 ministers to theii- places. 
 
 Of the life and actions of Margai'et Beaufort it 
 is difficult to speak in the ordinary terms of com- 
 mendation : her generosity was so princely, her 
 works so extraordinary for her sex and the age she 
 adorned, and her virtues so purely benevolent, that 
 but few can now be expected to emulate what all 
 must be proud to admire. Most readers will consi- 
 der the period of her death extremely fortunate, and 
 rejoice to feel, that she was spared the hon-or of wit- 
 nessing her own grandson profaning those shrines, 
 and spoliating those endowments, which it was her 
 chief pride to decorate and enrich. Margaret was 
 a member of no less than five religious associations, 
 those of Westminster, Crowland, Durham, Wym- 
 bm-ne, and the Charter House of London. Unlike 
 most devotees, her love for her species was neither 
 chilled nor weakened by seclusion, nor was the 
 practical character of her virtues diminished by the 
 contemplative piety she indulged m. 
 
 In conclusion, it should not be suppressed, that 
 one solitary action in the life of Margaret Beaufort 
 has been considered by some authors a slur upon 
 the virtues of her general character. The reflection 
 has been inconsiderately hazarded, and is mentioned 
 here for the sake of impartiality and correction. 
 About the year 1496 she was anxious to promote 
 her step-son, James Stanley, to the bishopric of 
 Ely ; and the better to quahfy him for the duties 
 of this calling, endeavoured to obtain the celebrated 
 Erasmus for his tutor, by the ofi'er of a lai'ge pen- 
 sion. The latter, however, refused the task with 
 some vanity, assei-ting that he would not be so 
 hindered from prosecuting his studies, for all the 
 wealth in the world; and with this answer the idea 
 was abandoned. Upon the face of such a project 
 as this, no ordinary reader can perceive any cause 
 of blame ; yet from it some awkward wits have 
 affected to reproach JMargaret with a culpable 
 attempt to force an ignorant relative upon a learned 
 and responsible dignity. But it is needless to show 
 that the conclusion contradicts the incident ; for it 
 is the grossest of perversions to assert, that to 
 design a young man for the cluu'ch, and engage 
 the first scholar of the age to instruct him, has any 
 thing in it illaudable or offensive. 
 
 EDMUND SPENSER. 
 
 Spenser is commemorated by a plain tablet in the 
 Poet's Corner. It was originally erected by Anne, 
 the celebrated Countess of Dorset, who paid Nicho- 
 
 las Stone 40^. for it, and consisted of a block of 
 Purbeck stone, which, falling gradually into decay, 
 was restored by a subscription, set on foot at the
 
 EDMUND SPENSER. 
 
 17 
 
 instigation of Mason the poet, in I7C8. The form 
 of the pi-esent memorial corresponds with tlie 
 old one in every particular, the substitution of 
 statuary marble for Purbeck stone solely ex- 
 celled. The inscription, one of the simplest 
 and most touchiug in the Abbey, is cut in this 
 order : 
 
 Heare lyes (expecting the second 
 Comminge of our Saviour Christ 
 Jesus) the body of Edmond Spencei", 
 The Prince of Poets in his tyme, 
 Whose divine spirrit needs noe 
 Otlier witnesse than the works 
 Which he left behinde him. 
 He was borne in London in the yeare 1553, 
 And died in the yeare 1698. 
 
 Of Edmund Spenser, if not one of the most 
 popular, certainly one of the most highly gifted 
 of our ancient poets, all accounts are imperfect 
 and unsatisfactory in the extreme. He himself 
 tells us in verse *, as Chaucer has done, that he 
 was a native of London, but the street or quarter 
 is not known ; though it is supposed to have been 
 somewhere near the Tower. All that is known of 
 the manner and progress of his education is com- 
 prised in the facts, that he appears to have been a 
 sizar in Pembroke College, Cambridge, during the 
 year 15G9, where he studied for seven years ; and 
 that after taking his degree of Master of Arts, he 
 stood an unsuccessful contest for a fellowship in 
 1576. This latter disappointment is thought to 
 have driven him from the University, where he 
 had formed an intimacy with Gabriel Harvey, the 
 astrologer, who proved a useful friend through life. 
 He now sjient some time among his relatives in the 
 north of England. The " Shepherd's Complaint," 
 a pastoral poem in twelve eclogues, published in 
 1579. and dedicated, under the signature of Im- 
 nierito, to Mr., afterwards Sir Philip Sydney, was 
 his first production. The subject of the first 
 eclogue is the lament of a shepherd boy, Colin 
 Clout, for the loss of his lass : it is said to have been 
 founded on the disappointment of the poet in a love 
 affair of his own. By Sydney, whom he thus made 
 his friend, he was introduced to the influential 
 I'^arl of Leicester, antl by him named an agent for 
 foreign countries. That 'he either went abroad or 
 executed any offices, in consequence of this appoint- 
 ment, is not supposed. The Earl of Essex also 
 patronized him, while Lord Burleigh is said to 
 have regarded him with disfavor, prineii)ally on 
 account of some allusions in his poem to Arcli- 
 bi.shop Grindal and Bishop Aylmer. As a de- 
 pendent upon patrons and court favour, Sp(niser 
 has written some touching lines, which doubtless 
 give expression to his own bitter experience in that 
 respect. 
 
 • Merry London, my most kindly nurse, 
 That to me gave this life's first native source, 
 Though from another place I take my name, 
 An liouse of anticnt fame. 
 
 Prolhalamion. 
 
 The common statement is, that the " house of antient 
 fame" was that of Karl Spencer. The particular hranch to 
 which the poet helonged is now said to he that which was 
 settled until the year IGflO at Hiirslwood, near liurnley, in 
 Lancashire, and to which his father helonged. 
 
 " Full little knowest tliou that hast not tried 
 What hell it is in suing long to bide; 
 To lose good days that might he better spent ; 
 To waste long nights in pensive discontent ; 
 To speed to-day, to be put hack to-morrow ; 
 To feed on hope, to pine with fear and sorrow ; 
 To have thy prince's grace, yet want his peers' ; 
 To have thy asking, yet wait many years ; 
 To fret thy soul with crosses and with cares ; 
 To eat thy heart through comfortless despairs; 
 To fawn, to crouch, to wait, to ride, to run, 
 To spend, to give, to wait, to be undone." 
 
 At length, in 1580, Lord Grey, of Wilton, was 
 commissioned to be Lord Deputy of Ireland, and 
 Spenser was declared his secretary. The duties of 
 this busy post he discliarged with great talent and 
 assiduity for two years. Returning then to England 
 with Lord Grey, he is said to have hung awhile 
 about the court of Queen Elizabeth, who, in 158fi, 
 gave him a grant of three thousand acres in the 
 county of Cork, which formed a part of the forfeited 
 estates of the Earl of De.smond. Of this property 
 he took possession during the course of the follow- 
 ing year; and a residence upon it being requii-ed, 
 he took up his abode at the castle of Kileolman, on 
 the banks of the river Mulla, near Doneraile, and 
 was chosen clerk to the council of the province of 
 Munster. Here he was visited by Sir Walter 
 Raleigh, whom he celebrated in a poem entitled 
 the " Shepherd of the Ocean." Here, too, lie occu- 
 pied himself with the composition of his " Faery 
 Queen," and after reading the manuscript to his 
 friend "amongst the coolly shade of the green 
 alders by the Mulla's shore," he proceeded to Lon- 
 don in 1590, where it was published without delay, 
 preftieed with a dedication to Elizabeth, and tin 
 explanatory address to Raleigh. The queen re- 
 turned her part of the compliment with a pension 
 of 50^. a j'ear. But the money, though ordered, 
 was not paid, which, according to an old anecdote, 
 caused the queen to rebuke Lord Burleigh for his 
 parsimony, in not letting the poet " have reason for 
 his rhyme." According to Henslowe the player, 
 Spenser had to indite a quatram upon the occa- 
 sion : — 
 
 " It pleased your grace upon a time 
 To grant me reason for my rhyme ; 
 But from that time until this season 
 I heard of neither rhjiiie nor reason." 
 
 Before a twelvemonth had elaps(>d, he went back 
 to Ireland, and after the pastoral fashion, which he 
 .so loved to sing, married a rustic lass of low degree. 
 The disturbed state of the country, however, com- 
 pelled him to seek refuge in England, during the 
 year 1595, whore he printed " Colin Clout 's come 
 home again," with some other i)oems, such as the 
 " Epithalaniium," which relat(>s his courtship and 
 marriage ; and his " Elegy of Astrophel," written to 
 commemorate tlie death of Sydney. At the same 
 time he submitted to the queen his " View of the 
 State of Ireland," which remained in manuscript 
 until Ui'.VA, when it was edited by Sir James Ware, 
 who passed a high panegyric upoii theknowledge and 
 judgment it revealed, iiut condemned the .s])irit of 
 political acerbity which it broathod. There can l)o 
 no iloiibt that it contains much that is fanciful, as 
 well as much that is severe aiul mistaken, but also 
 much that is correct and juilicious. He had the 
 sagacity to detect tuid tlie courage to exjiosc some 
 
 c
 
 18 
 
 WESTMINSTER ABBEY. 
 
 of the great erroi-s of the English government f)f 
 Ireland. For this he deserves credit, which should 
 be freely given to him, although it is quite certain 
 that his principles of government were arbitrary, 
 and several of his proceedings in Ireland were by 
 no means of a high or just description. A fi'esh 
 impression of the " Faery Queen," to which were 
 added some new books, encased his attention in 
 I59G, and constituted his last literary labour. The 
 poem, therefore, has the misfortune of being in- 
 complete. 
 
 Tempted by the hope of peaceful times, he once 
 more ventured over to Ireland in ISOJ? b"t was 
 doomed to severe misfortunes. The Earl of Tyrone 
 had roused the persecuted natives into rebellion, 
 and overran the country with fire and sword. 
 Castle Colman was burnt, Spenser and his wife 
 escaped with difficulty, and the infant child of 
 Spenser's perished in the flames. All his lands 
 devastated, and his property made the spoil of the 
 victors, the poet hurried back with his wife into 
 England, and after a short interval of indigence 
 expired, according to the assertion of his biogra- 
 phers, of want and a broken heart, in King Street, 
 Westminster *. The Earl of Essex discharged the 
 expenses of his funeral, which was attended by 
 several brother bards, who threw elegies, epitaphs, 
 and panegyi'ics upon his works into the grave, with 
 the pens that wrote them. His poems, particularly 
 the " Faery Queen," have been published at dif- 
 ferent times, in various forms ; but the best com- 
 plete edition of his works is that given by Mr. Todd, 
 in six vols. 8vo. 
 
 The rust of time, and an obsolete phraseology-, 
 have robbed Spenser of his reputation amongst 
 common readers, but, with scholars, age has only 
 mellowed his honoui's. He is one of our richest 
 descriptive poets. Like Chaucer, he has been para- 
 phrased and imitated by some of the most illus- 
 trious of our poets. Pope ranks first in the list, but 
 
 * The painful fact is related in Drummoiid of Haw- 
 thornden's conversations with Ben Jonson. The words are, 
 " The Irish having spoiled Spenser's goods, and burnt his 
 house and a little child new born, he and his wife escaped, 
 and after he died for lake of bread in King Street, and re- 
 fused twenty pieces sent to him by my Lord of Essex, 
 adding, he was sorry he had no time to spend them." 
 
 fails to impart in any way a true idea of his original. 
 Thomson's " Castle of Indolence " is an admirable 
 imitation, and Shenstone's " Schoolmistress," with 
 the " Education of Achilles " by Bedingfield, are 
 pleasing specimens in the same style. His works 
 are to be reviewed under the head of pastorals, 
 sonnets, and hymns ; and that mainspring of his 
 fame, the " Faery Queen." The pastorals can now 
 be seldom read, for they are too crude and imper- 
 fect for a modern taste. Who now will endure to 
 read of shepherds who discourse with equal power 
 and fluency of politics and love, and compose com- 
 parisons between popery and protestantism ? The 
 sonnets and hymns are, in many passages, remark- 
 able for beauty of sentiment, felicity of versifica- 
 tion, a fervid spirit of piety, strongly and yet not 
 impleasantly mixed with a vein of speculative 
 Platonism, and an exalted strain of morality ; but 
 they are most tediously pedantic. The " Faery 
 Queen " is justly estimated one of the noblest com- 
 positions in our language. Fault undoubtedly may 
 be found with the prolixity and confusion of the 
 plan, the want of connexion and incident in the 
 fable, and the improbability of the adventures; but 
 it must always rank deservedly high amongst the 
 productions of the English muse, for fertility of 
 imagination, vividness of description, and richness 
 of allegory. For this last quality, Spenser has been 
 not infelicitously described as the Rubens of poetry. 
 Perhaps his highest merit is, that the critics esteem 
 him Shakespeai'e's equal in point of imagination ; 
 but then he wants Shakespeare's lifelike reality ; 
 and his greatest fault is that he turns every 
 thing into allegory. He is the father of the stanza 
 called Spenserian, in which the Faery Queen is 
 written, and abounds with specimens of noble and 
 stately versification. It is impossible not to admire 
 the beauty of his conceptions, and the brightness 
 in which he displays them. On the other hand, his 
 proneness to circumstantialminuteness,his incessant 
 personifications, the extreme extension of his" Faery 
 Queen," which, long as it is, was never finished, and 
 above all, his own confession, that this great com- 
 position was a "dark conceit," suffice to show that, 
 much as we may wonder at the variety and 
 splendor of Spenser's powers, he never again can 
 be popular. 
 
 ISAAC CASAUBON. 
 
 In the Poet's Corner is a tabular monument, to the 
 memory of Isaac Casaubon, an author and editctr, 
 eminent for voluminous criticism and learning, who 
 was born in 1559 at Crest in Dauphiny, of which 
 place his father was minister. After studying at 
 his native place until he was nineteen years of age, 
 he removed to Geneva, to attend the lectures of 
 Francis Portus, a learned Cretan. Here the young 
 scholar's proficiency was so remarkable, that he 
 became a professor of Greek within the term of 
 four years. In 158R, he married a daughter of 
 Henry Stephens, the critical printer, a lady who 
 bore him twenty children. A few years after his 
 
 marriage, that is to say about the year 1591, he 
 appears to have been involved in serious pecuniary 
 difficulties, in consequence of having become secu- 
 rity in a large sum of money for an Englishman 
 named Wotton, presumed to be the well known Sir 
 Henry, with whom he was intimate. He was as- 
 sisted by Scaliger and other scholars, but was so 
 straitened in his circumstances that he was glad 
 to take the professorship of Greek at Montpelier, 
 to which he removed in 1596. In 1598 he pro- 
 ceeded to Paris, was patronized by Henry IV., 
 made a professor of the metropolitan university, 
 and presented with a pension, which was so irregu-
 
 ISAAC CASAUBON. 
 
 19 
 
 larly paid as to provoke some compluints. Hopes 
 were now entertained that he would imitate his 
 royal master, and become a convert to the Churcli 
 of Rome, and his reluctance to concur witli Du 
 Plessis ^lornay, in the conference held at Foutain- 
 bleau with Cardinal du Perron, gave strength to the 
 supposition. He seems, however, to have been of 
 Dr. Johnson's opinion, that a man shonld persist 
 in the faith of his father ; for though he inclined 
 to the cause of the pontift", he I'efused to embrace 
 his religion. In process of time he succeeded to 
 the post of king's librarian, and received an addi- 
 tional j)eusion. His reputation was at the highest, 
 when the assassination of Henry clouded all his 
 prospects, and he sought a new fortune in England 
 under the auspices of Sir H. Wotton, who had 
 been our ambassador to France. His reception 
 was highly flattering ; James I. treated him with 
 great respect, and provided for his support by 
 giving him a prebendal stall, first in Westminster 
 Abbey, and afterwards in Canterbury Cathedral. 
 In return for this patronage, he humoured the 
 temper of the sovereign, by writing against the 
 Catholics, an odious laboui", to which, accordmg to 
 his panegyrists, gratitude, but not inclination, im- 
 pelled him. The period of his death, which was 
 occasioned by a disease of the bladder', will be 
 fomid in his epitaph : — 
 
 Isaac. Casaubon, 
 
 (0 Doctiorum quidquid est assurgite 
 
 Huic tam colendo nomini :) 
 
 Quern Gallia reip. literarise bono 
 
 Peperit. Ilenricus IV. Francorum Rex 
 
 Invictissimus Lutetiam Uteris suis 
 
 Evocatum Bibliothecse sute prsefecit, 
 
 Charumq. deinceps dum vixit habuit. 
 
 Eoq. terris erepto Jacobus Mag. Brit. 
 
 Monarclia Regum Doctissimus Doctis 
 
 Indulgeutiss. in Angliam accivit, 
 
 Munitice fovit. Posteritasq. ob 
 
 Doctrinam scternum mirabitm*. 
 
 H. S. E. Invidia major : 
 
 Obiit .iEtern. in XTO. Vitam anhelans 
 
 Kal. Jul. MDCIV. ^t. LV. 
 
 Viro opt. Immortalitate digniss. 
 
 Tn. MoRTONUs, Ep. Dunelm. 
 
 Jueundissinuc quoad frui 
 
 Liciiit Consuetudinis 
 
 Memor, PR. S.P.C.V. 
 
 MDCXXXIV. 
 
 Qui nosse vult Casauhonum 
 Non saxa sed clmrtas legat 
 
 Superfuturas marmori 
 Etprofuturas posteris. 
 
 Isaac Casaubon, 
 
 (Arise, ye of the learned who remain, 
 
 To a name so venerable.) 
 
 Bom in France, for the good of letters, 
 
 the mviucible Henry IV., king of the 
 
 French, called him from his studies to 
 
 Paris, appointed him to preside over his 
 
 library, and thenceforward while he lived, 
 
 held him dear. When that prince was 
 
 torn away from the world, James, monarch 
 
 of Great Britain, the most learned of 
 
 kings, and most indulgent to the learned, 
 
 invited him to England, and munificently 
 
 cherished. Posterity will ever admire him 
 
 for his learning. 
 
 He died, breathing etei'nal life in Clirist, 
 
 on the kalends of July, IG14, aged 55, and 
 
 lies buried here, superior to envy. 
 
 To a man the most excellent, and most 
 worthy of immortality, Thomas Morton, 
 Bishop of Durham, desired to consecrate 
 this monument, 1634. 
 
 He who would become acquainted with 
 
 Casaubon, should read, not stones, but his 
 
 works, which must survive marble, and 
 
 instruct posterity. 
 
 Casaubon's character as a man has been described 
 to us as modest, candid, upright, and averse to con- 
 troversy. When shown into the Sorbonne, and told 
 it was the place in which the fathers of the French 
 Church had disputed for nearly 400 years, he simply 
 exclaimed, " Ay, and what have they decided I" As 
 a scholar, his industry and talent were consider- 
 able, as may be inferred from a list of his works, 
 which are numei'ous, and all of a learned character, 
 comprising, " In Diogenem Laertium Notae," fol. ; 
 " Strabonis Geographite," with commentaries, fol. ; 
 " Novum Testamentum Gracum ;" " Lectiones 
 Theocriticre," 12mo. ; " Polytcni Stratagematum ;" 
 " Animadversiones in Dionysium Halicarnassen- 
 sem;" " Aristotelis Opera Grseca," fol.; "Dictearchi 
 Geographia ;" " Theophrasti Charactcres," ]2mo. ; 
 " AtheuEeus," fol. ; " C. Plinii Ctec. Sec. Epist. ;" 
 " Suetonii Tranquilli Opei-a," 4to. ; " L. Apuleii 
 Apologia," 4to. ; " Historiaj Augustce Scriptores ;" 
 " AthenaB Deipnosophistoi-um," 2 vols. fol. ; " De 
 Satyrica Grajcorum Poesi, et Romanorum Satyrd ;" 
 " Persii Satyrae," 8vo. ; " De Libertate Ecclcsiastica 
 Liber," 8vo.; " Polybii Oi)era ;" " De Rebus Sacris 
 et Ecclesiasticis Exercitationes," fol.; "Ad Fron- 
 tonem Ducseum Epistola ;" " Epistola ad Card. 
 Perronium." His own Epistles in Latin have also 
 been repeatedly published. 
 
 FRANCIS bp:aui\iont. 
 
 " How do I love thee, Beaumont, and tliy muse 
 That unto me dost such religion use; 
 How do I fear myself that am not worth 
 The least indulgent thought thy words drag forth : 
 And even there, where most thou praisest me 
 For writing better, I must envy thee !" — Ben Jonion. 
 
 We are poshcssed of a most meagre account of this 
 author. He was descended from a family, which was 
 eminent for the talents displayed by ditfei-ent mem- 
 
 bers of it, and he is conjectured to have been born 
 during either of the years 1585 or 158(;, at Gr.ace 
 Dieu, in Leicestershire. His grandfather was a Mas- 
 
 r2
 
 20 
 
 WESTMINSTER ABBEY. 
 
 ter of the Rolls, his father a judge in the Court of 
 Common Pleas, and his mother, Anne Pierrepoint, 
 belonged to that family in Nottinghamshire, from 
 which the late dukedom of Kingston traced its an- 
 cestry. He is said by some to have studied at the 
 University of Cambridge, and by others, at Oxford, 
 though the name of the college has not been dis- 
 covered : but it is certain that he was a member of 
 the Inner Temple. Whether he attained any, or what 
 proficiency in legal knowledge, are points not now 
 to be ascertained ; but if we may decide by proba- 
 bilities, the profession with him, as with many 
 others of the same lively turn of mind, was but 
 nominal, and at an early period exchanged for 
 moi'e congenial pursuits. He became acquainted 
 with his celebrated literary co-partner, Fletcher, 
 before he had completed his twentieth year ; and 
 from the voluminousness of his productions, and 
 the early period of his death, cannot be supposed to 
 have had much leisure for any other occupations. 
 He married the daughter and heiress of Henry 
 Isley in Kent, and was suddenly snatched away 
 from life before he had reached his thirtieth year. 
 He was buried in Westminster Abbey, immediately 
 under the spot where the monument to Dryden 
 now stands. He had two daughters, of whom it is 
 only known that one of them, Frances, was sup- 
 ported, so late as the year 1700, upon a pension of 
 100^. a-year fi'om the noble house of Orraond. 
 
 Beaumont's name is iudissolubly associated with 
 that of Fletcher, who was born ten years before, 
 and died just ten years after him. Another coin- 
 cidence observed upon between these eminent 
 partners in dramatic celebrity is, that out of fifty- 
 seven plays to which their names are affixed, only 
 two are independent productions, and those one by 
 each, namely the " Faithful Shepherdess," a pas- 
 toral, by I'letcher ; and the " iWasque of Gray's 
 Inn Gentlemen," by Beaumont. In their fifty- 
 seven pieces are to be found every variety of cha- 
 racter, and every display of passion ; our laughter 
 and our tears are moved with equal mastei'y ; we 
 hate and love obedient to the scene. The cha- 
 racters are prominently drawn, and the plots are 
 sufficiently intei-esting, but not the most artfully 
 conducted, and are rather strikmg in a few situa- 
 tions, than attractively sustained throughout the 
 whole story. In comedy the dialogue is lively and 
 well-seasoned, and in tragedy so bold and poetical 
 as to have provoked a comparison with some pas- 
 sages of Shakspeare. Throughout works produced 
 in such numbers, and with such rapidity, many 
 faults are to be expected, and many blemishes will 
 be found. Of these the most conspicuous are an 
 extravagance of repartee and metaphysical conceit, 
 and, the least pardonable, because the most avoid- 
 able, a gross and frequent indulgence of obscenity. 
 The period at which the plays of Beaumont and 
 Fletcher were most popularly estimated, was the 
 licentious reign of Charles II., when they were by 
 some vain judges held superior even to those of 
 Shakspeare. That era, however, is past ; and they 
 are now only presented to the public considerably 
 pruned, and, in consequence of a deficiency in stage 
 effect, with considerable additions. 
 
 From such a body of matter, the task of culling 
 examples of beauty, or instancing faults, is one by 
 far too lengthy and burdensome for the limits of these 
 pages. It nmst, therefore, suffice to present the 
 reader with a catalogue of the pieces, in which the 
 
 nature of each, and the date of its publication, will 
 be distinguislied. The labours of Beaumont and 
 Fletcher began with " The Woman Hater," a comedy 
 published in 4to, in lfi07, which was followed in order 
 by " The Knight of the Burning Pestle," a comedy, 
 in 1(J13; "Cupid's Revenge," atragedy, mlGl 5; "The 
 Scoi'nful Lady," a comedy,in 1616; "The King and 
 no King," a tragi-comedy, in 1G19 ; " The Maid's 
 Tragedy," an exquisite production, in the same 
 year ; " Thiei'ry and Theodoret," a tragedy, m 
 1621 ; " Philaster," a tragi-comedy, frequently re- 
 vived, in 1622; " The Two Noble Kinsmen," a tragi- 
 comedy, in 1634; " The Elder Brother," a comedy, 
 in 1637; "Monsieur Thomas," a comedy, in 1638; 
 " Wit without Money," a comedy, in 1639; " Rule 
 a Wife, and have a Wife," still a favourite comedy, 
 in 1640; and "The Night Walker," a comedy, in 
 1640. For seven yeai-s from this date nothing was 
 printed with their names; but in 1647 there ap- 
 peared together, in folio, no less than thirty-four 
 plays, of which the titles and styles are as follows : 
 " The Mad Lover," a tragi-comedy; " The Spanish 
 Curate," a comedy ; " The Little French Lawyer," 
 a comedy; " The Custom of the Country," a comedy; 
 " The Noble Gentleman," a tragi-comedy ; " The 
 Captain," a comedy; "The Beggar's Bush," a 
 comedy; " The Coxcomb," a comedy; " The False 
 One," a tragedy; " The Chances," an excellent 
 comedy; "The Loyal Subject," a tragedy; "The 
 Laws of Candy," a tragi-comedy; " The Lover's 
 Progress," a tragi-comedy; " The Island Princess," 
 a tragi-comedy ; " The Humorous Lieutenant," 
 a tragi-comedy, long highly popular; "The Nice 
 Valour," a tragi-comedy; " The Maid in the Mill," a 
 comedy; " The Prophetess," a tragedy ; "Bonduca," 
 a tragedy, still ranked among the acting plays of 
 the day ; "The Sea Voyage," a tragi-comedy; " The 
 Double Marriage," a tragi-comedy; "The Pilgrim," 
 a comedy ; " The Knight of Malta," a tragedy ; 
 " The Woman's Prize," a comedy ; " Love's Cure," 
 a comedy; " The Honest Man's Fortune," a comedy; 
 " The Queen of Corinth," a tragi comedy; "Women 
 Pleased," a comedy; " A Wife for a Month," a 
 tragi-comedy; "Wit at several Weapons," a co- 
 medy; " Valentinian," atragedy; "The Fail' Maid 
 of the Inn," a tragi-comedy; " Love's Pilgrimage," 
 a tragi-comedy, and " Four Plays in One." All 
 these were printed and acted; but they wrote two 
 other comedies never printed, which were entitled, 
 « The Faithful Friend," and " The Right Woman." 
 Fletcher's name also appears, in conjunction with 
 Ben Jonson, Massinger, and othei-s, to two come- 
 dies; and Beaumont is believed to have produced 
 a piece by himself, which he called, " The History 
 of Mador, King of Britain." 
 
 Of the distinctive powers of these joint authors, 
 or the specific share which each of them took in 
 the composition of their dramas, our only sources 
 of information are traditional conjecture, and the 
 preliminary matter to the edition of their works 
 published in 177J5' From these it would appear 
 that wit was the characteristic of Fletcher, and 
 judgment of Beaumont : that the talents of the 
 former were the more luxuriant, and those of the 
 latter the more mature. By consequence, Fletcher 
 chiefly projected the story, while Beaumont con- 
 trived the development of the action : the one 
 amplified, and the other corrected. According to 
 this estimate, Fletcher must have written the larger 
 portion of wliJit has appeared under their names,
 
 WILLIAM SHAKSPEARE. 
 
 21 
 
 and besides the honour of a moi'e inventive genius, 
 would be entitled, from a longer life, to the praise 
 of having co-operated with other dramatists. If we 
 may credit an account given by Winstanley, the 
 manner in wliich they proceeded with their labours 
 was agreeable and gentlemanlike in the extreme ; 
 for he represents them as meeting at a tavern, and 
 there digesting and choosing theii" respective scenes 
 for composition over a bottle of wine : a division of 
 employment in which Beaumont is represented as 
 always preferring the more serious and lofty parts. 
 It would seem too, that Fletcher acquiesced in the 
 general opinion wliich awarded to Beaumont the pos- 
 session of mental superiority, as notwithstanding his 
 seniority in years, he always allowed his colleague's 
 name to stand first on the title pages of their works. 
 Afartherconfii'mationof the correctness of this judg- 
 ment is derived from the fact, that Ben Jonson, 
 who is well known to have estimated his own talents 
 at their full value, was yet glad upon every occasion 
 to avail himself of the critical aid of Beaumont, and 
 formally submitted many of his works to his cor- 
 rection. The best editions of Beaumont and 
 Fletcher's works are those edited by Theobald, 
 Sympson, and Seward, in 10 vols. 8vo., 1751 ; by 
 Colmau, in 1778; and in our own time by Gif- 
 ford. 
 
 Beaumont, independent of the reputation earned 
 
 by his dramatic composition, is entitled to a very 
 respectable place among the poets of his age. JLany 
 of his subjects, and the manner in which they are 
 treated, are happily original; his amatory addresses 
 are distinguished by richness of feeling and live- 
 liness of imagination ; and his vei'sifieation is par- 
 ticularly marked by correctness and modulation. 
 These compositions were first printed in 8vo. l(Jo3, 
 and principally comprise the " Hermaphrodite," a 
 very imaginative piece ; an " Epistle to Ben Jon- 
 son ;" and "Verses to his friend Master John 
 Fletcher," &c. &c. They are now generally given 
 at the end of the plays. Besides these he left 
 several pieces in manuscript, which were possessed 
 by his daughter Frances, but unfortunately lost, 
 like the conclusion of Spenser's Fairy Queen, in a 
 shipwreck during a voyage to Ireland. Beaumont 
 had a brother. Sir John, also a poet, whose works 
 are not to be confounded with those of the drama- 
 tist. The latter is the author of " Bosworth Field," 
 an heroic poem, which presents a favourable exam- 
 ple of the style of writing at that day : he also 
 wrote several minor pieces in a pleasing vein ; 
 translated largely from Horace, Vii-gil, Juvenal, 
 and Persius ; and may justly be commended as a 
 scholar of taste, and a writer of pure English. He 
 was created a baronet by Chai'les I., and died aged 
 forty-six, in the year 1G28. 
 
 WILLIAM SHAKSPEARE. 
 
 Shakspeaee's monument was erected in 1741, out 
 of the receipts from two benefits, played for the 
 purpose, at each of the Theatres Royal, and the 
 additional contributions of eminent men, amongst 
 whom the Earl of Burlington, Pope, and Garrick, 
 took the lead. It consists of a full-sized statue, 
 leaning on a pillar in a pensive humour, with a 
 scroll in front, on which are inscribed his own 
 immortal lines, — 
 
 " TJie cloud-capped towers, the gorgeous palaces, 
 The solemn temples, the great globe itself. 
 Yea, all which it inherits, shall dissolve, 
 And like the 1)aseless fabric of a vision 
 Leave not a wreck behind." 
 
 The pedestal is decorated with the crowned heads 
 of Henry V., Richard II., and Queen Elizabeth. 
 The design, which was drawn by Kent, affects to 
 pr(;scrve the bard, his person, dress, and air, as 
 faithfully as it is possible to collect such peculia- 
 rities from the memorials transmitted to posterity. 
 Tiie execution of the work was confided to the 
 chisel of Scheemakers. It has been severely criti- 
 cised by Horace Walpole, but holds a respectable 
 rank amongst the statuary productions of the period 
 of its erection. 
 
 William Shakspeare, beyond all question tlie 
 greatest dramatic genius England has produced, 
 was born in I Icnii'y Street, Stratford-on-i\von, in 
 Warwickshire. 'J'ho date of his birth is not known: 
 he was christened^ as appears i)y the register, 
 April 2<j, 15fJ4. The most contradictory accounts 
 have lieen jiriiited of his father, who has been said 
 
 to have been a butcher *, a glover, and a wool- 
 stapler, and to have lived in prosperous, and in very 
 distressed cu'cimistances. His name was John, and 
 much, if not all of the confusion just adverted to is 
 to be attributed to the fact of there having been 
 another John Shakspeare living in Stratford at the 
 same time. But whatever the father's trade may 
 have been, his station in society must have been re- 
 spectable, because we know that he was a member of 
 the corporation, and filled the various civil offices 
 of the town in succession; having been chamberlain 
 before the poet was born. He married the daughter 
 and co-heiress of Robert Arden, of VVellincote, 
 whose father was groom of the chamber to 
 Henry VII. We have no mfornuition respecting 
 the education William received. He was probably 
 sent to the grammar school of his native town, and 
 at home imbiljcd those sentiments and princii>los, 
 which would be naturally inculcated upon their 
 
 • Aubrey the antiquary says, " Mr. William Shakespear 
 was born at Stratford upon Avon, in the county of Warwick. 
 His fatlier was a butcher, and I have been told heretofore by 
 sonieof.tlie neighbours, that when he was a boy lie exer- 
 cised his father's trade, but when he killed a calf he would 
 do it in high style and make a speech." Another account, 
 taken from a letter written by a member of one of the Inns 
 of Court in l(i93, and in the possession of Lord de Clyllbrd, 
 tells us, " The clerk that showed me this church was above 
 eighty years old. He says that this Shakespeare was for- 
 merly in this town bound apprentice to a butcher, but that 
 he ran from his master to London, and there was received 
 into the playhouse as a servitour, and by this means had an 
 0])portuiiity to be what he afterwards proved. Ho was the 
 best of bis family ; but the male line is extinguished."
 
 22 
 
 WESTMINSTER ABBEY. 
 
 domestic circle, by persons moving in the sphere 
 of hfe to which his parents belonged. He married 
 at the early age of eighteen, Anne, the daughter of 
 a substantial yeoman, named Hathawaj', who was 
 much his senior. Inferences unfavorable to her 
 character have been drawn from a comparison 
 between the dates of the marriage license and the 
 baptismal registry of her first child, Mary, who died 
 in infancy. The accoimt given by Rowe of Shak- 
 speare's younger days does not make it an impro- 
 bable supposition, that the wedding was not cele- 
 brated before it was necessary. Shakspeare, by a 
 misfortune common enough to j'oung fellows, fell 
 into ill company, and some persons who made a 
 frequent practice of deer-stealing engaged him 
 more than once in robbing a park that belonged to 
 Sir Thomas Lucy, of Charlecote, near Stratford. 
 For this lie was prosecuted by that gentleman, as 
 lie thought, somewhat too severely, and in order to 
 revenge such ill usage he made a ballad upon him. 
 And though this, probably the first essay of his 
 poetry, be lost, yet it is said to have been so very 
 bitter, that it redoubled the prosecution against 
 him to that degree that he was obliged to leave his 
 business and family in Warwickshire for some time, 
 and shelter himself in London. A wild fellow of 
 this stamp would be very likely, in making love to 
 a pretty girl, to forget the claims of the church to 
 bless his union with the object of his affection. 
 Be that as it may, the ballad on Sir T. Lucy was 
 not Shakspeare's only literary production at the 
 time he fled from Stratford. He is considered to 
 have written his " Venus and Adonis " by this time, 
 which was first printed in 1593, and dedicated to 
 the Earl of Southampton. He calls it "the first heir 
 of his invention." Of the means by which Shak- 
 speare introduced himself to the stage, how he came 
 to act upon, and how to write for it, it is impossible 
 to speak. Interesting as the questions are, there 
 is no evidence whatever respecting them. Aubrey, 
 from whose anecdotes we have already quoted, 
 I'elates, " that though, as Ben Jonson says of 
 him, he had but little Latin and less Greek, he 
 understood Latin pi-etty well; for he had been in his 
 younger years a schoolmaster m the country; being 
 inclined naturally to poetry and acting, came to 
 London, I guess, about eighteen, and did act ex- 
 ceeding well * * he began early to make essays at 
 dramatic poetry, which at that time was very low, 
 and his plays took well." Burbage the actor, and 
 Shakspeare,accordingtothe assertion of Lord South- 
 ampton, in a letter to Lord Ellesraere, the chan- 
 cellor, were of one county, indeed almost of one 
 town. This circumstance, it is conjectured, may 
 have brought Shakspeare on the stage. Be that as 
 it may, neither the order in which his plays were 
 written, nor the periods at which they were origi- 
 nally performed, have been ascertained ; it is even 
 impossible to say which was the first, or which was 
 the last, either acted or composed ; and, what is 
 still worse, several of the most diligent commenta- 
 tors have expressed repeated doubts as to the fact, 
 that all the plays commonly circulated under his 
 name were ever written by him. Notwithstanding 
 this confusion, it is certain that he made rapid 
 way m the theatrical world. Mr. Collier, one of 
 the most diligent of his editors, has discovered 
 that in 1589, when only twenty-five years of age, 
 he was joint proprietor in the Blaekfriars Theatre, 
 with a fourth of the other proprietors below him 
 
 on the list. The first of his plays that was printed 
 was Henry VI. Part II., in 1593, under the title of 
 " The First Part of the Contention." Of this fact 
 there can be no doubt, and jet it does not appear 
 quite consistent with the language the author uses 
 in dedicating his Venus and Adonis to Lord South- 
 ampton during the course of the same year. The 
 progress of his productions is next positively testi- 
 fied by Francis Meeres, an M.A. of Cambridge 
 University, who brought out in 1598 a book called 
 " Palladis Tamia, Wit's Treasury," and in it names 
 Shakspeare as most excellent amongst our authors of 
 tragedy and comedy, " witness his Gentlemen of 
 Verona, his Eri-ors, his Love's Labours Lost, his 
 Love's Labours Won, his Midsummer's Night's 
 Dream, his Merchant of Venice, Richard II., 
 Richard III., Henry IV., King John, Titus Andro- 
 nicus, and his Romeo and Juliet." So that before 
 he was thirty-four years old Shakspeare must liave 
 produced at least these plays. It is perhaps un- 
 necessary to add, that he never made a figure as an 
 actor. The ghost in Hamlet is said to have been 
 his highest part. Of the few other incidents of 
 Shakspeare's life, which have been gathered by the 
 sedulous investigations of his admirers, we have, 
 that his only son died, and was buried at Stratford in 
 1596, and that in the year following he became the 
 purchaser of "all that capital messuage or tenement, 
 with the appurtenances, at Stratford, called the 
 New Place." It was called " the great house," had 
 been built by Sir Hugh Clopton in the reign of 
 Henry VII., and is described by Diigdale as "a 
 fair house built of brick and mortar." It is said 
 that Lord Southampton gave him 1000?. to effect 
 this purchase. Before this date the share he had 
 held in the Blaekfriars Theatre, in 1589, had been 
 considerably increased, and he had also become one 
 of the proprietors of the Globe Theatre, as a petition 
 to the Lord Chamberlain, preserved in the State 
 Paper Office, proves. We have now to contemplate 
 the poet in happy circumstances. He takes up his 
 abode in Stratford, retaining his theatrical property 
 in London, and while occupying the best house m 
 his native town, tending his " curieus knotted gar- 
 den," and his orchard with many a pippin of " his 
 own grafting." he writes Lear, Macbeth, Cymbe- 
 line. The Winter's Tale, the Tempest, and probably 
 some other plays. He had the satisfaction of seeing 
 two out of his three daughters well married ; a 
 third died single: the others left childi'en, yet the 
 family soon became extinct. 
 
 Shakspeare seems all through life to have been 
 eminent for wit. His high social qualities natu- 
 rally obtained for him an acquaintance with the 
 gentry of the neighbourhood. Of such intimacies 
 a story is still preserved about Stratford, at the 
 cost of one Mr. Combe, an old man, noted for his 
 wealth and usury, with whom Shakspeare was very 
 Ultimate. It happened one evening, amidst their 
 common friends, that Combe observed in a laughing 
 way, that he fancied Shakspeare meant to write his 
 epitaph in the event of survivorship, and as it would 
 be impossible for the subject of it to know what 
 might be said of him after death, he desired the 
 thing might be settled forthwith. Upon which 
 Shakspeare called for a pen, and wrote these four 
 verses, the satire of which is said to have stung 
 the miser so bitterly, that he could never fdi-get 
 the night's pastime, nor forgive the chief actor 
 in it: —
 
 WILLIAM CAMDEN. 
 
 23 
 
 " Ten in the hundred lies here ingraved ; 
 Tis a hundred to ten his soul is not saved : 
 If any man ask, who lies in this tomb? 
 Oh ! oh ! quoth the devil, 'tis my John a Combe." 
 
 Shakspeare died in the fifty-third year of his age, 
 and according to the registry he was buried in the 
 north chancel of the great church at Stratford, 
 where a good bust was placed to his memory. On 
 the grave-stone beneath appear these doggerel 
 lines : — 
 
 " Good friend, for Jesus' sake forbear 
 To dig the dust enclosed here : 
 Blessed be the man who spares these stones, 
 And cursed be he that moves my bones." 
 
 All that has been preserved of the circumstances 
 under which England lost her greatest dramatic 
 genius, is contained in a brief memorandum in the 
 diary of the Rev. John Ward, Vicar of Stratford, re- 
 cently discovered in the library of the]Medical Society 
 of Loudon. In this manuscript the writer says, under 
 the date of from 1648 to 1657, " I have heard that 
 Mr. Shakspeare was a natural wit, without any art 
 at all ; he frequented the plays all his younger 
 time, but in his elder days lived at Stratford, and 
 supplied the stage with two plays every year, and 
 for it had an allowance so large, that he spent at 
 the rate of 1000/. a year, as I have heai'd." 
 
 " Shakspeare, Drayton, and Ben Jonson, had a 
 merry meeting ; and it seems drank too liard, for 
 Shakspeare died of a fever there contracted." 
 
 Bv his will he leaves his real estates to his 
 eldest daughter Susannah, the wife of Dr. Hale, a 
 physician, who had made him a grandfather at the 
 age of forty-three. He gives his bed, and nothing 
 more, to his wife. Malone cites this as a proof that 
 he had ceased to esteem her ; but the bequest is 
 not of a contemptuous kind, and if, as Mr. Knight, 
 
 the editor of the most complete and tasteful edition 
 of his works ever published, argues, she was entitled 
 to dower, and well provided for by the ordinary 
 operation of law, it would almost partake of an 
 afll'ectionate character. 
 
 Of a poet so celebrated, of one whose beauties 
 are familiar as household words on the lips of all 
 his countrymen, and whose fame pervades the 
 world, no general estimate can be expected in a 
 volume like the present. We shall therefore con- 
 clude by extracting from Eraser's Magazine for 
 1837 some very pertinent remarks by the late Dr. 
 Magiun, upon "the usual trash about his not being 
 noticed till the eighteenth century. Why what do 
 these foolish people mean ? He w^as noticed by 
 Elizabeth, one of the greatest, James, one of the 
 most learned of sovereigns. He was the closet 
 companion of Charles I. ; he is eulogized by Ben 
 Jonson and by Milton. His plays passed under the 
 hands of Davenant and Dryden, who, altering them 
 for the worse, acknowledged their superior merit. 
 He had four folio editions in sixty years, during a 
 dozen of which stage playmg was forbidden. No 
 actor pretending to eminence was supposed to have 
 passed his ordeal, from Lowin and Burbage, through 
 ]\Iajor Mohun to Betterton, unless he had succeeded 
 in some of the ' topping parts' of Shakspeare. He 
 made at any time what would have been considered 
 a resj)cctable, but what in his days might be looked 
 upon to be a large fortune : he lived a favorite with 
 all the wits, and an associate with many of the 
 nobles of the time : and yet he was not noticed. If 
 it be intended to say that the spirit of prying gossip 
 into private life was not as much afloat in his time 
 as it was afterwards, the assertion is true ; but to 
 say that at any period after Shakspeare had written 
 his great works, he did not attract the utmost reve- 
 rence, is to talk nonsense." 
 
 WILLIAM CAMDEN. 
 
 At the west corner of the south cross aisle, in West- 
 muistcr Abbey, and immediately under the statue 
 of Garrick, is the tomb of William Camden. A 
 half body bust of prim expression, attired in the 
 dress of liis time, rises out of a pedestal altarpiece, 
 the left hand holding a book, and the right a paii- 
 of gloves. Some years ago the condition of this 
 monument was greatly neglected; but it has been 
 gratefully renovated by the University of Oxford, 
 and at present exhibits a respectable appeai-auce. 
 The inscription is in Latui. 
 
 Qui fide antiqua, et ojjera assidua 
 
 Britamiicam Antiquitatem 
 
 Indagavit 
 
 Simplicitatem innatam honestis 
 
 Studiis excoluit, 
 
 Animi solertiam candorc illustravit 
 
 Gulielinus Camdenus, ab Eliza- 
 
 betha R. ad Regis Armorum 
 
 (Clarentii titulo) dignitatem 
 
 Evocatus, 
 
 Hie spo certa resurgendi 
 
 In Cliristo S. E. 
 
 <i. 
 
 Cbiit An. Dmiii. 1(;2:{, '.i Novcmbris, 
 
 yEtatib Suuc Ti. 
 
 William Camden, 
 
 Who explored 
 
 The Antiquities of Britain 
 
 With primitive fidelity and sedulous care, 
 
 Polished an innate simplicity by 
 
 Honorable study. 
 
 And adorned ingenuity with biandness, 
 
 Called by Queen Elizabeth, 
 
 With the title of Clarencioux, 
 
 To the dignity of King at Arms, 
 
 Is here buried. 
 
 With the certain hope of a resurrection in Christ. 
 
 He died in the year of our Lord 1623, 
 
 November the 9th, 
 
 Of his age 74. 
 
 William Camden, surnamed the Pausanias of 
 I'higland, was the son of Sampson ("anidcn, citizen 
 and paper-stainer in the Old Bailey, London. Born 
 May 2, 1551, he was first a blue-coat boy at Christ's 
 Ho.spital, and afterwards entered upon the founda- 
 tion of St. Paul's school. After having been a 
 servitor of Magdalen College, he was elected to 
 Broadgate Hall, now Pembroke College, Oxford, 
 during the year 1566, but, eri! long, removed to 
 Ciirist Church in the same University. At this 
 period his means must have been extremely narrow,
 
 24 
 
 WESTMINSTER ABBEY. 
 
 for it is recorded that he lived on the character of 
 a poor scholar, and derived a precarious income 
 from the patronage of the great and generous. 
 From this fact it would seem that his attainments 
 were already considerable, and his capacity promi- 
 nent; yet Avhen at the usual stages he sued to be 
 admitted a Baclielor of Arts, he was refused the 
 honour, and almost at the same time disappointed 
 in the attainment of a fellowship at All Souls'. 
 Returning, therefore, to London, he prosecuted his 
 studies for a time under his father's roof, and began 
 to digest the plan of a publication illustrative of 
 the topography, ancient and modern, of his native 
 country *. 
 
 Among the friends of influence whom his merits 
 had already the fortune to secure, was Dr. Good- 
 man, Dean of Westminster, a man of good influ- 
 ence, which he speedily converted to Camden's 
 benefit in a very commendable manner. At the 
 dean's recommendation he again visited Oxford m 
 1573, obtained his degree, and, in the course of 
 two years, was preferred to the second Mastership 
 of Westminster School. Being thus reputably esta- 
 blished in life, and under cii'cumstances the most 
 favorable to his adopted pursuits, he discharged the 
 functions of his situation with ease and diligence, 
 and bestowed his leisure on that course of reading 
 which was best adapted to forward his intended 
 work. He collected the writings of all the old 
 authors on Britain, searched the record-offices, and 
 manuscriptal repositories of the country. His pro- 
 ject became publicly known, and his zeal was 
 encouraged by all that countenance which it amply 
 merited. He established an extensive correspond- 
 ence with men of letters in various parts, and the 
 better to decide upon the information thus impart- 
 ed, made a journey in 1582 through the eastern 
 and northern covmties of the kingdom, and person- 
 ally examined the monumental remains they con- 
 tained. 
 
 The first fruit of all these labours appeared 
 during the year 1586, in a Latin 8vo, which was 
 afterwards made known to the unlearned by the 
 translation of Philemon Holland, entitled " Bri- 
 tannia, or a Chorographieal Description of the most 
 flourishing Kingdom of England, Scotland, Ireland, 
 and the adjacent Islands, from remote antiquity." 
 The work was dedicated to Lord Burleigh in a 
 complimentary address, containing very grateful 
 acknowledgments for the patronage and assistance 
 bestowed upon the author while engaged upon it. 
 At this period, though confused and imperfect, it 
 did not fail to excite considerable applause. Camden 
 made its improvement the leading object of his 
 futui'e years. In 1589 he journeyed into the West 
 
 * Contemporary with Csmcien was Arthur Agard, a bar- 
 rister of laborious study and critical research, who is entitled 
 to some notice in this work by the honours of an interment 
 in Westminster Abbey. He was born at Toyston, in Devon- 
 shire, in 1540, and died at London in August, 1615. The 
 highest preferment he obtained in his profession was the 
 Deputy Chamberlainship of the Exchequer, a situation 
 which supplied him with ample resources for antiquarian 
 pursuits. He published a work in Latin, " On the Use and 
 obscure Terms of Domesday Book," but is more conspicuous 
 as one of the original founders of the Society of Antiquaries. 
 He also composed several valuable essays on the manners 
 and polity of England in remote ages, which were collected 
 after his death by Hearne, and printed among the proceed- 
 ings of the society. 
 
 of England, and in 1590 visited Wales, and thus, 
 by consulting new archives, and investigating other 
 monuments, was enabled in 1594 to lay before the 
 public a fourth edition, enlarged to 4to. Still there 
 remamed other available sources of improvement, 
 and in 1000 he travelled up to Carlisle in company 
 with his friend Mr., afterwards Sir Robert Cotton. 
 This excursion was followed by a fifth edition, 
 which was prefaced with a defence against some 
 critical charges that had been formally published 
 against some of his statements by Ralf Brooke, 
 York Herald. But it was not until 1607, when he 
 produced the sixth edition, that he considered his 
 project completed : it was the last he lived to see 
 printed, and has consequently been adopted by 
 the various translators and commentators who 
 have since employed their talents on the subject. 
 
 Of this laborious compilation it is to be observed, 
 that it entitled the author to the rank of the Father 
 of Antiquarian Pursuits in Great Britain ; and that 
 it is to this day quoted as a standard authority. It 
 has undergone three memorable versions, the first 
 by Philemon Holland, and the other two, which 
 are swelled with infinite additions and emendations, 
 by Bishop Gib.son, and Richard Gough. But it is 
 to be subjoined, that the better part of the interest 
 as well as magnitude now attached to the book, will 
 be found in the subsidiary matter of the commen- 
 tators. For, although Camden's industry was exem- 
 plary, and the mass of his materials are highly 
 valuable, yet he was far from being thoroughly 
 initiated in the study, and far from adapting his 
 knowledge to the most judicious purposes. It has 
 therefore been well remarked, that an account of the 
 state of Great Britain, ancient and modern, might 
 at the present day be much more advantageously 
 given in an original form, than through the medium 
 of an amplified context on the Britannia *. 
 
 But the popularity with which Camden's first 
 production was received, did not constitute the only 
 
 * Wliile yet upon the subject of antiquities, it may be 
 most appropriate to make mention of the Rev. Clayton 
 Mordaunt Cracherode, M.A., who was born in the year 1728, 
 and buried in Westminster Abbey in 1799. He was educated 
 at Christ's Church, Oxford, was a fellow of the Royal and 
 Antiquarian Societies, and has been justly celebrated for a 
 collection of antique gems, drawings, coins, medals, and a 
 valuable library, bequeathed to the British Museum, wl-.ere 
 it is still gratefully distinguished by his name. Inheriting 
 from his father, who sailed round the world with Lord 
 Anson, a landed estate of 600/. a year, and a sum of 
 100,000/. in the funds, he took up his residence in Queen 
 Square, Westminster, and devoted his life to the curiosities 
 of literature. In this pursuit he had many rivals, but no 
 superiors. His books were not more esteemed for the 
 rarity of the editions, and the splendour of their bindings, 
 than for tlie intrinsic value of the authors ; his medals and 
 minerals comprised the most exquisite specimens ; and his 
 prints and drawings were numerous and choice beyond ex- 
 ample. Mr. Cracherode's habits were retired and regular in 
 the extreme : for the last forty years of his life he never 
 missed going every day, at a stated hour, to his bookseller, 
 Elmsley, in the Strand, and thence to Payne's, at the Mews 
 Gate ; and with the same punctuality he called every Satur- 
 day night to have his watch regulated at Dutton's in Fleet- 
 street. The greatest journey of his life was from London to 
 Oxford; he was never on horseback; and only knew his 
 estate by an etched plate. His funeral, in conformity with 
 the modesty of his life, was by his own orders strictly pri- 
 vate ; while his fortune, as he had never been married, was 
 inherited by an only sister. He was a good scholar, and 
 wrote Latin verse with ease.
 
 WILLIAM CAMDEN. 
 
 25 
 
 reward that sweetened the zealous assiduity of his 
 life; for long before it was brought down to the 
 mature state already described, he was in the enjoy- 
 ment of more valuable dignities. In 151)3, he was 
 appointed to succeed Dr. Graunt as head master of 
 Westminster school; and in 15!)7 he was transferred, 
 throu<;h the interest of Sir Fulke Greville, to the 
 Heralds' College, first with the rank of Richmond 
 Herald, and then of Clareneieux King of Arms. 
 This change of profession, so well accommodated to 
 his favorite pm-suits, and so productive of a greater 
 share of literary leisui'e, did not, howevei*, take 
 jilace before he had given a lasting earnest of his 
 c.ire for the advancement of his pupils, by publish- 
 ing a Greek grammar, in 1597, foi" the benefit of 
 the school. The book was retained in use for many 
 years, but is deserving of no greater praise than 
 that of being a sensible abridgment from a more co- 
 pious volume composed by his predecessor. Graunt's 
 book was entitled "Grfficse Lingure Spicilegium," 
 Camden's " Institutio Grteca; Grammatices Com- 
 pcndiaria in Usura Regiae Scholaj Westmonaste- 
 riensis." In 1600, he again diverted his mind from 
 profound researches, by drawing up an account of 
 the monuments in Westminster Abbey, with their 
 inscriptions ; — a publication long since urged into 
 oblivion by the accession of more popular remains, 
 but entitled to grateful mention in these pages, as 
 the parent of many imitative productions, which it 
 is the object of the present enlarged undertaking to 
 render more complete. 
 
 As a matter of course, Camden was by this time 
 associated with the nascent Society of Antiquaries, 
 for which he subsequently composed, as occasion 
 re([uired, various short essays connected with the 
 profession of the members — performances of which 
 the most interesting may be seen preserved in the 
 collection of Thomas Hearne. The next period 
 distinguished by his exertions was the year 1G03, 
 during which he printed, at Frankfort, a series of 
 ancient writers on English history, of whom some 
 had never before been published, and others were 
 then first edited with an exact text and explanatory 
 notes. This display of regard for the fame of his 
 country added greatly to his own re]>utation ; the 
 task was well received. In 1608 he issued from the 
 London press, a 4to Latin volume, entitled, " Re- 
 mains of a greater work on Britain," which was 
 only subscribed with the final letters of his name. 
 Tliis modesty was evidently occasioned by a con- 
 viction that the contents were for the larger part 
 unworthy of his former labours; for the preface 
 contains an admission that they are only the refuse 
 of a better undertaking. Notwithstanding these 
 disjiaraging circumstances, the book was dedicated 
 to Jiis friend Sir Robert Cotton, and ran througli 
 several editions. 
 
 The discovery of the Gunpowder Plot led to a 
 fresh proof of the estimation in which Camden's 
 talents were held ; for when tlie pedantic James 
 looked around him for a writer to give a detail of 
 his escape to the nations of Europe, he fixed upon 
 the author of the I'ritaiinia as liis historian. Tlie 
 injunctionH of a sovereign were of conrsi; readily 
 observed, and in a manner the most likely to secure 
 the grace of approbation : he wrote the account in 
 Latin, gave the court version of the treason, and 
 lias therefore been seldom quoted as an authority 
 upon tlie subject. Still he felt so well satisfied with 
 the reception of the composition, that he resolved 
 
 forthwith to undertake a more important concern, 
 and give annals of the reign of Queen Elizabeth, 
 a work to which he was first incited by the sugges- 
 tions of his old patron the Lord Treasurer Bur- 
 leigh. He began to make serious preparations for 
 it in IGOff; his mind was now disembarrassed of 
 other cares, but he encountered a lieavy impedi- 
 ment m bad health, and was thus unable to com- 
 plete the first part of the work before the year 
 1615. It w:is written in Latin; was honoured with 
 a critique while in manuscript by Kmg James, and 
 printed in folio, at London, under royal approba- 
 tion. Like all party productions, it met with a 
 divided fortune : by some it was extolled with the 
 warmest applause, and by others attacked with the 
 most censorious opposition. Camden received the 
 admiration of his friends with gratitude, but suftered 
 deep chagrin from the reproaches of his enemies. 
 Though repeatedly challenged to the field of dispu- 
 tation, he found it more prudent to be silent than 
 to reply ; and was so awed by contradictions, that, 
 thougli he finished the history in 1617, he refused 
 to let the conclusion be published before his 
 death. 
 
 These annals of the reign of Queen Elizabeth 
 were published by Hearne, at Oxford, in three vols. 
 8vo, 1717 '• they have been less po]iular than the 
 Britannia, yet have always been held worthy of a 
 creditable reference by conflicting authors. Hume 
 bestows lavish praise upon them ; Robertson, 
 as far as they are interwoven with the affiiirs of 
 Scotland, pronounces as unqualified a censure ; 
 while a host of writers assert that the Irish trans- 
 actions are either grossly mistold, or very igno- 
 rantly related. If then, for the sake of brevity, we 
 may form an opinion of the work upon the testimo- 
 nies of Hume and Robertson alone, it may perhaps 
 not be too much to assert, that the former chiefly 
 regarded those beauties by which he is himself 
 most distinguished, — correct style and purity of 
 language; while the latter decided upon the nol»ler 
 merits of diligent investigation and imjiartial facts. 
 Thus Camden will be found to have furnished an 
 equable relation of things, delivered with classical 
 propriety, and implicitly faithful to one interest : 
 ins version is ruftled by no doubts, and broken by 
 no discrepancies ; he adopts a prevalent story, and 
 arranges the incidents ])rcscnted by it with poetical 
 justice. Moral truth and historical rectitude, how- 
 ever, are in such a case sacrificed; and Camden 
 therefore, though read with pleasure, has never 
 been adopted by able judges, either as a guide or a 
 model. 
 
 All the plans of industrious talent were by this 
 time prosperously realized, and our author was 
 enabled to spend the remainder of his days in ease 
 and honour. On one occasion he was recalled to 
 more active occupations by being ajtpointed Pro- 
 fessor of History in Dr. Sutcliffe's new College of 
 Polemics at Chelsea. But the institution, though 
 supported by the patronage of King James, failed 
 of success, and Camden was finally restored to 
 leisure. Thenceforward his only avocations arose 
 out of his oilice at the Herald's College : (hese were 
 by no means laborious ; and he generally used to 
 spend his summers at a scat he possessed near 
 Cliisilliurst, in Kent, and retmni during the wintii- 
 to his mansion in Westminster. But though no 
 longer emulous in literature, he felt a gi'ateful att'er- 
 tion for its interests, and made one of the latest
 
 2fi 
 
 WESTMINSTER ABBEY. 
 
 acts of his life memorable for the benefit it con- 
 ferred on the cause. In 1622, he founded an his- 
 torical lectureship in the University of Oxford, and 
 made over for its support his interest in the manor 
 of Bexley, in Kent, then valued at 140/. a-year. 
 He had the satisfaction of nominating the first 
 lecturer to the endowment ; but expired at Chisel- 
 hurst during the month of November in the follow- 
 ing year, aged ^li. He directed his body to be 
 buried in the parish churcli ; but it was removed to 
 his house in town, and interred with great heraldic 
 pomp under that spot in the Abbey which is now 
 mdicated by his monument*. 
 
 * Not far from Camden's monument is a white stone, 
 inscribed witli the name of Thomas Parr, of the county of 
 Salop, who lived to the age of 152, and was buried here. 
 Of a man thus extraordiiiary, a few particulars may prove 
 not less interesting to the reader than relevant to the pur- 
 port of the work. Thomas, the son of John Parr, husband- 
 man, was born in his father's cottage at Winnington, in 
 the parish of Alderbiu-y, and county of Salop, during the 
 year 1483. After residing at home with his parents until he 
 was seventeen years old, he went to service. In 1518, being 
 then aged thirty-five, he left his master, and enjoyed the 
 interest of his father's lease, under a family named Porter, 
 during four years. In 1543, when he was sixty, the first 
 lease renewed to him by the Porters expired. In 1563, aged 
 eighty, he married Jane, the virgin daughter of Jolin Taylor, 
 by whom he had a son and daughter, who both died young. 
 During the following year the second lease renewed to him 
 by the Porters expired; as did in 1505, at the age of one 
 hundred and two, the third lease renewed by the same 
 hands. Three years after, he did penance in Alderbury 
 church, for lying with Catherine Milton, and getting her with 
 child. In 1595, aged one hundred and twelve, lie buried his 
 first wife, after a cohabitation of thirty-two years. At the 
 age of one hundred and twenty-two, he entered into a second 
 marriage with Jane, the widow of Anthony Adda, and 
 daughter of John Loyd, of Gilsells, in Montgomeryshire; 
 she survived him, as he died on the 5th of November, 1635, 
 after living with her for thirty years. 
 
 Parr saw ten sovereigns on the British throne : namely 
 Edward IV., Edward V., Richard III., Henry VII., Henry 
 VIII., Edward VI., Mary, Elizabeth, James I., and diaries I. 
 When he was one hundred and forty, Rubens met him at 
 Shrewsbury, and took his picture, in which he is represented 
 with a complexion as delicately incarnated as that of a young 
 girl. Some time before his dissolution, Tliomas, Earl of 
 Arundel, brought him up to London, and presented him to 
 James I., who is reported to have said to him, " You have 
 lived longer than other men ; now what have you done more 
 than other men ?" To which the rustic answered, " An' 
 your majesty wiU pardon me, I did penance when more than 
 an hundred years old." The celebrated Harvey opened his 
 body, and ascribed his death to a change of air, and the high 
 drink and food which he was regaled with in London. 
 
 Taylor, the water-poet, has commemorated old Parr in 
 strains so peculiarly descriptive, that the insertion of a few 
 of them is irresistible ; 
 
 " From head to heel his body had aU over 
 A quick set, thick set, natural hairy cover. 
 
 Good wholesome labour was his exercise, 
 
 Down with the lamb, and with the lark would rise; 
 
 In mire and toiling sweat he spent the day. 
 
 And to his team he whistled time away : 
 
 The cock his night clock, and till day was done, 
 
 His watch and chief sun-dial was the sun. 
 
 He was of old Pythagoras' opinion. 
 
 That green cheese was most wholesome with an onion; 
 
 Camden's Letters to and from his friends were 
 copied from the manuscripts in the Cottonian 
 Library of the British Museum, and edited about 
 the year 1G90, by Abel Boyer, who was the original 
 compiler of the French and English Dictionary, 
 which still bears his name. They were afterwards 
 republished by Dr. Thomas Smith, who prefixed 
 an account of the life of the writei*. 
 
 In concluding the life of Camden it is observable, 
 that though styled the founder of British archteo- 
 logy, he was neither tlie first nor the best who 
 treated upon the subject. He may be considei-ed 
 a writer of good, but not standard Latin, and a 
 studious rather than a tasteful compilei-. Of all his 
 works the Britannia alone is now referred to, and 
 that in a translation, of which the suljject-matter is 
 defective, and mainly sustained by a huge body of 
 editorial annotations, which swell the publication 
 into four volumes folio. The most authoritative 
 panegyric he ever received was pronounced by 
 Hume, who described his Annals as one of the best 
 historical productions that had been composed by 
 an Englishman ; and perhaps the bitterest sarcasm 
 shot against him was uttered by O'Flaherty in his 
 " Ogygia," who said, 
 
 " Perlustras Anglos oculis, Camdene, duobus, 
 Uno oculo Scotos, caecus Hibernigenas." 
 
 Against this distich it is but fiiir to quote the 
 eulogy of his friend, Ben Joiison, which teems with 
 an eloquent affection equally honorable to the sub- 
 ject of the lines and their author : 
 
 " Camden, most reverend head, to whom I owe 
 All that I am in arts, all that I know ; 
 (How nothing 's that!) to whom my country owes 
 The great renown and name wherew ith she goes. 
 Than thee the age sees not that thing more grave, 
 More high, more holy, that she more would crave. 
 What name, what skill, what faith hast thou in things! 
 What sight in searching the most antique springs ! 
 What weight and what authority in thy speech ! 
 Man scarce can make that doubt, but thou canst teach. 
 Pardon free truth, and let thy modesty, 
 Which conquers all, be once o'ercome by thee. 
 Many of thine this better could than I, 
 But for their powers accept my piety." 
 
 Coarse meslin bread, and for his daily swig. 
 Milk, buttermilk, and water, whey and whig : 
 Sometimes metheglin, and by fortune happy. 
 He sometimes swigged a cup of ale most nappy; 
 Cyder or perry, when he did repair 
 T' a Whitsun ale-wake, wedding, or a fair ; 
 Or when at Christmas time he was a guest 
 At his good landlord's house amongst the rest; 
 Else he had little leisure time to waste, 
 Or at the ale-house half a cup to taste : 
 Nor did he ever hunt a tavern fox, 
 Nor know a coach, tobacco, or the — - 
 His physic was good butter, which the soil 
 Of Salop yields, more sweet than candy oil ; 
 And garlic he esteemed above the rate 
 Of Venice treacle, or best mithridate. 
 He entertained no gout, no ache he felt ; 
 The air was good and temperate where he dwelt. 
 While niavisses and sweet-tongued nightingales 
 Did chaunt him roundelays and madrigals. 
 Thus living within bounds of Nature's laws 
 Of his long lasting life may be some cause."
 
 HOWARD, EARL OF NOTTINGHAM. 
 
 27 
 
 HOWviRD, EARL OF NOTTINGHAM, K.B. 
 
 Born in the year 1536, the Honorable Charles 
 Howard, grandson of tlie second Duke of Norfolk 
 of the same name, entered the naval service of his 
 country at a very early age, and obtained the most 
 advantageous appointments for the development of 
 his talents under the immediate eye of his father, 
 Baron Effingham, who filled the post of Lord High 
 Admiral upon the accession of Queen Elizabeth to 
 the throne. At this period, though only two and 
 twenty years of age, young Howard was particu- 
 larly distinguished by the notice of his royal mis- 
 tress, who entrusted him with an embassy to 
 France, to congratulate Charles IX. upon his 
 assumption of the crown. This mission satisfacto- 
 rily discharged, he quitted the navy for a while, 
 and as the events of the period afforded no op- 
 portunity for employment in that service, he en- 
 tered the army. In this new profession he was 
 nominated to the command of a i-egiment of cavalry ; 
 and after a promiscuous service of nine years, was 
 proclaimed a general of horse, when the Earl of 
 Warwick opposed the insurrection headed by the 
 Earls of Northumberland and Westmoreland, in 
 the north. Immediately afterwards Howard was 
 replaced on his original element, and led the 
 squadron of ships of war, which Elizabeth ordered 
 out to sea as a convoy to Anne, daughter of Maxi- 
 milian, Emperor of Austria, during her voyage to 
 Spain. Before he joined escort on this occasion he 
 made an ostentatious display of naval pride ; " he 
 environed their fleet," says Hackluyt, " in a most 
 strange and warlike sort, and enforced them to 
 stoop gallant and vail their bonnets for the Queen 
 of England." In 1571 we find him returned for the 
 county of Surrey to the House of Commons, and 
 ere long, by the death of his father, invested with 
 the family title, and a seat in the Upper House. 
 At the same time he received his father's office of 
 Lord Privy Seal, and now rose progressively to 
 the highest honours a subject can attain. He 
 was first made Chamberlain of the Royal House- 
 hold, next elected a Knight of the Garter, and, 
 at last, upon the death of the Earl of Lincoln, 
 advanced, in 1585, to the dignity of Lord High 
 Admiral. 
 
 The period of this appointment was big with the 
 most important consequences. Philip II., of Spain, 
 was W'ell known to have flattered himself with 
 strong pretensions to the crown of England, by 
 virtue of his marriage with the late Queen Mary, 
 and the most serious apprehensions of a powerful 
 attack to enforce this claim were entertained, both 
 by the government and the iieo])Ie. It was not, 
 however, until the year 15iiii, that the measures of 
 preparation for so forniidabli; an undertaking were 
 thought to be comjilete, and the dcsliiiatiou of the 
 extraordinary force, which had long been in a 
 course of muster, was publicly avowed. An accu- 
 rate account of the Sjianish fl(;et was then published 
 in Latin, and circulated throughout Europe, in 
 which "The Most Happy Armada," as it was fan- 
 <;if'u]ly styled, was boasti;d to consist of 130 vessels, 
 Hoatiiig 5fi,(i()8 tons, mounting 21>'M) pieces of can- 
 non, and manned with H(,2LI5 soldiers, 8450 ma- 
 rines, and 2085 galh-y slaves. These ships of war 
 
 were also accompanied by a large fleet of trans- 
 ports, carrying a plentiful store of ammunition, and 
 were farther provided with a prodigious quantity of 
 arms, destined to supply the great body of volun- 
 teers that was expected to flock around the Spanish 
 banner as soon as it descended on our shores. The 
 officer originally entrusted with the command of 
 this great armament was the Marquis of Santa 
 Cruz, a nobleman who had distinguished himself 
 by a long course of valorous service. Death, how- 
 ever, snatched him from the post, and his j)lace 
 was nominally supplied by the Duke of Medina 
 Sidonia, while the Admiral second in command, 
 Don Martinez de Ricalde, was really the person to 
 whose advice the direction of every movement was 
 confided. A large body of nobility crowded around 
 these officers, inider the character of volunteers, 
 and some of the highest dignitaries of the church 
 undertook the duties of chaplains to the foi'ces. In 
 the month of May, the captains were all assembled 
 at Lisbon, and the fleet was forthwith reported to 
 be in a fit condition for sea. 
 
 This momentous act, however, was deferred until 
 the first of June, on which day, with a consecrated 
 banner, blessed by the pope, and pronounced " iuvin- 
 clble," the sails of the Spanish fleet were unfurled, 
 and the voyage commenced, vmder every circum- 
 stance that could establish pomp and excite enthu- 
 siasm. Being thus launched to subdue England, 
 and convert its inhabitants, the commanders were 
 instructed to pi-oceed to the Roads of Calais, and 
 there form a junction with the reinforcement pro- 
 mised by the Duke of Parma. This point efteeted, 
 the orders contained in a sealed packet were to be 
 obeyed. To these charges was added a general 
 recommendation to act on the defensive, and to 
 forbear a first attack. 
 
 Of the force which was collected by Elizabeth 
 to repel this poweiful invasion, the accounts are 
 various and contradictory. That her ships were 
 more numerous than those of the enemy appears 
 certain, though their size and strength were inferior, 
 their equipment much weaker, and their power still 
 farther reduced by the dift'ereiit squadrons into 
 which they were divided, for the purpose of guard- 
 ing every vulnerable i|uarter ujion which the descent 
 might be first made. Ilowanl, as Loi'd High Ad- 
 miral, assumed the chief command, Sir John Haw- 
 kins was his rear-admiral, and all the vessels avail- 
 able for actual engagement are cstiinatcd at 175 
 sail, the number of tons being 29,794, and of men 
 14,501. Of these Sir Francis Drake, as vice-admi- 
 ral, led a distinct S(|uadron of ^2 vessels, and 2.'J58 
 men; while Lord Henry Seymour, sup])orted by a 
 Diitdi fleet, under the Count Nassau, di-cnv off 2H 
 sail, and 1700 men, in order to coast along the 
 shores of I'landers, and embarrass the ])rojected 
 a])[)roach of the Duke of Parma. Of the remaining 
 force mustered by the English, beside volunteer 
 .ships from private individuals amounting to 18, 
 there were also 10 fine merchantmen tendered to 
 the Lord lligli Admiral, and a fleet of 58 vessels 
 fitted out for him by the city of London. With 
 these various means of opposition, Howard jiut to 
 sea, and, in compliance with the directions given
 
 28 
 
 WESTMINSTER ABBEY. 
 
 for the occasion, cruised along our western coast in 
 order to receive the Spaniards at their first ap- 
 proach. Tlie season advanced, but tliere was no 
 appearance of an enemy ; and the Englisli cabinet 
 began to conjecture from the delay, that no decided 
 attempts at an invasion would be made during the 
 year. In consequence of this supposition, Walsiug- 
 hara, the secretary of state, issued orders to the 
 high admiral, to send his heavier vessels into har- 
 bour and pay off the men, in order to save the 
 state expense. Fortunately, however, for the coun- 
 try, the discrimination of Lord Effingham was 
 more penetrating. He wrote back to the secretary 
 to excuse himself from complying with the orders 
 issued, and begged, if expense was the only object 
 in view, and his reasons for refusing to pay off the 
 ships should be deemed insufficient, that they might 
 all be considered as retained in the service at his 
 j)ersonal charge. The wisdom of this conduct was 
 soon evuiced, for on the night of June 19, a Scotch 
 pirate, named Captain Fleming, brought intelli- 
 gence that the Sjianish fleet had entered the chan- 
 nel. The first laud they approached was the Lizard 
 Point, which they confounded with the Ram's Head, 
 near Plymouth, and in consequence stood off again 
 to sea until the following morning, when their 
 hostile flags again appeared in sight. 
 
 Adverse winds had already scattered and reduced 
 the invading fleet, and so widely asunder were the 
 English ships extended in squadrons of obser- 
 vation, that the utmost exertions could only collect 
 a sail of 50 vessels to meet the Spaniards, who came 
 steermg up the Channel in the shape of a half- 
 moon, with their wings spread out to an extent of 
 seven miles. Howard suffered them to pass him 
 without molestation, and they were vain enough to 
 accept of the advantage; but as soon as he found 
 himself in the rear, and had acquired the aid he 
 desu'ed from the wind, he immediately pursued 
 and attacked them. This movement was projected 
 with great skill, and performed with appropriate 
 courage. The battle, which took place off the 
 Eddystone, was irregular and indecisive, in conse- 
 quence of the inadequateness of his force ; but one 
 great object was attained in the damage done to 
 almost every vessel he contended with, and the 
 promise of still greater benefits was held forth by 
 the confusion which was perceptible before night 
 put a stop to the firing. Meanwhile a Spanish 
 galleon, with an admiral's flag, sprung her foremast 
 in consequence of the injuries she had received 
 durmg the day, and floated disabled on the squad- 
 ron commanded by Sir Francis Di-ake, who now 
 came up to support the high admiral. She proved 
 to be laden with specie, which was intended to pay 
 the Spanish sailors, and supply then- fleet ; but 
 which was immediately distributed as a prize to 
 encourage the English crew, while the capture 
 itself was sent into Dartmouth, as an earnest of 
 nobler advantages. 
 
 The next engagement ensued on the 23rd, and 
 the prospective triumph of the English became 
 still more apparent. The larger vessels of the 
 enemy, which formed so prominent a source of 
 pride, now proved singularly inefficient, foi', on 
 account of their bulky elevation above the water, 
 every shot from them flew over the heads of the 
 English, while scarcely a bullet from the latter 
 passed without effect ; and the execution com- 
 mitted, in consequence of the crowded equipments 
 
 of the Spanish men-of-wai", was terribly con- 
 spicuous. 
 
 The 24th was a day of rest, because the English 
 wanted a supply of ammunition ; and it is singular to 
 observe how palpably forbearance established the 
 greatness of the enemies' fears, and ultimately tended 
 to their complete discomfiture. Had they ordered 
 their movements otherwise, the consequences might 
 have, in all probability, been signally different also ; 
 but while vainly awaiting a junction with the Duke 
 of Parma, who never approached them, they neg- 
 lected a series of favoiu-able opportunities, which, 
 judiciously improved, must have produced results 
 the most disastrous to the safety of the British 
 nation. To expose such errors is now uninteresting, 
 and it is only left to state the succession of assaults 
 by which the destination of this mighty Armada 
 was utterly defeated. On the 25th, the English 
 admiral was fully supplied with ammunition, and 
 also reinforced by the arrival of all the squadrons 
 destined to support his measures. His strength 
 was now swelled to the mmiber of 140 sail, and he 
 made the final arrangements for a signal attack. 
 For this purijose he parted his fleet into four divi- 
 sions, of the first of which he retained the command 
 in person; while he entrusted the second to Sir 
 Francis Drake, the third to Sir John Hawkins, and 
 the fourth to Captain Frobisher. A calm, however, 
 ensued, and prevented the fulfilment of the plan, 
 when it was thought prudent to suspend further 
 operations until the enemy should enter the Straits 
 of Dover, where Lord Henry Seymour was sta- 
 tioned to engage the Duke of Parma, and oppose 
 his progress. 
 
 The event did not occur until July 27, when the 
 Spaniards, who had been greatly harassed during 
 the interval, anchored before Calais, but prudently 
 ari'anged their large ships in protecting their lines, 
 so that no attempt could be made to attack them 
 without involving almost certain ruin to the aggres- 
 sors. In this dilemma, Howard had recourse to 
 an expedient at that period most unusual in naval 
 tactics. He converted eight of the worst vessels 
 he had into fire-ships, and at midnight despatched 
 them, loaded with combustibles, into the thickest 
 of the enemy's fleet, where ere long a blaze arose 
 that made the success of the manoeuvre apparent ; 
 and as the English admiral foresaw, the compact 
 oi'der of the enemy was broken up, and every 
 vessel obliged to seek safety for itself in flight. 
 On the following morning, the English, as was 
 their custom, gave close chase, and, without a 
 general battle, were able to inflict considerable 
 damage. A large galleon foundered upon the 
 sands of Calais, and was there pursued and burnt ; 
 while the Spaniards, still cherishing a hope, ren- 
 dezvoused at Gi'aveliues, and assumed the appear- 
 ance of decisive efforts. Here they again cast 
 anchor for some time, in hopes thfe Duke of Parma 
 would heave in sight; but still disappointed of this 
 long-delayed succour, and hourly oppressed by the 
 running fire of the English, they at last broke from 
 their moorings, and made one resolute attempt to 
 repass the Straits of Dover. It has been honour- 
 ably admitted by English writers, that the courage 
 and skill with which this movement was made, 
 would in all probability have eusui-ed it success, 
 had ncjt the wind, fortunately for the English, 
 veered suddenly and with violence round to the 
 north-west, and driven the enemy directly upon
 
 VILLIERS, DUKE OF BUCKINGHAM. 
 
 the coast of Zealand. Here again, fortunatel}' for 
 them, it turned to north-east, and tliey were en- 
 abled, by superior tackin<;, to avoid the certain 
 \\Teck that seemed to await them upon the sliores. 
 This dilemma passed, a council of war was held by 
 the Duke de Medina Sidonia, and after some deli- 
 beration, it was admitted that hopes there were 
 none h)r the expedition. By a natural consequence 
 it was next resolved, that the only course to be 
 pursued with prudence, was to return home, with 
 as many ships and men as they could possibly save 
 from the hostility of wind, wave, weather, and 
 England. 
 
 This conclusion was no sooner agreed to than it 
 was carried into execution, and the fleet made sail 
 for Spain. But its dangers were still far from 
 passed, and its difficulties far from overcome. Un- 
 willing again to face the English squadron, it was 
 determined to double the island, and by this means 
 escape an encounter. Care, however, had been taken 
 to deprive them of every supply either of food or 
 water along the coast, so that, on reaching the 
 shores of Scotland, they were obliged to throw 
 their mules, horses, and heavy arms, overboard ; 
 and, that they might more easily escape, to separate 
 into two divisions. Twenty-five vessels, under the 
 Duke de Medina Sidonia, bore away directly for 
 the Bay of Biscay, and forty more, under the vice- 
 admiral, undertook to steer round Ireland. Even 
 this hope was singularly baffled ; for on the second 
 of September a stf)rm of miusual violence arose, 
 which the English weathered with comparative 
 success, but the Spaniards were utterly unable to 
 Contend with. Scattered asunder in every direc- 
 tion, some ships foundered on the coast, while 
 others, driven backwards into the channel, fell an 
 easy prey into tlie hands of their unwearied pur- 
 suers. On the rocky shores of Ireland alone no 
 less than thirty sail were lost, while many others 
 wore destroyed amidst the western Isles of Scot- 
 land, and the confines of Argyleshire. Thus ter- 
 minated the mighty project of reducing England 
 to a foreign yoke; and thus short was the space of 
 time necessary to sweep away from the surface of 
 the deep a fleet which it requii-ed three years to 
 equip, and treasures uncounted to produce. 
 
 For his eminent services upon this occasion, the 
 lord high admiral was created Earl of Nottingham, 
 and rewarded with a pension. But even higher 
 honours awaited him; for in IS!)!), when the state 
 was menaced with revolt at home and invasion 
 from abroad, Elizabeth created him lord lieutenant- 
 general of all England, and entrusted him with 
 
 the sole and supreme command of all her forces 
 both by sea and land. This unprecedented rank and 
 authority he sustained with almost regal powers, 
 until, fortunately for his country, the danger 
 subsided, he took the ill-fated Earl of Essex into 
 custody, and liis active services ceased to be re- 
 quired by his sovereign, who proved her regard for 
 him by yielding to his entreaty alone the wayward 
 humours which so strangely disturbed her last ill- 
 ness. 
 
 Upon the accession of James I., Howard was 
 continued in his post of lord high admiral, and 
 also officiated as lord chamberlain. Soon after, an 
 embassy being required to the country of his late 
 enemies, S]iain, he was selected for the mission, 
 and performed it under unusual circumstances of 
 pomp and dignity. His retinue consisted of 500 
 persons, including six noblemen and fifty knights, 
 and so stately was his progress, and so magnificent 
 his outlay, that although he was allowed 15,000/f. 
 for his expenses, and received presents at Madrid 
 of the value of 20,000^. more, and was only absent 
 three months, his charges were so heavy that he 
 fell into pecuniary difficulties, and was severely 
 blamed for his extravagance by the king. His 
 embarrassments continuing, he was induced in 1619 
 to resign the office of lord high admiral to the 
 aspiring favourite, Buckingham, who by one of 
 those arrangements which, however excusable be- 
 cause they were common at that jieriod, must 
 always be regarded as corrupt and degrading, gave 
 him in return an amuiity of 1000^. a-year, presented 
 his countess with a sum of 3000Z. cash, and pro- 
 cured the remission of a debt of 1800Z. due to the 
 crown. 
 
 Howard died December 14, 1G24, at his seat, 
 Hayling, near Croydon. He was twice married, 
 first to Catherine, daughter of Henry Carey *, Lord 
 Hunsdon; and secondly, to Margaret, daughter of 
 James Stuart, Earl ofAlurray. 
 
 • This is the nobleman who is mentioned in a former 
 page, as being commemorated by one of the most stately anil 
 expensive, but by no means one of the most tasteful monu- 
 ments in the Abbey. It stands thirty-six feet high, and is 
 placed against the east wall of the chapel of St. John the 
 Baptist. A Latin inscription, too long and too formal to be 
 worth quoting, sets forth that he was a Privy Councillor, 
 Knight of the Garter, Governor of Berwick, and Lord Cliam- 
 berlain to Queen Elizabeth. He died July 2;i, 15y(>, aged 
 seventy-two, of disappointment, as is said, and vexation, to 
 think that his services had not been rewarded according to 
 his deserts. 
 
 VILLIERS, DUKE OF BUCKINGHAM. 
 
 The family of Villiers, Duke of Buckingham, has 
 two moninnents in the Abbey, one to the memory 
 of Sir George Villiers and his wife, Mary Beau- 
 mont, created Countt'ss of Buckingham, in the 
 chajtel of St. Nicliolas. This is a handsome altar 
 tomb, and the work of Nicholas Stone, who has 
 left a memorandum resjiectiiig it to this effect: 
 " in 16:51, J made a tomlj for the rigiit honourable 
 lady, tiie Countess of Buckingham, and sett it up 
 in Westminster Abbey, and was payed for it HOOl." 
 The other monument in in the chapel of Henry VII., 
 
 and commemorates the son of Sir George, the bold 
 favourite of the weak James 1. It is in one respect 
 characteristic and apjiropriate, being just such a 
 tril»ute as a vain man, full of ostinitalion and prido 
 woidd naturally covet. The duke ir. armour, is 
 here; introdiu'eil lying in state by the side of his 
 duchess, Catherine, (laughter and sole heiress of 
 J'rancis, lOarl of Ifulland. Above his head are 
 marble statues of his children kneeling in i)rayer ; 
 and at his feet Neptune with his trident reversed, 
 and Mars with liis liead crouched. Two figures,
 
 30 
 
 WESTMINSTER ABBEY. 
 
 pensively inclined, relieve the other corners of 
 the tomb, which is in gilt brass, and must always 
 be regarded as a highly finished specimen of 
 the style of sepulchral architecture to which it 
 belongs. 
 
 These sumptuous posthumous honours have in 
 the present instance risen with an imposing accord- 
 ance to the lofty fortunes of their subject — a man, 
 who is remarkable in the history of his country, as 
 having been one of the most powerful favourites 
 ever exalted by the capricious influence of the 
 cro\vii, and as having pushed the fortune of that 
 condition to its highest point. He was the greatest, 
 if not the last of the race by which the English 
 court was enervated, and English liberty endan- 
 gered. However tempting the brightness of his 
 career, all emulation of his life is diverted by ths 
 moral of his death ; we shun the paths by which 
 he rose, to avoid the tragedy by which he fell. 
 Born August 28, 1592, at Brooksby in Leicester- 
 shire, he was the third son of Sir George Villiers, 
 knight, and Mary, daughter of Anthony lieaumont, 
 Esq., of Cole Orton, in the same county. Up to 
 his tenth year he was bred at home, under the 
 care of his parents, and then sent to school at 
 Billisden. Thi-ee years after this his father died, 
 and the partiality of his mother*, with whom a 
 good person and a lively temper made him an 
 especial favourite, recalled him to her house at 
 Godby, where she thenceforward superintended 
 his education in person. Under such a dii-ector 
 his attainments naturally became rather orna- 
 mental than solid ; and his progress in music, 
 dancing, and fencing, was much more successfully 
 cultivated than in literature or science. lunate 
 qualifications adapted him to excel in such light 
 pursuits, and accordingly his forwardness excited 
 the approbation of his masters, and fulfilled every 
 hope of maternal fondness. At the age of eighteen 
 he was sent into France, whence, after speudiug 
 three years in travelling, he returned home a 
 polished and fashionable man, and resided with his 
 mother for another twelvemonth. At her recom- 
 mendation he then began to think of marrying ; 
 and with a view of thus establishing himself in 
 society, was actually paying his addresses to a 
 daughter of Sir Roger Ashton, Master of the 
 Robes to James I., when a casual introduction to 
 Sir John Graham encouraged him to push his 
 fortune at court. 
 
 This idea, so exactly concurriug with his humour 
 and habits, once taken, was warmly followed up, 
 and iu the result rewarded with unexpected pros- 
 perity. His introduction to James I. took place 
 in a comedy durmg one of the royal progresses to 
 Althorpe, and at that favom-able juncture, wdien 
 the crimes of Somerset left a vacancy in the pre- 
 dilections of the royal bosom, which a slight notice 
 of the graceful person and gay address of young 
 Villiers easily supplied. Hasty in every project, 
 and minute in all his cares, James condescended to 
 make such arrangements for the advancement of 
 the new minion as should obviate the jealousy of 
 the elder nobility, and disarm public odium. Sir 
 John Graham received instructions to promote 
 young Villiers as the queen's protege ; he was 
 
 * This lady lived to witness the greatest lionours her son 
 obtained, and died a widow, April 19, 1632. She was created 
 Countess of Buckingham in 1618. 
 
 accordingly made cup-bearer at large early in 
 1613, and during the course of the summer of the 
 same year, admitted cup-bearer in ordinary. 
 
 Upon the generality of men, the favours of for- 
 tune descend at rare intervals, like those thick 
 drops which fall singly from the clouds during a 
 sultry day, but on Villiers they came full and fre- 
 quent as the rain showers of spring. Thus on St. 
 George's Day, 1G15, he was knighted, made a gen- 
 tleman of the bed-chamber, and enriched with a 
 pension of lOOOZ. a year out of the Court of Wards. 
 Again, on the new year's day following, he was 
 appointed blaster of the Horse, and in July, IClfi, 
 installed a Knight of the Garter. On the 22nd of 
 the ensuing month, he was created Baron of Wliad- 
 don, in the county of Bucks, and Viscount Villiers, 
 and January 5, 1617, advanced to the Earldom of 
 Buckingham, and sworn in a member of the Privy 
 Council. By this time he was constantly the com- 
 panion of his sovereign's private enjoyments, and 
 an indispensable attendant upon his person at all 
 public duties : few courtiers surpassed him in the 
 value and variety of his appointments, and no one 
 rivalled him in the confidence of the monarch. 
 But this was not half the measure of his dignities 
 or emoluments : he attended James on his journey 
 to the north during the summer, and v^as sworn in 
 a Privy Councillor of Scotland in honour of the 
 occasion. On the ] st of January in the next year, 
 he was created Marquis of Buckingham, nominated 
 Lord High Admiral of England, made Chief Jus- 
 tice in Eyre of the j)arks and forests south of the 
 river Trent, Master of the King's Bench Office, 
 Steward of Westminster, and Constable of Windsor 
 Castle. 
 
 He now stood forth, erect in all the grace and 
 consequence which a doting royalty could impart, 
 and no sooner did he find himself steadily fixed 
 upon the jiinnacle, than he gave loose to all the 
 impulses of a character, which was as overbearing 
 as his fortune. In every instance the sole almoner 
 of James's bounty, he deemed it as prudent as 
 he found it easy to strengthen his interest at 
 the risk of his popularity, by making a sterling 
 provision for the numerous members and retainers 
 of his own family. This infiuence secured, he ob- 
 tained still greater respect for his stedfastness 
 in friendship, and the implacability of his resent- 
 ments. Arrogant to his superiors, insolent to his 
 equals, and contemptuous to his inferiors, he was 
 alike hated and feared, and even ruled the king 
 and heir-apparent by a strange combination of 
 flattery and dictation. 
 
 The extent of his patronage may be inferred 
 from the following facts: — He left his elder brother, 
 John, Viscount Purbeck, and his younger, Chris- 
 topher, an earl ; he made one half-brother, Edward, 
 president of the province of Munster, in Ireland, 
 and obtained a baronetcy for another, who seems to 
 have been the only moderate member of the family, 
 inasmuch as he always persisted in residing on his 
 estate, and eschewing the court. He also obtained 
 a countess's patent for his mother, married his only 
 sister to the Earl of Denbigh, and provided her 
 with three appointments under the queen. In fine, 
 it was affirmed at his death, that of all his relations 
 within any near degree, every man was well placed, 
 and every woman well matched ; and farther, that 
 he left every servant in his household, and every 
 officer under his various authorities, possessed of
 
 VILLIERS, DUKE OF BUCKINGHAM. 
 
 31 
 
 good fortunes and established characters — a boast, 
 such as the admirei-s of far better men have seldom 
 been able to make. 
 
 Such were the circumstances imder which, to 
 enable Prince Charles to pay his court to the 
 Infanta of Spain, he in 1G25 devised that secret 
 journey to Madrid, which constitutes an historical 
 incident too popular to requii'e in this place any 
 detailed account of the absurd ostentation with 
 which it was conducted, the intrigues by which it 
 was checkered, or the mortification in which it 
 terminated. Its failure was mainly occasioned by 
 Buckingham's wild and overbearing conduct ; for 
 although the prince was welcomed with singular 
 splendour and attention, the duke's familiarity with 
 him offended the gravity of the Spanisli court ; 
 while his haughty bearing to the grandees exaspe- 
 rated their national jjride. He was so infatuated 
 as to insult the prime minister, the Duke Olivarez, 
 to his teeth, and at last, finding himself thoroughly 
 despised wherever he was not openly hated, he tea zed 
 the prince to break ofl[" the suit and return home. 
 Thus what began in mystery ended in shame ; the 
 king raised him to a dukedom during his absence, 
 and rewarded him ujjon his return home with the 
 posts of Loi'd Warden of the Cinque Ports, and 
 Steward of Hampton Court; notwithstanding which, 
 his resentment prompted him to side with the op- 
 position in Parliament, to misrepresent the treat- 
 ment the prince had received, inflame the nation 
 against the Sjianiards, and for once, at least, to 
 support those measures which were conceived to 
 be indispensable for the welfare of the countr'y. 
 In this line of conduct he has been charged with 
 ingratitude to the court to which he owed all he 
 possessed ; he was probably led to adopt it to 
 divert the torrent of indignation which he was 
 certain must roll against him, should the Earl of 
 Bristol, then ambassador at Madrid, return home, 
 and expose the true history of the journey. 
 
 James I. died in 1025, and no change took place 
 in the tenour of Buckingham's prosperity, for he 
 succeeded in obtaining even more ascendancy over 
 the son than he had ever possessed with the 
 father * ; and power and favour continued in his 
 hands to the same ai'bitrary extent as ever. The 
 young king immediately forwarded him to Paris, 
 there to receive the princess Henrietta Maria of 
 France as his intended queen, and escort her to 
 England. Nothing could exceed the pomp of this 
 
 • The following autograph from the prince exhibits Buck- 
 ingham's character in the amplitude of courtier.ship, as the 
 father's prime counsellor, and the confidant of the son's 
 amours : — 
 
 " Stexie, 
 
 I have nothing now to wryte to you, 
 but to give you thankes bothe for the good councell ye gave 
 me, and for the event of it. The king gave me a good sharp 
 potion, but you took away the working of it by the well 
 relished comfits ye sent after it. I have met with the partie 
 that must not be named once alreddie ; and the cullor of 
 wryting this letter shall make me meetc with her on Satur- 
 day, although it Is written the day being Thursday. So 
 assuring you that the business goes safelie onn, I rest 
 
 " Your constant loving friend, 
 
 " CHARLES." 
 
 " I hope ye will not shew the king this letter, but put it 
 in the safe custodie of Mister Vulcan." 
 
 embassy, nor the splendour in which Buckingham 
 appeared at the head of it ; the gallantry of his 
 retinue exceeded all the bravery of the French 
 court, and he overacted in his own person all the 
 vanities for which that nation has ever been ridi- 
 culous. But even on this occasion the inherent 
 presumption of his chai'acter involved him in dan- 
 ger and disrepute ; for, struck with the charms of 
 the queen of France, he ventui'ed to address her 
 with an open importunity that pi'ovoked indignant 
 censures. Yet so daring was his passion, that 
 after attending on his new mistress a part of the 
 road to England, he returned back to Paris in 
 private, and visited the queen, who dismissed him 
 with a reproof, savouring of kindness, though ex- 
 pressing anger. But his motions were watched, 
 and upon the prospect of a second embassy, pro- 
 visions were made for his reception, by vvliich his 
 rasliness, had he persevered, might have paid the 
 forfeit of assassination. Of this design he received 
 just notice enough to decline the hazard, and was 
 forced to succumb with a braggart asseveration, 
 that he " would still see and confer with the lady, 
 in spite of all the power of France." 
 
 Returned to England with a safety but little me- 
 rited, he was reckless enough to strain every means 
 within liis I'each in order to make the French court 
 acknowledge the influence of his resentment. He 
 received every refugee from the justice or displea- 
 sure of the king of France not only with promp- 
 titude and kindness, but upheld them by attentions 
 and bounty; he spared no cost to spirit up hatred 
 of the Fi-euch among the people, and omitted no 
 argument to pi-evail upon Charles to distress his 
 fathei"-in-law by assisting the Hugonots. In the 
 exti'avagance of his animosity, he was even so base 
 as to persecute the young queen, whom he was 
 accustomed to treat with unpardonable insolence; 
 and it has been asserted that, while he lived, she 
 had but little interest with her husband. 
 
 The crisis of Buckingham's fevered fortunes at 
 last approached ; he was unable to overcome it, 
 and the tide of prosperity receded fi'om him with 
 precipitate force and velocity. The parliament 
 assembled in August, 1626, and he was formally 
 arraigned, but the king suspended the blow liy a 
 dissolution. At the coronation, which took place 
 on the 2nd of February following, he officiated 
 with every appearance of undiminished favour and 
 confidence as Lord High Steward. Still the reso- 
 lution of his accusers remained unshaken, and botli 
 houses of the new parliament, wliich met four days 
 after, exhibited fresh articles of imi)eachment 
 against him. The king sent down a message to the 
 Lords, assertiuE of his own knowledtre that the 
 duke was innocent ; Buckingham also ]iut in an 
 exculpatory answer, couched in great obse(iuious- 
 ness and humility ; but no satisfaction was pro- 
 duced by these appeals ; and Charles, impatient of 
 the pertinacity of the proceedings, again dissolved 
 the ])arlianu'nt, rather than abandon his favourite. 
 
 Meanwhile, the po|mlacc cried out against him 
 with active bitterness. He was iqibraided as having 
 corrujjted the king, and betrayed their lilicrties; 
 accusations which ho retorted with an acrimony 
 even more intemperate; thus adding fresh passion 
 to his incensed opponents, and heaping deeper 
 cares upon the confusion of his friends. 
 
 The sittings of the parliament had no sooner 
 ceased than Uuckingham triumplicd in other in-
 
 WESTMINSTER ABBEY. 
 
 ti'igues, and a war was declared against Finance. 
 The greatest efforts were made to obtain those 
 supplies by indirect resources, which the legislative 
 body had directly refused. Of those who had been 
 forward in the late measures against the duke, 
 many were either imprisoned or displaced; money 
 was then exacted in all quarters upon the weakest 
 pretences, and by the most extraordinary processes; 
 murmurs and comj)laints resounded in every direc- 
 tion, arrests were doubled, and the nation shook to 
 its centre with grievance and expostulation. But 
 neither menaces nor punishment could overpower 
 the stubborn spirit of the people: the treasury was 
 still in the greatest poverty, and, as a last resort, 
 Buckingham prevailed tipon the king to grant a 
 warrant for pawning the crown plate and jewels in 
 Holland: 58,400^ wei'e raised by this base expe- 
 dient, and hostilities commenced. 
 
 Invested with the double authority of admiral 
 and general-in-chicf, Buckingham set sail for Ro- 
 chelle, with 100 ships and 7,000 men; and though 
 it must be admitted that he seems to have entered 
 upon his command with sufficient zeal for success, 
 and avidity for distinction, he was overcome in 
 every exertion, and utterly defeated. lie disagreed 
 with the officers, failed in every attack, saw the 
 fort relieved without being able to intercept the 
 supplies, and was at last compelled to embark his 
 troops with a most inglorious pi'ecipitation, just as 
 the enemy were preparing to arm their boats and 
 fire the fleet. The mjury sustained by the English 
 upon this occasion was very heavy; they lost four 
 colonels, thirty-two colours, and two thousand men. 
 At home the universal opinion was, that the expe- 
 dition had been ill advised, worse conducted, and, in 
 the issue, the most unmitigated disaster which the 
 credit of the nation had sustained for years. The 
 duke was received at court with unabated affection 
 and sympathy ; but the condemnations passed upon 
 his misconduct every where else were numerous 
 and heavy in the extreme ; and though he appeared 
 indifferent to the outcry, it was clear to every 
 ■ one who observed the times, that his ruin was 
 impending, and that even the safety of the 
 monarch was endangei'ed by the pi'otection af- 
 forded him. 
 
 Great exertions were resorted to in order to 
 appease the public discontent ; but justice was 
 denied while the favourite was maintained, and the 
 disaffection increased rather than subsided with 
 time. The sailors blockaded Whitehall for their 
 pay ; rumours of plots and assassinations were 
 audibly whispered about, and at last parliament 
 was summoned in 1628. But although some of those 
 supjjlies which were so strangely demanded were 
 granted, they drew up a remonstrance of griev- 
 ances, and voted Buckingham's excessive power 
 the. cause of every evil. A noble spirit was abroad 
 amongst the people ; the House of Commons was 
 stocked with patriots who did honour to the age, 
 and would have graced any scene in history ; and it 
 became finally clear, that unless the liberties of the 
 nati(jn were guaranteed, a civil war must ensue. 
 After many delays and great evasion, the famous 
 Petition of Rights was assented to by the king. 
 Signal was the joy with which this boon was re- 
 ceived: five subsidies were readily conceded; and 
 Buckingham endeavoured to glide into public con- 
 fidence amidst the general good humour ; but the 
 enmity he had excited was implacable. An elabo- 
 
 rate remonstrance was voted against him by the 
 Commons, in which he was declared one of the 
 foulest monsters upon earth, and the session was 
 prorogued under circumstances of reciprocal dissa- 
 tisfaction. 
 
 This was a heavy disappointment to the favourite, 
 but it was not sufficient to subdue the ardour of 
 his temperament: he now sought to retrieve the 
 honour of the country and his own popularity, by 
 another entcrprize in war, and Charles concurred 
 with him in making vigorous preparations for an 
 effective blow. A second expedition against Ro- 
 chelle was determined on: he was again preferred to 
 the chief command, and repaired, high in hopes, to 
 hurry on the equipment of the fleet at Portsmouth. 
 There, however, his mortal career was awfully 
 ai'rested, by a lieutenant in the navy, named Felton *, 
 who stabbed him to the heart in the street. He drew 
 the dagger from his breast, exclaiming " The villain 
 has killed me !" and expired. This event occurred 
 on Saturday, August 28, 1G28, and it was much to 
 the credit of the nation, that though the man had 
 been deservedly unpopular, yet the tragical circum- 
 stances of his death were reviewed with consider- 
 able sympathy. His bowels were interred at Ports- 
 mouth, where an affectionate memorial to his name 
 was erected by his sister, the Countess of Denbigh. 
 His body was brought to London, and, according to 
 some accounts, privately buried in the Abbey. His 
 effigy lay in state at York House, whence it was 
 conveyed to Westminster Abbey, and consigned to 
 a vault under the existing monument. 
 
 Such was the first Villiers, Duke of Bucking- 
 ham, a man of considerable, but not first-rate talent, 
 and of eminent personal pretensions; he had a 
 courteous address, gallant bearmg, high spirit, 
 prompt elocution, extravagant liberality, a reckless 
 courage, passions the most inflammatory, and insa- 
 tiable ambition. He was well fitted to acquii-e and 
 conciliate applause and promotion, but ill gifted to 
 retain them; and though mmutely skilled in the arts 
 
 * John Felton was a zealous Puritan : he had brooded 
 over the " Remonstrance " until he saw nothing in the 
 duke but a man who set the will of Heaven at defiance, and 
 in the height of his religious fervour he conceived himself 
 called upon to rid the earth of one who must be hateful in 
 its sight, and thus to render the most essential of all services 
 to the cause of God and man. He had moreover an heredi- 
 tary predisposition to that morbid train of feeling which 
 fanaticism was well fitted to work upon. 
 
 His grandfather, of the same name, had, in the reign of 
 Elizabeth (1370), atiixed on the palace gates of the Bishop of 
 London the bull of Pius V., by which the queen was de- 
 nounced as a heretic, and for which olfence he was tried and 
 executed. The delusion under which Felton acted was, that 
 he was the chosen instrument to whom the task was con- 
 fided of putting an end to the life of Buckingham, and that 
 in so doing he was executing the will of that Being whose 
 command it would be an inexpiable crime to disobey. It 
 was this conviction that nerved his arm to the stroke, and 
 disarmed the law of its terror. The written paper which was 
 found sewed in his hat, that it might speak for him in the 
 event of his falling an instantaneous victim, is an unequi- 
 vocal record of his feeling :— 
 
 " If I be slain, let no man condemn me, but rather con- 
 demn himself. Our hearts are hardened, and become sense- 
 less, or else he had not gone so long unpunished. He is 
 unworthy the name of a gentleman or soldier in my opinion, 
 that is afraid to sacrifice his life for the honour of God, his 
 king, and country. 
 
 " JOHN FELTON."
 
 MICHAEL DRAYTON. 
 
 MS 
 
 and intriijues by which the fortune of a courtier 
 maybe advanced, he was yet destitute of the strength 
 and prudence necessary to prosper in the cai'eer. 
 The only command in wliich lie ever figured was 
 at the head of the disastrous expedition against the 
 island of Khe'; and if upon that occasion he evinced 
 nuK'h bravery as a soldier, he betrayed utter inca- 
 pacity as a general. As the minion of an unpo- 
 pular crown, severer charges weigh upon his me- 
 mory; for, if not the sole adviser, he was at least a 
 main stay, and most eager favourer, of those 
 arbitrary principles which distracted the court and 
 incensed the people during the latter years of his 
 lifetime; and it can hardly be doubted that the 
 pernicious example of his domineering movements 
 nmst have powerfully tended to eontirm the un- 
 hajipy Charles in the prescription of those measures 
 which ultimately cost him his head. 
 
 The life of Buckingham, however, is not without 
 a few redeeming passages, which it would be unfair 
 to suppress after so full a detail of unfavourable 
 incidents. Thus, when in ll)"2(> he carried the crown 
 plate and jewels to pawn in Holland, he had the 
 generosity to add his own stock to the heap. Upon 
 the same journey he also had the taste to become the 
 purchaser of a cuimous set of Arabic manuscripts, 
 which liad been collected by Erpenius, and were 
 for sale in Antwerp by his widow. The style of this 
 bargain was charactei'istic of the man, for he gave 
 
 for the papers 500/. more than their weight in sil- 
 ver. They were ])resented to the Universitv of Cam- 
 bridge, over w hich, it should have been mentioned in 
 the course of the foregoing pages, that his grace 
 had the honour of presiding as chancellor. He was 
 an extensive collector of scarce coins and masterly 
 pictures, and possessed the finest assortment of both 
 which the country boasted during his lifetime. In 
 this pursuit he naturally became the patron of such 
 men as Hurnforst and Laniere ; and it is pleasant 
 to add, that he treated them with a liberality truly 
 classical. It is even recoi'ded, that not content with 
 rewai-ding them honourably for those works he 
 ordered himself, he occasionally made up the defi- 
 ciencies which the stinginess of King James imposed 
 upon their labours, and would thus part with sums 
 of 500/. and liOOl. Such acts should not be suffered 
 to pass without their commendation; and it is grate- 
 ful to add, that Hurnforst painted a piece, still 
 hanging on the queen's staircase at Hampton Court, 
 in which Buckingham, in the character of Mercury, 
 appears pri'senting the arts and sciences to their 
 majesties, who are introduced seated on a cloud. 
 As a last anecdote, it may be mentioned that he 
 is said to liave been the fii'st person in England 
 who rode in a coach and six, a memorable event 
 in the sumptuary annals of England, dated a.d. 
 
 MDCXIX. 
 
 MICHAEL DRAYTON. 
 
 Close to the door that leads into the Poets' Corner 
 of Westminster Abbey is the monument of this 
 meritorious and once popular poet. It was erected 
 at the expense of Clifford, Countess of Dorset, and 
 consists of a bust wreathed with laurel, having a 
 Minerva's cap to the one side, and a Pegasus on 
 the escutcheon to the other : tlie whole is much 
 damaged. On the marble supporting it is an 
 epitaj)h originally set in gilt chai-acters, and said 
 to have been composed by Ben Jonson, and also 
 by Quarles ; it is worth claiming, being exti'emely 
 well conceived and expressed. 
 
 Michael Draiton, Esq. 
 A memorable poet of this ago. 
 Exchanged his laurell for a crowne of glorye, 
 A° Km. 
 Doe, pious marble ! let thy readers knowe 
 What they and what their children owe 
 To Dkaito.n's name, whose sacred dust * 
 We recommend unto thy tulst : 
 Protect his mem'ry, and preserve his storye, 
 Remaine a lastinge monument of his glorye ; 
 And when thy mines shall disclaime 
 To be the treas'rer of his name, 
 His name, that camiot fade, shall be 
 An everlasting monument to thee. 
 
 But little has been related of the life of Michael 
 Drayton, and even of that the larger portion rests 
 
 • It is observable tbat Ilcylin, who says he was invited to 
 the funeral, atlirins tliat Urayloii was not burieil lierc, but at 
 a spot by the north wall, wbicli was contiguous to a small 
 door leading into one of the prtbendal houses. 
 
 upon no other support than conjecture and hearsay. 
 According to his own account, which stands cor- 
 roborated by Dugdale, he was born during the 
 year 1563, at Hartshill, an humble village of the 
 parish of Atherstone, in Warwickshire. The con- 
 dition of his parents, and the circumstances of his 
 early days, are involved in utter obscurity; and the 
 time, manner, and place of his education are also 
 unknown. It would seem, however, that his talents 
 were by no means neglected, for he boasts of liaving 
 been able to construe Cato Major in his tenth year. 
 It is from his own representation, too, that we 
 become acquainted with the fact of his having been 
 a page in some great family, when a boy ; after 
 which it is supposed that the bounty of Sir Henry 
 Goodere, who subsequently recommende(l him to 
 the patronage of the Countess of Bedford, eiial)le<l 
 him to study at Oxford. Wood, however, does not 
 give him a place in the Fasti, as no record either 
 of his entrance or gradiiatioii existed among the 
 colleges, lleajiing conjecture ujion conjecture, it 
 has been farther observed, that he jirobably bore 
 arms at the defeat of the Sjianish armada off 
 Dover : — that he witnessed the event is likely, for 
 he has described it circumsfiuitially. 
 
 His first rise to rejuitatiiin as an author took 
 j)Iace about ten years before tli(> dose of the reign 
 of Elizabeth, when he; ])id)lislie(l a volume of pas- 
 torals, with a dedication to Sackvillc, Earl of Dor- 
 set, a lit('rary nobleman, in whose family he suli- 
 sequently found an asylum. The reception of this 
 performance encouragei! him to ju'oceed, and he 
 finished in due; course the " Marons' Wars," with 
 notes; " I'jjglaiid's Heroical E[>istles," twenly-four 
 in number; "'{'he Dowiilalls of Robert of Nor-
 
 34 
 
 WESTMINSTER ABBEY, 
 
 niandy," and " Matilda and Gaveston," pieces 
 which were separately addressed to some titled or 
 influential character. It has been stated that he 
 was a principal person entrusted with that cor- 
 respondence between Elizabeth and James of Scot- 
 land, by which the succession to the crown was 
 adjusted: but this can hardly be credited; for had 
 such been the fact, it must have been known to 
 others, and he would as certainly have made it a 
 ground for that reward which he soon after com- 
 plained of never receiving. He was, however, one 
 of the first to welcome the new king to England, 
 in his " Congi-atulatory Poem to King James," &c. 
 London, 4to, 1603, a tribute which obtained nei- 
 ther notice nor profit, and gave the author so 
 much uneasiness that he made a public declaration 
 of having been treated with indignity, and not only 
 avoided the court, but even abstained awhile from 
 writing at all. When he did recover his temper, 
 he signalized his resentment by expunging from the 
 large edition of his poems some sonnets in praise 
 of James, which had already appeared in print. 
 
 In 1613 came out the first part of his " Poly- 
 Olbion," a singularly original work, which had the 
 equally rare fortune of pleasing both the poets and 
 the antiquaries, among whom Selden honoured it 
 with a commentary. The title is compounded of 
 the Greek words ttoXvq and oA/Sog, much and hap- 
 piness ; and the contents embrace a cliorographi- 
 cal desci'iption of England — rivers, mountains, 
 forests, antiquities, commodities, &c. &c. In con- 
 sequence of the sudden death of Prince Henry, to 
 whom it was dedicated, the publication had been 
 awhile deferred, and was only effected at last by 
 the liberality of Sir William Aston, who advanced 
 money to defray the printer's costs. It is written 
 in Alexandrine verse, and though from its very 
 nature dry and unattractive, is by no means desti- 
 tute of poetical beauties. The correctness with 
 which the varied matters it included are described 
 has been a theme of general connnendation. 
 
 In 1619 the first volume of his poems, in folio, 
 was printed, and in 1622 a second edition of the 
 " Poly-Olbion " came out, with a second part dedi- 
 cated to Prince Charles, which completed the de- 
 sign, in three books or songs. Four years after- 
 wards a poem appeared, in which he is styled poet 
 laureate, a complimentary description commonly 
 given at that period to popular writers, but no 
 evidence whatever that the place was ever con- 
 ferred on him. In 1627 the second volume of 
 his poems made its appearance, in folio, of which 
 the contents were, " The Battle of Agincourt," the 
 " Miseries of Queen Margaret," the " Nymphidia, 
 or Court of the Fairies," which has been ranked 
 by his contemporaries as a master-piece of the gro- 
 tesque ; the " Conquest of Cynthia," the " Shep- 
 herd's Sirena," and the " Moon Calf," a satire upon 
 the affectation of women, and the effeminate dis- 
 guises of men. Of these pieces it is to be remarked, 
 that Dryden inserted two, the Nymphidia, and 
 Conquest of CjTithia, in his miscellany. To these 
 succeeded his "Elegies" on sundry subjects; they 
 were twelve in number, and were prefaced by the 
 " Vision of Ben Jonson on the Muses of his friend, 
 Michael Drayton, Esq." He produced a third 
 volume of poems, which was published in 4to during 
 
 the year 1636, and with this eff'ort his labours ter- 
 minated, for death cut short his career in 1631. 
 
 Drayton has found a place in the Biographia 
 Dramatica as the author of the " Merry Devil," a 
 comedy which obtained considerable success at the 
 period of its representation ; but it appears by no 
 means certain that the play was his : it has also 
 been ascribed to Shakspeare. A selection of liis 
 poems was published in folio during the year 1748, 
 and a complete edition of his works, in 4 vols. 8vo, 
 followed in 1753. He has been characterized as 
 one oftener quoted than read; and the observation 
 may certainly be true; but he is more readable 
 than several who immediately succeeded him. The 
 race of standard poets, according to Dr. Johnson, 
 commenced with Cowley; but Drayton and Carew, 
 particularly the latter, wrote with a taste and 
 evenness which deserve more populai'ity than theii* 
 merits have received. Drayton was an unaff'ected 
 poet, possessing much feeling, and great fertility. 
 The eff'ect of which many of his subjects were sus- 
 ceptible, and the powers he apfjlied to them, are 
 certainly disproportionate. His stories are not 
 only rude and desultory, but devoid of character, 
 situation, and those illustrations of the passions by 
 which interest is mainly to be excited, and a moral 
 produced. They are not, however, without pas- 
 sages which confirm the reputation he enjoyed 
 among his contemporaries. The following stanzas 
 from the Third Canto of the " Bai'ons' Wars " will 
 afford the reader some idea of his style — its merits 
 and its faults : — 
 
 " 'O Mortimer, sweet Mortimer,' quoth she, 
 
 ' What angry power did first the means devise 
 To separate queen Isabel and thee, 
 
 Whom to despite Love yet together ties? 
 But if thou tliink'st the fault was made by me, 
 For a just penance to my longing eyes, 
 Though guiltless they, this be to them assign'd. 
 To gaze upon thee till they leave me blind. 
 
 " ' My dear, dear heart, thought I to leave thee thus, 
 When first in court thou didst my favour wear ; 
 When we have watch'd lest any noted us. 
 
 Whilst our looks used Love's messages to bear. 
 And we by signs sent many a secret buss ; 
 An exile then thought I to see thee here? 
 
 But what couldst thou be then, but now thou art? 
 Though banish'd England, yet not from my heart." 
 
 And so on, patiently rather than passionately, in 
 seven stanzas more. 
 
 The following from his Sonnets, which he called 
 Ideas, is better : — 
 
 " Dear, why should you command me to my rest 
 When now the night doth summon all to sleep? 
 Methinks tliis time becometh lovers best ; 
 
 Night was ordain'd together friends to keep. 
 How happy are all other living things, 
 
 Which, though the day disjoin by several flight. 
 The quiet evening yet together brings. 
 
 And each returns unto his love at night ! 
 O thou, that art so courteous else to all. 
 
 Why shouldst thou. Night, abuse me only thus. 
 That every creature to his kind doth call, 
 And yet 'tis thou dost only sever us? 
 Well could I wish it would be ever day, 
 If when night comes, you bid me go away."
 
 BEN JONSON. 
 
 35 
 
 BEN JONSON. 
 
 " RARE Ben Jonson !" are the only words, under 
 a bust, which is neatly chiselled in relief on a tablet, 
 and emblematically ornamented, in the Poets' Cor- 
 ner of Westminster Abbey. The inscription was 
 borrowed from the flag-stone over his grave, 
 which is in the north aisle of the nave, and "was 
 doune," according to Aubrey, "at tlie chardge 
 of Jack Young, afterwards knighted, who, walking 
 here when the grave was covering, gave the fellow 
 eighteen pence to cut it." Another story states that 
 Davenant suggested the words. The tablet itself was 
 erected about a century after tlie poet's death, from 
 a design by Gibbs the architect. The commemo- 
 ration is as quaint as it is brief ; and all the parti- 
 culars that are preserved respecting the life of its 
 subject correspond in meagreness and uncertainty. 
 The son of a clergyman, who was descended from 
 a Scotch family, and forfeited an estate during the 
 severe and cliangeful reign of Queen Mary, he was 
 born at Westminster, July 11, 1574, and there 
 educated, at the public school, under Camden the 
 antiquai\v. The father died before the son was 
 born, and the widow entered into a second marriage 
 with a bricklayer, who took the future dramatist 
 from Westminster school, and employed him in 
 masonry. Young Ben, however, was by this time 
 sufficiently instructed in the classics to study by 
 himself ; and there is an anecdote related, which 
 describes him labouring at the building of Lincoln's 
 Inn, with a trowel in one hand, and an edition of 
 Horace in the other. Camden too, it is conjectured, 
 had noticed his talents, and now pitying his degra- 
 dation, encouraged him with promises, until he was 
 able to procure him the office of tutor to Sir Walter 
 Raleigh's son, with whom he afterwards travelled 
 on the Continent. 
 
 How long he fulfilled this trust, or remained 
 absent from England, is unknown. It appears, 
 however, that he enlisted while abroad, and ac- 
 quired some distinction in arms, having killed one 
 of the enemy in single combat; a feat of which he 
 was not a little vain. Upon his return he became a 
 student at St. John's College, Camlu'idgc. Here 
 infonnation again fails the Ijiogi-apher, and no one 
 can state the time he continued at the university, 
 or the cause and circumstances under which he 
 left it. It seems, nevertheless, that he next bent 
 his course to London, and resorting to the stage for 
 a means of living, became a member of the com- 
 pany performing at the Curtain, in Shorcditch. 
 His first essays in dramatic composition are sup- 
 posed to have been concurrent with this attempt 
 at acting; and it is reported that he failed at the 
 onset in both aspirations. To complete his misfor- 
 tunes, he fell into a brawl, which ended in a duel, 
 in whicli he killed his adversary, and was thrown 
 into prison on a charge of murder. Of the means 
 by wiiich he was restored to liberty no account has 
 been given. It is only said, with res])(,'ct to this 
 passage of his lifi", that he was liberated without 
 trial, and l)ccam(! a convert to the church of Rome 
 while he was in jail, and steadily conformed to that 
 communion during a scries of twelve succeeding 
 years. This was not the only occasion on whicli 
 he was the inmate of a prison. Soon after the 
 
 accession of James I. he wrote, in conjunction with 
 Chapman and Marston, the comedy of " Eastward 
 Hoe," in which were some reflections upon the 
 Scotch, which being reported to the king, the 
 authors wei-e ordered to jail, and told that their 
 noses should be slit and their ears cropped. Jon- 
 son, it seems, had but little to do with this piece, 
 but insisted as a point of honour in accompanying 
 his brother poets to confinement. This was spirited 
 conduct. They were liberated without trial, and 
 Jonson celebrated the event by a feast, at which 
 Selden and Camden were present. 
 
 A tradition has always existed in the history of 
 the drama, that Jonson stood indebted for the suc- 
 cess of his eai'liest plays to suggestions and emen- 
 dations with which he was favoured by Shakspeare; 
 and thus to keep the story of his life connected, it 
 has been thought probable, that he resorted back 
 to the theatres, as soon as he was discharged from 
 durance, became intimate with Shakspeare, and 
 thenceforward a I'egular writer for the stage. There 
 is a current traditiou that he and Shakspeare were 
 on intimate terms, and often boon companions. 
 " Many were the wit combats," says Fuller in his 
 Worthies, " betwixt Shakspeare and Ben Jonson, 
 which two I behold like a Spanish great galleon 
 and an English man-of-war : Master Jonson, like 
 the former, was built far higher in learning ; 
 solid, but slow in his performances. Shakspeare 
 was the English man-of-war, lesser in bulk but 
 lighter in sailing, could turn with all tides, tack 
 about and take advantage of all winds, by the 
 quickness of his wit and invention." This seems 
 probable enough, although it is impossible to af- 
 firm how far it may all be true. The date of his 
 first play is fixed, by the suggestion of the critics, 
 in 1 598, when he could only have been in his twenty- 
 fourth year. He was then married ; and Shak- 
 speare played a part in it. If, however, a computa- 
 tion be made of the time which must have been 
 consumed in the fulfilment of those events which 
 have already been stated, this term will appear 
 somewhat precocious, and be still more doubted 
 wheji it is recollected that this first play was 
 " Every Man in his Humour," a comedy of power- 
 ful merits, not likely to be the production of imma- 
 ture youth. Leaving the story as we find it, the 
 dates given in the editions of his works show that 
 from this period he was a constant labourer, who 
 suffered scarcely a year to jiass without bringing 
 forward something new. In 159f) appeared "Evei'y 
 Man out of his Humour," a failure. In l(i()3, 
 trying " if tragedy had a more kind aspect," he 
 produced "Sejanus:" his three great comedies, 
 " Volpone, or the Fox ;" " Epicene, or, tlie Silent 
 Woman ;" and the " Alchemist" followed in succes- 
 sion ; and "Catiline," his second classical tragedy, ad- 
 vanced his fame to its highest point in Kill. II', tli<>n, 
 we add here, that he a|)pe:irs to have been one of the 
 pateiiteesof the (hike's tlii'atre, we shall havetouched 
 ujion the chief incidents of his dramatic career. 
 
 In HJIIJ he visited France again as tutor to Sir 
 Walter Raleigh's son. How long he 8t()])ped there 
 is unknown. In KilQ he journeyed afoot to Scot- 
 land, and spent three weeks with the ]iiH;t Druin- 
 
 d2
 
 36 
 
 WESTMINSTER ABBEY. 
 
 inond, of Hawthornden, whose notes of his con- 
 versation, edited by Mr. Laing for the Shakspeare 
 Society, supplies a fund of anecdote and illustra- 
 tion *. After an interval of six years, he is found 
 
 * We give from this very pleasant volume the following 
 particulars " of his owne lyfe, education, birth, actions:" — 
 
 " His Grandfather came from Carlisle, and he thoufiht, 
 from Anandale to it: he served King Henry VIII,, and was 
 a gentleman. His Father losed all his estate under Queen 
 Marie, having been cast in prisson and forfaitted ; at last 
 turn'd Minister : so he was a minister's son. He himself 
 was posthumous born, a moneth after his father's decease; 
 brouglit up poorly, putt to school by a friend (his master 
 Cambden) ; after taken from it, and put to ane other 
 craft (/ tliink was to be a wright or bricklayer), which he 
 could not endure ; then went he to the Low Countries ; but 
 returning soone he betook himself to his wonted studies. In 
 his service in the Low Countries, he had, in the face of 
 both the canipes, killed ane enemie, and taken opima spolia 
 from him ; and since his comming to England, being ap- 
 pealed to the fields, he had killed his adversarie, which 
 [who] had hurt him in the arme, and whose sword was 10 
 inches longer than his ; for the which he was imprisoned, 
 and almost at the gallowes. Then took he his religion by 
 trust, of a priest who visited him in prisson. Thereafter he 
 was 12 yeares a Papist. 
 
 " He was Master of Arts in both the Universities, by their 
 favour, not his studie. 
 
 " He maried a wyfe who was a shrew, yet honest: 5 yeers 
 he had not bedded with her, but remayned with my Lord 
 Aulbanie 
 
 " In the tyme of his close imprisonment, under Queen 
 Elizabeth, his judges could get nothing of him to all their 
 demands but 1 and No. They placed two damn'd villains to 
 catch advantage of him, with him, but he was advertised by 
 his keeper : of the Spies he hath ane epigrame. 
 
 " When the King came in England at that tyme, the pest 
 was in London, he being in the country at Sir Robert Cot- 
 ton's house with old Cambden, he saw in a vision his eldest 
 sone, then a child and at London, appear unto him with the 
 mark of a bloodie crosse on his forehead, as if it had been 
 cutted with a suord, at which amazed he prayed unto God, 
 and in the morning he came to Mr. Cambden's chamber to 
 tell him ; who persuaded him it was but ane apprehension 
 of his fantasie, at which he soiild not be disjected ; in the 
 mean tyme comes there letters from his wife of the death of 
 that boy in the plague. He appeared to hirn (he said) of a 
 manlie shape, and of that grouth that he thinks he shall be 
 at the resurrection. 
 
 " He was dilated by Sir James Murray to the King, for 
 writing something against the Scots, in a play Eastward 
 Hoe, and voluntarly imprissonned with Chapman and 
 Marston, who had written it amongst them. The report was, 
 that they should then [have] had their ears cut and noses. 
 After their delivery, he banqueted all his friends ; there was 
 Camden, Selden, and others ; at the midst of the feast his 
 old Mother dranke to him, and shew him a paper which she 
 had (if the sentence had taken execution) to have mixed in 
 the prisson among bis drinke, which was full of lustie strong 
 poison, and that she was no churle, she told, she minded 
 first to have drunk of it herself. 
 
 " He had many quarrells with Marston, beat him, and 
 took his pistol from him, wrote his Poetaster on him ; the 
 beginning of them were, that Marston represented him in 
 the stage, in his youth given to venerie. 
 
 " S. W. Raulighe sent him governour with his Son, anno 
 IG13, to France. This youth being knavishly inclyned, 
 among other pastimes, caused him to be drunken, and dead 
 drunk, so that he knew not wher he was, therafter laid him 
 on a carr, which he made to be drawen by pioners through 
 the streets, at every corner showing his governour streetched 
 out, and telling them, that was a more lively image of the 
 Crucifix then any they had ; at which sport young Raughlie's 
 mother delyghted much (saying, his father young was so 
 inclined), though the father abhorred it. 
 
 residing at Christ's Church College, Oxford, where 
 he was ci'eated M.A. at a full convocation in the 
 month of July. In the October following he was 
 preferred to the rank of Poet Laureate. It is 
 observable that the pension attached to the Laurel 
 at this period was a hundred marks a-year, which 
 was increased to a hundred pounds, and a tierce of 
 Spanish wine, upon the petition of Jonson, in IG30. 
 This augmentation of fortune availed little to his 
 comfort or respectability; like other poets he was 
 improvident, and was soon after discovered lodging 
 in an obscure alley, and so sick and poor, that a 
 representation was made in his behalf to Charles I. 
 The king sent him ten guineas, a frugal donation, 
 which so fired the wrath of the ancient dramatist, 
 that he turned to the messenger and said, " His 
 Majesty has sent me ten guineas because I am poor 
 and live in an alley; but you may go and tell him 
 that his soul lives in an alley." This answer by 
 itself would ai-gue ill for the liberality of Charles; it 
 should not therefore be concealed that there is an 
 epigram in Jonsou's works, which was written as 
 an acknowledgment for 100^., presented to him by 
 the same king on another occasion. Nor should we 
 forget that as writer for the court, Jonson enjoyed 
 a degree of patronage and distinction of which lite- 
 rary men are not unnaturally vain, but which are not 
 always bestowed with as just a regard to merit as 
 happened in his case. The office moreover appears 
 to have been fairly remunerative. Numei-ous masques 
 were requii'ed for the entertainmentof the court, and 
 we learn from the Pell Records that at the Christ- 
 mas festivities of 1610 he received 40Z. for the 
 queen's masque. 
 
 Such are the scattered particulars on record re- 
 specting this fertile and accomplished writer : it 
 only remains, therefore, to tell that lie died of the 
 palsy, August 16, IG37, and was buried in the 
 Abbey. He collected and printed a part of his 
 works in one volume folio, during the year I6I6, 
 
 " He can set horoscopes, but trusts not in them. He with 
 the consent of a friend cousened a lady, with whom he had 
 made ane appointment to meet ane old Astrologer, in the 
 suburbs, which she keeped ; and it was himself disguysed in 
 a longe gowne and a whyte beard at the light of dimm burn- 
 ing candles, up in a little cabinet reached unto by a ledder. 
 
 " Every first day of the new year he had 201b. sent him 
 from the Earl of Pembrok to buy bookes. 
 
 " After he was reconciled with the Church, and left of to 
 be a recusant, at his first communion, in token of reconcilia- 
 tion, he drank out all the full cup of wyne. 
 
 " Being at the end of my Lord Salisburie's table with 
 Inigo Jones, and demanded by my Lord, Why he was not 
 glad? My lord, said he, yow promised I should dine with 
 yow, hot I doe not, for he had none of his meate; he 
 esteemed only that his meate which was of his own dish. 
 
 " He heth consumed a whole night in lying looking to his 
 great toe, about which he hath seen Tartars and Turks, 
 Romans and Carthaginians, feight in his imagination. 
 
 " Northampton was his mortal! enimie for beating, on a 
 St. George's day, one of his attenders : He was called before 
 the Councell for his Sejanus, and accused both of poperie 
 and treason by him. 
 
 " Sundry tymes he hath devoured his bookes, i. [e.] sold 
 them all for necessity. 
 
 " He heth a minde to be a churchman, and so he might 
 have favour to make one sermon to the King, he careth not 
 what therafter sould befall him : for he would not flatter 
 though he saw Death. 
 
 " At his hither comming, S' Francis Bacon said to him, 
 He loved not to sie Poesy goe on other feet than poeticall 
 Dactylus and Spondaeus."
 
 BEN JONSON. 
 
 37 
 
 and added to them a second volume, which was 
 also published in tolio during the year 1631. The 
 first complete edition of his works issued from the 
 press in foHo, in 1640; a later and better was given 
 by Gifford, in 8vo, in 1820; and a more comjiact 
 and better one in 8vo, l\v Barry Cornwall, in 1838. 
 As the fame of Ben Jonson rests mainly, though 
 not most properly, upon his dramatic pieces, we 
 shall here specify them brieHy. They amount to 
 no less than fifty-three, of which three-and-thirty 
 are masques, written for and represented before the 
 royal fiimily, or high nobility, and not nmch entitled 
 by their interest or quality to particular descrip- 
 tion. His i-egular dramas consist of " Evci-y Man 
 in his Humour," a comedy the most dui'ably po- 
 pular of all he produced, first acted in 1598, and 
 first printed in IGOl. " Every Man out of his 
 Humour, a comical satire," followed, and was first 
 acted in lo'J'J, and first printed in ItiOO. This per- 
 formance he also styled " A Play of Characters," and 
 made remarkable by so far adapting it to the 
 Grecian model, as to keep throughout the succes- 
 sion of the scenes a body of interlocutors constantly 
 on the stage, who commented on the plot as it pi'o- 
 ceeded. " Cynthia's Revels, a comical satire," was 
 performed in 1600, before Elizabeth, who was 
 typified in the principal personage. " Poetaster, 
 or His Arraignment, a comical satire," acted in 
 1601, and printed in 1602, was composed to ridicule 
 his brother dramatists, who avenged themselves so 
 sharidy that he lost his temper, and abstained from 
 writing for two years, during which, according to 
 the memorandum of a cotemporary, he lived ujKin 
 one Townshend, and scorned the world. "Sejanus" 
 is a tragedy classical and imposmg in a high 
 degree, but was not much favoured by the public at 
 the moment of its first representation in 1 603, or at 
 any subsequent period. " Volpone, or the Fox," a 
 comedy highly finished in language and characters, 
 and esteemed one of the best of his pieces, was 
 first acted in 1 605. " Epicene, or the Silent Woman," 
 a capital comedy, acted in 160!), stands highly com- 
 mended by Dryden for a preservation of the Gi-ecian 
 unities. " The Case Altei-ed," a comedy, appeared 
 at the same date, but presents uo distinctive merit, 
 and by some has been pronounced supposititious. 
 " The Alchymist," first played in 1610, is a comedy 
 universally read and admired. " Catiline his Con- 
 spiracy," dated in 1611, is a tragedy of great 
 strength, but infinite declamation. " Bartholomew 
 Fair," a comedy, acted in 1614, is remai'kable for 
 a great fund of humour, and a host of characters. 
 " The Devil is an Ass," a comedy, was acted in 
 1616, but not printed until 1640. "The Staple of 
 News," another comedy, was acted in 1625, and 
 printed in 1631; it is chii'tly remarkalde for the 
 introduction of such a body of interlocutors as is 
 mentioned in " Every Man out of his Humour." 
 The " New Inn," an unsuccessfid comedy, was 
 played in 1621), and jjrinted in 1631. " The Alag- 
 netick Lady, or Humours Reconciled," a comedy 
 of disputed merit, has no date assigned to it for 
 the period of its first representation. The latter ob- 
 servation also ap])lies to the " Tale of a Tub," a 
 comedy, wliicli is re|)l(,te with low humour. To 
 this list are to b<; added, " Tin; .Sad Shepherd, (jr 
 a Tale of i{<,Wm Hood," and "Mortimer's Fall;" 
 the first a i)astoral, and the second a tragedy, Ijotli 
 left unfinished at the moment of his deatii. His 
 name ulst) appears, in conjunction with Chapman and 
 
 Marston, to " Eastward Hoe," a comedy dated 1605 ; 
 and again, with Fletcher and Middleton, to the 
 " Widow," a comedy, printed in Dodsley's collec- 
 tion. 
 
 Ben Jonson was the first of our dramatic poets 
 who was eminent as a classical scholar, and he 
 turned his leainiiug to no light account in trans- 
 lating whole passages from the Latin authors into 
 his scenes. In this respect he made by no means 
 the highest use of his attainments ; but he was also 
 the first amongst us who composed his plays accord- 
 ing to the rules of poetical art; and upon this point 
 his merits are eminent. His plots, particularly in 
 comedy, have been pronounced for the most part 
 original, and his powers collectively were certainly- 
 great. They ai'e, however, most studiously' laboured : 
 he consults the judgment more than he moves the 
 heart, and has been read with pleasure, but acted 
 without excitement. Solemn, erudite, and equally 
 sustained, never sinking below, nor rising above, a 
 standard par of coi-rectness, with few graces, and 
 fewer passions, the stronger charm of his art seems 
 to consist in a surprising combination of characters, 
 all richly invented and clearly distinguished, with 
 an inexhaustible fund of humour ; and its more 
 prominent faults a cold expression, stift' agency, 
 and feeble catastrophe. It has been olijected to 
 him that he wants wit, a charge from which Dry- 
 den desired to rescue him by observing that he pos- 
 sessed it fully, and was only frugal in his use of it. 
 The same poet also remarks, tliough not in these 
 very words, that he managed his own strength 
 better than anj' of his predecessors, and might have 
 made higher fiiglits had he not felt he came after 
 those who had risen so nobly. According to Sir 
 Richard Steele's estimate, his penetration was accu- 
 rate and deep; and the skill with which he dis- 
 cerned and drew forth follies was extensive and 
 admirable. His works are ranked with those of 
 Shakspeare, and Beaumont and Fletcher; but they 
 hold the third place on the roll. 
 
 Of Jonson's private life many anecdotes are told, 
 by which we gather that he was rough in his man- 
 ners, and of a sullen temperament, bitterly jealous 
 of success, haughtily impatient of rivalry, somewhat 
 tainted with ingratitude, and very fond of taverns, 
 in which he spent most of his time and all his 
 money. We are fold by some writers that he 
 always disputed Shakspeare's claim to snj)eriority 
 with rude and vehement jicrtinacity, and decried 
 his style. This jealousy, if he owed Shakspeare the 
 obligations previously mentioned, was ungenerous, 
 but not altogether surprising; a learned genius can 
 never be su])posed to witness the strong trinm]ih of 
 a less instructed nature witliout a grudge. Still his 
 animosity was not dea<lly, for he wrote a poem to 
 Shakspeare's memory, which did no mean credit 
 both to his sid)ject and to himself. There is more- 
 over great kindliness of nature, and a noble spirit, 
 in the following lines on his great rival's grave : — 
 
 " My Slmkspeare, rise! I will not lodf^e thee by 
 t'liaiiccr or Spenser, or bid Heauniont lie 
 A little I'urtber oil', to make tliee room : 
 I'liou art a monument without a tomb, 
 And art alive still while thy book doth live, 
 And we have wits to read and praise to give." 
 
 He has also been censured for satiri/.ing Inigo Jones, 
 an artist of superior talent, who aided his reputa- 
 tion, in no mean d(^gre(!, by the maciiines and .sc(>nt ry 
 
 2404 r;4
 
 38 
 
 WESTMINSTER ABBEY. 
 
 devised for his court masques: unfortunately the sin 
 of this libel is extenuated by no atonement. 
 
 But the most extraordinary trait in Jonson's 
 literary character is excessive vanity, and a reck- 
 less spirit of resentment for any disfavour shown to 
 his productions. One instance of this pecuHarity 
 will suffice to convey an idea of its extravagance. 
 His comedy of the " New Inn, or the Light Heart," 
 rather failing of the success to which he fancied it 
 was entitled, he issued it forth from the press with 
 the followmg title : — " The New Inn, or the Light 
 Heart, a comedy, as it was never acted, but most 
 negligently played by some, the King's Servants, 
 and more squeamishly beheld and censm-ed by 
 others, the King's Subjects, 1629. Now at last set 
 at liberty to the Readers, his Majesty's Servants 
 and Subjects, to be judged of." But not even the 
 sharpness of this censure could satisfy the indigna- 
 tion of our opinionated hero. Rare Ben. He sub- 
 joined an ode addressed to himself, in which the 
 public taste was openly reprobated in stanzas 
 coarse and bold as these : — 
 
 " Come, leave the loathed stage, 
 And the more loathsome age ; 
 Where pride and impudence (in faction knit) 
 
 Usurp the chair of wit ! 
 Indicting and arraigning every day, 
 Something they call a play. 
 Let their fastidious, vain 
 Commission of the brain 
 Run on, and rage, sweat, censure, and condemn : 
 They were not made for thee, less thou for them. 
 
 Say that thou pourst them wheat, 
 
 And they will acorns eat ; 
 'Twere simple fury, still, thyself to waste. 
 
 On such as have no taste ! 
 To offer them a surfeit of pure bread. 
 Whose appetites are dead I 
 
 No, give them grains their fill. 
 
 Husks, dross, to drink and swill. 
 If they love lees and leave the lusty wine. 
 Envy them not, their palate 's with the swine 
 
 No doubt, some mouldy tale 
 
 Like Pericles ; and stale 
 As the Shrieve's crusts, and nasty as his fish — 
 
 Scraps, out of every dish 
 Thrown forth, and rak'd into the common tub, 
 May keep up the play club ; 
 
 There sweepings do as well 
 
 As the best ordered meal : 
 For who the relish of these guests will fit. 
 Needs set them but the alms-basket of wit. 
 
 And much good do 't ye then : 
 
 Brave plush and velvet men 
 Can feed on orts : and safe in your stage-clothes. 
 
 Dare quit upon your oaths. 
 The stagers, and the stage-wrights too (your peers) 
 Of lauding in your ears 
 
 With their foul comic socks, 
 
 AVrought upon twenty blocks ; 
 Which, if they're torn and turn'd, and patch'd enough. 
 The gamesters share their guilt, and you their stuff. 
 
 Leave things so prostitute, 
 
 And take th' Alcaic lute ; 
 Or thine own Horace, or .\nacreon's IjTe ; 
 
 Warm thee by Pindar's fire : 
 And though thy nerves be shrunk and blood be cold, 
 Ere years have made thee old. 
 
 Strike that disdainful heat 
 
 Throughout, to their defeat : 
 And curious fools, all envious of thy strain, 
 May blushing, swear, no palsy 's in thy brain," &c. &c. 
 
 Having given this specimen of his miscellaneous 
 poetry, rather as an illustration of personal cha- 
 racter than otherwise, it is but just to add, that 
 they who judge of Jonson's poetical capabilities 
 by his plays only, form a very imperfect concep- 
 tion of his merits. There is in his songs and minor 
 pieces a manly beauty, a vigorous imaginativeness, 
 and a classical grace, which it would be difficult 
 to match in the whole range of English litera- 
 ture. 
 
 DEVEREUX, EARL OF ESSEX. 
 
 Robert Devereux, Earl of Essex, and the first 
 general of the parliamentary forces, during the 
 civil war, was born in London, during the year 
 1502. His father was the rash but generous Earl 
 of the same title, who lost his head under the reign 
 of the inexoi'able Elizabeth, and his mother was 
 the widow of the accomplished Sir Philip Sydney. 
 In 1603 an act of gi-aceful conciliation on the part of 
 James I. reversed the attainder, and restored the 
 estates of young Devereux, who was so precocious 
 a scholar as to be admitted into Merton College, 
 Cambridge, where he studied under Archbishop 
 Whitfield, when only in his tenth year. The better 
 to evince the new monarch's feeling for all those 
 offenders against the severe policy of his predeces- 
 sor, whose fates wei'e generally thought to have been 
 precipitated by a partiality for his unhappy mother, 
 a match between Essex and the Lady Elizabeth 
 Howard, daughter of the Earl of Suffolk, was soon 
 after proposed by the Earl of Salisbury ; and the 
 parties were actually contracted when the bride 
 was no more than thirteen, and the bridegroom 
 
 fourteen years old. Cohabitation at such an age 
 being out of the question, the immature husband 
 was sent to travel on the continent, where he 
 remained for four years, and then returned to 
 assume a character which he never after held with 
 satisfaction or decency. 
 
 Of the events which now took place, it cannot be 
 necessary to speak at any length: they foiuided one 
 of the most curious incidents of domestic tragedy 
 which diversify the pages of our history, and as 
 such must be generally known. It may be enough, 
 therefore, to repeat that Essex found his wife full 
 of beauty, passion, and aversion for his person. At 
 first she refused to live with him; being constrain- 
 ed, however, by her relations to accompany liim 
 into the country, she rejected his embraces, though 
 forced to share his bed. For some time the husband 
 continued all vain solicitation, and the wife all 
 rigid obstinacy, until Essex became disgusted. Yet 
 he had no socnier abandoned his suit, than it was 
 discovered that her heart was prepossessed with an 
 affection for Carr, Earl of Somerset, the minion of
 
 DEVEREUX, EARL OF ESSEX. 
 
 3!) 
 
 James. A criminal intercourse between the lovers 
 succeeded; and ere long all iiarties, weary with 
 shame, concurred in desiring a divorce. 
 
 The proceedings by which this alternative was 
 obtained were strange and disgraceful. The alleged 
 ground for the measure was impotency; and Essex 
 admitted, that he felt such an infirmity when with 
 the countess, though not wlien with any other 
 woman. To remedy the defects of this equivoca- 
 tion, evidence of fascination and sorcery was ad- 
 duced; and finally, a young girl, with her features 
 veiled, was submitted before a jury of matrons, 
 who returned a verdict of virginity. Thus far the 
 ci-edulity of the age respecting witchcraft effected 
 something; the intluence of the court .supplied the 
 rest; a sentence of divorce was passed, and the 
 guilty lovers were married under the special jia- 
 tronage of the monarch. The reader will not fail 
 to remember the full measure of crime that attend- 
 ed tliis alliance: Carr enjoyed the friendship of Sir 
 Thomas Overbury, a man of high character and 
 learning, who had remonstrated against the infatny 
 of such a step from the beginning. The natvu-e of 
 this counsel Carr was so weak as to conmiunicate 
 to the countess. She, fired with indignation and 
 revenge, goaded him on to importune the king with 
 misrepresentations of Overbury's public conduct, 
 until at last the honest friend was committed to the 
 Tower. This stratagem ensured his neutrality while 
 the divorce was pending, but even after that point 
 had been gained, the countess remained still unap- 
 peased. While Overbury lived, she could not rest, 
 and when a woman is thus vindictive, what horrors 
 may not be feared ? Overbury was poisoned ; but 
 nearly two years passed away before the murder 
 was detected and punished. Somerset, his wife, 
 and four othei's, were then tried and convicted; the 
 meaner culprits were executed, but the partiality 
 of the king spared the lives of the great offenders. 
 They dragged on an existence of remorse and 
 obscurity, and if the common report of history be 
 correct, their days entailed no ordinary retribution. 
 The love that had made them guilty corroded into 
 a deadly liatred, and they spent years under the 
 same roof without sharing a familiarity, or e.\- 
 chanijing a word. 
 
 l'"rom the scandalous notoritjty of these unhappy 
 incidents Essex retreated into the country, and 
 passed some years in the amusements of i-ural life. 
 Finding tli(! inactivity of such habits uncongenial 
 to his spirit, ho afterwards went into Holland, 
 which was at that time the first seat of European 
 arms; and upon the e<inipment of an expedition 
 into the Palatinate, in 1()2(), formed a junction with 
 the Earl of Southampton, Lord Willoughby, and 
 the Earl of Oxford, and took tlie connnand of a 
 regiment. From an midertaking producing no suc- 
 cess, there are seldom laurels to be won : the 
 English troops were discomfited, and Essex with- 
 drew to the United Provinces, where he led a 
 regiment with some repute in 1()24. 
 
 The accession of Charles L was distinguished by 
 a sudden descent upon Cadiz, under the joint direc- 
 tion of Viscount Wimbledon and Essex. This was 
 anotlier disastrous affair : the fleet had scarcely put 
 to sea ere it was lieavily damaged ))y a storm ; and, 
 although upon reaching its destination, the admi- 
 rals succeeded in firing some ships, and eapttiriiig 
 a fort, yet the uhmi plundered and drank wine to 
 an excess which brouglit on a pestilence, and wholly 
 
 unnerved them for duty. To escape tlie butchery 
 which must ensue if the enemy sallied forth np<in 
 an army in this condition, Wimbledon set sail 
 again, and proposed to intercept the Plate-fleet 
 upon its return from the Indies. But in this 
 achievement he was also disappointed: the pesti- 
 lence under which the troops already suffered 
 raged into a plague, and he was forced to ply a 
 passage home to England with precipitate dispatch, 
 and scarcely hands enough to man the ships. 
 
 The expedition had no sooner returned than a 
 violent outcry was raised amongst the people, and 
 the conduct of the commanders, and of Wimbledon 
 in particular, was severely stigmatized. Essex could 
 have suffered little.from disfavour, for he was sent 
 into Holland, and there acquired considerable ap- 
 plause for gallantry, resolution, and skill. Re- 
 visiting England, he entered into a second mar- 
 riage with Elizabeth, daughter of Sir W illiam 
 Paulet, of Wiltshire ; but soon found his second 
 matrimonial choice as unpropitious as the first had 
 been. The lady formed a criminal intercourse with 
 a Mr. Udal, and was repudiated by divorce. One 
 child, a son named Robert, was the fruit of this 
 man-iage; he died in 163ti. Essex once more hid 
 his head awhile in retirement; but soon after chas- 
 ing away all uxorious passion, he also suppressed 
 the chagrin which its mortifications had occasioned, 
 and devoted his thoughts to public aft'airs with an 
 undivided energy that at last procured distinction 
 for his name. 
 
 The qualities which seem to have recommended 
 Essex to political fortune in the conflicting scenes 
 that now began to be acted, were prudence and 
 integrity; for his talents were none of the quickest, 
 or most shining. Though by no means destitute of 
 l)ersonal ambition, and ever excited by a strong 
 thirst for popularity, his views were patriotic and 
 his inteutions good : thus, to whichever side he 
 appeared to lean, he was always the friend of mo- 
 deration and a constitutional government. In 1(>39 
 he was nommated lieutenant-general of the army 
 that marched against the rebellious Scots, and took 
 possession of Berwick; but had no share in the 
 pacification that followed — a display of impartiality 
 which, to all appearances, advanced him no degree 
 in the confidence of his perplexed sovereign, as 
 he was for some time after neglected. Li 1641 
 popular measures were deemed to be for the in- 
 terest of the court, and Essex was made lord cham- 
 berlain. No ordinary opinion of his merits could 
 have been entertained at this period, for the two 
 great contending parties wore e(|nally strenuous in 
 their exertions to secin-e his inthu^nce. The king 
 declared him lieutenant-general of all the forces 
 south of the Trent, tlie lords elected him chairman 
 of their standing committee, and the House of 
 Commons reciuested a guard under his command. 
 As the civil tunuilt increased, the king was obliged 
 to leave London. On his retre;it he issued an order 
 rc(|uiring all the household lords to follow liim, 
 with which Esse.x declined to comply, on account 
 of the fixed duties to which he stood already ap- 
 j)ointed in the capital ; for this disobedience, he was 
 dismissed from all his places, and driven into the 
 open arms of the j)arliamcnt. 
 
 The real designs of tho eminent men, who now 
 tofik up arms against their king, it were impossible 
 to define precisely. The majority of historians arc 
 inclined to believe that Essex was one of lliose who
 
 40 
 
 WESTMINSTER ABBEY. 
 
 imagined that the contest might be brought to an 
 issue without any capital change in the government: 
 he has, therefore, generally received credit for a 
 liberal attachment to the standard principles of the 
 constitution. Being chosen general of the parlia- 
 mentary forces, a rank in which he had no rival, he 
 commanded at the first civil encounter at Keinton, 
 or Edgehill. This and the subsequent actions are 
 so essentially a part of general history, that it will 
 not be decent to do any thing moi-e here than 
 briefly characterize their separate fortunes. The 
 battle of Edgehill was fought earnestly, and almost 
 equally on both sides; for, although the king re- 
 tained the field, his losses balanced the honour. 
 An overture for peace was immediately set on foot, 
 but while it was in agitation, a second engagement 
 took place at Brentford. Essex was sitting in the 
 House of Lords, when the report of the cannon 
 roused him from the debate; but speeding alertly 
 down to the spot, he arrived just as the royalists were 
 at the point of victory, and turned the fortune of the 
 day. The season was now far advanced, and both 
 armies suspended their first campaign for the winter. 
 
 Early in the spring Essex was the first in motion ; 
 he laid siege to Reading, and was approached 
 without delay by the king and his nephews, tlie 
 I'rinces Rupert and Maurice, at the head of a con- 
 siderable force. These bodies met at Causham 
 Bridge ; the royalists were beaten, and Reading 
 surrendered to the parliament. Upon this point of 
 success, however, the cause of the latter hovered 
 for awhile. The army under Essex caught an epi- 
 demic sickness; the Marquess of Newcastle effected 
 great advantages in the north; Sir William Waller 
 was worsted in the west ; Bristol was taken by 
 Prince Rupert, and the king began an auspicious 
 march to London. Gloucester was the only place 
 which held out against him on the road, and he 
 determined to besiege it. But the ardour of the 
 citizens of London made amends fur the sickness 
 of their army; they sent forward their trainbands, 
 and with that raw but furious body Essex relieved 
 the city. The first battle of Newbury followed ; 
 it was the longest and bloodiest of the fights that 
 had as yet occuiTed; and although the victory was 
 balanced, yet the many great names that were lost 
 through it to the king's cause, created impressions 
 the most unfavourable to his ultimate prosperity. 
 Another winter drew on, and Essex returning to 
 London amidst the exultation of his followers, 
 received a warm vote of thanks from the two 
 houses of parliament. 
 
 The opening of the third campaign was distin- 
 guished by a series of fortunate movements on the 
 part of Essex, such as neither party had as yet 
 attained. Sitting down before Oxford, he terrified 
 the king into a midnight flight, and at the onset of 
 
 his pursuit compelled Prince Rupert to abandon 
 the siege of Lyme, at which he had long been 
 engaged. Weymouth next submitted; the mmor 
 gai'risons yielded to the blast of his trumpets ; the 
 country all around flocked with acclamations to his 
 standard; and at Chard 4000 men volmiteered to 
 fight or die in the cause of the parliament. Nor 
 did the brightness of his career, or the enthusiasm 
 of the people stop here: Barnstaple revolted; he 
 beat Sir Richard Gi'enville; took Taunton Castle 
 by assault; and soon after came into possession of 
 Mount Stanford, PljTnpton, Saltash, and divers 
 small garrisons. In his advance to Tavistock, he 
 seized upon Sir Richard Grenville's house, and 
 found two pieces of cannon, a stand of eight hun- 
 dred arms, a large store of ammmiition, and rich 
 furniture, and three thousand pounds ui money and 
 plate. Moving next upon Cornwall, he forced a 
 passage at Newbridge, and agaui encountered Sir 
 Richard Grenville at Listowel, where he obtained 
 a second victory over that officer. Bodmin, Tad- 
 castei', and Foy immediately fell before him. 
 
 During this momentous interval the king was 
 far from idle; he had spared no exertions to raise 
 a force capable of resisting the successful army, 
 and he now came down upon Essex prepared to 
 dispute all the recent acquisitions. There is often a 
 secret charm in the presence of royalty, which 
 strangely overcomes the afi'ections of a generous 
 people; and upon the present occasion, the par- 
 liamentarians saw those men who had crowded 
 to their ranks, when on the high road to victoi-y, 
 slipping fast and numerously away to the royal 
 camp. Essex therefore disjiatched pressing mes- 
 sages for reinforcements to London; but before any 
 recruits reached him he was consti'ained to yield 
 advantages which he found it impossible to recover, 
 and throughout the whole of 1(J44 was unable to 
 make head against his oi)ponents. This probably 
 led him to feel and to evince a desire for peace, 
 which injured his influence Avith the commons. 
 The self-denying ordinance was issued, and he 
 resigned his command under strong feelings 
 of excitement. It was proposed to appease his 
 anger by making him a duke, and conferring a 
 liberal pension upon him. But neither honoui's nor 
 money were given; he ceased to be a public cha- 
 racter, and dying suddenly in November 1640', was 
 honoured with a public funeral in the Chapel of St. 
 Paul. Both houses of Parliament attended his ob- 
 sequies, which were celebrated with great pomp, 
 5000^. having been voted for the purpose by the 
 Commons. A hearse was built upon which his 
 effigies was placed in the South Cross, where it 
 remained mitil Cromwell's soldiers hacked the 
 effigies to pieces, and destroyed the spurs and 
 achievements with which the whole was decorated. 
 
 PETER HEYLIN, D.D. 
 
 Peter IIrylin, D.D., prebendary and subdean of 
 the Abbey, and highly celebrated as a divine, a 
 poet, historian, and a geographer, has a plain tablet 
 in the north aisle of the choir, to which his friend 
 Bishop Earl contributed the following epitaph, 
 which is rudely and incorrectly cut in more pas- 
 sages than one: — 
 
 Petri Heylin, S.T.D. 
 
 Hujus Ecclesise Prebendarii et Subdecani, 
 
 Viri plane memorabilis 
 
 Egregiis dotibus instructissimi 
 
 Ingefiio acl'i et fa'cundo 
 
 Judicio subacto 
 
 Memoria ad prodigium teiiaci
 
 PETER HEYLIN. 
 
 41 
 
 Cui adjunxit incredibilem in studiis patientiam 
 
 Scripsit varia et plura 
 
 Qme jam luanibiis homimiin tercutur 
 
 Et argunientis noii vuli,Mribu3 
 
 Stylo 11011 vulgari sutt'ecit. 
 
 Constaiis ubifiue Ecclesiaj 
 
 Et Majestatis Regia; assertor 
 
 Nee floi'entis magis 
 
 Quam afflictfe. 
 
 Idemque perduellium et Schisiiiatica; Factionis 
 
 Impugnator aeerriiiius. 
 
 Contemptor iiividite 
 
 Et animo infracto 
 
 Plura ejusmodi meditanti 
 
 Mors iudixit silentiaiii. 
 
 ■Ut sileatur 
 
 Efficere non potest. 
 
 Obiit anno setatis 63 et 8 die Mail, a.d. 1GC2. 
 
 Posuit hoc illi mcestissiina coujux. 
 
 To Peter Heyun, S.T.D., 
 
 Prebendary and Subdean of tliis Church, 
 
 A man truly memoi'able, 
 
 Singulai'ly accomplished, and endowed 
 
 With active and fertile talents, 
 
 A tempered judgment. 
 
 And prodigious memory. 
 
 To which he added incredible application. 
 
 Who wrote much on various subjects 
 
 Sustained with no vulgar arguments 
 
 Or vulgar style. 
 
 Which is now extensively popular. 
 
 Every where the constant upholder 
 
 ( >f the Church and Royalty, 
 
 And of both not more so when flourishing 
 
 Than when afflicted ; 
 
 A most active opponent 
 
 Of treason, and schism. 
 
 He despised envy. 
 
 VV'hile meditating many kindred labours 
 
 With an imsubdued spirit. 
 
 Death imposed silence. 
 
 But he must always speak 
 
 In his writings. 
 
 He died in the 63rd year of his age, 
 
 And of our Lord 1662. 
 Erected by his most sorrowful wife. 
 
 Dr. Hcylin once enjoyed, but has now in some 
 measure lost, a high reputation. A high church- 
 man, who suffered in goods and in person for the 
 cause of the Bible and crown, he was popular as a 
 matter of course with his own party; and being 
 also a man of considerable talent and learning, and 
 a good writer, he was favourably regarded and 
 much respected by scholai's as well as by ]ioliti- 
 cians. He was born at Burford, near Oxford, in 
 November, 1600, and after studying at Hart Hall, in 
 that University, obtained a fellowsliij) in Magdalen 
 College, to which he then removed. In 1621 Ik- ex- 
 I'iti-d a lively sensation in the literary world )iy pro- 
 ducing his " Microcosmos, or a Description of the 
 Great World." The principles enounced in thia work 
 
 were those upon which he acted thi-oughout life. 
 They attracted and secured the patronage of Arch- 
 bishop Laud, whose life he afterwards wrote, and 
 they fixed him one of the most accomplished and 
 decided supporters of civil and ecclesiastical tyrannv 
 in that exciting period. In 1625 he made a short 
 tour in Franco, of which ho published a well written 
 account, whidi may still be read with interest. 
 Having been introduced by Laud to Charles, lie 
 was made one of his chaplains in 1629. For the 
 sake of this preferment he resigned his fellowshi]), 
 and having been sofort unate as to please Charles's 
 taste by a History of St. (Jeorge, printed soon after, 
 he obtained a prebend in the Abbey and the livings 
 of Houghton, in Durham, and Hcmingf(jrd, in 
 Huntingdonshire. In 1633 he graduated D.D., 
 and four years after was presented to the rectory 
 of Islip, Oxfordshire, which he soon gave up for 
 the living of South Warmborough, Hants. During 
 the commotions that took place between the king 
 and parliament. Dr. Hcylin distinguished himself 
 by the zeal and ability witli which he supported the 
 royal cause. He edited the Mercurius Aulicus, a 
 newspaper set up at Oxford to advocate it. For 
 tliese services to his sovereign and church, he was 
 severely pursued by the parliamentary leaders. 
 They ejected him from all his preferments, seized 
 upon his private i)roperty, and compelled him to 
 secrete his person from their resentment. He re- 
 sided, during the Commonwealth, obscure and needy, 
 at Winchester, Abingdon, and other places. Suf- 
 ferings such as these, when the Stuarts were re- 
 stored, gave him a strong claim to consideration, 
 but it is said that the proverbial ingratitude of 
 royalty, and the Stuart fiimily in particular, ex- 
 tended to him also, and so affected his mind and 
 health that his constitution gave way, not, however, 
 before he had been I'einstated in his ecclesiastical 
 ofttces. 
 
 Dr. Heylin wrote histories of the Reformation, 
 and the Presbyterians, both of which were printed 
 in folio, as was another folio of his " Miscellanies," 
 in 1682. He was also the author of a " Short View 
 of the Life of Charles I.," and a " Hcli) to Englisji 
 History," reprmted by Dr. Wright, in 177'^- Asa 
 divine he is chiefly remembered for his "Theologia 
 Veterum." Dr. Heylin's works were at one time 
 in much request, but arc now seldom read. Living 
 in a pei'iod of extreme opinions and excited actions, 
 and siding strongly with one of the contending 
 parties, the most conti'adictoi'y estimates have been 
 formed of his character and career. By some he is 
 ranked as an ornament of the church, and the 
 pattern of a good subject; by others he has been 
 rated a deteslaiile bigot, and fhi^ {;n''ty instriinicnt 
 of tyrannical power. Making every allowance for 
 the circinnstances in which he was placed, it is 
 impossibk^ not to see that his principles were ad- 
 verse to liberty, and that by asserting overmucli 
 for the chiircli, he necessarily took away too much 
 fj'oni the constitution. He was however a good 
 scholar and an excellent writer.
 
 42 
 
 WESTMINSTER ABBEY. 
 
 ABRAHAM COWLEY. 
 
 ViLLiERS, the second Duke of Buckingliam, erected, 
 and John Buslinell executed the monument to 
 Cowley, hi the Poets' Corner, which is somewhat 
 coldly appropriate. It consists of an urn, begirt 
 with laurel, and emitting hre ; and is intended to 
 indicate the celebrity with which the author's writ- 
 ings were crowned during his lifetime, and the per- 
 petuity anticipated for his reputation. As he was 
 the poet of similes, conceits and emblems, this 
 display of signs and typified expressions is not 
 altogether out of character. His remains were 
 interred immediately before the tomb, and the spot 
 may be still recognized by a blue stone, on which 
 are inscribed the words, Abrahamus Couleius, by 
 which latter perversion the Latiu scholar meant to 
 translate the plain word Cowley. The following 
 version of the inscriptions on the upper stone is 
 preferred, from an old life of the poet : — 
 
 Abrahamus Couleius, 
 
 Anglorum Piudarus, Flaccus, Maro, 
 
 Delicioe, Decus, Desiderium .^Evi sui, 
 
 Hie juxta situs est. 
 
 Aurea dum volitant late tua scripta per orbem 
 Et fama fetei-num vivis, Divine Poeta, 
 Hie placida jaceas requie. Custodiat urnam 
 Cana fides, vigilentq: perenni lampade Musee. 
 Sit sacer iste locus. Nee quis temerarius ausit, 
 Sacrilega tm-bare manu venerabile Bustum, 
 Intacti maneant, maneant per secula Dulcis 
 CouLEii cineres, serventq: immobile saxum. 
 Sic vovet 
 Votnmque suum apud Posteros sacratum esse 
 
 voluit. 
 Qui Viro Incomparabili posuit sepulchrale 
 marmor, 
 
 Georgius Dux Buckinghamije. 
 
 Excessit e vita Anno JEfi^ suse 49° et honorifica 
 pompa elatus est iEdibus Buckinghamianis, Viris 
 Illustribus Omnium Ordinum exequias celebi-anti- 
 bus. Sepultus est Die 30 M. Augusti, Anno D"* 
 16G7. 
 
 Abraham Cowley, 
 The Pindar, Horace, and Virgil of England, 
 And the delight, ornament,and admiration of his age, 
 
 Lies near this spot. 
 
 While, sacred bard, far worlds thy works proclaim. 
 
 And you survive in an immortal fame. 
 
 Here may you bless'd in holy quiet lie ! 
 
 To guard thy urn may hoary faith stand by — 
 
 And all thy favourite tuneful Nine repair 
 
 To watch thy dust w itli a perpetual care ! 
 
 Sacred for ever may this place be made, 
 
 And may no desperate hand presume t' invade 
 
 With touch unhallowed this religious room. 
 
 Or dare affront thy venerable tomb ! 
 
 Unmoved and inidisturbed till time shall end, 
 
 i\Iay Cowley's dust this marble shrine defend ! 
 
 So wishes 
 
 And desires that wish may be sacred with posterity 
 
 George Duke of Buckingham, 
 
 Who erected this sepulchral marble to that 
 
 Incomparable man. 
 
 He departed this life in the 49th year of his age, 
 and was carried from Buckingham House, with 
 honourable pomp. His obsequies were attended 
 by the illustrious of all ranks, and he was iuteiTed 
 on the 3rd of August, 1G67. 
 
 Cowley is one of those writers who have been so 
 highly eulogized by their contemporaries that many 
 a subsequent reader, unable to sympathize with the 
 warmth of the first admirers, has suffered the 
 subject of it to sink, as it were out of spite, almost 
 into the opposite extreme of neglect. Charles II., 
 a man of no mean reading or ordinary taste, is 
 recorded to have observed, when told of Cowley's 
 death, that he did not leave a better writer behind 
 him. Rymer, the learned author of the Foedera, 
 prefers him to Tasso; and Dry den, and even Mil- 
 ton, are commemorated for having given him un- 
 qualified praise. Cowley is also ranked by many 
 critics as the first of our modern poets. By this 
 preference, however, nothing more perhaps was 
 meant, or at least deserves to be understood, than 
 that he was one of the earlier authors, in the order 
 of time, who composed English poetry with those 
 accents which now characterize the approved pro- 
 nunciation of our verse, and without the coarseness 
 or familiarity of the older muse. As ior the higher 
 atti'ibutes of poetical excellence, — true feeling, the 
 just perception of character, and natural expres- 
 sion, he was anticipated by several; nor can it be 
 truly noted that as sweet and well written verses 
 as he produced were not written before his time. 
 
 Abraham Cowley was born in the year 1G18, in 
 the parish of St. Dunstan, London, where his father, 
 who died before his birth, kept a grocer's shop. At 
 the solicitation of an exemplary mother, he was 
 admitted into Westminster school, and soon grew 
 distinguished for ability. Removing to Cambridge 
 in 1636, he published, after the lapse of two years, 
 one comedy in English, entitled " Love's Riddle," 
 which was inscribed m verse to Sir Kenelm Digbj'; 
 and another in Latin, called " Naufragium Jocu- 
 lare." But it were ungenerous not to add that, 
 though only ushered before the public at this 
 period, " Love's Riddle " was written while he was 
 at Westminster: thus Cowley, as well as Milton 
 and Pope, may be correctly said to have lisped in 
 numbers. He not only wrote, but printed a volume 
 of poetry in his thirteenth year, which contained, 
 amongst other learned puerilities, as Dr. Johnson 
 calls them, the tragical story of Pyramus and 
 Thisbe, and Constantia and Philetus, of which the 
 first was written in his tenth year. 
 
 At the very beginning of tlie civil war he distin- 
 guished himself by the ardour of his loyalty, and 
 when Prince Charles passed through Cambridge 
 upon the occasion of his journey to the North, 
 Cowley came forward with another comedj', entitled 
 " The Guardian," afterwards altered into the " Cut- 
 ter of Coleman Street," which was acted by the 
 students of the university, for his highness's en- 
 tertainment. This production the author modestly 
 entitled a Sketch; it was afterwards printed, against 
 his will, and repeatedly acted with considerable 
 approbation. These and other marks of his zeal
 
 ABRAHAM COWLEY. 
 
 4:^ 
 
 for the king's service occasioned his ejection from 
 Cambridge, through tlie prevalence of the opposite 
 party, in 1G43 : he had then attained his A.M. 
 degree. For some time he fomid shelter in St. 
 John's College, Oxford, where he published his 
 " Satire of the Puritan and Papist," and recom- 
 mended himself, by his principles, talents, and 
 conversation, to all the friends of the persecuted 
 king, and above all, won the kindness of Lord Falk- 
 land, a man whose notice was in itself a passport 
 to general distinction. In time, however, Oxford 
 was ceded to the republicans, and Cowley followed 
 in the queen's train to France, where he settled in 
 the family of the Earl of St. Alban's, and managed 
 the royal correspondence — a province of confidence 
 and honom', which occupied his time day and night 
 for several successive years. 
 
 In 1647, he printed his "Mistress," which, as 
 he simply confesses in his preface, he was induced 
 to write, because poets are scarce thought freemen 
 of their company, without paying some duties, or 
 obliKins themselves to be true to love. This " Mis- 
 tress" is a varied series of poems upon the subject 
 of that passion which such an object is usually 
 supposed to excite, and may be read with satisfac- 
 tion, as containing specimens of most of the beau- 
 ties and all the faults for which the style of the 
 author and his age is noted. Beyond this no praise 
 is merited, and but little interest can be roused by 
 it ; for if there is any one description of writing 
 upon which the moderns have decidedly improved, 
 it is the poetry of love. 
 
 How Cowley came to lose his appointment at the 
 exiled court we know not; all his early biographers 
 state is, that in the course of time the business 
 passed into other hands, and that he consequently 
 returned to London in 1G56, where he was seized, 
 imprisoned, and only liberated upon excessive 
 bail in the sum of 1000^. He then collected his 
 poems together in one publication, and turned his 
 mind to the study of physic, in which science, 
 though be never practised, he obtained, first a 
 licence to practise, and afterwards the degree of 
 doctor, from the University of Oxford. The as- 
 sumption of this character, and the poem he com- 
 posed upon Cromwell's death, are by some writers 
 represented as mere feints to divert the suspicions 
 of the government, while he was in reality a spy 
 for the royalists. By others these are charac- 
 terized as overt acts, by which he abandoned the 
 king, and sided with his enemies. That many of 
 the royalists supposed the latter to be the true 
 citse, and reproached him for delin(|uency, is cer- 
 tain: while, on the contrary, it is hard to believe 
 that his sincerity was ever doubted by the leaders 
 of a party, which not only recognized but rewarded 
 him, upon their return to fortune and power. 
 
 Tiiese favf)i-s, however, were not conferred im- 
 mediately after the Restoration; and Cowley, like 
 many another old and active follower, lived on for 
 a considerable time, ho[)ing for notice and petition- 
 ing for place, but only answered with promises, 
 and filled with discontent. In this mood he retired, 
 first to Barn-KlniH, and then to Cliertsey, in Surrey, 
 where he trusted to find in rural solitude that con- 
 tent of mind and happiness of life, which the busier 
 conflicts of worldly interest commonly exclude. 
 Here, however, ho was again disaiqiointed, for the 
 dampness of Ills residence gave him the rheuma- 
 tism, his fields were oven'un by strayed cattle, his 
 
 rents were ill paid, and his circumstances were 
 even pinched by poverty; so that his complaints 
 after this change were more numerous and pointed 
 than any he had before uttered. Time, however, 
 brought some relief ; the interest of the Duke of 
 Buckingham obtained for him an advantageous 
 lease of some lands which had been settled upon the 
 queen, and he thus spent the close of his life in 
 competence. Amatory as his poems seem to cha- 
 racterize him in early life, it is said he took so 
 great a dislike to women in his more advanced 
 years, as to leave a company whenever a lady en- 
 tered. For social enjoyments, however, his taste 
 was racy to the last, and in a manner tended to 
 shorten liis days : for, spending a convivial evening 
 in company with Dr. Spratt at a friend's house 
 near Chertsey, the pai-ty prolonged their visit until 
 midnight, when Cowley and Spratt, having to walk 
 home, lost their way in the dark, and were obliged 
 to sleep under a hedge. From this exposure Cowley 
 caught a cold, which brought on a fevei", of which 
 he speedily died. His body was removed to Buek- 
 mgham House, where it lay in state, and was then 
 ceremoniously conveyed to Westminster Abbey. 
 Spratt honoured his memory with one of the 
 only three poems he ever wrote. 
 
 Cowley was the last, and is considered the best 
 of the metaphysical poets, of which Donne, Suckling, 
 and Cleveland were the chief ornaments and pro- 
 totypes, and who principally figured at the begin- 
 ning of the seventeenth century. Dr. Johnson 
 characterizes them as men who only wrote to show 
 their learning; and consequently sacrificed sense 
 and feeling to quaint expression and conceited 
 thoughts. 
 
 The larger and better part of Cowley's composi- 
 tions remain to be noticed, and perhaps amongst 
 the number his " Chronicle " is the richest speci- 
 men of all that could be happily effected by a 
 writer of his school; while liis Pindaric otles are 
 the strongest proof of the genuineness of his poetical 
 capacity. These latter, as their name imports, are 
 translations, or rather free paraphrases of Pindar 
 — a species of composition which Cowley placed at 
 his time among the lost wonders of the world, and 
 vigorously laboured to restore. 
 
 Such was the popularity of these imitations, that 
 for a length oi time our poetry was overrun by 
 numerous aspirants in the same irregular vein. 
 The license was abused to such an extremity, that 
 public ridicule at last scouted it as an intolerable 
 extravagance; and this species of ode was again 
 lost to us, as Cowley would say, until dray i-evived 
 it with a strength and i)urity which few subse- 
 quent writers have combined in our language. 
 Companions to his Pindarics, the happiest speci- 
 mens of his poetical talents, are Cowley's Anacre- 
 ontics, being gay, pleasing, and truthful. We there- 
 fore pass on to a consideration of his " Davideis," 
 an epic poem npim the subject of the scriptural 
 hero David, which he began early in life, though 
 ho had only advanced to the close of the third 
 book at the period of his death. Literature has 
 not lost much by the circumstance, for even his 
 warmest admirers confess that the portion he 
 finished is a decided failure. It is chequered 
 by all the faults of liis mannerism, and the per- 
 versions of liis school, and on the other hand 
 is but sparingly studded with the beauties his 
 curious fancy has elsewhere cherished.
 
 44 
 
 WESTMINSTER ABBEY. 
 
 There is one passage in Cowley wliich has always 
 been quoted amongst the standard beauties of 
 English poetry; and which, in all probability, will 
 continue unrivalled as long as the hxnguage is sus- 
 ceptible of ornament. It is the following, iu which 
 sound and sense are so happily wedded together, 
 that the one seems to be as exquisitely expressive 
 as the other : — 
 
 " Begin, he bold, and venture to be wise. 
 He who defers this work from day to day, 
 Does on a river's bank expecting stay 
 Till the wliole stream that stops liim shall be gone, 
 Which runs, and as it runs for ever shall run on." 
 
 Cowley was also a good prose writer and a com- 
 poser of Latin verse. It is sufficient praise for him 
 in this latter exercise of his talents, that some critics 
 have here raised hira to a level with Milton. He made 
 it the medium of conveying a species of information 
 
 to his countrymen, which was at the time new, and 
 has since been very instructive. Perceiving how 
 essential the study of botany is to the knowledge 
 of a physician, he retired for a time to Kent to 
 study the science, and collect flowers and hei'bs. 
 The result of this occupation was a Latin poem, 
 entitled " The Plants," which consists of six books. 
 In the first and second of these he relates the pro- 
 perties of herbs in elegiac metre; in the third and 
 fourth, displays the beauties of flowers in different 
 measures, and in the fifth and sixth describes the 
 uses of trees in heroic verse. The poem, though 
 often commended by those who lament British in- 
 feriority in these matters, is not without faults, and 
 even solecisms, which a scholar should have avoid- 
 ed: he has strained the idiom of the Romans, and 
 seldom adds perspicuity or grace to the innova- 
 tion. 
 
 SIR WILLIAM DAVENANT. 
 
 William Davenant, a dramatic author and thea- 
 trical proprietor, of popular reputation, was born 
 during the month of February, 1605, in St. Mar- 
 tin's parish, Oxford. Wood has a story which no 
 one has credited, that he was a natural son of 
 Shakspeare : the accepted account is, that his 
 father was John Davenant, who kept a tavern, 
 subsequently recognized by the sign of the crown. 
 He was first sent to a grammar-school, taught by 
 Edward Silvester, in All Saints' parish, and there 
 attracted some praise for quick parts, and an 
 attachment to polite letters. During the year 
 1G21 his father was mayor, and he entered Lincoln 
 College under a tutor named Hough. Of the time 
 he continued at Oxford, the improvement he made 
 there, or the circumstances that induced him to 
 leave it, nothing whatever is known. Wood thinks 
 that the strength of his genius was generally per- 
 ceived, and that he was called the Sweet Swan of 
 Isis; adding, however, in the same breath, that he 
 was deficient in university learning. The first 
 station in which lie appeared to the world, was in 
 the household of the Duchess of Richmond, to 
 whom he officiated as page. He next I'emoved 
 into the family of Sir Fulk Greville, Lord Brooke, 
 but by the violent death of that literary nobleman, 
 was left without a patron in 1628. 
 
 Being thus impelled to exertion, he turned his 
 thoughts to the stage, and produced his first play, 
 " Albovine, King of the Lombards," a tragedy, 
 which was received with favour, and published, 
 according to the fashion of the time, with several 
 recommendatory prefaces from his litei'ary friends. 
 Thus encom'aged, he continued to write for the 
 theatre and wait upon the court, for the next eight 
 years of his life, during which we find him enjoy- 
 ing the intimacy of such men as Carew, Porter, 
 and Suckling, and the regard of the Earl of Dorset. 
 Like most other poets in similar situations, he 
 made the favom'ites of the court subjects for occa- 
 sional pieces of verse, and composed several masks 
 and smaller dramas, which were represented by 
 the young nobility. One of these productions is 
 particularly memorable, from the fact that the 
 
 queen took a part in it, and by this condescension 
 gave umbrage to the Puritans. 
 
 Little can now be thought of these compositions ; 
 at that period, however, they were valued, and 
 procured for the author no mean consideration. 
 He was now eutii-ely a man of pleasure, or rather 
 of dissipation. A disease consumed the cartilage 
 of his nose, and by deforming a face hitherto hand- 
 some, aff'orded his enemies never-failing topics for 
 coarse raillery and scandalous reproaches. 
 
 The death of Ben Jonson, in 1637, left vacant 
 the post of Poet Laureate, and Davenant and May, 
 whom Charles I. used to call his poet, became can- 
 didates for the honom-. May lost it; and, from a 
 subservient courtier, became an inveterate Par- 
 liamentarian, the opponent of the king, his party, 
 and their interests *. Davenant obtained it, and 
 pursued his wonted course, writing poems and pro- 
 ducing plays, with the additional rank of manager 
 and chief director of the court diversions. 
 
 The troubles of civil warfare had no sooner 
 begun than Davenant became involved in danger. 
 
 * May was buried in Davenant's grave, and had a monu- 
 ment where that of Prebendary Triplett stands ; but at the 
 Restoration, his body, like those of Cromwell and Blake, was 
 ignominiously disinterred and thrown into a hole in St. Mar- 
 garet's churchyard. At the same time his monument was 
 destroyed — a mean and unchristian act of party vengeance, 
 from which the merits of the man ought to have protected his 
 remains. For he was much esteemed as a writer as well as a 
 politician. He was the eldest son of Sir Thomas May of May- 
 field in Sussex, where he was born in loJ)5. After studying at 
 Sidney College, Cambridge, he entered Gray's Inn. He was 
 the author of two tragedies and three comedies, translated 
 Virgil's Georgics with annotations, and Lucan's Pharsalia, 
 to which he added a continuation in Latin. Two poems in 
 seven books each, respectively entitled " The Reign of Henry 
 II.," and the "Victorious Reign of Edward III.," and a 
 Latin history of the Long Parliament, to which he was 
 secretary, attest his diligence as an author. Royalist writers 
 have attacked this history with virulence; but Grainger and 
 Warburton, while objecting to its want of elegance as a 
 composition, bear testimony to its candour. May died sud- 
 denly of too much indulgence in wine, accor.iing to Andrew 
 Marvel, aged tifty-flve, November 13, 1650.
 
 SIR WILLIAM DAVENANT. 
 
 45 
 
 In May, 1041, he was denounced to the parliament 
 as one amongst others wlio agit^ated a plot of bring- 
 ing the army up to London for the protection of 
 the royal pei*son, and the support of his measures. 
 Their design once discovered, the pai'ties con- 
 cerued in it took flight, and a proclamation was 
 issued for their arrest and detention. Davenant 
 was stopped at Feversham, sent back to town, and 
 committed bv the commons to the custody of the 
 sergoant-at-arms. From this durance he was 
 bailed in the month of July following. Such was 
 his situation, however, that he again found it ex- 
 pedient to fly, and was again stopped in his pro- 
 gress. His second confinement was at Canterbury, 
 where the mayor subjected him to a rigorous ex- 
 amination, but with what immediate effect is not 
 known. It is certain that he succeeded in reach- 
 ing FiMnce, within a short interval, though the 
 manner of his escape has never been described. 
 
 In France Davenant joined the queen, who re- 
 ceived him favourably, and f(n' some time retained 
 him about her person at the Louvre. No light 
 opinion of his abilities and integrity could have 
 been entertained by the royalists ; for when her 
 majesty sent to England the store of arms and 
 ammunition that for awhile raised such strong 
 hopes amongst the royalists, Davenant was chosen 
 to convey the succour over the seas. Disembark- 
 ing in the north, he formed a junction with the 
 literary Earl of New-castle, who made him lieu- 
 tenant-general of ordnance, a promotion which 
 gave some offence to the experienced officers of 
 the army ; for, however well Davenant might have 
 been qualified to assist the earl in plays and poetry, 
 it was not unreasonably thought that he could con- 
 tribute no due share of the military knowledge 
 required in a rank so exalted. It would appear, 
 however, that he did not disgrace his commission ; 
 for he was knighted by the king after the siege of 
 Gloucester, and thus acquired the honours of good 
 services. Notwithstanding the cares and dangers 
 of a soldier's life, the author still predominated in 
 him, and he continued to versify in praise of those 
 who ])ntronized, and in gratitude to those who 
 aided his fortunes. 
 
 Such is the account we have of Davenant's 
 military career ; nor are there any particulars on 
 record to show the time or cause of his leaving the 
 army. We next find him in France, where, as before, 
 he was kindly treated by the queen, to whose con- 
 fidence he now recommended himself by becoming 
 a convert to the Catholic religion. Clarendon took 
 the trouble of relating this event minutely, and, as 
 is common in all such cases, because he disliked 
 the change, spoke ill of the motives with which it 
 was nuule. In IG4C he came back into England, 
 charged with advice from the queen to the king, 
 who was thi-n at Newcastle. But his majesty re- 
 jr-ctcd the ailvice, and Davenant returned to Paris. 
 In that city the leisure of misfortune supplied liim 
 with an o])portunity of putting a favourite project 
 intr) practice, by writing an heroic poem upon a 
 new jjlan. As the fruit of this ajiplication, he pro- 
 duced, at the residence of lii.s friend Lord Jermyn, 
 in the Louvre, the two first books of his tJondibert, 
 a performance which, tlmugh admitted to contain 
 some truly poetical piissiiges, has iievi-r been 
 thought worthy of ]i;irticular notice by the critics. 
 Tli<t little court of his exiled (|uren was greatly 
 divided in opinions of ila merits; but the peo|)le of 
 
 England, for whom it was published, with a i)re- 
 face to Hobbes, and some minor poems, at London, 
 took little or no heed of its beauties or its blem- 
 ishes. 
 
 The next passage of Davenant's life was one 
 from which ample benefits were anticiiiated. Un- 
 derstanding that considerable improvements were 
 to be made in the trade of Virginia, provided a 
 sufficient body of artisans could be brought to 
 settle there, he formed a project of emigrating to 
 that colony with a number of French workmen. 
 The undertaking was patronized by the qTieen, and 
 in a short time he collected together a satisfactory 
 corps of able men, who, destitute of employment 
 and subsistence in then' own country, were ready 
 to run the risk of finding a better or worse liveli- 
 liood any where else. But Davenant proved an 
 unlucky emigrant : this adventure nearly cost him 
 his life. The vessel had scarcely cleared the shore 
 when it was captured by a parliamentary ship of 
 war, and towed into the Isle of Wight, where the 
 disappointed projector was committed a close pri- 
 soner to Cowes Castle; but found spirits enough to 
 add a third book to his Gondibert, which was also 
 published, and, perhaps out of synijjathy for the 
 author's reverses, rather favourably received. 
 
 Thus was Davenant circumstanced in lfi50, when 
 the parliament delivered him over by ordinance for 
 trial, before the higli commission court, and he 
 was removed to the Tower of London. What then 
 took place does not appear with any certainty : it 
 is admitted on all hands, that for a time his life 
 was in great danger, but how or by whom it was 
 saved is unknown. Some have represented that 
 two aldermen of York, whom he had obliged at a 
 time when they were his prisoners in the north, 
 now stepped forward to return the obligation with 
 generous interest ; others again have circulated an 
 account that he owed his safety to the intei'position 
 of Milton. This latter story is in some degree cor- 
 roborated by a corresponding tradition, that Dave- 
 nant repaid the good office by subsequently pre- 
 serving jlilton from the resentment of the royalists; 
 and these are reports which, for the honour of 
 litei-ature, no writer would desire to invalidate. 
 Be the facts as they may, lie remained a prisoner 
 in the Tower for two years more, where his treat- 
 ment was so indulgent, that he felt himself botuid 
 to address a very polite letter of thanks for it to 
 the Lord Keeper Whitlocke. 
 
 The favour thus shown improved by degrees, 
 until his final liberation was accomplished. Once 
 at large, a meatis of livelihood was to Ix' provided, 
 and he had the address to engage Whitlocke, Sir 
 John Maynard, and others, to countenance a sort 
 of theatre which he opened, with a license from 
 the ])rotector, at Rutland House in Charterhouse 
 S([uare. A ])lay-house, acc<ii'ding to the cant of 
 that age, was wors(; than a pest-lioust' ; not daring, 
 therefore, to style the jierl'orniances ]>lays, he 
 called them operatic entertainments. I'nder this 
 synonyme ho j)roduced several pieces of his own 
 com])osition, which, if they deserved no great 
 |)raise, brought him what he stood much more in 
 need of, money. His first re])resentation here was 
 the Siege of Rhodes, of which the story was told in 
 recitative, and the action illiislratcd by jiainlings, 
 which an; considered to have l)eguii the scenery of 
 the lirilish stage. 
 
 The ice was thus broken in l(ij(>, and, growing
 
 46 
 
 WESTMINSTER ABBEY. 
 
 bolder V)y degrees, he ventured into the Cock-pit in 
 Driiry Lane during the year 1658, and after open- 
 ing with the Cruelties of the Spaniards in Peru, 
 there continued to represent plays until the Resto- 
 ration. Of these entertainments Dryden has re- 
 marked, that the regularity of their construction, 
 and the scenical decorations introduced into them, 
 after the manner of the French, were a material 
 improvement in the business of the stage. These 
 profitable avocations were somewhat interrupted 
 by the commotions which preceded the Restoration. 
 At the period of Sir George Booth's insurrection, 
 Davenant was again imprisoned; but the govern- 
 ment was soon restored to order, and with his 
 wonted promptitude of versification, he compli- 
 mented Monk upon the ability with which that 
 great end was effected, in one poem, and the 
 return of Charles II. in another, which is not as 
 good as it is long. 
 
 Davenant was now rewarded for all his suffer- 
 ings, by receiving a renewal of the Laurel, and the 
 patent of the Duke's Theatre, which first opened 
 in Lincoln's Inn Fields, with his own drama, the 
 "Siege of Rhodes," now systematically arranged 
 into parts I. and II. The affairs of this house will 
 be noticed in the life of Betterton. We shall only 
 relate here, therefore, that notwithstanding all the 
 vicissitudes of his former days, Davenant had the 
 satisfaction of passing his last years in reputable 
 ease. He continued to employ his time and talents 
 as a theatrical writer and manager, until it was 
 proposed to build the new theatre in Dorset Gar- 
 dens. Upon that occasion he disposed of his patent, 
 but his plays retained their rank upon the stage, 
 even when his personal authority could no longer 
 recommend their revival. He died at his house in 
 Little Lincoln's Inn Fields, April 17, 1668, and was 
 ceremoniously buried, two days after, in the Poet's 
 Corner of Westminster Abbey; where a lai'ge blue 
 flag, inscribed, as he had himself recommended for 
 Ben Jonson's monument — " O rare Sir William 
 Davenant !" indicates the site of his grave. Wood 
 complains that an inexcusable error was committed 
 at his interment, as the laurel, which should have 
 rested on his coffin, was forgotten by the conductors 
 of the solemnity. 
 
 Davenant has a particular claim to praise, for 
 having been the first to introduce appropriate 
 scenes and decoi'ative machinery into the business 
 of our stage. These improvements he borrowed 
 
 from the French, at a time when they were per- 
 fectly new to this country ; for although the dra- 
 matic entertainments in and preceding the reign 
 of Charles I. were heightened by the use of many 
 curious arts and rich embellishments, devised 
 amongst others by Iiiigo Jones, yet were they 
 mainly brought into action at the court masques, 
 and never, on account of the expense they entailed, 
 adopted at a public theatre. 
 
 Davenant's works were published by his widow 
 in 1673, with a dedication to the Duke of York, 
 subsequently James II. In that address, the ex- 
 tent of his favour at court is comprised in a state- 
 ment, which asserts that " his royal highness's 
 father was not displeased with the author's writ- 
 ings ; that the queen, his mother, took him into 
 her family ; was diverted by, and often smiled 
 upon his endeavours; and that the latter part of 
 his life had been spent in study and labour to 
 entertain his majesty, and his royal highness." If 
 to this be added the critique upon his powers, 
 which his fi'iend Dryden introduced in a preface 
 to the " Tempest," as altered by them both from 
 Shakspeare, the character will be complete. " I 
 found him of so quick a fancy that nothing was 
 proposed to liim, on wliich he could not quickly 
 produce a thought extremely pleasant and sur- 
 prising ; and those first thoughts of his, contrary 
 to the old Latin proverb, were not always the least 
 happy; and as his fancy was quick, so also were 
 the products of it, happy and new. He borrowed 
 not of any other ; for his imaginations were such 
 as could not easily enter into any other man. His 
 corrections were sober and judicious, and he cor- 
 rected liis own writings much more severely than 
 those of any other man ; bestowing twice the labour 
 in polishing which he used in invention." 
 
 Davenant had two sons, of whom the youngest, 
 William, was drowned in the Seine at Paris dui'ing 
 the year 1681, and the eldest, Charles, rose to a 
 fair reputation m letters. When only nineteen 
 he wrote a successful tragedy, entitled " Circe ;" 
 afterwards studied civil law with a doctor's degree 
 from the University of Cambridge; and served in 
 parliament as member for St. Ives. He is princi- 
 pally remembered for a series of tracts on branches 
 of political economy, which were published in five 
 vols. 8vo, 177lj hy Sir Charles, afterwards Earl 
 Whitworth. 
 
 MONTAGUE, EARL OF SANDWICH, K. B. 
 
 Edward, the only surviving son of Sir Sydney 
 Montague, was born July 27, 1596, and first entered 
 the service of his country in the parliamentaiy 
 army, which brought Charles I. to the scaffold, 
 and elevated Cromwell in his stead, to the govern- 
 ment of the country. Though he rose rapidly to 
 command, and acted a prominent part in many of 
 the domestic engagements of that disturbed period, 
 still he had neither influence over, nor a share in any 
 of the violent measures by which that signal change 
 in the constitution was characterised. Like many 
 other distinguished men of that age, he became a 
 
 sailor, when as a soldier his country required no 
 assistance from his sword, and soon found the 
 ocean more favourable to his fortune than the 
 land. In the navy he was early noticed with 
 favour by the discriminating protector. From him 
 he received the rank of Admiral, and sailed under 
 Blake in his memorable expedition into the Medi- 
 terranean, with a reputation which fully sustained 
 the confidence indicated by the appointment. 
 
 Upon the death of Cromwell, Montague was ap- 
 pointed to the command of a formidable fleet, 
 which passed into the Baltic to compose the differ-
 
 MONTAGUE, EARL OF SANDWICH. 
 
 47 
 
 ences of the nortliern powei-s, aiul deter them from 
 any enterprise on behalf of the exiled prince. Tlie 
 trust was successfully discharged; but some sus- 
 picions, wjiieh, as events soon proved, were not ill- 
 founded, of his having corresponded with Charles, 
 obtained circulation, and lie was in consequence 
 suddenly supplanted in his office bj' Admiral Law- 
 son, a rigid presbytei-ian, and stanch republican. 
 The progress of General Monk's designs, llowe^•er, 
 soon replaced Jlontague ui his command, and he 
 conveyed the restored monarch back to the throne 
 of his ancestors. For this service advancement 
 and titles were conferred with a liberal hand. He 
 was immediately created Baron ]\Iontague, Viscount 
 Hinchinbroke, and Earl of Sandwich; he received 
 the order of the garter upon the first reinvestment 
 of that noble order; was made master of the king's 
 wardrobe, s^orn in a member of the Privy Council, 
 and appointed Vice-admiral to the Duke of York, 
 who filled the post of Lord High Admiral of Eng- 
 land. 
 
 The pei'versity with which Charles II. attached 
 himself to his late patron, the King of F'rance, and 
 the facilitv with which he waged war to assist that 
 ambitious monarch, are well known facts. The 
 first enemy, whom the English were thus called 
 upon by their imprudent sovereign to fight, were 
 the Dutch, against whom hostilities were declared 
 in 1GG4. On the third of June the fleets came in 
 sight, and a decisive action ensued. The enemy 
 w-ere superior in strength. Sandwich, however, 
 conscious of the spirit and stability of his force, 
 swept liojdiy in amongst the centre of the Dutch 
 line, and a general fight ensued, which the vigour 
 of our attack soou converted into a general flight. 
 Eighteen vessels were captured and destroyed; the 
 enemy lost their admiral, Opdam, and the utter 
 destruction of their maritinwl power must have 
 taken place, had the commander-in-chief followed 
 up the pursuit with the energy that the second 
 in authority displayed in beginning it. 
 
 Lord Sandwich was hailed with universal ac- 
 clamation upon his return home, while the Duke 
 of York became so unpopular, that he was reluct- 
 antly obliged to resign his command. Every hand 
 pointed out the Earl of Sandwich as his successor; 
 but the influence of the com-t was too strong, and 
 his royal highness was saved from the mortifica- 
 tion of so marked a censure. The earl was sent on 
 an embassy to Madrid, in order to try and nego- 
 ciate a peace between the contending monarchs of 
 Spain and Portugal. After a residence of thirteen 
 months on the continent he succeeded in adjusting 
 the afl'airs committed to his charge to the satisfac- 
 tion of all parties concerned, and upon his return 
 to England, in December lG(i8, was received witli 
 the most flattering demonstrations of royal favom*, 
 in which the Duke of York honourably concurred. 
 He was appointed to the ])residency of a board in- 
 stituti'd for the government of our colonies in 
 America and the West Indies, by which the com- 
 merce of the mother country was greatly enriclied, 
 and the pride and power of the nation coiisidei-ably 
 increa.sed. 
 
 We arc told tliat Lord Sandwich was distin- 
 guished amongst liis coteini)oraric8 by the sur- 
 name of the sailor's friend; and wo are assured 
 that he never countenanced a preferment, but upon 
 the ])roof of service or merit, while he always 
 reprobated those aj)pointinents, too frcf^uent at ail 
 
 times, in which the interest of the court, and tlie 
 influence of a title, give the only reconmiendations 
 to notice. 
 
 Such was the high estimation in which he was 
 held, when, to the surpi-ise of the nation, and 
 the grief of his friends, Charles II. again al)etted 
 the policy of France, and in 1G72, commenced 
 a second course of hostilities against the Dutch. 
 The English fleet put to sea iu the beginning of 
 May, having the Duke of York again Lord High 
 Admiral, and the Earl of Sandwich as second 
 in command. Admiral of the Blue. On the 28th 
 of the same month, while anchored off" Southwold, 
 they were unexpectedly gratified by the appear- 
 ance of the Dutch fleet, and immediately slipping 
 their cables, put to sea in order of battle. This 
 was not long delayed, and after the first shot, was 
 maintained with a vigour and perseverance but 
 seldom equalled, and never surpassed. The enemy 
 had to boast the noble spii'it with which they ac- 
 quired partial advantages and momentary success; 
 but in the result their loss was signal, and their 
 destruction utter. The fate of Sandwich, however, 
 deserves pai'tieular record, for it was in itself 
 almost sufficiently grand to be styled a victory. 
 He hoisted his flag on board the Royal James, 
 mounting 100 guns, ajid carrying 800 men. In 
 this vessel he led the van, and conmienced the 
 action with a furious attack upon the squadron 
 commanded by Admiral Von Ghent. Some con- 
 fusion occurred in his division almost at the onset, 
 and so ill was he supported, that in a short time 
 he was almost completely surrounded by the 
 enemy. But the difficulties of his situation only 
 served to increase his ardor, and deepen the fata- 
 lity of the conflict. He beat ott'from his sides no 
 less than seven vessels, among which was the flag- 
 ship of the Dutch admiral, who fell during the 
 engagement, when the Great Holland, of 00 guns, 
 supported by three fire-shi])s, drew close upon him 
 and attempted to board. Though dreadfully shat- 
 tered, and greatly reduced by previous exertions. 
 Sandwich and his ci'ew met the fresh assault with 
 unabated resolution. He sunk the three fire-ships, 
 and forced the man-of-war to retire disabled, when 
 at length a fourth fire-ship ajiproached, and bv 
 a more successful effort set the Royal James in 
 flames. Hope to save her there now remained 
 none; his crew was lessened to a comparatively 
 scanty number, and but one officer stood by him 
 who had strength to act. In this extremity he 
 begged of the survivors to lower the boats, and 
 make for land, at the same time declaring that lie 
 felt it his duty to remain the last man on boiird 
 the ship. But the crew, with that intrepid disdain 
 which has immortalised the character of the British 
 sailor, positively refused to stir before their admi- 
 ral, and this gen<'rous emulation of heroism was 
 contiiRied until the Royal Janus blew iij), and all 
 on board noiily ]i('rishe<l togither. The I'",nglisli, 
 howevei", were decidedly triumphant, though ilicir 
 success was deai'ly ])urchased by a profuse sacrifice 
 of men : no less than ten captains were slain during 
 the action, and almost every vessel was riddled 
 with shot. Never was there an engagement 
 marked liy a more extraordinary display of obsti- 
 nate bravery, or a ])rouder instance given of the 
 invincibh; superiority of the ICnglish fleet. 
 
 Al)out a fortnight after the engagement, a l)ody 
 was discovered floating among the ketches in Har
 
 48 
 
 WESTMINSTER ABBEY. 
 
 wich harbour, which was soon recognised by the 
 order on his coat to be the Earl of Sandwich. He 
 died therefore in the 77th year of his aj^e. It was 
 conveyed on shore and embahned. Removed to 
 Deptford on board of liis majesty's yacht, the body 
 was solemnly conveyed in a state barge up the 
 river to Whitehall, attended by a long train of 
 decorated boats, filled with the king's household, 
 the nobility, public ministers, and the resident 
 officers of the army and navy. Arrived at the 
 confines of the city, the Lord Mayor and compa- 
 nies of London joined the procession, with numer- 
 ous bands playing melancholy music. As the 
 mournful little fleet advanced up the river, every 
 ship lowei-ed its flag and discharged minute 
 guns, and the body was landed at Westminster 
 bridge, whence the procession to the Abbey was 
 marshalled on foot with imposing magnificence. 
 Ten earls supported the pall, and almost every 
 nobleman, dignitary, and person of quality in Lon- 
 don followed according to his rank. The b(jdy 
 was interred in the chapel of Henry VI L, where 
 his companion in arms. Monk, duke of Albemarle, 
 was soon after deposited; but the stranger now 
 searches in vain for either monument or mscrip- 
 tion to indicate the narrow precincts of his grave. 
 
 Lord Sandwich was an author who WTote on 
 politics, natural philosophy, and other subjects, 
 
 and from many eulogies pronounced upon him, we 
 quote two, which will serve instead of an epitaph. 
 The second indeed seems to have been composed 
 for that purpose, and is equally well imagined and 
 expressed : 
 
 " He was a man adorned with all the virtues of 
 Alcibiades, and untainted by any of his vices ; of 
 high birth, capable of any business; full of wisdom; 
 a great commander by land as well as by sea ; 
 learned and eloquent; affable, liberal, and mag- 
 nificent." 
 
 " Adorn'd with titles, but from virtue great ; 
 At sea a Neptune ; Nestor in the state ; 
 Alike in council and in fight renown'd ; 
 In action ever with success still crown'd : 
 A soldier, sailor, statesman ; — here he lies, 
 No heart more honest, and no head more wise : 
 Tho' brave, yet gentle ; tho' sincere, not rude ; 
 Justice in camps, and truths in court he sued. 
 Living he raised a deathless, spotless name. 
 And dying soar'd above the reach of fame. 
 Reader! if English, stop the falling tear. 
 Grief should not wait on him who felt no fear: 
 He wants no pity — could his ashes speak. 
 These generous sounds would from the marble break; 
 ' Go, serve thy country, while God spares thee breath, 
 Live as I lived, and so deserve my death !' " 
 
 MONK, DUKE OF ALBEMARLE, K. G. 
 
 George Monk, the republican general who re- 
 stored monarchy in England, was born December 6, 
 1608. He was the second son of a gentleman of 
 ancient family in Devonshire, whose hospitable and 
 free fashion of living had considerably reduced his 
 estate. This decay of fortune led him to bring 
 young George up to the profession of arms, in which 
 men of gentle blood were at that period greatly 
 caressed, and if at all deserving, seldom failed to 
 secure a handsome competence. George Monk ac- 
 cordingly entered the naval service of his country in 
 his seventeenth year ; and when he parted from land, 
 gave the following earnest of decision of character. 
 The young king, Charles I., having determined upon 
 a war with Spain, had just come down to Plymouth, 
 in order to satisfy himself of the condition of the 
 navy there. Old Mr. Monk desired to pay his re- 
 spects to his sovereign in a manner worthy of the 
 family ; but so pressing were his embarrassments, 
 that to appear in public was to run the risk of 
 being sent to jail. In this distress, he sent his sou 
 George to the sheriff' with a round present, and a 
 request that his person might be free whUe he 
 waited with his duty upon the king. The man of 
 law pocketed the bribe, and promised favour ; Mr. 
 Monk came into PlMiiouth, while a creditor has- 
 tening to the sheriff with a double bribe, procured 
 his immediate arrest. Incensed at this ba.seness, 
 George proceeded to remonstrate with the sheriff ; 
 but finding that vain, he laid his cane about the 
 gentleman's shoulders, and continued the blows 
 until he fell exhausted with pain and weakness. 
 After administering this summary punishment, his 
 own liberty was even more precarious than his 
 father's had just been. He therefore hurried on 
 
 board the fleet, and sailed with it against Cadiz, 
 under the command of Lord Wimbledon ; after 
 which he also bore a part in the equally unfortu- 
 nate affair against the island of Rhe. 
 
 He continued thus employed until about the age 
 of one-and- twenty, when peace was proclaimed; and 
 the better to improve his experience in the art of 
 war, he passed over as a volunteer into Holland, 
 then the greatest school for soldiers in Europe. 
 There he was present at many battles and sieges, 
 and his reputation enabled him to muster a troop 
 of two hundred men ; of whom the one half were 
 volunteers and the rest paid retainers. At the head 
 of this body he fought under General Lord Goring, 
 and repeatedly deserved his approbation. At last, 
 some affront offered to him by tiie Prince of Orange, 
 induced him to turn his thoughts homewards, where 
 the elements of civil warfare were already begm- 
 ning to ferment. Indifference to a contest of this 
 description was not to be expected from a young 
 soldier like Monk, and he devoted his talents to the 
 royal interest. Having obtained the command of 
 a regiment, he was employed, under the Earl of 
 Leicester, against the Irish msurgents, and quickly 
 attracted notice by the dexterity of his movements 
 and the steadiness of his valour. It is mentioned 
 as a proof of the goodness of his private character, 
 that the soldiers used to call him familiarly honest 
 George Monk, and never found reason to withdraw 
 the compliment, even in the days he stood highest 
 in office and power. So even was his bearing, and 
 so moderate his politics, that when the army was 
 recalled from Ireland, he fell under suspicions of 
 disaffection, and was suspended in his command, 
 and even ordered to the king at Oxford, there to
 
 MONK, DUKE OF ALBEMARLE. 
 
 49 
 
 justify his loyalty. Fimn this occasion, his repu- 
 tation for sincerity and honour was of great avail ; 
 he protested his innocence in the most earnest 
 manner, and, in the absence of all proof, there was 
 no alternative, but to dismiss an inquiry which it 
 was weakness to institute. Thus restored to his 
 regiment, he soon after was present at the siege of 
 Nantwieh, where the royalists, under Lord Byron, 
 were defeated by Fairfax, and he was taken prisoner. 
 Transported to the Tower of London, he occupied 
 his mind by composing " Observations on ]\Iilitary 
 and Political Affairs," which were published after 
 his death, and for two years suffered a rigorous 
 imprisonment, under circumstances of severe po- 
 verty. Once, indeed, the king sent him a present 
 of a hundred guineas, and repeatedly the parlia- 
 ment made him liberal offers to espouse their cause, 
 but he remained inflexible, until Cromwell became 
 his seducer. The latter professed to recommend 
 Monk to an employment, which, while it should be 
 perfectly consistent with his own principles of 
 honour, should also be reconcileable to the views 
 of the parliament. This was the suppression of the 
 Irish insurrection, which was alike injurious to the 
 great contending parties, and equally deplored by 
 them ; so that whoever undertook to put an end to 
 it, must do his country a good, for which both king 
 and parliament would be grateful. When this pro- 
 posal was accepted, and the ajjpointment made out 
 by the parliament, the hopes of Charles L were 
 nearly extinguished; and Cromwell clearly foresaw, 
 that once formally linked with it. Monk must either 
 adhere to his side, and obey its orders, or hazard 
 the risk of being branded as a double traitor. The 
 former consequence, as that more naturally to be 
 expected, was the one relied on, and but too soon 
 fully proved ; for Monk was speedily found fighting 
 against the Duke of Ormond in Ireland, and even 
 against Chai'les I L himself in Scotland. After va- 
 rious operations iu the former country, he was at 
 last besieged in Dundalk, by Ormond, during the 
 year 1049, when a mutiny among the troops com- 
 pelled him to surrender the town. Owing to this 
 reverse, and a treaty with the Catholic chieftain 
 O'Neal, the parliamentary cause was for a time 
 lost in Ireland. He now resigned his command and 
 retired to his estate; but was at the head of seven 
 thousand men, when, in Ifiol, the young king made 
 his gallant descent upon England with the Scotch 
 army, and Cromwell was obliged to tiu'n from the 
 reduction of the north to arrest the strides of 
 royalty towards the south. 
 
 The trust of imposing the authority of the English 
 jiarliamentupon .Scotland now devolved solely upon 
 Monk, ami he executed his connnission with dis- 
 ])atcli and ability. Laying siegt; to Stirling Castle, 
 which was gallantly manned and well ]irovisioned, 
 he forced it to surrender, and obtained ]>ossession of 
 all the state pajiers of the kingdom. Jnnnediately 
 providing one or two diversions for the ))urpoHe of 
 quelling the risings which were effected by the 
 Mobility in different quarters, he next proceeded 
 against I)und(^e. The great strength of the fortifi- 
 cations had lately niad(! the town a general store 
 for all the wealth of the adjoining counties, and it 
 was now stoek(^d with rich furniture, ])late, and 
 money, as a certain |)lace of safety. This, tiu^re- 
 fore, wiis an attack of cons(;quence; and the better 
 to inspirit his men, Monk promised tlu:ni the gross 
 licence of plunder in civse of success. Thus cheered, 
 
 they began the assault with vigour, soon cleared a 
 breach, and carried the place; while their general, 
 after the savage manner of Cromwell, tarnished 
 his victory, and disgr.aced his name, by a massacre 
 of the inhabitants. The excuse put forward for this 
 barbarity was, that it facilitated the success of the 
 campaign by terrifying other places from resist- 
 ance, and it must be admitted that the .severity of 
 the example speedily produced its effect. The prin- 
 cipal forts voluntarily submitted; the leading no- 
 bility, with Argyle at their head, solicited terms of 
 pardon; and even the rugged and hitherto unvan- 
 quished highlands suUeuly acquiesced in the com- 
 mon subjection. Having thus rapidly completed 
 the purposes of his command, Monk remained for 
 some time at the head of affairs in Scotland, and 
 continued to give comparative content to a restless 
 people, who had long and deeply hated their sub- 
 duers as natural enemies. At the same time he 
 made his authority still more agreeable to the 
 army, with whom he found it expedient still firmly 
 to cement those feelings of attachment, which they 
 had already evinced towards him, and he after- 
 wards coitverted to so great an end. 
 
 In the year 1G52 a partial success obtained by 
 the Dutch fleet under Van Tromp over Admiral 
 Blake, caused Monk to be summoned from Scotland 
 and to be appointed one of the admirals of the fleet, 
 which gave battle to the enemy on July the second, 
 a day on which he particularly distinguished him- 
 self. One of the first broadsides severed in two 
 the body of Deane, a gallant officer, and second in 
 command, by a chain shot, at that time a new 
 invention, generally ascribed to the pensionary De 
 Witte. Monk, who sailed in the same vessel, saw 
 him fall, and had tlie presence of mind to throw 
 his cloak over the body, and, by earnest exhorta- 
 tions, keep the men fast to their duty, lest the sight 
 of so fearful a wound might create a panic. Nor 
 did he leave the spot until an opportunity presented 
 itself to remove the corpse below decks. The action 
 was maintained for two days, and then terminated 
 in favour of the English. Another engagement lol- 
 lowed on the second of the next month, and was dis- 
 puted with even more determined obstinacy; for it 
 was only after repeated fighting for thrie succes- 
 sive days, that the English ])roved decidedly victo- 
 rious. Cromwell himself came forward to ])raisc 
 him, and at a public feast given in celebration of 
 these successes at tiuildhall, hung a costly chain of 
 gold round his neck. After this a peace was nego- 
 ciated, and he resumed his command in Scotland, 
 where he remained in tlu' exercise of temperate 
 power, until the death of Cromwell and the apathy 
 of his son Richard left him an o])cn path for more 
 uitcrcsting but not more honourable transactions. 
 
 Monk's principal characteristics as a conuuander, 
 were strict discipline, great cooliu'ss, and an intre- 
 pid ])roni]ititu(le on occasions of sudden dangei-, 
 which it was dilHcult to sui'])rise. Of this he gave 
 a cons])icuous jn-oof just after the termination of 
 the foregoing war. Great discontent prevailed 
 among the sailors, in consetiuenco of arrears in 
 their pay, and disa]i]iointment in (he distribution 
 of pri/.(^ money. ( )ne day tlx'y gathered in crowds 
 round the Navy Office, and vociferously di'mandcd 
 money. Monk appeared, and told them thenMvcre 
 on(! thousand fiv(? hundred ships to be sold, and 
 that the proceeds, as soon as received, should 
 be promi)lly i)aid to them. With tiiis answer
 
 50 
 
 WESTMINSTER ABBEY. 
 
 they appeared satisfied and dispersed; but in the 
 evening they collected again, to the number of 
 five thousand, and proceeded with arms to AVhite- 
 hall. Monk, who was at the time engaged with 
 Cromwell, overheard the tumult, and issuing from 
 the palace, met the body at Charing Cross. A few 
 words satisfied him of the height of their excite- 
 ment, and consequently of the uselessness of re- 
 monstrance. He therefore drew his sword, dashed 
 into the thickest of them, and cut do\vn several of 
 the leaders. Such was the eff"ect produced by this 
 alacrity, that they couched their weapons, and after 
 hearing a reproach or two from him for doubting 
 a word he had never broken to them, retired at his 
 bidding, and quietly sought their homes. 
 
 The grand issue of Monk's plans and movements 
 henceforward was the restoration of the exiled king, 
 a memorable event, skilfully conducted, and per- 
 fectly well known. Marching directly into England 
 to counteract Lambert, who was the only man 
 likely to oppose him, he gradually purified his 
 i-anks, and upon quartering his army in Westmin- 
 ster, avowed his intention of supporting the parlia- 
 ment. In return for this, he honestly told the 
 members, that he expected they would support the 
 interests of the people, by which means peace and 
 happmess might once more become the enjoyment 
 of their distracted country. The Long Parliament 
 at last came to the decent resolution of dissolving 
 itself. A new election involved every consequence 
 royalty could desire; new men were returned to 
 the councils of state; the house of peers was agam 
 thrown open without a debate, or even an order; 
 things were allowed to take their own course, and 
 they fell mto their old channels; it now required 
 only that the word should be uttered, and the great 
 point was gained for which so much had been 
 dared, and so much suff"ered ; for which so much 
 blood had been spilt, and so many lives martp-ed. 
 Monk himself observed for a while profound silence 
 upon the subject; to no one did he hint his designs, 
 and from no one would he hear counsel upon it. 
 Of his reserve in this respect a characteristic story 
 is recorded. All his relations and kindred were 
 devoted to the royal interest; his brothers were 
 actually in Charles's service, and it was not unna- 
 turally supposed, that he himself could not be 
 without some favour for the cause in which he had 
 first embarked, and severely suffered. To ascer- 
 tain and cherish, if it existed, this feeling*, Dr. 
 Monk, his younger brother, was sent into Scotland 
 with a letter from the king. Upon reaching the 
 general's quarters, he found him engaged at a 
 council of officers, from whom he was not likely to 
 be at liberty for some time. Meanwhile, the doc- 
 tor was received and entertained by Price, the 
 general's chaplain, a man highly respected by 
 Monk, and well known to be in the confidence of 
 the royalists. To him Doctor Monk freely commu- 
 nicated the object of his journey, and even desired 
 the advantage of support, should circumstances 
 require it. At length, the brothers met, and the 
 instructions were opened, when the general abruptly 
 asked, " If mention of the business had been made 
 
 * This ■was Nicholas Monk, afterwards Provost of Eton, 
 and Bishop of Hereford. He died December 11, 16G1, aged 
 fifty, and was buried, and is commemorated by a marble 
 tablet erected by his grandson, Christopher Kawlinson, Esq., 
 in the Chapel of St. Edmund. 
 
 to any other person ?" " To no one," returned the 
 doctor, " but to Price, whom I know to be entirely 
 trusted by you." The general turned the conver- 
 sation, and refused to enter any further upon it; 
 nor could any entreaty or importunity induce him 
 to hold any intercourse on a question so ■vital, even 
 with a brother, who had been weak enough to con- 
 fide to an mferior, what should have been only 
 addressed to his principal *. 
 
 Meantime, Monk connected himself upon popular 
 terms with the corporation of London, at a public 
 meeting in the city ; while a sudden insurrection by 
 Lambert, which for the moment spread imiversal 
 consternation, was vigorously suppressed, and the 
 new parliament assembled with every prospect of 
 general amity. Already the House of Commons 
 had chosen their speaker, and were about to com- 
 mence business, when Monk presented himself at 
 the bar, and announced, that one Sir John Gran- 
 ville waited at the door, with a letter from the king 
 for the commons of England. A cry of ecstasy 
 burst forth upon the news, and the restoration was 
 carried in the shout. Tlie king was proclaimed 
 before the members of both houses in Palace-yard, 
 at Whitehall, and Temple Bar ; 500^. were voted to 
 buy a jewel for Granville; and then 50,000L as a 
 present to the kuig; 10,000/. to the Duke of York, 
 and 5,000/. to the Duke of Gloucester ; and a depu- 
 tation of lords and commons was decreed to wel- 
 come Charles II. to his crown. While these acts 
 passed with enthusiasm at home, Montague, after- 
 wards Earl of Sandwich, prevailed upon the fleet to 
 tender its duty to theh* monarch, and sailed to the 
 coast of Holland. At Schoeling, Charles came on 
 board, and upon disembarking at Dover, was re- 
 ceived in the arms of Monk. 
 
 Thus was the monarchy restored, after an inter- 
 regnum of twenty years; thus, too, did one man 
 quietly effect what thousands had vainly died to 
 accomplish. All the reward that wealth, honours, 
 and offices could return for such services. Monk now 
 received in abundance. He was created Duke of 
 Albemarle, and Knight of the Garter, was appoint- 
 ed Lord of the Bedchamber, and Master of the 
 Hoi'se; he received a pension of 7,000/. a-year, and, 
 as the highest mark of public respect, was formally 
 attended by the whole House of Common.s, when 
 he took his seat among the lords. 
 
 The Duke of Albemarle was now left for some 
 time in the easy enjojanent of fame. In 1GG5, 
 however, a war, most unfortunately undertaken 
 against the Dutch, called him back to the busier 
 scenes of life; and while the Duke of York com- 
 
 * The follo^vring, told by M. Guizot, refers to a later period. 
 " Mrs. Monk, in her reckless mirth, had asked Hugh 
 Peters, ■who ■was rich in confiscated ■wealth, if he ■was not 
 for a restitution ; and Little Kit, her son, tormented ■«'ith 
 questions and presents, had confessed that one day his 
 father and mother had talked in bed of the king's return. 
 The republicans could shut their eyes no longer. Harry 
 Martin, ■with ■whom Monk had considerable intimacy, asked 
 him one day what at last he meant to establish? ' A com- 
 monwealth,' said Monk ; ' I have always desired it, and 
 desire it still.' ' I ought to believe your excellency,' an- 
 swered Martin, ' but will you give me leave to tell you a 
 story? It was this: A city tailor was met one evening in 
 the country ■with instruments of husbandry, and was asked 
 what he was going to do ? ' To take a measure for a new 
 suit,' he answered. 'What! with a spade and pick-a.Ke ?' 
 ' Yes, these are the measures now in fashion.' "
 
 MONK, DUKE OF ALBEMARLE. 
 
 >1 
 
 manded the Heet at sea, he directed the admiralty 
 on shore. Though victory at the onset was won by 
 the Enghsh, yet were some reflections made upon 
 the conduct of the royal duke, for not pursuing the 
 advantages he obtained as far as they might have 
 been pushed; and Albemarle was, in consequence, 
 solicited by tlie king to occupy his brother's place. 
 This step is said to have been earnestly opposed by 
 the general's ]n'ivate friends, who forcibly repre- 
 sented that his character as a soldier, a sailor, and 
 a statesman, was proudly established, and that it 
 was unreasonable, at his time of life, to risk all 
 those honoui's upon the chances of another war, in 
 which no success could heighten, wliile any defeat 
 must tarnish the greatness of his reputation. To 
 this advice he replied, that his character could only 
 derive value from its utility to his country: and 
 accordingly, he accepted the command, in conjunc- 
 tion with Prince Rupert. No sooner was this 
 known than sailors came in ci'owds to enlist, be- 
 cause, as they bluntly declared, honest George, 
 they were sure, would still see them righted. 
 
 Early in IfJGG the Dutch fleet, amounting to 
 seventy-six sail, put to sea under De Ruyter and 
 Van Tromp, while a French squadron of forty sail, 
 led by the Duke of Beaufort, also pressed forward 
 to support them. Albemarle, still estimating the 
 Dutch by the defeats they had sustained at his 
 hands under the Commonwealth, proposed to divide 
 liis force, which altogether mustered only seventy- 
 four sail, by sending the one half with Prince Ru- 
 pert, against the French, while he remained with 
 the other to oppose De Ruyter ; and this plan, 
 though protested against for its temerity by some 
 of the officers, was ultimately adopted. The admi- 
 rals parted, and Albemarle, on the first of June, 
 began the celebrated battle of the four days. On the 
 first day, darkness ]iarted the combatants, and [ex- 
 cepting the loss of Vice-admiral Sir William Berke- 
 ley, who was found covered with blood and wounds 
 in his cabin, after the ship had been overpowered 
 in the thickest of the enemy's van] the English had 
 little to complain of. They lay at the weather-gage, 
 and the Dutch shot fell principally among the 
 rigging, so that no heavy damage was thus effected: 
 the greatest injury was done by fire-ships. 
 
 The result of this encounter convinced them, 
 however, that their enemy was far from deficient 
 in courage, and equally well commanded, while in 
 superiority of numbers they had an advantage not 
 to be equalled. Albemarle, therefore, on the second 
 inorniiig, called a council of wai', in which he made 
 this pithy address to his officers: — " If-we had feared 
 tlie numbers of our enemy, we should have fled 
 yesterday; but, though inferior to them in ships, 
 we are in all else superior. Force gives them 
 courage; let us, if we need it, borrow confidence 
 from what we have already done ; and let the 
 enemy feel, that though our fleet be divided, yet 
 our s])irit is entire. At the worst, will it not be 
 better to die bravely here on our own clement, than 
 to be made spectacles to the Dutch ? To \h; over- 
 come is the fortune of war; but to fly is the fashion 
 of cowards. Let us, then, show the world that 
 Englishmen ])refer death to fear." The nobility of 
 these sentimciitH decided tin; (luestion of a continued 
 engagement, which was carried on with intrepidity 
 on both sides. Albemarle straine<l every nerve ; no 
 youlh, fresh in liopc>, and struggling for his first 
 lion(jur, could (;xert himself more. But all was in 
 
 vain: the wind had fallen, the combat was steadier, 
 and the strength of the enemy irresistible. Retreat 
 becoming unavoidable, he turned the fleet toward 
 the shore; a most fortunate calm set in; pursuit 
 was thus intercepted ; and night again prevented 
 further engagement. On the following morning, 
 the English continued to retire in good order, and 
 the Dutch to pursue with resolution. Albemarle 
 undauntedly closed the rear, and as the last extre- 
 mity seemed to api)roaeh, proposed to the Earl of 
 Ossory, son of the Duke of Ormond, who sailed on 
 board the same vessel with him, rather to blow up 
 the ship than surrender. The latter, a youth of 
 enthusiastic gallantry, applauded the idea, and the 
 act was resolved upon; when about two o'clock, 
 just as the enemy were near enough to renew the 
 fight, a fleet was descried crowding all sail from 
 the south towards the scene of action. This proved 
 to be Prince Rupert, whom Albemarle again joined 
 with alacrity; and the scale of victoi-y was turned. 
 
 On the fourth morning the attack was resumed 
 with forces more equal, and unaltered spirit. After 
 a long cannonade, the fleets closed, and fought until 
 about six in the evening, when they were sej)arated 
 by a dense mist. The English wei-e the first to 
 retire to their harbours, where they claimed a 
 victory, upon the double grounds of their inferior 
 force, and superior courage ; while the Dutch, having 
 made some captures, being left masters of the sea, 
 returned home with all the parade and rejoicing of 
 triumph. But the circumstance which reflected 
 greatest credit upon the pretensions of the English, 
 was the fact of their having been first out at sea 
 again, in thorough rejiair, and presenting once 
 more to the cannon of the enemy many of those 
 ships which it had been prematurely boasted were 
 either captured or sunk. 
 
 On the 26th of the same month the two fleets 
 met again under the same commanders; the force 
 on both sides was nearly equal, amounting to about 
 eighty sail, and as fierce an engagement took place, 
 as the experience of such officers, the valour of 
 their men, and the excitement of so many trials for 
 decisive conquest, could inspire. The attack was 
 led by the English under Sir Thomas Allen, com- 
 manding the white squadron, who routed the Dutch 
 van, and killed the three admirals apjiointed to it. 
 Van Tromp was opposed by Sir Jeremy Smith, and 
 entirely cut off from all assistance, while De Ruyter 
 supported the main violence of the battle, and 
 though terribly overjiowered, kept nj) a spirited 
 defence; until the close of the day; on the following 
 morning his fleet appeared shattered and broken; 
 the superiority of the English was manifest, and 
 nothing but thegreatist skill and the most arduous 
 efl'orts saved tlie Dutch from utter destruction. 
 They withdrew in a manner highly honourable; and 
 after being severely pressed during two days and 
 a night, at last saved themselves in their harbours, 
 where the English insulted them at their an- 
 chorage. 
 
 Allxmarle's last appearance in arms is now to be 
 recorded: this was in KKi?, «hen the Dutch fleet 
 enjoyed the unjirecedented triumph of sailing up the 
 Thames, and burning all the shipping in the river. 
 Ui)on this disastrous occasion, he commanded the 
 laml foi-ces, and though heavily advanced in years, 
 yet were his exertions as boM, and his bearing as 
 fearless as ever. When at Chatham it was appre- 
 liended that the enemy would attenijit a landing, 
 
 e2
 
 52 
 
 WESTMINSTER ABBEY. 
 
 he advanced into the hottest of their fire, and set 
 the most powerful example of duty and resistance; 
 and when expostulated with upon the danger to 
 which he thus exposed himself, and importuned to 
 retire, he quietly answered, " Had I been afraid of 
 a bullet, I should have left this trade long ago." 
 
 This service may be said to have been the con- 
 clusion of his public life, and it was greatly owmg 
 not only to his counsel, but to his conduct, that so 
 daring an enterprise was so formidably resisted. 
 For a short time he filled the office of Lord High 
 Treasurer, and then finally retreating from the 
 fatigues of place and authority, spent the close of 
 his life in calm retirement. His last illness was 
 long and painful : he languished until his sixty- 
 third yeai", and expired while sitting silently in his 
 chair at Newhall, in Essex, January 3rd, 1G80. 
 His body was removed to London, where it lay 
 in state for three weeks, and was tlien interred 
 with great solemnity in the same vault with Mon- 
 tague, Earl of Sandwich, in the south aisle of 
 Henry VI I. 's chapel. 
 
 Monk, Duke of Albemarle, left an only son, with 
 whom his title was extinguished. Both father and 
 son were buried in a vault under the north aisle of 
 Henry VII.'s chapel, the descent to which is 
 marked by a closet containing an effigy of the 
 general in armour. At his death his means were 
 very affluent; he had a landed estate of 1 5^000^. 
 a year, and G0,000^. in personal property. 
 
 There are few historical personages respecting 
 whose public conduct a greater diversity of opinion 
 has been expressed, than that of George Monk, 
 Duke of Albemarle. As the restorer of the Eng- 
 lish monarchy he has been extolled in the highest 
 terms of praise by one set of writers, while by 
 another he has been loaded with the most ojipro- 
 brious censure. Mr. Fox has observed that a 
 baser man could not be found in the lowest ranks 
 of his own army. He confessed himself, that when 
 he consented to the proscription of his old com- 
 rades in arms, he was " the arrantest rogue that 
 ever lived." And certainly, whether we regard 
 him in his personal character, or in his public, it is 
 impossible to feel much sympathy or respect for 
 liim. He betrayed both the great causes he 
 espoused, those of the king, and the parliament, 
 and whatever evils he may be held to have arrested 
 by restoring the monarchy, he produced others of 
 no light weight or small extent, when he placed the 
 crown upon the head of Charles II. without making 
 a single provision for the liberties of his country. 
 
 The most moderate, and perhaps the fairest esti- 
 mate formed of his character, is to be found in the 
 recent memoir by M. Guizot, which has been well 
 translated, with the addition of many illustrative 
 anecdotes by the hon. J. Stuart Wortley. From 
 this volume we shall borrow an extract or two. 
 
 " At once both celebrated and obscure, he has 
 linked his name with the restoration of tlie Stuarts, 
 but has left us no other memorial of his life. One 
 day he disposed, singly, and with renown, of a 
 throne and a people : on those which either pre- 
 cede or follow it he is scarcely to be distinguished 
 from the crowd with which he mingles. He is one 
 of those whose talents and even vices have but a 
 day or hour for the development of their full 
 energy and dominion ; yet they are men whom it 
 is most important to study ; for the rapid drama 
 
 wherein they took the leading part, and the event 
 which it was in theh- sole power to accomplish, can 
 be through them alone made thoroughly intel- 
 ligible." 
 
 " Unrefined tastes, and that need of repose in 
 his private life, which usually accompanies activity 
 iu public aff"airs, had consigned him to the domi- 
 nion of a woman of low character, destitute even of 
 the charms which seduce, and whose manners did 
 not belie the rumour which gave for her extrac- 
 tion a market-stall, or even, according to some, a 
 much less respectable profession. She had lived 
 for some time past with Monk, and united to the 
 influence of habit, an impetuosity of will and words 
 difficult to be resisted by the tranquil apathy of 
 her lover. It is asserted that she had managed, 
 as long since as the year 1649, to force him to a 
 marriage; but this marriage was most certainly 
 not declared till 1G53 ; for a letter from London, 
 the 19th of September in that year, thus announced 
 the news : — ' Our Admiral Monk hath lately de- 
 clared an ugly common his wife, and legiti- 
 mated three or foxu- bastards he hath had by her 
 during his growth m grace and saintship.' The 
 newsmonger had apparently amused himself w ith 
 adding to the scandal, for Monk is not known to 
 have had a child older than his son Christopher, 
 Duke of Albemarle after liim, and born in the 
 course of this same year, 1653. There is therefore 
 reason to believe, that the birth of this son was the 
 motive for the marriage. Monk, besides, had 
 endeavoured to put on that religious appearance 
 which was then indispensable to success ; and 
 though little fitted for the hypocritical jargon of 
 the times, thought it at least right to discard from 
 his conduct all irregularities likely to shock the 
 eyes of the saints. It appears certain, in fact, that 
 his wife, in order to persuade him to it, employed, 
 if not the influence of religion, at least the exhor- 
 tations of its ministers. ' Taking no care for any 
 other part of herself,' says Clarendon, ' she had 
 deposited her soul with some presbyterian minis- 
 ters.' They asserted the necessity of the marriage; 
 and perhaps employed, to bring Monk to a deci- 
 sion, some of those sermons whereof his wife, 
 during then- union, took care to make use, when 
 she wanted to tire out his resistance. She was 
 one of those somewhat ignoble causes which de- 
 termined him to the exertion of his superior facul- 
 ties in a great crisis ; and became afterwards, in 
 his elevation, a conspicuous proof of the vulgarity 
 of his tastes and habits." 
 
 One of Mr. Wortley's notes gives us a better 
 insight into Monk's domestic life, and the somxcs 
 of this woman's influence over him : — 
 
 " Her custom was," says Price (Mas. Sol. Tr. 
 712), " when the general's and her own work and 
 the day were ended, to come into the dining-room 
 to him (at Dalkeith) in her treason gown (as I 
 called it), I telling him that when she had that 
 gown on, he would allow her to say anything. 
 And, indeed, her tongue was her own then, and 
 she would not spare it ; insomuch that I, who still 
 chose to give my attendance at those hours (the 
 general behig alone), have often shut the dining- 
 room doors, and charged the sonants to stand 
 without till they were called. 'Tis easy to con- 
 ceive what her discourses were, when a woman
 
 MILTON. 
 
 53 
 
 that had wit enoufjh, and always influence, and 
 sometimes (as it «as thought) too much ujion her 
 husband (tlie tlieme being so copious too), might 
 safely talk extravagancies, in contidcnce tliat they 
 would go no farther. Sometimes the general would 
 make bad faces, and seem to be uneasy in hearing 
 her, and oft address himself to me, as if I were to 
 modei-ate at the act: to whom I have as oft returned, 
 ' Sir, what shall I say ? She speaks such unhappy 
 truths, that neither you nor I can gainsay them.' 
 I cannot forget his usual answer. ' True, Mr. 
 Price,' would he say, ' but I have learned a pro- 
 verb, that he who follows truth too close upon the 
 heels, will one time or other have his bi'ains kicked 
 out.' His lady usually witlidrew before the family 
 was called to prayers, and then I had an opjior- 
 tunity to talk over the same things in softer lan- 
 guage (as became me)." 
 
 Both Monk and his wife were misers. 
 
 '•' Monk's love of money has been already noticed 
 (note, p. 37), and these scandalous proceedings on 
 the part of the duchess seem to have been the 
 common talk of the day. Pepys (Diary, i. 110) 
 tells us that one Brigham, the king's coachmaker, 
 complained to him that ' Lady Monk ' asked him 
 500/. for that place ; and she is scarcely ever men- 
 tioned either in that Diary or in Evelyn's, or by 
 Clarendon or Buniet, without some opprobrious 
 epithet implying avarice and parsimony. To both 
 of these qualities he appears to have given more 
 than a mere negative countenance. Pepys, in the 
 very curious record of times which we have so 
 often quoted, gives us a picture of his way of living 
 a little later, in 16G7, when, he (Pepys) oue day 
 came to dinner, and found the Duke of Albemarle 
 ' with sorry company, some of his officers of the 
 army, dirty dishes, and a nasty wife at table, and 
 bad meat'"(iii. 185). In IGGC, he says he hears 
 that the general ' is grown a drunken sot ' (iii. 75); 
 but this rumour is indignantly denied by Gumble 
 (]>. 400), and wants confirmation. There never 
 certainly were two people less fitted for their 
 sphere than these were for this." 
 
 It is just to add Mr. Wortley's suggestions of a 
 more favourable kind : — 
 
 " Monk himself, whatever might be his more 
 solid qualities, seems to have been endowed with 
 few of those which tell in society. He strikes 
 Pepys, who was apparently no conjuror, as 'a 
 heavy dull man,' — 'a ijuiet lieavy man.' (Diary, ii. 
 136. 250.) His wife was 'a i)lain, homely dowdy.' 
 (Ibid. i. 150.) One Troutbeck, conversing with 
 the duke himself on the wonder that Nan Hyde 
 should have become Duchess of York, said there 
 was a greater wonder still, ' that our dirty Besse 
 (meaning his duchess) should come to be Duchess 
 
 of Albemarle.' (iii. 75.) Notwithstanding the doubts 
 expressed elsewhere, I must acknowledge that cer- 
 tain legal proceedings in the year I7OO (quoted by 
 Colonel Mackinnon, History of Coldstream Guai-ds, 
 i. 130) seem to prove beyond dispute that her origin 
 and early life were as vulgar as her manners ; — 
 that she was really daughter of a farrier in the 
 Savoy ; lived with one Ratford, her fii-st husband, 
 at the three Spanish Gipsies, in the Exchange, 
 where she 'sold wash balls, powder, gloves, and 
 such things, and taught girls plain work ;' was 
 sempstress to Monk in 1647, and married him in 
 that character in 1652. We cannot be surprised, 
 therefore, that his mere practical merits should 
 have failed to bear him up in spite of such dis- 
 qualifications, and that the court should be said to 
 have been ' weary of my Lord Albemarle ' in Dec. 
 1GG2 (Pepys, i. 353) ; or that, when even his public 
 conduct had given rise to much question after the 
 war, it should be reported that he was ' under a 
 cloud' (iii. 61). It is rather to be taken as an in- 
 voluntary tribute to his real powers, that in this 
 state of isolation, and thus exposed to incessant ridi- 
 cule in so many vulnerable points, he should still 
 have been considered a refuge and resource in the 
 moment of danger, almost to the close of his life." 
 A word or two are now to be added, descriptive 
 of Monk's monument * : — it stands near the waxen 
 effigy of Charles II., at the extremity of the south 
 aisle of Henry VII.'s chapel ; and by some strange 
 perversion of vanity, or an equally culpable neglect, 
 is only inscribed with the names of the trustees 
 who placed it, although a fine free basement left 
 ample room for an epitaph. The only information 
 given to the reader by the marble is, simply that 
 Grace, Countess of Granville, John, Earl of Gower, 
 and Bernard Granville, esq. erected this monu- 
 ment, pursuant to the will of Christopher, Duke of 
 Albemarle. The sculptor thus employed was 
 Scheemakers, but the design was furnished by 
 Kent :— on one side of a curiously ornamented 
 column he has represented the general in armour, 
 holding a baton in one hand, and with the other 
 Icanins; on his sword ; and at the contrarv side a 
 female figure, recumbent in grief over a medallion 
 of his son Christophex". The general's face is a 
 good likeness, well wrought ; the design is relieved 
 by various devices emblematical of war ; but in its 
 general aspect presents no very striking beauties 
 either of conception or execution. 
 
 • It is strange tliat Monsieur Giiizot shoukl have been 
 ignorant of a fact so easily ascertainable as this. He asserts 
 that no monument has been erected to his memory, and his 
 translator, Mr. Wortley, does not correct the mistake, though 
 a description of tl.e monument is to be found In the common 
 guide book of the Abbey. 
 
 MILTON. 
 
 No one can look at the tablet to Milton, in the 
 Poets' Corner, without an indignant sense of the 
 disi)arity, too fre(|ueTitiy oljscrvabh^ throughout 
 these walls, betwe(!n tiie preteimioiis of tli(^ man to 
 wiiom the monument is erected, and the monunuiit 
 itself. Tlie grave of Chaucer liau not a luio to hi- 
 
 dicate the spot: Spenser has received no greater 
 honour than a plain marble skib, while Gay, Prior, 
 and Rowe, have two and three statues a])iece, :is 
 large as lifi^, to comnRinorate their (pialitics; and 
 the memory of sue!) nu'U as Dryden and Milton 
 is only preserved by ordinary busts. The fate
 
 54 
 
 WESTMINSTER ABBEY. 
 
 of Milton, in this respect, is, perhaps, the most 
 provoking of all others: he has received no other 
 compliment than a bust, shaded by a flat arch of 
 black marble, on a heavy jjcdestal tablet, with an 
 inscription, of which but two lines concern him; 
 six of the remainder being appropriated to a Mr. 
 Benson, who erected it; two to Rysbrack the artist, 
 who executed it ; and two to the year in which it 
 was put up. 
 
 John Milton was born at the Spread-Eagle, in 
 Bread Street, Cheapside, December 9, 1608. His 
 grandfather, who was ranger of the forest of Shot- 
 over, and a zealous Roman Catholic, disinherited 
 his father from the family estate, situated at Mil- 
 ton, in Oxfordshire, for turning Protestant. Being 
 thus necessitated to adopt a profession, Mr. Milton 
 practised as a musician according to some, and as 
 a scrivener according to others. But whatever 
 were his pursuits, it is admitted that he acr^uired 
 not only reputation, but wealth, retiring from busi- 
 ness with a competency, and settling at Horton, in 
 Buckinghamshire, with his ftrmily, which consisted, 
 besides the poet, of Christopher, who became a 
 judge of the Common Pleas, and ]\Iary Anne, who 
 married Mr. Phillips, secondary of the Crown 
 Office. From St. Paul's School, for which he was 
 prepared by a private tutor, the Rev. Mr. Young, he 
 passed his son John as a pensioner to Christ's College, 
 Cambridge, in February, 1624, and was not long 
 left without the most gratifying proofs of his talents 
 and acquirements. " At the age of ten years he 
 was a poet," says Aubrey, and he began to print 
 at sixteen. His first productions, as was then com- 
 monly the custom, were in Latin; and it may, per- 
 haps, suffice, for the interest of this work, if we 
 describe his writings in that language, by repeating, 
 that Doctor Johnson considered Milton to be the 
 first Englishman, after the revival of letters, who 
 composed Latin verse with classical purity. This 
 praise, as far at least as the point of priority goes, 
 is, however, denied by many ; and, indeed, is rather 
 hastily adjudged by the doctor, whose opinions, 
 perhaps, would have been oftener held to be incon- 
 siderate, if they had been delivered in a less dicta- 
 torial manner. 
 
 Milton has himself related some particulars of 
 his youthful proficiency in letters, and the strong 
 resolution he formed at an early period of his life 
 to attain distinction as an author. " I must say 
 that, after I had, for my first years by the ceaseless 
 diligence and care of my father (whom God recom- 
 pense !) being exercised to the tongues, and such 
 science as my age would suffer, by sundry masters 
 and teachers, both at home and at the schools, it 
 was found that, whether aught was imposed on me 
 by them that had the overlooking, or betaken to 
 of my own choice, in English, or other tongue, 
 prosing or versing, but chiefly the latter, the style, 
 by certain vital signs it had, was likely to live. 
 But, much latelier, in the private academies of 
 Italy, whither I was favoured to resort, perceiving 
 that some ti'ifles which I had composed at twenty or 
 thereabout * * * * met with acceptance above what 
 was looked for; — and other things, which I had 
 shifted (in scarcity of books and conveniences), to 
 patch up among them, were received with written 
 encomiums, which the Italian isnotforwardtobestow 
 on men on this side of the Alps ; — I began thus to 
 assent both to them, and divei's of my friends at 
 home, and not less an inward prompting, which 
 
 now grew daily upon me, that, by labour and intense 
 study (which I take to be my portion in life), I 
 might perhaps, leave something so written to after- 
 times as they should not willingly let die." — Pi-e- 
 face to the Second Book of Church Government. 
 A noble purpose truly, and so fulfilled in " after- 
 times" that his comiti-ymen will never cease to 
 cherish what he has uttered in his native tongue. 
 
 Milton is said to have entered the university 
 with the intention of becoming a clergyman ; but, 
 disagreements of so serious a nature broke out 
 between him and the masters of his college, that 
 he imbibed a strong and insuperable aversion, not 
 only to their discipline, but to their religion also. 
 Notwithstanding his fondness for study, he suffered, 
 according to Dr. Johnson, the disgrace of corporal 
 punishment, under all those circumstances of brutal 
 severity with which it was formerly administered 
 in our public schools. Nor did his mortifications 
 end here : he was also condemned to a temporary 
 expulsion. The grounds for his treatment have 
 never been known; and though Milton returned to 
 Cambridge, and there took his degree of Bachelor 
 of Arts, in 1628, and of Master in 1632, he never 
 after spoke of the place in terms either of affection 
 or respect. To these circumstances must, in all 
 probability, be attributed that spirit of hostility 
 which always continued to embitter his opinions 
 against the Episcopal Church of England. 
 
 From the time of leaving Cambridge, in 1632, 
 Milton resided five years with his father, on the 
 estate wliich the latter had purchased at Horton, 
 in the county)' of Bucks. " This," says the author of 
 ' The World before the Flood,' " was the golden age 
 of his life, when he was more at home, at peace, 
 and in the enjoyment of health and happiness, than 
 during the following ]3eriod. Here, too, the most 
 precious portions of his poetry, in point of richness 
 of imagery, brilliance of colouring, and liveliness of 
 description, were the fruits of that lucid interval of 
 retirement. Whatever may be surmised in dispa- 
 ragement of his temper, either in domestic or public 
 life, JMilton must have been a dutiful and amiable 
 son, to have continued with his parent through so 
 long a term, in ' the prime of manhood, where 
 youth ended.' " During these five years he is said 
 to have occupied himself in reading over all the 
 Greek and Latui authors, in writing his " Mask of 
 Comus," for the Earl of Bridgewater's children, 
 and composing his '• Lycidas," in commemoration of 
 a departed friend. " Comus " was performed at 
 Ludlow Castle in 1634, and soon after part of a 
 similar entertaiument was represented before the 
 Countess Dowager of Derby, at Harefield. Already, 
 therefore, the nobility were patrons and admirers 
 of Milton's learning and talents. In 1638 his 
 mother died, and he prevailed upon his father to 
 let him set out to travel through France and Italy. 
 He took for his guide this quaint axiom suggested 
 by Sir Henry Wootton, the Provost of Eton, 
 "thoughts close, and looks loose." On the conti- 
 nent his introductions were to the highest charac- 
 ters, and his reception the most flattering. At 
 Paris he visited the learned Grotius; at Florence 
 the leading men of letters addressed odes to his 
 name, and at Rome the same honours were m- 
 creased in number. The Cardinal Barberini, and 
 Manso, Marquis of Villa, the patron of Tasso, vied 
 with each other in distinguishing him; he visited 
 Galileo in the prison of the Inquisition, and made a
 
 MILTON. 
 
 circuit of the other principal cities in the Italian 
 states, under corresponding cii'cumstances of cour- 
 tesy and respect. These tributes to his attahiments 
 and character, we are told, would have been even 
 more marked, but for the determined manner in 
 which he proclaimed, on all occasions, his political 
 and religious opinions. 
 
 Returning from the continent after an absence 
 of fifteen months, because, as he wrote himself, he 
 considered it dishonorable to be lingering abroad, 
 even for the improvement of his mind, \\hile his 
 fellow-citizens were contending for their liberty at 
 home, he took a house in Aldersgate Street, where 
 he boarded scholars, begmning with his nephews, 
 the two sons of ]\Ir. Phillips, and became a political 
 writer, first fur the Presbyterians, and afterwards 
 against them. At his school he laboured with ex- 
 emplary attention, setting the boys under his care 
 a philosophical pattern of hard study and spare 
 diet. Neither was he at all negligent in the use of 
 his pen. On the contrary, he poured forth a num- 
 ber of controversial works upon the stirring topics 
 of the day, on which Archbishop Ussher and Bishop 
 Hall became his antagonists. In politics he an- 
 swei'ed the " Ikon Basilike," attributed to Chai-les I., 
 by his " Iconoclastes," one of the ablest of his works, 
 and replied to the " Defensio Regis of Salmasius," 
 by his celebrated "Defensio pro Populo Anglicano." 
 When this appeared, he filled the situation of Latin 
 secretary to the government, at a salary of lOOOZ. 
 a year, and received 1000^. for the work. It was 
 his province to conduct all the foreign correspon- 
 dence of the state, even after the total loss of his 
 sight. But he does not seem to have possessed 
 much power or influence: he had no hand in the 
 plots, and took no active part in the revulsions of 
 that exciting period; but he justified all that was 
 tione, and, particularly, the execution of the king. 
 From these political engagements he once sought a 
 happy relief in the publication, in 1G45, of a collec- 
 tion of Latin and English poems; among which are 
 those gems, "L'Allegro" and "II Penseroso." 
 They were printed in small 8vo, by Ruth Ra worth, 
 for Humphrey Moseley, at the sign of the Prince's 
 Arms, in St. Paul's Churchyard. 
 
 Milton, though thrice married, is not I'epresented 
 as ever haj)i)y in that state. . He first entered upon 
 it in his thirty-fifth year, at a time when his father, 
 who had been distm-bcd by tlie royalists in Buck- 
 ingliam, was living with him. The lady cliosen was 
 Mary, daughter of Richard Pow^el, a justice of the 
 peace, living at Forest Hill, m Oxfordshire. The 
 match was a very unsuitable one. Her distaste 
 for the confinement of a schoolmaster's life, and 
 her disrelish of her husband's politics, were so de- 
 cided, that in about a month she got leave to visit 
 her parents, and remained with them the whole 
 summer. Milton, after vainly endeavouring to pre- 
 vail upon her to return home by repeated messages 
 and letters, at last became incensed, and proposed 
 to treat this conduct as a breach of tJio marriage 
 contract. Considering that his wife had deserted 
 him, he deterniined to repudiate her. To vindicate 
 his oj)inioiis upon this suljjcct, he produced his 
 treatises entitled " Tlie Doctrine and Discipline of 
 Divorce," "The judgment of Martin Bucer con- 
 cerning Divorce," and "Tetrachordon, or an Expo- 
 sition upon tlie four chief places in Sci'ipture which 
 treat of Marriage." 'J'lic views taken in these pub- 
 lications excited attention, no less by tlicir novelty 
 
 than their boldness. They alarmed the Presbyterian 
 assembly of divines, then sitting at Westminster, 
 who caused the author to be sunnnoncd before the 
 House of Lords; but the proceeding went no further. 
 He had even begun to pay his addresses to another 
 lady, when his wife threw herself unexpectedly 
 before him on her knees, and by tears and entrea- 
 ties moved him to forgiveness. This he granted, 
 taking iier, and her parents, and brothers, into his 
 house, and affordhig them a home when dispos- 
 sessed of their own by the republicans. In 1652 
 his first wife died in child-bed, leaving him three 
 daughters. The second wife was Catherine, the 
 daughter of Captain Woodcock, of Hackney, who 
 died within a year alter their union. He was blind 
 when he married her: and the last, Elizabeth Min- 
 shul, the daughter of a Cheshire gentleman, sur- 
 vived him ; and then cheated the daughters, whom 
 she had oppressed during his lifetime, of 15001., 
 which was the residue of Iiis fortune. All these 
 ladies were virgins when he married them, and he 
 is said to have maintained that it was a disgrace to 
 man to take any other to his bed. 
 
 The i-estoration of Charles II. put an end to 
 Milton's political career; and even filled him with 
 fears for the safety of his person, which few men, 
 who consider either the boldness of his past writ- 
 ings, or the station he filled, will think altogether 
 groundless. But every cause for apprehension was 
 soon removed; for, except the censure reflected 
 upon him by the order for burning his " Icono- 
 clastes," and " Defence of the People," by the 
 common hangman, no persecution followed; and 
 the Act of Oblivion, as it was termed, soon gave 
 security to his person. 
 
 Two stories are told to account for this indul- 
 gence; but neither the one nor the other can be 
 ti'aced to any authority. The first relation is, that 
 Milton's interposition had saved Sir William Dave- 
 uant's life dm-ing the Commonwealth, and that 
 Davenant returned the obligation by interceding 
 for Milton after the Restoration. The other ac- 
 count reports, that in order to divert the pursuit of 
 his enemies, ho feigned himself dead, and had his 
 funeral publicly celebrated : a jocular expedient, 
 which preserved his retreat undisturbed until the 
 first heats of the triumphant party were over, and 
 then so amused the king, that he forbade any 
 farther molestation. All this seems very impro- 
 bable, and may perhaps be set down as mere 
 gossip. It appears certain, however, that the 
 House of Commons ordered the attorney-general 
 to prosecute him ; that he was actually in the cus- 
 tody of the sergeaut-at-arms in December, Uiiii) ; 
 and that he was brought up to the bar of the house 
 for refusing to i)ay liis fees when released. But 
 how this release was cft'ected, and how the (juestion 
 of fees was disposed of, are points utterly indaiown. 
 
 This lenity was not without effects, ujion which 
 no Englishman can reflect without exultation. 
 Henceforward Milton, with a single exception, not 
 long before his death, abandoned controversy, jioli- 
 tical as well as religious, and took \\]> a contempla- 
 tive residence in iiunhili-fields. His position and 
 circinnstances cannot be regarded without a feeling 
 of deep symjiatJiy and respect. He was-reduced in 
 fortune, and totally l)lii)d; and Ik; had lost his siglit 
 by close ajJiilication to his official duties. While 
 writing liis " Defence of tlie People " his ])liysicians 
 had forewarned him that if he proceeded so intensely
 
 56 
 
 WESTMINSTER ABBEY. 
 
 he would lose his sight. He did proceed, and an 
 incurable gntta sereiia was formed: bnt the vigour 
 of his senses was unimpaired ; "And he now," says 
 Mr. Montgomery, " turned its whole foi'ce to the 
 completion of his earliest project — an heroic poem 
 — always in his eye, never out of his mind, though 
 the form of it was frequently changing, but not 
 fully vuidertaken till he had been driven from the 
 field of politics and controversy. Thus, till he had 
 reached his sixtieth year, so little impatient was he 
 of securing celebrity by the exercise of that very 
 gift on which he most valued himself, that the 
 whole bulk of his published poems scarcely amount- 
 ed to a hundred pages of print; and when, at length, 
 his greatest work was achieved, he committed it to 
 its fate as confidently as though he had foreseen its 
 posthumous fortune 
 
 " 111 the clear mirror of his ruling star." 
 
 And, if that was still to be a ' hope defen-ed,' it 
 made not his 'heart sick;' for he felt that it was 
 within him already, like 'the desire when it cometh' 
 — the quickened germ of a ' tree of life,' under the 
 shadow of whose boughs millions should sit with 
 delight, and with the fruits of which generations 
 unborn should be feasted." Wrapped in these 
 high thoughts, he was to be seen sitting at his door 
 in Bunhill Fields, in a loose coat of grey or coarse 
 cloth, enjoying the freshness of the air, and receiv- 
 ing the visits of his friends ; among whom he ranked 
 many that were learned, and even some that were 
 titled. There he composed " Paradise Lest," imder 
 increased ditliculties; for the gout, which had long 
 troubled him, now became so painful, that it de- 
 [irived him of the use of his limbs, and he was 
 obliged to be swung in a chair for exercise. In this 
 melancholy state his only recreation was t<i play on 
 an organ after dinner ; his favourite hours for com- 
 posing being early in the morning, and before he 
 slejit at night : what he had arranged in his mind 
 was casually reduced to j>aper by the first hand 
 that came to him. The rest of his time he spent in 
 hearing his daughters read; and to so extraordinary 
 a pitch did he succeed in training them, that though 
 unable to write, and unacquainted with any of the 
 languages, he nevertheless accustomed them to read 
 Hebrew, Greek, Latin, French, and Italian — all with 
 sufficient fluency to be well understood. 
 
 " Pai'adise Lost," though finished in 1G65, did 
 not make its appearance until ICGJ. It was sold to 
 Samuel Simmons for five pounds, with a reservation 
 of five pounds after the sale of each of the three 
 first editions, which were limited to 1500 copies 
 a-piece; The right of copy, after this thh-d editicm, 
 was to revert to the author, who did not, however, 
 live to enjoy the title, and his widow sold all claim 
 to it for eight pounds, in 1 690. The miserable 
 amomit of tliese different payments, and the time 
 that elapsed between each of them, have induced a 
 common belief, that the merit of this sublime poem, 
 beyond all comparison the first that has ever been 
 written, was scarcely known until the time of Addi- 
 son's meridian. Had such been the fact, it were an 
 indelible disgrace upon the nation; but, perhaps, a 
 few observations from Dr. Johnson may be enough 
 to show that the case is really not so bad. Addison 
 was certainly the first man, either of talent or rank, 
 who paid the compliment of his public praise to the 
 beauties of " Paradise Lost;" but this by no means 
 unequivocally condennis either the taste or judg- 
 
 ments of his predecessors, particularly when we 
 recollect how absolute the crown was before the re- 
 volution, and that Milton, at the courts of Chaxles II. 
 and James II. was held as little better than one of 
 their father's regicides. A man of letters then had 
 scarcely a hope of competent support without the 
 patronage of his sovereign; and who that was honest 
 enough to praise Milton, could be vain enough to 
 expect promotion ? But the prmcijial point for con- 
 sideration, in the matter of this national justification, 
 is, wliether 4500 copies was a sufficient sale for the 
 time ? Education then was far different, and incom- 
 parably more limited than it is now; and even 
 amongst the greater part of those who enjojed its 
 blessmgs, almost every thing that was liberal, polite, 
 and exalted, was discountenanced either by the 
 crudeness of religious sectaries, or the affectation 
 of foreign tastes. Hence, perhaps, it ought in can- 
 dour to be acknowledged that, though tlie circula- 
 tion was much smaller than its ti'anscendent merit 
 entitled it to, still the sale of " Paradise Lost " was, 
 under all circumstances, sufficiently extensive to 
 save the nation from the reproach of insensibility 
 to so su|jerior a work. 
 
 To enter into any disquisition upon a poem now 
 at least so well known, and so thoroughly appre- 
 ciated, to recapitulate its sublimities, and to attempt 
 to describe its beauties; or even to pick out those 
 faults which are to be detected in it, because they must 
 unavoidably accompany every process of human 
 ingenuity, would be the labour of supererogation. 
 It may then suffice to add, that in so short a period 
 as three years, Milton produced a continuation of 
 his "History of England ;" the first six books of 
 which he had written before he was appointed 
 Latin Secretary, "Samson Agonistes," and "Para- 
 dise Regained." Of the two last, it is said, that the 
 former is generally praised above its desert, and 
 the other is far less considered, than its excellence 
 deserves. Critics may think as they please of the 
 estimation in which the tragedy ought to be held, 
 but it cannot be doubted that " Paradise Regained " 
 is greatly undervalued by the majority of readers. 
 Milton fancied it the happiest of all his poems. The 
 world scarcely deigns to commend it, because it is 
 inferior to " Paradise Lost ;" and yet it is hut pro- 
 bable that, had it emanated from any other mind, 
 public opinion would have more justly elevated it 
 into competition with its predecessor. As the case 
 stands, it only furnishes another exemplification of 
 the truth of that forcible proverb, which declares 
 that a man's greatest enemy is himself. 
 
 Such was the condition in which ]\Iilton ap- 
 proached tlie end of his days. He lived retired, 
 but respected : in his youth, brightened by an almost 
 precocious reputation : m liis middle life, humbled 
 and disappointed: but, m his old age, though slowly, 
 still securely overcoming the rugged ascent to ever- 
 lasting fame. He died in quiet, November 10, 1677> 
 in the OGtli year of his age, and was buried near 
 his father, with many marks of regard and conside- 
 ration, in the chancel of St. Giles's Church, Cripple- 
 gate. 
 
 Thus far only the more prominent passages of 
 Milton's life, and the more memorable of his writ- 
 ings, have been sketched : a catalogue of those 
 works, not already noticed, is therefore subjoined, 
 according to the order in which they were printed. 
 His first prose work was a set of " Familiar 
 Epistles." In 1641 he brought forward "Of Re-
 
 MILTON. 
 
 57 
 
 formation touchinjf Cluirch Discipline in England," 
 in two books, which was designed to aid the Puri- 
 tans against the established church. This was fol- 
 lowed by •' Of Prelatical Eiiiseopaey, and whether 
 it be deduced from the Ajtostolic Times, by virtue 
 of those Testimonies, which ai'c alleged to tliat 
 Purpose in some late Treatises, one whereof goes 
 under the name of James Lord I3ishop of Armagh." 
 In I()42 appeared " The Reason of Church Govern- 
 ment ui'ged agamst Prelaty," by Mr. John Milton ; 
 to which, in consequence of the remarks with 
 which it wa6 assailed, he added two more pamphlets 
 upon the same subject during the course of the 
 year. The Tracts on Divorce, whicli we have 
 already mentioned, were pi'eceded by a work on 
 e<lucation, to " Master Sanniel Hartlibb." To the 
 same year, 1 645, is also to be ascribed " Areopa- 
 gitica, a Speech by Mr. John Milton, for the 
 Liberty of L^nliccnsed Printing," and the volume of 
 Latin and English poems, in which " L' Allegro " 
 and "II Penseroso" were first inserted. "A 
 Treatise to compose the minds of the People after 
 the King's death;"' "Remarks on the Articles of 
 Peace between Oi-mond and the Irish Rebels ;" 
 and " Iconoclastes," and the " Defensio pro Po- 
 pido Anglicano," have already been spoken of ; 
 '• DefiMisio Secunda " was completed three years 
 after; " A Ti'eatise of Civil Power in Ecclesiastical 
 Cases, and the Means of removing Hirelings out of 
 the Church," was sent to the press in 1659; and the 
 " Protectorate of Richard Cromwell " was support- 
 ed by " A Letter to a friend on the Ruptures of the 
 Commonwealth ;" by " A ready and easy Way to 
 establish a free Commonwealth;" and notes njion 
 a sermon preached by one Griffiths, entitled " The 
 I'ear of God and the King." In IGGl he aided 
 the schoolboy, by a little book, " Accidence com- 
 menced ( Jrammar ;" and next immortalised the 
 year 1GG7, by "Paradise Lost," of which the first 
 edition, consisting of ten books, was jmnted in small 
 i|uarto; the second, consisting of twelve books, by 
 dividing the seventh and tenth, appeared in small 
 Jivo, in 1G74; and the third, in the same size, came 
 out in 1G78. The "History of England," already 
 noticed as the production of the same year, IG70, 
 which gave birth to " Paradi.se Regained," and 
 " Samson Agonistes," extends no farther than the 
 Norman Invasion, and is very injudiciously collated. 
 In 1G7"2 he mildly relapsed into the tutor, by 
 bringing forward " Artis Logictt; j)lenior Institutio 
 ad Petri Rami Methodum concinnata, adjecta est 
 Praci analytica et Petro Romi vita;" "A complete 
 System of Logic, arranged according to the Method 
 of Peter Ramus." His last labours arc now to be 
 recorded; and of them it may be remarked, that 
 the one liad been better omitted, and the other 
 seems to have sprung from a mere cacoethes im- 
 priniendi; for there can now be few to relish a 
 " Treatise of 'i'ruo Religion, Heresy, Schism, Tole- 
 nition, and the best means to prevent tlie (irowth 
 ipf I'opery;" and there are none to avail themselves 
 of his volume of " Familiar E])istles and Acade- 
 mical Exercises," in Latin. Milton's toleration, it 
 is to be observed, is given to all who found their 
 faitii upon Scripturt; solely; but is, nevertheless, 
 denied to tlie Catiiolics, Ijecausc, though they 
 .■i|)peal to Scripture, they also ajjpeal to otlici- testi- 
 iii(jiiy;aMd for this dillereiice, hi' would allow tliem 
 to iiijoy ni-ilber public nor |>riv:ito wi)rshi|). Such, 
 for a series of years, was the mimber of composi- 
 
 tions known to have emanated from the great author 
 of "Paradise Lost;" but in 1823, Mr. Lemon, of 
 the Secretary's Office for the Home Dejiartmcnt, dis- 
 covered amongst the old manuscripts of his depart- 
 ment a Latin treatise on the Christian Faith, " I)e 
 Doctrina Christiana," which lias been pronounced 
 the worlc of Milton, upon intrinsic evidence. It is 
 distinguished by the same classical language and 
 innovating doctrines which characterise the whole 
 of his controversial labours, but can now be re- 
 garded rather as a curiosity than an acquisition in 
 literature. 
 
 A few words descriptive of Milton's person, 
 habits, and fortune, will complete all that the nar- 
 row limits of this volume enable the writer to pre- 
 sent to his readers. In youth his complexion was 
 remarkably fair, his hair a light brown, parted in 
 the forehead, and hanging down on his shoulders ; 
 he was rather low in stature, and as he grew old, 
 stout. His strength and activity were great, he 
 fenced dexterously, and delighted in the exercise. 
 Of wine or any strong drink he took little, and ate 
 frugally. He rose at four in summer, and five in 
 winter ; dined at one, su))ped at eight, and after a 
 pipe and a glass of water retired to bed. What 
 propei'ty he received from his father does not ap- 
 pear, but it is clear that he lent the bulk of it to 
 the pai-lianient during the civil wars, and never 
 received back the loan. His salary, when Latin 
 secretary, amounted to 200?. a year ; he received 
 1000/. for liis "Defence of the People," and was 
 farther rewarded for his political labours by a 
 grant of a small estate, producing GO?, a year, 
 which belonged to Westminster Abbey, and was 
 taken from bim at the Restoration. His widow 
 reported that he lost 2000/. which he entrusted to 
 a scrivener, and 2000/. more which he placed for 
 better security in the Excise Office. A short time 
 before his death he sold his librai'y, but left his 
 family 1500/. which were seized by his widow, who 
 gave a hundred j)ounds to each of two surviving 
 daughters, and reserved the rest for her personal 
 enjoyment. 
 
 Alilton is one of the chief glories of English 
 literature. His genius was of the most compre- 
 hensive kind, and the .stateliest order. Whether 
 we regard the extent and power of his imagination, 
 the vigor of his eloquence, or the wisdom of his 
 political views — whether we consult him in prose 
 or poetry, we find him always great, and uniformly 
 admirable. Coleridge indulged in a fine refiection 
 when he observed, " ]\Iy mind is not capable of 
 forming a more august couce]ition than arises from 
 the contemplation of this great man in his latter 
 days — poor, sick, old, blind, slandered, persecuted — 
 
 Darkness before, and danger's voice bcliind, 
 
 In an age in which he was as little understood by 
 the party for whom, as by that against whom, ho 
 had contended, and among men before whom be 
 strode so far as to dwarf himself by the distance; 
 yet, still listening to the music of his own thoughts, 
 or if additionally clieered, yet clieered only by the 
 l)roph(!tic faith of two or three individuals, he did 
 nevertheless 
 
 avRue not 
 
 Against Heaven's hand or will, nor hate a jot 
 (If licarl or hope; l)iU htill Ijorc up and steered 
 Kiglit onward.
 
 58 
 
 WESTMINSTER ABBEY. 
 
 From others only do we derive our luiowledge that 
 Milton, in his latter day, had his scorners and 
 detractors ; and even in his day of youth and hope 
 that he had enemies would have been unknown to 
 us had they not been likewise the enemies of his 
 country." We close with two passages, from Mr. 
 Montgomery, whom we have already quoted : 
 " Though so early and passionately attached to the 
 Muses, the products of this leisure till his thirtieth 
 year were few and small; while, from that date till 
 he had nearly doubled the term, he neither pub- 
 lished, nor has thei'e been recovered from the spoils 
 of time a single composition beyond the length of a 
 psalm or a sonnet. Hence it appears that in his youth 
 and his old age he had devoted himself and his fame 
 — his middle life to his country. The flower and the 
 fruit of his genius were put forth and ripened in 
 retirement; but, after the flower had fallen, and 
 
 while the fruit was maturing, he stood as thick of 
 foliage, and as impicturesque in appearance as any 
 orchard-tree in the dog-days; while — for here the 
 metaphor must be dropped — he exerted, not ex- 
 pended his noble rage, and wielded, yet without 
 exhaustion, his gigantic powers in polemical war- 
 fare, and oflicial drudgery as Latin secretary to 
 Cromwell." 
 
 " His muse has the majesty of Juno to dazzle 
 the eye ; the wisdom of Minerva to inform the 
 understanding ; but she wants the girdle of Venus 
 to bind the aftections. His poetry will be for ever 
 read by the few, and praised by the many. The 
 weakest capacity may be offended by its faults, but 
 it would j-equire a genius scarcely inferior to his 
 own to comprehend, enjoy, and unfold all its 
 merits." 
 
 HENRY LAWES. 
 
 Henry, the son of Thomas Lawes, a vicar choral 
 in the cathedral of Salisbury — '' one who called 
 Milton fi'iend "—was born in 1600, and received 
 his musical education under Cooper, or as he 
 Italianised the name, Coperario. In 1625 Henry 
 Lawes was made a gentleman of the Chapel Royal, 
 a court station, to which the posts of clerk of the 
 cheque and clerk of the private music to Charles I. 
 were subsequently added. Engaged to teach the 
 family of the Earl of Bridgewater music, he formed 
 an acquaintance with Milton, and upon the pro- 
 duction of the masque of Comus, and its perform- 
 ance by the earl's young family at Ludlow Castle 
 in 1637, he was employed to set the songs to music. 
 He himself took the part of the attendant spirit, 
 and there are several fine lines in the piece which 
 express the poet's admiration of the musician's 
 powers. One of Milton's sonnets addressed to 
 Lawes commends him as the first who 
 
 "Taught our English music how to space 
 Words with just note and accent ;" 
 
 by which is to be understood the preservation of a 
 rhythm between the falls of music and the accen- 
 tuations of ])oetical metre. He is also much ex- 
 tolled by Waller, and indeed seems to have esta- 
 blished himself fii-mly in the estimation of his 
 
 cotemporaries. Modern critics, liowever, differ 
 widely from their opinions. There has latterly 
 appeared no musician disposed to allow Lawes 
 excellence in any branch of his art. He is con- 
 sidered the first composer who adopted the Italian 
 style. His songs for a single voice are his best 
 productions : of his works the greatest portion was 
 published under the title of Ayres and Dialogues, 
 which appeared in three volumes, the first in 1653, 
 the second in 1655, and the last in 1658 : but if 
 the music of these publications is inditt'erent, the 
 words must l)e admitted to be very superior. 
 Edward and John Philips, the nephews of Milton, 
 supplied introductor}' verses according to the 
 fashion of that age. When the civil wars broke out 
 Lawes retired from the service of the crown, and 
 supported himself by teaching young ladies to sing, 
 a line of life which a decent character and gentle- 
 manly' manners made more respectable than the 
 rudeness of the time would appear to admit of. 
 He retained his place in the Chapel Royal, and 
 upon the Restoration was honoured with a com- 
 mand to compose the coronation anthem for 
 Charles II. He died in 1662, and was interred in 
 the cloisters of Westminster Abbey, but without 
 either monument or inscription. 
 
 ISAAC BARROW, D. D. 
 
 In the Poets' Corner of Westminster Abbey is a 
 heavy tablet, surmounted by a clerical bust of this 
 eminent man, which, though neither a fine nor a 
 pleasing ])erformanee, is yet strikingly expressed, 
 and in all probability a faithful likeness. A well 
 written inscri|ition, in Latin, recapitulates the vari- 
 ous appointments he filled, from which the following 
 are the more interesting passages: — 
 
 IsAACUs Barrow, 
 
 S.T.P. Regi Carolo 11° a sacris, 
 
 Vir prope Divinus, et vere Magnus si quid 
 
 Magni habent 
 
 Pietas, Probitas, Fides, sumraa 
 
 Eruditio, par Modestia, 
 
 Mores sanctissimi luulequaque et suavissimi, 
 
 Geometrise Professor Londini Greshamiensis, 
 
 GrseciB LingufB et Matheseos apud 
 
 Cantabrigicnses suos, 
 
 Cathedras omnes, Ecclesiam, Gentem ornavit. 
 
 Collegium SS. Trinitatis Prreses illustravit, 
 
 Jactis Bibliothecaj vere Regire Fundamentis auxit. 
 
 Opes, Honores, et univcrsum vitas amljitum. 
 Ad Majora natus, non contcmpsit, sed reliquit scculo.
 
 ISAAC BARROW. 
 
 59 
 
 Deum quem a teneris coluit, cum primis imitatus est, 
 
 Paucissimis egendo, benefaciendo quaui plurimis, 
 
 Etiam posteris, quibus vel mortuus 
 
 Concionare uon desinit. 
 
 Csetera et pseue IMajora ex Scriptis peti possunt. 
 
 Abi, Lector, et ^uiulare. 
 
 Obiit ivo die Maij Auo.Dom. mdclxxvii. 
 
 ^tat. suEe XLVii. 
 
 Monumentum hoc amici posuere. 
 
 Isaac Barrow, 
 
 Chaplain to Charles II. 
 
 A man almost divine, and truly gre.at, if greatness 
 
 Be comprised in piety, probity and taith, 
 
 The deepest learning, equal modesty, and morals. 
 
 In every respect, sanctified and sweet. 
 
 Gresham Professor of Geometry at London, 
 
 And of the Greek language and Mathematics 
 
 At his own Cambridge, 
 
 He adorned all seats of learning. 
 
 The Church, and nation. 
 
 As President he distinguished the College of the 
 
 Holy Trinity, 
 
 And laid the foundation of its truly royal library. 
 
 Born for greater ends, 
 
 Wealth, honours, and the ambition of life. 
 
 He despised not, but resigned to the world: 
 
 From his tenderest infancy, he cherishedan imitation 
 
 Of his Maker, 
 
 Wanting little, and benefiting many; 
 
 Even posterity is his debtor, for he 
 
 Counsels in death — 
 
 Other and greater truths are to be 
 
 Learned in his works : 
 
 Go, reader, and emulate them. 
 
 Isaac Barrow was born in the city of London 
 during the year 1680, but whether in the month of 
 February or October is disputed. His father carried 
 on a respectable business as a linendraper, and his 
 first rudiments of knowledge were imbibed at the 
 Charter House, at which he was principally noted 
 for pugilistic contests and confirmed idleness. His 
 father was reported to have remarked at this period, 
 that if it should please God to take any of his 
 children he hoped it would be Isaac. From this 
 establishment he was removed to a school at Fel- 
 sted, in Essex, where he gave some promise of his 
 future excellence, and improved so much to his mas- 
 ter's satisfaction, that he was appointed to act as a 
 tutor. In due time, he was entered as a pensioner 
 at Trinity College, Cambridge; he obtained a scho- 
 larship in lf;47, and enjoyed a very fiattering pros- 
 pect of preferment from the influence of his uncle 
 and namesake, the Bishop of .St. Asaph. The Uni- 
 versity, however, soon participated in the distrac- 
 tions of the comitry, and this prelate was ejected 
 for his presbyterian antipathies from his fellowship 
 at Peter-House College. Isaac's father, about the 
 same time, suffered severe losses for his attachment 
 to the royal cause; and the student became sonnich 
 embarrassed, that he w:is indebted for tlie means 
 of support to the generosity of Dr. Uimnnond. 
 Although positively devoted to the princiides u])on 
 which ills family acted, yet such wiiH the gentleness 
 of his temper, and the respect already entertained 
 fi.r bis attainments, that ho was permitted to live 
 undisturbed; and this indulgence was even conti- 
 nued aft(!r Ik; had formally n-fused to subscribe to 
 the covenaut. His merits continued to force them- 
 
 selves upon the heads of his college, and in 1049 he 
 was elected a fellow. Forthwith he apjilied himself 
 to divinity as the statutes require. He seems to 
 have considered the dominant opinions in church 
 and state to have been too firmly rooted to admit 
 of his expecting further preferment, as he now- 
 turned his thoughts to the medical profession. With 
 the view of qualifying himself for practice he studied 
 anatomy, botany, and chemistry; but upon a more 
 mature deliberation returned to divinity and ma- 
 thematics. In lGo2 he graduated as M.A. at 
 Oxford, and was soon after recommended to the 
 University of Cambridge by Dr. Duport, as his 
 successor to the Greek professorship. A suspicion 
 of Arianism occasioned his rejection from this post; 
 and at last, as if wearied with disappointments, he 
 determined to travel on the continent. Accordingly, 
 selling his books to raise a fund for the journey, 
 he set out in 1655, and almost immediately after 
 his departure, an edition of Euclid, which was his 
 first work, issued from the Cambridge press. After 
 passing through France and Italy, he took shipping 
 for Smyrna, and was attacked on his passage by an 
 Algerine corsair. A fight ensued between the two 
 ships, during which Barrow pricked up the dor- 
 mant spirit of battle, for which his boyhot)d had 
 l)een remarkable, and stood manfully to his gun 
 until the enemy were beaten oft'. From Smyrna he 
 repaired to Constantinople, and spent a year in 
 studying, with enthusiasm, the works of St. Chry- 
 sostom, on the spot where they were originally 
 composed. At last turning his steps homeward, by 
 Germany and Holland, he reached England in 1659. 
 Some time elapsed before the harvest of appoint- 
 ments he afterwards reaped compensated for the 
 mortifications by which his ambition had been 
 hitherto repressed. In 1C60 he celebrated the 
 restoration of the monarchy and constitution in a 
 Latin ode, and about the same time gave vent 
 to the disappointment he felt in the celebrated 
 distich, — 
 
 " Te magis optavit rediturum, Carole, nemo, 
 Et nemo sensit te rediisse minus." 
 
 Ere long he was ordained by Bishop Brownrigg. 
 In this year he was raised to the post of his former 
 ambition, the Greek professorship at Cambridge, 
 without competition, and made Aristotle's Rhetoric 
 the subject of his first course of lectures. Another 
 preferment awaited his acceptance in 1662, when, 
 at the reccmimcndation of Bishop Wilkins, he was 
 chosen professor of geometry at Gresham College, 
 in London, where, in consequence of the absence 
 of the gentleman appointed to that duty, he also 
 lectm-ed for a time on astronomy. The ensuing 
 year is memora))le for the incorporation of the 
 Royal Society, among the first members of which 
 Barrow was I'nrolled. 
 
 liut the highest of his scientific promotions was 
 attained in the course of this year, when upon tlie 
 foundation of Mr. Lucas's Mathematical Chair, at 
 Cambridge, lie was apjioir.ted to discharge its 
 honours. At his inauguration ho pronounced an 
 oration iqxiu the use; and excellence of mathema- 
 tical science, of which the brilliancy and informa- 
 tion excited intense admiration. Upon this occa- 
 sion he nwigned his Greek and Gresham Profes- 
 sorships, and continued to devote himself exclu- 
 sively to the functions of this trust with the highest, 
 rejiutation, luitil the year 1669, when lie ivlin-
 
 GO 
 
 WESTMINSTER ABBEY. 
 
 quished the place in favour of Sir Isaac Newton, 
 as llie more qualified occu})ant; and after publishing 
 his " Lectioncs Optica^," finally quitted science for 
 divinity. Conscientious feeliufiS led to this change. 
 Offices of distinction and influence marked the 
 esteem iu which his labours were held. Already a 
 king's chaplain, iu I67O he was created a doctor in 
 divinity by mandate; and in 1672 nominated to the 
 mastership of Trinity College by the king, who 
 accompanied the promotion with a declaration that 
 he bestowed it upon the best scholar in England. 
 He had a small living in Wales, given him by his 
 uncle, and a prebend in Salisbury Cathedral. Dr. 
 Barrow was a man delicate in conscience, and scru- 
 pulous in action, to a point of coi-rectness, such as 
 we are not often called upon to notice. At a 
 former, and less prosperous period of his life, he 
 had refused an incumbency, because the patron of 
 it wished to secure his talents as tutor to his son, 
 in return for the giit — an undertaking which he 
 deemed simoniacal; and now, with equal virtue, he 
 had a clause of marriage erased from his patent, 
 because he found upon examination, that such a 
 licence was at variance with the intentions of the 
 founder. In this new station, the same zeal and 
 disinterestedness which had distinguished his con- 
 duct in all his former aj)pointments, were still dis- 
 played; he excused the college from the charge of 
 many expenses to which it had been usually sub- 
 jected on the master's account, and in particular 
 refused to allow it to keep a coach for him. The 
 most memorable act of his administration was the 
 foundation of the king's library ; after which, the 
 vice-chancellorship of the university becoming 
 vacant, his talents and virtues were lifted to a i-ank 
 which they were eminently fitted to adorn. This 
 event took place in l(i75, and was the last of his 
 preferments ; for the credit and usefulness anti- 
 cipated from his exf rtions were here cut short by 
 a fevei', which terminated his life in Loudon, during 
 the month of May, 1C77. 
 
 As a man of character, and one who always 
 carried his principles firmly but moderately into 
 practice. Dr. Barrow was a pattern of the highest 
 excellence. In science he has been placed second 
 only to Newton. That perhaps is exaggeration, 
 but it is not too much to say of him that he was an 
 elegant and profound mathematician, and what is 
 most curious, was distinguished for the conciseness 
 of his illustrations. This latter quality, when we 
 bear in mind the verbosity of his theological writ- 
 ings is no light merit. His sermons are essays, in 
 which all that can be said upon the subject to which 
 they refer is to be found. Charles II. used to call 
 him, in good-natured irony, the tmfair preacher, 
 because, by exhausting the topics of his sermons, 
 he left nothing for others to a<ld after him. Of his 
 works in science, the principal are the edition of 
 " Euclid," already mentioned, which is remarkable 
 for the conciseness of the demonstrations; " Euclid's 
 Data," published in 8vo, at Cambridge, 1G57 ; and 
 in 1669, eighteen " Optical Lectm-es," delivered in 
 the public schools of Cambridge, printed at London, 
 iu 4to, a book subsequently revised and eulai'ged 
 
 by Newton, and still held in high esteem. In 1670 
 he gave in 4to, fr<Hii the London press, " Thirteen 
 Geometrical Lectures," in which the general pro- 
 perties of curved lines are particularly expounded; 
 and in 1675 another 4to, containing the works of 
 Archimedes, four books of the "Conies of Apollo- 
 nius, and Theodosius on Spheres," newly illustrated. 
 These were the only works by Dr. Barrow that 
 appeared during his life time; they are all written 
 in Latin, and were followed soon after his death by 
 a " Lecture on Archimedes' Theorems of the Sphere 
 and Cyhnder," and an octavo volume of " Mathc-' 
 matical Lectures," both in the same language. 
 
 Dr. Barrow's theological works were all be- 
 queathed in manuscript to Bishop Tillotson, who 
 edited them in three vols, folio, during the year 
 1686, since when they have been frequently repub- 
 lished in a more convenient form. They comprise 
 Sermons, Expositions of the Lord's Prayer, the 
 Creed, and the Doctrine of the Sacraments, as well 
 as Treatises on the Supremacy of the Pope, and 
 the Unity of the Chui'ch ; all distinguished by 
 copiousness and profundity of thought, and though 
 occasionally laboui-ed iu the style, yet abounding 
 with passages of singular strength and simplicity. 
 As a ]ireacher, however, Barrow was never populai'. 
 His sermons were excessively long. Preaching one 
 afternoon in Westminster Abbey, the congregation, 
 many of whom were waiting the close of the service 
 to inspect the tombs, became so impatient, that they 
 prevailed upon the organist to begin to play, and 
 keep on until "they blowed the doctor down." A 
 sermon on charity, before the lord mayor and alder- 
 men, lasted three hours and a half. In another, 
 from the text, " he that uttereth a slander is a 
 liar," he was prevailed upon to leave out the half, 
 and give only what related to slander — it occuiiiod 
 an hour and a half in the delivery. 
 
 Dr. Barrow is described by his contemporaries 
 as a man despising the forms of worldly society to 
 such an extreme, that his personal appearance and 
 dress were generally a caricature of the slovenly 
 scholar. The congregation of a parish church in 
 London was one day so offended by the meanness 
 of his appearance, that with a few exceptions they 
 all I'ose and withdrew. The shortness of his figure, 
 and a natural poverty of countenance added to the 
 bad efTect produced by these peculiarities, which 
 weigh lightly when we bear in mind how highly his 
 mind was gifted, and particularly when the modesty 
 of his manners and the mildness of his disposition 
 are remembered. While his circumstances were 
 limited, he was remarkable for charity ; and as his 
 estate flourished, he was conspicuous for disinter- 
 estedness; he was serene in every stage of his 
 fortunes, and united the warmth of the divine with 
 the calmness of the philosopher. Notwithstanding 
 the ju'osperity of his latter days, he had little other 
 property to bequeath than his library and his ma- 
 nuscripts, which, with his former works, have 
 borne him the more valuable interest of placing 
 his name among the prominent ornaments of his 
 age and country.
 
 SAMUEL BUTLER. 
 
 (il 
 
 SAMUEL BUTLER. 
 
 The illimitable author of Hudibras is commemo- 
 rated in the Poets' Corner by a bust surmounting 
 a plain tablet, with the following neat inscrip- 
 tion : — 
 
 M.S. 
 
 Samuelis Butleri, 
 
 Qui Strenshamine in agro Vigorii iiat. Ifil2, 
 
 Obiit Loud. 1680. 
 
 Vir doctus imprimis, acer, integer; 
 
 Operibus Ingenii, non item prajmiis felix: 
 
 Satyrici apud nos Carminis Artifex egregius; 
 
 Quo simulatie Religioui Larvam detraxit, 
 
 Et Perduelliuni scelera liberrime exagitavit: 
 
 Scriptorum in suo genere Primus, et Prostrenius. 
 
 Ne, cui vivo deerant fere omnia, 
 
 Deesset etiam Mortuo Tumulus, 
 
 Hoe tandem posito marmore curavlt 
 
 JoHA.NNES Barber, Civis Londixensis, 172L 
 
 Sacred to the memory 
 
 of ^ 
 
 Samuel Butler, 
 
 Who, born at Strensham,in Worcestershire, in 1C12, 
 
 Died in London, 1()80. 
 
 A man of singular learning, wit, and integrity, 
 
 Happy in the application, though not in the reward, 
 
 of his genius; 
 
 An eminent writer of satirical verse; 
 
 In which he snatched the mask from false religion, 
 
 And boldly exposed the crimes of rebellion. 
 
 He was the first, and also the last, of our authors 
 
 Who wrote in that peculiar stylo. 
 
 He lived destitute of most comforts: 
 That his grave should not also want a monument, 
 
 John Barber, citizen of London, 
 By the erection of thismai'ble in 1721, at last provided. 
 
 No account of the life of the inimitable author of 
 Hudibras can be written with much satisfaction, or 
 be read with great pleasure; for the few details 
 preserved of- it are not only meagre and conflicthig, 
 but uniformly adverse and depressing. This is the 
 more to lie regretted, because his days do not ap- 
 pear to have passed away in that dull seclusion and 
 sameness, which are prevailing characteristics in 
 the biography of those who successfully devote 
 themselves to study and literary works. The life 
 of Butler, on the contrary, was by no means void 
 of incident, nay mori;, of vicissitudes; he se(;ms to 
 have mixed amongst his felKiw men with spirit and 
 energy, and to have warmly aspired to that rank and 
 consideration which bis gi'iiius so highly merited. 
 L'nfortunatcly, however, for himself, and still more 
 unfortunately for those who have lived to admire 
 the different fragments he left behhid him in ma- 
 nuscript, eneoui-ag(!ment scantily sustained his ex- 
 e)-tions, and n^ward never crowned his labours. 
 Ilooui for a doulit, therefore, does not remain, but 
 that if the reproach of neglecting literary merit, so 
 often tiitterly inad(' against the great and wealthy 
 of the Ijiglisli nation, had not in this ease a severe 
 founiiation in truth, the ])oeni of Hudibras would 
 not now stand solitary and unfinisiied in our lan- 
 guage: — what no other author !ia.s ventured to 
 
 emulate, Butler himself would have equalled and 
 extended. 
 
 Butler's father was a country farmer of some 
 substance, holding a house with a few acres, in 
 fee-simple, which was then worth about 8/. a year, 
 and has since been known by the name of Butler's 
 tenement. He moreover rented ground to a larger 
 extent from the lord of the manor, and was able to 
 send Samuel to the grammar-school at Worcester, 
 whence he had him passed into the service of a 
 Mr. Jefferys, of Earlscroom, a justice of the peace 
 in the same county. With him young Samuel lived 
 contentedly for some years. His worship appears 
 to have been a kind superior, and a man of letters; 
 for, in the leisure of his household, and by the aid 
 of his library, the author of Hudibras is said to 
 have mainly acquired that fund of various know- 
 ledge for which his works are so remarkable. In 
 the course of his studies, we are told, that he prin- 
 cipally directed his mind to history and poetry; 
 painting and music also engaged a share of his 
 attention, and specimens of his efforts in both these 
 arts were long preserved as honourable relics in 
 the family. They are spoken of, liowever, not so 
 nuicli for the merit they displayed, as to indicate 
 the bias of his taste; and to let the world know, 
 that they jirocured for him the friendship of Cooper, 
 a man eminent iu the arts during the seventeenth 
 century. 
 
 In recounting this first section of Butler's life, 
 several of his earlier biograi)hers have endeavoured 
 to make it appear, upon the assertion of his bro- 
 ther, that he received a university education, though 
 his poverty prevented him from matriculating. 
 Yet it has never been stated whether the university 
 was that of Oxford or Cambridge, neither has any 
 hall or college been assigned for the purpose, — 
 points by no means difficult to establish, if the fact 
 had been as set forth. Far from thinking the absence 
 of this proof a matter of regret, the literary world, 
 perhaps, ought rather to be pleased at finding the 
 case stand as it does. It is infinitely nunv; to 
 Butler's honour that such a work as Hudibras 
 should have been written by a man whose mind 
 was principally self-instrueti'd, than that he should 
 have brought to the task all those facilities and 
 advantages, which a systematic education under 
 exjierienced guidance must ever supply. As it is, 
 Butler may proudly take his stand with Shakspeare, 
 and others of the English nation, whose glory it is, 
 that they have raised brighter and more durable 
 monuments of fame by the; inijiulse of natural wit 
 aiul seli'-ilirected genius, than others have been able 
 to construct with the aid of all the resources which 
 the most approved forms of learning can afford. 
 
 Wo know not liow long Butler continued to 
 reside with Justice Jefferys, or why he parted 
 from him. He is next found in the family of the 
 Countess of Kent, to whom the learned Selden was 
 steward, where he shared in connnon with the 
 latter the use of an excellent library, an<l was 
 requireil to assist the antiquary in his literary 
 labours. In all probability it was about this j)(>riod 
 that he was in thi; habit of making some long visits 
 to, and enjoying the society of, the comi)any iit
 
 62 
 
 WESTMINSTER ABBEY. 
 
 Asket, the Earl of Carnarvon's seat, in Bucking- 
 hamshire. During tlie Commonwealth, he acted as 
 clerk to Sir Samuel Luke, who, besides being a 
 colonel in Cromwell's army, was also Governor of 
 Newport Pagnell, a justice of the peace, and the 
 author of some insignificant pamphlets. 
 
 These different situations we know Butler to 
 have been in; but the circumstances that intro- 
 duced him to them, the time he spent in them, and 
 the causes that led him to change them, have never 
 been related. After the Restoi'ation, he was made 
 Secretary to the Earl of Carberry, the President of 
 the Principality of Wales, who, upon the re-esta- 
 blishment of the Coui-t of Arches, made him 
 Steward of Ludlow Castle. While in this post lie 
 married Mrs. Herbert, a lady of good family and 
 fortune, and studied the common law, though he 
 never practised it. His wife's money was vested 
 in securities, which unfortunately soon turned out 
 to be bad ones, and he thus lost the means of inde- 
 pendence by as summary a process as he had 
 acquired them. 
 
 The first part of Hudibras, in three cantos, 
 appeared in 1C63. This extraordinary poem is 
 said to have been written, or at least begun, while 
 the author was in the employ of Sir Samuel Luke, 
 who was generally fixed upon as the character 
 from whom the idea of the mock hero was ]k)V- 
 rowed. Certain it is, at least, that the materials 
 for such a work are most likely to have been col- 
 lected in a situation which presented a clear and 
 full view of the principles and ]3ractice9 of that infa- 
 tuated body which then conti'ibuted so largely to 
 the confusion of the country. No work at the time, 
 and probably no work before it, attracted so general 
 a portion of public regard, so readily bestowed. It 
 was read by every one, praised by courtiers, and 
 for a while habitually quoted by the king, who is 
 said to have been directed to its merits by the Earl 
 of Dorset, himself an accomplished poet. Under 
 these pleasing circumstances, Butler looked confi- 
 dently forward to posts of honour and emolument. 
 Still amused with bright expectations, he proceeded 
 with the subject, and finished the second part in 
 1664, which won as decidedly and quicklj' as its 
 predecessor had done, the praises of the public, 
 and the promises of the great: the Lord Chancellor 
 Clarendon is reported to have spoken of places 
 and employments of value and credit for the author; 
 and the Duke of Buckingham is said to have urged 
 the pretensions of Butler's wit and loyalty upon 
 royal bounty to the king, who returned an assur- 
 ance that they should not pass unrequited. Unre- 
 quited, however, they did pass; the words of all 
 were fair and full of promise, but they were 
 followed by no deeds. 
 
 Notwithstanding these repeated disappointments, 
 the plan itself still prospered, and the third part 
 Avas issued in 1678. Neglect, however, at last sub- 
 dued the poet's energy, and with this effort the 
 progress of the design was suspended. Hudibras 
 is unfinished, and it is now vain to conjecture what 
 the extent of the deficiency may be, or in what 
 
 fortunes the plot would have terminated if the 
 author had completed it. 
 
 Solitude and depression are the natural conse- 
 quences of neglect and poverty; and to the extreme 
 of tliese it is with a feeling of national shame, the 
 biographer must reluctantly confess that Butler 
 was now reduced. On this account the world can 
 know even less of the manner of life in which he 
 henceforward subsisted than has been already nar- 
 rated. A conveyancer, named Longueville, who 
 raised himself from humble circumstances to the 
 dignity of Bencher of the Inner Temple, is said to 
 have had the generosity to administer that relief to 
 his declining years, which actually saved another 
 child of poetry and fame from starvation. Under 
 the shelter of this chai'itj-, the author of Hudibras 
 spent the close of his days in Rose-street, Covent- 
 garden, where he died during the year 1680, aged 
 68. Mr. Longueville, with a spirit becoming the 
 goodness of his heart, solicited a subscription for 
 an honourable grave in Westminster Abbey; and 
 upon the failure of his endeavoui's, incurred the 
 expense of an interment in St. Paul's church, 
 Covent-garden. 
 
 Upon a work so generally known, and so repeat- 
 edly reviewed as Hudibras, and an author so highly 
 esteemed as Butler, all disquisition is now super- 
 fluous. The poem, both in conception and style, is 
 one of the most original ever produced, and the 
 poet, in eccentric wit and recondite learning, has 
 been surpassed in no age or country. The prevail- 
 ing character of all his compositions is exquisitely 
 burlesque; satire predominates throughout some of 
 his lesser pieces, but even upon them a vein of 
 ridicule is generally sure to break in. 
 
 Immediately after Butler's death, the booksellers 
 collected three small volumes of minor poetry under 
 his name, of which the contents, though occasion- 
 ally striking, are in the bulk too gross and careless 
 to be worth a perusal. It is, therefore, some plea- 
 sure to be able to add that there does not appear 
 to be the least shadow of a proof for attributing 
 them all to the author of Hudibras. In the course 
 of some score of years more, two octavo volumes 
 of " Remains," printed from manuscripts bequeath- 
 ed by him to Mr. Longueville, as some return for 
 the kind favours already mentioned, were pub- 
 lished by a gentleman named Thyers, who was 
 librarian to a literary institution at Manchester. 
 They are made up of prose and poetry; the former 
 comprising characters, and thoughts on various 
 subjects, expressed with much foi'ce and justness, 
 and the latter consisting of satires and detached 
 similes, which are scarcely equal to the reputation 
 of the author. More than one edition of consider- 
 able merit has appeared in our own days, and 
 others will doubtless succeed, for although no one 
 cares for the adventures of the knight and squire, 
 or takes an interest in the ridicule of the Puritans; 
 wit is immortal, and every one must be pleased 
 with the very diversified veins in which it sparkles 
 through the rough verses of the most whimsical 
 poet hi the English language.
 
 THOMAS THYNNE. 
 
 63 
 
 THOMAS THYNNE. 
 
 Against the back of the choir, in the south aisle 
 of Westminster Abbey, is an aUar-monunient, on 
 which aj)])ears a statue, in a recumbent posture, 
 of Thomas Thynne, Esq., of Longleats, in Wilt- 
 shire, and undei'iieath a representation in relievo 
 of the circumstances under which he was shot by 
 hired assassins in Pall Mall, on the evening of 
 Sunday, Feb. 12, lGfi2. A long Latin inscription 
 was prepared for this monument, but forbidden to 
 be put up from party or political motives, according 
 to some authorities, but rather, as we sujipose, be- 
 cause it positively ascribed the murder to Count 
 Koningsmark, who had been tried for, and acquitted 
 of that crime. The circumstances of the case, which 
 in more respects than one was extraordinary, ap- 
 pear to be these : — Mr. Thynne was a gentleman 
 of large landed property in Wiltshire, where liis 
 rental is said to have amounted to 10,000/. a-year. 
 He had for many years been a member of the 
 House of Commons, and distinguished himself for 
 bold and active conduct, and opinions by no means 
 favourable to the court. Elizabeth, sole heiress of 
 the noble house of Pei'cy, was left an orphan when 
 a child, and immediately became an oliject of 
 solicitous attention to many persons on account of 
 her large fortune. While still of tender years she 
 was betrothed to the Earl of Ogle, eldest son of 
 Cavendish, Duke of Newcastle, but was left a 
 widow before the marriage had been consum- 
 mated. She w^as next wedded to Mr. Thynne, 
 but being still extremely young, her mother pre- 
 vailed upon her husband to allow her to go abroad 
 and travel for a time before she lived with him. 
 Tliis being agreed to, the lady took up her resi- 
 dence at Hanover, where she met and inspired 
 Count Koningsmark with a violent passion. The 
 count, as the story goes, assumed, that if the hus- 
 band was dead, the widow would bestow her hand 
 and fortune ujion him. With this impression upon 
 his mind he came over to England, and sent Mr. 
 Thynne two challenges to single combat. Of these 
 missives no notice was taken. Koningsmark then 
 hired three foreign ruffians, Fratz, a German, 
 Stern, a Swede, and Boroskia, a Pole. These men 
 watched Mi\ Thynne, and as he was drivinj; from 
 the Countess of Northumberland's down Pali Mall, 
 rode up to his carriage and discharged into it a 
 nmsquetoon, wliicli killed him. Koningsmark fled 
 an soon as the murder was effected, but a reward 
 of 2001. being offered for his apprehension, he was 
 seized at Gravesend, and being brought before tlie 
 king in council, was committed to Newgate, and in 
 due course put uj)on his trial at the 01<1 Pa iky 
 sessions as an accessory to the murder. Konings- 
 mark was acfjuitted — it is said liy a packed jury, 
 but the other three were found guilty, and executed. 
 Public ojiinion, however, implicated the Count so 
 decidedly in this daring fmtrage, that William, 
 Marquis, and afterwards Duke of Newcastli', an 
 intimate friend and near connexion of Mr. 1'hynne, 
 resolved to seek the only revenge in his ]iower, 
 and fight the great criminal. I'.ut the latter fled 
 as soon as he wiLS discharged from prison, and no 
 further steps were taken to punLsh him. 
 
 Apropos of the Duke of Newcastle, just men- 
 tioned, and who has also been spoken of in the life 
 of Davenant, whom he befriended — this is the 
 nobleman who, with his second wife, Margaret, 
 daughter of Sir Charles Lucas, of Essex, is com- 
 memorated in the north transept by a stately mo- 
 nument, on which statues of the noble couple 
 appear lying under a canopy of state. Both were 
 celebrated for their loyalty, and love of literature. 
 They, particularly the lady, wrote an enormous 
 quantity, and had the honour of patronising Ben 
 Jonson, Davenant, and Dryden. Addison, in the 
 " Spectator," has commended a passage in the 
 epitaph on tlie tomb. " Her name was Margaret 
 Lucas, youngest sister to the L»n'd Lucas of Colches- 
 ter, a noble family, for all the brothei-s were valiant, 
 and all the sisters virtuous." The duke was so enthu- 
 siastic a loyalist, that he expended in the service of 
 the Stuai'ts during the civil war nearly a million 
 sterling. He took part in several of the battles of 
 the period, but his reputation as a general was not 
 high. His greatest victory was that over Lord 
 Fairfax on Adderton Heath, near Bradford. During 
 the Commonwealth he and the duchess lived at 
 Antwerp in great poverty; after the llestoration 
 they lived in retirement, enjoying honour and 
 wealth, and amusing themselves with literature, 
 and the fine arts. They were an amiable but sin- 
 gular couple, and will be found well described in 
 Horace Walpole's Letters. The duke erected this 
 monument during his life-time: on this the duchess, 
 in the English cpitajih, is described as "a wise, witty, 
 and learned lady, which her many books do well tes 
 tify" (they extended to thirteen folios, ten of which 
 were jirinted) ; "she was a most virtuous, loving, and 
 careful wife, and was with her lord all the time of 
 his banishment and miseries, and when he came 
 liome never jiarted from him in his solitai-y retire- 
 ment." There is a long Latin ej)ita])h for the 
 Duke, which is a sort of heraldic summary of liis 
 titles and places, setting forth that lie was Knight 
 of the Bath, Baron Ogle in right of his mother, 
 Viscount Mansfield, and Baron Cavendish of Bole- 
 sover. Earl of Ogle, Earl, Mar(|uis, and Duke of 
 Newcastle upon Tyne, Lord Lieutenant of the 
 counties of Nottingham and Northumberland, First 
 Lord of the Bedchamber to King James I., guar- 
 dian to I'rince Charles, Privy Councillor, and 
 Knight of the most Noble Order of the Garter ; 
 that, for his fidelity to the king, he was made Cap- 
 tain-General of the forces raised for his service in 
 the north, fought many battles, and generally came 
 off victorious ; that when the rebels jirevailed 
 (being one of the first designed a sacrifice) he hit 
 his estate, and enilui'cd a long I'xile. By liis first 
 wife, Elizabeth, daughter and lieir of W. Bassett, 
 of Staffordshire, Esq., he had two sons and three 
 (laughters; Charles, who died without issue, and 
 Henry, heir to his lionours ; Jane, married to 
 C. Cheyney, of Chesham, Bucks ; Elizabeth, to 
 John, Marl of IJriilgewater; und Frances, to Oliver, 
 Farl of liolin;,'bnjke. The duchess died in l6T-i, 
 the duke in KiTO.
 
 64 
 
 WESTMINSTER ABBEY. 
 
 SIR JOHN DENHAM, K.B. 
 
 Sir John Denhasi, was born in Dublin during the 
 year 1615, where his father was Chief Baron of 
 the Court of Exchequer. In the course of a few 
 years, Sir John Denham, the fatlier, was promoted 
 to the Chief Baronsliip of the Court of Exchequer 
 in England, whither he removed his family, and 
 educated his son, ^^■ho became a fellow commoner 
 of the University of Oxford, in 1631. The poet's 
 youth was a painful earnest of his manhood; he is 
 described as having been a dreaming young man, 
 given more to cards and dice than study; and this 
 enervating propensity involved him in serious dis- 
 tresses, when, upon coming up to London, he en- 
 tered as a student-at-law in Lincoln's Inn. The 
 expostulations and repi-oofs of his friends and family 
 are said to have wrought a temporaiy impression 
 upon his mind; he thought himself reformed, and, 
 as a pi'oof of change, wrote an essay on gaming, to 
 satisfy his parents. But this was no durable im- 
 provement: his father died in 1638; he relapsed 
 into vice, and lost a fortune of several thousand 
 pounds. 
 
 Unfavouraldeas these circumstances appear, and 
 partial as the good to be expected from any scliolar 
 thus addicted, must always be, still it should not be 
 concealed, that Denham pursued the study of the 
 law with an application that consoled his friends: 
 the quickness of his talents may be appreciated, 
 when it is stated that, notwithstanding this double 
 avocation of law and gamliling, he cultivated poetry 
 with considerable success. In 1636 he translated 
 the second book of the iEneid, and in 1642 pub- 
 lished the " Sophy," a tragedy, which was the first 
 of his productions that laid hold of the public atten- 
 tion. Waller observed that Denham broke out like 
 an Irish rebellion, threescore thousand strong, when 
 nobody vvas aware of, or in the least suspected it. 
 
 Such was the success that recommended him to 
 the patronage of the court; an honour which he 
 always continued to retain, and with greater benefit 
 than has fallen to the lot of similar suitoi's. After 
 serving as sheriff of Surrey, he entered the army, 
 and was made governor of Farnham Castle for the 
 king. That he did not much relish the profession 
 of arms seems probable, for we find him a civilian 
 in 1643, and retired to Oxford, where he first pub- 
 lished the most popular of his poems,- — •" Cooper's 
 Hill." Of the reputation which this piece was 
 justly calculated to excite, that en\-y which always 
 persecutes rising genius, sought to rob him. A 
 report was circulated that he had bought the poem 
 from a poor vicar for 40/. ; but he has been little 
 injured by a representation which was as vainly 
 levelled against Addison's " Cato," and Pope's 
 " Essay on Criticism." The style and matter of this 
 composition have been pronounced original among 
 us by all the critics, and its merits must be enhanced 
 with the generality of readers, by the fact of its 
 having been imitated botn by Pope and Garth. 
 Great as this connnendation certainly is, yet the 
 execution will not be found without faults, if mi- 
 nutely canvassed, or compared with subsequent 
 productions. The digressions are laboriously drawn 
 out, the morality oppressively contuiued, and the 
 
 sentiments often irreconcilable with good taste and 
 propriety. Neither is the versification itself exempt 
 from that crudity which marks all nascent labours. 
 Pope, who is fond of praising the strength of 
 Denham, has alluded to a passage which has been 
 reinstanced by Dr. Johnson ; and of which Dryden, 
 and all the critics after him, have immortalised the 
 expressive beauty of the four concluding lines. That 
 passage therefore is extracted : — 
 
 " My eye descending from the hill, survej^s 
 "Where Thames among the wanton valleys strays. 
 Thames, the most loved of all the ocean's sons 
 By his old sire, to his embraces runs ; 
 Hasting to pay his tribute to the sea, 
 Like mortal life to meet eternity. 
 Though with those streams he no resemblance hold, 
 ■\Vhose foam is amber, and their gravel gold ; 
 His genuine and less guilty wealth t' explore, 
 Search not his bottom, but survey his shore; 
 O'er which he kindly spreads his spacions wing, 
 And hatches plenty for the ensuing spring. 
 Nor then destroys it with too fond a stay. 
 Like mothers which their infants overlay. 
 Nor with a sudden and impetuous wave. 
 Like profuse kings, resumes the wealth he gave. 
 No unexpected inundations spoil 
 The mower's hopes, nor mock the ploughman's toil : 
 But god-like his unweaiy'd bounty flows; 
 First loves to do, then loves the good he does. 
 Nor are his blessings to his banks confined, 
 But free, and common, as the sea or wind ; 
 When he, to boast or to disperse his stores 
 Full of the tributes of his grateful shores, 
 Visits the world, and in his flying towers 
 Brings home to us, and makes both Indies ours; 
 Finds wealth where 'tis, bestows it where it wants. 
 Cities in deserts, woods in cities plants. 
 So that to us no thing, no place is strange, 
 While his fair bosom is the world's exchange. 
 O could I flow like Ihee, and muke thy stream 
 My great example, as it is my ther/ie! 
 Though deep, yel clear ; though gentle, yet not dull : 
 Strong without rage, without o'erflowing full." 
 
 In the year 1647 the predicament to which the 
 royal family was reduced brought all who were 
 dependent upon, or interested for them, into a state 
 of common distress. Every hand that could help 
 was then called into dangerous employment, and 
 Denham, among the rest, came in for his share of 
 arduous duties. The Queen entrusted him with a 
 message to the captive king, and he succeeded, 
 though by what means is unknown, in prevailing 
 upon Hugh Peters to admit him to an audience, of 
 the graciousness of which he has left a description 
 in the dedication of his printed works to Charles 11. 
 He was next concerned in carrying on the king's 
 correspondence, an honourable office, which he re- 
 presents himself to have discharged with perfect 
 safety to the royalists, until an accidental recogni- 
 tion of Cowley's hand-writing discovered the trust 
 repo.sed in him. He effected his escape, however, 
 and no ]!articular mischief resulted from the acci- 
 dent. A greater undertaking was still trusted to 
 his integrity; for, during the month of April, 1648, 
 he was engaged to convey James, the young Duke
 
 SIR JOHN DENHAM. 
 
 65 
 
 of York, from London to Paris, where he delivered 
 him in safety to the queen and Prince of Wales. 
 This too was the year in which he reduced Cicero's 
 Cato Major into verse, a piece neither happy in 
 idea nor execution, and of which it is enough to 
 observe with Johnson, that it has neither the clear- 
 ness of prose, nor the sprightliness of poetry. 
 
 Henceforward he resided with tlie exiled family 
 in France, and was mucli noticed by the young 
 king, who occasionally encouraged him to cheer, 
 by his poetical resources, the depression of their 
 common misfortune. Could literature or talents 
 console the mihappy, or compensate for political 
 revei-ses, the cares under which Charles now la- 
 boured, ought to have lain lightly upon him, for 
 they were diverted by the conversational wit of 
 Buckingham, and the poetry of Denhani. But 
 monarehs are seldom philosophers; and Denhara 
 was not left to indolent versification, when an op- 
 portunity of more active employment presented 
 itself for the "exercise of his talents. He undertook 
 a successful embassy into Poland, to raise a sub- 
 scription amongst the Scotch merchants travelling 
 through that country, and subsequently converted 
 the excursion into a subject for one of those fami- 
 liar compositions just alluded to. It is inserted 
 here as a specimen of his aptitude for such per- 
 formances, and also as a proof of the levity 
 with which persons of aristocratic education and 
 ]ia1>its will reflect, even in the hour of extreme 
 need, upou those who are so generous as to relieve 
 them. 
 
 On my Lord Croft's and my journey into Poland, 
 from whence we brought 10,000?. for his ma- 
 jesty, by the decimation of his Scottish subjects 
 thei*e. 
 
 Toll, toll, 
 Gentle bell, for the soul 
 Of the pure ones in Pole, 
 WTiich are damn'd lu our scroll. 
 
 Who having felt a touch 
 Of Cockram's greedy clutch, 
 Which, though it was not much. 
 Yet their stubbornness was such, 
 
 That when he did arrive, 
 Against the stream we did strive; 
 They would neither lead nor drive : 
 
 Nor lend 
 An ear to a friend, 
 Nor an answer would send 
 To our letter so well penn'd ; 
 
 Nor assist our affairs 
 With their moneys nor their wares. 
 As their answer now declares. 
 But only witli their prayers. 
 
 Thus did they persist, 
 Did and said what they list, 
 Till the Diet was dismissed — 
 But then our breech they kist. 
 
 For when 
 It was mov'd there and then, 
 They sliould pay one in ten. 
 The Diet said Amen. 
 
 And because they arc loth 
 To discover the truth. 
 They nnist (jive word and oath. 
 Though they will forfeit both. 
 
 Thus the constitution 
 Condemns them every one, 
 From the father to the son. 
 
 But John 
 (Our friend) Mullesson 
 Thought us to have outgone 
 With a quanit invention. 
 
 Like the prophets of yore. 
 He complain'd long before. 
 Of the mischief in store. 
 Ay, and thrice as much more. 
 
 And with that wicked lie 
 A letter they came by 
 For our king's majesty. 
 
 But fate 
 Brought our letter too late ; 
 It was of too old a date 
 To relieve their damn'd state. 
 
 The letter's to be seen 
 With seal of wax so green. 
 At Dantzige, where 't has been 
 Turn'd into good Latin. 
 
 But he that gave the hint 
 This letter for to print. 
 Must also pay his stint. 
 
 That trick, 
 Had it come in the nick. 
 Had touch'd us to the quick ; 
 But the messenger fell sick. 
 
 Had it later been wrote, 
 And sooner been brought. 
 They had got what they sought ; 
 But now it serves for nought. 
 
 On Sandys they ran aground, 
 And our return was crown'd 
 With full ten thousand pound ! 
 
 Of the remainder of Denham's life but little is 
 known. When the remnant of his paternal estate 
 was about to be sold by the parliament in 1052, he 
 returned to England with a vain hope of .saving his 
 last and only means of subsistence. That he did 
 not succeed is certain; but how he concealed him- 
 self, or in what miinner he lived, has never been 
 told: — it only api)eafs that at the Restoralion he 
 was so distressed as to be obliged to reside with 
 the Earl of Pembroke. Soon after this event, how- 
 ever, his services were rewarded with the ]>ost of 
 surveyor to the king's buildings, and the knighthood 
 of the bath. It was at this age that he took his 
 poems of "Prudence" an<l of "Justice" from the 
 Latin of ^lancini; perfirniances rather crude, dry, 
 and une(jual, but containing nuicli to extenuate the 
 vice in several of his minor pieces. Nevertheless, 
 the opinion he entertained of the office of a trans- 
 lator was every way liberal and sound. It is not 
 his business alone, he ob.serves, to translate language 
 into ];ingu:ige, but poesy into jioesy; and ])oesy is 
 so sul)tli,' a spirit, that in ]iouring out of (inc Iniiguago 
 into another it will all evnporate, and if a new 
 sjiirit lie not added to the translation, there will 
 renuiin nothing but a cn/iut mortumn, there being 
 certain graces and lia|)pinc.ssea peculiivr to every 
 language, which giv(^ life aiul energy to the words. 
 
 The serious thoughts to which the author gave 
 ox])ression in llu'se com|)ositions, apjiear to have 
 been suiccrely felt. No longer a profligate in money
 
 66 
 
 WESTMINSTER ABBEY. 
 
 matters, he accumulated 7000^. out of the profits of 
 his office. It was about this period, too, that he 
 sought to counteract the Ucentiousness of some of 
 his earlier poems, by versifying the Psalms of 
 David, a pif)us task, which comforted, it is to be 
 hoped, his declining years, for it has edified no 
 other age. Denham's Psalms have not been thought 
 deservmg of a reprint. Happiness secure, because 
 moderate and rational, seemed at last to be within 
 the reach of his enjoyment; but the fruits of it 
 were quickly neutralized by a new incident. He 
 made a second marriage, which entailed so many 
 troubles, that his intellect became affected, and he 
 was cruelly lampooned as a madman, by Butler. 
 The disorder, however, was neither violent nor of 
 a long duration; he recovered his senses, and 
 lamented the death of Cowley in a poem, which has 
 been greatly pi'aised as one of the best he ever 
 wrote. This tribute he did not long survive, being 
 buried bv the side of Cowley in the Poets' Corner, 
 March 10, 1668. 
 
 Denham's fame as a poet is mainly founded on 
 his "Cooper's Hill," a poem which Dr. Johnson 
 pronounced original, claiming for the author the 
 credit of having invented that species of composi- 
 tion which may be denominated local poetry. Sub- 
 sequent critics, better read in the productions of 
 English poets, have disputed the justness of this 
 praise, as also that of Denham's being the first of 
 our poets who wrote verse with equal fluency. 
 
 correctness, and harmony. That Sir John Dcnham 
 began a reformation in our verse, says Dr. Southey, 
 " is one of the most groundless assertions that ever 
 obtained belief in litei'ature. More thought and 
 more skill had been exei'cised before his time iu 
 the construction of English metre, than he ever 
 bestowed upon the subject, and by men of far 
 higher attainments and far greater powers. To 
 im])rove, indeed, either upon the versification or 
 the diction of our great writers, was impossible; it 
 was impossible to exceed them in the knowledge, 
 or in the practice of their ai't, but it was easy to 
 avoid the more obvious faults of inferior authors; 
 and in this way he succeeded just so far as not to 
 be included iu the mob of gentlemen who wi'ote 
 with ease ; nor consigned to oblivion with the 
 ' persons of quality,' who contributed their vapid 
 ett'usions to the miscellanies of those days. His 
 proper place is among those of his contemporaries 
 and successors who called themselves wits, and 
 have since been entitled poets by the courtesy of 
 England." 
 
 If to this, the severest judgment that has been 
 passed upon his pieces, we add that he has been 
 highly ju-aised by Dryden, and pronounced ma- 
 jestic by Pope, the reader will probably be enabled 
 to form for himself, between the two extremes, a 
 fair estimate of the place Sir John Denhani really 
 deserves to hold amongst the literary men of his 
 age and country. 
 
 SECOND VILLIERS, DUKE OF BUCKINGHAM, K. G. 
 
 George, the second Duke of Buckingham, of the 
 Villiers family, was born Januai-y 30, 1627, at Wal- 
 lingford House in the parish of St. Martin in the 
 Fields, London, and was therefore only a year old 
 when his father expired under the dagger of Felton. 
 Inheriting at this tender age a patrimony of high 
 titles and ample fortune, he emulated in process of 
 time his father's prosperity, and usurped with a 
 rapidity nearly similar, the confidence of his sove- 
 reign, and a prominent rank in the history of his 
 country. A nobleman at once learned and witty, he 
 proved both the ornament and disgrace, the pride 
 and envy of an accomplished but worthless court ; 
 and though his end was less violent than his father's 
 had been, yet, as his fall from place and popularity 
 was fully confirmed, his reverses may be considered 
 the more marked and unhappy. 
 
 The first Duke of Buckingham had not long re- 
 posed beneath the honours of the tomb, when his 
 lady embraced the catholic faith, and entered upon 
 a marriage with Randolph jM'Donell, Earl and 
 Marquis of Antrim. This connexion so much 
 offended Charles I., tliat for some years he refused 
 to see her, and even withdrew lier children from 
 her care. The daughter was placed in the family 
 of the Lord Chamberlain Herbert, and the sons, 
 George and Francis, were distinguished by receiv- 
 ing the first rudiments of polite education in com- 
 pany with the young princes. 
 
 After completing a course of study at the Uni- 
 versity of Cambridge, they were sent to travel 
 under the tutorship of a Mr. Aylesbury, and with 
 him visited the principal cities of France and Italy. 
 
 Upon their return home the civil war was at its 
 height, and the king resided with a divided court 
 at Oxford. Thither the brothers repaired with 
 their homage to the distressed monarch, and after 
 entering Christ-Church College, took up arms under 
 Prince Rupert- — a decided step, which was no 
 sooner known in London, than the Parliament 
 passed a vote by which the family estates were 
 declared forfeit, and seized as public property. 
 Matters, however, had not as yet been urged to 
 that extremity between the contending parties, 
 but that an opportunity was found to extenuate 
 Buckingham's conduct upon a plea of nonage ; the 
 obnoxious vote was then rescinded, and he again 
 passed over to the Continent, and remained for 
 some time inactive and secure. 
 
 By degrees the cause of Charles grew more 
 desperate, and Buckingham felt himself embol- 
 dened by a becoming spirit, to make some influen- 
 tial exertions in behalf of a family from which his 
 own had received all its dignity and fortune, and 
 in favour of a man to whom he "stood indebted for 
 acts of parental interest : he therefore came to 
 England in the course of the year 1648. Upon his 
 arrival, he found the king a prisoner in the Isle of 
 Wight, and the Earl of Holland in arms for his 
 cause in Surrey. Buckingham immediately joined 
 the latter, and held a command during the unsuc- 
 cessful encounter at Nonsuch, where his behaviour, 
 though highly gallant, was eclipsed by the heroism 
 of his brother. Lord Francis. This young noble- 
 man, after displaying great valour, had his horse 
 shot from under him towards the close of the fight,
 
 SECOND VILLIERS, DUKE OF BUCKINGHAM. 
 
 67 
 
 and was obliged to struggle from the fields to the 
 main road on foot, and through overpowering 
 numbers. Finding himself still closely pi-essed, he 
 clapped his back to an oak tree, and awhile de- 
 fended himself with dexterity against several horse- 
 men. He was too proud to cry for quarter, and 
 they were too incensed to oft'er it ; and at last he 
 fell with nine desperate wounds on the face and 
 forehead. While this scene of honourable death 
 passed in one direction, the duke escaped by an- 
 other, and arrived unhurt at Neots, whither he 
 was followed, and completely surrounded. In this 
 predicament he mounted on hoi'seback, cut his 
 way through the guards, and, after a dangerous 
 flight, reached Prince Charles in the Downs. The 
 whole parly then hastened to Holland, and the 
 earthly hopes of English royalty and its depend- 
 ants seemed finally extinguished. Charles 1. was 
 beheaded, Buckingham's estates were again for- 
 feited, and he was reduced to the necessity of con- 
 verting his father's pictures into a means of sup- 
 port. 
 
 At length the crafty presbyterians who guided 
 the perfidious politics of the Scotch parliament, 
 bethought themselves of compounding their mer- 
 cenary guilt to the late monarch, by tendering the 
 crown to his son. Buckingham, of all the English 
 lords in his train, alone exhorted him to risk his per- 
 son on the issue. The indignities which the adven- 
 turous young monarch received from his fanatical 
 subjects are well known, and it is only necessary 
 to observe here how the good nature of Bucking- 
 ham so far conciliated their rigidity, that he was 
 the only follower allowed to attend upon the humi- 
 liated sovereign, and divert his sufferings by his 
 gaiety and wit. In the bold descent upon Eng- 
 land, and at the battle of Worcester, he performed 
 more important acts, but was separated from his 
 master, and, like the rest of the dispirited royalists, 
 obliged to I'etire in privacy beyond the channel. 
 There he became a volunteer in the service of the 
 French king, and divided his time between the 
 duties of his pi'ofession, and short visits to Charles's 
 little court in Flanders, where his attachment was 
 recompensed with the informal honours of the 
 Garter. 
 
 Meantime the English parliament had awarded 
 the Ijest of his lands to the victorious Fairfax, a 
 general whose political honesty and religious recti- 
 tude obtained a well- merited share of esteem from 
 all parties, and whose fame was greatly increased 
 by the generosity which he evinced in treating 
 with many of the late pro])rietors of forfeited 
 estates. This character, and the exigency of his 
 affairs, encouraged Buckingham, in I(i57, to j)ay a 
 secret visit to England, and make an effort towards 
 retrieving in some degree, the a])])arent desperation 
 of his fortune. Ai'rived in Yorkshire, he ])ros])ered 
 so rapidly in his views, that before the year ela))sed, 
 he was married, at the family seat. Nun A]i])leby, 
 to the only daughter and sole heiress of Jviirfax. 
 The ceremony was performed with considerable! 
 splendour : Cowley wrote tli(; epithalamiuni, and 
 tlie duke received back u])on the occasion the 
 greater portion of his rents, with the assurance of 
 far greater wealth ujjon the de-atli of his father-in- 
 law. A year of domestic liappinesH and easy life 
 now succeeded: in ICifl, howevta-, Croniwc.'Il began 
 to suspect danger from his lil)(!rty, and he was 
 unceremoniously committed to tlicTouer, notwith- 
 
 standing the unconcealed displeasure of old Fair- 
 fax. In this state he continued to languish until 
 death snatched the protector from the charge of 
 public affairs : he was then liberated upon parole, 
 but obliged to confine his movements to the town of 
 Windsor. The Restoration supervened, aud he 
 was securely rej)laced in rank and fortune. 
 
 There were icw subjects in the kingdom who 
 met this prosperous turn in the tide of his affairs 
 under more Hourisliing circumstances than his 
 Grace of Buckingham. Possessed of a clear in- 
 come of 20,000/. a year, he was enabled to add 
 lustre to the dignities that awaited him, while 
 others found it difficult to support their honours 
 with reputation. That fertile wit, and those happy 
 airs by which, amidst dangers and in exile, he had 
 lightened the cares of his sovereign, were now 
 doubly welcome in his bettered estate; and Charles 
 received him with the equality of a friend rather 
 than ihe ease of a favourite. He was made a 
 Lord of the Bedchamber, appointed Master of 
 the Hoi'se, admitted to the Privy Council, and 
 nominated Lord Lieutenant of Yorkshire. 
 
 Being thus installed an attendant upon his sove- 
 reign for all public duties, and a free companion in 
 evei'y private jileasure, his condition presented at 
 each hand the richest harvest of honourable dis- 
 tinction. But, unfoi'tunately for his character, he 
 flung himself, without reserve or remorse, upon 
 that torrent of extravagance and licentiousness, 
 which shamed the age, and snatched a scandalous 
 reputation by rivalling the most profligate in lust, 
 and exceeding the most prodigal in waste. Of any 
 course of life so foul and pernicious, a mere outline 
 suffices — it can only be stated liere, that its turpi- 
 tude was in a light degree softened bj' the ameni- 
 ties of polite study, and some praises from literary 
 men. Of these, however, it is to be observed, that 
 the most flattering were Ixniglit by largess, and 
 that the most substantial were rather conijiliments 
 to what the writer was considered capable of, than 
 to anything which he had the patience to produce. 
 
 The resources of nature are equal to her wants, 
 but the passionate cravings of fashionable society 
 are never to be fully supplied. To this severe 
 truth Buckingham was in due time forced to open 
 his eyes : when his fortune was dissipated, he 
 sought to remedy his losses by the emoluments of 
 political preferment. About the year l(j(J5, he 
 applied for the post of Lord President of the North, 
 was refused it, and being thus reduced to galling 
 straits, he fell into the intrigues and factions wliich 
 then distracted the G'overmnent. Associating with 
 one Di". Heydon, a notorious character, he dispersed 
 a set of fellows in the garb of sailors, to beg about 
 the country, and complain at every door that they 
 were wronged of lluir pay, while the jieople gr<ianed 
 luider a weight of unjirecedented taxation, in order 
 to support a corrujit ministry of sjiendlhrift favour- 
 ites. The seeds of discontent being thus dissemi- 
 nated, a plot was formed for attacking the Tower, 
 and seizing u]ion the jewel office. ICvery ramifica- 
 tion was fitted for explosion, when some letters of 
 Ileydon to the duke were accidentally intercepted, 
 and the \shol<; affair discovered to the king. So 
 well was the desperation of Buckingham's cha- 
 racter understood, tiiat an innnediate warrant for 
 his arrest was held indispensable! ; and he showed 
 that it was necessary, by forcilily defending his 
 house agauist the ollicers. in tlie confusion ex-
 
 68 
 
 WESTiMlNSTER ABBEY. 
 
 cited by this unexpected step, he found means to 
 escape ; but was dismissed from all his appoint- 
 ments, and required by a public proclamation to 
 surrender his person on a given day, or abide the 
 pains of outlawry. 
 
 The storm, however, did not long continue; he 
 ventured before the king with an humble confes- 
 sion of his guilt, protesting his sorrow, and de- 
 claring he had meditated no personal violence with 
 so much passion, that he was not only forgiven, 
 but soon after gifted with every mark of former 
 confidence. In less than a year he was restored to 
 his seat at the Privy Council, and his post in the 
 Bedchamber, and again bade fair for distinction 
 and fortune. But a spirit for intrigue was always 
 predominant in his character ; and as the princi- 
 ples of administration became now better under- 
 stood, and the countenance of the sovereign was 
 not of itself sufiicitnt to advance an aspirant to 
 place, or retain him in it, Buckingham turutd his 
 peculiar talents to the ruin of men whom he could 
 not h(jpe to displace by fair competition. Thus his 
 machinations contributed to the fall of Lord Cla- 
 rendon, and the recall of the Duke of Ormond 
 from the Lord- lieutenancy of Ireland ; and, by 
 consequence, he was leagued with many as a keen 
 and powerful agitator, though it can hardly be said 
 that he was honourably trusted by any party. 
 Suspected and disliked by almost all who knew 
 him, he retained a str(jng intei-est with his careless 
 sovereign, and therefore frequently ingratiated 
 himself into valuable appointments, and was neces- 
 sarily seized upon as an apt instrument in number- 
 less conspiracies for power. In this way he be- 
 came associated with the Earl of Shaftesbury, and 
 obtained a prominent place in that nobleman's 
 cabal ministry of 1G68. He stands more than 
 suspected of having been the king's adviser in the 
 harsh schemes for getting rid of the queen, which 
 were undoubtedly listened to, if not entertained, 
 about the year 1670 ; and was charged during 
 the same year with an embassy to the court of 
 France. No man could be received with greater 
 s))lendour; he was loaded with caresses and favours, 
 and at his departure received a present of a sword 
 and belt set with jewels of the value of 40,000 
 livres. But the honour of his entertainment abroad 
 was almost immediately overcast by the infamy of his 
 conduct at home. That licensed desperado, Colonel 
 Blood, made a furious attempt upon the life of the 
 Duke of Ormond, and Buckingham was openly 
 accused of having countenanced the outrage. Foul 
 beyond example as this act was, yet he neither 
 cared to disprove or resent it, and dashed on with 
 effrontery, confident of the )iartiality of his sove- 
 reign, and secure in the strength of his colleagues. 
 In 1672 he was sent over to Holland, in conjunc- 
 tion with the Earl of Arlington, to negotiate a 
 general peace, and had several conferences, at dif- 
 ferent places, with the States, the Prince of Orange, 
 and the King of P'rance. But the terms proposed 
 to the Dutch were degrading, and the war con- 
 tinued. 
 
 The violent measures pursued by the cabal, soon 
 broke the party up ; Shaftesbury was dismissed 
 from the Chancery; but with peculiar versatility 
 made his peace with the opposition, and was recog- 
 nised as their leader. Buckingham was endeavour- 
 ing to follow this example, when he was impeached 
 by the House of Commons. He desii*ed to be beard 
 
 at the bar; but whether from a sense of guilt or a 
 prepossession of misfortune, though he spoke at 
 some length, he expressed himself with a confusion 
 •and ambiguity which excited great surprise, and of 
 course gave no satisfaction. He was at last peremp- 
 torily interrogated; and as his answers were still 
 evasive, and he was mean enough to try and cast 
 the responsibility of every charge upon the Earl of 
 Arlington, a motion was put and carried for his 
 removal. The king was by no means inclined to 
 bend to this storm; but the parliament was perti- 
 nacious, and he was dismissed. 
 
 This event, which took place in 1G74, put a 
 period to the sway which the wit and humour of 
 the Duke of Buckingham had so long maintained 
 over Charles II. Losing the emoluments of place, 
 his affairs relapsed into their former state of con- 
 fusion and distress, and he was forced to sell Wal- 
 lingford House. After this sacrifice he followed 
 the Earl of Shaftesbury into the city, took uj) a 
 residence on Dowgate Hill, and surrendered himself 
 to all the broils of self-interested opposition. In 
 consequence of a parliamentary cavil, he was sent 
 to the Tower in 1677; but he soon made a submis- 
 sion, and was released. The last transaction of his 
 ptiblic career was in base accordance with the rest 
 of his life, for he was in the pay of Lewis XIV. 
 during the year 1678. 
 
 The death of Charles II. snatched the only re- 
 maining prop from the long tottering fabric of 
 Buckingham's fortune. About the same period his 
 own health suff'ered a severe attack, and as he had 
 no ]>rospects of grace from his new sovereign, he 
 withdrew to his manor of Helmsley, in Yorkshire, 
 and spent the remainder of his days in the diver- 
 sions of a country life, and such hospitality as his 
 reduced circumstances permitted him to enjoy. It 
 was in all probability only to prove the diversity of 
 his parts, that he published, from this retirement, 
 a short treatise on " The Reasonableness of Men's 
 believing in Religion," and afterwards an " Essay 
 on the Demonstrations of the Deity," — for, however 
 sincerely they may have been dictated by the con- 
 viction, they operated in no degree on the general 
 levity of his actions. They are characterised neither 
 by merit in the style nor originality in matter, and 
 are scarcely known except by their titles, and as 
 emanating from such a pen, are considered literary 
 curiosities. Such was the condition in which a cold 
 caught at a fox chace threw Buckingham into an 
 ague, Mhich snapped the thread of his existence, 
 after an illness of three days. For the first two 
 days he did not suppose himself in any danger, but 
 on the third his faculties failed him. He retained 
 sufficient consciousness, however, to listen with 
 apparent attention to a clergyman of the church of 
 England, who read the prayers for the dying, and 
 administered the sacrament to him. His body was 
 conveyed to London, and interred in the vault 
 under his father's monument in the chapel of 
 Henry VII. 
 
 Thus perished, April 16, 1688, the second George 
 Villiers Duke of Buckingham, a man whose charac- 
 ter was displayed with a lamentable perspicuity in 
 a life spent in a more than common depravity, and 
 whose example supplies its own antidote in the 
 moral of his ruin. His generosity was profusion ; 
 his wit, malevolence; his very talents, caprice; and 
 his gallantry destitute of the vulgar excuse of sen- 
 suality, a mere appetite for novel pleasure. By
 
 BUTLER, DUKE OF ORMOND. 
 
 69 
 
 many he has been adjiulged inferior to his father; 
 but he was no more tlian a fashionable scion of the 
 same stock, and only wanted aj)])lioation and per- 
 severance to have been as conspicuous in the senate 
 and the cabinet, as in the drawintr-room. His love 
 of enjoyment was immoderate, a"d his ardour in 
 the pursuit of it unbounded ; thoufjh originally 
 possessed of a fortune which, if rightly employed, 
 might have made him an object of envy and admi- 
 ration, he lived a profligate, and died a beggar. 
 While living, he conciliated no friend ; when dead, 
 he never found a mourner. 
 
 As an author, however, Buckingham stands in a 
 ligiit decidedly respectable: his poems, which are 
 not numerous, are perfect counterparts of charac- 
 ter: negligent, witty, and libidinous, they have all 
 the blemishes, and many of the beauties, alike dis- 
 tinctive of their style, and the age in which he 
 wrote. But it is as a dramatist that his literary 
 reputation has been princi])ally estaljlished. His 
 comedy of " The Rehearsal," was the first comjio- 
 sition of the kind in our language, and although the 
 plays it professed to ridicule are forgotten, and the 
 taste it censured has long been exploded, it still 
 remains an original ma.ster-piece of humour and 
 art. It was published in 4to, in 1G72, and has 
 never since been out of print. His name also 
 appeal's to three other plays : '' The Chances," 
 which is nothing more than an avowed alteration 
 from the comedy with the same title by Beaumont 
 and Fletcher; "The Battle of Sedgemoor," a farce, 
 and "The Restoration," a comedy. A complete 
 
 edition of liis works, comprising essays, poems, and 
 plays, was collected by T. Evans, of 'tiie Strand, in 
 2 vols. 8vo, 177<"': they have all of them been re- 
 published. One benefit, of e<iual taste and utility, 
 conferred by Buckingham on his country, was the 
 manufacture of crystal glass, an art whicii ho intro- 
 duced from Venice. In connexion with the habits 
 of observation which led him to a])])reciate that 
 improvement, it is also to be observed, that he was 
 an experimenter in alchemy, and was weak enough, 
 during the derangement of liis iwtune, to hope for 
 wealth from the ]iractice of its secrets. 
 
 Buckingham died without issue, and his titles, 
 consequently, became extinct with his person. Like 
 his father, he was an unfaithful husband, but with 
 this difierenee, that whereas the former was always 
 attentive and affectionate, the latter was brutally 
 neglectful of his lady. As in politics, so in love, he 
 had many intrigues, of which the most notorious 
 was one with the Countess of Salisbury, who held 
 his horse while he killed her husband in a duel. 
 
 Buckingham satirised Dryden in the Rehearsal, 
 and Dryden retaliated in Absalom and Ahithophel. 
 The character thus drawn, though faithful, is yet 
 too long and too severe for insertion here. The 
 following lines, therefore, must suffice : — 
 
 " A man so various, that he seemed to be 
 Not one, but all mankind's epitome ; 
 StifTin opinions, alwaj's in the wrong, 
 AVas every thing by (its, and nothing long; 
 But in the conrse of one revolving moon 
 AVas chymist, fiddler, statesman, and buiTnon." 
 
 BUTLER, DUKE OF ORMOND. 
 
 James, the grandson of Sir Walter Butler, of Kil- 
 
 cash, in the county of Tipperary, in Ireland, was 
 born in London, during the year ICIO, at the house 
 of his maternal grandfather. Sir James Pointz, in 
 Clerkenwcll. Sir Walter was nephew of the Earl 
 of Ormond, head of the house of Butler, one of the 
 noblest and most ancient in the peerage of Ireland. 
 The family was at this ])eriod much distracted by 
 law suits and animosities amongst its powerful 
 members. Young Butler's father was not on terms 
 with ills grandfather, who had disaiiproved of his 
 marriage with Miss Pointz. James was jiut to 
 nurse with a carpenter's wife at Hatfield, while his 
 parents went over to Ireland with a hope of recon- 
 ciling the family to their union. In 1C13, they sent 
 for him ; and his great-grandnncle, the Earl, "a 
 blind old man with a long beard," being desirous 
 of seeing the heir of his honours and estates, invited 
 him to his castle, at Carrick-on-Suir, where he 
 resided until the yc'ar lfj20, when liis fiithcr having 
 been drowned, he was removed by his tnotlier to 
 England, and assumed the courtesy title of Lord 
 Thurles. His education was both desultory- and 
 imperfect; as liis kindred were exclusively Catho- 
 lics, he was first put to a scliool kept by a ^Ir. 
 Conyers, at Fiuchlcy, who belonged to that religion. 
 From this place, however, ]u'. was removed by 
 James I., who claimed him under an arbitrary act 
 of jiarliamcnt for the 8Up|)ression of i)op(!ry, as a 
 ward of the crown, and sent him to Archbishop 
 Abbot, at Lanibelli Palace. No great pains seem 
 
 to have been taken for liis improvement by this pre- 
 late, perhaps because he was not paid for his pupil's 
 maintenance or instruction. luterferenee with his 
 religious opinions was not the only act of royal autho- 
 rity with which the y<ning peer was visited. James 
 had given the daughter of Sir Walter Butler's 
 uncle in marriage to one of his favorites, Preston, 
 newly-created Earl of Desmond, and the latter 
 sought, by right of his wile, to set aside the disjio- 
 sition of the family estates, made by the old Mind 
 Earl of Carrick-on-Suir, to whom we have already 
 adverted. After a vexatious suit the judges, con- 
 trary to the king's ex])ress wishes, and despite his 
 repeated interference, found the case strong and 
 plain in favour of Sir Walter, now Earl of Ormond, 
 and so decided. But James overset their judg- 
 ment, and l)y a tyramious abuse of power, not 
 only awardcnl the pr(>]ierty to his favorite, but kept 
 the Earl of Orniond for eight years a prisoner in 
 the Fleet, because he resisted this violent sp((li;ition 
 of his ri;;hts. In 10'2f), a fortunate and judicious 
 accommodation of these wi'ongs and contentions 
 w;is effected l)y the marriage of Lord Thurles witii 
 his cousin, the Lady I'^lizabeth Preston, wdio was 
 the only child and heiress of the Earl of Desmond. 
 The king was a i)arty to the contract, issuing ujinn 
 the occasion letters ])a tent, dated September J{, l(i2!>, 
 in which hi^ records iiisassiiit to the marriage, and 
 vests the wardshi]) of the l)ride's lands in the Earl 
 of Ormond, her husliand's graiidfallier. 
 
 Lord Thurles now spent a year at Acton, in
 
 70 
 
 WESTMINSTER ABBEY. 
 
 Gloucestershire, wliere lie is said to have studied 
 attentively to correct the defects of his early edu- 
 cation. From Acton he went to Ireland, and 
 resided with his grandfather at the Castle of Car- 
 rick-on-Suir, until the year 1632, when the Earl 
 died, and he succeeded to the titles and estates. In 
 1633, the lord lieutenancy of Ireland was given to 
 Lord Wentworth, afterwards Earl of Strafford, and 
 among those who were chiefly distinguished by his 
 notice was the Earl of Ormond. An incident, out 
 of which arose the friendship that was now formed 
 between these noblemen, is worth recording. Straf- 
 ford in summoning his first parliament, which he 
 apprehended might prove tumultuous, had desired 
 the usher of the black rod to enforce an old order, 
 forbidding peers or commoners to enter the house 
 with swords. When Ormond approached the usher 
 demanded his sword, and was told that if he must 
 have it, it should be in his guts, and proceeding to 
 his seat, proved to be the only peer that day who 
 dared to vindicate his rights and person from insult. 
 Strafford, struck by his intrepidity, sent for him 
 immediately, and demanded to know if he was not 
 aware of the order, and had not seen the lord lieu- 
 tenant's proclamation ; to which he answered in the 
 affirmative, but added that he had disobeyed both 
 upon a higher authority, the king's writ, which 
 summoned him to parliament cum gladio cinctus. 
 Strafford saw that a spirit so determined was either 
 to be crushed or made a friend, and finding that 
 Ormond held the proxies of Lords Castlehaven, 
 Somerset, Baltimore, and Arundel, adopted the 
 latter alternative, upon the advice of Sir George 
 Radcliffe, and Wandesforde, Master of the Rolls. 
 Both parties seem to have turned the accommoda- 
 tion to their separate interests. Strafford was now 
 busy in carrying into effect a plan for planting the 
 extensive tracts called Upper and Lower Ormond, 
 over which the earl had palatinate and other rights, 
 but found it difficult to proceed with the project 
 while the latter held back his deeds and mmiiments. 
 These, however, he now agreed to produce, and 
 the settlement of the lands was expeditiously effect- 
 ed, Omiond receiving one fourth part of all the 
 crown planted, and obtainmg grants of 1000 acres 
 each for his friends, John Pigot, Gerald Fennel, 
 and David Routh, Esqrs. After bemg sworn in a 
 member of the privy council, and piu'chasing, ac- 
 cording to the fashion of the period, his troop of 
 horse, he was, in 1640, appointed lieutenant-general 
 of horse with 4?. a day, and upon Strafford's leaving 
 Ireland dm-ing the same year, was appointed com- 
 mander-in-chief of the forces destined to assist the 
 king against the Scotch, a body which Ormond's 
 diligence and activity raised to 8000 effective 
 men. 
 
 The year 1641 is remarkable in the history of 
 Ireland for the explosion of a violent insurrection. 
 In this exigency Ormond acted as lieutenant-gene- 
 ral of the army, which did not then muster more 
 than 3000 men. With a force so inadequate, de- 
 fensive measures only could be attempted, and for 
 a while he was miable to do more than check the 
 advance of the insurgents. But he soon proceeded 
 to more important services, and after repulsing 
 them from Naas, and compelling them to raise the 
 siege of Dundalk, routed them near Kilrush. At 
 this point, however, his operations were severely 
 embarrassed by the Lords Justices, who adminis- 
 tered the government of the kingdom under a 
 
 commission. The succession of the Earl of Leices- 
 ter to the lord lieutenancy tended in no degree to 
 abate this difficulty; for, to the machinations of 
 many, he had now to add the strong opposition of 
 the chief governor. He was, therefore, compelled 
 to forward a remonstrance to the king in England, 
 for the purpose of explaining the injurious situ- 
 ation in which he was placed. The state of Ireland 
 was never more perplexed. The host of smaller 
 contending interests by which the country had 
 always been agitated, were now absorbed by three 
 gi'eat opposing parties, that of the king and Church 
 of England, to which Ormond consistently attached 
 himself ; that of the puritans and English parlia- 
 ment, to which the lords justices inclined; and that 
 of the Roman Catholics, who, m point of numbers 
 and means, had seldom appeared so potent. From 
 Charles, who, when allowed to judge for himself, 
 often determined with prudence, Ormond obtained 
 an independent commission, and the title of mar- 
 quis in return for his late achievements. Hostilities 
 proceeded, and Ormond continued active in the 
 field and council until 1642, when he was attacked 
 by fever, which thi-eatened his life. While lying 
 ill he found leisure to look into the state of his 
 affairs, which proved so desperate that he was fain* 
 to address the king respecting them, and submit 
 that his estate was torn and rent from him by the 
 fury of the rebellion, and nothing left to support 
 his wife and children; that if his debts (a great part 
 whereof had been contracted and drawn upon him 
 in his majesty's service) were not satisfied his 
 house and posterity must sink. Recovering from 
 this fever, but not from his pecuniary difficulties, 
 Ormond resumed his military duties and led several 
 enterprises, untd at last, by the king's direction, he 
 entered into terms with the disaffected, a proceed- 
 mg, which, though loudly condemned in England, 
 must to the king at least have given satisfaction, 
 for Charles appointed him lord lieutenant. He was 
 accordingly sworn into office, January 21, 1644. 
 
 Upon a careful and dispassionate review of 
 Ormond's lieutenancy, it must be admitted that the 
 vigour he had displayed while actmg as second in 
 authority, was not sustained by the success that 
 might have been expected when the chief com- 
 mand was conferred upon him. Neither in this 
 nor in his subsequent Irish administrations do we 
 recognize that ability which overcomes long-stand- 
 ing difficulties, nor those results which attest 
 superior excellence. The most that can be said in 
 his favour is, that if he did not materially improve, 
 he did not injure the interests of the country, or of 
 the royal cause. The latter indeed was now beyond 
 human aid, and perhaps it is too much to hint that 
 Ormond could have succoured and sustained in 
 Ireland a crown that ^\as ah-eady lost in England. 
 In granting the Catholics a formal indemnity for 
 the late insurrection, he very properly secured 
 them a tolei-ation of then* religion, in return for 
 which, they undertook to arm 10,000 men in the 
 sei'vice of Charles. But the obligations of this con- 
 tract were speedily thwarted; Rinucini, the pope's 
 legate, and O'Neale, not only refused to ratify their 
 engagements, but conspired to embaii'ass the lord 
 lieutenant, and entirely overthrow the English 
 party. For a time their measm'es were designed 
 with skill, and enforced with resolution ; and ere 
 long they reduced Ormond to the alternative of 
 delivering up the garrisons in his power, either into
 
 BUTLER, DUKE OF ORMOND. 
 
 71 
 
 tlieir liands, or those of the parlianieiitar}' foi'ces. 
 In this dilemma tlie advice of Prince Charles 
 concurred with his own opinions, and of the two 
 enemies, he pivferred submission to the latter. 
 
 The wisdom of this decision has been nnich ques- 
 tioned. It has been urged, that if the Catholic Church 
 in Ireland had been recognized and ui)he!d by 
 Charles, as the Presbyterian Church has been in 
 Scotland, the majority of the people would have 
 stood firmly by him, would have i-esisted the Com- 
 monwealth, and have saved his life. It were now 
 vain to speculate how tlie progress of constitutional 
 liberty might have been affected if there had been, 
 either in England or Ireland at that juncture, a poli- 
 tician of sufficient penetration and decision, or rather 
 of sufficient lii)erality in religious matters, to avail 
 himself of the means lying before him for delivering 
 the crown and constitution from the perils by whicli 
 they were surrounded. But neither Charles nor 
 Ormond were men of that stamp or calibre ; and 
 perhaps the attempt was altogether beyond the 
 scope of the age in which ihey lived. 
 
 In 1G48, Ormond repaired to England, and 
 obtained a melancholy interview with the king, 
 already a prisoner at Hamj)ton Court, where he 
 * was warmly commended for his services. He took 
 up an obscure residence in London, until he was 
 driven, in common with all the other royalists, to 
 France, where he was not long suft'ered to remain 
 inactive; for receiving the strongest invitations to 
 resume his lieutenancy, he appointed a meeting 
 with the Earl of Inchiipiin in Munstei", and landed 
 at Cork, after an absence of less than twelve months. 
 His rece])tion proving highl}- flattering, he was 
 enabled to restore the royal authority in those very 
 towns which he had so lately ceded to the parlia- 
 ment. He assembled an army of 10,000 men, 
 advanced against Dundalk, which was garrisoned 
 by General Monk, reduced the town, and promptly 
 followed on tlie advantage to Ne\\'ry. So promising 
 wiis his condition at this juncture, that tlie young 
 king entertained a design of putting himself at the 
 head of the Irish, but this idea was soon abandoned. 
 After a fresh defeat of the insurgents, under 
 O'Neale, and the ])arliamentarians under Coote, 
 he crossed tlie Liffey, took up a position at Rath- 
 mines, near Dublin, and attempted to carry the 
 capital by one bold enterprise. Tlu're is some- 
 thing ludicrous in the account given of the defeat 
 sustained on this occasion. Ormond rei)aired old, 
 and threw up new entrenchments ; annoyed the 
 enemy by constant skirmishes, and ])(>rsonally wit- 
 nessed the fulfilment of every order. After passing 
 some days in active pre))ai'ations, he lay down, worn 
 out with fatigue, for the first time, since the com- 
 mencement of the siege, to enjoy a short re])ose, 
 requiring the men to remain under arms; but no 
 sooner had he disa])i)eared, than the troojis, follow- 
 ing the example of their leader, b(!took themselves 
 to sleep also. Meantime, Jones, the ])arliami;ntary 
 leader, who had on that very day received succours 
 from England, sallied from his posts, and attacked 
 liis enemy with desperation. Roused from his pallet 
 by the icjiort of musquetry, Ormond flew to the 
 scene, and belieid his soldi(;rs surprised and in dis- 
 order, and, after a rc-sistancc as Ijrief as it was 
 vain, was hurried with them into flight. A severe 
 slaughter followed, and 2000 jirisoners, with all the 
 arms, baggage, and amnnniitiijn, fell into the hands 
 of the victorious republicans. 
 
 This defeat was fatal to the royal cause. Crom- 
 well reached Dublin innnediately after, and by a 
 series of movements, pursued with his characteristic 
 fury and determination, overran all opposition. He 
 came and jiassed over the country like th(; thunder 
 storm that clears away from the atmosphere all the 
 eienunts of confusion and violence. As a first blow 
 he stormed Drogheda, and gave the inhabitants up 
 to military execution. Wherever he marched, the 
 land flowed with blood, and every energy was para- 
 lysed by a A'igour that no resistance could sto]i, and 
 a cruelty that never spared. So utter was the 
 panic, that not content with seeing Ormond desert- 
 ed by every soldier, the few straggling authorities, 
 who still favoured his interests, or ventured to 
 express a counsel for his conduct, insisted upon his 
 abandoning the country as the only means of saving 
 the whole people from extermination. France, 
 therefoi'e, again became his land of refuge, and in 
 1C50 he joined the little court of his exiled monarch, 
 pjxtreme poverty was now for a time his lot, until 
 his marchioness ventured back to Ireland, and, by 
 great exertions, and after long delays, succeeded in 
 obtaining from Cromwell an allowance of 2000/. a 
 year out of her own estates. His sons were now 
 sent to Holland, while his lady remained in Ireland. 
 Ormond himself continued abroad, and even there 
 rendered many important services to the cause of 
 fallen monarchy. 
 
 The first of the commissions entinisted to him in 
 his banishment, was to withdraw the young Duke 
 of Gloucester from the power of the queen mother, 
 who was reported to have made use of some seve- 
 rities hi order to induce that prince to become a 
 convert to the Catholic faith. In this delicate task 
 he succeeded, and was next employed to detach the 
 Irish brigades in the service of Spain to the French 
 crown. Having completed this object also, he was 
 ajipointed to command these brigades, and in this 
 capacity olitained the surrender of St. Ghilians, a 
 fortified town near Brussels. In 1G58 a more dan- 
 gerous mission was confided to his prudence; for 
 being secretly despatched to England, with the 
 view of acquiring certain intelligence of the strength 
 of the royal party, he was put at the head of the 
 conspiracy for Cromwell's de])osition, which was 
 mainly su])ported by Lord Fairfax and Sir William 
 Waller. How perfectly this jilnt was discovered 
 to the protector, is a matter of historical notoriety: 
 Ormond was hazardously persecuted by the govern- 
 ment spies, and had good reason to congratulate 
 himself ujion his escape to the continent. Ample 
 notice might be now taken of the ri'peated negotia- 
 tions which he conducted at the coiu'ts of France, 
 S[)ain, and Holland, for the restoration of royalty; 
 but as those undertakings were misuccessful, so 
 are their details uninteresting. The current of 
 events brought tliat great end (piietly to its issue 
 by other labours than his. He was a passenger in 
 the same ship that conveyed Charles biick to his 
 kingdom, and obtained an immediate restorati(jn of 
 his great ]>ro]ierty in the countiis of Killicnny and 
 Tipporary. A sum of money was awarded him by 
 way of compensation for his snli'erings and losses, 
 but, according to his biograplier Carte, it was never 
 paid. 
 
 At the coronation, that solemnity by wlilcli 
 CharU'S liecamc; formally invested witli the rights 
 and dignities of his ancestors, Ormond was hon- 
 ouretl with an Irisli dukedoin, and the iilace of
 
 72 
 
 WESTMINSTER ABBEY. 
 
 Lord High Steward of England. In 1G62, he was 
 once more elevated to the Lord Lieutenancy of 
 Ireland, and vipoiS his arrival at the seat of govern- 
 ment, found that counti-y, which seems incurably 
 fated to wrong, distnictions, and bloodshed, still in 
 open warfare. This state of things, with some 
 time and labour, he managed to compose, and then 
 directed his attention to improvements, for the 
 benefits of which, if ever the memory of a man 
 deserved to be invoked with blessings, his should 
 be held sacred ; for, after encouraging various 
 laudable occupations in conmierce and agriculture, 
 he followed up the example first set by Lord Straf- 
 ford for promoting the growtii of tlax and manu- 
 facture of linen, and superadded the manufacture of 
 cloth, for the cultivation of which he procured at 
 his own ex[)ense skilful artisans from the Low 
 Countries, and placed some in Clonmel, and others 
 at Carrick on Suir. The results of this policy it is 
 unnecessary to enlarge upon ; at this day the ma- 
 nufacture of linen is the standard trade of Ireland, 
 and if the districts in which the cloth trade was 
 cultivated by Lord Ormond are not equally wealthy 
 and peaceable, it must be borne in mind that Eng- 
 land interfered with that branch of industry, and 
 stopped its progress many years ago. 
 
 From these honourable avocations Ormond was 
 only diverted by the vicissitudes inseparable from 
 a political career. His intimacy with the Earl of 
 C!arend(jn involved him in much of the odium 
 which overpowered that eminent statesman ; and 
 when the chancellor was banished, the Lord Lieu- 
 tenant of Ireland was called over to London to 
 render an account of his government. After a rigor- 
 ous inquiry no charge was established against him 
 upon which his adversaries could found ulterior pro- 
 ceedings, but their machinations were laid with an 
 intricacy, and pursued with an obstinacy from which 
 it was impossible wholly to escape; and in 1669, he 
 was deprived of all his offices, having been a short 
 time previously created an English Duke. Honours, 
 however, were not to be withheld from such a 
 man by the factitious disgrace attending upon the 
 loss of place, and in the course of the following 
 year he was elected Chancellor of the University 
 of Oxford. Scarce had this last distinction been 
 conferred, when a more malignant plot had nearly 
 cut short his life ; for the .same Colonel Blood, 
 who is notorious in the history of England for his 
 daring effort to steal the crown from the Tower, 
 made a desperate attempt to hang the duke at 
 Tyburn gallows. This villain had formerly been 
 imprisoned by the Duke in Ireland, upon the de- 
 tection of a conspiracy in which he was implicated, 
 for seizing on the castle of Dublin, but escaping 
 from gaol, before a trial could take place, he re- 
 paired to London, and moved about with impudent 
 confidence, secure in the protection of Orniond's 
 keenest enemy, the Duke of Buckingham. Har- 
 dened in crime, he now conceived tlie project of 
 gratifying his patron's ambition and his own re- 
 sentment by making away with the duke. Accord- 
 ingly, taking his post with some mounted ruffians 
 in St. James's Square one night in the month of 
 December, 1(170, he awaited the duke's return 
 home from a public entertainment, which had been 
 given in the city to the Prince of Orange. Before 
 the carriage drew up at liis residence, Ormond 
 was seized, pinioned, and lashed behind a horse- 
 man, who immediately rode off with him at a rapid 
 
 pace. The party had reached Oxford-street, when 
 the duke, after repeated struggles, succeeded in 
 throwing both himself and the rider to the groimd: 
 assistance fortunately reached him before he could 
 be replaced, and he regained his home uninjured. 
 The king at first expressed a becoming resentment 
 against the perpeti-ators of so violent an act, but 
 being afterwards supplicated by Buckingham to 
 favour Blood, he sent the Earl of Arlington to 
 Ormond, with a request that the insult might be 
 pardoned. Ormond's reply was courtier-like, and 
 sensible : — " If the king," said he, " can forgive 
 Blood for an attempt to steal his crown, I may 
 easily forgive him for an attempt on my life : I 
 shall observe his majesty's pleasure, without in- 
 quiring into his reasons.'' 
 
 Seven years now passed away, and Ormond, 
 though he attended the court as Lord Steward, 
 was never consulted, and seldom noticed. At 
 length, Irish grievances broke out with such 
 violence, tliat in 1677) the court was compelled 
 to resort to him as the only man who was at all 
 likely to tranquillize that country. He was accord- 
 ingly honoured with an unexpected notice, that the 
 king meant to sup with him : he spent 2000/. upon 
 the entertainment, and just as it closed, was pressed 
 to resume the office of Lord Lieutenant. By dint 
 of great pains and considerable pirudence, he main- 
 tained the authoiity of his government in a more 
 effective state than he last received it ; but his 
 designs were thwarted, his resources were in- 
 adequate, and the English interest was reduced to 
 a precarious condition. 
 
 At length Charles II. died, and his brother 
 James succeeded to the crown : Ormond pro- 
 claimed the new monarch at his seat of govern- 
 ment, and then resigned his office. Being now 
 stricken with years, and sui-feited with politics, he 
 retired to his seat at Kingston Hall, in Dorsetshire, 
 and after lingering under repeated attacks of the 
 gout for two years, exj)ired near the age of seventy- 
 eight, in July, 1688. His body was renu5ved to 
 Westminster Abbey, and honourably interred in a 
 vault under the entrance to Henry the Seventh's 
 chapel, which had been pre-occuj^ied by his wife 
 and two sous *, and is still distinguished as the 
 Ormond vault. 
 
 * The eldest of these sons was the accoinplished and 
 gallant Ossory, who was a Knight of the Garter, and had a 
 seat in the I?iigli»h House of Peers, as Baron Butler of 
 Moore Park. When at school at Paris he excelled all the 
 youths of the academy he studied at in his exercises and at- 
 tainments. After the Restoration, he adopted the profession 
 of arms, and served with honour hoth in the army and navy. 
 He greatly distinguibhed liimself by the spirit with which 
 he seconded the Duke of Albemarle's proposal to blow up 
 !iis ship rather than surrender during the memorable sea- 
 fight of four days between the Dutch and English fleets in 
 the year 1605. He is highly commended by Carte for the 
 spirit and atfectinn with which he resented upon the Duke 
 of Buckingliam, in the king's presence. Blood's attempt 
 upon his father's life. "My Lord," he said, upon meeting 
 the duke standing near the king's chair soon after the out- 
 rage had taken place, " I know well that you are at the htad 
 of this attempt of Blood's upon my father, and therefore I 
 give you fair warning, if my father comes to a violent end 
 by sword or pistol, if he dies by the hand of a rufhan, or the 
 more secret way of poison, I sliall not be at a loss to know 
 the first author of it, I shall consider you the author of 
 it, I shall treat you as such, and wlienever I meet you 1 
 shall pistol you, though you stood behind the king's chair;
 
 APHARA BEHN. 
 
 73 
 
 James Butler, Duke of Ormond, has deservedly 
 received an admirable character from all histo- 
 rians. He was a man of grave character, of ser- 
 viceable rather than shining talents ; possessing 
 sound opinions, which he expressed unifcirmlv with 
 moderation, and great good sense, and much prac- 
 tical knowledge. It has been trulv observed, that 
 for high honour as a courtier, and pure mtegrity 
 as a statesman, he far surpassed the majority, and 
 was equalled by very few of his contemporaries. 
 The constancy with which he adhered to the cause 
 of Charles and the Protestant church, not only 
 through all the oppressive hardsliii)S of banish- 
 
 and I tell jou this in his majesty's presence, that you may 
 be sure 1 shall keep my word." 
 
 Lord Ossory died of fever in the forty-ninth year of his 
 age, while preparing to go out as governor of Tangier. His 
 loss was generally regretted both in his own country and on 
 the Continent, where he was highly esteemed. He left two 
 sons; James, who succeeded to the dukedom, and Charles, 
 Earl of Arran. 
 
 ment, but also through the bitter trials of party 
 compromises and ministerial defeats, establishes 
 an example of firm and generous loyalty, such as 
 it were not easy to match in history. He was a 
 strong supporter of the prerogative of the crown, 
 but at the same time a staunch advocate for the 
 unbiassed administration of the law. The tem- 
 pei-ate conduct, and the excellence of his views in 
 the government of Ireland, far exceeded any dis- 
 played by his pi-edeces.sors. Carte the historian 
 wrote his life in two large folio volumes, with an 
 apf)endix which filled a third, a circumstance 
 which has served, in not a few instances, to attach 
 more importance to his name tlian really belongs 
 to it. For, after all, he has hai'dly any claims to 
 be considered a statesman, in the higher sense of 
 the word, and will have been justly but not ex- 
 travagantly praised when he has been pronounced 
 a man equally honest, useful, and consistent, in an 
 age when those virtues were rare. 
 
 APHARA BEHN. 
 
 ' The stage how loosely does Astrea tread, 
 Who fairly puts her characters to bed." 
 
 Such are the lines by which Pope, in his character 
 of women, describes the subject of this memoir — 
 to which, however, it is to be added, tliat a part 
 only of her varied pretensions to notice are alluded 
 to in the couplet ; and that though, in this limited 
 reference, the implied satire must be admitted to be 
 correct, still some favourable opinion ought to have 
 been in fairness expressed of an authoress, who was 
 amongst the first of her sex in England who suc- 
 ceeded to any extent as an original writer. The 
 period of Aphara Behn's birth is unknown ; the 
 place of it was Canterbury, where her family, 
 which was named Johnson, had a reputable descent; 
 and it may be as well to observe at once, that this 
 incertitude of facts and information pervades every 
 account we possess of the sub.sequent periods of 
 her life. While a girl, her father was recom- 
 mended to Charles I. by Lord Willoughby, and 
 through the interest of that nobleman, was ap- 
 pointed Lieutenant-Governor of Surinam in the 
 West Indies. He imfortunately died on his pas- 
 .sage out, but his family, who embarked with him, 
 reached the settlement in safety, and resided on it 
 for some time with satisfaction. Aphai-a in par- 
 ticular was delighted with it : .she has left a ]ileas- 
 ing description of it, still in print ; and afterwards 
 presented an account of its statistics to the Go- 
 vernment. The following picture of the situation 
 of her family upon tluir 1 Hiding is in her own 
 words : " As Boon a-s wo came into the country, 
 the best house in it was presented to us, called St. 
 John's Hill. It Htoiid on a vast rock of white 
 marble, at the foot of which the river ran a great 
 depth down, thu little waves dashing and foaming 
 over the foot of the rock, made the softest purlings 
 in llie world. The o[)positc bank was adorned 
 witli a quantity of diflerent flowers, eternally blow- 
 ing, every day and every linur anew, fciieed be- 
 hind with lofty trees of a thousand ran' lormH and 
 colours. Tile pr.jspcct was tiie most ravishing 
 
 that sands can create. On the edge of this white 
 rock, towards the river, was a walk or grove of 
 orange and lemon trees, about half the length of 
 the Mall in St. James's Park, whose Howery and 
 fruit-bearing branches met at the top, and inter- 
 cepted the fierce rays of the sun. A cool air that 
 came from the river at the hottest hours of the 
 day, made it not only a delightful retreat, but 
 refreshing the blossoms, made them ever fragrant 
 and blooming. The boasted gardens of Italy can- 
 not excel this grove, which art and nature com- 
 bined to adorn. It was wonderful to see trees, 
 equal in size to the English oak, take root in a 
 solid rock, with afterwards but a scanty covering 
 of earth." 
 
 Here, too, Aphara found another memorable 
 charm, in her acquaintance with the celebrated 
 African Prince, Oronooko, whose adventures she 
 recited in the novel bearing his name. The story 
 is now best known by Southerne's tragedy, in the 
 preface to which many high compliments are paid 
 to the original writer, Aphara. She represents 
 herself as having be( ii a witness of the incidents 
 related in her book, and it was well known that 
 she took an honourable delight in consoling the 
 misfortunes of the chieftain as far as her resources 
 permitted. The youthful zeal with which she 
 tended upon the unfoi'tuiiate coujile, and her kind- 
 ness in teaching the wife many of the little in- 
 genuities of polite education, naturally excited a 
 reciprocity of interest. By turns she listened with 
 avidity to (heir description of the romantic habits 
 of their uniiistructed countrymen; or recounted to 
 them with ardour the great achievements of an- 
 tiipiity, or the striking characteristics of modern 
 society. The intimacy was preserved with a cer- 
 tain degree of esteem and enthusiasm which it 
 were cynical to make re[)n'heiisil)le, when tlie 
 youth of the one jiarly and the simplicity of the 
 other are remembered. Oronooko called Apliara
 
 74 
 
 WESTMINSTER ABBEY. 
 
 his " great mistress," and an inexperienced girl of 
 talent exulted in the compliment. 
 
 Upon our cession of Surinam to the Dutch, she 
 returned to England, and settling in London, soon 
 after gave her hand in marriage to Mr. Belin, a 
 merchant of Dutch extraction in the city. At 
 what period she lost her husband is now only to 
 be conjectured. The next event of any particular 
 interest we know of in her life, was her appoint- 
 ment by the ministry of Charles II., to reside at 
 Antwerp, in the capacity of a political spy, or rather 
 as a courtesan for the good of her country. Her 
 character for levity must have been pretty gene- 
 rally published, before any office of this description 
 could have been proposed for her acceptance. The 
 manner in which she acquitted herself, both m 
 politics and love, seems to have been successful 
 enough; she discovered the memorable project for 
 sailing up the Thames, concerted by De Ruyter 
 and Cornelius de Witt, in IfJGfi, and sent timely 
 notice of it to the government at home. CoiTectly 
 as events proved this intelligence to have been 
 founded, the English ministers received it with in- 
 credulity, and Aphara abandoning all connexion 
 with politics in a pot, surrendered her undivided 
 attention to gallantry. Of her adventures in this 
 career, she has left a sufficiently entertaining account 
 in her letters. Her principal admirer, and the one 
 from whom she obtained her knowledge of the plan 
 upon the Thames, was one Vander Albert, a man 
 respectably connected in the states of Holland. 
 The progress of this intercourse may be presumed. 
 After some time spent in undisturbed confidence, 
 she was warned of his inconstancy, by the history 
 of a lady whom he had married after a long and 
 ardent courtship, and then deserted. Aphara be- 
 came acquainted with the injured wife, and was so 
 moved by her sufferings, her virtues, and her 
 beauty, that she had the generosity to determine 
 upon restoring her to her liusband's arras. The 
 scheme adopted for accomplishing this object, was 
 soon resolved on, and easily put into practice. An 
 interview was fixed upon between the lovers, it was 
 to be secret, and take place in the dark; Catalina, 
 the forsaken bride, was thus substituted for Mrs. 
 Behn, and the meetings were several times repeat- 
 ed without a discovery of the deception. Unfortu- 
 nately, when the truth became known, Albert was 
 more incensed than ever against his unfortunate 
 lady, and though Aphara refused to see him, he 
 still persisted in neglecting Her. After exhausting 
 his resoui'ces of solicitation in order to re-ingratiate 
 himself with his mistress, he at last followed the 
 example she had shown him, and projected a stra- 
 tagem of revenge. There was a reduced old gen- 
 tlewoman, whom Aphai'a had taken to live with 
 her out of compassion, and with whom she not 
 unfrequently shared her bed. Over the scruples 
 of this companion, a handsome present sufficed to 
 prevail, and she consented, upon an appointed 
 night, to surrender her privilege to Albert. Now 
 it happened on the evening settled for the execu- 
 tion of this enterprise, that Aphara supped from 
 home in company with the sou and daughters of 
 her landlord. On their return, some sudden im- 
 pulse of frolic seized upon the party, and they 
 agreed that the young man should pi-oceed to the 
 old lady's bed, and be there surprised, with lights, 
 by Mrs. Behn and his sisters. The denouement 
 expressed a humorous moral : the two men were 
 
 found lying together, not less to their own astonish- 
 ment, than that of all the rest present. What 
 remains to be told, is neither so pleasant nor so 
 justifiable; the accommodating matron was discard- 
 ed; Albert excused himself upon the ungovernable- 
 ness of his passion, and so far triumphed, that an 
 ai-rangement was entered into, by the terms of 
 which Ajihara was to return to England, and be 
 thei'e followed by him; after which, as a recom- 
 pense for his fidelity and his disappointment, lie 
 was promised her hand at the altar. What provi- 
 sion was to be made in that case for the wife, whose 
 neglect had already been so properly commiserated, 
 we are not informed; the sudden death of Albert 
 in a fever, at Amsterdam, while preparing for the 
 voyage, saved both parties from the consequences 
 of the difficulty they were about to incur. 
 
 The ship in which Aphara sailed from Dunkirk 
 foundered on the coast of Kent, and the j)assengers 
 were saved by boats from the shore. Thus once 
 more restored, poor and pi'ofligate, to the pleasures 
 of London, she spent the remainder of her life in a 
 lascivious career of intrigues, whicli was even con- 
 spicuous in an age so corruptly distinguished as 
 that of Charles II. What she failed to acquire by 
 love, she endeavoured to obtain by literature; the 
 multiplicity of her productions are to be ascribed 
 to the necessity she laboured under of writing for 
 her support. Courted by wits and authors for her 
 conversational talents, and solicited by lords and 
 gallants for her personal charms, it is not surpris- 
 ing that her reputation should have risen to a con- 
 siderable height; and that numerous compliments 
 to her talents and popularity are to be found in the 
 works of several of the most memorable writers of 
 her time. The woman who boasts the addresses 
 of such noblemen as Dorset and Rochester, may 
 be supposed to have possessed no ordinary attrac- 
 tions, while the authoress who could secure the 
 praise of Drydcn and Southerne, must certainly 
 be admitted to have been highly endowed, and yet 
 who now reads or thinks of the once favourite 
 Aphara Behn 1 
 
 She is chiefly known by a paraphrase of the 
 celebrated letters between a nobleman and his 
 sister-in-law (Lord Gray and the Lady Henrietta 
 Berkeley); for a couple of volumes published in 
 twelves, and consisthig of minor histories and novels; 
 and for three volumes of miscellaneous poetry com- 
 posed by the Earl of Rochestei*, Sir George Etherege, 
 Henry Crisp, and herself. The first of these latter 
 volumes appeared in 1684, the second in 1685, and 
 the third in 1688; the contents of the whole are 
 principally composed of songs and short light 
 l)ieces. The most bulky portion of her works con- 
 sists of her plays, seventeen in number, which have 
 been long dead to the stage, and are most remark- 
 able for a display of indelicacy, such as few would 
 expect from her sex, and no second age ever tole- 
 rated in this country. The majority were success- 
 ful, though abounding in arrant plagiarisms; whole 
 plots and passages, wherever they suit her wants, 
 being freely taken from other writers. These liber- 
 ties some eulogists have been at the jiains of trying 
 to excuse, by representing that she borrowed less 
 from any stmted resources of her own imagination, 
 than from the urgency with which in general she was 
 necessitated to produce. But even this, when taken 
 for truth, in no respect lessens the wrong done to 
 the one party, or lightens the offence of the other.
 
 RICHARD BUSBY. 
 
 Vo 
 
 The letters to Lycidas, inserted in her memoirs, 
 were addressed to no fictitious cliaracter, in which 
 case lier passion must have been as hapless as it 
 was strong. Her last illness was protracted and 
 l)ainful, and terminated in death on the IGth of 
 April, I(i(i9 : as the date of her birth is not pre- 
 served, so the extent of her age cannot be calcu- 
 lated. Slie was buried in the cloisters of West- 
 minster Abbey ; the spot was marked by a plain 
 stone of black marble, on which appeared this 
 doggerel by way of epitaph : 
 
 Here lies a proof that wit can never be 
 Defence enough against mortality ! 
 Great Poetess ! — Oh ! thy stupendous lays 
 The world admires, and the Muses praise. 
 
 The complimentai'y testimony borne by Dryden 
 and Southerne to the talents of Aphai'a Behn, has 
 
 been already mentioned ; but she has received 
 other tributes from her literary contemporaries, 
 which, if not as high in authority, arc yet higher 
 in amount. Of these, Charles Cotton may be men- 
 tioned first, an<l after him Langbaine, who j)ro- 
 phesied, that her name must long be cherished 
 among the lovers of the drama. Gildon, her luib- 
 lisher, who lived in habits of great intimacy with 
 her, is far more pai'ticular and encomiastic. He 
 describes her as strong of mind, and with such a 
 command of her faculties, that she used to write in 
 the midst of company, and at the same thue share in 
 the conversation. Though in her temper choleric, 
 yet friendly, and incapable of wilful injury; witty, 
 yet good-natured; honourable in her actions, and 
 in sentiment frank ; and though more gay tiiau 
 allowed by the strict, yet always tender of the 
 rules of modesty. 
 
 RICHARD BUSBY, D.D. 
 
 Doctor Busby's monument stands against the 
 screen of the choir, in the south aisle of West- 
 minster Abbey : it is the work of Bird, an able 
 artist, who executed the sculpture work of St. 
 Paul's Cathedral, and the statue of Cardinal Wol- 
 .sey in the hall of Christ Church College, Oxford, 
 but who has been chiefly commended for this per- 
 formance, which ranks as his master-piece, and is 
 additionally entitled to attention for the elegance of 
 the epitaph inscribed upon it. The doctor is repre- 
 sented in the full size of life, reclining among his 
 books, and appears still devoted to study, though 
 nearly worn out by its intensity: in his right hand 
 is a pen, in his left a manuscript. The design is 
 simple and natux'al, the finishing decidedly neat, 
 and the effect consequently good. The inscription 
 is long, and in Latin, but expressed in a purer 
 idiom than is to be observed in later compositions 
 of the kind. 
 
 En infra positam 
 
 Qualib hominum oculis observabatur 
 
 BusBEii imaginem ! 
 
 Si cam 
 
 Q,use in animis altiiis insedit 
 
 Ultra desideras; 
 
 Academi;E utriusque et Fori Inmina, 
 
 Auhu, Senatiis, atque Kcclesiaj 
 
 Principes vii'os contemi)lare: 
 
 Cumque satara ab illo ingenioruni messem 
 
 Tam variam tanKjue uberem lustraveris, 
 
 Quantus is esset, qui severit, cogita. 
 
 Is certe crat 
 
 Qui iusitam cui((ue a natura indolem, 
 
 Et acule ])erspexit, 
 
 Et exercuit commode, 
 
 Et feliciter promovit. 
 
 Is erat 
 
 Qui adolescentium animos 
 
 Ita docendo fiuxit aluitquo 
 
 Ut tani sa])<!re disccrent (piani fari, 
 
 DiiiTique pueri institucbantur 
 
 Siiisim succresceri'Mt viri. 
 
 Quotquot illius disci|ilin;i pcnitus imbuti 
 
 III publicum prodiere 
 
 Tot adepta est Monarchia, 
 
 Tot Ecclesia Anglicana 
 
 Propugnatores, 
 
 Fidos omnes, plerosque strenuos. 
 
 Quajcumque demum sit fama 
 
 SCHOL^E WESTMONASTERIENSIS, 
 
 Quidquid inde ad homines fructiis redundarit, 
 
 BusBEio maxime debetur, 
 
 Atque in onnie porro tevum debebitur. 
 
 Tam utilem patriie civem 
 
 Multis annis opibusque florere voluit Deus; 
 
 Vicissim ille 
 
 Pietati promovenda; 
 
 Se et sua alacris devovit: 
 
 Pauperibus subvenire, 
 
 Literates fovere, 
 
 Templa instaurare — 
 
 Id illi erat divitiis frui; 
 
 Et hos in usns 
 
 Quidquid non erogarat vivus 
 
 Legavit moriens. 
 
 Richardus Busby, Lincolniensis, 
 
 S. T. P. 
 
 Natus est Luttonia; ' 1606, Sept. 22. 
 
 Scholre Westmon'st. pra^fcctus est 1640, Dec. 2.^. 
 
 o , . i Westmon'st. ])ra;bendarins ^ Jul 5. 
 bedem ml , ,■ •' . ,^ M-on I 
 
 p, , < obtnuut An. Dom. lOCO > 
 
 ■ I^Wellensi Tiiesaurarius j Aug.2. 
 
 Obiit 1695, Apr. r.. 
 
 Underneath, behold 
 
 The image of Busby, 
 
 Such as he met the eyes of men ! 
 
 I'.ut if 
 
 The image of all that was deeper seated in his mind 
 
 Vou farther seek. 
 
 Regard in Ijoth Universities, and at the Bar, 
 
 In the Court, the Senate, and the Church, 
 
 Our leading men: 
 
 And, when you have contemplated 
 
 Tliat croi) of intclli'ct, so various and exn))erant, 
 
 Then, determine how great was ho who sowed it. 
 
 The man he certainly was 
 
 Who most acutely discerned,
 
 76 
 
 WESTMINSTER ABBEY. 
 
 Most ably exercised, 
 
 And happily improved, 
 
 The talent with which nature imbued his scholars. 
 
 He it was 
 
 Who 80 moulded and nourished 
 
 The mind of youth bj' instruction, 
 
 That they acted and spuke with equal wisdom; 
 
 And developi d manhood 
 
 While he rean d them as boys. 
 
 In all who advanced into public life 
 
 Impressed by liis discipline, 
 
 The Crown and Church of England 
 
 Have acquired so many bulwarks — 
 
 Faithful all, and most of them strenuous. 
 
 In short. 
 
 Whatever be the fame of 
 
 WESTMINSTER SCHOOL, 
 
 And whatever the advantages produced 
 
 By it to society, 
 
 To Busby are they to be chiefly ascribed, 
 
 Both now and hereafter ever. 
 
 A subject so valuable to this counti'y 
 
 Flourished, under the i>leasure of Heaven, 
 
 for many years, and with many blessings. 
 
 By turns. 
 
 In promoting piety. 
 
 In relieving the poor. 
 
 Cherishing literary men, 
 
 Repairing our Churches — 
 
 He and his means were cheerfully exercised ; 
 
 The^e were the enjoyments of his wealth; 
 
 And to these 
 
 All that he had not consecrated during his life, 
 
 He bequeathed at his death. 
 
 Richard Busbv, of Lincolnshire. 
 
 s."t. p. 
 
 He was born at Luton, 1(]06, Sept. 22. 
 
 Preferred to Westminster School, 1640, Dec. 23. 
 , ,, /■ of Westminster, a Prebendary ^ July 5. 
 ,,,,<[ in the year of our Lord 1660 > 
 Limrcn ^ ^^ ^y^jj^^ Treasurer. j Aug. 2. 
 
 Died 1695, Apr. 5. 
 
 To the praises of this classical epitaph, and the 
 dates which conclude it, there is little to be added; 
 in this there is nothing to surprise us, for if the life 
 of an author is i)roverbially destitute of exciting 
 interest, that of a sedulous sihoolnuister must be 
 doubly barren. Having passed through the classes 
 of Westminster school as a king's scholar, the sub- 
 ject of this sketch was elected a student of Christ's 
 Church College, Oxford, in 1624, where his repu- 
 tation for lilicial attainments, and oratorical themes, 
 was precociously great. He took a degree of B.A. 
 October 12, 1028; and graduated as M.A., June 28, 
 1631. In July 1G3U, he obtained his first prefer- 
 ment in the church, and was located in the prebend 
 and rectory of Cudworth, in the diocese of Wells ; 
 and, in the following year, was advanced to that 
 situation in which he acquired the reputation with 
 which his name has been handed down to pos- 
 terity. 
 
 Being strongly attached to those principles in 
 church and state, uptju which the Restoration was 
 effected, he zealously instilled them into the minds 
 of his pupils; and in return for this virtue was 
 presented by Charles 11. with those posts in the 
 
 Abbey, and in the church of Wells (where he was 
 also a canon i-esidentiary), which are particularised 
 on his tomb. He took a degree of D.D., October 
 17, 16G0, and carried the ampulla at the coronation, 
 which soon after followed. At the convocation 
 which met in June, 16(il, he acted as proctor for 
 the Bishop of Bath and Wells, and was one of those 
 who ajiproved and subscribed the Book of Common 
 Prayei". After a robust and healthy life, the result 
 of signal temperance, industry, and virtue, he was 
 buried under the spot where his monimient novv 
 stands. 
 
 Dr. Busby presided over Westminster School for 
 the lengthened term of five-and-fifty years ; and 
 by his great skill and diligence in the discharge of 
 this laborious and most important office, bred up a 
 greater number of eminent men in church and state 
 than ever adorned, at one period, any age or nation. 
 The report of his contemporaries fully justifies the 
 eulogy of his epitaph; and Westminster School owes 
 the mo.st, if not all, its reputation to the celebrity 
 of his name. He was quick in penetrat ng the latent 
 talents of liis pupils, and rigorous in forcing them 
 into exertion. He used to declare that his rod was 
 liis sieve, and that whoever could not pass through 
 that was no boy for him. Talking of Dr. Busby in 
 the Spectator, Sir Roger de Coverly bears testimony 
 to this latter quality w ith natural humour, exclaim- 
 ing, "A great man. Sir; he whipped my grand- 
 father : a very great man." Of the many distin- 
 guished scholars he educated, several will be found 
 commemorated in this work. With regard to the 
 rest, it must suffice to state, that it was his boast 
 at one time to claim sixteen out of the whole bench 
 of bishops as his pupils. 
 
 Dr. Busby's erudition can now only be estimated, 
 from the editions of ancient authors which he pub- 
 lished for the use of his school: they evince much 
 grammatical research and judgment, but have been 
 superseded by modern compilations. It should n(jt 
 be forgotten that he made the most charitable 
 application of his fortune, on every public and pri- 
 vate occasion. He gave 250/. to beautify Christ's 
 Church College, and Cathedral: in the same college 
 he founded and endowed two lectureships, the one 
 for the oriental languages, the other for mathema- 
 tics; and he moreover gave 100/. to repair the 
 room in which they were read. He also contributed 
 towards the repairing of Lichfield Cathedral. In 
 conclusion, it can only be observed, that if Dr. 
 Busby has been surpassed by other English school- 
 masters in learning, he has been equalled by none 
 in success; and it is most grateful to have to add, 
 that letters are extant from several of h.is jiupils, 
 which attest, notwithstanding the proverbial charge 
 of his severity, that he always preserved in them a 
 most affectionate remembrance. It is said that in 
 Busby the stage lost a great actor, as the muses 
 lost an accomplished poet when Lord Mansfield 
 became a lawyer. The doctor certainly had a strong 
 passion for tlie drama. It was inspired, we are 
 told, by the applause bestowed on him when per- 
 forming the Royal Slave at Christchurch, before the 
 king. He often used to declare, that had not the 
 rebellion broken out and suppressed the theatre, he 
 should certainly have been an actor instead of a 
 schoolmaster. 
 
 J
 
 HENRY PURCELL. 
 
 77 
 
 HENRY PURCELL, M.D. 
 
 Affixed to one of the jiillars behind the skrcen of 
 the choir in the north aisle is an old fashioned 
 tabKt, with the following short but well expressed 
 mscriptiou upon it. It is nearly illegible, and has 
 been attributed by Malone to Dryden : — 
 
 Here Lyes 
 
 Henry Purcell, Esq. 
 
 Who left this Life, 
 
 And is gone to that blessed place 
 
 Where only his Haraiony 
 
 Can be exceeded. 
 
 Obiit 2 1 die Noveinbris 
 
 Anno ^tatis sute 37 
 Annoque Dommi 1695. 
 
 Of Henry Purcell, who if not exactly in point 
 of time our first, vet for many years in point of 
 merit was the chief master of our English school 
 of music, the particulars that have been preserved 
 are scanty in the extreme. In point of fact \\e 
 know scarcely anything of his short life beyond the 
 meagre information supplied in his epitaph, that 
 he died in the thirty-seventh year of his age, 
 November 21, IG95. Both his father and a pater- 
 nal imcle were musicians and gentlemen of the 
 Chapel Royal, in which he, too, received his musi- 
 cal education under Captain Cook Humphrey, a 
 master to whom alone he seems to have been in- 
 debted for instruction in his art. It is true that 
 this honour has also been claimed for Dr. Blow ; 
 but it has been contended on the other hand, that 
 he did no more than give him a few lessons. 
 Purcell was introduced into the Chajiel Royal 
 during tlic year 10<i4, when he was oidy six years 
 (i!d, and had just lost his father. The sedulous 
 talent with which he cultivated his studies may be 
 inferred from two facts : he brought forward some 
 of tlie most popular of his anthems while only a 
 mere chorister, and was chosen organist of West- 
 minster Abbey at the age of eighteen. To this, in 
 his twenty-fourth year, was added the post of 
 organist to the Chapel Royal. 
 
 Henceforward he comi)osed with unexampled 
 fertility and apjilause for the church, the theatre, 
 and the chamber. Being principally distinguished 
 for fugue, canon, and counterpoint, ingenious ex- 
 ercises, which were once esteemed the highest 
 tests of musical merit, his popularity must be ad- 
 mitted to have in some measure declined, as such 
 effusions became unfashionable. But there remain 
 standard qualities m his music, of whatever de- 
 scription, which nmst ensure him a reputation so 
 long as the art is practised amongst us. When the 
 examples that existed for him to emulate are re- 
 viewed, it will be found that he in)])roved ujion 
 their greatest excellence in a pre-eminent degree. 
 Tiie exprcssivcnt^ss with which he a(laj>ted the 
 accentuiitions of his airs to the meaning of words ; 
 
 the appropriate tones of sound by which he dis- 
 tinguished written styles; the power of his instru- 
 mental accompaniments, and the feeling and ardour 
 of his ballads, all display a depth and variety of 
 attainments exhibited by no previous master. 
 
 During his lifetime he appears to have given 
 only two publications to the world : — a " Musical 
 Entertainment for St. Cecilia's Day," in 1G83; 
 and the music of " CEdipus,"' a masque, in 1692. 
 Of his anthems, specimens the most favourable are 
 preserved in the collections of Doctors Boyce and 
 xVldrieh : of his songs, an excellent assortment was 
 published by his w'idow, with a profusion of poetical 
 advertisements prefixed, in two volumes, folio, 
 under the title of " Orpheus Britannieus ;" and an 
 edition of the best of his instrumental jiieces, 
 arranged in four parts, for two violins, a tenor 
 and bass, was thus made public — " A Collection of 
 Airs composed for the Theatre, and on other occa- 
 sions, by the late Mr. Henry Purcell : London, 
 printed for Frances Purcell, executrix of the 
 author, 1 G97-" The plays for wliich he set music 
 were numerous and successful ; such as the opera 
 of " King Arthur," " Dioclesian," " Bonduca," 
 " Timon of Athens," " Lee's Theodosius,'' " Dry- 
 den's alteration of the Tempest," and his " Pro- 
 phetess from Beaumont and Fletcher." From 
 amongst his vocal productions it may suflice to 
 enumerate " Britons, strike h<mie ;" " To Arms, to 
 Arms ;" " You twice ten Hundred Deities ;" pro- 
 nounced the best piece of recitative in the English 
 language ; " ^^"hen IMyra sings ;" " From Rosy 
 Bowers;' "Mad Bess," and the popular glee, 
 " Come unto these yellow Sands." In every style 
 of composition, whether pathetic, wild, passionate, 
 energetic, or grand, his genius was exquisite and 
 original. He is not now to bo considered a highly 
 polished, but he must always be regarded a most 
 powerful master. His harmonical I'esources were 
 severe, but not various ; and his art was dee|) but 
 not melting. Music, when he lived, had not at- 
 tained the graces later years hixw imparted to it : 
 in England it had l)een manifestly on the decline 
 just before his day ; and it is Purcell's boast, not 
 only to have revived, but substantially invigorated 
 the art. This article might easily be enlarged by 
 a (lis(|uisiti(in iq>on his works — works which, con- 
 sidering his short life, surprise not less by their 
 nundjer and variety, than their excellence : but 
 his professional character was pithily expressed 
 when he was styled a "genius of ])rol)ity," and 
 with that distinction it nnist here be resigned. In 
 1827 a laudable attempt was made to revive his 
 "King Arthur" at the English Opera House. 
 It was again brought out at Drury Lane in 1)142, 
 with good, if not great success. No other drafts 
 have been made for many years past from his 
 scores.
 
 78 
 
 WESTMINSTER ABBEY. 
 
 DRYDEN. 
 
 Dryden's fame is plainly attested in the Poets' 
 Comer l)y a bust, placed rather inelegantly upon a 
 very high jjedestal between two Ionic pilasters, 
 which are crowned with an apex of light grey 
 marble. The inscription corresponds in simplicity. 
 
 John Dryden, 
 
 Born 1G32, died 1700. 
 
 John Sheffielp, Duke of Buckingham, 
 
 Erected this monument in 1720. 
 
 The bust by Scheemakers is one of the best in 
 the Abbey: it was not put up for some years after 
 the monument was erected. For the whole we are 
 in some degree indebted to Poi)e, whose allusion in 
 the ejiitaph he wrote for Rowe, to the " nameless 
 stone" upon the grave -of Dryden, provoked this 
 tribute to his memory from his friend and admirer 
 the Duke of Buckingham. Pope produced a couplet, 
 which, however, has not been adopted : — 
 
 This, Sheffield raised: the sacred dust below 
 Was Dryden once — the rest who does not know? 
 
 Few subjects suggest thoughts more melancholy 
 than that which leads us to review the deadly con- 
 tests, which genius not imfrequently has to main- 
 tain with poverty. For as it is the mind inspiring 
 action that can alone prove real worth, and give a 
 lasting title to independent honours, so the career 
 of a man of eminent talent, saddened by disappoint- 
 ments, and subdued by distress, must ever appear 
 a .sort of martyrdom to the imperfections and injus- 
 tice of our social system. And yet, such was the 
 life of John Di'yden, of whom it may be appro- 
 priately observed in his own words on Charles 1 1., — 
 
 " He, tossed by fate, 
 Could taste no fiuit of life's desired age. 
 But found his life too true a pilgrimage." 
 
 There is no poet in our language, who, in the style 
 of composition to which he principally addressed 
 himself, will bear a comparison with Dryden, but 
 Pope ; and he enjoyed the benefit of Dryden's ex- 
 ample. Nevertheless, the author of " Alexander's 
 Feast," and translator of " Virgil," lived and died 
 in distress, and was buried on charity. 
 
 Different statements have been made respecting 
 the time of Dryden's birth: August 9, 1631, con- 
 trary to the assertion of his monument, is now 
 received as the more probable date of that event. 
 The place was Tichmerah, his father's seat, in the 
 parish of Aldwinkle-all-Saints, near Oundle, in 
 Northamptonshire, but the Drydens were originally 
 located in Huntingdonshire, which was represented 
 in the House of Commons by members of the family 
 from the second parliament of William and Mary 
 to the close of the seventeenth. John, the poet, 
 was the eldest son of the fourteen children of 
 Erasmus, who was the third son of Sir Erasmus 
 Dryden, bart., of Canons Abbey, in the former 
 county, and was bred an Anabaptist. His first 
 literary impressions were received in the country ; 
 after which he studied under Doctor Busby, as a 
 kmg's scholar at Westminster ; and was thence 
 
 elected to a scholarship of Trinity College, Cam- 
 bridge, in 1650. A bachelor's degree, to which he 
 was admitted in 1653, was his only university 
 honour; and a worthless poem on the death of 
 Lord Hastings, is the only one of his collegiate 
 exercises that has been jjreserved. In 1644 his 
 father died, and he succeeded to an estate producing 
 200/. a-year, but subjected to such considerable 
 charges, for a widow and younger children, that he 
 was necessitated to remove to London, vvhere he 
 was patronised by Sir Gilbert Pickering, a relation, 
 who served on Cromwell's privy council, and was a 
 member of his abortive House of Lords. 
 
 The death of the protector afforded the opportu- 
 nity upon which Dryden first distinguished himself 
 as a poet: the " Heroic Stanzas " he composed on 
 that event present a powerful earnest of the luxu- 
 riant imagery and lofty expressions by which his 
 more mature productions became ehai'acterised : 
 they have always been greatly applauded by the 
 critics. The poets of his time were not all distin- 
 guished by consistency in politics ; and Dryden, 
 though he had praised Cromwell, was forward in 
 welcomintr the chanses of the restoration with 
 " AsTREA Redux, a poem on the happy restoration 
 and return of his most Sacred Majesty King 
 Charles II.," which was speedily followed by a 
 " Panegyric on the Coronation." This facility of 
 contradictory praises was long after made a matter 
 of reproach to his merits, and that passage in the 
 " Heroic Stanzas," where he praises Cromwell for 
 staunching the blood, "by breathing of the vein," 
 was particularly instanced, as a proof that he jus- 
 tified the execution of Charles I. But this incon- 
 stancj', however marked, admits of no mean apology. 
 The different states of things which Dryden under- 
 took by implication to approve of, were, when he 
 wrote, the acceptable work of the majority of his 
 countrymen; no verse of his could influence a 
 change, or confirm one when made; and perhajjs 
 it is a function neither dishonourable nor unpa- 
 triotic to record and exalt the avowed opinions of a 
 nation. The people of England declared them- 
 selves proud of Oliver Cromwell, and immediately 
 after better pleased with Charles II. ; Dryden re- 
 echoed these public voices as they were uttered. 
 He was still a young, and probably not a most 
 reflecting man; and it may be that the most to be 
 said against him, even as a private individual, is, 
 that he thought well of Cromwell and a protecto- 
 rate, until he became acquainted with Cluirles, and 
 lived under a monarchy. 
 
 In 1661 he produced his first play, the "Duke 
 of Guise,"' which was followed diu-ing the next year 
 by the " Wild Gallant." These were succeeded, 
 in a comparatively short period, by no less than 
 three-and-twenty others. He entered into a con- 
 tract with the patentees of the King's Theatre to 
 su]iply three plays a year; and like many others 
 who have formed such an agreement, never once 
 fulfilled it. Nevertheless he produced with sufficient 
 fertility to found his earliest claim to popularity on 
 his dramatic efforts: they comprise tragedies and 
 comedies, written in rhyme; an exploded style of
 
 DRYDEN. 
 
 79 
 
 composition, which, with many another fashion, 
 even less defensible, was brought into this country 
 by the courtiers of Charles II. upon their return 
 from exile in France. Dryden's avowed motive in 
 cultivating it was to please and gam money: his 
 pieces therefore abound in those various faults 
 which must ever attach to precipitate undertak- 
 ings: the richness of his genius breathes through 
 them all; but the cramp of a forced taste, and the 
 enervation of hurried despatch pervert and disfi- 
 gure his labom-s throughout. Nor should it be 
 concealed that they teem with the licentiousness 
 that disgraced the age. Vai'ving in merit, they 
 also varied iu success : the most popular of the 
 number were the " Spanish Friar," " All for Love, 
 or the World well Lost," and "Don Sebastian;" 
 and perhaps the reader will have been sufficiently 
 instructed to enable him to decide upon the cha- 
 racter to which dramas of this structure can attain, 
 when he is told, that not even the talents of Dryden 
 could procure for them a permanent place upon the 
 stage. Rant was their forte; and to correct that, 
 Buckingham produced the comedy of the " Re- 
 hearsal," a celebrated though not a very clever 
 burlesque, in which Dryden was ridiculed under the 
 character of Bayes. For a while the laugh was 
 kept up loudly against the poet, but the sterling 
 features of his other works gradually overcame the 
 satire, and he finally balanced the account by his 
 portraiture of Buckingham in Absalom and Aehi- 
 tophel. Though uot one of our first poets in dra- 
 matic composition, he was our very first in dramatic 
 criticism. He confounded the classicalists by con- 
 fessing that he could not relish the pathos and sim- 
 plicity of Euripides. His profits from the stage, 
 though desultory, were not small. It has been 
 calculated that, upon an average, he received 2ol. 
 for the copyright, and Tol. for a benefit of each 
 play. 
 
 After the "Satire on the Dutch," came his "Annus 
 Mirabilis, or the Wonderful Year," which was pub- 
 lished in 1G67, and afforded the first clear evidence 
 of that sonorous vigour which belongs to his ma- 
 tured style of heroic verse. His reputation may be 
 considered to have been fully established about 
 this time ; as upon the death of Sir William Dave- 
 nant, ho was made Poet Laureate. The "Essay on 
 Dramatic Poetry," followed, and in 1C7!> he co- 
 operated with Lord Mulgrave, afterwards Duke of 
 Buckingham, in his " Essay on Satire." The rules 
 laid down in this composition were soon after illus- 
 trated in that most famous of political poems "Ab- 
 salom and Achitophel," which was written at the 
 invitation of the inonari-h,aiid applies ti) Charles 1 1., 
 the candess Monmouth, and designing Shaftesbury, 
 the leading incidents of the rebellion of Absalom 
 against David. This performance has never been 
 e(|ualled, and can never wholly lose its popularity. 
 The severity with which it was expressed naturally 
 raised a host of enemies against the author; l)ut he 
 bore the brunt of invective with firmness, while 
 conscious of nu-ritod success; and even ])r()ve(l his 
 indifference to the rage it excited, by )jublisliing 
 his " Medal," a rancorous satire on sedition, when 
 tlie indictment of high treason against Shaftesbury 
 was thrown out by the vjnuramas of the Grand 
 Jury of Middlesex. 
 
 Such were the services which Dryden rendered 
 to the gi)vernni(.-nt, and such \\\i: ])oenis by which 
 lie iniju'oved the literature of his country, and yet 
 
 neither his abilities nor his industry could save 
 him from that scourge of poets — abject poverty. 
 To describe the anxiety which these straitened 
 circumstances brought on him, or to (juote his own 
 account of his sufferings, would move the pity of 
 the i-eader, but to v.hat avail ? It is sufficiently 
 notorious that some of the greatest minds that ever 
 adorned a natiort, have in England been abandoned 
 to the meanest distress — that shame is indelible, 
 and it is enough to stats that Dryden was one of 
 the number. In addition to the former demands 
 upon his purse, he had now to provide for a grown- 
 up family, by the Lady Elizabeth Howard, sister to 
 the Earl of Berkshire, whom he had married before 
 the great plague broke out. This match added so 
 little to his happiness, that he railed bitterly, and 
 often grossly, against matrimony and the fair sex, 
 on many subsequent occasions. Once, as we are 
 told, his wife wished she was a book, that she 
 might have more of his society ; to which the un- 
 gallant husband sharply re]ilied, " Let it be an alma- 
 nack then, my dear, that I may change you once 
 a year." His next pulilication consisted of some 
 classical translations, and " Miscellany Poems," iu 
 two volumes. Charles II. soon after died, and he 
 testified his loyalty by " Threnodia Augustalis," a 
 funeral ])oem, which, like most other ex-ofiicio 
 performances, reflected no credit upon the author 
 or his subject. 
 
 Upon the accession of King James, Dryden 
 became a convert to the catholic church, and 
 received an addition of 100/. a-year to his salary as 
 Poet Laureate. This change was the subject of 
 much cavilling and abuse at the time ; but as Dr. 
 Johnson honestly observes, there cau be no more 
 reason for our questio.iing Dryden's motives for 
 this act, than for suspecting the sincerity of Digby, 
 Stillingfleet, and numberless other men of the 
 highest consideration in different age.s, who con- 
 scientiously afforded a similar example. Certain 
 it is, that up to the day of his death he gave evi- 
 dence of a constant attachment to this chosen 
 church. In defence of it he composed his memo- 
 rable fable of the " Hind and the Panther," and to 
 promote its popularity, translated the Life of St. 
 Francis Xavier, and Maimbourg's " History of the 
 League." If interest was the sole object of his 
 conversion, in that respect he was deservedly dis- 
 appointed, for he received neither place nor equi- 
 valent reward from his catholic sovereign ; and 
 upon the bare score of religion was ejected from 
 his only post, the laureate, when William and 
 Mary succeeded to the throne. After all, ])er- 
 haps, the best evidence we can have of a stable 
 conviction in his mind lies in the fact of his having 
 educated jiis sons in the Roman (Catholic faith, and 
 devoted them all to the sci'vice of the papal see. 
 
 The idea of the hind and the panther, as types of 
 the catholic and protestant chm-ehes, is far from 
 being cither just or hajipy; what can be said of 
 that which is unnat\iral, liut that it is absurd also? 
 A dialogue of beasts ujion the choice of religion is 
 the )/!■ jj/ns iiltni of preposterous fiction. And yet 
 the language (»f this poem is so rich, the versifica- 
 tion so nmsical and lofty, the illustrations so feli- 
 citous, and the characters so true, that it luis 
 rivalled Absalom and Achito|ihel in reputation. 
 It was not the only proof Dryilon gave of the 
 aildn'ss with which lie could turn tlu; graceful 
 strength of poetry to i\u'. aid of religious contro-
 
 80 
 
 WESTMINSTER ABBEY. 
 
 versy. The service he rendered the Roman Catholic 
 Church in the " Hind and Panther," he had for- 
 merly done the Protestant Church, by defenduig 
 her in his " Religio Laici," against the dissenters. 
 
 With this fable Dryden's hibours fur the welfare 
 of church and state were suspended; for he had 
 scarcel}' time to congratulate the country on the 
 ^birth of a prince, when William and Mary rose to 
 the crown, and he lost every hope of court fa\'our, 
 and every chance of preferment. He was a catholic, 
 and therefore displaced; or in other words, that 
 very revolution which was to have overthrown 
 bigotry, and made the nation liberal, cast up a broad 
 rampart of exclusion, and boimd him as a dissen- 
 ter from its creed with the rigid chains of intole- 
 rance. The protestant again became a bigot, lest 
 the catholic might find a chance of being one in 
 his stead. Thus was the generous nature of free- 
 dom contracted and abused, and the charity of 
 religion once more sacrificed to the selfishness of 
 power. 
 
 According to some, one honourable circumstance 
 attended Di-yden's dismissal, and, where so much 
 is discreditable, that ought not to be suppressed. 
 It has been said that the Duke of Dorset, who was 
 then Lord Chamberlain, accompanied his notice of 
 the change made in his department with an assur- 
 ance that the salary should be allowed out of his 
 private purse. There exists, however, no proof 
 that this promise, if ever made, was kept; or rather 
 the fact seems to stand completely negatived by 
 those declarations in which Dryden took credit from 
 the public for the patience with which one who had 
 always been poor, bore the loss of a little fortune. 
 The most mortifying part of the calamity, however, 
 remains to be told : his old rival Shadwell*, the 
 
 • Shadwell, the rival in politics as well as in poetry, of 
 Dryden, has a handsome tabular monument in the Poets' 
 Corner, surmounted with an urn, and hung with drapery, on 
 which is the following epitaph : — 
 
 M. S. 
 
 Thomas Shadwell armigeri, 
 
 Antiqua stirpe in agro Staifordiae 
 
 Oriundi, 
 
 Qui regnantibus Gulielmo Tertio et Jfaria 
 
 Poetee Laureati 
 
 Et 
 
 Historiographi Regii 
 
 Titulos meruit. 
 
 Ob. Nov. 20, 1692. jEtat. sua 55. 
 
 Charissimo Parent! 
 
 Johannes Shadwell, M.D. 
 
 P. P. 
 
 Sacred to the Memory 
 
 Of 
 
 Thomas Shadwell, Esq. 
 
 Who descended 
 
 From an ancient family in Staffordshire; 
 
 Obtained by his merits 
 
 The title of Poet Laureat 
 
 And Historiographer 
 
 During the reign of VVilliam and Mary. 
 
 John Shadwell, M.D. 
 
 Erected this 
 
 To a most dear Father. 
 
 Shadwell was born at his father's seat, Stanton Hall, in 
 1640, and educated at Caius College, Cambridge. He studied at 
 the Middle Temple, and after travelling upon the Continent, 
 began to write plays, of which he produced no less than 
 
 hero of " Mac Flecknoe," that most exquisite of his 
 satires, which became the acknowledged prototype 
 of the Dunciad, was created his successor; and 
 what virtue could have brooked that triumph with- 
 out spleen? 
 
 Being thus doubly necessitated to write, he pro- 
 duced in 1G'!)3, with some assistance fmm his sons, 
 translations of Juvenal and Persius; and meditated 
 an heroic poem on the achievements of the Black 
 Prince. This conception, from the few observations 
 dropped by him on the subject, it is highly to be 
 regretted he had not perseverance to finish ; for it 
 cannot be doubted that, independent of the novelty 
 of introducing, as he intended, guardian angels to 
 supplant the heathen machinery of the ancients, he 
 would, even in other respects, have done additional 
 honour to the age, and memorable service to the 
 literature of his country. How proud a thing would 
 it not have been had the same period produced 
 " Paradise Lost," and a poem by Dryden, which, 
 though confessedly modelled from the ancient epics, 
 should have rivalled their highest merits ! 
 
 It was not until 1G94 that Dryden began, and 
 until 165)7 that he finished, the most important and 
 most celebrated of his works, the translation of 
 Virgil, for which he received 1300^. In reviewing 
 this performance it will be readily perceived, that 
 by his [ireference of the Roman to the Grecian 
 epic, his judgment happily accommodated his 
 powers. For however critics may differ in opinion 
 as to the superiority of Homer over Virgil, or the 
 equality of Virgil with Homer, there can be little 
 or no question that there is a rotundity in Virgil 
 peculiarly adapted to the splendour of Dryden. The 
 work was one of no common difficulty and hazard: 
 it had been undertaken before, and was only made 
 doubly arduous by the failure of those very efforts. 
 The reputation of the poet magnified the under- 
 taking; the author had to contend with himself, and 
 triumphantly did he come forth from the engage- 
 ment. Dryden in this exertion may be said to have 
 surpassed himself, for he produced the most spirited 
 translation at that period existing in any language 
 in the world. The critics then and the critics to 
 this day find fault with it; and it is not to be denied 
 that in many passages the verse is defective, and in 
 others the sense extremely vague; but the voice of 
 the public still loudly approves it; it is the common 
 standard of Dryden's fame; and though Pitt under- 
 took to render the whole performance into English 
 more faithfully, and more eqiiably ; while in our 
 own time, Sotheby has made a moi-e perfect version 
 of the Georgics; still Dryden's Vu'gil remains as 
 popular as ever. 
 
 seventeen. Their success was in some respects considerable, 
 but very evanescent. He was a coarse imitator of Ben Jon- 
 son, and showed much humour, but of too broad and extra- 
 vagant a cast. As a social companion Jiis reputation was high 
 for wit, eloquence, and lively humour. He died of an exces- 
 sive dose of opium, to the use of which he was addicted. 
 His son, the Doctor, who erected this monument, was physi- 
 cian to Queen Anne, George 1., who knighted him, and 
 George II. 
 
 • It was originally published by Jacob Tonson, as ardent 
 a Whig as Dryden was a determined Tory. The bookseller 
 wished to dedicate the work to King William, but as the 
 author would not consent, he paid the new sovereign all the 
 compliment he could by desiring the engraver of the plates 
 with which the poem was embellished, to draw ^neas 
 uniformly with a hook nose, so as to make him look like
 
 DRYDEN. 
 
 81 
 
 Dryden's last undertaking, from which liowever 
 he snatched leisure to translate Fi'esnoy's Art 
 of Painting, was his Fables, a scries of composi- 
 tions containing some of the most beautiful illus- 
 trations of his art and powers. Contrary to the 
 import of the title, they comprise only a version 
 of the first book of the Iliad, and several of Chau- 
 cer's " Canterbury Tales." They were rapidly pro- 
 duced in consequence of an agreement which his 
 necessities constrained him to enter into with Ton- 
 son, the bookseller, to write ten thousand verses for 
 300/. In addition to this husnble remuneration, 
 however, he received an honourable present of 
 500/. from the Dowager Duchess of Ormond. 
 
 At the conclusion of the book of " Fables " was 
 first printed the "Ode on Alexander's Feast," which 
 has so long been, and in all likelihood must ever 
 remain, one of the best as well as the most popular 
 Lyrics in our language. It was written at the 
 solicitation of the society for whom he had pre- 
 viously composed the song on St. Cecilia's Day, and 
 was rewarded with a present of 40/. 
 
 Dryden died of a mortification in one of his legs, 
 in Gerard Street, Soho, May 1, 1700; and if the 
 only account extant be true, the circumstances of 
 his burial were as perverse as those of his life had 
 ever been. The Earl of Halifax, and Lord Jeffries, 
 son of the Chilneellor, are both said to have offered 
 a public funeral to his remains; and the one noble- 
 man to have promised 500/., and the second 1000/., 
 for a monument to his memory. The latter lord, 
 however, assumed to himself the preference origi- 
 nally given to the former, and actually counter- 
 ordered the directions given for the funeral. A 
 public disappointment of the ceremony was thus 
 occasioned, at which Lord Halifax took so nmch 
 offence, that he withdrew his bounty, and was again 
 imitated by young Jeffries, wlio was now mean 
 enough to confess that he was drunk when he first 
 interfered, and could not think of keeping a word 
 pledged hi that state. In the midst of this confu- 
 sion, poor Dryden's corpse lay for three weeks at 
 the undertaker's, until Doctor Garth honourably 
 stepped forward, and proposed a subscription-fune- 
 ral, for which he set the first example by putting 
 down a liberal contribution. The design succeeded, 
 and the mortal remains of the immortal Dryden 
 were removed to the College of Physicians, where 
 Garth delivered a Latin oration. Horace's " Exegi 
 niomimcntura ;ere perennius," set to " mournful 
 music," was then sung with an accompaniment of 
 trumpets and hautboys, and other instruments. The 
 funeral procession, which was long and s])lcndid, 
 was next conducted to the Abbey, the band " making 
 a very haiTnonious noise," and twenty mourning 
 
 Kind William. The circumstance provoked an epigram 
 which perhaps is worth quoting : — 
 
 " Old Jacob, by deep judgment sway'd, 
 
 To please the wise beholders, 
 Has placed old Nassau's hooked nose 
 
 On poor yEiicas' shoulders : 
 To make the parallel hold tack, 
 
 Methinks a little 's lacking, 
 tie took his lather pig-a-back, 
 
 The other sent him packing." 
 
 The point is good, but borrowed from the Latin 
 
 " Quia ncgat i'Enea: magna de stirpe Neroiiem ? 
 Sustulit hie patrem, sustulit ille inatreiii " 
 
 coaches each drawn by six horses, followinnf, to"e- 
 thcr with a multitude of jirivate carriages. 
 
 Of the private habits and domestic circumstances 
 of Dryden's life, but little is known; and the absence 
 of all information upon such a point may be justly 
 taken as an additional proof that his home w-as 
 severely harassed by the poverty he so often com- 
 plained of. That man nmst have borne much who 
 could vent the story of his wants as bitterly as 
 Dryden was used to do, in his prefaces and dedica- 
 tions; and he must have been acutely pinched in 
 the economy of his table, of whose hospitality no 
 cotemporary has preserved an anecdote. For the 
 very special causes of this distress it were now 
 difficult to account: he is not described even by his 
 enemies as being vain or extravagant, and therefore 
 could never liave been so much straitened if he 
 had been at all moderately remunerated for the 
 prolific testimonials he has left us of his genius. 
 Some persons have been complacent enough to 
 thank his poverty for the quantity he wrote — it 
 would have been more just to have wished that his 
 circumstances had permitted him to liave written 
 less, and made that more perfect. No one can 
 doubt but that what Dryden tells of himself is true, 
 namely, that he wrote upon the spur of necessity, 
 not what his own judgment preferred, but what his 
 fancy led him to hope would please the people. 
 
 One of his enemies makes him confess — 
 
 " Nor wine nor love could ever see me gay, 
 To writing bred, I knew not what to say." 
 
 But this censure, if admitted at all, must be 
 admitted with much reservation ; for Congreve 
 represents him as one pleased to advise and instruct 
 by his conversation: the probability is, that habits 
 of thought and study, by giving him fewer oppor- 
 tunities to cultivate conversational powers, left him 
 infelicitous in the exercise of them. (.)f his temjjer 
 and amiability as a man and a father, we have the 
 kindest assurances ; of his mind the character he 
 has himself drawn of Charles II. has been held by 
 Dr. Johnson to be as good a description as we can 
 possess : — 
 
 " His conversation, wit, and parts. 
 His knowledge in the noblest useful arts, 
 Were such, dead authors could not give 
 But habitudes of those that live ; 
 Who lighting him did greater lights receive. 
 He drained from all. and all they knew ; 
 His apprehension quick, his judgment true; 
 That the most learn'd with shame confess 
 His knowledge more, his reading only less." 
 
 To review the works of Dryden with that fidelity 
 and attention which their value and variety denuind, 
 Would re(|uire more sjiace than can here be s])ar('d 
 for the task: it nuist suffice to state generally, that 
 he was the first Kii;^lisliiii;in who exi)ressed the 
 rules of poetical criticism with precision and ele- 
 gance, and made his compr)siti()ns the best exam])les 
 extant of the excellence of the rules he had laid; 
 who wrote satire with severity and taste combined; 
 who launched into every style and fiow of numbers, 
 and snatched succ(-.ss from each; and that he was 
 the oidy JMigiishman who found (he versilicatinn nf 
 our poetry inunature, and had the geniiis to jiroduce 
 from it :dl the efi'ects of which the language is sus- 
 ceptible. Dryden's ])oetry is also entitled to another 
 meed of praise, to which no other voluminous writer 
 
 o 
 
 J
 
 82 
 
 WESTMINSTER ABBEY. 
 
 in our language can lay claim : the more he wrote 
 the more he improved, and after putting forth all 
 his powers, never declined iu vigorous strength. 
 Pope's " Odyssey " is not to be compared with his 
 " Iliad," nor Milton's " Paradise Regained " with 
 " Paradise Lost ;" but Dryden's " Virgil " is far 
 superior to his preceding ti'anslations fi'om the 
 Latin, and his second ode to St. Cecilia is better 
 than the first. Nor was he less commendable 
 in prose : his numerous prefaces abound with merits 
 both of style and doctrine. Honours so complex no 
 second author has to this day acquired amongst us: 
 Shakspeare alone exhausted tragedy, but Dryden 
 perfected satire, essay, ode, and fable. The best 
 editions of his works are those in prose, edited by 
 Malone, in 4 vols. 8vo, 1800; those in verse, edited 
 by Todd, with notes by Warton, in 4 vols. Svo, 
 1812; and those both in prose and verse, edited 
 together by Sir Walter Scott, in 18 vols. 8vo, 
 1818. 
 
 As a public man, Dryden has been severely cen- 
 sured for servility, and it must be added, not more 
 severely than justly. We are constrained to blame 
 him, not so much because, having sung the praises 
 of Cromwell, he turned with the first tide, and sung 
 those of Charles also, but because his doctrines and 
 opinions are abject and unmanly in the extreme. 
 At the same time we must remember that authors, 
 and of all authors poets, have not been remarkable 
 for political consistency. There is another point to 
 be considered: arbitrary as the policy of the govern- 
 ment was, at the period referred to, it had, never- 
 theless, honest supporters. May not Dryden also 
 have been sincere in his later politics, as he is 
 now admitted to have been in his last rehgion ? 
 
 Had he really been the sycophant that some would 
 imply, would he not have seized one of the various 
 opportunities which so many others availed them- 
 selves of, and have trimmed to the Revolution, have 
 saved his pension, and retained his place ? While, 
 upon the question of personal character, the exces- 
 sive flattery of Dryden's dedications is to be noticed, 
 and not so easily excused : in those jjerformances 
 he displays an art iu gross adulatory fiction, which 
 cannot easily be equalled, or too strongly con- 
 demned. 
 
 Dryden's widow and three sons survived him : of 
 the latter, Charles was the eldest, who after pub- 
 lishing some Latin poems and translations, went to 
 Italy in 1692, became Chamberlain to Pope Inno- 
 cent XII., and wrote a poem at Rome, entitled, 
 " On the Happiness of a retired Life." Returning 
 afterwards to England, he was drowned in an 
 attempt to swim across the Thames at Datchet, in 
 1704. John, the second son, was educated at West- 
 minstei', whence he was elected to Oxford. Imitat- 
 ing his father's conversion, he went to Rome, and 
 obtained a place under his brother in the Pope's 
 household. There he wrote a comedy, entitled, 
 " The Husband his own Cuckold," which was sub- 
 sequently acted at London. He was also the author 
 of a "Tour in Malta and Sicily," printed in Svo, 
 seventy-five years after his death, which was occa- 
 sioned by a fever in I70I. Erasmus Henry Dryden 
 was educated m the Charter House, and followed 
 his brothers to Rome, where he obtained a ca])- 
 taincy in the Pope's guards. Upon the death of his 
 kinsman. Sir John Dryden, he came back to Eng- 
 land, inherited the baronetcy of the family, and 
 died in 1710. 
 
 SIR CLOUDESLY SHOVEL. 
 
 In the south aisle appears the monument erected 
 to the honour of this intrepid admiral, which has 
 been so appropriately criticised by Addison, in the 
 "Spectator, "and by HoraceWalpole. "Sii'Cloudesly 
 Shovel's monument," says the former, " has very 
 often given me great offence. Instead of the brave 
 rough English admiral, which was the distinguishing 
 character of that plain gallant man, he is represented 
 on his tomb by the figure of a beau, dressed in a long 
 periwig, and reposing himself upon velvet cushions 
 under a canopy of state. The inscription is answer- 
 able to the monument ; for instead of celebrating 
 the many remarkable actions he had performed in 
 the service of his country, it acquaints us only with 
 the manner of his death, in which it was impossible 
 for him to reap any honours." Bird was the sculp- 
 tor, and of him Horace Walpole has observed, 
 " that he bestowed busts and bas-reliefs on those 
 he decorated, but Sir Cloudesly Shovel's and other 
 monuments by him made men of taste dread such 
 lionoui's." The inscription is as follows : — 
 
 Sir Cloudesly Shovell, Knt. 
 
 Rear- Admiral of Great Britain, 
 
 and Commander-in-Chief of the Fleet, 
 
 The just rewards 
 
 Of his long and faithful Services. 
 
 He was deservedly belov'd of his Country, 
 
 And esteemed, tho' dreaded, by the Enemy, 
 
 Who had often experienced his Conduct and Courage. 
 
 Being shipwreckt 
 
 On the rocks of Scilly, 
 
 In his voyage from Thoulou, the 22d of October, 
 
 1707, at Night, 
 
 In the 57th year of his age. 
 
 His fate was lamented by all, but especially the 
 
 Seafaring part of the Nation, 
 
 To whom he was a Generous Patron, and a worthy 
 
 Example. 
 
 His body was flung on the Shear, 
 
 And buried with others ui the Sands ; 
 
 But being soon after taken up. 
 
 Was plac'd under this Monument 
 
 Which his Royall Mistress had caused to be 
 
 Erected 
 
 To Commemorate 
 
 His Steady Loyalty and Extraordmary Vertues. 
 
 The gallant subject of these inadequate honours, 
 was a man who, like some others to be mentioned 
 in the course of these pages, rose by dint of in- 
 herent talents alone from one of the lowest to one 
 of the liighest ranks in the service of his countrj-. 
 He was born at Clay in Norfolk about the year 
 1656. So humble were the circumstances of his 
 parents, that they were unable to provide any 
 better pursuit for their hopeful offspring than that 
 of a shoemaker. But the spirit of tlie apprentice 
 was above the last, and soon aspu'ed to a nobler 
 weapon than the awl. Invigorated by the hoi^es of
 
 SIR CLOUDESLY SHOVEL. 
 
 83 
 
 more honourable enterprize, he absconded from 
 the manufacture of soles, and went into the navy 
 as cabin boy to Sir Christopher Seymour, whose 
 favourable eye he soon attracted by the quickness 
 of his disposition, and the avidity of his courage. 
 One instance of his early gallantry is recorded. 
 Dui-ing the heat of an action in which he was con- 
 cerned, while yet a mere boy, he heard Sir Chris- 
 topher express an earnest desire to have some 
 orders conveyed to another ship which lay at a 
 considerable distance. This service young Shovel 
 volunteered to perform ; and receiving his dis- 
 patches, he clasped them between his teeth, and 
 swam with them through the enemy's fire. 
 
 This brave action was the foundation of his for- 
 t'me ; the admiral, Sii" John Narborough, not only 
 promoted him on the spot, but retained him ever 
 after under his special patronage. Under these 
 auspices he rose with speed to the rank of Lieu- 
 tenant. In IG7I, w'hen the expedition was fitted 
 out to repress the Barbary corsairs. Sir John 
 Narborough was appointed commander, and took 
 young Shovel with him in his own ship. He was 
 selected for a mission to the Dey of Tripoli, in 
 which, though he failed, yet from the judicious 
 observations he made, and the accurate uiforma- 
 tion he obtained while resident among the bar- 
 barians, he was enabled upon his return, to lay 
 before the commander a plan for the destruction 
 of the hostile fleet. His description of the number 
 and disposition of the ships, the strength of the 
 forts, and the nature of the harbour, was so 
 minute and masterly, that the project was ap- 
 pi'oved of, and the projector named the fittest 
 [lerson to carry it into execution. In conformity 
 with his own views, he proceeded at midnight with 
 the boats of the squadron, seized upon the guard 
 pinnace, entered the mole, and, without the loss of 
 a single man, burned four vessels of the largest 
 size. This exploit added fresh brilliancy to his 
 reputation, and upon the first vacancy, he was 
 jn-omoted to the command of the Sapphire, a 
 fourth-rate ship. With her he was despatched, 
 in IG79, under the command of Sheffield, Duke of 
 Buckingham, to the relief of Tangier, which was 
 threatened by a formidable attack from the Moors. 
 On the fJtli of November a desperate assault was 
 made by the enemy to cai'ry the place at one 
 movement ; and such was the force and fury of 
 the charge, that Shovel was required to debark 
 his men, and assist the troops on shore. This 
 service was promptly rendered, and enforced with 
 the greatest bravery. The enemy were rej)ulsed 
 with a loss which deterred them from a second 
 attack, and the armament returned victorious 
 to England. Shovel, however, was so severely 
 wounded, as to be prevented for some time after 
 from continuing afloat. 
 
 When his health permitted him to rejoin the 
 fleet, the war was still in a course of vigorous 
 prosecution. He took or destroyed several power- 
 ful cruizers, and was very successful in interrupt- 
 ing tlu; little conuncrcc which the enemy carrird 
 on. He returnc-d to England in the latter part of 
 the year H)!!() ; and James II., who then con- 
 ducted the aftairs of the navy without the assistance 
 of a board of admiralty, thought so highly of his 
 merit, that he immediately appointed him to the 
 command of the Dover frigate. Ho continued in 
 this ship till the Revolution, when he was ap- 
 
 pointed to the Edgar, a third-rate, and signalized 
 himself so much in the battle of Bantry Bay, that 
 King William conferred on him the honour of 
 knighthood. Removmg soon after into the Monk, 
 of sixty guns, he was appointed commander of a 
 small squadron, consisting of foiu* ships of war, 
 and five mferior vessels, which were directed to 
 ciniize up and down the channel, and oft' the coast 
 of Ireland. On this service he met with consider- 
 able success, and intercepted many of the French 
 supplies which were intended for the use of King 
 James's armj' in Ireland. 
 
 In the following year he was commodore of the 
 squadron which conveyed William to Ireland, and 
 gave such satisfaction to his sovereign, that he was 
 immediately afterwards raised to the rank of Rear 
 Admiral of the Blue. Towards the close of the 
 same year he assisted General Kirk in the reduc- 
 tion of Duncannon Castle, and in January follow- 
 ing served as Rear Admiral of the fleet with which 
 the king visited Holland. 
 
 On his return he joined Admiral Russel, and 
 was ordered to look into Brest. Arrived ofi" that 
 harbour, he saw forty sail of merchant ships coming 
 out, under the protection of three men of war. To 
 deceive them he hoisted French colours ; and this 
 stratagem had nearly proved successful, for the 
 enemy did not discover their danger until they 
 were almost close to the English squadron. The 
 ships of war then took to flight and escaped ; but 
 seven or eight of tlie convoy were taken, and seve- 
 ral others destrf>yed. 
 
 At the memorable battle off Cape la Ilogue, 
 Shovel carried his flag, as Rear Admiral of the 
 Red, on board the Royal William, a new ship of 
 100 suns, and had his full share of the danger and 
 honoiu' of that memorable day. In 1G94 he was 
 second in command in the expedition to Camcret 
 Bay ; and afterwards, by the express desire of the 
 king, had the chief management of an expedition 
 against Dunkirk. But the attemj)t did not succeed; 
 and he took care to demonstrate that no fault lay 
 in him, for he went in a boat within the enemy's 
 works, and so became an eye-\\itness of the impos- 
 sibility of doing what his orders had directed him 
 to do. 
 
 During the following year he served in the 
 squadron commanded by Lord Berkely, which 
 bombarded St. Maloes, and exposed himself to 
 danger with remarkable intrepidity. He was em- 
 ployed also, under the same noldcman, in another 
 expedition against Dunkirk, which likewise failed, 
 owing, as the dispatches asserted, to the mistakes 
 of the engineer. During the remainder of the war 
 he continued to serve in various j)arts, but withotit 
 meeting with any o])portunity of adding to the 
 honours he had already acquired. 
 
 On the accession of Queen Anne, by whom Sir 
 Cloudesly was held as highly in esteem as lie had 
 been by her predecessor, he was advanced to the 
 rank of admiral of the white; and, in the autnnm of 
 1702, was sent with a squadron of twenty sail, to 
 reinforce Sir George Rooke, oft' Vigo. The ])lace 
 being taken before his arrival, and his services in 
 that (juai'ter thereby renderi'd umieccssary, he was 
 chargfd to return to England with the disabled 
 ships of the British fleet, and the captured vessels 
 of the enemy. In the following year he was aj)- 
 fiointed conmiandcr-iu-chief on the Mediterranean 
 from St. Helen's with a fleet, 
 G 2 
 
 station, and saiki
 
 84 
 
 WESTMINSTER ABBEY. 
 
 consisting of thirty-five English and twelve Dutch 
 ships of the line. The object of this powerful 
 armament was to assist the Cevenois, protestant 
 mhabitants of Languedoc, who, being severely per- 
 secuted on account of their religion by Lewis XIV., 
 had revolted from his authority, and implored the 
 assistance of the maritime powers. Sir Cloudesly 
 used every effort to afford them succour; but 
 finding his exertions inefiectual, was obliged to 
 return to England. He had the fortune to capture 
 a French fifty gun ship on his passage homewards. 
 
 In 1704, he served under Sir George Rooke, and 
 was present at the taking of Gibraltar, in the action 
 off Malaga, when he commanded the van of the 
 combined fleets of England and Holland. January 
 6, 1705, he was appointed rear-admiral of England; 
 and m the month of May following, sailed again as 
 commander-in-chief on the Mediterranean station. 
 His fleet consisted of twenty-nine sail of the line, 
 besides frigates, fire-ships, bombs, &c.; and, on his 
 arrival off Lisbon, he was joined by a squadron 
 under Sir John Leake, and some Dutch ships of 
 war, which made his whole force amount to forty- 
 eight sail of the line. To prevent a junction between 
 the squadrons lying at Toulon and Brest, he cruised 
 awhile between Cape Spartel and Cadiz, and then 
 returned to Lisbon. On the 22nd of July, the King 
 of Spain, Charles III., embarked on board the fleet, 
 which immediately proceeded to the Mediterra- 
 nean. They anchored in the Bay of Attea on the 
 11th of August, and the next day appeared before 
 Barcelona. The land forces immediately debarked 
 under the command of the Prince of Hesse, and the 
 Earl of Peterborough; and the ships of war being 
 hauled on shore, to co-operate with the army, the 
 bombarding commenced with vigom*, and continued 
 until the 23rd of September, when the governor 
 capitulated. This service performed, Sir Cloudesly 
 proceeded to England with part of the fleet, and 
 left the remainder in the Mediterranean under the 
 command of Sir John Leake. 
 
 During the following summer. Shovel resumed 
 his command in the Mediterranean, and became 
 involved in some disputes with the Portuguese 
 ministry. The affiiir alluded to is involved in 
 some obscurity. Whilst he was at Lisbon, Sir 
 Cloudesly ordered some of his ships to sea on a 
 cruize, which were fired at, as they were passing 
 down the Tagus, by the royal castle of Belem. 
 Highly incensed at this outrage, he complained to 
 the ministers of the King of Portugal, who alleged, 
 ui excuse, that the matter originated in the mistake 
 of the governor, who had orders to fire and detain 
 a Genoese ship that had not discharged the port 
 dues. The apologj', however, was not admitted, 
 because the ship alluded to was then in the har- 
 
 boui', and Shovel had reason to suspect that one of 
 the younger princes of the royal family of Portugal 
 was concerned in the insult. He therefore gave 
 public notice, that if such an insult was ofl'ered 
 again to the British colours, he would not wait for 
 instructions from home how to proceed, but would 
 take immediate satisfaction from the mouth of his 
 cannon. 
 
 Continuing to command on the Mediteri'anean 
 station, he sailed, in 1707, to Toulon, to assist the 
 operations of the Duke of Savoy and Prince Eugene, 
 who had invested the arsenal by land. But the 
 success of the military co-operations was partial. 
 Had it been otherwise, Toulon would have been 
 taken by the confederate forces, with upwards of 
 forty sail of the line. The French made a most 
 vigorous and successful sally on the 4th of August, 
 the allies were compelled to raise the siege, and 
 the British fleet retired from before the poi't. 
 
 Leaving Sir Thomas Dilkes in the Mediten-anean, 
 with a squadron of thirteen ships of the line, he 
 sailed homewards with the remainder of the fleet; 
 and on the 22ud of October, struck soundings in 
 00 fathoms water : the wind then blowing strong 
 from the S.S.W, with hazy weather, he made the 
 signal for the fleet to bring to. At six in the even- 
 ing he set sail again under his courses, from which 
 it was conjectured that he believed he saw the 
 Scilly light. Ere long he made the signals of dan- 
 ger, as did several other ships; but the guns were 
 discharged in vain, no ear heard the report. Soon 
 after, the Association, of 90 guns (Sir Cloudesjy's 
 ship), struck upon the rocks called the Bishop and 
 his Clerks, or, as some accounts say, the Gilston 
 rocks, and instantly went to pieces: the admiral, 
 and every soul on board, perished. One ship of 
 70 and another of 50 guns shared the same fate ; 
 and many otliers were in imminent danger, but 
 escaped by great exertions of seamansliip. 
 
 The body of the admiral was found under the 
 rocks of St. Mary, a few days after his shipwreck, 
 whence it was conveyed, with every mark of public 
 sorrow and respect, to Plymouth, and ultimately 
 forwarded to London. There a public funeral and 
 a national monument were decreed to liis memory ; 
 of which the former was celebrated with consider- 
 able pomp, and the latter has been already de- 
 scribed. He left behind him two daughters and 
 his wife, who was also the widt)w of his early friend 
 and patron Sir John Narborough. As his private 
 life was highly estimable, and his public services 
 eminently great, so was the melancholy nature of 
 his death not only bewiiiled by his private friends, 
 but also lamented by his country at large. He was 
 a member of the House of Commons, having re- 
 peatedly been retui-ned for Rochester. 
 
 JOHN PHILIPS. 
 
 Adjoining the tomb of Chaucer, in the Poets' 
 Corner of Westminster Abbey, is a bust, in profile, 
 of this poet, wreathed with vines and apple-trees, 
 and inscribed with that motto from Virgil — " This 
 apple too shall bear its honours," which is prefixed 
 to the poem on cider. It was erected by Sir 
 Simon, afterwards Earl Harcourt, and Lord High 
 
 Chancellor of England, and has been particularly 
 commended by classical critics, for the elegant 
 Latinity in which it is expressed. This merit, 
 however, is of that description in many places 
 which of necessity is limited to the language in 
 which it occurs : no translatiim can convey mere 
 felicity of idiom, and the epitaph on Philips will
 
 JOHN PHILIPS. 
 
 85 
 
 on that account be less admired in an English 
 fonn than in the original Latin. It is the compo- 
 sition of Bishop Atterbury, who, when dean of the 
 Abbey, reversed the decision of his predccessoi", 
 Bishop Sprat, a prelate who was weak enough to 
 deny a place to the inscription, because it men- 
 tioned the name of Milton ! and seems to have 
 been copied by Dr. Johnson in his inscription for 
 the monumental tablet to Goldsmith. The bor- 
 rowed passage, like most originals, is I'emarkable 
 for its superiority over the imitation fi'om it. 
 After mentioning that in his style of writing, 
 Philips was second only to Milton, and nearly 
 equal to hira, the epitaph goes on to state, that 
 " whether he undertook to adorn a subject, tri- 
 fling, grand, or common, he never perceived or 
 reached what did not become him ; and wherever 
 he employed his pen, was an author of speech, and 
 fnimer of numbers alwai/s exquidte." Now John- 
 son praises Goldsmith as one by whom " scarcely 
 any style of writing was left untouched, and no one 
 touched, unadorned," &c. — substantially the same 
 idea. 
 
 Herefordife conduntur ossa, 
 
 Hoc in delubro statuitur imago, 
 
 Britanniara omnem pervagatur fama 
 
 JoHANNis Philips ; 
 
 Q,ui viris bonis doctisque juxta charus, 
 
 Immortale suum ingenium, 
 
 Eruditione multiplici excultum, 
 
 Miro animi candore, 
 
 Eximia morum simplicitate 
 
 Honestavit. 
 
 Litterarum amceniarum sitim, 
 
 Q,uam Wintoniie puer sentire cceperat: 
 
 Inter jEdis Christi alumnos jugiter explevit: 
 
 In illo ]\Iusarum domicilio 
 
 Praeclaris a;mulorum studiis excitatus, 
 
 Optimis scribendi magistris semper intentus, 
 
 Carmina sermone patrio composuit 
 
 A Grajcis Latinisque fontibus feliciter deducta, 
 
 Atticis Romanisque auribus omnino digua; 
 
 Versuum quippe harmoniam 
 
 Rythmo didicerat 
 
 Antiquo illo libero, multiformi, 
 
 Ad res ipsas apto prorsus et attemporato, 
 
 Non luuneris in eundera fere orbein redeuntibus, 
 
 Non clausularura similiter cadentium sono 
 
 Metiri : 
 Uni in hoc landis genero Miltono sccundus, 
 
 Primoque paine par. 
 
 Res seu tenues, seu grandes, seu mediocres 
 
 Ornandas sumpserat 
 
 Nusfiuam, non ({uod decuit, 
 
 Et videt et assecutus est, 
 
 Egi'egius, quocuufjue stylum vertcret, 
 
 Fandi author et modorum artifex. 
 
 Fas sit huic, 
 
 Auso licet a tua metroruin lege di.scedere, 
 
 O Poesis Anglicanijc pater atijue conditor, 
 
 Chaucere, 
 
 Alterum tibi latus elauderc: 
 
 Vatuin ccrte cincres tuns uiidiiiue stipantiuni, 
 
 Non dc(li-i-c|)it clioniin. 
 
 Sinmn I larcuurt iiiilcH, 
 
 Viri bene de se, de litti'ris meriti 
 
 Quoad vivcret, fautor, 
 
 Post obituin pie nienior, 
 
 Hoc illi saxuni poni voliiit. 
 
 J. Philips, Stephani, S. T. P. Arehidiaconi, 
 Salop, tilius, natus est Bamptoniaj 
 
 In agro Uxon. Dec. 30, I(i7<>. 
 Obiit iierefordiie, Feb. 15, 1 708. 
 
 At Hereford are buried the remains, 
 
 In this temple is placed the likeness, 
 
 Throughout all I3ritain has extended the fame 
 
 of 
 
 John Philips, 
 
 Who equally dear to good and learned men, 
 
 Adorned 
 
 An immortal genius 
 
 With varied erudition, 
 
 A wonderful purity of mind, 
 
 And a choice simplicity of manner. 
 
 That love of polite letters 
 
 Which he began to feel wlien a boy at Winchester, 
 
 He filled up amongst the scholars of Christ's 
 
 Church : 
 
 In that abode of the Muses, 
 
 Excited by the brilliant studies of emulous 
 
 associates, 
 And ever intent upon the best examples of 
 
 composition. 
 
 He produced poetry in his native tongue 
 
 Felicitously imbibed frcnn Greek and Latin sources. 
 
 And fully worthy of Attic and Roman ears. 
 
 P'or he had learned to construct 
 
 The harmony of his verse, 
 
 In the antient, free, and ever varied rhythm 
 
 Exactly adapted and attuned to the subject; 
 
 Without numbers always returning in sunilai- 
 
 periods. 
 
 And without sentences imiformly falling with the 
 
 same accent: 
 
 In this respect second to Milton alone. 
 
 And to him the first nearly equal. 
 
 Whatever his theme 
 
 Whether light, great, or familiar, 
 
 His perception and execution of it 
 
 Was invariably graceful ; 
 
 As an author of language and frainer of verse 
 
 He never exercised his pen without excelling. 
 
 Chaucer, thou father and founder of English poetry, 
 
 To him be it permitted, 
 
 Though he ventured to dojiart from thy form of verse, 
 
 Here to support thy side : 
 
 Assuredly he will not dishonour 
 
 The choir of Bards whose ashes surround thee. 
 
 Sir Simon llarcourt. 
 
 His fosterer while he lived. 
 
 Piously mindful of him now that he is dead, 
 
 Placed this stone to the memory 
 
 Of a man who deserved well of him and of letters. 
 
 Edmund Smith, the classical author of the 
 tragedy of " I'hedrus and Hip])olita," began, but 
 failcil to finish, a discourse upon the life and 
 writings of Philips, who was the son of Stephen 
 Philips, Archdeacon of Salop, and was liorn 
 December ;{0, l'>7'»> at Bamj>ton, in Oxfoi'dshire, 
 of which ])lace his father was curate. After liav- 
 ing begun his studies at Winchester scliool, where 
 he was early distiiiguishc<l by the assiduity of his 
 applii'adoti, anil the siqx'riority of his exercises, he 
 went to Christ's Cliui-ch Colleije, Oxford, unibr 
 the care of Dr. Aldrich, a man uhom he has grate- 
 fully commeiTioi-ated in his ])oems. Long before 
 this period, lie is praised by his biographers for Ins
 
 86 
 
 WESTMINSTER ABBEY. 
 
 intimate acquaintance with, and fine appreciation 
 of Homer, Virgil, and Milton, to tlie latter of 
 whom he gave so decided a preference, that he 
 already took his " Paradise Lost " both in style 
 and manner for his model in verse. For years he 
 made it his delight to trace by progressive steps, 
 the art of Milton's peculiar excellence ; and it is 
 said, that there is not a passage in the latter bear- 
 ing any resemblance to the Greek and Latin 
 writers which he had not detected and exemplified. 
 Such was the course of reading by which he ob- 
 tained the distinctive appellation of the second 
 Milton ; and though the reader may not be inclined, 
 with the partiality of his early biographers, to 
 admit him to rank so near to his immortal pro- 
 totype, still the judgment displayed in his admi- 
 ration, and the time devoted to the cultivation of 
 so impressive a style of composition, ought not to 
 be passed over without a due share of praise. 
 
 In the University he became associated with the 
 greatest wits and most learned students of the age, 
 and soon held a high place amongst them. At that 
 period social intercourse was warmly cultivated 
 both at Oxford and Cambridge ; and the tavern, 
 much oftener than the College Hall, was the 
 theatre for quick parts and accomplished informa- 
 tion. Of this society Philips was particularly fond, 
 and to the applause elicited over a pipe and glass, 
 was the measure of his ambition for the better 
 part of his life confined. But it were unjust not to 
 add, that he furnished a rare example of one who 
 indulged in this kind of company for the quick and 
 free pleasures it provoked, and was never found 
 either loose in his manners or immoral in his con- 
 duct. By all who knew him lie has been com- 
 mended as one modest and difiideut, and always 
 rather desirous to enjoy the talents of others than 
 to display his own. A weak and sickly constitution 
 unfitted hira for the struggles of an active life ; 
 and he lived poor and retired, but yet contented. 
 To such a man it were indeed severe to deny the 
 moderate indulgence of a pipe, a social friend, and 
 his glass of ale. 
 
 With his reputation thus confined to the circle 
 of his personal acquaintances he composed the 
 " Splendid Shilling." It was designed for their 
 entertainment, but the novelty of the idea, and 
 excellence of the execution, were highly attractive; 
 copies of it circulated beyond the University, and 
 the poem soon after appeared in print without his 
 knowledge. The impression, however, was full of 
 blunders; and to make the act of piracy even more 
 insolent, an assertion was introduced on the title- 
 page, that the poem was corrected for the press by 
 the author. Tliis circumstance forced a genuine 
 edition from him, which immediately caught the 
 public regard. The project was certainly original: 
 it is a classical burlesque, and the perverse appli- 
 cation of the sounding phrase, and stately modula- 
 tion of Milton to the commonest events, and most 
 trivial thoughts, pleased because it surprised, and 
 was grateful because uninvidious. 
 
 The applause bestowed upon the " Splendid Shil- 
 ling " was so great, and the poetical character of 
 the author consequently grew so high, that when, 
 
 upon the victory of Blenheim, Lord Godolphin and 
 the Earl of Halifax solicited Addison as the organ 
 of the Whigs to celebrate the glory of the battle, 
 in suitable verse. Viscount Bolingbroke, and Har- 
 ley. Earl of Oxford, pi-evailed on Philips to sing 
 the sentiments of the Tories upon the same 
 subject. The honour it is said he endeavoured 
 to shun, but the importunities of his friends were 
 not to be overcome ; and his poem of " Blen- 
 heim" made its appearance in 1705. Competition 
 with Addison was a formidable test of merit, by 
 which no very decided honours were likely to be 
 acquired, while the reputation of the author of 
 " Cato " was so deservedly high. Addison's " Cam- 
 paign " was held to possess a more positive advan- 
 tage over Philips's " Blenheim," being composed in 
 rhyme, while the latter is written in blank verse. 
 Dr. Johnson distinguishes between the two per- 
 formances by saying, that "Blenheim" is the work 
 of one who formed his ideas of a field of battle 
 from the heroic poems of antiquity; whereas Addi- 
 son displays the qualities and movements of a 
 modern hero with great propriety. 
 
 In the following year he produced his longest 
 composition, " Cyder," a poem in two parts, which 
 was written upon the plan of Virgil's " Georgics," 
 and was hailed upon its appearance with unbroken 
 applause. But it is not his most memorable work, 
 though we are told that it continued to be read 
 with kindly feelings for a long period. That period, 
 however, is now passed, and is not ever likely to 
 return. The praise Dr. Johnson bestows upon it 
 is too peculiar to be omitted : he states, upon prac- 
 tical authority, that the precepts it contains are 
 exact and just, and that it is therefore at once a 
 book of entertainment and of science. But then 
 comes the summary character, that, although 
 written with much art. it has few beauties. 
 
 Secure of praise, and confident of power. Philips 
 now directed his mind to a higher subject, and 
 formed the design of a poem on the resurrection 
 and day of judgment; but the state of his health 
 precluded the execution of the work. Habitually 
 consumptive, and oppressed by an acute asthma, 
 his infirmity in the year 1707 grew so delicate, 
 that his physicians advised a visit to Bath. Thither 
 he went, dragging a slow disease along with him; 
 and there he suff"ered many severe conflicts from 
 it with a cheerfulness of spirit which did honour to 
 the equanimity of his disposition, and the philo- 
 sophy of his mind. The summer passed, but no 
 alleviation of the distemper came with it, and he 
 proceeded to Hereford to see his mother. Beneath 
 her roof the few hopes of recovery he brought with 
 him soon vanished ; during the course of the winter 
 the asthma seized upon liis lungs with increased 
 force, and he expired February 15, 1708. His re- 
 mains were interred in the cathedral church of 
 Hereford, where a Latin epita^jih is inscribed to his 
 memory. For one who has done so little, lie has 
 enjoyed a very high reputation — a fortune which 
 may be ascribed in a great measure to his personal 
 qualities, and the endearment of those who, being 
 famous themselves, find it easy to confer fame upon 
 others.
 
 JOHN BLOW. 
 
 87 
 
 JOHN BLOW. 
 
 Our eai'liest notices of the cultivation of music in 
 the British islands ax"e peculiarly grateful. The 
 harp, indigenous to Ireland, Scotland, and Wales, 
 in the remotest ages of antiquity, superseded the 
 pipe and tabor in England, at the period of her 
 first intimacy with the sister countries, and was im- 
 mediately advanced to signal honours. Records 
 are still in existence, ■which prove that Henry III. 
 allowed forty marks and a pipe of wine a-year to 
 his harper, and farther gave another pipe to the 
 harper's wife. She must have been a buxom dame, 
 of most generous feelings, that harper's housewife. 
 Edward I. took his harper in state with him to the 
 Holy Land; and we are assured, that when the 
 prince was woimded by a poisoned dart at the siege 
 of Ptolemais, his faithful minstrel was the first to 
 rusli upon the assassin, and kill him. The passion 
 of the heroic Richard for the joyense science, and 
 the devotion of Blondel to his sovereign, are popu- 
 larly known ; but the partiality of John of Gaunt 
 for music has not l)een so faithfully celebrated. 
 That formidable wai'rior associated the musicians 
 of his time together in a chartered corporation, and 
 gave them the privilege of electing a governor with 
 the style of king of the minstrels. The grant was 
 confirmed and continued by several monarchs: 
 under tliis eminent patronage, his musical majesty 
 was authorised to arrest offenders, summon juries, 
 hear plaints, and award punishments. 
 
 This seems to have been the summit of the 
 lionours of minstrelsy. The harp soon after gra- 
 dually gave place to the viol, which originally 
 adopted for its portability, was afterwards retained 
 as more suitable to chamber concerts. More fatal 
 circumstances marked tlie degeneracy of tlie art: 
 as the minstrels became moi'e numerous they grew 
 less respectable; they grossly abused the immuni- 
 ties granted to the talents of their predecessors; 
 and in a short time became notoriously profligate, 
 and were scouted from modest society. To such a 
 shameless pitch was their licentiousness carried, 
 that even the cultivation of music, as an accom- 
 plishment, became disi'eputable ; the organ was 
 confined to the church, but in almost all other 
 respects, the art lay dormant in England. 
 
 The depreciation of musical talent that now 
 ensued was extreme. IIolinsh(^d tells us, that at 
 a feast given in 1530, by Cardinal Wolsey to 
 Henry VIII., the greatest effort of harmony pro- 
 duced for his majesty's entertainment, was a con- 
 cert of fifes and drums. Nor was there anj' consi- 
 derable improvement attained during tlic reign of 
 Elizabeth; for, according to llentzner, slie was 
 regaled at her state dinners by twelve trumpets, 
 two kettle-druniK, and a sup])Icm('ntal accomjiani- 
 nient of fifes, cornets, and side drums. The resto- 
 ration of Charles II., however, produced a more 
 favourable era, by introducing from tlie Continent 
 a taste for the violin, which was then felicitously 
 ciiltivatod in Italy. From this jieridd we may date 
 the revival of harmony as a legitimate art in I'^ng- 
 laiid; concerted jiicces became po]]ular; nnisic was 
 introduced between the acts at our theatres, oj)craH 
 
 succeeded, and our singers and composers began 
 to acquii-e a European reputation. 
 
 John Blow, one of the most venerable of the 
 professoi's thus called into reputation, was born at 
 North Collingham, Nottinghamshire, durmg the 
 year IG48. Ilis masters were woi'thy of his talents, 
 and the precocity of his attainments did honour to 
 their instructions. He was first initiated in the 
 study of music by Kingeston, domestic organist to 
 Oliver Cromwell, and afterwards taught by Dr. 
 Christopher Gibbons. At the Restoration, the 
 choir of the Chapel Royal was one of those liberal 
 institutions peculiar to monarchy, which was imme- 
 diately replaced upon its ancient footing; and Blow's 
 voice procured him the advantage of being chosen 
 mto the first set of scholai's who were educated 
 upon the revived foundation. While yet in the 
 humble capacity of a mere singing boy, and in all 
 probability not more than fifteen or sixteen years 
 old, he gave the earliest proof of his talents, by 
 composuig some anthems, which were greatly com- 
 mended at the period of their appearance, and 
 afterwards deemed worthy of preservation in tlie 
 edition of Clifford's " Services and Anthems," which 
 was printed in IC64. 
 
 The development of early talent has seldom 
 smoothed an easier road to success, than did these 
 juvenile productions of Blow. However uncom- 
 mon the exercise of his genius may be deemed, the 
 rapidity with which he now rose in professional 
 honours, must also bo admitted to have been com- 
 mensurately fortunate. For, in point of fact, the 
 summary of his life offers scarcely any passage of 
 interest beyond a plain enumeration of the different 
 posts to which he was advanced. Those appoint- 
 ments took place according to the following dates 
 and order. In 1(>73, he was made a gentleman of 
 the Chapel Royal; upon the demise of Humphrey 
 in 1(J74, he was appointed master of the children 
 belonging to the chapel; in 1C85, he was nominated 
 to the band of private music to James II. ; and in 
 l(i87, was created almoner and master of the 
 choristers of St. Paul's Cathedral, — a situation 
 which he resigned during the year IGf)3, in favour 
 of his scliolar, .Jeremiah Clarke. Tlie interest of 
 Archliisho]) Sancroft next procured him, xpeclaH 
 gratia, the degree of doctor of music, without re- 
 quiring him to go through the form of an exercise 
 at either university. In Kit)'), he succeeded to the 
 scat of organist at Westminster Abbey, left v.acant 
 by the death of Purcell; and in Hi'.)'.), was selected 
 to be composer to the chapel of William and Mary, 
 at a salary first of 40/. and afterwards of 73^. a-year. 
 In this latter siluation, his labours were relieved 
 by the ai)]ioiiitiiient of Weldon as deputy, during 
 the year 1705, when the conditions imjiosed upon 
 the joint ollicc were, tlie ju-oduction of a new 
 anthem by each composer in tho first month of his 
 waiting. 
 
 The only publication of his own music which 
 Blow gave to the world, was the " Am]ihion Aii- 
 glicus," a volume of songs, in 170(*. To this he was, 
 in all j)roliability, stimulated ))y the great success
 
 88 
 
 WESTMINSTER ABBEY. 
 
 which attended the sale of Purcell's " Orpheus Bri- 
 tannicus." This imitation of a synonymous title 
 afforded ground for charging Blow with unbecoming 
 rivalship. He excused himself, however, from the 
 imputation by asserting, that the publication was 
 wrested from him by the importunity of his friends; 
 and the representation derives corroboration from 
 the fact of his edition being prefaced by no less 
 than sixteen copies of verse, all equally encomiastic 
 on the author, and eulogistic of his works. Be this 
 as it may, no great effect was produced either by 
 the merits of the volume, or its recommendatory 
 burthen ; the " Amphion Anglicus " received but 
 little praise from the public at the time of its ap- 
 pearance, and has not since then been fortunate 
 enough to attract any praise from posterity. 
 
 Dr. Blow expired at a mellow age, October 1, 
 I7O8, and was hiHioui-ably buried in the north aisle 
 of Westminster Abbey, where the contiguity of his 
 grave is commemorated by a marble tablet, enriched 
 with cherubs and floAvers. Upon the surface, now 
 scarcely legible, may be traced a canon in fom* 
 parts, and an inscription in English, which recapi- 
 tulates all his appointments, and, as a final honour, 
 states that he was the master of the famous Purcell, 
 and that his excellences in his art are a far nobler 
 monument to his memory than any other that can 
 be raised for him. 
 
 Dr. Blow's compositions consist of choral services 
 and ballads: throughout all his effusions, in either 
 style, many beauties, but more deformities, are to 
 be detected; and although his reputation has long 
 rested chiefly upon the merits of the former, still 
 the latter, by the few who may now have the curio- 
 sity to search his works, must be admitted to stand 
 as the more engaging and least faulty. Of his church 
 music no publication was made during his life-time. 
 Thi-ee of his services and ten of his anthems have 
 been printed by Dr. Boyce; some twenty or thirty 
 more are to be found in the collections of Dr. Tud- 
 way and Dr. Aldrich; and afar greater number ai-e 
 supposed to He dormant in the choir books of our 
 cathedi-als. In these compositions, the most pro- 
 minent feature is elaborateness, an aspiration after 
 crude harmony, and a confused modulation, parti- 
 cularly in his symphonies and accompaniments, 
 such as no rule or license can justify, and no modern 
 ear endure. Hence he has been characterized as 
 the lawless composer, and the most wanton of con- 
 trapuntists. That these ofi"ences are liberally re- 
 deemed by various passages of merit, is no more 
 than a just inference from the high reputation the 
 doctor has so long enjoyed. He will accordingly be 
 
 found often bold, striking, grand, and occasionally 
 pathetic ; his greatest fault is inequality, and it must 
 be added, that few modem ears can patiently relish 
 a repetition of any of his pieces in the severe score 
 to which he adapted them. 
 
 Blow's ballads are of a more engaging description: 
 the same affectation of counterpoint, and nearly as 
 frequent a study of discord, will be noticed through- 
 out them, as well as his religious productions; but 
 more of smoothness and nature occurs in the songs. 
 They are not only superior to any thing else he has 
 attempted, but fully equal to any of the efforts of 
 his contemporaries in the same class of composi- 
 tions. For instance, the pastoral " Since the Spring 
 comes on," enjoys the distinction of having formed 
 the basis of the most popular songs at Vauxhall for 
 almost a century, and may be still heard with nearly 
 as much pleasure as the generality of occasional 
 melodies. " Fill me a bowl," and still more, " Go, 
 perjm-ed man," will also be found to possess merits 
 which entitle them to equal commendation ; while 
 " Sabina has a thousand charms," "Orithea's bright 
 eyes," and " Philander, do not think of arms," jlre 
 remarkable for the felicity with which the charac- 
 teristics of the Scotch and Irish airs are ingrafted 
 upon the less ornamental gravity of the English 
 style, a combination which Blow was the first to 
 essay, and perhaps, of all who copied the imitation, 
 the best to accomplish. 
 
 In conclusion, it is only an act of impartiality to 
 allude to the notices with which Dr. Blow has been 
 honoured by writers in his own profession : they 
 are numerous and highly panegyrical, and stand 
 confirmed by authorities of no less repute than 
 Boyce and Barney. Nor was his popularity exclu- 
 sively confined to his own country; Cardinal Howard 
 introduced his music at Rome, and he is, pei'haps, 
 the only English Protestant who has enjoyed the 
 honour of having a canon of his composing per- 
 formed under the dome of St. Peter's. Circum- 
 stances concurred in a striking manner to render 
 his name celebrated; his talents were precocious; 
 he was early advanced to the highest offices within 
 the bounds of his profession; his career was long 
 and prosperous; and the eminence of such pupils 
 as Purcell, Croft, and Clarke, powerfully contri- 
 buted to preserve his reputation long fresh with 
 uninjured honour. Asa man. Dr. Blow was person- 
 able, pure in morals, grave in deportment, and kind 
 in disposition. As a musician, he was confident iu 
 the exercise of his talents, and somewhat vaiu in 
 his estimation of theii' excellence. 
 
 THOMAS BETTERTON. 
 
 Thomas Betterton, actor and author, and the 
 Roscius of his age, was the son of an undei'-cook in 
 the household of Charles I. and born in Tothill- 
 street, Westminster, during the year 1635. Early 
 instructed in the rudiments of polite letters, he 
 evinced such a passion for reading, that his parents 
 determined to educate him for one of the liberal 
 professions ; but being reduced in fortune by the 
 wreck of their master's royalty, they could not 
 indulge the literary ambition of their son fui'ther 
 
 than by apprenticing him to Rhodes the bookseller, 
 who kept his shop at Charing Cross, and by pub- 
 lishing for Sir William Davenant, obtained some- 
 thing of a dramatic connexion, and the place of 
 wardrobe-keeper at the theatre m Blackfriars. To 
 this subsidiary employment of the bookseller, Bet- 
 terton owed his first acquaintance with the stage ; 
 but we are possessed of no particulars which show 
 either the rise or the development of his histrionic 
 talent ; though we are told, that while yet a boy
 
 THOMAS BETTERTON. 
 
 89 
 
 he was eucouraged by the praises of Sir William 
 Davenaut. 
 
 When the spirit of the times changed with the 
 government of the unfortunate Charles, the ghiry 
 which had encircled the stage during the reigns of 
 Elizabeth and James, set into a long night of dark- 
 ness and persecution. At the outset of the battle 
 between the royalists and presbyterians, almost all 
 the actors who were not disabled by the infirmities 
 of age, followed the buoyant impulse of tlieir pro- 
 fession, and, highly to their honour, took up arms 
 for the monarch, in whose service they had so 
 often exercised the arts of mimic war. Of those 
 who survived the slaughter of that tei-rible period, 
 the fortune was decided by the fate of the con- 
 test. The morose Puritans shut up the play- 
 houses, and denounced all scenic representations 
 as so many deadly sins. One attempt, indeed, to 
 preserve the drama, was made during the winter 
 of 1G48, at the Cock-pit in Urury-lane ; but the 
 performer was soon uiterrupted by the preacher, 
 and the company marched off to jail by a file 
 of soldiers. Some few actors also conti-ived to 
 hang togetlier under the connivance of the com- 
 manding officer at Whitehall ; and now and again 
 an entertainment to divert the public was tolerated 
 at tlie Red Bull, in St. John's-street, Smithfield ; 
 but with these rare exceptions the dramatic sisters 
 suffered deeply from fear and persecution, and 
 languished in the last hectics of decline. 
 
 At almost the last moment, however, tiiose signs 
 in the times which betokened the restoration of 
 royalty, also served to inspire hopes of their re- 
 covery ; so that when General Monk began to 
 march for London, the retainers of the theatre 
 ventured to gather together ; and in the year 1659, 
 Rhodes, the bookseller already mentioned, revived 
 the playhouse in its proper state at the Cock-pit in 
 Drury-lane. Foremost in the list of his performers 
 ranked Betterton and Kynaston, who were soon 
 after invited to place themselves under a more 
 pi'omising management, when the crown patents 
 for acting were once more regularly issued, and 
 the performers formally sworn in as the king's 
 servants. Two companies were thus established, 
 the one styled the king's, which removed from the 
 Red Bull to the Tennis Court, near Clare-market ; 
 and the other distinguished as the Duke of York's, 
 which from the Cock-pit fixed itself in a new 
 house in Lincoln's Inn Fields during the year 
 1()(J2. Killigrew, the notorious caterer for the 
 folly and vices of his sovereign, had the former 
 licence, and Sir William Davenant, by virtue of 
 an old promise, the latter ; Betterton's talents in 
 these changes became the knight's property. 
 
 The performances in Lincoln's Inn Fields re- 
 commenced with Davenant's comedy, in two parts, 
 of the " Siege of Rhodes," in which Betterton ac- 
 quitted himself with so nnich talent and effect, that 
 he grew rapidly in jmblic favour, and was especi- 
 ally noticed by the king. Such was the progress 
 of his reputation, that he was soon after thought 
 worthy of being selected by Charles as the fittest 
 person to visit I'aris, and aft('r a judicious view of 
 the Frerich stage, to niodi'l such improvements on 
 our own boards as the tasti; of the ri;ign seemed to 
 reijiiire. In liiTO he married Mrs. Sauiidersoti, 
 whom he had long known as a sister actress, and 
 with whom hi; is dfscribed as havinj; lived until \u) 
 (lied with tender fidelity, and i-eciproc;il affection. 
 
 In the following year, just before a new theatre, 
 built upon a j)lan of greater magnificence, in Dor- 
 set-gardens, Salisbury-court, was finished, Dave- 
 nant died, and Betterton succeeded to a share in 
 the management. But notwithstanding the splen- 
 dour of this house, and his own excellence, the 
 rivalship of the king's comi>any, and the poverty 
 of dramatic taste at that period, seriously att'eeted 
 the interests of the duke's company ; and it was 
 determined for the sake of novelty to introduce, 
 for the first time, music, singing, and dancing into 
 the pieces. This was the origin of our operas and 
 spectacles. For tliese the theatre in Dorset-gardens 
 now obtained a considerable shai'e of success, which 
 was chieHy merited by the exertions of Betterton, 
 whose skill in scenic adaptations is praised as far 
 superior to the knowledge of his time. The support 
 thus ingeniously attracted, was soon after increased 
 by an unforseen calamity. Killigi-ew's house, which 
 had been removed from Clare-market to Drurv- 
 lane, was burnt down in January, 1C72, and the 
 undivided run of fashion turned to the rival specu- 
 lation. This state of things lasted until 1C74, when 
 a new establishment, built by Sir Christopher 
 Wren, opened in Old Drury, with a prologue and 
 epilogue by Dryden, and the career of opposition 
 was urged on with renewed ardour between the 
 two companies. Still the Duke's theatre main- 
 tained its advantages, and continued to be the 
 more frequented, although warmly reproached for 
 abandoning the sense and beauty of the legitimate 
 drama for tinsel show, and empty music. But the 
 heavy expenses, consequent upon this competition, 
 forced both parties to agree that the town could 
 not support two houses. Negociations for a junc- 
 tion therefore ensued, and after some ratting 
 among the performers, in which, however. Better- 
 ton's side were still the gainers, the Duke's com- 
 pany merged into the King's, and all performances 
 were confined to Drury-lane. 
 
 This event took place in 1G84, and it was now 
 that Betterton started up to the climax of his fiime, 
 and fairly trod the stage supreme in excellence. 
 In this place, therefore, it may be most aiipropriatc 
 to say a few words upon the character of his act- 
 ing. He distinguished himself pi'incipally in tragedy, 
 and, like his successors, Garrick and Kemble, he 
 venerated Shakspeare, from whom his favourite 
 characters were Hamlet, Othello, Brutus, and Hot- 
 spur. This walk embraces all that is striking in 
 the range of personilication, from the must philo- 
 sophic dignity to the most fiery passion. But in 
 him the grave and forcible preponderated ; his 
 voice was more for awe than pleasure ; and his 
 person, suited to his voice, was rather athletic 
 than delicate in its proportions, while his aspect 
 was serious and penetrating. This portraiture is 
 drawn from Cibber in his " Apology," who, on this 
 subject, adds a most laudatory passage. " I never 
 heard a line," he writes, " in tragedy from Better- 
 ton, wherein my judgment, my cars, and my ima- 
 gination were not fully satisfied." With such 
 eminent claims for patronage, it was but natural 
 that Betterton should be highly favoured by a 
 crown which seldom held its dignity above its 
 amusements, and occasionally relaxed its cares 
 from the more inqjortaiit matters of state to the 
 minor interests of the stage. In the year 1(I7>'>, 
 when a rage for acting plays .seized the court, and 
 the pastoral of " Calisto, or the Chaste Nymph,"
 
 90 
 
 WESTMINSTER ABBEY. 
 
 written by John Crown, was ordered to be per- 
 formed by the young nobility, at the instance of 
 Queen Catlierine, Betterton tutored the gentlemen, 
 while his wife taught the ladies, among whom were 
 the princesses, Mary and Anne, who subsequently 
 succeeded to the scejitrc. It was to a remembrance 
 of this instruction that the latter bestowed 100/. 
 a year on Mrs. Betterton, when in old age and bad 
 health she lost her husband. 
 
 Although many advantages were not unreason- 
 ably expected to attend the coalition of the two 
 houses, yet much disappointment and considerable 
 losses seem to have resulted from it. These were, 
 in a great degree, attributed to the introduction of 
 Rich, a man originally a lawyer, but better known 
 as the father of a harlequin, into the management, 
 who, by purchasing the shares of a large portion 
 of the patentees, engrossed more power into his 
 own hands than any one person had lately held ; 
 and what was woi-se, exercised it in a very oppres- 
 sive manner. For pantomime and decorative pieces, 
 his aptitude was peculiar ; but capacity failed him 
 for the direction of a theatre, stocked as Drury- 
 lane then was with a body of able and experienced 
 actors. Added to this is the more serious fact, 
 that during the whole course of his career he had 
 the art of drawing into his own purse the principal 
 amount of the receipts, and disbursing narrowly 
 and reluctantly their well-earned dues to the com- 
 pany. Betterton remonstrated against these pro- 
 ceedings, but was abruptly silenced, and as a 
 punishment for his interference, had his principal 
 parts allotted to young and inefficient performers. 
 For all these reasons, Rich soon became so ob- 
 noxious that an association was formed among the 
 actors, with Betterton at their head, to emancipate 
 themselves from his authority. By the interest of 
 the Earl of Dorset their petition was laid before 
 King William, and the complaint was considered 
 serious enough to occasion a reference to the law 
 officers of the crown, for the purpose of determin- 
 ing whether any and what relief could be afforded. 
 The opinion returned upon the case by the lawyers 
 affirmed, that there was nothing in the patents of 
 Charles II. which precluded the king from grant- 
 ing a fresh licence ; and in consequence, the proper 
 authority was accorded to Betterton and a select 
 number of the discontented actors, to perform in a 
 separate establishment. 
 
 Of the steps which were taken to effect this deli- 
 verance, certainly the most influential were adopted 
 by Betterton ; his friends were numerous, his ac- 
 quaintances among the great were considerable, his 
 popularity was undivided, and, exclusive of the in- 
 dignation he may be supposed to have felt at the con- 
 duct of Rich, he had other powerful motives for ex- 
 ertion. In any change that ensued, his rank m the 
 profession, he flattered himself, must obtain for him 
 a commanding interest, highly propitious to the ad- 
 vancement of his personal fortune. The latter \\as 
 at that period a consideration of much importance 
 to him, for he had but recently adventured, and 
 lost all his savings, amounting to between 2000/. 
 and 3000/. in a mercantile speculation to the East 
 Indies. Nor were his expectations at all deceived ; 
 the new patent ran in his name, and the late ill 
 treatment of the actors was taken up with so much 
 cordiality by the pulilic, that a subscription was 
 soon raised to build them a house in Lincoln's-inn- 
 fields, which opened, April 30, 1G05, under the 
 
 most flattering circumstances. On this occasion 
 Congi-eve produced his comedy of " Love for Love," 
 which was repeated to crowded audiences until the 
 conclusion of the season; and the success thus esta- 
 blished was preserved with no fluctuations of mo- 
 ment for the two next seasons. In the third, how- 
 ever, popular favour began to decline, and the two 
 companies began once more to feel nearly alike, 
 that the town could not afford to give them both 
 fortunes. Still the contest was persevered in until 
 a fresh enemy suddenly started up, and for a time 
 inflicted a severer blow upon the popularity of the 
 drama, than it had for years received. This was 
 the memorable Jeremy Collier, who, in 1697, pub- 
 lished a book against the profligate lives of the 
 actors, and the licentiousness of their performances ; 
 and excited, by the force of his statements, and the 
 religious enei-gy of his appeal, a powerful impres- 
 sion upon the public mind. He was answered under 
 various forms with all the force of language and 
 the brilliancy of wit ; Congreve, Vanbrugh, and 
 Dennis, entered the lists against him; but all was 
 in vain. Truth and facts were on his side; and as 
 there could be no denial of the indecencies of the 
 stase, so was there no mitigation of the odiimi 
 which began to set in agamst it from all quarters. 
 A series of prosecutions against several of the 
 actoi's for uttering profane and indecent words, 
 were the consequence of this moral clamour; and 
 among those who were found guilty, Betterton and 
 Mrs. Bracegirdle were actually fined. In connexion 
 with this controversy it only remains to be added, 
 that as much good was produced by it as was desir- 
 able: some reformation had certainly hjng been 
 wanted; it was now enforced; and a refinement, 
 which was the only desideratum of the British 
 theatre, dated its cultivation from this period. 
 
 As soon as tranquillity was in some degree 
 restored, a vigorous effort was made to improve 
 the management, and increase the splendour of the 
 stage. With tins view, Congreve and Sir John 
 Vanbrugh combined their interest, and a subscrip- 
 tion was set on foot for the purpose of erecting a 
 house in the Hayraarket, which should do honour 
 to the nation. In this speculation, Betterton de- 
 clined to participate: he had now been upwards of 
 forty years on the stage; he felt that his powers 
 were declining, and was only influenced by a desire 
 for relaxation and repose. In this disposition, he 
 was easily induced, in 1704, to resign his license to 
 Vanbrugh. This, in the result, proved no unfor- 
 tunate decision ; for although the Haymarket opened 
 with the most encouraging prospects, the termina- 
 tion of the first season proved that the undertaking 
 was a failure. The edifice was a sumptuous archi- 
 tectural construction, injudiciously planned for 
 every purpose of convenience; so that after several 
 expensive alterations, the proprietors were content 
 to part with their patent at a foss. 
 
 But though Betterton had retired from the 
 heavier fatigues of his profession, he was not suf- 
 fered to live dead to the stage. Still mindful of the 
 greatness of his talents, and sensible of the narrow- 
 ness of his cii'cumstances, the public, as a mark of 
 their esteem, gave him two benefits during the sea- 
 son of 1709. Upon the first of these occasions, 
 though upwards of 70 years of age, he played the 
 youthful part of Valentine, in " Love for Love," 
 and upon the second, Hamlet, with a warmth and 
 energy which obtained the honour of being made
 
 THE EARL OF GODOLPHIN. 
 
 91 
 
 the subject of a paper in the "Tatler." The strong 
 feelings of partiality with which he continued to be 
 regarded, are to be gathered from the many flat- 
 tering circumstances that marked these perform- 
 ances. Rowe produced a poetical address; Mrs. 
 Barry and Mre. Bracegirdle, who had both quitted 
 the stage some years before, came forward again 
 to support their old leader, and the receipts of the 
 last night amounted to 500/. a sum unprecedented 
 in those days. Such was the popularity attached 
 to the theatre in consequence of these representa- 
 tions, that during the course of the ensuing spring, 
 M'Swiney, the manager, prevailed upon him to 
 accept of another benefit; and the "Maid's Tra- 
 ged}'," the part of Melantius by Betterton, was an- 
 nounced for April 25, 1710. That pei-formance cost 
 the veteran his life. During the preceding week, 
 a fit of the gout, to which he had long been a 
 martyr, seized upon his legs, and he was impatient 
 enough, in order to avoid a public disappointment, 
 to reduce the swelling by violent fomentations, 
 which, at the appointed night, enabled him to walk 
 the stage in a slipper. He enacted the character 
 with a briskness which drew down universal ap- 
 plause; but the gouty humour, retreating into his 
 system, flew upwards through the stomach to the 
 head, and put a sudden termination to his life, on 
 the 28th of the same month. On the 2nd of May, 
 he was publicly interred with every mark of con- 
 dolence and regret, in the cloisters of Westminster 
 Abbey ; and Steele, in honour of his memory, 
 devoted the lOJth number of the " Tatler " to a 
 pathetic record of the event. It was in this moment 
 of distress, that Queen Anne settled the annuity of 
 100/. upon Mrs. Betterton, which has been already 
 spoken of ; but the gratuity availed little either for 
 consolation or support. Her grief for a husband, 
 
 with whom she had lived in untroubled affection 
 for upwards of forty years, unsettled her reason, 
 and in that state she died in less than half a year. 
 Betterton was also an author: as a poet he para- 
 phrased some of the charactei-s in Chaucer's " Can- 
 terbury Tales;" and as a dramatist, wrote sojuc 
 pieces, and altered others, w-hieh though favourably 
 received when he acted in them, have long sunk 
 into neglect, and are now chiefly to be commended 
 for the improvements in stage eflect which he in- 
 troduced into them. They are eight in number, 
 namely, — "The Roman Virgin, or Unjust Judge," 
 published in 4to, 1679; "The Revenge, or a Match 
 in Newgate," a comedy, in 4to, 1C80 ; " The Pro- 
 phetess, or the History of Dioclesian," an opera, in 
 4to, 1G90 ; " King Henry IV. and the Humours of 
 Sir John Falstatt'," a tragi-comedy, in 4to, 1 700 ; 
 "The Amorous Widow, or the Wanton Wife," a 
 comedy, in 4to, 1700; "Sequel of Henry IV.," a 
 dramatic novel, in 8vo, 1719; "The Bondman, or 
 Love and Liberty," a tragi-comedy, in 8vo, 1719; 
 and " The Woman made Justice," a comedy, which 
 was never printed. As an actor, Betterton must 
 be admitted to have been not only the greatest of 
 his own time, but also one of the greatest our stage 
 has ever formed. As a man, his private character 
 was decent, elevated, and beloved. He had many 
 friends, and many patrons; the former embraced 
 all the literary men of the day, and the latter in- 
 cluded the most popular of the nobility. One in- 
 stance of his generosity deserves to be preserved 
 in every account of his life. The friend with whom 
 he adventured his little property in the Indies, died 
 soon after the loss, and left an orphan daughter. 
 Betterton adopted her, and ever after treated her 
 as his own child. 
 
 THE EARL OF GODOLPHIN. 
 
 A GOOD bust of this eminent statesman is placed 
 over a plain tablet in the south aisle. It is the 
 work of Bird, and represents the subject appro- 
 priately in the costume of his age. 
 
 Sidney Earl of Godolphin, Lord 
 
 High Treasurer of Great Britain, 
 
 And Chief Minister, during 
 
 The first Nine Glorious years 
 
 Of the Reign of Queen Anne. 
 
 He dyed in the year 1712. 
 
 The 15tli day of Sept., Aged 07, 
 
 And was Buried near this 
 
 Place, to whose Memory this 
 
 Is offered with the utmost 
 
 Gratitude, Affection, and Honour, 
 
 By his much obliged Daughter- 
 
 in-Law 
 
 Henrietta Godolphin. 
 
 The life of this statesman, liowever conspicuous 
 in tlic public history of Ills time, and tiie conflicts 
 of party, has, when viewed by itself, little in it that 
 is inter«'sting. Me possessed very useiiil, but not 
 very shining talents, an eminent :i|>tituil(r for busi- 
 ness, and M chiefly memorable as having been one 
 
 who held office with credit to himself during four 
 such trying reigns as those of Charles II., Jaines 1 1 ., 
 William and Mai*y, and Queen Anne. He was 
 educated at Oxford, and entered public life at an 
 early age during the reign of Charles II. In 1080 
 he voted for excluding the Duke of York from the 
 throne, and, notwithstanding, was retained in his 
 situation when t'le duke ascended the throne. After 
 that monarch fled, Gmloliihin votecl in favour of a 
 Regency, but the throne having been declared 
 vacant, and settled upon William and Mary, he 
 became commissioner of the treasury. He is said 
 to have had no ambition to become the head of that 
 department, but to have undertaken the oftice at 
 the pressing desire of the Duke of Marlborough, 
 who considered him tln^ only person fitted to occupy 
 it with the desired eireet during the wars which tiiat 
 great general carrii'd on upon the continent. For 
 his services in this respect he was created a knight 
 of tlie garter in 1704, and in 1700 an earl. Four 
 years afterwards the influence of his ])olitical op- 
 ])onents drove him from jiower, which he never 
 regained. Dean Swift and other writers of the 
 opposite! party wrote against him with considerable 
 asperity, condemning not only his ]iuli!ic measures, 
 but Ills per.sonal conduc-t. On the other side he
 
 92 
 
 WESTMINSTER ABBEY. 
 
 had warm admirers. Burnet praises him highly, say- 
 ing that '' ho was the silentest and niodestest man 
 who was perhaps ever bred in a court. He had a 
 clear apprehension, and dispatclied business with 
 great method, and with so much temper that lie 
 had no persunal enemies. But liis silence begot a 
 jealousy which hung long upon him. His notions 
 were for the court; but his incorrupt and sincere 
 way of managing the concerns of the treasury 
 created in all people a very high esteem for him. 
 He had true principles of religion and virtue, and 
 never heaped up wealth. So that all things being 
 laid together, he was one of the worthiest and 
 wisest men who was employed in that age. After 
 having been thirty years in the treasury, and during 
 nine of those lord treasurer, as he was never once 
 suspected of corruption, or of suffering his servants 
 to grow rich under him, so in all that time his 
 estate was not increased by him 4000^." In another 
 place he describes him as "a man of a contemplative 
 and penetrating turn of mind, slow but correct ap- 
 prehension, and a very sound judgment, who spoke 
 little, but always to the purpose." 
 
 In the west walk of the cloisters is a marble 
 tablet to the memory of Lord Godolphin's brother, 
 who is thus eulogised : — 
 
 " Here rest, in hope of a blessed resurrection, 
 Charles Godolphin, Esq., brother of the Right 
 Honourable Sidney, Earl of Godolphin, Lord High 
 Ti-easurer of Great Britain, who died July 16, 
 IT20, aged GO, and Mrs. Godolphin, his wife, who 
 died July 29, 172G, aged C3 ; whose excellent 
 qualities and endowments can never be forgotten, 
 particularly the public-spirited zeal with which he 
 served his country in Parliament, and the indefa- 
 tigable application, great skill, and nice integrity 
 with which he discharged the trust of a Commis- 
 
 sioner of the Customs for many years. Nor was 
 she less eminent for her ingenuity, with sincere 
 love of her friends, and constancy in religious wor- 
 ship. But, as charity and benevolence were the 
 distinguishing parts of their characters, so were 
 they most conspicuously displayed by the last act 
 of their lives ; a pious and charitable institution, 
 by him designed and ordered, and by her com- 
 pleted, to the glory of God, and for a bright ex- 
 ample to mankind : the endowment whereof is a 
 rent-charge of one hundred and eighty pounds a 
 year, issuing out of lands in Somersetshire, and of 
 which one hundred and sixty pounds a year are to 
 be ever applied, from the 24th of June, 1726, to 
 the educating eight young gentlewomen, who are 
 so born, and whose parents are of the Church of 
 England, whose fortunes do not exceed three hun- 
 di'ed pounds, and whose parents or friends will 
 undertake to provide them with decent apparel ; 
 and after the death of the said Mrs. Godolphin, 
 and William Godolphin, Esq., her nephew, such as 
 have neither father nor mother ; which same young 
 gentlewomen are not to be admitted befoi'e they 
 are eight years old, nor to be continued after the 
 age of nineteen, and are to be brought up in the 
 city of New Sarum, or some other town in the 
 county of Wilts, under tlie care of some prudent 
 governess or schoolmistress, a commimicant of the 
 Church of England ; and the overplus, after an 
 allowance of five pounds a-year for collecting the 
 said rent-charge, is to be applied to binding out 
 one or more poor children apprentices, whose 
 parents are of the Church of England. In perpe- 
 tual memory whereof, Mrs. Frances Hall, executrix 
 to her aunt, Mrs. Godolphin, has, according to her 
 will, and by order, caused this inscription to be 
 engraven on their monument, 1772." 
 
 DR. SPRAT, BISHOP OF ROCHESTER. 
 
 In the south aisle is a tabular monument erected 
 by Dr. Friend, the emment physician, to the me- 
 mory of Dr. Thomas Sprat, Bishop of Rochester 
 and Dean of Westminster, and also to liis son, 
 Archdeacon Thomas Sprat. It is the work of 
 F. Bird, and was originallj' placed in the chapel of 
 St. Nicholas, but removed to make way for the 
 greater monument to the Duchess of Northumber- 
 land. It is principally remarkable for tlie length 
 and latinity of the inscriptions, above which are an 
 urn and the arms of the see of Rochester, and a 
 number of books, types of deeper study and more 
 learning than the party could fairly lay claim to. 
 
 H. S. E. 
 
 Thomas Sprat, S.T.P. 
 
 In agro Durotrigum patre clerico natus, 
 
 Collegii Wadhamensis Oxon. socius, 
 
 Varia egregise indolis ac doctrinte specimina 
 
 Poeta adhuc impubes edidit : 
 Sed Musis, utcunque amicis, cito valedicens, 
 
 Hanc Couleio suo gloriam relinquere 
 
 Et solut£B orationis venustatem sequi maluit : 
 
 Hoc sese in studio exercens atque oblectans. 
 
 Inter eos qui turn linguam Anglicanam perpolire 
 
 coeperant 
 
 Fere primus emicuit ; 
 
 Omnesque in sermonem patrium 
 
 Grsecse Romanseque eloquentiaj gratias transfudit : 
 
 Merito itaque viris prioribus cum esset acceptissimus, 
 
 Statim Georgio illustrissimo Buckiughamise Duci, 
 
 Deinde Regi Carolo, 
 
 Subtili illi elegantiarum arbitrio, 
 
 Commendatus est : 
 
 Et in Ecclesia Westmonasterii et Windsorire 
 
 Praebendam obtinuit : 
 
 Mox hac in yEde Dccanus, 
 
 Deinde Episcopus Roffensis constitutus, 
 
 Utramque provinciam summa cum dignitate 
 
 administravit. 
 Turn in scriptis ejus turn quotidiano sermone 
 
 Ita enituit urbauitas 
 
 Quae ilium cum magnis fuisse versatum baud 
 
 obscure ostendit : 
 
 Suaviter itaque cum omnibus vixit ; 
 
 Et tamen ea quam sibi arrogare minime videbatur 
 
 Maxime semper valuit authoi'itate : 
 
 In dubiis pariter ac secundis temporibus 
 
 Constanti in Ecclesiam et Reges fide perstitit : 
 
 Tantamque in se perditorum hominum invidiam 
 
 conflavit 
 
 Ut falsis ipsorum criminibus
 
 DR. SPRAT, BISHOP OF ROCHESTER. 
 
 93 
 
 In capitis discrimen adduceretur : 
 
 Sed lusce angustiis felieiter expedite, 
 
 yEquabili deinceps teniperamento dettuxit vita. 
 
 Nee ipsi nee aniicis injiieunda : 
 
 Donee Senectutis maturitate sensim collapsus 
 
 Tranquille, uti vixerat, obiret 
 
 ^Iaii xxo a. D. jidccxiii. A. ^t. lxxvii. 
 
 Hie etiam 
 
 Juxta patris cineres suos deponi voluit 
 
 Beatissimi antistitis filius 
 
 Thomas Sprat, A.M. 
 
 Archidiaconus Roffcnsis, 
 
 Ecclesiaruni Roffre, Wintonia?, Westmonastcrii 
 
 Prajbendarius, 
 
 Qui quicquid uspiam est vel in literis vcl in vita 
 
 libcrale 
 
 A pueritia eolere didicit ; 
 
 Et magni parentis virtutes remulatus 
 
 Annos heu ! non attigit. 
 
 Ob. Maii x° A. D. mdccxx. A. jE. xli. 
 
 Quod liune amore summo, 
 
 Summa ilium, qua decuit, observantia coleret, 
 
 Marmor hoc utriusque meraoriaj Sacrum esse voluit 
 
 Johannes Friend, M. D. 
 
 Here is Buried 
 
 Thomas Sprat, D.D. 
 
 Born in Dorsetshire, 
 
 The son of a Clerg^Tnan, and fellow of Wadham 
 
 College, Oxford, 
 
 Who produced, while yet a young poet. 
 
 Several specimens of choice talent and learning. 
 
 Soon bidduig farewell to the Muses, auspicious as 
 
 they were, 
 He resigned the honours of that species of com- 
 position to his friend Cowle}', 
 And preferred the beauties of prose. 
 In this study, alike accomplished and delighting. 
 He shone amongst the first of those 
 Who began to polish the English language, 
 And transfused into it 
 All the gi'aces of the Greek and Latin Tongues. 
 These services being most acceptable to men of 
 the highest rank. 
 He was quickly distinguished 
 By the illustrious George, Duke of Buckingham, 
 And that accomplished arbiter of all that is elegant. 
 King Charles. 
 He obtained Prebends in the Churches of 
 
 Westminster and Windsor ; 
 
 Soon after was made Dean of this Abbey, 
 
 And then appointed Bishop of Rochester. 
 
 He administered both offices with the greatest 
 
 dignity. 
 
 Both in his writing and daily conversation 
 
 That neatness always shone 
 
 Which clearly .showed his intimacy with the great. 
 
 His bearing accordingly was pleasing to all men. 
 
 And yet he never failed to procure that respect 
 
 Which he seemed least to an'ogate. 
 
 Alike in times of difficulty and pros])erity 
 
 He stood firm in his faith to the Church and tlie 
 
 King, 
 
 And so inflamed the resentment of desperate 
 
 cliaracters. 
 
 That his life was jjut in jeopardy 
 
 By their false accusations. 
 
 But being hai)pily released from this danger, 
 
 His life thenceforward flowed on in an even current, 
 
 And not unpleasant to himself or his fri(>nds, 
 
 Until, sinking by degrees into mature old age, 
 
 He died as he had lived, calmly. 
 
 May 20, 1713, aged 77- 
 
 Here also 
 
 Desii'ed his own ashes to be jilaced near those 
 
 Of his ha]ipy father, 
 
 Thomas Sprat, A. M. 
 
 Archdeacon of Rochester, 
 
 Prebendary 
 
 Of Rochester, Winchester, and Westminster, 
 
 Who h.ad learned from his childhood to cultivate 
 
 All that is liberal in literature and in life. 
 
 Emulating the virtues of his great father. 
 
 He lived not, alas ! to attain his years. 
 
 He died May 10, A. D. 1720, aged 41. 
 
 To mark his great love of the one 
 
 And his great respect for the other, 
 
 John Friend, M.D. 
 
 Made this monument sacred to the memory of both. 
 
 Reputations, it must be confessed, are occasion- 
 ally matters of strange accident. At times it will 
 happen, as with the subject of this notice, that an 
 eminent author, either from caprice, the force of 
 prejudice, or some other equally illegitimate mo- 
 tive, draws forth from the twilight natural to me- 
 diocrity some well-educated but not highly-gifted 
 gentleman, places him broadly in the sunshine, 
 passes a flourishing eulogy upon him, and stamps 
 liim with an ephemeral distinction l)y the force of 
 his own authority, altogether distinct from, and 
 irrespective of substantial and enduring merit. 
 This was the case with Dr. Sprat, Bishop of 
 Rochester. Dr. Johnson not only included him in 
 his " Lives of the Poets," but declared that he was 
 one whose pregnancy of imagination and elegance 
 of language set him deservedly high in the ranks 
 of English literature, whose publications were all 
 of a different kind, and each had its distinct and 
 characteristic excellence. Upon the strength of 
 this encomium Dr. Sprat, for an interval, enjoyed 
 some reputation as a writer of prose as well as of 
 poetry. In the present day his literary preten- 
 sions will be placed in a hiw rank by those who 
 have either the leisure or the patience to read his 
 works. For assuredly his poetry is very bad, and 
 his prose not particularly good. 
 
 Born in the year lO'AG, at Tallaton in Dorset- 
 shire, of which place liis father was rector, Thomas 
 Sprat, after receiving the rudiments of education 
 at a little school by the churcli-yard side, became 
 in IfJul a commoner of Wadham College, Oxford, 
 where he studied mathematics under Dr. Wilkins, 
 graduated M.A., andsuccessivclvdbtained a scliolar- 
 sliip and a I'ellowslii]). In l(i.')!( he jiroduced an 
 ode to th«' liapi)y memory of Cromwell, whom he 
 soon ceased to hold up as an object of praise or 
 admiration. In his prefatory dedication he con- 
 fesses that he had taken (Rowley for his model : it 
 \» not too much to add, that of Cowley's various 
 imitators, SjU'at is one of the worst. When the 
 restoration was (ffected. Sprat took orders, and 
 licing introduced by Cowley to Villiers, I)uk(^ of 
 Buckingham, whom he is said to have heljied in 
 writing (he Rehearsal, he was by tiu; latter pre- 
 sented to the king, who relished his wit, and made
 
 !)4 
 
 WESTMINSTER ABBEY. 
 
 him one of his chaplains. Of the several poets who 
 now sought to obliterate their poems upon Crom- 
 well by their adulation of Charles, not one fared 
 better than Sprat. However moderate his merit 
 as an author, he seems to have possessed consider- 
 able talent as a courtier. 
 
 At the house of Dr. Wilkms, who was the warden 
 of his college. Sprat, always a welcome visitor, had 
 the advantage of enjoyiug the society of some of 
 the most learned, the most accomplished, the purest 
 minded men of the day. There those memoraljle 
 meetings and conversations took place, out of which 
 the Royal Society arose. Sprat was one of the first 
 fellows, and for some time directed his attention to 
 the studies it chiefly sought to encourage. Much 
 ridicule having been cast upon the new body by 
 the wits of the day, amongst whom the author of 
 Hudibras took the lead, Sprat was invited to recon- 
 cile the public to its ol)jects by writing its history. 
 The book appeared in 16()7j and was highly ap- 
 proved by the members. Dr. Johnson in praising 
 it indulges in a strain of magniloquence that now 
 only provokes a smile. "This," says the great 
 dictator, " is one of the few books which selection 
 of sentiment and elegance of diction have been able 
 to preserve, though written upon a subject flux and 
 transitoi-y." 
 
 In the following year Dr. Sprat addressed a 
 printed letter to Sir C. Wren, containing observa- 
 tions on Sorbiere"s voyage into England, and in 
 1C68 published the Latin poems of Cowley, witli an 
 account of the poet's life in the same language, 
 which he afterwards enlarged in English, and pre- 
 fixed to an edition of those pieces which " the in- 
 imitable Ovid, Anacreon, Pindar, and Virgil of 
 England," as he hyperbolicfllly styles him, had by 
 will left to his guardianship. 
 
 While these literary labours proceeded favourably, 
 the king, as the court phrase then was, continued 
 to be pleased with his conversation, and ecclesiasti- 
 cal preferments fell thick upon him. From pre- 
 bendary of Westminster Abbey, and rector of the 
 adjoining church of St. Margai-et, in 1G68 he became 
 Canon of Windsor, Dean of Westminster, and finally 
 Bishop of Rochester in 1684. This last appoint- 
 ment was considered the reward of his account of 
 the " Rye House Plot," written, as he informed the 
 public, by the king's command, and published in 
 1685. Like most ex parte productions, it was so 
 partial and violent that he deemed it prudent after 
 the Revolution to apologise for having been the 
 author of it. 
 
 When James ascended the throne, Sprat for a 
 time seemed disposed to stand neuter upon the 
 more trying questions of his short but agitated reign. 
 Being appointed however an ecclesiastical commis- 
 sioner, the hope of succeeding to the Archbishopric 
 of York induced him to incline so decidedly to the 
 views of the com't in religious matters, that a loud 
 outcry was i-aised against him, and he was ulti- 
 mately driven from the commission in 1688. Upon 
 the celebrated resolution declaring the tin-one 
 vacant, Sprat gave his vote manfully for the fugi- 
 tive James, but yielded a quiet submission to the 
 revolution, and was left unmolested by the success- 
 ful government. 
 
 In the year 1692, however, a strange accusation 
 was brought against him, which has given his name 
 a niche in the history of his country. Two con- 
 victed criminals, named Yomig and Blackhead, laid 
 
 a plot together and forged a paper, the intent of 
 which was to prove that a conspiracy had been 
 formed for restoring James, and seizing upon the 
 person of King William, dead or alive. To this 
 instiniment they subscribed the names of Sprat, 
 Marlborough, and others ; and so well was the 
 bishop's hand counterfeited, that he confessed he 
 might have been deceived by it himself. With the 
 view of obtaining proof of overt co-operation upon 
 Sprat's part. Blackhead feigned an excuse for 
 calling at his house, where he concealed under 
 some flower pots a letter addressed to him respect- 
 ing the conspiracy. Young then laid mformation 
 before the privy council, and the bishop having 
 been arrested, May 7, 1692, was kept a close pri- 
 soner for eleven days. An order was issued to 
 search his house for letters, and seize all his papers. 
 Particular directions of course were given to exa- 
 mine the flower pots, but the messengers were 
 not keen enough, and Blackhead had to go and 
 pick up the letter where he had himself placed it. 
 Doubts however were soon entertamed, either of 
 the reality of the plot, or the danger to be feared 
 from it, and Sprat was liberated on bail. At a 
 formal examination, which was continued for three 
 days before the pj'ivy council, the evidence in the 
 bishop's favour proved minute and decisive. One 
 of his accusers. Young, persisted in the charge with 
 obdurate pertinacity, but the other broke down 
 under the cross examination to which he was sub- 
 jected, and no doubt was ultimately entertained of 
 the infamous nature of the accusation. Sprat, not 
 content with his discharge, tracked the informers 
 with accurate diligence through various grades of 
 crime, and published an account of their lives and 
 the proceedings before the council, for the better 
 satisfaction of the public at large. Being freed 
 from this trouble, the anniversary of which he ever 
 after celebi'ated as a day of solemn thanksgiving, 
 he continued to fulfil his ecclesiastical duties until 
 he reached the age of seventy-nine, at which he 
 died quietly. May 20, 1713. The virtue of mode- 
 ration is perhaps the highest to be awarded to 
 Bishop Sprat; in politics, though not always con- 
 sistent, he was always temperate; m religion mild; 
 iji literature studious and equable, but neither 
 shining nor profound. No person ever obtained 
 the honour of being called a poet for lighter suit 
 and service to the muses, both as to quantity and 
 quality. He has only written three Pindarics, the 
 first to Cromwell has already been mentioned; the 
 second, " on the Plague of Athens," is the coarsest 
 of the set; and the last, upon the "Poems of 
 Cowley," opens with some lines in which the blas- 
 phemous and absurd are strangely mixed together 
 — as strangely as it seems possible to exhibit them 
 in print. 
 
 " Cowley! what God did fill thy breast, 
 And taught thy hand t' indite ? 
 (For God 's a poet, too, 
 And doth create, and so do you)". 
 
 This from a bishop is sufficiently startling ; but 
 when we remember that the writer was one wliose 
 piety would not allow him to permit Atterbury's 
 epitaph upon Philips to be put up in the Abbey, 
 because it contained the name of Milton, we cannot 
 but feel equal contempt for the poet and the 
 churchman.
 
 MONTAGUE, EARL OF HALIFAX, 
 
 95 
 
 MONTAGUE, EARL OF HALIFAX. 
 
 Charles Montague, Eai-l of Halifax, a poet and a 
 statesman, who enjoyed the liononr of being Addi- 
 son's patron, has a largo pyramidal monument in 
 the north aisle of the chapel of Henry YIL A 
 well-written Latin epitaph siuns up the leading 
 events of his life in the foUowuig lines : — 
 
 H. S. E. 
 
 Carolus Montague, 
 
 Honorabilis Georgii Montague de Horton 
 
 In agro Northantoniensi filius, 
 
 Henrici Comitis do Manchester nepos; 
 
 Qui Schola3 Rcgiaj apud hanc Ecclesiam 
 
 Alumnus, 
 
 Collegii S*'^ Trinitatis apud Cantabrigienses 
 
 Socius. 
 
 Literas humaniores tam feliciter excohiit, 
 
 Ut inter nostratium primos 
 
 Turn Poetas, turn Oratores, 
 
 Dispari licet in studioruni gcncre, 
 
 Pari tamen cum laudc ttoreret ; 
 
 Bonarumque Artium disciplinis instructus. 
 
 Ex Academite Umbraculis 
 
 In publicum prodiret 
 
 Literatorum jam turn Decus 
 
 Et Privsidium. 
 
 Brevi etenim hmie vinim 
 
 Sua in Senatn Facundia, 
 
 In Cousilio providentia, 
 
 In utroque solertia, fides, authoritas, 
 
 Ad gerendam /Erarii curam evixit, 
 
 Ubi laborantibus Fisei rebus 
 
 Opportune subserviens, 
 
 ftlonetam argenteam 
 
 Magno reipubliciv detrimento imminutam 
 
 Valori pristino restituit; 
 
 Et tanta; molis opus 
 
 Cum flagrante jam bello diutius, 
 
 Et aggrederetur et absolveret 
 
 Ne subsidia Regi Regnoque necessaria 
 
 Deessent interim, 
 
 Ne fides aut privata aut publica 
 
 Vacillaret uspiam, 
 
 Sapienter cavit. 
 
 Ilis crga Patriam et Principem nieritis, 
 
 Utriusque Benevolentiam complexus 
 
 Avitura stirpis sulc splendorem 
 
 Novis Titulis auxit: 
 
 Bare scilicet, deinde et Comes Halifax 
 
 Creatus 
 
 Ad tres Montacutiani nominis Proceres 
 
 Quartus accessit: 
 
 Summo denique Periscelidis honore 
 
 Insignitus 
 
 Dum promovenda; saluti et utilitati publicEe 
 
 Omni mente incumbei'ct, 
 
 Medios inter eonatus, 
 
 (Proh lubricam rcruin liuinanarum sorteni) 
 
 Cum jjoiionini oiiniiwm luctu 
 
 IvxtiiK-tuK est 
 
 XIX die Mail A" D"' Mnccxv. 
 
 /Etatis suiu Liv. 
 
 Here is buried 
 Charles Montague, 
 Son of the honourable George Montague of Horton 
 In Northamptonshire, 
 And nephew of Henry, Earl of Manchester, 
 Who was a Scholar of the Royal College of this 
 Church, 
 And a Fellow of Trinity College, Cambridge. 
 So felicitously did he cultivate polite letters, 
 As to rank 
 Equal with our first Poets and Orators, 
 Notwithstanding the disparity of his and their 
 pursuits. 
 Accomplished in the liberal arts. 
 He was an honour to Literary men 
 When he entered from the Academic shade 
 Into public life. 
 And soon after became their Patron. 
 For within a short period 
 His eloqvience in Parliament, 
 His prudence in the Council 
 In both his address, integrity and influence 
 raised him to the Administration of the Treasury. 
 In this place opportunely relieving 
 The difficulties of the Exchequer; 
 He restored to its original value the silver coin 
 Which had been debased much to the public injury. 
 This great and weighty labor 
 He undertook and completed 
 While war was constantly raging, 
 And wisely provided 
 That the necessary subsidies to the King and 
 Kingdom 
 Should not in the meantime be wanting. 
 Or that public or private credit 
 Should once be shaken. 
 By these services to his King and Country, 
 Whose aff'ections he enjoyed. 
 He added new titles 
 To the splendour of an antient race 
 Being created. 
 First Baron, and then Earl of Halifax, 
 Ho was the fourth member of the family 
 Who was a Peer. 
 He was finally invested w ith the order of the Garter 
 While tending with all the energies of his mind 
 To promote the ])ublic welfare. 
 He died 
 (How slippery, alas ! is the lot of humanity) 
 In tiic midst of his efforts 
 To the grief of all good men. 
 
 An ei)itai>h such as this is a biogr.aphy in brief ; 
 and being not imfairly dashed with praise, renders 
 much further notice unnccessai-y on the present 
 occasion. The literary tastes adverted to on his 
 monument, brought Montague into the society of 
 the leading authors of his time early in life. He 
 began his own career a.s a literary man, having 
 1)0(11 one of the iiiullitnde of poets who have sought 
 distinction by lamenting the deatii of a sovereign. 
 Montague's verses, when Charles II. died, attracted
 
 96 
 
 WESTMINSTER ABBEY. 
 
 some attention, but a more celebrated essay was 
 the " Town and Country Mouse," written conjointly 
 by him and Prior, to ridicule Drydeu's " Hind and 
 Panther.'' The compliments paid in his epitaph 
 to him for his ability as a minister of finance 
 appear to be well deserved. His administration of 
 tlie exchequer was distinguished by a series of 
 operations new at the period, and most important 
 in theii' consequences. For besides the silver coinage 
 already mentioned, he sanctioned and supported 
 
 the establishment of the Bank of England, and by 
 introducing tlie funding system, began the national 
 debt. A whig in politics, he was twice impeached 
 before the House of Lords in Queen Anne's reign, 
 but nothing came of the proceedings. George I. 
 created him an earl. His poems and speeches have 
 been published, but he is now less thought of as an 
 author, than as the patron of authors. In politics, 
 however, he holds a much more respectable rank 
 than m literatm'e. 
 
 ROBERT SOUTH, D.D. 
 
 Adjoining Dr. Busby's monument, and in point of 
 design very like it, is the monument of Dr. South, 
 a prebendary of the Abbey. The deceased is re- 
 presented resting at full length on a cushion ; he 
 wears his robes, has a death's head under the right 
 liand, and a book in his left. No sculptor's name 
 appears upon it. The inscriptiouj which is long, is 
 in good Latin : 
 
 Ab hoc haud procul marmore, 
 
 Juxta Preceptoris Busbeii cineres, suos 
 
 conquieseere voluit 
 
 RoBERTus South, S.T.P. 
 
 Vir Eruditione, Pietate, Moribus antiquis, 
 
 Scholae Westmonasteriensis deinde ^Edis Christi 
 
 Alumnus, 
 
 Et post restauratum Carolum magno favente 
 
 Clarendeno, 
 
 Utriusque in quo sensim adoleverat Collegii 
 
 Prebendarius, 
 
 Ecclesiae Anglicanaj et florentis et afflictte Pro- 
 
 pugnator assiduus, 
 
 Fidei Christiante Vindex acerrimus, 
 
 In concionibus novo quodam et plane suo 
 
 Sed illustri sed admirabili dicendi genere excellens 
 
 Ut harum rerum peritis dubitandi sit locus 
 
 Utrum ingenii acumine an argumentorum vi, 
 
 Uti-um doctrina} ubertate an splendore verborum 
 
 et pondere pi-ajstai'et. 
 
 Hisce certe omnibus instructus adjumentis 
 
 Auimos audieutium non tenuit taiitum sed 
 
 inflammavit. 
 
 Erat ille humanarum Literarum et primsevse 
 
 Theologite cum panels sciens. 
 
 In scholasticorum interim scriptis idem 
 
 versatissimus, 
 
 E quibus quod sanum est et succulentum expressit, 
 
 Idque a rerum futilum disquisitione et vocabuloinim 
 
 involucris liberatum 
 
 Luculenta oratione illustravit. 
 
 Si quaudo vel m rerum vel in liominum vitia 
 
 acerbius est invectus, 
 
 Ne hoc aut partium studio aut Naturae cuidam 
 
 asperitati tribuatur ; 
 
 Eam quippe Is de rebus onmibus seutentiam aperte 
 
 protulit 
 
 Quam ex maturo animi sui judicio amplexus est : 
 
 Et cum esset ipse suaj integritatis conscius 
 
 Quidquid in vita turpe, quidquid in Religioue 
 
 fucatum fictumque viderat, 
 
 Illud omni liberrima indignatione commotus 
 
 profligavit. 
 
 His inteutus studiis, hsec animo semper agitans. 
 
 Hominum a consortio cum esset remotior, auxilio 
 
 tamen non defuit ; 
 
 Quam enim benignum quam misericordem in 
 
 calamitosos animum gesserit, 
 
 Largis muneribus vivens moriensque testatus est. 
 
 Apud Islipam Ecclesiae sacrarium et Rectoris 
 
 domum deintegro extruxit; 
 Ibidem scholam erudiendis pauperum liberis 
 
 instituit, et dotavit literis et 
 
 Hie loci, et apud iEdem Christi promovendis 
 
 vEdificiis istius collegii 
 
 Instaurandis libras millenas in numeratis pecuniis, 
 
 ter centenas 
 
 Cii'citer anni reditus, ex testamento reliquit, 
 
 pietatis erga Deum, bene 
 
 Voleutise erga homines monumenta in seternum 
 
 mansura. 
 Obiit Jul. 8 Ann. Dom. m.dcc.xvi. JE. lxxxii. 
 
 Not far from this marble. 
 
 And near the ashes of his Master, Busby, 
 
 Robert South, D.D. 
 
 Desired that his own might repose. 
 
 He was a Scholar of Westminster, a Student of 
 
 Christ Church, 
 
 And a Prebendary of both foundations, 
 
 Under the patronage of the great Clarendon 
 
 after the Restoration of Charles ; 
 
 An indefatigable champion of the Church both 
 
 when fioui'ishing and when afHicted. 
 
 A stout assertor of Christian Faith ; 
 
 Distinguished in his sermons by a new style of 
 
 address wholly his own, 
 
 But so excellent and admirable. 
 
 That it became a question with those most skilled 
 
 in such compositions 
 
 Whether he deserved most praise for the fulness 
 
 of his knowledge, or the force and elegance 
 
 of his language. 
 
 Accomplished thus, and strengthened. 
 
 He not only held but warmed the attention of his 
 
 hearers. . 
 
 He was equalled by few 
 
 In polite letters and the Divinity of the early 
 
 fathers. 
 
 He was equally conversant with scholastic 
 
 literature, 
 
 From which he extracted all that was sound and 
 
 nourishing. 
 
 And set it forth in clear terms 
 
 Freed from futile distinctions and confused 
 
 expressions. 
 
 If in denouncing the vices of the age or individuals
 
 NICHOLAS ROWE. 
 
 97 
 
 He at times appears severe, 
 
 We should not condemn him for party prejudices 
 
 or an unkind disposition ; 
 
 For he was one who in all things plainly stated 
 
 "The deliberate conclusions of his judgment. 
 
 Being fully conscious of his own integrity. 
 
 He warmed with a generous indignation 
 
 Against anything base in life, or corrupt and false 
 
 in religion. 
 
 To such studies devoted, and always cherishing 
 
 in his mind such views. 
 
 He failed not to help his fellow-men when retired 
 
 from their society. 
 
 How generous he was, and how compassionate to 
 
 the unfortunate. 
 
 He proved by his munificent charities while living 
 
 and when dying. 
 As rector of Islip Church, he rebuilt that and the 
 
 rector's house ; 
 
 Founded and endowed a school for the children of 
 
 the poor : 
 
 And to encourage education both here and at 
 
 Christ Church, 
 
 And restore the College buildings. 
 
 He left by his will one thousand pounds. 
 
 Three hundred of which were to be paid within a 
 
 year after his death : 
 
 Enduring monuments tiiese of his piety to God, 
 
 and good-will to men. 
 
 He died July 8, a. d. 171G, aged 82 years. 
 
 Robert South, a divine of the Established Church 
 of England, eminent for wit, eloiiuenre, and in- 
 tolerance, was born at Hackney, in 10.315. He was 
 the son of a London merchant, who educated him, 
 as his epitaph states, at Westminster School and 
 Christ Church College, Oxfoi'd, where his career 
 was brilliant. He started as a poet, in 1654, with 
 a copy of Latin verses to Cromwell on the conclu- 
 sion of the war with the Dutch. The following 
 year he produced " Musica Incantans," and in 
 loco was cliosen public oi'ator of his university. 
 The political patron from whom lie lii'st courted 
 notice having paid the debt of nature, and the old 
 dynasty having been restored. South sought out a 
 new object for his homage, which he very judici- 
 ously laid at the feet of Lord Clarendon, who made 
 him his private chaplain, and added several ])re- 
 ferments, amongst which were a prebendal stall in 
 Westminster Abbey, and a living in Wales. Cla- 
 
 rendon being disgraced, South was declared private 
 chaplain to the Duke of York, and installed canon 
 of Christchurch. In 16/0 he went to Poland as 
 chaplain to the English Ambassador, and, upon his 
 return home, published an account of his joiiriiev : 
 soon after, he received the rectory of Islip, in Ux- 
 fordshire. In this cure his liberality was con- 
 spicuous, and fully deserves the praise bestowed 
 upon it in his epitaph : he allowed his curate 100^. 
 a year, a sum then considered princely for that 
 station. He was no less judicious than liberal, ex- 
 pending a large portion of his means in rebuilding 
 the church parsonage, and educating the children 
 of the poor. In \(J'J'A he began his violent and 
 indecent controversy with Bishop Sherlock, by i)ub- 
 lishing animadversions upon that prelate's '• Vindi- 
 cation of the Trinity." Both divines professed to 
 bo sincere Trinitarians and devoted sons of the 
 Established Church, but they ditt'ered widely in 
 their explanation of this doctrine, and disputed 
 respecting it with so much heat and scurrilous per- 
 sonality, that the bench of bishops had to solicit 
 the king to put a stop to it, South's acquiescence 
 in the Church policy of James II. was remarkable ; 
 we cannot say that he approved, but he certainly 
 neither condemned nor resisted it. His health, 
 bad for some years, gave way in 1710, when he 
 died, leaving behind him, as the chief memorials of 
 his ecclesiastical labours, a numerous set of ser- 
 mons. These have been more than once reprinted, 
 and run to eleven vols. 8vo. In them we find 
 many things to commend, and many to condenm. 
 If he frequently speaks with a pious and submissive 
 spirit, and inculcates those virtues which are the 
 distinctive ornament of Christian life, he also .shows, 
 in not a few passages, that his own practice of 
 them was not uniform. His intemperate invectives 
 against papists, quakers, and puritans, are offensive 
 to good taste and charity, while his ideas of passive 
 obedience, divine right, and absolute subjection to 
 royalty, place him in a false and almost contem[)t- 
 ible light. What are we to think of a sehojar and 
 a man of sense, who could pretend, when preach- 
 ing before Charles II., that '* God disposed the 
 hearts of kings to virtuous courses," tjiat king him- 
 self being one of the most innnoral persons of any 
 age or country ; and who could proclaim from the 
 pulpit on another occasion, that " Charles I. was 
 the father to his country, if but for this only, that 
 he was the father of such a sou" as Chai'les II. ? 
 
 NICHOLAS ROWE. 
 
 Adjoining the tomb of Shakspeare, in the south 
 tran.sept, is a large monument, commemorative of 
 Rowe the poet, and Charlotte, his only daughter, 
 wife of Henry Fane, Esq. The poet's bust is depo- 
 sited upon an elevated altar, and is wept over by a 
 female figure, large as life : the background is re- 
 lieved by a pyramid, from which hangs a medallion 
 of Mrs. Fane. Altog(,'thir it is a heavy perform- 
 ance, with little that is either original in the design, 
 or delicate in the execution of it. The Imst is suf- 
 ficiently expressive, but the figure of Sorrow is not 
 far removed from caricature. And yet the artist 
 was Rysbrack. Upon the front of the monu- 
 
 ment is Pope's epitaph, so celebrated for the 
 touching beauty of the last lines, whiih the lady 
 spoiled by drying her tears and marrying a 
 colonel. 
 
 Thy relics, Rowe, to this sad shrine we trust, 
 
 An<l near thy .Shaks|)eare place thy honour'd bust : 
 Oh ! next him skill'd to draw tlu^ tender tear, 
 For nev(,'r heart felt passion nicjre sincere ; 
 To Holder sentiments to fire th(> brave. 
 For never Briton more disdain'd a, slave. 
 Peace to thy gentle shade and endless rest, 
 Blcss'd in thy genius, in thy love too bless'd ! 
 
 II
 
 98 
 
 WESTMINSTER ABBEY. 
 
 And bless'd that timely from our scene removed. 
 Thy soul enjoys that liberty it loved ! 
 To these so niouru'd in death, so loved in life. 
 The childless parent, and the widow'd wife. 
 With t'c-ars inscribes this monumental stone. 
 That holds their ashes, and expects her own. 
 
 Nicholas Rowe was an author who enjoyed no 
 mean share of jniblic praise while he lived, and has 
 received a quiet meed of reputation since his death. 
 He was descended from an estated family at Lam- 
 bertown, or Lamerton, in Devonshire, who acquired 
 their coat of ai-ms for the bravery shown by an 
 ancestor duvinf«; the war of the crusades. Nicholas 
 was born at Little Beckford, in Bedfordshire, during 
 the year Ifi?^. His father, John, is said to have 
 been the first of the family who abandoned the 
 easy pursuits of a country life, to bustle with the 
 world, and make money by a profession. He studied 
 the law, rose to the dignity of a sergeant's coif, and 
 distinguished himself by the publication of some 
 volumes of Reports, in which he fearlessly pointed 
 out the meagre authority there existed in favour of 
 that dispensing power which James II. so vainly 
 wished to enforce, and his subjects so spiritedly 
 overcame. Sergeant Rowe lies buried in the Round 
 Church of the Inner Temple. His son, the subject 
 of this sketch, was first sent to an academy at High- 
 gate, and afterwards entered at Westminster school, 
 under the " Great " Busby, where the ripeness of 
 his talents was so rapidly developed, that he was 
 named for a king's scholarship at the age of twelve, 
 tlxHigh not elected until fifteen. Even then, how- 
 ever, the distinction brought no collegiate advan- 
 tage ; for his father was so well pleased with his 
 learning, that he entered him a student at the 
 Temple without any more loss of time. 
 
 During the three next years he is said to have 
 still further satisfied the expectations of his family, 
 by the assiduity with which he read the statutes, 
 and the ability with which he apprehended their 
 application; but when only nineteen, his father died, 
 he became his own master, and abandoned the 
 severities of the legal profession for the lighter 
 laurels of poetry. 
 
 His first production was the "Ambitious Step- 
 mother," a play written at the age of twenty-five. 
 Though described by his biographers as having 
 been received with great applause, it has long been 
 forgotten, and does not seem to merit any other 
 fate. To this succeeded the tragedy of " Tamer- 
 lane," in 1702: composed at a period when political 
 feelings were at an extreme height, it was in evei-y 
 line nerved to strengthen state and party-prejudice 
 and forestal popularity. Under the character of 
 Tamerlane, he designed to personify the virtues of 
 William III. ; and under the crimes of Bajazet to 
 depict the tyranny of Louis XIV. The hit took, 
 as hits generally do take, when the influence of 
 government and the passions of the people com- 
 bine to give them effect; but the two leading por- 
 traitures were as absurd on the one hand as unjust 
 on the other. The Tamerlane of history is no such 
 an excellent personage as the Tamerlane of the 
 stage, and William III. can never be identified with 
 either of them : no piece of patient perfecl,ion such 
 as Rowe's hero, ever drew the breath of life. The 
 comparison between Bajazet and Louis is still less 
 real, and, because the more imcharitable, is a less 
 excusable licence. With this play, however, Rowe 
 
 is reported to have been far better pleased than 
 with any one of his other perfoi-mances. The pre- 
 fei'ence, however ill founded, is to be accounted for: 
 the vehemence with which Tamerlane was at first 
 applauded was much greater than the juster praise 
 bestowed on some of his other plays; and, as it laid 
 the basis of his political distinctions, it may be 
 easily conceived to have been always agreeable to 
 his memory. 
 
 Flushed with this success, the poet relaxed no- 
 thing in diligence. " The Fair Penitent," founded 
 upon Massinger's " Fatal Dowry," and represented 
 for the first time during the following year, was 
 held to possess more appropriate beauties, and has 
 received the reward of more lasting fame. The 
 story of this tragedy is simply domestic, and deeply 
 engaging; the versification is equable and harmo- 
 nious; the moral striking, and the incidents well 
 wrouKht. The character of Lothario was original 
 to the stage, and has supplied Richardson, the 
 novelist, with a companion in "Clarissa," which has 
 been often commended as an improvement upon the 
 first idea. One prominent fault has been found 
 with the machinery of the piece : the fourth act 
 concludes the story, and, consequently, the interest 
 of the play. With this exception, " The Fair Peni- 
 tent " is still generally approved of, and often per- 
 formed. 
 
 In I7OG he gave the public a drama upon the 
 story of " Ulysses," which was damned at the onset. 
 "Tlie Royal Convert" appeared in I7O8, and, with 
 bettor claims to favour, shared a similar fate. These 
 were both tragedies, and a diversion in comedy 
 only deepened the disgrace of their failure. " The 
 Biter " intervened between the performances just 
 mentioned, under such circumstances of discontent, 
 that the manager was afraid to hazard a second 
 representation of it. Rowe, however, is reported 
 to have diffei'ed with the audience, and to have 
 thought extremely well of the composition. It is 
 even asserted, that he sat in the theatre chuckling 
 with laughter at what he conceived the wit of the 
 dialogue, while the whole house resounded with 
 hooting and hissing. 
 
 This succession of adversity damped his efforts 
 for some years, but his next attempt was amply 
 rewarded. "Jane Shore," which was first brought 
 out in 1714, is the tragedy by which Rowe is now 
 known, and it may be justly considered a standard 
 piece upon the British stage. In the preface to it, 
 he states that it is written in imitation of Shak- 
 speare, though his commentators have all been at a 
 loss to discover where the resemblance lies, unless 
 it be in the bare fact, that the subject is a story of 
 English history. Authors, however, may be allowed 
 to deceive themselves, while they fulfil the main 
 business of their lives, and gratify the public taste. 
 "Jane Shore " is often played, and always pleases: 
 the distress is probable, and seizes upon our sym- 
 pathies — we forgive the wife out of pity for her 
 sufferings, and approbation of her repentance, and 
 regard the husband, because he feels as we do oiu"- 
 selves, and also forgives her. 
 
 There is yet another of Rowe's tragedies to be 
 mentioned, though it never succeeded ; this was 
 "Jane Grey." The story had been long in the 
 hands of Smith, the elegant author of " Phtedrus 
 and Hippolita;" and upon his death was transmitted 
 with his papers to Rowe. But what Smith died 
 before he could finish, died of itself when finished
 
 JOSEPH ADDISON. 
 
 99 
 
 by Rowe, who thenceforward wrote no more .for 
 the stage. As an author, however, he still conti- 
 nued active and successful. He translated " Quil- 
 let's Calliptedia," and the " Golden Verses of Pytha- 
 goras." and edited an edition of Shakspeare, which 
 Doctor Johnson, who performed the same task, 
 thinks was better than the world supposed, or the 
 author himself had promised. His translation of 
 Lucan's " Pharsalia " was executed in a far higher 
 degree of merit. The chai-acter of the original has 
 been declared more declamatory than poetical, and 
 more philosophical than entertaining. Rowe's poem 
 preserves this style with singular fidelity; the ver- 
 sification mtroduces no great improvements into 
 our language; but, if never superior to his contem- 
 poraries, he is also never inferior to them. 
 
 Rowe lived to finish this work with the care and 
 steadiness observable in all his productions, but not 
 to enjoy the satisfaction of witnessing the favour- 
 able reception it met with from the public. He 
 died in the year 1719, the forty-fifth of his age; 
 and bequeathed the publication of his manuscripts 
 to the care of his friend Dr. Wei wood, who is the 
 principal writer of his life. He married twice, and, 
 in worldly phrase, on both occasions married well, 
 that is to say, the two ladies belonged to good 
 famiUes. 
 
 Rowe was the friend of Addison and Pojie, and 
 was distinguished by the lieads of the political party 
 to which he always remained firmly attached. 
 Devoted to the pursuits of literature during his 
 lifetime, he was esteemed a successful man of busi- 
 ness. While the Duke of Queensbury was Secre- 
 tary of State during the reign of Queen Anne, 
 Rowe as his under-secretary acquired considerable 
 reputation. When other ministers took office, he 
 was obliged to retire with the whigs in discontent: 
 butabrighter period supervened; his political friends 
 resumed their sway, he succeeded Tate as poet- 
 laureate to George I., which added considerablv to 
 his fortune, for he obtained various other appoiut- 
 ments soon after ; amongst these are mentioned 
 by his biographers, a surveyorship of the customs 
 of the port of London, a clerkship of the council of 
 the Prince of Wales, and a secretaryship of the 
 presentations iia the Court of Chancery: thus he 
 lived amongst the great respected, and amongst his 
 equals regarded. His character is praised by Pope, 
 but fault was found with his heart by Addison. 
 With the world the former testimony should alone 
 prevail ; for the author of " Cato," though appa- 
 rently sincere in his professions of religion, was a 
 captious friend and a jealous competitor. 
 
 JOSEPH ADDISON. 
 
 Though buried so long ago as the year 1719, and 
 under a combination of circumstances which one 
 would suppose the most likely to insure posthumous 
 honours; yet, by some strange neglect, the memory 
 of .'Vddison was left without any tribute of public 
 regard in Westminster Abbey until the jear IfiflQ, 
 when his statue iu the Roman costume was placed 
 in the Poets' Corner on a circular pedestal, which 
 is ornamented with the nine Muses in alto relievo. 
 It is by Sir R. Westmacott, R.A., and has been 
 the subject of some sharp criticism: it certainly is 
 a stiff figm'e, and wants character. The Roman 
 costume has also Vjeen objected to, but the toga, 
 however censurable in the majority of cases, cannot 
 I be said to hang without any propriety from the 
 shoulders of the author of "Cato." We give the 
 Latin inscription, and a translation :- 
 
 Quisquis cs, qui lioc Marmor intueris, 
 
 Venerare memoriam Josuriii Addison ; 
 
 Quem fides Christiana, 
 
 Queiu virtus, bonique mores, 
 
 Assiduum sibi vindicaut paU'onura. 
 
 Cujus ingcnium, 
 
 Carminibus, scriptisque hi onmi genere exquisitis, 
 
 Quibus puri scrmoniscxemplunj postcritati tradidit; 
 
 Recteque vivondi discijilinam scite exposuit, 
 
 Sacratum luanet et manobit. 
 
 Sic enim argumenti gravitatem 1( pore, 
 
 Juilicii severitatem urijanitatc teinpcravit, 
 
 Ut bonos erigeret, improvidos exeitaret, 
 
 Improbos ctiam deleclalione quadam ad virtutem 
 
 flecteret. 
 
 Natus erat a.d. mdclxxii. 
 
 Auctisque paulatim forlunis 
 
 Ad suinnia reipublic;e munera i)ervenit. 
 
 1-^xcessit octavo ot (inadi'agosimo anno; 
 
 Britanuorum dccus ct deliciu3. 
 
 Whoever thou art who lookest upon tins marble. 
 
 Respect the memory of Joseph Addison ; 
 
 Whom Christian piety. 
 
 Whom Virtue and good manners, 
 
 Have ever found their indefatigable patron. 
 
 His genius 
 In poetry as well as in every other kind of 
 
 Exquisite writing, 
 
 By which he has bequeathed to posterity 
 
 The finest example of 
 
 A pure style of composition. 
 
 And learnedly developed the discipline of an 
 
 Upright life — 
 
 Stands sacred, and sacred must remain. 
 
 In argument he so happily blended gravity with 
 
 mildness, 
 
 And in judgment so tempered severity with 
 
 urbanity: 
 
 As to uphold the good, and rouse the imprudent, 
 
 And, by a peculiar charm, turn even the 
 
 guilty round to virtue. 
 
 He was born in the year of our Lord 1072, 
 
 And, augmenting his fortune by moderate degrees, 
 
 At leiM'-th arrived at the highest honours of the 
 
 State. 
 
 He died, in the 48th year of his age, 
 
 The charm and ornament of Britain. 
 
 Joseph Addison was a native of Milston, near 
 Ambrosinn-y in Wilts, of which place, his father. 
 Dr. Launcclot Addison, was rector. At his birtli, 
 which took place on Mayday, lie was so weak 
 and delicate, that he was not expected to live. 
 Addison, the father, enjoyed other ])rcferments 
 in the diurcli; he was one of the chaplains to 
 Charles II., a prebendary in Salisbury (Jatliedral, 
 and dean of Lichfield : as an author lie was also 
 known by a "History of the Jews," and " A Life 
 
 II 2
 
 IGO 
 
 WESTMINSTER ABBEY. 
 
 of Mahomet." Removed, after the common coui'se 
 of domestic tuition, first to a school at Anibros- 
 bury*, then to one at Salisbury, and lastly, to the 
 Charter-House in London, Addison there began to 
 form that friendship with Sir Richard Steele, which 
 was to conduce so shortly after, and so highly, to 
 the impi'ovement of English litei'ature. Entering 
 Queen's College, Oxford, in his fifteenth year, he 
 took the degree of A.M. in 1G93, and distinguished 
 himself particularly while at this university by his 
 compositions in Latin verse, of which the happiest 
 efforts are to be found in the " Musse Anglieanse." 
 It was about his twenty-second year that he became 
 acquainted with Dryden, and made his maiden 
 effort in English poetry, in the form of a copy of 
 verses addressed to that immortal bard. Soon 
 after, he prefixed an anonymous discourse on Vir- 
 gil's " Georgies " to Dryden's translation. This was 
 his first critical publication. He was next intro- 
 duced, by Congreve, to Montague, Earl of Halifax, 
 at that time Chancellor of the Exchequer; and was 
 patronized, in cimsequence of a poetical tribute, by 
 the celebrated Lord Somers. Through that peer's 
 influence he obtained a pension of 300/. a-year, 
 which enalded hina to set out on his travels through 
 France and Italy. In the latter country, according 
 to his biogra|)her, Tickell, he wrote his " Dialogue 
 upon Medals," a treatise at once classical, pleasing, 
 and instructive, and the four first acts of his tragedy 
 of « Cato." 
 
 Returning from abroad in 1703, he dedicated a 
 classical account of his travels to Loi'd Somers, 
 tliough that nobleman and his party were then out 
 of power, and the pension granted under them had 
 ceased; circumstances which, though they left him 
 without any innnediate prospect of advancing his 
 fortune, gave him full leisure, which he does not 
 seem to liave neglected, of still further prosecuting 
 his studies. Addison, however, had the singular 
 felicity of always turning his poetical talents to a 
 valuable account, and of having never been long 
 neglected by men of merit and power. Lord Godol- 
 phin now invited him to celebrate the victory of 
 Blenheim ; and immediately appointed him, as a 
 reward fijr his poem upon that subject, to be a 
 Commissioner of Appeals, vacant by the death of 
 Mr. Locke. He continued to rise in ministerial 
 favour, and was chosen, two years afterwards, under- 
 secretary of state for the home department. From 
 this post he was soon afterwards advanced to that 
 of secretary of state for Ireland, when the Marquis 
 of Wharton \\as viceroy, where he was made keeper 
 of the records in Birmingham's Tower at an in- 
 creased salary of 300/. a-year. 
 
 It may be as well to mention here, before resu- 
 ming the story of his literary productions, that the 
 last and highest situation he filled under govern- 
 ment, was in 1717, when, after having been a lord 
 of trade, he was created one of the principal secre- 
 taries of state. This ap])ointment, however, he held 
 but for a short time, as he neither gave that satis- 
 faction to his political friends, or his own conscience, 
 which was naturally expected from a man, who, 
 like Addison, had risen with all the gradual expe- 
 
 • Miss Aikin, his recent biographer, relates, that while at 
 •chool here, he coiiimitted some fault, and was so afraid of 
 tlie punishment or dis.viace he thougiit must follow it, that 
 he ran away into the woods, and subsisted on fruits until 
 discovered in a hollow tree, and brought back to his father. 
 
 rience of state business, and who was, unquestion- 
 ably, a man of the highest mental powers and 
 acquirements. His personal admirers vindicated 
 this failure, by claiming for him a purer honour, 
 asserting that the refinement of classical study liad 
 so delicately tempered his mind, that it could not 
 be broken to those rude and undigested labours, 
 which the hurry and complexity of public business 
 render unavoidable. A stronger reason for his 
 retiremeiit, upon a pension of 1500/. a-year, perhajis 
 was, that being shy and unpractised in public speak- 
 ing, he was unable to harangue the House of Com- 
 mons, — an admirable talent, without which no mi- 
 nister can ever be held of popular value in a repre- 
 sentative government. 
 
 Of Addison's poems, none have oftener been 
 referred to than the "Campaign," inscribed in 1704, 
 to the first duke of Marlborough, upon the victory 
 of Blenheim. One passage in it, the comparison of 
 his Grace to a descending angel, is well known, and 
 has been as highly praised as it is elaborately 
 strained; for the rest, though certainly not deserv- 
 ing Warton's caustic definition of a " Gazette in 
 Rhyme," the " Campaign " is assuredly but a poor 
 performance, entitled to little conmiendation, and 
 less reward. The poem most favoured by the critics, 
 is the " Epistle," equable and correct, addressed 
 from Italy to Montague, Earl of Halifax, in 1701; 
 but perhaps the one best liked by the few who now 
 read Addison's verses, is the letter written, about 
 the year 1716, to Sir Godfrey Kneller, upon his 
 portrait of George I. There is an ease in the ver- 
 sification of this poem, a happiness in the incidents, 
 an art in the illustrations, and a classical propriety 
 in the compliments, which are not to be found in 
 any other of his lucul)rations in rhyme. The fol- 
 lowing passage, in which he so ingeniously adapts 
 the mythology of the ancients to Kneller's pictures 
 of the British sovereigns, from Charles II. down to 
 George I. may vvell exemplify these remarks : — 
 
 " Wise Phidias thus, his skill to prove, 
 Through many a god advanced to Jove, 
 And taught tlie polish'd rocks to shine 
 With airs and lineaments divine, 
 Till Greece amazed and half-afraid 
 Th' assembled deities surveyed. 
 
 Great Pan *, who wont to chase the fair, 
 And loved the spreading oak, was there ; 
 Old Saturn t, too, with upcast eyes, 
 Beheld his abdicated skies ; 
 And mighty Mars |, for war renown'd, 
 In adamantine armour frown'd ; 
 By him § tlie childless goddess rose, 
 Minerva, studious to compose 
 Her twisted threads : the web she strung, 
 And o'er a loom of marble hung. 
 Thetis I] the troubled ocean's queen, 
 Matched with a mortal, next was seen 
 Rt-clining on a funeral urn, 
 Her short-lived darling son to mourn; 
 
 • Charles II., his amours and concealment in the oak 
 after the battle of Worcester. 
 
 t The exiled James II. 
 
 t King William. 
 
 § His queen Mary, who died childless. 
 
 I! Queen Anne, whose husband. Prince George of Den- 
 mark, being never admitted to the crown, was her inferior, 
 somewhat in the same manner as was Peleus, a mortal, to 
 the goddess Thetis. Again, as the latter had to mourn for 
 Achilles, so had Anne for her .son George, who died pre- 
 maturely, and left her wilhcut heir.
 
 JOSEPH ADDISON. 
 
 101 
 
 The last • was he whose thunder slew 
 The Titan race, a rebel crew, 
 That from a hundred hills, allied 
 In impious leagues, their king defied. 
 This wonder of the sculptor's hand 
 Produced, his art was at a stand ; 
 For who could hope new fame to raise, 
 Or risk his well-establish'd praise, 
 That, his high genius to approve, 
 Had drawn a George, or carved a Jove f 
 
 It was during Addison's first employment in 
 Ireland, that Sir Richard Steele had the merit of 
 projecting and publi.sliing, without any other coun- 
 sel, and almost without assistance, the memorable 
 series of essays upon the popular manners and 
 feelings of the day, its decencies and duties, printed 
 separately, under the title of the " Tatler." In this 
 laboui', so congenial to his habits and studies, Addi- 
 son quickly joined, and soon after the cessation of 
 the " Taller," took a prominent part in conducting 
 the " Spectator," which was the happiest by far of 
 the charming little periodicals produced by the 
 SJime talents. Few publications cotdd have sur- 
 passed them in popularity or merit ; they improved 
 the morals of society, and the literary character of 
 the period; there was noranlcthat was not likely to 
 derive instruction and amusement from them; they 
 were in a word so universally apposite and useful, 
 that every polite nation in Europe was proud to 
 obtain a translation of them. 
 
 The year 1713 completed Addison's literary fame, 
 upon the performance of " Cato," a tragedy which 
 he had thought of for some years before he began 
 to write it, and which remained unfinished for a 
 still longer time after it had been commenced. 
 These circumstances were publicly known and often 
 regretted, until at length, importunities came so 
 thick upon him from different quarters, that he 
 was forced to conclude the undertaking, and give 
 "Cato" to the stage. Its success was complete; 
 it was acted night after night, for thirty-five times, 
 a longer period than ever was known before on 
 an English stage. The public admiration burned 
 with the fury of a flame.^ All this, however, was 
 too vivid for duration; the popularity of "Cato" 
 gradually declined, and has long ceased to exist: 
 it was mainly brought about by powerful friends, 
 and fortunate circumstances ; and, naturally 
 enough, when these were withdrawn the effect 
 was lost. Notwithstanding the ])olish of the versi- 
 fication, and the dignity of the sentiments, the con- 
 struction of the plot is too strictly founded on the 
 rules of the ancient drama, the thoughts and action 
 of the characters too formal and cold, to excite the 
 unprejudiced ajjjjrobation of a people, who have 
 been trained to a love of the theatre, by the free 
 energies of .Shakspeare's gcniius. Hence it is, that 
 the tragedy of " Cato," though read with |>leasnre 
 in the study, is Iieard without emotion on the stage. 
 The poetical beauties of " Cato " have long been 
 in current repute; the senate scene is a piece of 
 fine declamation, spouted by every school-boy; the 
 cont(;ntiouH vigour of.Iuba and Sypliax, and tlie 
 poin]»ous sustainmcnt of s(MitentionH retort between 
 Cato and Decius, are equally well-known; but the 
 Soliloquy of Cato is tJie grand quotation. 
 
 To the Works of Addison already mentioned, the 
 
 • George I. who had recently overthrown the Scotch re- 
 bellion in favour of the Pretender. 
 
 following are to be added as deserving particular 
 notice. " Rosamond," an opera, and his first dra- 
 matic essay, exhibited in 1707, and written with a 
 laudable view of naturalising amongst us the nmsical 
 drama of Italy, and gratifying at the same time the 
 judgment and the ear. It failed of success, however, 
 principally in consequence of the miserable assist- 
 ance it derived from the music of Clayton, the 
 composer. "The Drummer," a comedy, though 
 played and printed anonymously, is now u.aiver- 
 sally ascribed to Addison, and witli sufheient reason; 
 it was also a failure, and on that account, in all 
 probability, never owned by the author. Of other 
 projects which, though he did not live to complete, 
 he nevertheless left an interesting portion executed, 
 the following appeared after his death : " The Evi- 
 dences of the Christian Religion," " Translations 
 from Ovid's Metamorphoses," and a few rhythmal 
 versions of the Psalms. 
 
 Hitherto honour and happiness had grown upon 
 Addison, as his days increased ; but there remain, 
 unfortunately, some circumstances to be told, which 
 detracted not a little from both those enjoyments. 
 The first was, bis marriage, in 171G, with the 
 Countess Dowager of Warwick, by whom he left a 
 daughter. This lady he is ."iaid to have first known 
 as tutor to her son, and to have long courted with 
 singular modesty ; yet when gained, to have found 
 no very pleasing acquisition. She was too proud to 
 consider him as her equal, and too cold to return 
 his love; the consequence was that Addison, in this 
 respect verily a poet, sought refuge from the aspe- 
 rities of home in the amenities of a bottle at the 
 tavern. 
 
 The breach of his friendship with Steele is still 
 more to be regretted. The latter, who, like a true 
 Irishman, sanguine and generous to profusion, was 
 almost always in the gi'eatest want of money, had 
 the misfortune to borrow money from his friend, 
 and, what was worse, to neglect to repay it. For this 
 some authorities assert, while others deny, that 
 Addison sued him at law. This may not have been 
 the case; but it is certain that he sharply dunned 
 not only Steele, but his wife also, for money lent. 
 Such conduct naturally damped the warmth of an 
 intimacy, which continued, however, under jiromis- 
 ing appearances, until a patiiphlet controversy, car- 
 ried on with great violence, severed a frienll.^hip 
 memorable for its length, and still more for the fruits 
 it brought forth. Tlu; origin of the final difference 
 was, the pidiliealion, by Steele, of .the " Plebeian," 
 a pamphlet in support of a bill brought into the 
 House of Lords by the Earl of Sunderland, for the 
 purpose of preventing the crown from creating any 
 new peers, unless upon the demise of an old title. 
 This jiroduction was followed by an answer from 
 Aihlison, under the title of the Old Whig. Steele, 
 ill bis rei)ly, was gentlemanly enough to confine 
 himself to his subject, while Addison, hi his rejoin- 
 der, was .so unmannerly as to reproach his o|)poiient 
 with trading in ]iaiii])hiets from poverty. The only 
 notice taken of that rudeness was by a happy 
 quotation from " Cato," which was the reproof of a 
 friend and a scholar. Tin; bill was dro]ipe(l by par- 
 liament, and the controversy ceased: but the iriinds 
 never met again. Steele all along preserved :in 
 honourable feeling of res])ect an<l tenderness for 
 Addison, and his talents; but the latter was jealous 
 and j)roud; he know he had offered the wrong, and, 
 naturally enough, could not bring himself to ask his
 
 102 
 
 WESTMINSTER ABBEY. 
 
 frii'iid to pardon what his own contsciunce was not 
 Hkely to excuse. 
 
 The quarrel between Addison and Pope suggests 
 a still more vuifavourahle idea. In tliis case, it is 
 hard to conceive what could have actuated Addison, 
 unless it was some ascetic jealousy naturally inflicted 
 on his character. Pope certainly had done nothing 
 to offend him; on the contrary, he had written the 
 prologue to " Cato," and a pamphlet against that 
 common snarler, tlie critic Dennis, who had impo- 
 tently abused the tragedy. Notwithstanding, Addi- 
 son felt dislike, and shunned his young friend; 
 several exertions were made to reconcile them, but 
 Pope would not become abject, and their meetings, 
 wlien they took place, only increased former bitter- 
 ness. But a weightier charge deepens the regret of 
 every liberal reader over this difference ; for it 
 cannot now be doubted, that, if Addison did not 
 actually compose the greater part of Tickell's book 
 of the " IHad," he at least started the idea of it, 
 and, by direct patronage, endeavoured to run down 
 Pope's translation into a failure. This was a con- 
 duct not likely to be forgotten or defended: it was 
 a conspiracy against a man's fortune, through his 
 reputation, and has deservedly subjected Addison 
 to more censure than any other act of his life. 
 
 Such were the circumstances under which Addi- 
 son began to feel a gi-adnal decay of nature, which 
 turned into a dropsy, and terminated his life at 
 Holland House, June 17, 1719. His memory was 
 honoured with a public funeral. His body lay in 
 state in the Jerusalem Chamber, and was removed 
 at midnight to the north aisle of the chapel of 
 Henry VII. The scene is described with appro- 
 pi'iate solemnity and feeling in Tickell's monody. — 
 
 " Can I forget the dismal night that gave 
 My soul's best part for ever to the grave ! 
 
 How silent did his old companions tread 
 
 By midnight lamps the mansions of the dead; 
 
 Through breathing statues, then unheeded things, 
 
 Through rows of warriors, and through walks of kings ! 
 
 Wliat awe did the slow solemn knell inspire, 
 
 The pealing organ, and the pausing choir, 
 
 The duties by the lawn-robed prelate paid, 
 
 And the last word that dust to dust conveyed." 
 
 One scene of his death-bed is often described 
 with the ostentation that characterised it. When 
 given over by the doctors, he sent for his step-son 
 the Earl of Warwick, a dissolute young nobleman, 
 and while he grasped his hands with fervour, em- 
 phatically exclaimed, " See how a Christian can 
 die!" But in the impressiveness of this display, 
 the counterpart to it is generally overlooked; for, 
 at the same time, he sent for Gay the poet, from 
 whom he had lately estranged himself, confessed 
 that he had injured him, and promised to make 
 amends, if he lived. Now it is hard to conceive 
 how a man, sensibly religious, could thus abandon 
 justice, to liang upon chances; and it is impossible 
 to give him the praise of Christian charity who 
 lived at warm enmity with his oldest friends, and 
 in death persisted in hostility. 
 
 If the character of Addison is to be estimated 
 by his writings, few men possessed more kindly 
 feelings, or more correct principles ; in this respect, 
 he was eminently happy, for the world gave him 
 credit for all he wrote, and held but a partial heed 
 of his actions. Few men can be said to have done 
 more good to the English language than he did : if 
 in poetry he has many superiors, he can only be 
 said to have equals in prose ; and if Dryden was 
 our first critic in point of time, Addison was our 
 first in pomt of merit. 
 
 SHEFFIELD, DUKE OF BUCKINGHAM. 
 
 In one of the recesses of Henry VII. 's chapel is 
 the large and costly monument of John Sheffield, 
 Duke of Buckingham. The figure of his grace ap- 
 pears half raised upon an altar of fine marble ; at 
 ins feet is his duchess weeping. He is clad as a 
 Roman warrior, she attired, with the exception of 
 a pair of sandals, in the proper dress of the period. 
 It is unnecessary to point out the absurdity of this 
 arrangement. Above is a personification of Time 
 hurrying away with several medallion busts, which 
 are meant to represent children who died pre- 
 maturely. The statue of Time is by Delvaux, the 
 rest by Scheemakers. There are two Latin in- 
 scriptions ; the one on the altar is a particular 
 enumeration of the different titles borne by the 
 deceased, and the various offices of trust and emo- 
 lument, civil as well as military, discharged by 
 him. The other, written by himself, engraved in 
 letters of gold, is to this sceptical purport : 
 
 Dubius sed non Improbus vixi ; 
 
 Incertus morior, non perturbatus ; 
 
 Humanum est nescire et errare. 
 
 Deo confido 
 
 Omnipotenti benevolentissimO ! 
 
 Ens Eutium, miserere mei. 
 
 Pro Rege ssepe, pro Republica semper. 
 
 Catherina Buckinghamise Ducissa moerens extrui 
 curavit, anno mdccxxii. 
 
 I lived doubtful, not dissolute ; 
 
 I die unresolved, not unresigned ; 
 
 Ignorance and error are incident to human nature. 
 
 In God, 
 
 Omnipotent and most benevolent, I confide ; 
 
 Being of Beings, have mercy on me ! 
 
 On the altar-piece itself are two more lines : — 
 
 For my king often, for my country ever. 
 
 Catherine, Duchess of Buckingham, in sorrow 
 erected this, mdccxxii. 
 
 John Sheffield, Duke of Buckingham, has been 
 favour;) bly noticed by many biographers, but is not 
 now held "in high estimation. His panegyrists de- 
 scribe hhn as a good soldier, and an honest states- 
 man ; as generous as rich, and remarkable for 
 integrity both in public and private life, during an 
 age in which that virtue was in many instances 
 flagrantly disregarded. Other merits entitle him 
 to honourable record ; he was a scholar and a poet.
 
 SHEFFIELD, DUKE OF BUCKINGHAM. 
 
 103 
 
 the patron of Dryden, and the friend of Pope. To 
 the former lie erected the monument in the Poets' 
 Corner ; and to the care of the latter, he, at his 
 death, entrusted the publication of his manuscripts. 
 
 Sheffield was the son of Edmund, Earl of j\Iul- 
 grave, and was born in the year 1649. He lost his 
 father at a tender af^c, and began his education at 
 home, where, becoming dissatisfied at tlie age of 
 twelve with tlie course of study proposed for him, he 
 dismissed his tutor, and set upon instructing himself 
 on a plan of his own. The proficiency he acquu'ed in 
 polite literature will be considered surprising, when 
 it is known that he was upon active service, as an 
 officer in the navy, in his seventeenth year. This 
 was on the expedition against the Dutch, commanded 
 by the Duke of Alljemarle and Prince Rupert, in 
 the same vessel with whom he sailed. He next com- 
 manded a body of independent cavalry, raised for 
 the purpose of protecting the coast against invasion, 
 and was returned to Parliament, but did not take 
 his seat in consequence of his minority. In 1672 
 he went to the Dutch war as a volunteer, and was 
 reported in terms of such high praise by the gal- 
 lant Earl of Ossory, that he was appointed captain 
 of the Royal Catherine, at that time the best 
 second-rate vessel in the navy. 
 
 The next assistance we find him rendering to 
 royalty is, by raising a regiment of infantry at his 
 own expense, with which, piu'suant to the directions 
 of Prince Rupert, lie proceeded to the relief of 
 Marshal Schomberg. Being honoured with the 
 command of a second regiment, styled the Old 
 Holland, his conduct again received the approba- 
 tion of his general. Meantime he was complimented 
 with tile order of the garter, and the post of a Lord 
 of the Bedchamber ; and was enabled to recom- 
 mend Dryden to the laureate. Passing into France 
 to perfect his knowledge in war under Turenne, he 
 became a competitor with the Duke of Monmouth 
 for the captaincy of a trooji of horse guards, and 
 the latter succeeding, Sheffield I'eturned to Eng- 
 land. He now attached himself to the Duke of 
 York, and was considered the most zealous of his 
 party in rejiresenting the dangers to be dreaded 
 from the presumption of Monmouth. Upon the 
 subsequent disgrace of Monmouth, Sheffield was 
 named his successor as Lord Lieutenant of York- 
 shire, and military governor of Hull. 
 
 Amidst the gaiety of the court, the activity of 
 office, and the dangers of war, Buckingham paid 
 constant suit to the Muses. The first poem of any 
 note which he is known to have produced is " the 
 Vision," written in IGfJO, during a voyage to relieve 
 Tangiers from an attack of the Moors, who threat- 
 ened to wrest the place from our hands *. The 
 
 • Connected with this expedition is a monument in the 
 south aisle, from which a copy of tlie inscription will suflice 
 for the interest of these pages: 
 
 "Sacred to the immortal memory of Sir Palmks Fair- 
 BOiiNE, Knight, Governor of Tangier, in the execution of 
 which command he was mortally wounded hy a shot from 
 the Moors, tlicn hesieging the town, in the 46th year of his 
 age, October the 21th, 1G80." 
 
 After this is an epitaph, the composition of Dryden. 
 
 " Ye sacred relics, which your marble keep 
 Here, undisturbed by wars, in quiet sleep ; 
 Discharge the trust which when it was below, 
 Fairborne's undaunted soul did undergo, 
 And be the town's palladium from the foe. 
 
 expedition landed without accident, and was pro- 
 secuted with success. Sheffield was more fortunate 
 in war than in poetry, for " The Vision " has but 
 little merit, and much licentiousness. A less faultv 
 specimen of his versification will be found in his 
 « Temple of Death." 
 
 Johnson, who gave him a place in his " Lives of 
 the Poets," says of him correctly enough, " He 
 sometimes glimmers, but rarely shines; is laborious, 
 yet feeble : to be great is seldom in his power, and 
 at best he can only be considered as pi-etty at 
 times." 
 
 The accession of James II. to the throne, whose 
 natural daughter he married, warmed his expecta- 
 tions of advancement, and he was not disappointed 
 in them. He was created Lord Chamberlain, ad- 
 mitted to the privy council, and put upon the ill- 
 judged high commission. A constant attendant at 
 court, he now countenanced every change, even to 
 attending the king at mass, and outwardly conform- 
 ing to the rites of the Catholic Chnrch. Being 
 expostulated with upon this subserviency, he as- 
 serted the independence of his belief, in a pointed 
 answer, which, like many sallies of the sort, has 
 been attributed to various persons. He told Bishop 
 Burnet that he had been at some pains to confirm 
 his belief that God had made the world, and created 
 the men in it; but, that though he was willing to 
 receive instruction, he could not easily be persuaded 
 that man was quitg of tlie obligation, and had made 
 God again. 
 
 The reign of James was soon overcast by clouds. 
 Sheffield had no share in the revolution, tliouijh 
 like many others he acquiesced in the change, when 
 there seemed no chance of success for any dift'ereiit 
 policy. This course was creditable; he was not 
 guilty of the baseness, than which there is no 
 greater, of sucking all the sweets of royal patronage, 
 while the sun of prosperity is shining upon the 
 indulgent benefactor, and abandoning him at the 
 first ebb which the tide of fortune takes in receding 
 from his throne. It should also be mentioned, that 
 his integrity made him feared by those wlio intro- 
 duced King William, and that, when the latter 
 prince afterwards challenged him with the suspi- 
 cion entertained by his party, that if known to him, 
 he would certainly liave betrayed their designs; he 
 had the spirit to answer, that "he certainly should 
 have discovered every thing to the king he then 
 served." 
 
 Under these circumstances little confidence or 
 employment was to be hoi)ed for by him under the 
 
 Alive and dead these walls ho will defend : 
 Great actions great examples must attend. 
 The Candian siege his early valour knew. 
 Where Turki-sh blood did his young hands imbrue; 
 From thence returning with deserv'd applause. 
 Against the Moors his wcll-llesh'd sword he draws ; 
 The same the courage, and the same the ciiuse. 
 His youth and age, his life and death, combine, 
 As in some great and regular design, 
 All of a piece tliroughout, and all divine. 
 Still nearer Heaven his virtues shone more bright. 
 Like rising (lames expanding in their height. 
 The martyr's glory crown'd the soldier's light. 
 More bravely British general ne'er fell. 
 Nor general's death was e'er reveng'd so well ; 
 This his pleas'd eyes beheld before their close, 
 Follow'd by thousand victims of his foes. 
 To his lamented loss, for times to come, 
 His pious widow consecrates this tomb.
 
 104 
 
 WESTMINSTER ABBEY. 
 
 new order of things. In parliament, lie supported 
 the ministry on many important questions, and 
 opposed tiiem in others. By this conduct he at 
 leiij^th secured no inconsiderable honours: he was 
 created Mai-quis of Normanby, with a pension of 
 3090/. a-year. The reign of Queen Anne, whose 
 hand he is said to have once sought, consummated 
 his political distinction. With the prosperity of 
 her government the oldest associations of his heart 
 accorded, and he was highly favoured by her. Slie 
 entrusted him with the privy seal; reinstated him 
 in the lord lieutenancy of Yorkshire; made him 
 one of the commissioners for arranging the union 
 with Scotland; and evinced her sense of the manner 
 in which he discharged these offices, by raising him 
 in 1703 to the dukedom, first of Normanby, and 
 afterwards of Buckingham. 
 
 Favourites have many enemies, but often none 
 greater than themselves. Of this fault Bucking- 
 ham is an instance: he grew jealous of the rapidity 
 with which the Duke of Marlborough prospered, 
 and threw up his appointments in a pique. 
 
 This hastiness proved the value attaclied to his 
 support, for the queen courted him back with an 
 offer of tlie chanceliorsliip; but he declined the 
 honoui*, and retired from public life. Thencefor- 
 ward literature became tlie occupation of his life, 
 and he enjoyed the fortune he had acquired iu ease 
 and dignity. He built the palace long known by 
 his name in St. James's Park, and amused himself 
 with writing two tragedies, "Julius Cresar," and 
 " Marcus Brutus," which, though never acted, were 
 intended for the stage. They are unworthily founded 
 upon or rather altered from Shakspeare, with musical 
 chorusses between the acts, after the ancient style; 
 but, however conspicuous in the catalogue of works 
 by royal and noble authors, are to be read with 
 little interest, and remembered for little praise. 
 
 Before the Queen's death he again appeared at 
 court ill his old office of lord chamberlain, and was 
 president of the council in Harley's administration: 
 after the ascent of George I. lived unemployed, in 
 constant opposition to the ministry, until Feb. 24, 
 17"21, on which day he quietly expired in the arms 
 of his wife. Though thrice married, and blessed 
 with several children, he left only one son, who 
 dying soon after, the honours of a long line of 
 ancestry became extinct in his person. 
 
 Sheffield's works are but few, and their merit is 
 small. They are divided principally into songs, 
 liglit pieces, essays, and satires, and are composed, 
 almost without an exception, in a style now obsolete 
 and uninteresting. His "Essay on Satire," in which 
 he was helped by Dryden, has been much com- 
 
 mended, but that on poetry deserves to be most 
 read. Tliis is the pei-formance he himself valued 
 the highest, and finished with the greatest care. 
 It is noticed in terms of approbation, both by 
 Dryden and by Pope, and cannot be denied the 
 praise of being constructed with judgment, and 
 expressed with melody. A volume of memoirs by 
 hiin is written in so lively and perspicuous a style, 
 that many who have been disappointed with him 
 as a poet, have willuigly awarded him tlie praise of 
 elegance in prose. 
 
 An edition of his poems was published after his 
 death, witli the following enthusiastic advertise- 
 ment: — 
 
 To the memory of 
 John Sheffield, Duke of Buckinghamshire. 
 These, his more lasting remains, the monuments of 
 his mind, and moi-e perfect image of him- 
 self, are here collected, by the 
 direction of 
 Catherine, his Duchess, 
 Desirous that his ashes may be honoured, and his 
 Fame and Merit committed to the test of 
 Time, Truth, and Posterity. 
 
 An edition of his works, comprising poems, his- 
 torical memoirs, speeches, characters, critical ob- 
 servations, and essays, was printed, in two volumes, 
 4to, by Alderman Barber, during the year 1723. A 
 reprint in two volumes, 8vo, took place in 1727, 
 in which, however, some passages were sillily sup- 
 pressed, because the scrupulosity of the editors 
 deemed them dangerous, and offensive to the prin- 
 ciples of the revolution. 
 
 Pope wrote some lines, which are held to consti- 
 tute the best of his epitaplis, for Buckingham's son 
 Edmund, who died a minor at Rome during the 
 year 1735, and they are printed here, because that 
 young nobleman is also commemorated on his 
 father's monument. 
 
 " If modest youth, with cool reflection crowned, 
 And every opening virtue blooming round, 
 Could save a parent's justest pride from fate, 
 Or add one patriot to a sinking State — 
 This weeping marble had not asked a tear, 
 Or sadly told how many hopes lie here. 
 Thy living virtue now had shone approved, 
 The senate heard him, and his country loved. 
 Yet softer honours, and less noisy fame, 
 Attend the shade of gentle Buckingham — 
 In whom, a race for courage famed, and art, 
 Ends in the milder merit of the heart ; 
 And chiefs and sages, long to Britain given, 
 Pa)- the last tribute, of a saint, to Heaven !" 
 
 JAMES, EARL OF STANHOPE. 
 
 James, first Earl of Stanhope, has a lofty monu- 
 ment adjoining the principal entrance into the choir 
 of Westminster Abbey. It is an elaborate and 
 costly production, designed with no fertile imagina- 
 tion by William Kent, painter and architect, and 
 executed with much freedom and skill by Michael 
 Rysbrack. The Earl, clad as an ancient warrior, 
 is introduced in a recumbent posture, clasping a 
 truncheon in his riglit, and a scroll in his left hand; 
 
 at his feet stands an urchin leaning against a shield ; 
 a state tent protects his person, upon the crown of 
 which is seated an armed Pallas, with a javelin in 
 one hand, and a scroll in the other: a pyramid 
 conceals the background; and thus the perform- 
 ance is in every respect a counterpiece to the 
 monument of Newton, on the other side of the 
 door. The first inscription is a Latin one, to this 
 effect : —
 
 JAMES, EARL OF STANHOPE. 
 
 105 
 
 M. S. 
 
 Viri Pra>nobilis Jacobi Comitis Stanhope, qiiem, 
 pro nmltii'aria Iiigeiiii Prajst.intia, Spleiulida Hono- 
 rum varietas jrradatim illustravit. Castris ab iiieunte 
 Adolespentia iiimitritns, perpetua Titulorum Serie 
 ad militaris Fastiujii Gloriam, sine invidia viam sibi 
 niunivit. Quid Exereitus Imperator gessit, Testis 
 est HisPANiA, et affixa veraci Pi'oeconio loqueutur 
 Numisraata. 
 
 Nee in Civilibus Rebus dirigendis minorem 
 adeptus est Celebritatem: cum nullum fere esset 
 Officium lllustrius in quo Ipsum nou exercuit For- 
 tuna Patrite, in quo Ipse non cmieuit Adjutor 
 Patria; Fidus et Sagax Regi a Secretis. Foederum 
 gravissimorum Auctor fuit Perfeetorque in ^rarii 
 Administratione caste versatus delieatam Publiea- 
 rum Pecuniarum Fidem temperate solerter Foenore, 
 conservavit intrgram. In utraque Senatus Curia 
 vivida dieendi Faeultate prispollens, arrectos audi- 
 torum animos iuflanmiavit, Ipse intei'ea in medio 
 ardentis Eloquii t«stu, immota Judicii Tranquilli- 
 tate sibi constaus. 
 
 Has Belli Paeisque Artes SuavissiniiB Indolis 
 Humauitate condientem, pnlitiorisque Doctrinte 
 Deliciis Intervalla Negotiorum elegantissime dis- 
 tinguentem, Patriie diutius prodesse, nisi per super- 
 stitera opliinaj spei progeniem, vetuit Mors prrema- 
 tui'a, Quinto Die Feb. a. d. 1720, ^Etatis Suaj 4?. 
 
 Sacred to the Memory of 
 James, Earl of Stanhope, a man supremely 
 noble, and for his many excellent qualities of mind, 
 step after step adorned by a splendid variety of 
 honours. Bred in the camp from his earliest youth, 
 lie opened for himself, without envy, a path to the 
 glory of military pi-e-eminence by <an imbroken 
 series of distinctions. What he achieved as the 
 commander of an army, Spain is a witness, and our 
 medals stamped with veracious eulogy, proclaim. 
 
 Nor did he acquire less celebrity in the manage- 
 ment of civil affairs; for there was no illustrious 
 office in which the fortune of his country did not 
 exercise his talents, and in which he did not shine 
 as the faithful servant of that country, and the wise 
 counsellor of his king. He negotiated treaties the 
 most weighty; and, when connected with the admi- 
 nistration of the treasury, preserved the credit of a 
 delicate cun-ency undepi-eciated, by adjusting the 
 coinage with perfect ingenuity and chaste disin- 
 terestedness. In either senate-house he prevailed 
 with vivid ])owers of speech, inflamed the erect 
 spirits of his audience, and meanwhile stood in the 
 midmost heats of ardent eloquence, true to liimself 
 in umnoved tranquillity of judgment. 
 
 Tempering these arts of peace and war by a 
 humanity of disposition the most sweet, and ele- 
 gantly distinguishing the intervals of business by 
 the delights of mon; than polished learning, he was 
 forbidden any longer to benefit his country, save 
 through a surviving offs])ring of the best ]iromise, 
 by a premature death, on tlu; fifth day of February, 
 in the year of our Lord 1720, and of his age 47- 
 
 James, first Earl of Stanhope, was the grandson 
 of i'iiilip first Earl of ("liesterfield, by bis second 
 wife, Ann, daut^liter of Sir John Pacliiugton. He 
 was born in Hiriloidshiri- in Ki/'t. V'isiiing Spain, 
 at a very <;arly age, with his fadier, who was envoy 
 extraorilinary from William HI., he acquired a 
 thorough knowledge of tlio language of tlie country, 
 
 and there adopted the profession of arms. He made 
 a tour of France and Italy, and by liis gallantry at 
 the siege of Namur attracted the attention of King 
 William, who gave him a company on the field, 
 and soon after made him colonel of the 33d foot! 
 Stanliope was only in his twenty-second year, at 
 this time : before the accession of Queen Anne he 
 entered parliament as meml)er for Coekermnuth, 
 and attracted notice, but his military soon eclipsed 
 his civil reputation. In 1704, he was taken prisoner 
 at Porta-la-Grara, in Portugal ; but, being speedily 
 exchanged, obtained the rank of brigadier-general, 
 and greatly distinguished hiinself at the ensuing 
 siege of Barcelona, under the Earl of Peterborough. 
 The reduction of Minorca was the most important 
 and dexterous achievement of his career. In 1707, 
 he was conmiissioned to negotiate a treaty with 
 Spain; and, after discharging his trust advanta- 
 geously, was appointed ambassador at the court of 
 Charles III. When a fresh rupture took place, he 
 again figured at the head of an army, and reduced 
 Port Maiion in I7O8. In I7IO he commanded the 
 allied troops in Spain; and, after killing the Spanish 
 general with his own hands before the gates of 
 Madrid, planted the colours of England in that 
 subjugated capital. Before the year closed, how- 
 ever, he met with a reverse, and had the mortifi- 
 cation to be taken ])risoner, with 3000 chosen troops, 
 at Briheuza. For this act he was censured by the 
 House of Lords. The reign of George 1., with wliom 
 he was a confidential favourite, brought him his 
 highest acquisition of honours. In 1714 he im- 
 peached the Duke of Orniond; in 1715 was nomi- 
 nated a member of the privy council, and secretary 
 at war; and in 1710 made one of the princi[ial 
 secretaries of state. During the following year he 
 became first commissioner of the treasury, and 
 chancellor of the cxehequei-, and was raised to the 
 peerage with the titles of Lord Mahon, and Earl 
 Stanhope. In 17 18 he resigned his post at the 
 Treasury, exchanging the seals of that oHiee with 
 Lord Sunderland for those of priiici])al secretary 
 of state. This was his last official situation, 
 and he did honour to it, by bringing in a bill 
 for the modification of the Test and Corporation 
 Acts, which, after an animated opposition, was 
 declared part and parcel of the law. The circum- 
 stances of his death were of a marked and distress- 
 ing character. Many of his colleagues being deeply 
 implicated in the South Sea Scheme, and amongst 
 them his cousin, Mr. C. Stanhope, the secretary of 
 the treasury, he exerted liimself with great zeal and 
 assiduity to prevent the connnons from passing votes 
 against them, while their separate cases were under 
 discussion by that body. His cousin was ac(|uitted, 
 and so was the Earl of Sunderland, but Mr. Aislabie, 
 the chancellor of the exchecjuer, was found guilty. 
 During (lUv. of tlu; many deliates u|ion these trans- 
 actions in the lords, the Duke of Wharton made 
 a sjieech strongly reflecting upon the I'^arl of Stan- 
 hope, in replying to which the latter vindicati:d 
 himsidf with so nuich excitement, and so warm a 
 degree of violence, as to cause a sudden determina- 
 tion of blood to the head. He felt so ill on resuming 
 his seat as to b(! obliged to leave the house. l'|)iiii 
 reaching his house he wascujiped inunedialely, and 
 again in the morning, but with slight relief. !S'o 
 fatal result was then dreaded: towai'ds eviiiiiig 
 however ho felt drowsy, and turning himself on his 
 face expired. His death was dejjlored as a public
 
 lOfJ 
 
 WESTMINSTER ABBEY. 
 
 calamity, and George 1., who was strongly attached 
 to him, was so much affected by the occurrence as 
 to shut himself up in his closet and remain inconsol- 
 able for some time. 
 
 Earl Stanhope was a man of decided talents and 
 clear reputation in the various offices with which 
 his name is associated. His public zeal was strong 
 and well directed; his services were highly advan- 
 tageous to his country, and his character accord- 
 ingly has been most favourably ajipreciated by our 
 historians. He was a sincere friend to the princi- 
 ples of the revolution, civil and religious, and unlike 
 
 many of his contemporaries, was always prepa^red to 
 reduce them to practice. The liberality of his sen- 
 timents, and his political sagacity, were eminently 
 displayed in the desire he entertained, and the 
 endeavours he made while minister, to procure the 
 abolition of the Penal Laws against the Catholics. 
 In this just and noble aspiration he did not succeed; 
 but it is not the less certain that the statesman, who 
 in his mind's eye, and his sense of what was just 
 and politic, anticipated the legislation of his country 
 by more tlian a century, must have possessed no 
 common penetration and ability. 
 
 JAMES CRAGGS. 
 
 Amongst the members of Lord Stanhope's minis- 
 try who were compromised by the South Sea bub- 
 ble, was one who has a monument against the wall 
 of the Consistory Court, at the west end of the 
 south aisle. Here may be seen dressed in antique 
 costume, a figure, large as life, of the Right 
 Honourable James Craggs, secretary of state, and 
 the friend of Pope. The poet has lavished praise 
 upon his memory, of which he does not appear to 
 have been clearly worthy. There are two inscrip- 
 tions, the first in Latin appears in gilt letters upon 
 an urn, which supports the figure of the de- 
 ceased. — 
 
 Jacobus Craggs, 
 
 Regi Magnae Britanni;e a Secretis 
 
 Et Consiliis Sanctioribus: 
 
 Principis pariter ac Populi Amor et DeliciiJe 
 
 Vixit Titulis et Invidia Major 
 
 Annos hen 
 
 Paucos XXXV. Ob. Feb. xvi., mdccxx. 
 
 Soroi-es McErentes P. A. Knight, E. Eliot, M. Collins. 
 
 On the base are Pope's panegyrical lines, — 
 
 Statesman, yet friend to truth ! of soul sincere, 
 
 In action faithful, yet in honour clear ! 
 
 Who broke no Promise, served no private end, 
 
 Who gained no Title, and who lost no Friend; 
 
 Ennobled by Himself, by all approv'd, 
 
 Praised, wept, and honour'd by the Muse he lov'd. 
 
 Of the person thus eloquently commended, the 
 love and delight of prince and people, a somewhat 
 different character might be given to that which 
 friendship and poetry have dra^^■n. His father, 
 who is said to have been originally a shoemaker, 
 amassed considerable wealth in the city, with the 
 vain hope of making this his only son a great and 
 wealthy man. The Report of the Committee of the 
 House of Commons on the South Sea Company 
 fixed Craggs, senior, with 300,000/., and his sou 
 with 30,000i?. But the latter was spared the ex- 
 treme proof of having thus " served his private 
 ends " by an attack of the small-pox, which proved 
 fatal just before the bubble burst. 
 
 SIR GODFREY KNELLER, BART. 
 
 Sir Godfrey Kneller was one of those vainest of 
 mortals who are so weak and conceited as to pro- 
 vide their tombs before they die. He left 300/. 
 for the purpose of erecting a monument to his 
 name, fui-nishing himself a design for it, which he 
 entrusted to Rysbrack, the statuary, with par- 
 ticular di^-ections concei-ning the style in which it 
 ought to be finished. The labour thus solicitously 
 instituted, is honoured with a place at the ex- 
 tremity of the north aisle *, and consists of his own 
 
 • His intention, howe\'er, was not to have the monument 
 put up in Westminster Abbey, but in Twickenham Church, 
 and there it would in all probability have been erected, but 
 that the spot chosen for it had been pre-occupied by a tablet 
 to Pope's father. When Sir Godfrey died, the poet would 
 not consent to give the painter the place held by his father; 
 and after a long and angry correspondence, and the pointing 
 of sundry smart epigrams. Sir Godfrey, though buried near 
 Twickenham, has his monument here. Sir Godfrey, says 
 Pope, writing to Lord Stratford, sent to me just before he 
 died. He began by telling me he was now convinced he 
 could not live, and fell into a passion of tears. I said, I 
 hoped he might ; but that if not, he knew it was the will of 
 God. He answered, " No, no ; it is the evil spirit." The next 
 word he said was this : " By God I will not be buried in 
 Westminster Abbey." I asked him why? He answered, 
 "They do bury fools there." Then he said to me, "My 
 
 bust standing under a rich canopy, which is con- 
 fined by gilt cords, trimmed with gilt fringe, and 
 supported by a high pedestal of fine workmanship. 
 One cherub, in tears, points to the bust, and an- 
 other hangs over a medallion of Lady Kneller. 
 There are two insci'iptions upon the pedestal : the 
 one in Latin, which merely recapitulates that he 
 was a kuight of the Roman empire, an English 
 baronet, and painter to five successive sovereigns ; 
 the other in English, by Pope, vvho has here spun 
 an eulogistic paraphrase of the elegiac couplet 
 written by Cardinal Bembo under the bust of 
 Raphael in the Pantheon at Rome. The Imes are: — 
 
 " nie est hie Raphael, timuit, quo sospite, vinci 
 Rerum magna parens, et moriente mori." 
 
 The inscriptions are engraved in the following 
 order : — 
 
 GoDEFREDi Kneller Equitis Rom. Imp. et Anglise 
 
 Baronetti Pictoris Regibus Cai'olo II. Jacobi H. 
 
 Gulielmo III. Annce Reginse, Georgio I. Qui Obiit 
 
 XXVI. Oct. An. MDCCXXiii. ^tat. lxxvii. 
 
 good friend, where will you be buried ?" I said, " Wherever 
 I drop: very likely in Twitnam." He replied, "So will I ;" 
 then proceeded to desire I would write his epitaph, which I 
 promised him.
 
 SIR GODFREY KNELLER. 
 
 107 
 
 Kneller, by Heav'n, and not a Master taught, 
 Whose Art was Nature, and whose Pictures Thought, 
 \\'lien now two Ages he had snateh'd from Fate, 
 AVhate'er was Lieauteous, or whate'er was Great ; 
 Rests crown'd with Prinoes' Honours, Poets' Lays, 
 Due to his Merit and brave Thirst of Praise ; 
 Livuig, great Nature fear'd he might outvie 
 Her works ; and dying, fears herself may die. 
 
 Godfrey Kneller was born at Lubeck in 164G, to 
 the mines of which city his father, an architect by 
 profession, was surveyor. He was intended for 
 the army, and sent to study mathematics and the 
 science of fortification at the University of Leyden. 
 There, however, a natural jiredilection for the fine 
 ai'ts impelled him to make some eftorts in painting, 
 which were so well approved, that his father con- 
 sented to change the intended course of his life, 
 and permitted him to receive instructions from 
 Bol, at Amsterdam. At a subsequent period he 
 had also the houom- of taking some lessons from 
 Rembrandt. 
 
 Acquiring means to visit Italy in his twenty- 
 second year, he became a disciple of Carlo Maratti 
 and Bernini, made a considerable stay at Venice, 
 and, after devoting some time to study the works 
 of Titian and Annibal Caracci, became an histori- 
 cal painter on his own account. As his productions 
 were striking, he rose into immediate notice, and 
 acquired the pati-onage of the wealthier families in 
 the city with enviable rapidity. He did not, how- 
 ever, continue long attached to the higher branches 
 of the profession ; but, instigated by a thirst for 
 emolument, which ever after infected him, soon 
 descended into the more lucrative employment of 
 portrait painting. This course once adopted, he 
 adhered to with constancy, and was accustomed to 
 excuse, by observing, that historical painters made 
 the dead live, but only began to live themselves 
 after they were dead in tlieir turn ; whereas, he 
 who painted the living was kept alive by his sub- 
 jects. This sentiment, so mercenary, and unworthy 
 of the nobility of genius, has been severely cen- 
 sured. Portrait painting, nevertheless, is honour- 
 ably deserving of great rewards, for it is the hand- 
 maid of history, and renders services the most 
 valualde, by preserving the faithful image of the 
 characters who impart interest and dignity to the 
 records of national affairs. 
 
 Kneller's first visit to England took place in 
 IG74 ; and his first introduction of note was to the 
 Duke of Monmouth. So flattering were his recom- 
 mendations, that the duke sat to him for a portrait, 
 which gave com])lete satisfaction, and induced his 
 grace to prevail upon Charles II. to follow his ex- 
 ample. It so happened that Sir Peter Lcly was 
 just then busy upon a similar work, and the indo- 
 lent monarch, to save himself (rouble, sat to both 
 artists at the same time. Lely, as the cotu't paintci', 
 had the advantage of choosing his light and position; 
 while Kneller was obliged to catcli his traits as he 
 could, and yet succeeded best ; for even his com- 
 petitor acknowledged that ho drew with ba]i])ier 
 despatch, and coloured a more faithi'ul liUcncss. 
 The king received the performance wilh unqualified 
 applause, and his rcjiutalion was furtliwitli estab- 
 lished : orders and sittings nmltiiiliid iiic;(\ssantly 
 upon liim, and lie quickly determined to fix his 
 residence in England. 
 
 In IQiO Sir Peter Lely di( rl, and Kneller was 
 
 promoted to the rank thus vacated, of portrait 
 jjainter to his majesty, who, four years after, sent 
 him to Paris to take a picture of Louis XIV. 
 During this interval, the death of Charles occurred; 
 but Kneller lost nothing by the event, for he was 
 distinguished with great favours by his successor, 
 who also sat for a portrait. The revolution tended 
 still more to augment his prosperity : he was com- 
 missioned by William to paint the plenijiotentiaries 
 at Ryswick ; and upon his return to England m 
 IG92, was knighted, presented with a gold medal 
 and chain, valued at three hundred guineas, and 
 nominated a gentleman of the Privy Chamber. 
 This was the climax of his career : for Willi;im, or 
 rather for William's Queen Mary, he painted his 
 portraits of the British admirals, his beauties of 
 Hampton Court. During the reign of William, he 
 also made his celebrated likenesses of the Kit-Cat 
 Club. His official employments and state patron- 
 age were continued under equal circumstances tif 
 regard during the reign of Anne, who employed 
 him to paint her a picture of Charles, then Arch- 
 duke, but afterwards Emperor of Austria, an occu- 
 pation for which he was recompensed by the title of 
 Hereditary Knight of the Roman Em])ire. Equally 
 prized by both the great contending parties in the 
 nation, no vicissitudes in the order of state pro- 
 ceedings could afi'ect his popularity : by George I. 
 he was caressed as signally as by any of his pre- 
 decessors, and created a Baronet. George, too, 
 was the last of five British sovereigns who sat to 
 him for their portraits, and were ail outlived by 
 him. 
 
 Employment thus protracted, and popularity so 
 constant, of course begot a circle of acquaintances 
 equally extensive, and a fortune comparatively 
 ample, which was enhanced by the particular 
 friendship of some of the first men of the age. 
 Though eager in the acquisition of money, Kneller 
 was not altogether illiberal in the use he made of 
 his gains, and led a life of hospitality and tasteful 
 magnificence. He h)st 20,000/. by the South St^a 
 bubiile, but recovered his means so carefully as to 
 leave behind him an estate of 2000/. a year at his 
 death. It was somewhat burthened, however; and 
 was realized by charging twenty guineas for a 
 head ; twenty-five for a head with one hand intro- 
 duced on the canvass ; thirty for a half, and sixty 
 guineas for a whole length jiicture. He kept a 
 coimtry-house at Whitton, near Hampton Court, 
 and was there accustomed to entertain the first 
 wits and best authors of his day. By these he was 
 value<l, not solely as a painter, but also as a 
 humourist, a man of lively conversational talent, 
 and eminent for rej)artee. As a member of the lut- 
 Cat (^lub, lu' was the intimate associate of nobU'mcn 
 and statesmen of the highest rank and nu'rit, from 
 whom he derived no mean ])ortion of his celc))rily. 
 A licentious man, ]iarticularly in matters concern- 
 ing religion, he was also a very free liver, and yet 
 enjoyed cajjital health, almost to the very last 
 stage of an advanced old age. He never once 
 ceased to cultivate his art, and died in consequence 
 of th(! enervation ])ro(luced by a fever, from which 
 ho was jiai-tially recovered by the skill of Dr. 
 Mead, in October, 172K. His obs('(|ui(s were ceU'- 
 bratrd with Haltering i)om[) : the body lay in stale 
 in London, and was tlu^n removed to a vault ex- 
 pressly ]>rei)ared for its reception at Whitton. 
 It is to Kneller we must trace the dawning of a
 
 108 
 
 WESTMINSTER ABBEY. 
 
 Royal Academy, for we are told that an associa- 
 tiou of artists, for the purpose of exhibiting paint- 
 ings, was instituted in 1711. Tliey held their 
 meetings at the private residence of some one 
 member or another, and chose Sir Godfrey head 
 of their body ; but no account of their proceedings 
 has been preserved. Kneller's principal ])erform- 
 ances have already been mentioned ; they comprise 
 the pieces at Hampton Court Palace ; the series of 
 Admirals, originally dispersed amongst the Royal 
 Palaces, but latterly allocated at Greenwich Hos- 
 pital, by George IV. ; the heads of the Kit-Cat 
 Club ; and jiortraits of almost every character who 
 figured with distinction during the long period of 
 his lifetime. Of all his productions, lie is said to 
 have set the highest value upon "The Chinese Con- 
 verted," in Windsor Castle ; and certainly it is 
 eminently entitled to all the honours of his pre- 
 ference. But if it displays how much he could 
 effect, it also inspii'es a regret that he should have 
 so rarely exerted the fulness of his powers. Upon 
 a par with this, in the porti'ait line, may be placed 
 a head of Sir Isaac Newton, which it would not 
 disparage the pencil of any master to own. Nearly 
 all his pieces have been engraved. His drawing 
 is free and lively, but often loose ; his attitudes are 
 striking, but in the subordinate parts generally ill- 
 proportioned ; his colouring is frequently true, and 
 finely blended, but his imagination was poor. The 
 air of his heads, though characterised by a same- 
 ness which almost approaches to physiognomical 
 identity, is tasteful : the hair is made to fall with 
 marked ease and nature, and the drapery which lie 
 invented for his females is fanciful and engaging. 
 To judge, howevei", by the majority of his works, 
 he was a mere portrait painter ; he bestowed all 
 his care upon the head, and abandoned the rest of 
 the body to dulness and defects. This observation 
 applies to his best pei'formances ; but of the re- 
 maining multitude, which were evidently executed 
 for money alone, the blemishes are so many, and 
 so egregious, that it were vain to criticise their 
 
 faults : they lowered the art, and would sully the | 
 brightest talents. 
 
 Amongst other i^referments, Sir Godfi-ey en- 
 joyed the honour of acting in the commission of 
 the peace for the county of Middlesex, a trust in 
 which he acquired more credit for humanity than 
 legal judgment. Of his proceedings with this bias, 
 one anecdote has been preserved, which is so nota- 
 ble, that it deserves a place in every sketch of his 
 worship's life. A gentleman once charged his ser- 
 vant before Sir Godfrey with stealing some money, 
 which, as it appeared duriiig the course of the in- 
 quiry, had been exposed in a certain place for 
 the express purpose of tempting the poor fellow's 
 honesty. Whereupon the good-natured but indig- 
 nant artist dismissed the servant, and committed 
 the master to prison as the greater rogue. Pope 
 alludes to this peculiar ])rinciple of jurisprudence 
 in his " Imitations of Horace," book 2, epistle 2, 
 where he writes : — 
 
 " 'Faith, in such case if you should prosecute, 
 I thinli Sir Godfrey sliould decide the suit. 
 Who sent the thief wlio stole tlie cash away, 
 And punisiied him that put it in his way." 
 
 Kneller was as fond of flattei'y as of money, and 
 his vanity was enviably gratified ; for, to say 
 nothing of the complimentary treatment he always 
 received from the great, poets, not fewer or less 
 eminent than Dryden, Pope, Addison, Prior, and 
 Tickle, concurred in versifying his praises. Of 
 these various tributes, perhaps, Addison's Epistle 
 on his series of English sovereigns, pays the highest 
 compliment both upon the author and the artist. 
 At present grace and lively colouring are the chief 
 merits ascribed to Kneller ; while poverty of ima- 
 gination and insipidity of action ai-e the faults for 
 which he is most severely condemned. In his 
 heads alone he showed distinctive talent ; in his 
 figures, their attitudes, and drapery, he was com- 
 mon-place, dull, and inexpressive. 
 
 SIR ISAAC NEWTON. 
 
 The principal entrance into the choir is decorated 
 with a stately monument on the left hand to the 
 illustrious Newton, — 
 
 " whose sacred dust 
 Sleeps here with kings, and dignifies the scene." 
 
 Upon an elevated sarcophagus is a reclining statue, 
 with the right arm supported by four thick volumes, 
 which are inscribed Divinity, Chronology, Optics, 
 Phil. Prin. Math. ; and with the left arm pointing 
 to a scroll, which is upheld at his feet by winged 
 cherubs. The back ground is occupied by a lofty 
 pyramid, near the apex of which projects a large 
 globe, traced with the course of the comet, which 
 appeared iu 1081. Upon this globe is a figure of 
 Astronomy; and along the front of the sarcophagus 
 below, appears a basso-relievo, emblematical of the 
 various discoveries for which Newton has become 
 celebrated. Among these, a representation of the 
 sun weighed in a steelyard, has been commended 
 for ingenuity by the admirers of a curious idea. 
 
 The whole was executed by Rysbrack after a design 
 by Kent, and cost 500/., which was contributed, not 
 by the public, but by the great philosopher's family. 
 A Latin epitaph is cut upon the pedestal, of which 
 Di'. Johnson made this observation : " Had only 
 the name of Sir Isaac Newton been subjoined to 
 the design of this monument, instead of a long detail 
 of his discoveries, which no philosopher can want, 
 and which none but a philosopher can understand, 
 those by whose dii'ection it was raised had done 
 more honour both to him and to themselves." 
 
 H. S. E. 
 
 IsAACUS Newton, Eques Auratus, 
 
 Qui aniini vi prope divina 
 
 Planetarum Motus, Figiuas, 
 
 Cometarum Semitas, Oceauique ^Estus, 
 
 Sua Mathesi faciem pra>ferente, 
 
 Radiorum lucis dissimilitudines, 
 
 Colorumque inde nascentium pr(>prietates 
 
 Quas nemo aiitea vel suspicatus erat, pervestigavit.
 
 SIR ISAAC NEWTON. 
 
 109 
 
 Naturae, Antiquitatis, S. Scriptiu-LC 
 
 Sedulus, sagax, iidus Interi)ro3 
 
 Dei O. M. Majestatem Pliilosoiihia asseruit. 
 
 Evangelii simplicitatem nioribus expressit. 
 
 Sibi gratulentur Mortules 
 
 Tale tantumque exstitisse 
 
 HUMA.NI GENERIS DECUS ! 
 
 Nat. XXV. Dec. a.d. mdcxlii. Obiit xx. Nov. 
 
 A.D. MDCCXXVI. 
 
 Here is buried 
 
 Isaac Newton, KniL;!it, 
 
 Who, by a strengtli of mind almost divine, 
 
 And ilathematical principles peculiarly his own, 
 
 Explored — the Course and Figures of the Planets, 
 
 The Paths of Comets, the tides of the Sea, 
 
 The dissimilarities in Rays of light. 
 And, what no other scholar had previously 
 
 imagined, 
 
 The properties of the colours thus produced. 
 
 Diligent, sagacious, and faithful, 
 
 In his expositions of Nature, Antiquity, and the 
 
 Holy Scripturts, 
 He vindicated by his Philosophy the Majesty of 
 
 God mighty and good, 
 
 And expressed the simplicity of the Evangelist 
 
 in his manners. 
 
 Mortals rejoice 
 
 That there has existed such and so great 
 
 AN ORNAMENT OF THE HUMAN RACE! 
 
 He was born on the 2oth of December, 1642, and 
 
 died on the 20th of November, 172(?. 
 
 The manor of Woolsthorpe, in the parish of Col- 
 sterworih, Lincolnshire, was the- birth-i)lace of 
 Newton. He was an only child: his mother had 
 been left a widow about three months before he 
 was born, and subsequently entered into a second 
 marriage; but seems under all circumstances to 
 have discharged her duty to him with exemplary 
 care. Being sent to the grammar-school of Gran- 
 tham, the pregnancy of his mind and particular 
 bent of liis genius soon became conspicuous. He 
 furnished himself with a set of carpenter's tools, 
 and was continually occupied in making little 
 knick-knacks, which were much prized by his com- 
 panions for neatness and ingenuity. Hi^ was fond 
 of drawing, and used to amuse himself by taking 
 portraits of the scholars: but the most curious 
 anecdote of his boyhood is one which describes him 
 in the act of determining the force of the wind, by 
 comparing how much farther he could leap wiih it 
 than again.-^t it. 
 
 After jiassing through the course of study taught 
 at Grantham, his mother took him home, and |)ro- 
 posed that, as his father had done, and the ances- 
 t/jrs of his family before him for nearly three cen- 
 turies, so he too should live upun his estate, which 
 was Uien valued at about 120/. a-year, and cultivate 
 it himself. To this plan he acceded, but, in all 
 probability, with very little ardour ; for we are 
 told, that having occasion to go to a neighlxiuring 
 market soon after he becamt! a farmer, lie left his 
 business undone, and for a while eoulcl no wliere bo 
 found. At last souk; one happened to gr) into a 
 hayloft, and there young Newton was discovered, 
 abstracted in a mathematical proliicm, wlii(-h he 
 was working on the wall. This incident satisfied 
 his friends that he was fit for HomelhiiiK higher 
 
 than sowing and reaping, and accordingly, at the 
 suggestion of a maternal uncle, who was a clcrr'v- 
 nian in the vicinity, he was sent to Trinity College, 
 Cambridge, in his eighteenth year. 
 
 Newton was now in his proper sphere, and the 
 rapidity with which he developed the extraordinarv 
 powers of his mind, far exceeded the most san- 
 guine expectations. From Euclid, whom he quicklv 
 comprehended, but did not minutely analyze, he 
 was impelled by the fashion of the day to investi- 
 gate "Des Cartes," Ke|)ler's "Optics," and Dr. 
 Wallis's " Arithmetica Infinitorum." Upon this 
 latter work it has been conjectured that heah'eady 
 began to found the "New Method of Infinite Series 
 and Fluxions," which originally appeared in Latin, 
 but subsequently became better known by the trans- 
 lation of Mr. Colson, in 173U. Taking up his degree 
 of B.A. in 1CC4, he turned his thoughts to the im- 
 provement of telescopes. From the experiments 
 which he was induced to make for this jmrpose, 
 resulted his " New Theory of Light and Colours," 
 proving that light was not, as Des Cartes supposed, 
 homogeneous, but heterogeneous, being created by 
 a union of rays differently refrangible. 
 
 He was still immei'sed in this subject, and the 
 telescope, when the plague broke out, and compelled 
 him to take refuge in the country, where he spent 
 two years removed from all congenial associations, 
 and sevei-ely devoted to his books. But it was 
 comparatively of little moment where Newton 
 happened to be placed, for his mind was always 
 on the alert for discoveries. In this rustic retreat, 
 an event, sim])le and fortuitous as it is possible to 
 conceive, prompted him into a speculation upon 
 which he founded the great law of gravitation, and 
 established his theory of the universe. Sitting one 
 day by himself in a garden, he saw an ajjple fall 
 from a tree, and by this trivial circumstance was 
 led to sup])Ose, that as the power with which this 
 and all bodies fall is uniform, and not sensibly dimi- 
 nished at the fartliest distance from the centre of 
 the earth to which we can rise, so it must be rea- 
 sonable to conclude that the principle governs all 
 matter. As an apple falls from a tree, thought the 
 philosopher, so would it fall from the moon. Pur- 
 suing this train of i-eHexion, and comparing the 
 periods of the various planets with their distances 
 from the sun, he ascertained that if any power like 
 gravity retained them in their courses, the strength 
 of that power must decrease in a duplicate propor- 
 tion to the distance of its action. Such, in the 
 issue, was the foundation of his celebrated theory; 
 but at the beginning he was not s;itistted with lus 
 experiments, and for an interval laid aside the 
 idea. 
 
 Returning to Cambridge, in lfi67, He pi-oceeded 
 M.A. and soon after had his attention somewhat 
 diverted from all his late I'lKjuiries by the friendly 
 care of Dr. Harrow, who resitiiicd in his favour the 
 University Professorship of Mathematics during the 
 year ICC!). And here it may not prove unintei-- 
 esting to observe, that the intimacy between these 
 two distinguished men connnenced, as if by a 
 symjiathy of genius, almost at the first moment of 
 Newton's entrance at Canibridg<', and continued 
 close and ])ropitious as long as they were permitted 
 to enjoy a coiiimon s]iher(! of existence. After a 
 litth- hesitation, Newton made his discoveries in 
 Optics the .suliject of a course of lectures, during 
 wliich lie brought his doctrine of light and colours
 
 no 
 
 WESTMINSTER ABBEY. 
 
 to a state so perfectly satisfactory, that he commu- 
 nicated it to the Royal Society, of which he had for 
 some time been a member. It was accordingly 
 inserted in their " Transactions " for IG72, but 
 gave rise to a controversy so violent and so painful 
 to the inventor, that he suppressed the publication 
 of his lectures, which were at that time in the 
 press ; abandoned the completion of his " Infinite 
 Series," and drew back his ambition to the con- 
 struction of an improved telescope. Thei'e remains, 
 however, a distinct publication to be mentioned, 
 which he gave the world during the coui'se of the 
 same year. It was entitled " Bernardi Varenii 
 Geographia Generalis, in qua affectiones generales 
 Telluris explicantur, aucta et illustrata ab I. New- 
 ton — The General Geography of Bernard Varenius, 
 in which the general affections of the Earth are 
 explained, augmented and illustrated by I. New- 
 ton." 
 
 By this time Newton was engaged in an extensive 
 correspondence with the best philosophical scholars 
 of the age, both at home and abroad, amongst whom 
 Leibnitz, perhaps, held the first rank. To him he 
 was induced to communicate his invention of the 
 " Infinite Series," a civility which led to painful 
 altercations. After making several observations 
 respecting a comet which appeared in 1680, he 
 occupied himself in drawing up several propositions 
 respecting the motion and orbit of the moon: these 
 were afterwards embodied in the " Philosophical 
 Transactions" for 1G83. He now devoted himself 
 exclusively to the composition of his " Principia," 
 which were sent from the press in 1687, under the 
 title of " Philosophite Naturalis Principia Mathe- 
 matica — -The Mathematical Principles of Natural 
 Philosophy." This was indeed a work mighty and 
 profound, but one, at first, neither well received 
 nor understood. It was an abstruse labour, re- 
 quiring the deepest study from the most scientific, 
 and even now that it has been ably explained and 
 in a manner amply paraphrased, it is far from intel- 
 ligible to ordinary understandings. The argumen- 
 tation is by no means perspicuous and consecutive, 
 the scholar is aided by nothing like that simple 
 order which so much delights in Euclid; the Prin- 
 cipia are not arranged according to the logical pre- 
 ciseness of definition, theorem, and corollary, but 
 ai'e to be comprehended and mastered by study, 
 intense and long, patient comparison, and the 
 application of original talent. To possess himself 
 fully of the genius of Newton is an enterprise for 
 which a man must bring with him no mean acquire- 
 ments of his own. Of the opinions which were 
 provoked by such a mass of profound thought and 
 immense penetration, one anecdote may supply an 
 idea :• — the Marquis de I'Hopital, himself a clever 
 mathematician, is said, in speaking of the work, to 
 have asked an Englishman, " Does Monsieur New- 
 ton eat, drink, and sleep, like other mortals ? To 
 me he appears a celestial genius, entii'ely disen- 
 gaged from matter." 
 
 During the course of the same year, Newton 
 further popularised his name, by taking a forward 
 part in the proceedings through which the Univer- 
 sity of Cambridge resisted the mandamus by which 
 James II. endeavoured to procure a degree of M.A. 
 for the Benedictine Father Francis. He was soon 
 after returned to the House of Commons for the 
 University, and retained his seat until the conven- 
 tion parliament was dissolved. lu 1696 he was 
 
 patronised by Montague, afterwards Earl of Halifax, 
 who procured for him the appointment of warden 
 in the Mint, of which establishment he rose to be 
 master in the course of three years. Upon first 
 undertaking this new avocation he resigned his 
 professorship of mathematics, in favour of the 
 eccentric Whiston, and established himself in a 
 house in Leicester- Sti-eet, Leicester Fields, where 
 the emoluments of his office, which amounted to 
 1200^. a-year, enaljled him to live with ease and 
 dignity. In 1702 he was elected president of the 
 Royal Society, and during the course of the follow- 
 ing year puMished his " Optics, a Treatise of the 
 Reflexions, Refractions, Inflexions, and Colours of 
 Light." This was his favourite work ; he had 
 allotted the occasional labours of no less than thirty 
 jears to verify the experiments upon which it was 
 founded, and it was fully entitled to all the honours 
 of his partiality: for in this science it has been 
 justly remarked that he long stood solitary and 
 pre-eminent. In his " Fluxions," which formed a 
 compendium to the " Treatise on Optics," and also 
 in the principle of gravity by which he resolved the 
 solar system, hints were borrowed, and facts adopted 
 from others; but in dissecting the particles which 
 compose a ray of light, in showing that they ad- 
 mitted of no farther distinction, and in discovering 
 the peculiar refrangibility into which the particles 
 thus separated diverged; he revealed most of the 
 mysteries in the science of light, and nearly com- 
 pleted all the knowledge to be attained of its beau- 
 ties. It should not however be concealed, that the 
 theory of light had previously been illustrated by 
 Grimaldi the Jesuit, who, dying at Bologna in 1663, 
 left behind him " Physico-Mathesis de Lumine, 
 Coloribus, et Tride, aliisqueannexis, Lib. II." This 
 work was printed in 1665. The experiments upon 
 which it was founded principally regarded the in- 
 flexions of the rays in reaching a substance, and 
 their dilation on the pi-ism. So far Newton was 
 preceded, but his discovery of their refrangibility 
 was original. Here too it is observable that Leibnitz 
 divides with Newton the honour of discovernig the 
 diff"erential calculus. As this event led to a long 
 and angry controversy, and at one time waxed so 
 warm as to be considered a matter of national 
 jealousy, we shall add a few words explanatory of 
 the position in which the circumstances have been 
 placed by Dr. Guhrauer, the author of " The Life 
 of Leibnitz," published at Breslau in 1843. The 
 doctor does equal justice to the Englishman and 
 the German, contendmg for an independent disco- 
 very by each, on the ground that the " Fluxional 
 Method," and " Diffei-ential Calculus," are not 
 identical inventions, but diff"ei*ent discoveries, origi- 
 nating in separate sources and occupying diff"erent 
 splieres of application. Philosophy came to Leibnitz 
 and Newton by two very different routes. The 
 former received it from the scholastic writers first, 
 and afterwards from Des CaTtes. Newton's mind 
 was educated in strictly mathematical exercises, 
 aided by optical experiments and developed by the 
 study of astronomy. Copernicus, Tycho Brahe, 
 Kepler, and Galileo were his masters This origi- 
 nal diversity in the character of their studies induced 
 a like diversity in the results at which they respec- 
 tively arrived. " Not by the fluxions of lines," says 
 Leibnitz, " but by the differences of number, did 
 I come to that result — and this way I think the 
 most analytic." Leibnitz communicated clear traces
 
 SIR ISAAC NEWTON. 
 
 Ill 
 
 of this discovery in Ausjust l(i^6, and as Biot ob- 
 serves, " went farther tlian was necessary to show 
 Newton that he [Leibnitz] was already at least on 
 the way to a calculus similar to fluxions, and that he 
 was already close on the same, if he did not already 
 possess it." Thereupon Newton, who had discovered 
 fluxions in 166.), hastens to i-elate that he possessed 
 certain methods of univei'sal application, but instead 
 of communicating them, he wrapped them up in 
 two anagrams of transposed letters, and so founded 
 his title to a priority of the invention deposited in 
 Leibnitz own hands. " This disposition to conceal- 
 ment," well observes Dr. Guhrauei", " this envy at 
 discoveries in the kingdom of spirits, in the empire 
 of truth, Newton shares with the greatest geometers 
 and natural philosophers of his age," which Goethe, 
 with particular reference to Newton, seemed dis- 
 posed even to justify from human nature, when he 
 observes, " Viewed very closely, the contests on the 
 priority of a discovery, are contests for existence 
 itself. Galileo, to preserve himself, deposited his 
 discoveries in anagrams, with dates attached to 
 them, with his fi'iends, and so secured himself the 
 honour of possession. As soon as academies and 
 societies formed themselves, they were the proper 
 courts of justice which had to receive and keep 
 them. A man mentioned his discovery, a protocol 
 was made of it, preserved in the acts, and the author 
 could thereby prove his claim. Thus Newton in 
 I67I brings forward his newly found catoptric 
 telescope, he lays it before the academy and requests 
 them to preserve his claim to it. And so he depo- 
 sited after six yeai's his discovery of his Fluxions 
 Reckoning in Anagrams, in the hands of his rival 
 — this time not without danger of his reputation, 
 and even of his honour." 
 
 The profound labours by which Newton earned 
 his fame have here been faintly recapitulated, and 
 the honours with which it was crowned ai'e now to 
 be noticed. Queen Anne distinguished him by 
 particular notice, and gave him his knighthood in 
 1705. During the following reign favours more 
 gracious awaited him; for Caroline, Princess of 
 Wales, having a taste for philosophical pursuits, 
 frequently courted his society, and used to make a 
 boast of being born in the same age with him. It 
 was to this princess that he communicated the ma- 
 nuscript of a chronological work, which he had 
 composed for his jjrivale satisfaction, but did not 
 intend to publish. IL^r royal highness, however, 
 thinking highly of the performance, and being 
 anxious to extend his reputation, obtained a eojjy, 
 which was soon after surreptitiously printed in 
 Paris, with animadversions by another author. This 
 was the Abbe Conti, and he had the confidence to 
 justify his conduct, by pretending that his altera- 
 tions had materially improved the volume. A 
 literary dispute was thus excited, wiiieli raged with 
 some passion, and though it greatly mortified New- 
 ton, establisl)cd his right to the work. 
 
 From the time of his ai)pointnieiit to the Mint, 
 Newton denoted himself so a.ssidu(jusly to the 
 duties of his office, and to those of member of par- 
 liament for his own University, which he long re- 
 presented, that philosophy became almost a secon- 
 dary object with him. Fortunately, however, for 
 the world, he seems to have previously developed 
 in full evei-y discovery that occurred trt liisconqire- 
 heiisive and penetrating genius. I lis manner of 
 living was regular, temperate, and frugal to a 
 
 nicety ; he enjoyed a ca])ital state of health up to 
 the period of liis eightieth year, but at that date a 
 calculous disease began to aft'ect him, which was 
 soon found to be incux-able. This disorder occa- 
 sioned the most poignant sufferings, and ultimately 
 put an end to his days, in the eighty-fifth year of 
 his age. His obsequies were solemnised with con- 
 siderable pomp ; the bodj- lay in state at the Jeni- 
 salem Chamber, and was escorted into Westminster 
 Abbey by a long train of admirers of exalted rank, 
 amongst whom two dukes and tliree earls supported 
 the pall. His stature was moderate, thin in youth, 
 but rather corpulent in old age. The expression of 
 his countenance was pleasing and venerable, but 
 indicative in no marked degree of that profound 
 sagacity which enhanced his works. Old as he 
 lived to be, he never was obliged to wear spectacles, 
 and, as is said, only lost one tooth. 
 
 Newton's private character has been painted in 
 very different colours by succeeding writers : for 
 many years he was described as the perfect model 
 of a philosopher; patience, modesty, disinterested- 
 ness, and indefatigability distinguished his thoughts, 
 his writings, and his actions, according to one set 
 of authorities, with peculiar charms and the hap- 
 piest success. These delight to tell us how, in the 
 decline of his life, he was subjected to fits of paiu 
 so intense, that large drops of perspiration would 
 run down his face while they lasted. Yet he never 
 complained, never stopped the study, or broke up 
 the company with which he might happen to be 
 engaged at the moment, but as soon as the paroxysm 
 ceased, talked or read on with alacrity. He had a 
 favourite dog, which he used to call Diamond, and 
 one eveninsr as the animal was wantoning; about his 
 study, it knocked down a candle, and set fire to a 
 heap of manuscript calculations, upon which he 
 had been employed for years. The loss was irre- 
 trievable, but the resigned philosopher only ex- 
 claimed with simplicity, " Ah, Diamond, Diamond, 
 you little know what mischief you've been doing." 
 Of his mental abstraction, and indifference to the 
 common course of things, anecdotes the most amus- 
 ing are recited. He would sometimes rise at his 
 usual hour, but sit thinking for half the day, on the 
 side of his bed, with his clothes half on. Superior 
 in a manner to the wants of nature, he has been 
 known, when occupied with a subject, to go for a 
 day without food, and at other times, when he did 
 obey the summons to a meal, he would sit down to 
 the table, but forgetting what lie came for, leave 
 the dishes untouched before him for hours toge- 
 ther. 
 
 Uiographers however are no longer unanimous in 
 representing the author of the " Principia " as so 
 saintly in temper, so meek, and so detached from 
 worldly interests, that by the mere strength of 
 colouring his portrait appears something more than 
 human. The great man's life now furnishes poste- 
 rity with the usual topics for sympathy, which 
 arise from the fact that it participateil in no small 
 degree in the weaknesses of our common nature. 
 True we are thus shocked and perplexed, but nevei-- 
 theless the odious truth has como, exhibiting Sir 
 Isaac Newton with all his grand conceptions and 
 profoimd discoveries, a fretful, peevish, and some- 
 tiiiKJS even a malicious intriguer ; jealous of a 
 generous rival, and sti-althily contriving to deprive 
 him of his legitimate iionour. F(jr these mean 
 traits we might have prepared ourselves by tracing
 
 112 
 
 WESTMINSTER ABBEY. 
 
 the sort of chicanery he was known to have prac- 
 tised in suborning: mauasers in the Leiljuitz con- 
 troversy, and the publication of the " Conimercium 
 Epistolicum " on liis behalf by the Royal Society. 
 But these spots on the purity and moral rectitude 
 of tlie philosopher's character, however dark and 
 disagreeable, leave the quality and order of his 
 mind and its products as original, vigorous, and 
 pre-eminent as ever. England still hails him as 
 one of her greatest philosophers, and the civilised 
 world admits, that amongst the few minds of undis- 
 puted pre-eminence by which the sphere of human 
 knowledge has been elevated and enlarged, Newton 
 ranks upon an equality with the highest and most 
 powerful. To the praise so finely passed upon him 
 by Hume no exception can be taken. " In Newton," 
 says that elegant historian and most accurate rea- 
 souer, " this island may boast of having produced 
 the greatest and rarest genius that ever arose for 
 the ornament and instruction of the species in phi- 
 losophical, astronomical, and raathenmtical know- 
 ledge." Having led a life of celibacy, his fortune. 
 
 amounting to 32,000?., was inherited by the family 
 of his sister, Mrs. Conduit. 
 
 He left a mass of manuscripts, amongst which 
 were many to show that he was in t!ie habit of 
 devoting nmch of his attention to theological ques- 
 tions, and that amongst these the more mystical 
 were those in which he took most interest. Amongst 
 them, by way of specimen, may be mentioned the 
 " Prophetic Style," " The Host of Heaven," "The 
 Revelations," " The Sanctuary," " The Working of 
 the Mystery of Iniquity," " The Contest between 
 the Host of Heaven," and " The Transgressors of 
 the Covenant." The whole were submitted by his 
 executors to Dr. Pellet, and a committee of the Royal 
 Society, who reported as fit for publication only one 
 work, " On the Chronology of the Kingdoms of 
 Antiquity," which accordingly appeared. Two other 
 tracts were afterwards published, one on the " Pro- 
 phecies of Daniel, and the Apocalypse," and the 
 othei', " On Two Notable Corruptions of Scrip- 
 ture." 
 
 WILLI AW CROFT. 
 
 Directly contiguous to the monument of Dr. Blow, 
 in the north aisle, is a quarter body bust, well 
 wrought in the academic robes of a Doctor in 
 Music, representing William Croft, one of the 
 organists of the Abbey. It stands upon a large 
 entablature of white marble, beneath which an 
 organ is introduced in relievo. The epitaph is 
 couched in classical Latin, and may be thus ren- 
 dered : — 
 
 Hie juxta sepultus est 
 
 GuLiELjius Croft, Musicse Doctor, 
 
 Regiique sacelli et hujusce Ecclesiaj Collegise 
 
 Organista. 
 
 Harmoniam a praeclarissimo modulandi artifice, 
 
 Cui alterum jam claudit latus, 
 
 Feliciter derivavit : 
 
 Suisque celebratis operibus, 
 
 Quse Deo consecravit plurima, 
 
 Studiose provexit ; 
 
 Nee solemnitate tantum numerorum, 
 
 Sed et ingeuii et morum et vultus quidem suavitate, 
 
 Egregie commendavit. 
 
 Inter mortalia 
 
 Per quinquaginta fere annos. 
 
 Cum summo versatus candore ; 
 
 Nee ullo humanitatis officio conspexior 
 
 Quam erg.a sues quotquot instituerit alumnos, 
 
 Aniicitia et cliaritate vere paterna, 
 
 xiv die Augusti A. D. mdccxxvii. 
 
 Ad ccelitum demigravit cliorum, 
 
 Prajsentior concentibus Angelorum, 
 
 Suum additurus Hallelujah. 
 
 Hereby lies interred, 
 
 William Croft, Doctor m Music, 
 
 And Organist 
 
 Of the King's Chapel, and this Collegiate Church. 
 
 His art in Harmony 
 
 Was happily derived from that great master of 
 
 modulation. 
 
 Whose side he now protects : 
 
 He studiously advanced himself 
 
 By his own celebrated compositions. 
 
 Of which not a few were consecrated to Heaven ; 
 
 And was not more exquisitely commendable 
 
 For the solemnity of his numbers 
 
 Than the amenity of his manners, his talents, and 
 
 even his features. 
 
 With mankind. 
 
 During a space of nearly fifty years, 
 
 He was spotlesgly conversant, 
 
 Nor in a duty of humanity more admii-able 
 
 Than the friendliness and truly paternal charity 
 
 With which he educated his pupils. 
 
 On the fourteenth day of August, in the year 
 
 MDCCXXVII. 
 
 He emigrated to the Heavenly Choir, 
 
 With that concert of Angels, for which he was 
 
 better fitted, 
 
 Adding his Hallelujah. 
 
 There is no department of British Biography 
 which has been less attended to, than that of musi- 
 cal composers. No inquiry, however patient, into 
 the causes of this neglect can retrieve the informa- 
 tion thus lost ; and no such pursuit, therefore, is 
 instituted here. In this predicament, so discredit- 
 able to his country, stands the subject of this 
 article, a man of unquestionable talents, whose 
 monument and epitaph are sufficient to indicate 
 that he deserved a better fate. Nor is he the only 
 member of the same profession whose life and 
 actions have been sunk into insignificance, after 
 receiving the honour of being commemorated in 
 Westminster Abbey : his successor, Dr. Cooke, and 
 Bartleman,' Cooke's pupil, have been similarly 
 ti-eated : it is with the simple intention of dismiss- 
 ing at one effort so many painful because defective 
 themes, that the few matters of fact which have 
 been preserved of all three are given under this 
 one head. 
 
 William Croft was born at Nether Eatington, in
 
 JAMES BARTLEMAN. 
 
 113 
 
 Warwickshire, durinsi the year 1G77- Originally 
 a singing boy at the Chapel Royal, he received his 
 musical education under Doctor Blow ; and the 
 first preferment wo know him to have attained was 
 that of organist at St. Aime's Church, Westminster. 
 In 1707 he was associated with his master, Dr. 
 Blow, as joint organist of the Chapel Royal ; and 
 upon the death of that professor, in the course of 
 the following year, was appointed to the seats left 
 vacant by him both in the Chapel Royal and West- 
 minster Abbey. In 1712 he selected, and pub- 
 lished, under the title of " Divine Harmony," a 
 collection of the anthems intniduced into the ser- 
 vice of the Chapel Royal, Westminster Abbey, 
 and St. Paul's — a common-place work, comprising 
 words, but no music ; which, as it was in no par- 
 ticular respect wanted by the public, never at- 
 tracted either praise or patronage. I'refixed to 
 it was a dissertation on church music, which, 
 though somewhat misplaced in a volume contain- 
 ing no music at all, was estimable for some judici- 
 ous remarks. In 1715 lie was admitted to his 
 degree of Doctor in Music, by the University of 
 Oxford, and for liis exercise upon the occasion set 
 to music two odes, written by Dr. Trappe, the one 
 in Latin and the other in English. 
 
 In 1724, Dr. Croft published the work, upon the 
 merits of which his reputation has ehiefiy been 
 founded. That was liis " Musica Sacra," splen- 
 didly edited by subscription, in two volumes, folio, 
 and consisting of choral pieces, and a burial ser- 
 vice of his own comjiosition, with a supplement of 
 select anthems. This being the first work of the 
 kind engraved in score on pewter plates, is prized, 
 independently of its beauties, as a curiosity in Eng- 
 lish art. By tlie privilege of his .situation he set 
 to music many odes, and composed several thanks- 
 giving anthems, which were written to celebrate 
 the victories of Marlborough, and performed wlien- 
 ever Queen Anne went in state to return thanks to 
 heaven for the national success in ai'ms — a bar- 
 barous oljlation, which man in liis vanity is always 
 jjrompt to offer, but which it is by no means reason- 
 able to suppose the Deity can be pleased to re- 
 ceive. 
 
 Exclusive of his comjiositions for the Church, 
 Di'. Croft is also known as the author of several 
 instrumental solos, sonatas, and many popular 
 songs, among which, that to Byron's words, "My 
 time, 0, ye Muses," 6i.c. lias priiicii)ally been com- 
 mended. He died, as is particularised in his 
 ei)ita|)h, in consequence of a cold, which was either 
 cauf;ht or fatally aggravated by his professional 
 atten<laiice at the (coronation of George 1 1. Ho 
 has been itlaccd in the first rank of English musi- 
 cians, and is characterized by Dr. Burney as one 
 who sometimes succeeds in being grand, though 
 he never rises to sublimity, and is always feeblest 
 in his quicker movements. 
 
 This is a succinct memoir : — but of Dr. Cooke, 
 wlio was buried, and has a memorial tablet with a 
 coat of arms above and a music book below it, in 
 the cloisters, there is less to bo told ; even the Ijare 
 matter of his epitaph is his liiogi'apliy. 'J'lie ordi- 
 nary Sf)urces of iiiioniiation only aild that he was 
 chiifiy hap))y in the composition of glees, anuing 
 which " How sice]) the Brave," '• Hark, liark, the 
 Lark," and " In the merry month of May," liavc 
 bec'ii especial favourites. Besidis tlx' jircfcrnients 
 mi'ntioiied in the f<j|lowiiig iii«cri|(tion, he also held 
 
 the post of organist to the parish church of St. 
 Martin in the Fields, and retained all his honours 
 to tlie })eriod of his death, which took ]ilacc at his 
 residence in Dorset Court, Parliament Street. 
 The notice upon the marble tablet runs thus : 
 
 Near this place are deposited 
 
 The remains of Benjamin Cooke, 
 
 Doctor of Music in the universities of 
 
 Oxford and Cambridge, and Organist and 
 
 Master of the Choristers of this Collegiate 
 
 Church, for above thirty years. 
 
 His professional knowledge, talents, and skill. 
 
 Were profound, various, and pleasing ; 
 
 In his works they are recorded, and 
 
 Within these walls their power has been felt and 
 
 understood. 
 
 The simplicity of his manners. 
 
 The integrity of his heart, and the innocence of 
 
 liis life. 
 
 Have numbered him among those 
 
 Who kept the commandments of God, and 
 
 The faith of tlie Saviour Jesus Christ. 
 
 He departed this life on the 14th of September, 
 
 1793, and m the 59th year of his age. 
 
 Almost touching the marble from whicli these 
 lines are copied, is another and nearly a similar 
 tablet, with the following memorial, written by 
 Dr. Ireland, late Dean of Westminster. 
 
 To the memory of James Bartleman, 
 
 Formerly a chorister and lay clerk of Westminster 
 
 Abbey, and Gentleman of his Majesty's 
 
 Royal Chapel ; 
 
 Educated by Dr. Cooke, 
 
 He caught all the taste and science of that great 
 
 master. 
 
 Which he augmented and adorned with the peculiar 
 
 powers of his native genius. 
 He possessed qualities which are seUiom united — 
 
 A lively enthusiasm, with an exact judgment, 
 
 And established a perfect model of a correct style 
 
 in singing, 
 
 And a commanding voice, simple and powerful, 
 
 Tender and dignified, solemn, chaste, and 
 
 purely English. 
 
 His social and domestic virtues corresponded with 
 
 these rare endowments ; 
 
 Affectionate, liberal, sincere, and open-hearted, 
 
 He was not less beloved by his family and friends. 
 
 Than admired by all for his pre-eminence in his 
 
 ])rofession. 
 
 He was born 19tli Sei)t. 17(i9, died 15th April, 1821, 
 
 And was buried in this cloister near his beloved 
 
 master. 
 
 Had it been specified in this commemoration, 
 that Bartleman's voice was a bass, the e]>itaiih 
 would have comjirised almost all that can be re- 
 lated of the subject of it. He was bronglit u]) as a 
 chorister of the Cbajicl Royal, and niaile liis first a])- 
 pearance liefore the public as a singer at some con- 
 certs in the I'reemasoiis' Hall, (ireat (^ueiii Street, 
 Lincoln's Inn Fields, where the great comjiass and 
 singular sweetness of liis tones attracted immediate 
 api)lause. Being soon after engaged at the con- 
 certs of Anticnt Music, he rose with ra])idity to tlu? 
 head of his profession, and eventually became a, 
 pr()prietor of the rooms in Hanover Sipuwc, and a 
 
 I
 
 114 
 
 WESTMINSTER ABBEY. 
 
 conductor of the concerted entertainments given at 
 them. No Englisli singer, dm-ing his lifetime, 
 equalled him either in taste or capacity, and he 
 has not been surpassed since liis death. He was the 
 only support of two sisters, for whose benefit a 
 
 publication of the songs he used to sing with 
 greatest effect was undertaken, wlien he was re- 
 moved from them. His funeral, which was public, 
 was honoured with tlie attendance of a long train 
 of professional bi'ethren and eminent friends. 
 
 WILLIAM CONGREVE. 
 
 " Great Jonsoii did by strength of judgment please, 
 Yet doubling Fletcher's force, lie wants his ease ; 
 In differing talents both adorned their age, 
 One for the study, t'other for the stage. 
 But both to Congreve justly shall submit, 
 One matched in judgment, both o'ermatched in wit." 
 
 Dryden. 
 
 At the extremity of the south aisle, adjoining the 
 principal entrance, is tlie monument of William 
 Congreve, wrought in tine marble. It consists of a 
 good half-body bust, in jivotile, resting on a pedes- 
 tal, which is enriched with dramatic and poetical 
 emblems. It is the work of F. Bird. The inscrip- 
 tion, written by tlie Duchess of Marlborough, runs 
 thus : — 
 
 Mr. William Congreve died Jan. ye 19th, 1728, 
 aged 56, and was buried near this place ; to whose 
 most valuable memory this monument is sett up 
 by Henrietta, Dutchess of JMarlborough, as a 
 mark how dearly she remembers the hajjpiness she 
 enjoyed in the sincere friendshipp of so worthy and 
 honest a man, whose virtue, candour, and witt 
 gained him the love and esteem of the present age, 
 and whose writings will be the admiration of the 
 future. 
 
 The time of Congreve's birth is not precisely 
 known, and the place of it is disjnited. Upon his 
 own assertion, which, it is to be observed, has been 
 sharply called in question, he was born in the year 
 IG72, at Bardsa, near Leeds, in Yorkshire. His 
 family belonged to Staffordshire, and was able to 
 trace a descent beyond the Norman conquest. 
 Tlieir seats in the county were at Congreve and 
 Stratton, but their estates, though anciently nume- 
 rous and valuable, had been considerably diminished 
 before the time of the poet. His father was an 
 officer, quartered, about the period of the poet's 
 birth, in Ireland, where he was also agent of the Earl 
 of Burlington's estates, upon which, according to the 
 impression of many contemporaries, the poet was 
 born. Be this true or not, it is certain that his 
 education was exclusively Irish ; for he received 
 the first rudiments of learning at the college of Kil- 
 kenny, — where he gave early instances of poetical 
 talent, particularly by a copy of verses on the death 
 of his master's magpie — and he completed his studies 
 at the University of Dublin. 
 
 As Congreve, the father, lived by a profession, 
 he naturally desired to see his sou gain something 
 by one too; and accordingly had liim entei'ed a 
 student-at-law in the Middle Temple, during his 
 sixteenth year. He lived for several years in cham- 
 bers, but instead of learning the profession, divert- 
 ed himself with classical compositions, and made 
 his first essay as an author by publishing, in his 
 nineteenth year, a novel entitled the "Incognita, or 
 Love and Duty Reconciled." As the volume has 
 
 long been out of print, it is not easy to describe or 
 to criticise it, but by hearsay: his biographers seem 
 to have praised it without having read it ; and the 
 greatest merits they attribute to it are, that it was 
 uncommon for such a time of life, and was both 
 projected and executed accordmg to the rules of 
 poetic art. 
 
 Thatr Congreve himself was little satisfied with it 
 is most likely, for he immediately directed his 
 mind to another species of composition. Before he 
 had completed his one-and-twentieth year, he gave 
 to the stage "The Old Bachelor," a brilliant 
 comedy, of which, on a subsequent occasion, he 
 presented the world with this vapid history : — " It 
 was written some years before it was acted. When 
 I wrote it, I had little thoughts of the stage, but did 
 it to antuse myself in a slow recovery from a fit of 
 sickness. Afterwards, through my indiscretion, it 
 was seen, and in some little time acted ; and I, 
 through the remainder of my iiuliscretion, sufi'ered 
 myself to be drawn into the prosecution of a difti- 
 cult and thankless study, and to be involved in a 
 perpetual war with knaves and fools." All this is 
 affected and commonplace: to return to sense and 
 facts; the play, after receiving some corrections, 
 was introduced to the theatre, with high compli- 
 ments, by Dryden and Southern, and was repre- 
 .sented, with fiattering effect, by the united compa- 
 nies in Drury Lane. The prologue was spoken by 
 Mrs. Bracegirdle, the epilogue by Mrs. Barry; and 
 its success was made the subject of a paper in the 
 " Tatler " by Addison. Dr. Johnson has criticised 
 it so fairly as to leave further comment a task of 
 supererogation. " It will be found," he says, "to 
 be one of these comedies which may be made by a 
 muid vigorous and acute, and furnished with comic 
 characters by the perusal of other poets, without 
 much actual commerce with mankind. The dialogue 
 is one constant reci})rocation of conceits, or clash of 
 wit, in which nothing flows necessarily from the 
 occasion, or is dictated by nature. The characters, 
 both of men and women, are either fictitious and 
 artificial ; as tho.se of Heartwell, and tl;e Ladies : 
 or easy and common, as Wittol, a tame idiot ; 
 Bluff, a swaggering coward ; Fondlewife, a jealous 
 puritan: and the catastrophe arises from a mistake, 
 not very probably produced, — by max'rying a woman 
 in a mask." 
 
 Notwithstanding its merits, "The Old Bachelor" 
 has for yeai-s lost its place on the stage, and is now 
 orily read by the scholar, who is bound by the
 
 WILLIAM CONGREVE. 
 
 115 
 
 coiulitioiis of liis roimtation lO be conversant with 
 all that has been praised in the literatui-e of his 
 cuiiiitry. It broui^ht the author an ample share of 
 popularity, and substantial reward: he was reeoni- 
 niended by its success to the notice of the Earl of 
 Halifax, who delighting to be ranked the Ma'cenas 
 of the age, promoted Congreve to ofHce at the first 
 o|>portunity. He was first made a commissioner 
 for licensing hackney-coaches; afterwards appouited 
 to a place in the Pipeofiice, and again advanced to 
 a situation in the Custom House. From these posts 
 he quickly derived a handsome revenue of GOOL 
 a-year, and had the satisfaetiDU of being treated by 
 his jiatron as a friend. He was introduce 1 to the 
 leading members of the administration, and became 
 a welcome associate in their liours of relaxation. 
 Nor did he neglect the means by which he so 
 happily rose; he composed with ease, and produced 
 new works with commendaVde regularity. 
 
 In the very next year, 10,04, he brought forward 
 the " Double Dealer," a comedy, which was received 
 with the same ]iartiality as its predecessor by the 
 poets, but with less favour by the people. It w'as 
 dedicated, with elaborate flattery, to the Earl of 
 Halifax; was acted with the best strength of the 
 company, but failed, and gave the author no passing 
 discontent. The lesson, however, was not without 
 its benefit, for in " Love for Love," which he had 
 ready for the ensiung season, he has exhibited a 
 better portraiture of the manners and conduct of 
 life than in any other of his pieces. The circum- 
 stances mider which this play appeared were highly 
 propitious: the best actors, with Betterton at their 
 head, had just emancipated themselves from the des- 
 potism of old Rich, and settled in a theatre built for 
 them by public subscription in Portugal-street, then 
 Portugal-row, Lincoln's Inn Fields; when Congreve 
 presented " Love for Love," as an opening j)lay. 
 Betterton delivered the prologue, and Mrs. Brace- 
 girdle the epilogue, which was written by Rowe. 
 The house was crowded to suffocation ; and even 
 the stage was thronged with beaus, courtiers, and 
 wits. Every one seemed anxious to see the new 
 establishment thrive, and all therefore were dis- 
 posed to applaud the performance, and by a strik- 
 ing coincidence of fortune it was honestly deserved. 
 This popularity induced the proprietors to give the 
 author a share in the interest of the ])atent, upon 
 the condition of receiving a new ])lay from him for 
 each season. That he never fulfilled the contract 
 it is perhaps needless to observe, for poets like 
 lovers are proverbially inconstant ; and as for the 
 share, he sold it when Sir John Vanbrugh built the 
 new house in the Haymarket. 
 
 Having thus secured his rank in comedy, Ik; re- 
 solved to try his powers in tragedy; and after a 
 pre|)aration of two years, finished the " Moui'uing 
 Bride." This was the most successful of his dramas: 
 at the jicriod of its first ap])earance, it was acted far 
 ofteiK-r than any of his others, and has been so 
 fri'ijuently revived, that it still retains its j)lac(! in 
 the- catalogue of acting ]>lays. It is a good s|iecimen 
 of our s(;coi)d tragic school : sonorous, regular, and 
 corri.'ct, it never pcnetrat<;H into the recesses of 
 human feeling, nor extends to the excess of human 
 passion; it rouses neither surprise nor terror, ;ind 
 almost wearies with even pleasure. It wjis dedicated 
 to till-' Princess Anne of l)enmark, and was a [(articu- 
 lar favourite with tlh' author, lie not only g:ive more 
 time to the ci^niposilion of it than to his forniei- 
 
 plays, but took a pride in revising it after it was 
 printed. One description in it has been quoted 
 among the happiest passages in the wide range of 
 English poetry, — 
 
 " Almeria. It was a fancied noise, for all is hushed. 
 
 Leokora. It l)ore tlie accent of a human voice. 
 
 Almeria. It was thy fear, or else some transient wind 
 Whistling through hollows of this vaulted aisle : 
 We'll listen — 
 
 Leonora. Hark ! 
 
 Almeria, No, all is hushed and still as death. — 'Tis 
 dreadful ! 
 How reverend is tlie face of this tall pile, 
 Whose ancient pillars raise their marble heads 
 To bear aloft the arched and ponderous roof, 
 By its own weight made stedfast and im- 
 moveable, 
 Looking tranquillity! It strikes an awe 
 And terror on my aching sight ; the tombs 
 And monumental caves of deatli look cold, 
 And shoot a chilness to my tremliling heart. 
 Give me thy liand, and let me hear thy voice ; 
 Nay, quickly speak to me, and let me liear 
 Thy voice — my own all'rights me with its 
 echoes." 
 
 Another year revolved, and Congreve prejiared 
 a new comedy — " The Way of the World :" it was 
 damned; and he forthwith took leave of the stage 
 in high dudgeon. Notwithstanding this misfortune, 
 he dedicated the jilay to the Earl of Montague, w ith 
 a fawning panegyric, and took occasion to insinuate, 
 that the jiublic had been both inconsiderate and 
 ungrateful to him; as he had expended much labour 
 and thought up(m the composition. At this point 
 his literary life may be said to terminate ; for, 
 although there remain one or two other perform- 
 ances of his to be noticed, they are both trifling in 
 their nature, and inferior in merit. He had not yet 
 completed his six-and-twentieth year; and it is a 
 fact as admirable as unusual, that he had established 
 his reputation at an age when other men begin to 
 lay the foundations of it. It is always painfid to 
 think of talents languishing in poverty; but when, 
 as in the present case, they are rewarded with 
 prom])titude and generosity, it is provoking to find 
 the author turning a coxcomb, and renoinicing the 
 imrsuits by which he gained proHt and jilea.sure, 
 and despising the means by which he became dis- 
 tinguished. 
 
 This was about the time at which Collier began 
 that battle with the theatres, which has been already 
 noticed in the life of Betterton. By him Congreve's 
 jilays were attacked siruidm ; and after some hesi- 
 tation, the latter ])ulilished a <lefence, in eight letters 
 addressed to his friend Walter Moylc, Esq. In 
 these he protests at the very outset against c;illiug 
 names, but uses language (piite as offensive as that 
 he conq)lains of; for he talks of removing passag(;s 
 from his adversary's dunghill, which were only 
 tainted by iiis breath ; " and when," he adds, " 1 
 have washed 'em of that filth which they have 
 contracted in passing through his dirty haiuls, let 
 their own innoceiu-e protect 'em. Mr. Collier in 
 the high vigour of his oi)scenily lirst connnils a rape 
 upon my words, and then charges 'cm with obsce- 
 nity." This extract is from the first letter: the 
 second gives a schoolboy's delinition of conu'dy from 
 Aristotle, which is neither aptly introduced, nor 
 well ap])lied ; but in the third, fourth, fifth, sixth, 
 ami seventh, he enters ui)on his own defence, and 
 
 1 2
 
 IIG 
 
 WESTMINSTER ABBEY. 
 
 jn-ospers as he proceeds. He is pertinent, and 
 impressive ; he admits some improprieties, and 
 thus gives an air of candour to his reasoning, which 
 his opponent greatly wants. Hnd the issue of the 
 contest rested solely hetween Collier and Congreve, 
 the former had never triumphed as he did ; for the 
 latter has frequently the best of the tilt as far as 
 regards himself. But imfortunately, he is by no 
 means so forcible or happy, in justifying the stage 
 at large, as in excusing his own contributions to it; 
 and, therefore, it is to be acknowledged that Collier's 
 case has much reason with many faults. 
 
 Upon this subject, it may not be amiss to add, 
 that Collier's attack on the stage has few claims to 
 that virtuous determination which has generally 
 been ascribed to it. He would have us believe that 
 he writes like a scholar, and thinks like a moralist; 
 but he is as gross in style, unfair in argument, and 
 scandalous in address, as many of the authors whom 
 he reviles. That the stage needed reformation is 
 undeniable, and the only pity is, that the labour 
 was not effected by a purer advocate. It is absurd 
 to find a man quarrelling with the profaneness of 
 his contemporaries, while he himself uses such rank 
 coarseness as this: — " These are comedies reeking 
 from Pandemonium — they also smell of fire and 
 brimstone ! Eruptions of hell with a witness !" He 
 wonders the smoke of them has not darkened the 
 sun, and turned the air to pestilence and poison, 
 for they are provocations enough to arm all nature 
 in revenge, and exhaust the vehemence of Heaven. 
 To such rhapsody the best answer were by a sen- 
 tence of his own: " This litter of epithets makes 
 the poem look like a bitch ovei'stocked with puppies, 
 and sucks the sense to skin and bone." " There," 
 as Congreve has it, " is his own confession, and so 
 I leave him to lick himself whole with one of his 
 own ablutions." 
 
 Congreve's name appears to two other dramatic 
 productions, " The Judgment of Paris," a masque, 
 and " Semele," an opera : they were printed and 
 set to music by Eccles, but never acted; the stage 
 lost nothing in them. 
 
 Congreve was patronised by the Whigs, and he 
 always remained attached to their party, while in 
 power. When the Tories superseded them, under 
 Harley, Earl of Oxford, he made intercession that 
 he might not be ejected from his posts, and suc- 
 ceeded in the prayer. This conduct was, in all 
 probability, recommended by his friends ; for upon 
 their return to office, far from showing displeasure, 
 they made him secretary for the island of Jamaica, 
 a place of litcle care and no trust, though it doubled 
 his foi'mer income. As his circumstances were now 
 affluent, so was his life fashionable; he was distin- 
 guished by the compliments of the best writers, and 
 honoured with the intimacy of the highest states- 
 men. To him Steele inscribed his " Miscellany," 
 and Pope dedicated the '' Iliad," a matchless honour, 
 of which the booksellers have, in some degi-ee, 
 strangely robbed him of the fame, by not printing 
 the elegant notice in which the tribute is con- 
 veyed 1 
 
 " Instead of endeavouring to raise a vain mo- 
 nument to myself, let me leave behind me a me- 
 morial of my friendship with one of the most valu- 
 able men, as well as finest writers, of my age and 
 country: one who has tried, and knows by his own 
 experience, how hanl an undertaking it is to do 
 
 justice to Homer; and one who, I am sui-e, sincerely 
 rejoices with me at the period of niy labours. To 
 him, therefore, having brought this long work to a 
 conclusion, I desire to dedicate it; and to have the 
 honour and satisfaction of placing together in this 
 manner, the names of Mr. Congreve and 
 
 A. POPE." 
 
 Notwithstanding all this consideration, he was 
 still ungrateful to the Muses, and affected to be 
 considered rather as a man of fashion than of wit 
 and study. This miserable vanity he confessed to 
 Voltaire, who honoured him with a visit during his 
 residence in E]ig]and, and told him with proper 
 spirit, that, if he had been only a gentleman, he 
 should not have called to see him. In 1710, he 
 collected his works in 3 vols. 8vo ; of which the 
 only portion not already reviewed in this sketch, 
 is the miscellaneous poetry dedicated to the Earl of 
 Halifax. It consists of odes, songs, translations, 
 and occasional poems ; amongst which there is 
 scarcely one that does not derogate from his repu- 
 tation. Amongst the first in order of composition 
 is a Pastoral on the death of Queen Mary, who had 
 complimented the performance of his "Old Bache- 
 lor," and " Double Dealer," with her presence. 
 These are the verses upon which Johnson observes, 
 that every thing in them is unnatural, and yet 
 nothing new — a saying which must have been 
 uttei-ed more for the sake of point than any thing 
 else; for the contrast exhibited between such matter 
 and versification, and the numbers of the "Mourn- 
 ing Bride," is beyond parallel surprising and new. 
 
 The summary of Congreve's literary character 
 may be made with ease and brevity. In all that he 
 has left behind him, his five plays excepted, he is 
 singularly injudicious, unhappy, and incorrect. In 
 comedy he has a gaiety and imaginativeness pecu- 
 liar and original; but upon every other subject he 
 is meagre and insignificant. The cliai-m of his 
 comedies lies exclusively in the dialogue; in plot, 
 character, and dramatic effect, they are deficient: 
 they may be read, but can never more be acted. 
 His odes are Pindaric, and have been commended 
 for their regularity — a praise which it were hard 
 to withhold from compositions which stand so much 
 in need of it. Those to Mrs. Arabella Hunt, and 
 on " St. Cecilia's Day," are the best specimens of 
 what he has done in this way; his "Hymn to 
 Venus," from Homer (the translation alluded to by 
 Pope, in the dedication of the " Iliad "), is not so 
 badly executed; and his Doris, which has been so 
 profusely lauded by Steele, cannot be denied the 
 merit of sprightliness and character. 
 
 The decline of Congreve's life was rendered pecu- 
 liarly distressing by accumulated disorders. After 
 some years of extreme sufferings fi'oni a cataract 
 in the eyes, his sight became totally obstructed, and 
 ended in confirmed blindness. Such was the deplo- 
 rable extremity under which he was seized by the 
 gout, and was obliged to remove to Bath for the 
 benefit of the watei-s. There he was overturned in 
 his chariot, and laboured under a severe pain in the 
 side until his return to London, where he died 
 utterly exhausted in constitution at his house in 
 Surry-street, Strand, January 29, 1728. The vanity 
 which made him contemptible during life remained 
 strong in death, and though his own ancient family 
 was greatly embarrassed, he left the "accunnilation 
 of attentive })arsiniony," amounting to 10,000/., to
 
 MATTHEW PRIOR. 
 
 117 
 
 Henrietta, Duchess of Marlborough, a lady, who, 
 whafevrr might be her claims to his regard, could 
 be but little flattered by a Itequest slie did not 
 want. His body, after lying in state in the Jeru- 
 
 salem chamber, was removed with great pomp, the 
 pall being borne by lords, to Henry VI I. 's cliajiel, 
 where it wasdejiosited close by the coffin of Sydney, 
 Earl of Godolphin. 
 
 MATTHEW PRIOR. 
 
 Ne.vui.v facing the visitor as he enters the Poets' 
 Corner stands the monument of Matthew Prior, 
 who, to repeat the remark of Dr. Johnson, as the 
 '■ last piece of human vanity," left 500/. for the 
 erection of this tribute to his own merits*. It is an 
 emblematical jierformance well executed by Gibbs, 
 the architect, and exliibits a good bust, supported, 
 on an altar-piece of fine marble, by Thalia, on tlie 
 one hand, and History on the othei*. These figures 
 are ably wrought, and may be distinguished, the 
 former by a flute, and the latter by a closed book. 
 The design is crowned by a pediment, on which 
 are introduced two boys, the one to the left holding 
 an hour glass empty, and the other to the right an 
 inverted torch: the apex is topped with an urn. 
 The ail' of this monument is stately and correct ; 
 but the sense of the design insipid and unnatural, 
 as every mythological subject in a Christian Church 
 must by its very nature be. The inscription, a long 
 and labom'ed com|)osition in Latin, by Dr. Robert 
 Freind, flatteringly recapitulates the political events 
 of his life, and characterises his writings, with all 
 the undiscriminating partiality usual in such com- 
 positions f: — 
 
 * Prior vindicated this piece of vanity and his pul)lic 
 career in some verses, which will serve as a sliort specimen 
 of his style. 
 " As doctors {live physic by way of prevention, 
 
 Matt alive and in health, of his tombstone took care; 
 
 For delays are unsafe, and his pious intention 
 
 May haply be never fulliUed by his heir. 
 
 Then take Matt's word for it the sculptor is paid ; 
 That the figure is tine pray believe your own eye; 
 Yet credit but lightly what more may be said. 
 For we flatter ourselves, and teach marble to lie. 
 
 Yet counting as far as to fifty his years. 
 
 His virtues and vices are as other men's are; 
 
 High hopes he conceiv'd, and he smother 'd great fears, 
 
 In a life party-coloured, half pleasure, half care. 
 
 Nor to business a drudge, nor to faction a slave, 
 Jle strove to make ifjt'rest and freedom agree ; 
 In public employments, industrious and grave, 
 And alone with his friends. Lord ! how merry was he. 
 
 Now in equipage stately, now humbly on foot, 
 
 lioth fortunes he tried, but to neither would trust ; 
 
 And whirl'd in the round as the wheel turn'd about. 
 
 He found riches had wings, and knew man was but dust. 
 
 This verse, little polished, though mighty sincere, 
 
 Sets neither his titles nor merit to view ; 
 
 It says that his relics collected lie here. 
 
 And no mortal yet knows if this may be true. 
 
 Fierce rollers there are that infest the highway, 
 
 So Matt may be killed, and his bones never found ; 
 
 False witness at court, and fierce tempests at sea. 
 
 So .Matt may yet chance to be liang'd or be drown'd. 
 
 If his bones lie in earth, roll in sea, fly in air. 
 To fate we must yield, and the thing is the same ; 
 And if passing thou giv'st him a smile or a tiar. 
 He cares not — yet prithee be kind to liis fame." 
 t Prior wrote an F.nglish cpit.iph for himself, which he 
 showed to Bishop Atterbnry, who is said to have assured 
 
 Sui teinporis historiam meditanti, 
 
 Paulatim obrepens febris 
 
 Operi simul et vitto filum abrupit, 
 
 Sept. 18, An. Dom. 1/21, /Etat. 57. 
 
 H. S. E. 
 
 Vir eximius 
 
 Sereuissimis 
 
 Regi Guliehno Regimeque Mariic 
 
 In congressione Fosderatorum 
 
 HagLU ainio 1G90 celebrata. 
 
 Delude Magnai Britauniic legatis, 
 
 Turn iis 
 
 Qui anno 1697 Pacem Ryswicki confecerunt, 
 
 Tum iis 
 
 Qui apud Gallos annis proximis legationem 
 
 oliieruTit ; 
 
 Eodem etiam amio 1()!>7 in Hibernia 
 
 Secretarius; 
 
 Nee non in utroque honorabili consessu 
 
 Eorura 
 
 Qui aiuio 1700 (irdinandis Commercii negotiis, 
 
 Quique anno I7II dirigendis Portorii rebus, 
 
 Prtesidebant, 
 
 Commissionarius; 
 
 Posti'emo 
 
 Ab Aima 
 
 Felicissimaj Memorire Regina 
 
 Ad Ludovicum xiv. Galliie Regem 
 
 Missus anno I7II 
 
 Do Pace stabilienda, 
 
 (Pace etiamnuin durante 
 
 Diuque ut b<jiii jam onnies sperant duratura) 
 
 Cum summa potestate Legatus: 
 
 Matth^us Prior, Armiger: 
 
 Qui 
 
 IIos omnes, quibus cumulatus est, titulos 
 
 Ilumanitatis, ingcnii, eruditionis laude 
 
 Siijieravit: 
 
 Cui enim nascenti f;icilcs arriserant Musa', 
 
 Ilune puerumSchola hie regia perpolivit, 
 
 Juveneni in Collegio S'' Jolumnis 
 
 Cantabrigia optiniis scientiis instrnxit; 
 
 Virumque dcniciue auxit et perfecit 
 Multa cum viris principibus consuetudo. 
 
 Ita natus, ita institutus 
 
 A vatum choro avelli nunc(uam potuit, 
 
 .Scd Sdlebat s:e]>e rerum civiliuni gravitatem 
 
 .\niienarinn literarum studiis coiidire. 
 
 Et cum oiMuc adeo Poetices geims 
 
 llaud iufeliciter tentaret, 
 
 Timi in fabellis conciime le])idequc texcndis 
 
 Minis artifex 
 
 Neminem liabnit parent. 
 
 him, upon reading it, that while he was Dean, it never 
 should appear in Westminster Abbey. It was sliort, and as 
 follows: 
 
 To me 'tis given to Die, to you 'tis given 
 To I.ive: alas ! one moment sets us even. 
 Mark how iniiinrlial is the will of Heaven!
 
 118 
 
 WESTMINSTER ABBEY. 
 
 Ha;c liberalis animi oblectamenta, 
 
 ilux uullo illi labore constiteriut, 
 
 Facile ii perspexere, quibus iisus est amici; 
 
 Apud quos urbanitatum et leporum plenus 
 
 Cum ael rem, quiecuiiKjue forte inciderat, 
 
 Apte, varie, copidsequc alluderet, 
 
 luterea nihil quiesitum, nihil vi expressum 
 
 Videbatur, 
 
 Sed omnia ultro effluere, 
 
 Et quasi jngi e fonte affatim exuberare, 
 
 Ita suos tandem dubios reliquit, 
 
 Essetne in scriptis poeta elegantior, 
 
 An in convictu comes jucundior. 
 
 While preparing a History of his own Times, 
 
 A fever gradually stealing on him 
 
 Broke the thread of his work and life together 
 
 Sept. lli, in the year of our Lord 1721, and of his 
 
 age 57. 
 
 Here is buried 
 
 An eminent man; 
 
 One of the rejiresentatives of their Serene 
 
 Majesties 
 
 King William and Queen Mary, 
 
 At the Congress of Allies 
 
 Held at the Hague in 1C97, 
 
 One of the Ambassadors of Great Britain, 
 
 Who, in 1G97, concluded the peace of Ryswick ; 
 
 One of those 
 
 Who the year after filled an embassy to France; 
 
 During the year 1G'J7) already mentioned. 
 
 Secretary in Ireland ; 
 
 A member of the two honourable Commissions, 
 
 Which sat, the one in I7OO, for the settlement of 
 
 commercial affairs, 
 
 And the other in I7II, to arrange 
 
 The Customs Duties ; 
 
 And last of all dispatched, in 1711) 
 
 By Queen Anne of Happy Memory, 
 
 To Louis XIV. King of France 
 
 To establish peace 
 
 (A peace still enduring. 
 
 And, as all good men hope, long to endure): 
 
 Matthew Prior, Esq. 
 
 Who 
 
 Exceeded 
 
 All the titles with which he was honoured 
 
 By the credit he enjoyed for humanity, talent, and 
 
 learning : 
 
 The Muses smiled on him at his birth, 
 
 The I'oyal College here polished his youth, 
 
 St. John's College, Cambridge, instructed his 
 
 youth in the Sciences, 
 
 And a close intimacy with the leading characters 
 
 of the day 
 
 Strengthened and confirmed his manhood. 
 
 Thus born and educated, 
 
 He never could be torn from the Poetic Choir, 
 
 But was often wont to soften the gravity of State 
 
 affairs by the study of Polite Letters. 
 
 He thus touched, not infelicitously, 
 
 Almost every style of Verse ; 
 
 But in his fables, admirable for contrivance and 
 
 neat brevity, 
 
 He had no equal. 
 
 These recreations of a liberal mind, 
 
 AVhich in him were produced without effort, 
 
 Were easily discerned by the friends with whom 
 
 he associated : 
 
 Amongst them teeming with urbanity and wit. 
 
 He illustrated each incidental topic 
 
 Aptly, variously, richly ; 
 
 While nothing appeared prepared or forced, 
 
 But all seemed to flow spontaneously 
 
 And to exuberate abundantly as if from a perpetual 
 
 spring ; 
 
 So that he at length left his circle doubtful 
 
 Whether he was to be preferred in his writings as 
 
 an elegant poet. 
 
 Or in Society as an agreeable companion. 
 
 That the biography of one so particularly eulo- 
 gised, should, in any respect, be subjected to uncer- 
 tainty or ignorance, is to be regretted ; yet such is 
 the case respecting the birth and parentage of 
 Matthew Prior, who has been differently repre- 
 sented as having been born at Wimborne, in Dor- 
 setshire, and at Charing Cross, Westminster; and 
 as having had a farmer, or a joiner, for his father. 
 Be these circumstances as they may, and they are 
 all alike dubious, he was certainly left an orphan 
 at a very early age, and then domesticated with an 
 uncle, who kept the Rummer tavern, in Cockspur- 
 street, Westminster. By the interposition of this 
 relation, he was sent to Westminster School, and 
 had the honour of receiving the light of knowledge 
 through the friction of Dr. Busby's birch. As soon 
 as he had mastered that portion of literature inci- 
 dental to the school course, he was taken back to 
 his uncle's house, where the Earl of Dt)rset, cele- 
 brated as a patron of literature, one day found hira 
 poring over an old copy of Horace. A conversa- 
 tion ensued, and the nobleman was so well pleased 
 with young Prior's knowledge, that he undertook 
 the cost of his academical studies on the spot. En- 
 tering his name in the books of St. John's College, 
 Cambridge, in 1G82, when he was eighteen years 
 old, he became a bachelor of arts, within the term 
 of four years, but did not attain a master's degree 
 until 1700, when it was conferred by mandamus. 
 What his success or reputation was during liis 
 college course, has not been particularized; but it 
 is highly probable that they must have been res- 
 pectable, as he was made a fellow soon after he 
 took his last degree. 
 
 According to an established custom of St. John's 
 College, Cambridge, some poems on sacred subjects 
 were annually sent to the Earl of Essex, as an ac- 
 knowledgment of the bounty shown by one of his 
 ancestors to the foundation. Such was the occasion 
 on which, in 1G88, Prioi''s maiden verses entitled 
 the " Deity," were composed, and forwarded to the 
 Earl, who, in all probability, was thus led to favour 
 the writer. The context of the piece suifices to 
 evince that he nmst have had not only a personal 
 acquaintance with the Earl's establishment, but an 
 intimacy with the family. How else could the 
 author criticise a famous picture, or applaud a 
 lady's music 1 In the following year, 1089, he joined 
 Montague, afterwards Earl of Halifax, in ridiculing 
 Dryden's "Hind and Panther," by the "City Mouse 
 and the Country Mouse," a performance wliich 
 attracted considerable applause, and laid a founda- 
 tion for the political preferment to which both 
 writers subsequently rose. It cannot, however, be 
 regarded as a very clever burlesque, and could 
 only have done substantial good by explodijig the 
 unnatural extravagance of moral fables, — a deside- 
 ratum, which, to this day, has not been effected. 
 Montague was the first of the two who was re-
 
 JOHN FREIND. 
 
 llf) 
 
 warded by a place, and as he also rose to higher 
 dignity and fortune, is said on this account to have 
 Constantly filled his coadjutor with chagrin. 
 
 Prior made liis first appearance in a political 
 capacity during the year 1691, when ho was at- 
 tached, at the instance of his early patron Lord 
 Dorset, who had introduced him at court, to the 
 congress at the Hague, as secretary of the British 
 embassy. In this assembly he conducted himself 
 so much to the satisfaction of his associates, and of 
 King William in particular, that he was made a 
 gentleman of the bedchamber upon liis return to 
 England. For some time he was enabled to bend 
 with ease over those literary exercises which were 
 so congenial to his taste; and when, in 1(!95, Queen 
 ]\Iary died, ho came forward in concert with all 
 those who could write verse to offer his tribute to 
 her memory. As he had a double call to sorrow, for 
 he was not only a poet liut a courtier, liis ode was 
 immensely long, and had the honour of being pre- 
 sented to the king. Thus favourably assiduous, 
 his interests do not seem to have been forgotten, 
 whenever an opportunity presented itself for em- 
 jiloying him in that capacity for which ho had 
 already displayed an aptitude. In two years after- 
 wards he acted as secretary at the treaty of Rvswick, 
 and when that was concluded became secretary to 
 the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland. In the year fol- 
 lowing he was employed in the same manner at the 
 court of France, where he was received with great 
 distinction by Lewis XIV. The king attending at 
 Loo, during the course of the next year, he was 
 made the beai'er of despatches to the government 
 at home ; and there, after succeeding Locke as 
 commissioner of the board of trade, was nominated 
 under secretary of state, in the Earl of Jersey's 
 office ; a post, however, which he did not long 
 retain, because the earl himself was soon after 
 ejected. 
 
 In the year 1700 he eulogised the hei'oisra of 
 King William, and the glories of his reign, in the 
 longest and most showy of his jioems, the "Carmen 
 Seculare." During the following year he was re- 
 turned to the House of Commons for the borough 
 of East Grinstead, and gave the first indication of 
 havuig changed parties, by voting for an impeach- 
 ment of those lords who had advised the king to 
 sign the jjartition treaty. This conduct, on his 
 jiart, was the more inconsistent, because he had 
 been officially employed upon the negociation of 
 the contract. After ceh brating the battle of Pden- 
 heim, in a ])oetical epistle to lioileau, he collected 
 his j)ieces into a volume, then sung the; victory of 
 llamilies; and in 1710, resumed his political labours 
 in adjusting the ])eace of Utrecht. This was an 
 event whicli elevated him to his highest rank as a 
 statesman, for he sjient some time in France, with 
 all till,' trust and dignity of an ainI)assador, though 
 he was never formally invested with the title ; iiut 
 80 precax'ious is fortune, that it also involved the 
 
 greatest misfortune of his life. In 1714, the Tories 
 were degraded, and the Whigs instituted severe 
 pi'oceedings against their adversaries. Prior was 
 recalled from Paris by a warrant, was lodged in 
 the custody of the sergeant-at-arms, im])eached by 
 Walpole ; and after a close confinement of two years, 
 was excepted fi'om the Act of Grace, which passed 
 in 1717- For all this suftering it is melancholy to 
 state, that no better grounds have ajipeared than 
 the rancour of party spirit. The treaty of Utrecht 
 was made the foundation of Prioi"'s persecution ; 
 but nothing criminal was ever discovered against 
 him, and at last he was permitted to go at large in 
 silence. 
 
 Being thus left in his fifty-third year with no 
 other means of fortune than the revenue of his fel- 
 lowship at college, he produced in succession the 
 poems "Alma" and "Solomon," the latter in his 
 own opinion, which has been echoed liy Cowper, 
 the best of his compositions. His friends now 
 jiroposed a subscription for a complete edition of 
 his poems; and the sum of four thousand guineas 
 was realized by the project. Harley, Earl of Ox- 
 ford, added another thousand for the ])urehase of 
 Down Hall, in which he spent the remainder of 
 his days in undisturbed quiet, though, like most 
 men who have ever enjoyed a busy greatness, some- 
 what dissatisfied with the humility of retirement. 
 He died at Wimpole, a seat of his steady friend 
 and patron, the Earl of Oxford, and was honour- 
 .ably buried ui the Poets' Corner of Westminster 
 Abbey. 
 
 Of Prior's private life but little is known, and of 
 his poems but little need be said, for the era of their 
 popularity seems to have passed away. His habits 
 are said to have been irregular, his relaxations im- 
 moral, and his tastes so very gross, that to the last 
 days of his life he would smoke a pipe and drink 
 ale in a public-house with soldiers and loose women. 
 As is commonly the case, when he turned his coat 
 in politics he became rcmai-kable for the acrimony 
 with which he encountered his old friends. The 
 great praise of his ])oetry is, that he writes with 
 plain sense, and unaffected ease. From this charac- 
 ter, however, his love pieces are to be excepted, 
 for they abound with licentiousness, and all the insi- 
 pidity of mythological illustration. Wit was his 
 forte: it gave a charm to his conversation, and has 
 more than any other quality preserved his writings 
 from oblivion. Exce])t in point of style, he has 
 little that is connncndable ; ho is never original; 
 the higher attributes of poetry, intense feeling, and 
 rich imagination, are not to be found in his pages; 
 his numbers are smooth without being sweet, his 
 meaning is always persjiicuoiis, but seldom orna- 
 mental, his is a clear flowing stream through which 
 you can see the sands beneath. Like Swift, he is 
 the poet of the connnon-i)laccs of life, which he 
 invariably treats with pleasant humour, making all 
 things gay. 
 
 JOHN FREIND, M.D. 
 
 John Freind, eminent as a ])hysicinn and a medical 
 writer, has a bust and pc'distal t.ililel in tlu; south 
 aisle, designeil by Kent, and executed by Kysbrack, 
 with a Latin epitaph. 
 
 JoirANNES Freind, M. D. 
 
 Arch later 
 
 Scrcnissimie Ueginse Caroliuie : 
 
 CujuH perspicaci Judicio cum sc approbasset,
 
 120 
 
 WESTMINSTER ABBEY. 
 
 Quanta priiis apud omnes Medicinfe Fama, 
 
 Tanta apud Regiam Familiam gratia floruit. 
 
 Ingenio erat benevolo et admodum liberali, 
 
 Societatis et Convictuuni amansj 
 
 Araieitiarum 
 
 (Etiara suo alicubi cum periculo) 
 
 Tenacissimus. 
 
 Nemo beneficia 
 
 Aut in alios alacriiis contulit, 
 
 Aut in se collata libentius meminit. 
 
 Juvenis adliuc scriptis coepit inclarescere; 
 
 Et assiduo tuin Latini tum Patrii sermouis usu, 
 
 Orationera perpolivit. 
 
 Qnam vero in umbraculis exeoluerat facundiam, 
 
 Eam in Solem atque Aciem Senator protulit. 
 
 Humauioribus Uteris 
 
 Domi peregregieq ; operam dedit ; 
 
 Omnes autem, ut decuit, uervos intendit, 
 
 Sua in arte ut esset versatissimus : 
 
 Quo successu, orbis Britannici Gives et Proceres, 
 
 Quam multiplici scientia, viri omnium gentium 
 
 eruditi 
 
 Quam indefesso studio atq; industria 
 
 Id quidem, non sine lachrvmis, Amici 
 
 loquentur. 
 
 Miri quiddam fuit, 
 
 Quod in tarn continiia occupatione, 
 
 Inter tot eircuitioues, 
 
 Scribendo etiam vacare posset ; 
 
 Quod tanto oneri diutius sustineudo impar esset 
 
 Nihil miri. 
 
 Obiit siquidem vigente adhuc tetate 
 
 Annum agens quinquagesinmm secundum 
 
 Christ. yEr. 1728, Jul. 26. 
 
 John Feeind, M. D. 
 
 Chief Physician 
 
 To her Serene Majesty Queen Caroline : 
 
 By her clear judgment once approved. 
 
 He flourished with as much grace among the Royal 
 
 Family, 
 
 As he had before enjoyed medical fame with the 
 
 world. 
 
 His character was benevolent and most liberal ; 
 
 Attached to social and hospitable intercourse, 
 
 And most tenacious of 
 
 Friendshi]), 
 
 Even when its duties were attended with danger ; 
 
 No man conveyed with greater alacrity 
 
 A benefit to others, 
 
 Or more willingly remembered one conferred upon 
 
 himself. 
 
 While yet a youth he began to attract celebrity by 
 
 his writings. 
 
 And polishing his style 
 
 By a sedulous familiarity with the Latin as well as 
 
 his native tongue, 
 
 He brought forward, as a senator, in bright 
 
 maturity. 
 
 The elocution he had lung cultivated in private life. 
 
 At home 
 
 He signally devoted his studies to polite letters. 
 
 But applied all his powers with honourable 
 
 propriety. 
 
 To make himself the most accomplished in his art. 
 
 With what success, the public and nobility of 
 
 Gi-eat Britain, 
 
 With what varied knowledge, the learned of all 
 
 nations, 
 With what indefatigable application and industry, 
 
 His friends, not without tears, 
 
 Commemorate. 
 
 It was surprising 
 
 That, amidst such a circle of 
 
 Continual occupation. 
 
 He found leisure for writing, 
 
 But that he was no longer able to sustain such 
 
 labours 
 
 Is by no means strange. 
 
 He died, flourishing in age, 
 
 While spending his fifty-second year, 
 
 July 26, 1728. 
 
 The subject of this elegant eulogy was bom in 
 1675, at Croton, in Northamptonshire, where his 
 father, the Reverend Charles Freind, enjoyed a 
 I'ectory. Educated under Dr. Busby at West- 
 minster School, he entered Christ Church College, 
 Oxford, in 1G90 ; and there distinguished himself 
 by a published version into Latin of two Greek ora- 
 tions, " Demosthenes de Corona," and " ^schines 
 in Ctesiphon." In this work he was assisted by Mr. 
 Foulkes. During the following year he edited an 
 edition of " Ovid's Metamori)hoses," and composed 
 a Latin ode upon the death of the Duke of Glouces- 
 ter, which found a place in the " Musse Anglicanaj." 
 
 These were flattering earnests of a literary life, 
 but Freind had already adopted physic as a pi-o- 
 fession, and addressed some practical papers to the 
 Royal Society, which were printed in the memoirs 
 of that laborious body. Amongst these was his 
 letter to Sir Hans Sloane on Hydrocephalus. In 
 1701 he graduated M. A. The first woi-k which 
 brought him into fixed repute as a physician and a 
 physiologist, appeared in 1703 ; and was entitled 
 " Emmenologia, in qua Fluxus Muliebris Menstrui 
 Phajnomena, Periodi, Vitia, cum Medendi Methodo 
 ad Rationes Mechanicas exiguntm-," 8vo. The 
 doctrine of this performance was then impugned 
 and approved with warmth. It was soon exploded, 
 but, upon the whole, seems to have added to the 
 reputation of the writer ; for in the following year 
 he was appointed to read chemical lectures before 
 the University of Oxford. These discourses he 
 collected together, and printed in 1707, with a 
 dedication to Sir Isaac Newton, after which he 
 was created Doctor of Physic by diploma, and 
 received into the Royal Society. 
 
 A Toi-y in politics, he was patronized by minis- 
 ters in the reign of Queen Anne, and attached to 
 the Spanish expedition of 1705, under the gallant 
 Earl of Peterborough, with the rank of Physician- 
 general to the English forces. When his attend- 
 ance ceased to be demanded by tlie army, he passed 
 into Ital)', paid a visit to Rome, and, upon his re- 
 turn home in 1707> published a pamphlet in defence 
 of his commandei'. Some years afterwards, the 
 Duke of Ormond led an expedition into Flanders, 
 and Dr. Freind again /attended as physician to the 
 forces. These were his appointments under the 
 ministers of Queen Anne. 
 
 He now settled in London, became a fellow of 
 the College of Physicians, and steadily devoted 
 himself to the practice of his profession, in which 
 he acquired both distinction and fortune. In I7I6 
 he produced in Greek and Latin the first and thu'd 
 books of " Hippocrates de Morbis Popularibus," a 
 performance of considerable erudition ; to which 
 he subjoined a " Commentary on Fevers." Some 
 doctrines in this latter treatise, relating to the pro-
 
 JOHN WOODWARD. 
 
 121 
 
 priety of purgatives in the secondary fever of the 
 confluent suiall-pox, were sharply attacked by Dr. 
 Woodward in liis " Present State of Pliysie." This 
 challenge Freind answered at first ludicrously, 
 under the name of Byfield, a contempt)rary quack 
 of some notoriety ; but afterwards in the serious 
 form of a Latin letter addressed to Dr. Mead, en- 
 titled " De Purgantibus in Secunda Yariolorum 
 Conttueutium Febre." Of this controversy it nmst 
 here suffice to state, that Woodward was angry, 
 and Freind temperate. 
 
 Such was the success attending upon his pro- 
 fessional career, when in 1722 Dr. Freind entered 
 upon political life, and procured a seat in Parlia- 
 ment for the borough of Launceston. Associating 
 with the opposition, he soon made himself ob- 
 noxious to the government by the earnestness of 
 his conduct ; and upon the suspension of the 
 Habeas Corpus Act, in consequence of Bishop 
 Atterbury's impeachment, was thrown into the 
 Tower. His party publicly ascribed this ai-rest to 
 the warmth with which he had s])oken in favour of 
 the bishop ; but Sir Robert Walpole was heard to 
 declare in private, that there were positive proofs 
 of black treason against him. A humoi'ous story 
 is told of the way in which he w-as restored to 
 liberty. Walpole fell ill, and sent for Dr. Mead 
 to cure him ; but the latter refused to prescribe, 
 miless his brother doctor in durance vile was 
 let out ; and the premier, whether from fear or 
 
 favour, yielded. Dr. Freind was bailed out after 
 an imprisonment of tlu-ee months, and was dis- 
 charged from his recognizances soon after. So 
 little credit was given to the idea of his disaffection, 
 that he was ere long appointed physician to the 
 Prince of Wales, and when he became George 11., 
 IMiysician to his Queen. 
 
 It was during his imprisonment that Dr. Freind 
 digested the plan of the work upon whieli his repu- 
 tation is now principally founded. That was a 
 History of Physic, from the time of Galen down to 
 the beginning of the Sixteenth Century, chiefly 
 with regard to practice ; of which the first i>art 
 appeared in 1725, and the second in 172G. It is 
 arranged under heads, which treat of the Greek 
 physicians after Galen, of the Arabians, and of the 
 Moderns. The reception of this performance, in 
 which, as the title imports, the practice of the art 
 among the nations just mentioned is chiefly eluci- 
 dated, was highly favoui'able ; the contents re- 
 vealed elaborate research and classical knowledge ; 
 nothing of the kind had i)reviously been under- 
 taken in the language ; it was innnediately adopted 
 as a standard work, and still enjoys a fair reputa- 
 tion. 
 
 Dr. Freind died of fever, at his scat near Hitcham, 
 Bucks, where he was buried. Perhaps this sketch 
 of his life, cursory as it is, may suffice to show that 
 he deserved the panegyrics of his epitaph as well 
 as most men have done. 
 
 JOHN WOODWARD. 
 
 John Woodward, eminent for the practice of 
 physic, and attachment to philosophy, is comme- 
 morated by a handsome monument in the north 
 aisle. A female, seated on a pedestal, holds a me- 
 dallion in her lap, on which appears the doctor's 
 profile. Tile posture of this figure is graceful, and 
 the whole highly creditable to the execution of 
 Scheemakei-s, the artist who produced it. The in- 
 scription is in Latin : — 
 
 M. S. 
 JoHANNTs Woodward, 
 
 Medici celeberrimi, 
 Philosophi nobilissimi, 
 
 Cujus 
 
 Ingenium et doctrinnm 
 
 Scripta per terrarum fei'e orbcm 
 
 I'ervulgata, 
 
 Liberalitatcm vero et i)atriie charitatem 
 
 Academia Cantabrigiensis, 
 
 Munificentia. ejus aucta, 
 
 Opibus ornata, 
 
 Tn per|)ctuuin declarat. 
 
 Mortuus Kal. Mali, A. 1). mixcxxviii. 
 
 Richardus King, Tribunus Militum Fabricumque 
 
 Pra.'fectus, 
 
 Amico optiiM(! dc sc merito 
 
 D. S. P. 
 
 Sacred to the memory of 
 
 JOII.N WOODWAIU), 
 
 One of our most celobr^iti'd Doctors, 
 And exalted Philosophers, 
 
 Whose 
 
 Ability and learning 
 
 His writings diffused over the face nearly of the 
 
 whole Globe : 
 
 But whose liberality and afl'ection for his country 
 
 The University of Cambridge, 
 
 Enriched by his numitice:;ce, and 
 
 Embellished by his wealth. 
 
 Declares in perpetuity. 
 
 He died on the kalends of May, 1728. 
 
 Colonel Richard Kin;;, a Commissioner of Public 
 
 Works, 
 
 To a friend tin; most deserving, 
 
 Decreed this sepulchre. 
 
 John Woodward was born in Derbyshire in 
 Hjf).'), and a]ii)renticed at an early age to a linen- 
 draper in London. \ partiality for reading and 
 scientific ])ursuits soon disgusted him witli tlit; 
 shop, and in IGfi? he was admitted into the family 
 of Dr. Barwick, a physician of eminence. With 
 that gentleman ho resided four years, acquiring 
 such a proficiency in the study of medicine and 
 anatomy, tjiat in Ui;)2 he was voted into the 
 medical i)rofess.)rship of (insliam College. In 
 ICDIi he was chosen a Fellow of the l{oval Society; 
 in MiU't was created M.I), by mandate of Arcii- 
 bisho|p Tenison ; in the following year was lionoured 
 with ih.: same degree by the University of Cam- 
 bridge ; and in 1702, as tlie climax of his profes- 
 sional distinction.s, was received into the College of 
 Physicians. 
 
 VVooduard was a naturalist and an antiquary, as
 
 122 
 
 WESTMINSTER ABBEY. 
 
 well as a doctor. lu 1G05 he published in 8vo. 
 " An Essay towai'ds a Natural History of the 
 Earth and Terrestrial Bodies, particularly Mine- 
 rals ; as also of the Sea, Rivers, and Springs ; 
 with an Account of the Universal Deluge, and of 
 the Ett'ects which it had upon the Earth." This 
 was a vei'y crude and defective work, as far as the 
 jihilosophy of the subject was involved ; but it was 
 illusti'ated by many curious facts and observations 
 collected by the author during some patient jour- 
 neys he made into different parts of the island, 
 previous to the composition of his book. It was 
 criticised and canvassed with asperity, but obtained, 
 nevertheless, some reputation in letters. It was 
 followed in 1G9G by " Brief Instructions for making 
 Observations in all Parts of the World." Soon 
 after he purchased an antique shield, which was 
 cut in the concave with an engraving supposed to 
 represent Camillus and the Gauls at Rome. This 
 curiosity excited great disquisition amongst the 
 profound in such matters. It was honoured with 
 a Latin dissertation by Dodwell, and handled as a 
 fertile instrument of satire by the wits. But Wood- 
 ward was not to be deterred from such researches 
 by ridicule or doubts ; for he afterwards printed a 
 '' Letter to Sir Christopher Wren, containing an 
 Account of some Roman Urns and other Antiqui- 
 ties digged up near Bishopsgate ; with brief Re- 
 flexions upon the present and antient State of 
 London." Finding the objections to his " History 
 of the Earth " still enforced by Camerarius and 
 others, he next sent forth a Latin volume, in 8vo. 
 entitled " Naturalis Historia Telluris, illustrata et 
 aucta: accedit Methodica Fossiliura in classes Dis- 
 tributio." This was translated in 1726 by Ben- 
 jamin Holloway — " The Natural History of the 
 Earth, illustrated and enlarged ; to which is added, 
 a Methodical Distribution of Fossils into classes." 
 In 17 18 he returned to medical subjects, and pub- 
 lished " The State of Physic and Diseases, with an 
 Enquiry into the cause of the late Increase of 
 them, but more particularly of the Sniall-pox ; 
 with Considerations upon the new Practice of 
 Purging for that Disease. To the whole is pre- 
 mised an idea of the Nature and Mechanism of 
 Man, and the Disorders to which it is obnoxious, 
 and of the Method of rectifying them." It was in 
 this work that those censures upon Dr. Freind's 
 practice, with regard to the small-pox, were con- 
 
 tained, which led to the controversy noticed in the 
 sketch of the latter. With him and Dr. Mead 
 Woodward fought duels, one of which was cele- 
 brated by a bou mot. The doctors engaged with 
 swords under the dome of the old College of Phy- 
 sicians in Warwick Lane. At the first assault 
 Woodward's foot slipped, and he stumbled. " Take 
 your life," said his antagonist. " Anything but 
 your physic," retorted the vanquished doctor ; and 
 the affair concluded. 
 
 Woodward was speculative and opiniative in the 
 extreme, and his "State of Physic" may be taken 
 as a criterion of his peculiarities. In it he advanced 
 a notion that the bile and its salts re-absorbed into 
 the blood, were the true causes of animal life, and 
 that their fermentations in the stomach bred all 
 diseases. From this he deduced two univei'sal 
 remedies — emetics to dislodge the morbid bile, and 
 oily medicines to correct it. Another of his notions 
 was, that life is inherent not in the nerves, but in 
 the blood, an hypothesis in favour of which he 
 laboured through many experiments. 
 
 Dr. Woodward died of a decline in his apart- 
 ments at Gresham College, in the C3rd jear of his 
 age. Though rather unhappy in his medical opin- 
 ions, he enjoyed a considerable reputation as a 
 uaturalist. His cabinet of fossils was so highly 
 valued, that a catalogue of its contents was pub- 
 lished in two volumes, 8vo. after his death, to- 
 gether with another octavo entitled, " Fossils of all 
 kinds digested into a Method suitable to their 
 mutual relation and affinity." His collection he 
 bequeathed to the University of Cambridge, with all 
 his personal pro})erty, valued at 150/. a-year, for 
 the purpose of establishing a lectureship upon any 
 subject which could be derived from his own 
 works. Whatever degree of generosity there was 
 in this legacy, it was perhaps outset by the vanity 
 of the conditions upon which it was granted. 
 Nevertheless Woodward must be admitted to have 
 contributed in no mean degree to the knowledge of 
 geology which has been attained since he devoted 
 his attention to it. He is entitled to the praise of 
 having been amongst the first Englishmen who led 
 the way to make it a science ; for his views upon 
 the subject were based strictly upon actual obser- 
 vation and natural data, and will be found much 
 superior to those entertained by his contemporaries 
 Burnet and Whistou. 
 
 HUGH CHAMBERLEN, M.D. 
 
 Hugh Chamberlen, doctor in medicine, has a large 
 monument of striking effect, executed in marble of 
 different colours by P. A. Scheemakers and Laur. 
 Delvaux. His statue is introduced recumbent upon 
 an elevated sarcophagus, the head resting upon his 
 right hand, and a book held by the left, a posture 
 remarkable both for ease and grace. At either 
 end stand female figures, the one personifying me- 
 dicine, the other longevity; while from above a 
 cherub Fame is descending with a ti'umpet and 
 wreath. The figures are naturally placed, and 
 neatly developed ; the general effect of the design 
 is therefore good. Upon a spacious pedestal is a 
 Latin epitaph composed by Bishop Atterbury, at 
 
 present obscurely 
 expressed : — 
 
 legible, which may be thus 
 
 Hugo Chamberlen, 
 
 Hugonis ac Petri utriusque medici 
 
 Filius ae Nepos, 
 
 Medicinam Ipse excoluit fteliciter, et egz-egie 
 
 honestavit : 
 
 Ad summam quippe Artis sua; peritiam, 
 
 Sunmiam etiam in Dictis et Factis Fidem, 
 
 Insignem Mentis Candorem, 
 
 Morumque Suavitatem adjunxit ; 
 
 Ut an Lauguentibus an Sanis acceptior. 
 
 An Medicus an Vir melior essct,
 
 HUGH CHAMBERLEN. 
 
 123 
 
 Cei'tatum sit inter eos 
 
 Qui iu uti'oque laudi.s genere rriinarium fuisse 
 
 Uuo ore conseutiimt 
 
 Nullam Illo raedcndi rationem non assccutus ; 
 
 Deprlleiiiiis tamcn Puerperanim periculis, 
 
 Et averteiulis lufaiitium niorbis, 
 
 Operam pnccipuc iiiipeiidit : 
 
 Eaque multoties cavit, 
 
 Ne niustribus Faniiliis eriperontiir Ilteredes unici, 
 
 Ne Patriae charissiniaj Gives egregii: 
 
 Uuiversis certe prodesse, qiiantuin potuit, voluit. 
 
 Adeoque distracta iu Partes Republica, 
 
 Cum lis a quorum sententia discessit 
 
 Amicitiara uiliilomiiuis sancte eoluit, 
 
 Artisque suae prsesidia lubens commuuicavit. 
 
 Fuit ille 
 
 Tanta Vitce elegautia ac nitore, 
 
 Animo tarn forti tanique cxcelso, 
 
 Indole tarn propensa ad i\Iunitic'entiam, 
 
 Specie ipsa tarn ingenua atque liberali, 
 
 Ut facile crederes 
 
 Prosapife ejus nobilem aliquem exstitisse Auctorem, 
 
 UtcuuKjue ex prteclara stirpe Veterum Comituni de 
 
 Tankerville 
 Jam a quadringentis Ilium annis ortum nescires. 
 
 In divei-sa quam expertus Fortunoe sorte, 
 
 Quod suum erat, quod dceuit, semper tenuit: 
 
 Cum Magnis vivens baud deniisse se gessit; 
 
 Cum IMinimis non aspere, non inbuniant>: 
 
 Utrosque eodem bene merendi Studio coniplexus, 
 
 L'trisque idem teque utilis ac charus. 
 
 Filius erat mira in Patrem pietate, 
 
 Pater Filiarum amantissinms, 
 
 Quas quidem tres babuit, 
 
 Unam e prima conjiige, duas ex altera, 
 
 Castas, bonas, I\latrum simillimas. 
 
 Cum lis omnibus usque ad mortem conjunctissime 
 
 vixit : 
 
 Tertiam Uxorem sibi superstitem reliquit. 
 
 Ad liumaniores illas ac Domesticas Virtutes 
 
 Tanquam Cumulus accessit 
 
 Rerum Divinarum Amor non fictus, 
 
 Summa Nuniinis ipsius Rcverentia, 
 
 Quibus iinbuta mens 
 
 Exuvias jam Corporis depositura, 
 
 Ad Superiora sc erexit: 
 
 Morbi diutini languuribus infraeta jiermansit, 
 
 Et vitam t«'indem bane minime vitalcni, 
 
 Non dissolute, non iiifructuose actani, 
 
 Morte vere Cbristiaiia claudciis, 
 
 Ad patriam ctulestem migravit. 
 
 Obiit 17" Junii, a.d. 172f5, 
 
 Annis Sexaginta quatiior expletis : 
 
 Provectiori :utate sane dignus, 
 
 Cujus ojjo effectnm est, ut nnilti 
 
 Non inter prinios penc Vagitus extincti 
 
 Ad extrcmam nunc Scuectuteni possint pervenire. 
 
 Viro Intf'gcrrimo, Amieissinio 
 
 Ob servatain in partu vitani, 
 
 Ob restitutam siepius 
 
 Et coiifirmatam tandem 
 
 Valetudini.'m, 
 
 Monunieittum iioc Sciiiilcbralo 
 
 Ejus I'^Higie iiisigiiituni posiiit, 
 
 EDMUNUUS I)i;X IIUCKINOIIAMIK.NSIS ; 
 
 Appositis iiulc ututuis 
 
 Ad exemplum Marmoris antiqui expressis, 
 
 Quie quid ab illo pnestitum sit, 
 
 Et quid illi, redditum licet I adliuc debetur, 
 
 Posteris testatum i'aciaut. 
 
 Hugh Chamberlen, 
 
 The son and grandson 
 
 Of Hugh and Peter, who were both physicians. 
 
 Cultivated medicine ha]>pily, and peculiarly 
 
 adorned the study; 
 
 For to the highest skill in the art 
 
 He joined the highest honour in word and deed. 
 
 Singular integrity of mind, 
 
 And amenity of manners; 
 
 So that, whether he was moi-e welcome to the sick 
 
 or the healthy. 
 
 Better as a man or a doctor. 
 
 Remains undetermined amongst those 
 
 Who agi'ee with one voice 
 
 That he stood foremost on either ground of praise. 
 
 There was no method of cure which he had not 
 
 acquired; 
 
 Although he principally exerted his labours 
 
 In repelling the dangers of fever. 
 
 And averting the diseases of infancy. 
 
 Thus he rejieatedly saved 
 
 Their only heirs from being snatched away from 
 
 illustrious families. 
 
 And her eminent subjects from his dearest country. 
 
 To benefit all as far as he was able was certainly 
 
 his desire. 
 Thus too, while the commonweal w^as distracted by 
 
 parties. 
 
 He nevertheless cultivated a sacred friendship with 
 
 those from whose opinions lie dissented, 
 
 And cheerfully imparted to them the protection 
 
 of his art. 
 
 He was a man 
 
 So elegant and pulished, 
 
 Of a spirit so brave and exalted. 
 
 Of a character so prone to munificence, 
 
 And a nature so ingenuous and liberal. 
 
 That it had easily been supposed 
 
 His race had sprung from some noble founder, 
 
 Although it were not known 
 
 That he descended from the illustrious family of 
 
 the Earls of Tankerville, 
 
 Four hundred years old. 
 
 Amidst the vicissitudes which he experienced in life. 
 
 What belonged to him, and became him, he always 
 
 retained: 
 
 Living with the greatest, he never bore himself 
 
 meanly; 
 
 With the lowest never severely, never inhumanely : 
 
 But embracing both with the same desire U> 
 
 merit well. 
 
 He was to both alike serviceable and deai*. 
 
 As a son, his piety was admirable ; 
 
 As a father, he was most loving to his daughters. 
 
 Of whom he had three; 
 
 One by his first, and two by his second wife, 
 
 Chaste, good, and most likt; their mothers. 
 
 With all these, he lived unto death in the closest 
 
 union: 
 
 He left a third wife his survivor. 
 
 To those more humane and domestic virtues 
 
 lie added 
 
 No feigned love of all that is divine, 
 
 And the deepest n-verenee of the Deity:
 
 124 
 
 WESTMINSTER ABBEY. 
 
 Imbued with which, 
 
 His spirit rose to higher things, 
 
 While divesting itself of the slough of humanity, 
 
 And remained imbroken throughout the languor 
 
 of long sickness. 
 
 Closing at last, by a truly Christian death, 
 
 A life the least mortal, 
 
 And spent neither dissolutely nor fruitlessly, 
 
 He emigi-ated to his heavenly country. 
 
 He died on the 17th of June, 1728, 
 
 Having completed his sixty fourth year; 
 
 Sui-ely meriting a more mature existence, 
 
 As by his aid it was effected, 
 
 That many, preserved even in their first infancy. 
 
 May yet attain the extreme of old age. 
 
 In return for a life saved at his bii'th, 
 
 For health restored. 
 
 And at last confirmed, 
 
 EDMUND DUKE OF BUCKINGHAM 
 
 Placed this sepulchral monument. 
 
 Ornamented with his effigy. 
 
 To a man the most spotless and friendly. 
 
 Attached are statues, 
 
 Expressed in the style of ancient sculpture, 
 
 To attest to posterity. 
 
 How much he benefited mankind, 
 
 And how much — would that it could be rendered 
 
 back ! remains due to him. 
 
 Hugh Chamberlen, thus eloquently panegyrised, 
 was born in London, during the year 1664. He 
 studied at Cambi-idge, and from that university 
 obtained his diploma of M.D. in 1C80. Settling in 
 business at London, ho chiefly devoted himself to 
 midwifery; and soon enjoyed the reputation of being 
 among the first of our physicians who snatched 
 that important branch of practice from the hands 
 of the ignorant and vulgar, and relieved its dan- 
 gers by judicious treatment and experimental eluci- 
 dation. He invented the obstetrical forceps, one 
 of the most valuable instruments in surgery, and 
 repaired with it to Paris in 1672, anticipating great 
 honour and reward, but unfortunately, at the first 
 accouchement he was called to, a malformation in 
 the woman brought on immediate death, and the 
 French doctors exulted so much over him — observ- 
 ing that he was much mistaken if he thought it was 
 as easy to deliver a Frenchwoman as an English- 
 
 woman — that he hurried away from them over- 
 powered with shame. In Holland, however, he was 
 more successful: he impai-ted his secret to some 
 medical men at Amsterdam, and received several 
 handsome presents in return. At last, he settled in 
 London, and obtained great practice and a large 
 fortune. 
 
 When Mary of Modena, the second wife of 
 James II., was taken with the pains of labour, 
 Chamberlen was called in to her assistance, and 
 brought the future Pretender into the world. Of 
 this birth he addressed an account to the Princess 
 Sophia of Hanover, with the view of discrediting 
 the rumoui-s which represented the pregnancy as 
 simulated, and the child by consequence supposi- 
 titious. In 1695, he displayed the versatility of 
 his talents, by proposing some plans for a national 
 land bank, which, though patronised by some, were 
 never approved of by the public. As an author, 
 Dr. Chamberlen is known by the translation of a 
 " Treatise on Midwifery," from the French of Mau- 
 riceau, which was well received by the faculty, and 
 has run through several editions since the period 
 of his death. 
 
 Upon the face of this rapid summary it is appa- 
 rent, that the sumptuary honours of Dr. Chamber- 
 len's tomb have been deserved by no other memo- 
 rials than one surgical invention and one translation. 
 With respect to his forceps, which has been much 
 simplified and improved by Sraellie and others, it 
 should be remembered, that he attributed its dis- 
 covery conjointly to his father, his brothers, and 
 himself— an honourable admission, frnm which, 
 however, the former parties have derived no reini- 
 tation, inasmuch as the father, by making no men- 
 tion of it in his " Midwives' Guide," a miserable 
 performance, published in 1665, ha-s been adjudged 
 ignorant of the resource; and his sons, by being 
 remembered for no merit whatever, have been 
 considered incapable of the production. In con- 
 clusion, as to the version of Mauriceau's "Obser- 
 vations sur la Grossesse," — the book is generally 
 reputed the best at that time extant upon the sub- 
 ject in English; but that merit is prmcipally ascri- 
 bable to the original— a truth of which the French- 
 man, who was not a little jealous, seems to have 
 been thoroughly sensible, for he asserted with inde- 
 licate vanity, that Chamberlen learned all he knew 
 of his profession from those pages. 
 
 FRANCIS ATTERBURY, D.D. 
 
 Francis Atterbury, a prelate equally conspicuous 
 in the history of politics, literature, and religion, 
 was born in 1662, at Milton Keyes, near Newport 
 Pagneli, Bucks, of which parish his father, a Doctor 
 in Divinity, was rector. From Westminster School, 
 where he began his education, he was elected a 
 student of Christ's Church College, Oxford, and 
 there rapidly distinguished himself for classical at- 
 tainments and poetical taste. In 1687 he graduated 
 as M.A., and during the course of the same year, 
 made his first essay in controversial writing, which 
 he subsequently cultivated to a considerable extent, 
 and with no mean ability, producing " Considera- 
 tions on the spirit of Martin Luther ;" but neither 
 
 this nor the answer to it were thought worthy of 
 much notice. Some credit, however, attached itself 
 to his name, soon after, in consequence of a conjec- 
 tui-e that he assisted in the popular controversy, 
 which his pupil, the Hon. Charles Boyle, afterwards 
 Earl of Orrery, maintained with Dr. Bentley, upon 
 the subject of the epistles of Phalaris. 
 
 By this time, that quick restlessness of character 
 for which his career became afterwards so remark- 
 able, began to develope itself, and he complained 
 rather vehemently to his father of the state of dis- 
 content in which he lived. To these remonstrances 
 the old gentleman keenly replied, by recommending 
 a marriage into a family of interest, some bishop's
 
 FRANCIS ATTERBURY. 
 
 125 
 
 or courtier's, addins: tliat it was a good step to be 
 taken with aeeomplishnients, and a portion too. 
 Tiiis jirofitable counsel was duly attended to; Francis 
 soon after solicited and obtained the hand of Miss 
 Osborne, a lady related to tlie Duke of Leeds, and 
 possessed of beauty and 7^00/. The death of his 
 father gave him an opportunity of soliciting pre- 
 ferment to the vacant living ; but his applica- 
 tion being refused he removed to London in 1C03, 
 and sought for distinction and fortune in that 
 great mart for talents of every description. His 
 aptitude for jiublic eloquence soon attracted at- 
 tention, and he was successively gazetted chap- 
 lain in ordinary to the king, ju-eacher at Bridewell, 
 and lecturer of St. Bride's Cliurch, in Fleet Street. 
 These appointments were not likely to damp his 
 ai'dour. His sermons began to be noticed for the 
 boldness of his sentiments, and the energy of his lan- 
 guage. The first of his sermons that was attacked 
 was one " On the Power of Charity to cover Sin ;" 
 for his doctrines in which he found Hoadly at the 
 head of his antagonists. A second and more violent 
 controversy was occasioned by a discourse, on the 
 "Character of the Seorner." This, however, was 
 far from uncongenial to Atterbury; constitutionally 
 opposed to every thing trite or tame, and delighting 
 in novelty and vividness, his answers were i)roni])t 
 and pointed, and as if emboldened by the excite- 
 ment, he entered upon another disj)utation, con- 
 cerning the " Rights, Powers, and Privileges of 
 Convocations," which lasted for four years, and in 
 which the most prominent writer against him was 
 Dr. Wake. Upon all religious argumentations there 
 seems to have been hitherto inflicted a melancholy 
 fatality, by the perverseness of which, each suc- 
 ceeding dispute has only been marked by an uncha- 
 ritableness and a vindictiveness, farther and far- 
 ther removed from the first principles of that reli- 
 gion, for the benefit of which everj- altercation has 
 been justified. From the lamentable spirit of this 
 example, nothing was in the present instance de- 
 tracted; the same fierceness of zeal and fury of con- 
 tention are to be traced throughout this altercation, 
 in which Atterbury espoused the side of the high 
 ecclesiastics, and was rewarded for his labours by 
 the thanks of the lower house of convocation, and a 
 degi-ee of doctor of divniity from the University of 
 Oxford. 
 
 Atterbury, as a strong and active Tory, came 
 in for no stinted share of wealth and pi-omotions, 
 during the reign of Ciueen Anne. After being con- 
 firmed in his aiipointinent f)f chaplain in ordinary, 
 ho was made Dean of ('arlisl(> in 1704 ; a canon of 
 Exeter in 17<t7; and in 17'>!>, he engaged in a fresh 
 disfpiisition with Hoadly, concerning the doctrine of 
 passive obedience. An active part in the defence 
 of Sachcverell, and the duties of prolocutor to the 
 lower house of convocation, next occupied a portion 
 of hi.s time ; and he also found leisure to compose 
 a jtaniphlet entitled a " Representation of thi; pre- 
 sent state of Religion," which, though considered 
 too violent for presentation to tlii^ (iueen, was not- 
 wilhstanding dispersed without a name into private 
 circulation. His fortune now ran to its climax ; in 
 1712 he became Dean of Christ Church, (Jxford ; 
 and in 1713, at the recommendation of the Earl of 
 Oxf(jrd, attained his liighest dignity, the Bishopric 
 of Rochester, to which was superadded tlu! no less 
 valua))le promotion, of Dean of U'estiuinster. 
 
 Such wa.s the I'ank of Atterbury in the year 1711, 
 
 when the death of Anne unhinged his prosperity. 
 The new monarch was no sooner seateil on the 
 throne, than a report was circulated, affirniiug that, 
 u])on the queen's death, Atterbury had waited ujion 
 the lords Bolingbroke and Harcourt, and had urged 
 them to proclaim the Pretender, boldly oifering to 
 head the procession in his lawn sleeves. This story 
 was promptly whisjtered to the ears of George, and 
 it was not likely that one who joined a sound s])irit 
 for hating with German sullenness, would be at any 
 trouble to disguise his feelings. Accordingly, the 
 king soon evinced a marked dislike to the bisho]>, 
 and the latter acknowledged the manifestation by 
 opposing the government to the utmost of his 
 power. He harangued upon every occasion against 
 the ministry with vehemence; set his name to every 
 protest against their acts in the House of Lords; 
 and upon the explosion of the Scotch rebellion in 
 1715, stamped a seal upon the character of his dis- 
 afi'ection, by refusing to concur in the loyal address 
 of the bishops. The inflammable temper of Atter- 
 bury now rioted in hostility; he even suspended a 
 curate at Gravesend, for allowing the use of his 
 church to one of the chaplains to the Dutch troops, 
 who had been brought over to assist in quelling the 
 disaffection. This conduct, in the natui-al routine 
 of tilings, soon led to more dangerous consequences; 
 after being for a time suspected, the bishop was at 
 length arrested, and after an examination before 
 the council upon a charge of consjiiracy, was com- 
 mitted to the Tower. This occurred in August, 
 1722; after a fortnight he took advantage of the 
 sessions at the Old Bailey to move the judges upon 
 the plea of bad health, for one of three things — a 
 speedy trial, leave to put in bail, or an immediate 
 dischai'ge. The application was overruled. 
 
 The next meeting of i)arliament took place in 
 October following, and the public business was 
 opened by a speech from the king in person, which 
 mainly consisted of a peremptory denunciation of 
 the conspiracy. Although among the people some 
 sympathies had been expressed, and among the 
 clergy strong indignation had been vented at the 
 bishop's confinement; and allhough prayers had 
 been offered up for his health in almost all the 
 churches in the metropolis, still this decision of 
 the ministry seemed to augur but ill for his cause. 
 A ])lan of the consjiiracy was laid Ijefori' the House 
 of Connnons, by the particulars of which it was 
 made to apjM'ar, that an invasion of the kingd<ini 
 under the Duke of Ormond had been designed; that 
 a jiopish Pretendi'r was to have been forced on the 
 throne; that the plot had been defeated by the vigi- 
 lance of the ministry; but that, notwithstanding, 
 many agents had since then been eniployiil to cov- 
 rupt'anil seduce the army and navy; and finally, 
 that the Dukes of Norfolk and Ormond, the Karl 
 of Orrery, Lords North and Grey, and the Bishop 
 of Rochefter, ai)peared by several letters and cir- 
 cumstances, to have be(;n theri'in concerned. A 
 bill of jiains and jienalties was introduced into the 
 House of Connnons, against which Atterbury de- 
 clined to offer any ojipositioii, importing in a letter 
 to the speaker, that conscious of iimocence he would 
 content himself with one defence, and that before 
 the house of which he had the honour to be a mem- 
 ber. The liill being sent uj" to the lords, the busi- 
 ness assumed more of the form of a trial. In the 
 lower house the Tories ha<l declined voting, lail in 
 th(.' ujiper one, the ]iarty vchcnieiilly contested the
 
 120' 
 
 WESTMINSTER ABBEY. 
 
 accusation. The main point was supported by the 
 evidence of some clerks in the Post Office, who, 
 though unacquainted with the bishop's writing, yet 
 swore to a similarity of penmanship under his name 
 for four successive months. The opposition to the 
 bill was signalised by a great display of ai-gument 
 and eloquence, and was closed by a defence from 
 Atterbury, in which he unequivocally denied the 
 identity of the writing, and fully maintained the 
 reputation of his character by the firmness with 
 which he behaved, and the ability with which he 
 spoke. But the ministerial majority was in no 
 degree shaken by these circumstances; the bill 
 passed into law, and he was deprived of all offices 
 and benefits, and condemned to perpetual exile, or 
 death in case he infringed upon the sentence. The 
 latter jienalty was extended to all who should cor- 
 respond with or abet him; while no subject was 
 permitted to visit him, without an express authority 
 under the sign manual. 
 
 Atterbm-y left England for Fi-ance in June 1723, 
 and, after a sojourn at Brussels, fixed his residence, 
 and spent the remainder of his life at Paris. There 
 he professed a resignation to his fate, and an abne- 
 gation of worldly cares, the sincerity of which was 
 doubted while yet he lived, and disproved after his 
 deatli, when a series of letters, written about the 
 year 1725, to foment an insurrection in the High- 
 lands, was published at Edinburgh ; — productions, 
 the authenticity of which, it is to be remarked, has 
 never been called in question. These wei'e the 
 importunities of a waning ambition, and were, in 
 some measure, lionourably softened by efficient 
 study and literary correspondence. His favourite 
 daughter, Mrs. Morice, the sole companion of his 
 banishment (for he lost his wife the year before his 
 imprisonment), expired m his arms in 1729, and 
 his strength underwent a severe shock at the event. 
 He recovered a becoming degree of composure, 
 howevei', and conducted himself in peaceful reputa- 
 bility until the month of February 1731, when a 
 violent fit of illness put a period to his degradation. 
 The interest of his friends was powerfully e.xerted 
 to obtain some distinction for his remains, and they 
 succeeded so far as to procure a private interment 
 of the body in the Poets' Corner. His own desire 
 while dean was to have been buried near the west 
 door, — " as far," he observed in a letter to Pope, 
 from "kings and kpesars as space will admit of." 
 
 Upon the character of Bishop Atterbury, no dis- 
 quisition need be required from his biographer, 
 inasmuch as the whole tenor of his life incontesta- 
 bly shows that he was one of those proud and daring 
 characters, whom no rational person can desire to 
 see invested with the exemi)lary offices of religion. 
 Ever restless in zeal, and vaulting in ambition, 
 he had as little charity for an opponent in contro- 
 versy, as for a foe in politics. But if his resentment 
 was fierce, it nmst also be stated that Iiis attach- 
 ment was vivid ; thus however strong the censure 
 
 of his enemies, it is met by as high praises from 
 his friends, wlio ranked amongst the most gifted 
 contemporaries of his day. His views were bold 
 and commanding, his address dextrous, and his 
 duplicity refined; he always professed nobly, but 
 occasionally designed badly; on the whole his repu- 
 tation exceeded his merits. 
 
 With regard to his impeachment, two points seem 
 to be now established beyond dispute; the first, that 
 he certainly was culpably leagued against the go- 
 vernment; and the second, that the pi'oceedings 
 against hira were arbitrary and unconstitutional in 
 the extreme. This statement may at first refiec- 
 tion appear inconsequential; but the facts are these: 
 the sources of our conviction of his guilt are of 
 posthumous origin, while the grounds upon which 
 he was condemned were little better than obnoxi- 
 ousness and hearsay. As to his literary preten- 
 sions, they were undoubtedly respectable; his mind 
 was highly endowed and well polished. The cele- 
 brity which his friends deservedly possessed, cast 
 some rays of greater brightness upon his name than 
 his own deserts could Iiave attracted, but time 
 always deadens such reflections, and Bishop Atter- 
 bury is now to be chiefly respected as an engaging 
 preacher, and an elegant letter- writer. In criticism, 
 he was oftener tasteful than profound; and in con- 
 troversy, oftener pointed than learned ; in both, 
 consequently, he has so many superiors, that his 
 essays in them must, at this period, be considered 
 rather as aids to popularity than props of fame. 
 To one matter more it may be proper to allude, and 
 to that, only because it has been noticed by former 
 biographers. Pope asserts that, at one period of 
 his life, Atterbury was sce])tical in that belief of 
 wliich he was so impassioned an advocate, but that 
 he was afterwards confirmed in its princijiles, and 
 derived his only consolation fi-om them in adversity. 
 His pathetic gift of a bible to Pope, viiion the occa- 
 sion of their parting at the Towei", is well known, 
 and supplies a satisfactory proof of a matured at- 
 tachment to its doctrine. Other writers liave affected 
 to question the solidity of his Protestantism, be- 
 cause he conspired to restore a Catholic sovereign ; 
 but there is not much force in the remark, and it 
 may be further affirmed, that it were well for man- 
 kind if less connexion were admitted between poli- 
 tics and religion than usually subsists, for in nine 
 cases out of ten the one debauches the other. This 
 sketch of the life of Atterbury afl'ords some reasons 
 for their disunion ; for, had that prelate confined 
 his abilities to the concerns of his ministry, or 
 rather had he not been mixed up by its very duties 
 with secular interests, the benefits i-endered by him 
 to his church and his country, would have been 
 influential and imcontaniinated, whereas, in the 
 alloy of two conflicting pursuits, he can only be 
 ranked as an eminent man, with many deductions 
 from the pure standard of liouoj'able efficiency. 
 
 JOHN GAY. 
 
 Gay's monument, executed by Adams, and erected 
 by his patrons the Duke and' Duchess of Queens- 
 bury, stands in the southern extremity of the Poets' 
 Cornel'. The design, simple in the extreme, pre- 
 
 sents a medallion portrait, supported by a cherub 
 on an elevated pedestal of fine marble, which is 
 decorated with emblematical devices of music, co- 
 medy, and poetry. Altogether, it is rather a hea\y 
 
 L
 
 JOHN GAY. 
 
 127 
 
 perfomiance. His own brief epitaph, so often con- 
 demned for its levity, and so little to be relished 
 for its point, is engraved upon the ledge : — 
 
 Life is a jest, and all things show it ; 
 I thought so once, but now I Imow it. 
 
 Underneath are the lines in which Pope affec- 
 tionately describes his merits as an author, and 
 his character as a man. 
 
 Of manners gentle, and affections mild, 
 
 In wit a man, simplicity a child ; 
 
 With native humour tempting virtuous rage, 
 
 Form'd to delight at once, and lash the age. 
 
 Above temptation in a low estate. 
 
 And uneorrupted even among the gi-eat; 
 
 A safe companion, and an easy friend, 
 
 Uublamed through life, lamented in thy end : 
 
 Tiiese are thy lionours ! not that here thy bust 
 
 Is mix'd with heroes, or with kings thy dust. 
 
 But that the worthy and the good shall say. 
 
 Striking their pensive bosoms — Here lies Gay ! 
 
 He died December the 4th, 1732, aged 45. 
 
 John Gay was born at Barnstaple about the year 
 1G88, and educated at the free school there, under 
 a master named Luck, who subsequently published 
 a volume of Latin and English poetry. His family, 
 though ancient and once estated, was so reduced 
 at this period, that no higher prospects of settling 
 him in the world occured to them than an appren- 
 ticeship to a London silk-mercer, in the Strand. Of 
 the time he spent in this employment, or the manner 
 in which he occupied his leisure, no account has 
 been given. His own entreaties are said to have 
 prevailed upon his master to cancel his indentures. 
 In 171"2, he obtained, by some influence unknown, 
 the post of secretary in the household of the Duchess 
 of Monmouth ; this was after he had started as an 
 author, by publishing " Rural Sports," an eclogue, 
 in two cantos, inscribed to Pope. The friendship 
 of the latter was the only advantage which this 
 effort produced, or deserved to produce. It is a 
 mere outline, neither judiciously planned, nor neatly 
 sketched; the verses are separately smooth, and 
 the thoughts ])lain, but the diction is not always 
 correct, and there is no imagination in the ideas 
 expressed. 
 
 His next performance was "Trivia; or, The Art 
 of Walking the Streets of London," perhaps the 
 best of his miscellaneous poems: the subject is 
 peculiarly fitted to the nature of his talents, and it 
 is i)leasantly executed. The " Shepherd's Week," 
 a poem in six jiastorals, deilicated to Lord IJoling- 
 broke, followed in 1714. It has been suggested, 
 that he was incited to this composition by Pope, 
 who, disrclisliing the praises awarded to Ambrose 
 Philips for liis productions in the same style, 
 sought to establish the absurdity of making jjhs- 
 torals so many strict copies of nature. For lliis 
 purpose he fixed upon Gay, an author by this time 
 associated with the ]irominciit wits of the <lay, and 
 rapidly advancing into ])ublic estimation. 'J'he 
 (Hrct of this literary scheme was curious: (Jay 
 fulfilled the jiroject so closely as to border upon 
 grossness and degradation ; the literati were satis- 
 fii-d that to be tasteful a pastoi-al nmst not be natu- 
 ral ; but the j)iiblic sei/.fd upon the [locms with 
 delight, and read thcin with avidity, as truthful 
 
 descriptions of the real mannei-s and occupations of 
 rural life. 
 
 We are now to consider him as a dramatist: 
 after printing the " ^lohocks," a tragi-coniical farce, 
 without his name, he brought forward the " Wife 
 of Bath," a comedy borrowed from Chaucer's 
 Tales. It was acted at Drury-lane Theatre in I7IS, 
 but obtained neither honour nor profit. Yet he seems 
 to have i-egarded it with tenderness; fiu", sevt^nteen 
 years afterwards, when the town was flushed with 
 the success of the " Beggar's Opera," he reproduced 
 it, with alterations, and had the mortification of 
 seeing it again despised. 
 
 This misfortune, however, was compensated by 
 better things, for his amiable maimers had now so 
 strongly attached to him several of those gn-at 
 men with whom literary merit had first associatrd 
 him, that in the last year of Queen Anne's reign he 
 \\as appointed secretary to the Earl of Clarendon 
 in an embassy to the court of France. He cherished 
 high hopes on this pi-eferment: his temperament 
 being sanguine, he looked forward to a speedy pos- 
 session of all those offices and emoluments to which 
 literary men had occasionally been advanced. But 
 the anticipation was soon blasted: Queen Anne 
 died, the House of Hanover succeeded to the 
 throne; and, as Gay had chosen his friends froin^ 
 among the followers of the Stuarts, there ajijieared 7 
 at first no prospect of success for his ambition 
 under the new order of things. 
 
 Poets, however, have immemorially been noted 
 for inconstancy in the exercise of their noble art: 
 Gay resumed courage, and adopted the prudent 
 resolution of making those flowers which had proved 
 acceptable to one family, equally pleasing to another. 
 With this view he produced, and dedicated to the 
 Princess of Wales, the "What d'ye call it?" a 
 tragi-comi-pastoral farce, acted at Drury-lane in 
 1715. This vagary was meant to ridicule the domi- 
 nant ])assion for tragedies, but the conception heing 
 ludicrous and the action grave, the audience were 
 at first perplexed, and some laughed while others 
 cried. From the beginning it was highly extolled 
 by the wits, and as soon as the gist was taken, 
 became sufficiently poi)nlar. Two years after he 
 sought to iinjirove his credit in this style of writing 
 by entertaining the town with " Three Hours after 
 Marriage," a comedy, in three acts. The title-page 
 gave oiily his own name as the author, but it was 
 generally understood to have been produced con- 
 jointly liy him, Pope, and Arbuthnot. The associ- 
 ation "of "intellect thus emjiloyed was certainly con- 
 siderable, yet the efl'ect was by no means jiowerful. 
 The play stood for seven nights with great dilliculty, 
 aiul was then positively diivcu oft' the stage. One ob- 
 ject it i)ro])osed, was the ridicule of Dr. Woodward, 
 who had tlien begun to direct his attention to fossil 
 antiquities, a pursuit as little open to contempt as 
 tlie character of the man was unobnoxious to satire. 
 It caimot be regretted that the comedy which 
 wantonly tam])ered with private life should lie 
 ex])loded with disgust. 
 
 (Jay was truly, as Pope observed, a sim])le mortal: 
 u]) to this period he had lived on full of ardour, 
 fancying every day that he should rise to fame and 
 indciiendence, but finding himself at flie close of 
 each succeeding year as poor and nnjirovided as he 
 ha<l been at the beginning of it. The mind that is 
 easily rousecl to the enthusiasm of ho|ie is at inter- 
 vals sure to fall into the o])posite e.xlrenie of dijec-
 
 128 
 
 WESTMINSTER ABBEY. 
 
 tion. Such was now the case with Gay: his spirits 
 sunk, and although no claim of merit availed to 
 procure a substantial remedy for bis distress, yet 
 the regard which his manners had excited from 
 his acquaintances, induced many attentions which 
 soothed and diverted his melancholy. During the 
 year I7I6 the Earl of Burluigton sent liim into 
 Devonshire ; during the next year Mr. Pulteney took 
 him on an excursion to Aix la Chapelle; and in 
 I7I8 Lord Harcourt invited him down to his 
 country seat, where the two lovers were killed by 
 lightning, as related by Pope in his letters. 
 
 These proofs of kindness were in time extended 
 to acts of substantial benefit, for with the advice of 
 his friends, he published his poems by subscription 
 in 1720, and realised 1000?. by the undertaking. 
 How he disposed of this sum does not exactly 
 appear: of those whom he called in to confer with 
 him on the subject, Lewis, who was steward to the 
 Earl of Oxford, advised him to intrust it to the 
 funds, and live upon the interest; Arbuthnot ex- 
 horted him to entrust it to Providence, and live 
 upon the principal; and Pope desired him to pur- 
 chase an annuity. It seems probable that he fol- 
 lowed no one of these courses, but invested the 
 major part upon South Sea Stock, in which Mr. 
 Secretary Craggs had made him a present during 
 the same year. At least we find him, before a 
 twelvemonth elapsed, calculating that his interest 
 in this gamble would sell for 20,OOOZ. and resisting 
 the importunities of his friends, who eagerly coun- 
 selled him to seize the favourable moment and 
 secure enormous gain. But he was not to be afiected 
 by prudential motives: as the price of the stock 
 had risen, he imagined it would still continue to 
 rise, and so prognosticated that he would shortly 
 roll in riches. Nay, so intensely was he captivated 
 by this golden prospect, that he i-efused to sell out 
 as much as would buy him an annuity of a hundred 
 a-year, although reminded by Fenton that he would 
 thus " make sure of a clean shirt and a shoulder 
 of mutton for life." How this bubble burst it is 
 needless to describe; but it is distressing to have 
 to mention that Gay fell into such a state of des- 
 pondency in consequence of it, that his life was 
 despaired of. 
 
 Time, however, and the tenderness of his friends, 
 amongst whom Pope was particularly active, brought 
 his mind back to its former tone, and being again 
 necessitated to write for a subsistence, he resumed 
 his studies, and produced the "Captives," a tragedy, 
 which he i-ead before the Princess of Wales, with 
 all the awkwardness of an author. It was acted at 
 Drury-lane Theatre, and played seven nights, of 
 which the third, commanded by the Princess, was 
 for the author's benefit. His profit from the per- 
 formance has not been specified. Standing thus 
 well placed for court favour, he availed himself of 
 some hints to write his Fables for the improve- 
 mejit of the Duke of Cumberland, and as promises 
 of reward for the trouble were held out, again gave 
 way to all the exaggerations of an ardent mind. 
 They were published in 172G, and in the very next 
 year the prince and princess ascended the throne. 
 Once more did he now vainly imagine that the 
 climax of his fortune had supervened. But he only 
 obtained in the multiplied arrangements of the new 
 household the place of gentleman usher to the 
 Princess Amelia. This, in the first heat of disap- 
 pointment, he conceived an insult, and sent the 
 
 queen word that he was too old for the duties it 
 required. Nothing better, however, was offered, 
 though solicitations seem not 10 have been spared 
 by his friends: according to Di*. Johnson, verses 
 and fiattery were alike tlu'own away for his interest; 
 every thing being heard, and nothing done. 
 
 Of the Fables, by which he mainly hoped in this 
 instance to improve his fortune. Dr. Johnson ob- 
 serves that he seems to have always thought favour- 
 ably himself, for he left a second volume finished 
 at his death. In this respect the public and the 
 author have for once been of the same mind. That 
 these poems are as well written as any thing of the 
 sort in our language, is admitted on all hands ; 
 neither can it be denied that, as long as it shall not 
 be deemed amiss for children to be instructed by 
 finding birds and beasts talking and acting like 
 human beings, the allegories of Gay may be use- 
 fully read; and no one can fail to perceive, that the 
 tales of which these fables ai-e in part compounded 
 are really good. The language is sprightly, the 
 versification easy, and the thoughts oftener just 
 and pertinent than might have been expected. The 
 " Hare with many Friends," was read with general 
 sympathy, as an expressive detail of the many dis- 
 appointments to which expectations from the great 
 had subjected the author. 
 
 Being agaui driven to the theatres for a resource, 
 he was most successful. " The Beggar's Opera," 
 for the first idea of which he is said to have stood 
 indebted to Swift, was refused at Drury-lane, but 
 acted in Lincoln's-inn Fields, during the season of 
 1727, for a series of sixty-three nights; and, per- 
 haps, upon no other drama, if we except the works 
 of Sliaks|)eai'e, has so much criticism been expend- 
 ed. Condemned in the closet for its utter violation 
 of all the rules of dramatic propriety, and denounced 
 from the pulpit for a direct excitement to immora- 
 lity, it has risen superior to all objection, and ranked 
 eminently popular through every fluctuation of taste 
 and fashion. Nor ought any reader to be indignant 
 at the triumph; for however the classical may dis- 
 relish the licenses it takes with all established rules, 
 they must, nevertheless, admit that happy wit and 
 just satire deserve applause, even though the mode 
 or form in which they are delivered may vary from 
 prescribed dogmas; and perhaps the most virtuous 
 may concede, that as we cannot turn into any ]iath 
 of life, or retreat into a corner of the earth without 
 seeing vice advancing, and crimes unpunished, 
 there is even a moral to be drawn from the por- 
 traiture, which strips deception of its false colours, 
 and exposes depravity in its natural ofFensiveness. 
 That this was the purpose for which Gay wrote the 
 piece, and that it excites corresponding impressions, 
 it were, if not hypocritical, at least hypercritical to 
 deny. The strongest claim it had upon public favour 
 was the levelling tact with which it laid bare the 
 sins of men in office, but it had other charms in 
 the exquisite music which breathed through its 
 scenes. It was the parent of the ballad or comic 
 operas of the English stage. 
 
 The profits of the " Beggar's Opera " amounted 
 to 400/., and the author forthwith set to work upon 
 a sequel to it, which he called " Polly:" but, before 
 the latter was completed, the former was cried uj) 
 to the honours of a political satire, and the Lord 
 Chamberlain refused to sanction the performance 
 fif a counterpart. From any loss consequent upon 
 this new discomfiture, however, the attention of
 
 BARTON BOOTH. 
 
 129 
 
 Gay's friends secured his purse. They came for- 
 ward with a pr(jposal for printing the ojiera by sub- 
 scription, wliich was so well received that he real- 
 ised 1200/. by it. Before dismissing " Polly," it is 
 only fair to state, that she deserved no patronage 
 whatever, and would never have reaped honours in 
 her destined sphere. George Cohnan, the younger, 
 attempted to revive it at the Haymarket Theatre, 
 but the audience refused to hear it. The luck, 
 therefore, by which Gay made so much money by 
 a bad piece, may be treated as a set-otf against the 
 disappointments to which he had been previously 
 subjected. Nor did his prosperity close here ; the 
 Duke and Duchess of Queensberry received him into 
 their house, and were even kind enough to superin- 
 tend his pecuniary interests. But it was with him 
 as with many others ; when his good fortmie seemed 
 to be established, his health declined. He relapsed 
 into a depression of spirits, the result of habitual 
 indolence, and a want of mental energy, and died 
 at Q,ueeusljerry House, in Burlington Garden, aged 
 45. His funeral was honouraljly attended. 
 
 A short time previous to his demise, he produced 
 " Acis and Galatea," a sonata, which was set to 
 
 music by Handel, and represented at the Haymar- 
 ket Theatre. He left behind him 3000/., which was 
 divided between his sisters ; and three plays in 
 manuscript, — " The Distressed Wife," " Achilles," 
 a burlesque opera, acted for eighteen nights at 
 Covent-garden Theatre, and the " Rehearsal of 
 Gotham," a farce. The virtues of his disposition 
 are recorded on his epitaph, and have never suffered 
 from detraction. His literai-y character has also 
 been estimated with unanimity. He possessed 
 moderate, but pleasing talents, was a minor versi- 
 fier, and in comedy was rather ludicrous than witty. 
 His poems are incorporated in all the editions of 
 the British Poets, but are seldom read, and never 
 quoted. The ballads, however, " All in the Downs," 
 and " 'Twas when the Seas were roaring," are not 
 to be included in this remark; they are spirited, 
 happy, aud still popular; and "Acis and Galatea," 
 which for the sake of Handel's music, has lately 
 been revived. As for his dramas, with the excep- 
 tion of the " Beggar's Opera," they have long been 
 out of print, and off the stage, and, in all probabi- 
 lity, will never be republished or reproduced. 
 
 BARTON BOOTH. 
 
 Directly to the right of the entrance into the 
 Poets' Corner is a neat monument, erected by his 
 widow, to Barton Booth, an excellent tragic actor, 
 and a scholar of considerable merit. The design 
 comprises a well-executed bust, placed between two 
 cherubs, of which the one, a chubby urchin, stands 
 in the act of crowning the brows of the deceased 
 with laurel, while the other poutingly inclines over 
 a scroll, on which are modestly recounted the ordi- 
 nary circumstances of parentage, qualifications, &c. 
 It is the work of \V. Tyler. 
 
 Barton Booth, the popular successor to the dra- 
 matic characters and fame of Betterton, was de- 
 scended from an estated family anciently located in 
 Lancashire, in which county ho was born during 
 the year Will. His father, .John Booth, was nearly 
 related to the Eai-l of Warrington, and, though not 
 over affluent in his circumstances, is entitled to 
 particular praise for the piety with whicli he un- 
 sparingly devoted both his care and hLs fortune to 
 the education of his children. Barton, the third 
 son, wa.s originally intended for a liberal profession, 
 and with that view entered Westminster School at 
 the tender age of nine years. There his tuition was 
 first superintended by the celebrated Dr. Busby, 
 and afterwards by his worthy successor Dr. Knipo, 
 under Ijolh of wlioni he had the honour of being 
 distinguished. His cai)acity was originally quick 
 and sprightly ; a predilection for jxietry and reci- 
 tation seized his mind almost as soon as he could 
 read with fluency; and it was his earliest delight to 
 learn the favoui'ite passages in the Latin authors 
 by heart, and spout them forth to his admiring 
 scliool-fellows. Natural qualities favoured this Jialiit 
 — a voice rouiul and meloilious, an appropriate 
 energy of diction, and a grace of action strikingly 
 superior to his years. Thia talent behig noticed, 
 
 and very properly encouraged by the masters, we 
 find him takmg a prominent share in the Latin 
 plays, which it is still the custom to make the 
 Westminster students represent once in the jear. 
 Booth's performance of Pamphilus in the Andria of 
 Terence on one of those occasions, has been fondly 
 commemorated by all his biographers, as a part in 
 which his delivery was so musical, and his de- 
 portment so judicious, that the auilience were 
 surpi'ised into a vehemence of applause, which 
 aroused the first aspix'atiou of theatrical fame in 
 his bosom. 
 
 According to the common representation, it was 
 his father's wish to educate him for the church; 
 but so intensely did this new passion root itself in 
 his affections, that as the time apiiroached when his 
 removal to college must take place, he became 
 seriously occupied with the thought of giving free 
 vent to the vivacious impulse of his character, and 
 soon resolved rather to run any risk than forsake 
 the stage for the pulpit. Thus impelled, he began 
 to associate with the London actors, amongst whom 
 he sonn lell upon one Ashbury, then manager of 
 the Dublin theatre, who was glad enough to Hatter 
 the expectations of a handsome fellow of seventeen, 
 full of talent, and accomplisiied in elocution. Be- 
 tween parties so well predisposed to coincide an 
 agreement was readily made, Ijy the terms of which 
 young Booth stole away from Westminster, and 
 joiiu'd the Irish company in Juno W.H\. His first 
 appearance was in the part of Oroonoko, on tho 
 Dublin stage, and tiio essay was decidedly success- 
 ful. He became a favourite with the audience, and 
 conthuied to improve himself for three seasons, 
 whcMi he turned his thoughts to his native country, 
 and determined to push the fortune of his abilities 
 in London. With this view his first caro was to 
 
 K
 
 130 
 
 WESTMINSTER ABBEY. 
 
 obtain a reconciliation with his family, and to pro- 
 vide himself with an influential inti'oduetion to the 
 dramatic leaders in town. Both these points were 
 happily realised: his family not only forgave him, 
 but assented to his prosecuting the profession of an 
 actor, and Lord Fitzharding, who happened to be 
 in Ireland at the time, gave him a letter of recom- 
 mendation to Betterton, and facilitated the conclu- 
 sion of an engagement by several acts of good- 
 Satui-ed attention. 
 
 This step was taken in 1701, a year marked by 
 more than one auspicious circumstance. Betterton 
 now declining into the autumn of his fame, had 
 just weathered the storm excited by the reformer 
 Collier, and evinced an inclination to lighten the 
 fatigues of his protracted career. He not only 
 received the new candidate with pleasure, but even 
 took him under his special patronage, and gene- 
 rously afforded him all the assistance in his power. 
 Thus happily encouraged, Booth presented himself 
 before a London audience in the part of Maximus, 
 in " Valentinian." His reception surpassed his most 
 sanguine expectations. Coi-responding applause at- 
 tended his succeeding efforts, and upon the produc- 
 tion of Rowe's tragedy of the "Ambitious Step- 
 mother," he was entrusted with the part of 
 Artabau, in which the felicity of his conception, 
 strengthened by the talents he displayed about the 
 same time as Pyi'rhus, in the " Distressed Mother," 
 procured him a smooth admission to the rank of 
 second actor on the boards. Having thus esta- 
 blished his pretensions in the principal concern of 
 his life, he enlarged the happiness of his prospects 
 by the subsidiary interests of marriage, and, in 1704, 
 sued a wife in the person of a daughter of Sir Wil- 
 liam Barkham, a Norfolk baronet. Within the 
 term of another year, Betterton, upon resigning his 
 patent to Sir John Vanbrugh and Congrevc, relin- 
 quished all regular engagement witli the theatres, 
 and by consequence Booth was left without an 
 active rival in his course. 
 
 Tiie changes of management and failures of thea- 
 trical property after this event, presented but few 
 opportunities for personal distinction; and there is 
 nothing of peculiar interest to be related of Booth 
 for an interval of some years. The splendid house 
 opened in the Haymarket, upon the abandonment 
 of the small theatre in Lincoln's-inn Fields, was 
 disposed of by the proprietors in less than a yeai', 
 and after the death of Betterton, fell into so low a 
 condition of distress, that an agreement was rati- 
 fied, with the consent of all parties, before the Lord 
 Chamberlain, by which this concern was restiucted, 
 in I7O8, to the use of Italian Operas, while Drury- 
 lane was appropriated to English plays. The company 
 at the latter establishment was eminently benefited 
 by this division of interests; the corps was unusu- 
 ally effective, including Booth, Wilks, Dogget, Gib- 
 ber, &c., and for some time all its affairs proceeded 
 in a satisfactory state of profit and popularity. The 
 tide, however, soon ceased to flow smoothly; Rich 
 once more succeeded in getting the management 
 exclusively into his own hands, and either forgetful 
 or fearless of the mischief which had i-esulted from 
 his former administration, I'epeated the oppi'ession 
 which had occasioned the formidable revolt of the 
 actors under Betterton, in 1 032. Another combi- 
 nation was now formed to resist his tyranny, and 
 after some treaty, the consent of the lord Chamber- 
 lam was for a second tune obtained, permitting the 
 
 aggrieved members to perform legitimate dramas 
 at the Opera House. Rich made several remon- 
 strances against tliis proceeding, and was punished 
 by an arbitrary suspension of his licence ; the 
 theatre in Drm-y-lane was shut up, and the unfor- 
 tunate patentees were left to address vain appeals 
 to the queen's mercy during two seasons. At length 
 a lawyer, named Collier, obtained a fresh licence at 
 court; and because Rich very naturally retained 
 possession of his premises, though forbidden to turn 
 them to any account, attacked the house in the 
 night time, at the head of a hired rabble, and ejected 
 the manager by armed force. This outrage put a 
 period to the obnoxious proprietorship; but how- 
 ever censurable, or even culpable, the conduct of 
 the man may have been, he was certainly put down 
 by the government in a most unjustifiable manner, 
 and ruined in direct violation of the commonest 
 princij^les of honesty and law. 
 
 While these altercations were at their height. 
 Booth was left a widower without issue, and soon 
 after essayed to console himself by an amour with 
 Mrs. Mountford, which proved as unsatisfactory 
 as it was indefensible. One honourable circum- 
 stance, however, marked the abrupt close of the 
 intimacy, and, upon his part at least, in some degree 
 redeemed the immorality; for, discovering the lady 
 in an intrigue with another, he replaced in lier 
 hands her fortmie, amounting to 8000?., which she 
 had fondly presented to him upon their first inter- 
 course, and never visited her more. 
 
 Much suffering and many keen manoeuvres en- 
 sued; but a theatrical peace was at length agreed 
 upon and a compact made, by which the public 
 were ultimately secured in a good company, and 
 the company itself enabled to reap a fruitful har- 
 vest in fame and money. By this prudent ari-ange- 
 ment the offended actors returned to Drury-lane, 
 invested with the sole licence for performing the 
 legitimate drama; while the Haymarket, under the 
 direction of Collier, was restricted to the represen- 
 tation of Italian operas. The terms of this regu- 
 lation were no sooner put into force, than the 
 affairs of Drury-lane began to flourish with unpre- 
 cedented rapidity; Wilks, Dogget, and Cibber su- 
 perintended the property with an industry and 
 talent which raised the house far beyond its former 
 popularity, and converted it into a source of inde- 
 pendence to all the patentees during their lives. 
 
 Booth stood at the head of the company, and in 
 a prominent degree contributed to the prosperity 
 of the establishment; his talents were now in their 
 mellow prime, and his enthusiasm undamped ; for 
 in his profession he had no rival: this consequently 
 was the period of his public life at which he made 
 the fullest development of his powers, and entitled 
 himself to that rank amongst his cotemporaries, 
 which places him among the principal ornaments 
 of the stage. His celebrity was in a striking manner 
 advanced by the production of Addison's long- 
 lal)Oured tragedy of " Cato." Few plays have ever 
 appeared under circumstances of more fortunate 
 excitement, and no actor seems to have turned the 
 tide of popular favour to a better account than 
 Booth now did. Two political factions agitated the 
 empire: the Whigs, who had long been exclaiming 
 that the cause of liberty was endangered by the 
 machinations of the Tories, applauded every lino 
 of the play as an echo of their principles; while the 
 Tories reverberated peal for peal, in order to show
 
 BARTON BOOTH. 
 
 131 
 
 that they too could sjTnpathise with liberty, and 
 repudiated the idea of being its enemies. Amidst 
 this contention, the play was repeated for thirty- 
 five successive niglits, and Booth, in the character 
 of Cato, triumphed over the tumult as the direct 
 object of the common applause. But his reward 
 was more substantial; for upon the fall of the cur- 
 tain, upon the first night's performance, Lord 
 Bolingbrolve, who headed the Tories, called him 
 into the boxes, and presented him with fifty guineas, 
 as a slight acknowledgment for his honest opposi- 
 tion to a perpetual dictator, and his dying so bravely 
 in tlie cause of liberty. This unusual compliment 
 produced another to the same amount, from the 
 managers, ^\ho were happy to ascribe the extraor- 
 dinary success of the piece to the superior merit of 
 their own actor, praise which will not appear so 
 extravagant, when it is added, that according to 
 dramatic writers, no performer has since then either 
 equalled or surpassed the excellence of Booth's 
 delineation of the character. His praises and his 
 profits were both extraordinary; but they did not 
 end here. Lord Bolingbroke, who at the time was 
 one of the principal secretaries of state, continued 
 to be so pleased with the actor and the man, that 
 he obtained the queen's authority for recalling the 
 outstanding patents; upon which he issued a new 
 one to the former managers, with the single addi- 
 tion of Booth's name to their number. The old 
 proprietoi's manifested great indignation at this act 
 of ministerial patronage. Dogget in particular sold 
 his sliare in the house, and played but once after- 
 wards — for the parting benefit of Mrs. Porter; but 
 Booth's popularity and talents prevented any loss 
 being suffered from the secession, and the fortune 
 of the house underwent no immediate alteration. 
 
 Being thus firmly placed at the head of his pro- 
 fession, and at the head of the theatre, he once 
 more turned his thoughts on matrimony, and in the 
 year 1719 united his worldly interests with Hester 
 Santlow, an actress, who has been commended 
 for many favourable qualities. Of an affectionate 
 disposition, engaging manners, and commanding 
 talents, she had the good fortune to be enabled to 
 gain, and the prudence to succeed in retaining, a 
 very handsome portion of wealth, so that the con- 
 nexion proved by no means unacceptable to a man 
 like Booth, who though just in his dealings and 
 honourable in his debts, yet appears to have always 
 wanted either art or inclination for the saving of 
 money. After this event, his life, public and do- 
 mestic, endured with equal enjoyments for eight 
 years; and with the exception of a temporary sus- 
 pension of the patent, in consequence of a dispute 
 between Sir Richard Steele, who had been admitted 
 into the management upon the death of Queen 
 Anne, and the Duke of Newcastle, who filled the 
 office of lord chamlicrlain, in 1/20, there is nothing 
 I to relate of him save an even tenour of prospe- 
 rity. In the year 1727, however, he was seized 
 with a fever, which continued witli uiiintcrniittcd 
 violence for six-and-forty days ; and tlioiigh the 
 skill of his physicians and the strength of his con- 
 Hlitution overcame the attack, yet Ids health from 
 tliat time to the day of his death was never re- 
 established. 
 
 Tiic infirmities thus entailed upon him so con- 
 stantly enforced a suspension of his professional 
 exertions, that henceforward we only find him a])- 
 pearing on the stage for seven nights. Tliese wei'c 
 
 upon the occasion of the great rmi obtained by tlie 
 " Double Falsehood," which Theobald impudently 
 asserted to be the production of Shakspeare, and 
 in which Booth was prevailed upon to take a part 
 from the fifth to the twelfth represcntati(3n. Steele 
 died in 1729, and three years after the Driu-y-lane 
 patent expired ; but the surviving managers suc- 
 ceeded in gaining a renewal of it for twenty-one 
 years. Soon after this acquisition Wilks died, and 
 Booth, finding his indisposition becoming still more 
 distressing, was obliged to think of retiring also. 
 With this intention he looked about him for a pur- 
 cliaser of his interest, and soon after concluded a 
 bargain Mith a Mr. Highmore, by the terms of 
 which he sold one half of his share, and all his 
 right as manager, for 2500^ Some mention may 
 be here allowed of the only remaining partner in 
 the most successful, as well as the most able, admi- 
 nistration that had as yet conducted the affairs of 
 this ancient theati-e. This was Gibber, who was so 
 discontented with the strangers now associated with 
 him, that after a season or two, he sold his pro- 
 perty in the patent for three thousand gumcas. 
 Booth continued to linger on with infirmities gra- 
 dually accumulating, until at last his energies were 
 exhausted, and he expired j\lay 10, 1733. He had 
 no children: to his wife, who survived him for forty 
 years, he bequeathed the whole of his property in 
 an honourable will, the contents of which express 
 an affectionate regret that his means are so inferior 
 to his esteem, and that the sum of all he has to 
 leave is by two-thirds less than the fortune he 
 received with her in marriage. She lies buried 
 with her husband in the Abbey cloisters. 
 
 Of the accounts extant which describe the dra- 
 matic powers of Booth, those of Gibber and Aaron 
 Hill are the best and most particular. From them 
 it appears that he was the last of the solemn school 
 of actors who were displaced immediately after his 
 death by Garrick, and among whom the chief 
 points of excellence were dignity of deportment, 
 rotundity of declamation, and a classical distinc- 
 tion of the cadences and melody of versification. 
 His genius lay wholly in tragedy, in A\hich, though 
 he had too fine a taste for nature to neglect the 
 expression of the passions, yet he always preferred 
 the sentimentality which constitutes the chief 
 merit of Cato, and the productions of Ro-\\e, to 
 the more powerful delineations of the ancient dra- 
 matists. From the same feelings, he appeared to 
 a better effect as the mouiU'ch, sustaining reverses 
 with dignitj', than the rebel struggling at terrible 
 odds to supplant him ; described the injured hus- 
 band more faithfully than the seductive lover ; and 
 in every portraiture of character was rather tender 
 and expressive than impassioned or profound. In 
 Shaksi)earc, his favourite part was Othello, whicli 
 must certainly be taken as some qualification of 
 this character, for the i\Ioor has many bursts of 
 deep and noble feeling, and is both elevated by 
 vivid energy and moving in pathetic grief. For 
 tiiis cast of i)arts Booth was farther adajited by a 
 good figure, a gentlemaidy address, and the educa- 
 tion of a scholar, in this latter capacity he ap- 
 jieared in a resi)ectablo light, though a constitu- 
 tional indolence prevented him from making any 
 iMUsiderable exertions : lie translated some od(>s of 
 Horace, an<l wrote several songs and light pieces 
 of poetry, which became popular. He aKo com- 
 posed a mask for the stage, entitled the "Death of 
 
 K 2
 
 132 
 
 WESTMINSTER ABBEY. 
 
 Dido," A\hicli was performed with no mean success 
 iu 1 7 1 <>■ Booth's private character has been praised 
 for many virtues ; his disposition was extremely 
 affectionate, and his integrity highly estimable. In 
 the society of his friends he was all gaiety, laugliter, 
 and wit ; but in tiie company of strangers some- 
 what proud in his bearing and abrupt in his ad- 
 dress ; traits which those who deem them faulty 
 may perhaps somewhat excuse on the score of his 
 birth and education, for professional distinction 
 was a subject upon which his modesty never per- 
 
 mitted him to presume. So greatly was he caressed, 
 that, according to Chetwood, in his " History of the 
 Stage," there was not a man in the kingdom had 
 more sets of horses at his command than Booth, 
 although he never kept an equipage ; and so fondly 
 \vas his company sovight, tliat when the court re- 
 sided at Windsor, the coach and six of some noble- 
 man or other was sure to be in waiting for him 
 every night at the theatre, to hurry him off to a 
 convivial supper as soon as the performances were 
 over. 
 
 SAVILE, MARQUIS OF HALIFAX, 
 
 George Savile, Marquis of Halifax, distinguished 
 as a statesman and a writer during the reigns of 
 Charles II., James II., and William III., was de- 
 scended from the ancient family of Savile, long 
 settled at Bradley, near Halifax, in Yorkshire. 
 He was the son of Sir William Savile, baronet, and 
 was born about the year 1C33. Upon the death 
 of Cromwell he exerted himself strenuously for the 
 restoration of the exiled family, and when that 
 event was accomplished, received the titles of Baron 
 Eland, Viscount Halifax, and a seat at the council 
 board, as the reward of his loyalty. In lfi72 he 
 was one of three commissioners who went to the 
 Hague, and attempted, but failed to negotiate a 
 peace with France. Two years after he lost his 
 place in consequence of his exposure of the Earl of 
 Danby's corruption, and repugnance to the Duke 
 of York's proceedings. Nevertheless, when the bill 
 for excluding that prince from the throne was 
 agitated, his opposition to it facilitated his restora- 
 tion to office, and in a measure dissevered him 
 from the political friends with A\hora he had been 
 in the habit of actuig. So offended were they with 
 his conduct, that they carried an address to the 
 throne calling for his dismissal. The parliament 
 was soon after dissolved, it is said, at his instance, 
 and he was made an earl. In 1682 he was created 
 a marquis, and appointed keeper of the privy seal, 
 and president of the council; but though animated 
 by strong and generous feelings of attachment to 
 the Stuarts, he was decidedly opposed to the new 
 king's meastires in favour of the Roman Catholic 
 religion, and resisting the proposed repeal of the 
 Test and Corporation Acts, incurred the royal dis- 
 pleasure, and was abruptly dismissed from his em- 
 ployments. On the flight of that monarch he was 
 chosen speaker of the Convention Parliament, and 
 in that capacity contributed in an eminent degree 
 to the great revolution that followed. William III. 
 restoi-ed him to his old post of president of the 
 council, which he threw up in disgust before a year 
 was past, and during the rest of his life voted'and 
 spoke strongly against the court. He died and 
 was buried in the north aisle of the chapel of 
 
 Henry VII., in 1695, with a well-merited reputa- 
 tion for power and talent as a statesman, an orator, 
 and an author. In these two latter characters he 
 has excited particular notice by the difference ex- 
 hibited in his style as a writer and a speaker; in 
 the one case being remarkably delicate and refined, 
 in the other strong and coarse. Our reports of his 
 speeches ai-e very imperfect, but deciding according 
 to the judgment of his cotemporaries, we are war- 
 ranted in describing him as one of the first and most 
 effective of our parliamentary orators. His works 
 were collected after his death, and have been re- 
 printed. Those most esteemed were, "The Charac- 
 ter of Charles II.," and a " Letter to a Dissenter." 
 While he lived the Marquis of Halifax was gene- 
 rally considered a sceptic, but Bishop Burnet denies 
 that the opinions entertained of him iu this respect 
 were well founded, and asserts that he died a 
 sincere Christian from conviction. Neither the 
 tomb erected to his memory, nor the epitaph 
 engraved upon it, call for a minute descri[)tion. 
 The former is a lofty but uninventive structure, 
 with a bust in medallion; and the latter a meagre 
 enumeration of his titles and offices. We shall 
 nevertheless quote it as a sort of curiosity in its 
 way. It is somewhat provoking to meet with so 
 tasteless a literary commemoration of a nobleman 
 who was distinguished in no common extent by his 
 taste and acquirements in literature. 
 
 Created by King 
 Charles ye 2nd 
 
 Sir George Savile, born 11th Nov. 1633, 
 
 ( Baron of Eland 
 
 first < and 
 
 t Viscount Halifax, 
 
 afterwards Earl ) exj ^■c 
 
 , , ^, M . > of Halifax, 
 and lastly Marquis j 
 
 He was Lord Keeper of the Privy ( Charles 2, 
 
 Seal for some time in the reigns J James 2, 
 
 of three kings . ( William 3. 
 
 And at the beginning of the reign of King James 2, 
 
 He was for a few months Lord President 
 
 of the Council. 
 
 He dyed on ye 5th of April, 1695.
 
 BIOGRAPHICAL ILLUSTRATIONS 
 
 WESTMINSTER ABBEY. 
 
 PART II.
 
 C O N T E N T S. 
 
 PART IL 
 
 PAGE 
 
 Archbishop Boulter 133 
 
 John, Duke of Argyle 134 
 
 James Cornewall 137 
 
 Sir Charles "Wager 138 
 
 James Thomson 139 
 
 Isaac Watts 141 
 
 Sir Peter Warren 143 
 
 Dr. Mead 146 
 
 Admiral Watson 147 
 
 Admiral Vernon l.'jl 
 
 Handel 158 
 
 General Wolfe Ifil 
 
 Pulteney, Earl of Bath 163 
 
 Mrs. Cibher 164 
 
 Thomas Gray 165 
 
 Oliver Goldsmith 168 
 
 Samuel Foote 172 
 
 Pitt, Earl of Chatham 176 
 
 David Garrick 185 
 
 Major Andre 191 
 
 Admiral Kempenfelt 193 
 
 Sir Eyre Coote 194 
 
 Jonas Hanway 196 
 
 SirR. Taylor 199 
 
 Ephraim Chambers ib. 
 
 Edward Cooke ,« 201 
 
 John Bacon 203 
 
 The Earl of Mansfield 204 
 
 James Macpherson 207 
 
 William Mason 208 
 
 Bishop Warren 211 
 
 Sir George L. Staunton ib. 
 
 Samuel Arnold 
 
 Christopher Anstey 
 
 Thomas Banks 
 
 William Buchan 
 
 William Pitt 
 
 Charles James Fox 
 
 Pascal de Paoli 
 
 Agar, Earl of Norman ton ... 
 
 Spencer Perceval 
 
 Richard Cumberland 
 
 Granville Sharp 
 
 James Wyatt 
 
 Charles Burney 
 
 Dean Vincent 
 
 Richard Brinsley Sheridan 
 Charles, Earl of Stanhope ... 
 
 Francis Horner 
 
 Warren Hastings 
 
 James Watt 
 
 Henry Grattan 
 
 Mathew Bailiie 
 
 John Philip Kemble 
 
 William Gifford 
 
 SirT. S. Raffles 
 
 George Canning 
 
 Sir Humphrey Davy 
 
 Andrew Bell 
 
 William Wilberforce 
 
 Thomas Telford 
 
 Abbots, Priors, and Deans 
 Prebendaries 
 
 PAGE 
 
 ... 212 
 ... 214 
 ... 215 
 ... 216 
 ... 217 
 ... 221 
 ... 228 
 ... 230 
 ... 231 
 ... 233 
 ... 236 
 ... 239 
 ... ib. 
 ... 242 
 ... 243 
 ,.. 247 
 ... 249 
 ... ib. 
 .. 254 
 ... 256 
 .. 261 
 .. 262 
 .. 265 
 .. 267 
 .. 270 
 .. 273 
 .. 276 
 .. 277 
 .. 273 
 .. 2S1 
 .. 282
 
 ARCHBISHOP BOULTER. 
 
 133 
 
 ARCHBISHOP BOULTER. 
 
 The tomb of Hugh Boulter, Archbishop of Armagh, 
 is in the west aisle of the north transept, and con- 
 sists of a sarcophagus of white marble profusely 
 embellished with types and symbols of his office, 
 such as the mitre, crosier, &e., many of which, 
 however, are greatly defaced. Upon this sarco- 
 phagus is placed a charactei'istic bust of the bisliop. 
 The whole was designed and executed by H. 
 Cheere. Inscription : 
 
 To the memory of 
 
 Dr. Hugh Boulter, 
 
 Late Archbishop of Armagh, and Primate of all 
 
 Ireland: 
 
 A Prelate so eminent 
 
 For the Accomplishments of liis ilind. 
 
 The Purity of his Heart, 
 
 And the Excellency of his Life ; 
 
 That it may be thought superfluous 
 
 To specify his Titles, 
 
 Recount his Virtues, 
 
 Or even erect a Monument to his Fame. 
 
 His Titles he not only deserved l)ut adorned : 
 
 His Virtues he manifested in his good Works, 
 
 Which had never dazzled the I'ublic Eye, 
 
 If they had not been too bright to be conceal'd ; 
 
 And, as to his Fame, 
 
 Whosoever has any sense of Merit, 
 
 Any Reverence for Piety, 
 
 Any Passion for his Countrj', 
 
 Or any Charity for Mankind, 
 
 Will assist in preserving it fair and s]iotless ; 
 
 That when Brass and IMarble shall mi.x with 
 
 The Dust they cover, 
 
 Every succeeding age 
 
 May still have the benefit of his illustrious 
 
 example. 
 
 He was bom January the 4th, 1071: 
 
 He was consecrated Bishop of Bristol, 171(5: He 
 
 was translated to the Archbishopric of Armagh, 
 
 1723, and from thctice to Heaven, September 
 
 tlie 27th, 1742*. 
 
 The place of Archbishop Boulter's birth was 
 London, and that of his education Mercliant Tai- 
 lors' School first, and then Christ Cliurch College, 
 Oxford. He was a Fellow of Magdalen College, and 
 remained at the University until the year 1700, 
 when, becoming Cliaplain successively to Sir C. 
 Hedges, Secretary of State, and to Archbishop 
 Tenison, he appeared frequently at court, and 
 soon obtained the j)arsonage of .St. Olave, Soutli- 
 wark, together witli the archdeaconry of Surrey. 
 After serving as chaplain to George 1., upon the 
 royal visit to Hanover in \Tl^), Boulter was em- 
 j)loycd to teacli Prince Frederick English. It was 
 while he was abroad tliat the bishopric of Bristol 
 and deanery of Christ Church, Oxford, fell vacant, 
 and the king gave liini both. When, some time 
 after, the archbisho])ric of Armagh was offered 
 him, he at first refused the preferment, conceiving, 
 
 • According to the HioKrapliia Dritannica, the dates of 
 his consecration and translation should liu 1710 and 1724. 
 
 in all probability, that as he stood well with the 
 king, he should obtain what would have been more 
 agreeable to his tastes and habits — as high and 
 as profitable an appointment in England. But 
 the minister was determined not to change his 
 arrangements, and the prelate was fain to yield. 
 Upon entering this new office. Boulter evinced a 
 more than common and highly laudable desire to 
 improve the state of the I^stabllshed Church in 
 Ireland. He invited the bishops and clergy to 
 join him in raising a voluntary fund for the pur- 
 pose of rendering the Board of First Fruits effec- 
 tive for its original purposes, those namely of 
 repairing and rebuilding dilajiidated churches, pro- 
 viding glebes, &c. To this fund he proposed that 
 the archbishops, bishops, and clergy, should pay 
 an annual per centage on their incomes, dnhictis 
 onenhiis; but the project proved a failure, the 
 bishops and priests showing as little relish for 
 voluntary taxation as other people. Boulter was 
 distinguished by a love for improvements, and an 
 active charity, which was expensive and uncom- 
 mon. As a proof of his merits in these respects, it 
 will be enough to mention here, that in 1741 there 
 was a severe famine in Ireland, during which he 
 fed the casual poor of a large workhouse in Dublin 
 twice a day, from January to August. It was 
 estimated that 2,o00 persons received food in this 
 way, and the most of them at the primate's charge. 
 The Irish House of Commons passed him a vote of 
 tlwinks for his munificence on this occasion. He 
 erected and endowed with an estate some houses for 
 the reception of clergymen's widows at Drogheda ; 
 built a market-house at Armagh ; was a liljeral 
 benefactor to Steven's Hospital in Dublin, and is 
 particularly distinguishable for the zeal with which 
 he supported and carried into effect Bishop Maude's 
 plan of the Protestant Charter Schools — a well-meant 
 but mistaken scheme for proselytising the children 
 of poor Catholics, which in the course of time 
 became a complete faihu'e. He w.as one of the 
 chief promoters of the Newry navigation and canal, 
 a public work of considerable usefulness and im- 
 portance, which he aided with his characteristic 
 spirit, giving wood from his estate for its construc- 
 tion, and not only generously buying up the; fee of 
 a colliery lease which a tenant of his held, who 
 was exorbitant in his charges to the public, but 
 advancing funds without interest when th(> ]iay- 
 ment of the company's subscript ions to tlie inider- 
 taking fell into arrenr. A man so good and gene- 
 rous would naturally be snj)j)osed to be one who, 
 when possessed of eminent political power, could 
 hai'dly fail to prove an extensive benefactor to a 
 country standing so nnu.'li in need as Inland then 
 did, and still does, of a liberal and judicious im- 
 prover. Truth, however, compels us to state, tli:it the 
 Irish administrations <il which Archbishop lioultcr 
 formed a leading member, were far fnim beiiefici:d 
 to that country. This however -.vas less the fault 
 of individuals than of the system they were made 
 jjarts of. There were, moreover, i)eculiar circum- 
 stances at the period of Boulti'r's first connexion 
 
 L
 
 134 
 
 WESTMINSTER ABBEY. 
 
 witli Irish politics, which rendered the task of ad- 
 ministering them more than usually difficult. Dean 
 Swift, who though a Tory, should ever he dear to 
 his fellow-countrymen on account of the views, no 
 less sound than 'spirited, which he promulgated 
 for raismg the people from their ahject misery, 
 encom-aging trade, and developing the various re- 
 sources of the country — Dean Swift was already at 
 the height of his well-merited popularity, compel- 
 ling the government to abandon the obnoxious 
 patent held by Wood, the BLrmingham manufac- 
 turer for coining copper coin ui Ireland. The 
 archbishop reached Ireland when the ferment was 
 at its height, and upon taking his seat at the Privy 
 Council he had the good sense to advise the Eng- 
 lish minister not to add to the popular mdignation 
 and sense of injury by upholdmg the patent. From 
 this period until his death he took constantly a 
 prominent part in Irish politics, and they who are 
 curious to learn what his leanings and recommen- 
 dations were, will find a key to them in his letters 
 written between the years 1724 and 1738 to several 
 ministers of state in England. These were col- 
 lected by his secretary, Ambrose Philips, and pub- 
 lished at the Clarendon Press, Oxford, in two 
 volumes, 8vo, 1759. The originals are deposited 
 in the Library of Christ's Chui'ch College. They 
 
 are plain compositions, telling nothing either of 
 persons or events that is striking, and are mainly 
 noticeable for the frequent, or rather the incessant, 
 advice they give the government in London to fill 
 up every place as it fell vacant in Ireland with 
 natives of England ; thus governing the sister 
 country not for and tlirough her own people, but 
 an English oligarchy, whose mterests were always 
 peculiarly their own, and necessarily opposed to 
 every other in the countiy. Of that mistaken and 
 extravagant system, ever fertile in \vi'ongs. Arch- 
 bishop Boulter was throughout an earnest, and an 
 able, but also an unsuccessful supporter, for he left 
 Ireland as all others before and after him did who 
 upheld the same injurious policy, discontented, 
 distracted, impoverished, and ignorant. How little 
 the Irish viceroy of that period attended to the 
 duties of his station may be inferred from the fact, 
 that Archbishop Boulter filled the office of Lord 
 Justice, which was only created during the absence 
 of the Lord Lieutenant from the country, no less 
 than thirteen times. He died during a temporary 
 visit to London, and it was computed that his con- 
 tributions in the way of charity to the Irish Church 
 had amounted during his lifetime to 30,000Z. He 
 also left by his will handsome legacies to the 
 colleges with which he was connected in England. 
 
 JOHN, DUKE OF ARGYLE, K.T. 
 
 " Argyle, the state's whole thunder bom to wield, 
 And shake alike the senate and the field." — Pope. 
 
 The monument erected to this nobleman in the 
 Poets' Corner is one of the most stately and effec- 
 tive in the edifice. The duke is represented in a 
 recumbent posture, upon a massive altar, which is 
 elevated upon a fine pedestal. Upon the one side 
 Eloquence appears in the act of deploring the pub- 
 lic loss sustained by his death ; and upon the other, 
 Minerva looks contemplatively up to the figure of 
 Histor}' on the pyramid, who, with her annals in 
 one hand, mscribes with the other the titles of the 
 deceased. The final letters Gr. stand for Green- 
 wich ; and the style or pen of the goddess is there 
 broken, to indicate that that dukedom became ex- 
 tinct in his person. Upon the whole, this com- 
 position is perhaps as interesting and striking as 
 any allegorical design can well be. Roubilliac was 
 an artist seldom unhappy either in the attitudes or 
 countenances of his figures ; that of Eloquence in 
 this monument cannot fail to be regai'ded as a very 
 animated performance. It was highly praised by 
 Horace Walpole, and pronounced by Cauova one 
 of the noblest statues seen in England by that 
 accomplished artist. In the effigy of the Duke 
 himself much power and boldness of execution 
 will be recognized. Two inscriptions explain the 
 object of the tomb, and the circumstances which 
 occasioned its fomidation. The one in poetry is 
 said to have been written by Paul Whitehead, the 
 poet laureate, and runs thus : — 
 
 Britons, behold, if patriot worth be dear, 
 A shrine that claims a tributary tear ; 
 Silent that tongue admiring senates heard, 
 Nerveless that arm opposing legions fear'd. 
 
 Nor less, Campbell, thine the power to please. 
 And give to grandeur all the grace of ease. 
 Long from thy life let kindred heroes trace 
 Arts which ennoble still the noblest race : 
 Others may owe their future fame to me, 
 I borrow immortality from thee. 
 
 Such are the lines upon the pyramid under 
 which History subscribes the titles of the deceased. 
 The statement upon the base below is this : — 
 
 In memory of an Honest Man, 
 
 And a Constant Friend, 
 
 The Great Duke of Argyle and Greenwich, 
 
 A General and Orator, 
 
 Exceeded by none in the age he lived. 
 
 Sir Henrj' Farmer, baronet, by his last will, left 
 the sum of 500^. towards erecting this monument, 
 and recommended the above inscription. 
 
 Two noblemen, bearing the title of Argyle, and 
 sprung from the same ancient family, have ranked 
 with distinction in the military history of Great 
 Britain during the course of the last two centuries. 
 Of these, the first and least successful in his career, 
 was Archibald Campbell, Earl of Argjle, who, in 
 conjunction with the Duke of Monmouth, headed 
 the first rebellion against the obstinate and unfor- 
 tunate James II. The attempt miscarried. Argyle 
 was captured, tried, and executed as a traitor, 
 under circumstances of marked serenity and forti- 
 tude, at Edmburgh, in 168G ; and his co-partner, 
 after as vain a diversion in the South of England, 
 was also taken prisoner, and, bating some imsoldier- 
 like humility while his fate remained undecided, 
 suffered death with resignation before the Tower
 
 JOHN, DUKE OF ARGYLE. 
 
 13f. 
 
 of London. Of Earl Ai-chibald much has been 
 recorded that is mteresting, but does not properly 
 fall under the title of this work. Some verses, 
 however, written by him on the night befoi-e his 
 execution, are too toucliing and too good to be sup- 
 pressed wherever his name is mentioned. They 
 are these : — 
 
 " Thou passenger, who shalt have so much time 
 As vie'.v my grave, and ask what was my crime ; 
 No stain of error, no black vice's brand, 
 Did me compel to leave my native land ; 
 Love to my country — truth foredoom'd to die, 
 Did force these hands forgotten arms to try. 
 More from friends' fraud my fall proceeded hath 
 Than foes, though thrice they did attempt my death. 
 On my design tho' Providence doth frown, 
 Yet God at last will surely raise his own. 
 Another hand with more successful speed 
 Shall raise the remnant — bruise the serpent's head. 
 
 Born October 10, 1G78, John Campbell, grand- 
 son of this Archibald, had the good fortune of 
 finding the honours of his family restored, before 
 he could be well sensible of their foi-feiture. This 
 act, whether of grace or consistency, was one of 
 the iirst accorded by king William upon his acces- 
 sion to the British crown. The subject of this 
 sketcli received a domestic education, and such 
 was his proficiency in liis studies, that at the early 
 age of sixteen he was thought qualified to enter 
 life. Professing a partiality for the army, he re- 
 ceived a commission, was present at the battle of 
 the Boyne, and soon after, upon a private introduc- 
 tion to the king, was made a colonel. 
 
 During this reign he does not appear to have 
 enjoyed any decided opportunities for distinction; 
 but in the long and glorious wars by which, under 
 tlie reign of Queen Anne, the crown of Austria was 
 preserved, and the independence of Europe secured 
 from the disastrous ambition of Louis XIV., Argyle 
 accompanied tlie celebrated MarlI)orough to the 
 continent, and there proved liimself, in active ser- 
 vice, a skilful general, and a brave soldier. At the 
 battle of Oudenardc, he served as Brigadier-gene- 
 ral, with Prince Eugene, and tho young Prince of 
 Hanover, afterwards George I., and particularly 
 distinguished himself. The contending troops had 
 been manoeuvring and skirmishing until evening 
 had set in, and the French, who, under the Duke 
 de Vendome, had not only the advantage of num- 
 bers, but of situation also, had been vainly chal- 
 lenged to a general engagement, when, at about five 
 in the evening, Argyle led his battalions across the 
 .Scheldt, directly in face of the strongest fire the 
 enemy could discharge; and, in a .sh(irt time, forced 
 them into a reluctant battle. Pursuing the advan- 
 tages of this victory, he was ordered to the siege of 
 Ghent; and upon the probable reduction of that 
 cit}', wa.s charged with the honours of its invest- 
 ment. In the last brilliant aft'air over which the 
 fortune and talents of Alarlljorougli jirevailed, 
 Argyle also performed a conspicuous part, though 
 strongly opposed to the policy of a l^attle in which 
 the loss of lives was immense, and the consequent 
 advantages neitlier proportionately desirable, nor 
 easily to be attained. 
 
 Whil(! Marll)orough was triumphantly employed 
 in forcing theFrc;nch lines, and reducing liouchainc, 
 Argyle, now powerfully sui)ported by tlu^ ministry, 
 on account <jf his disagreement with the Captain 
 
 General, was recalled, and invested with the com- 
 mand of the queen's forces in Spain. Here he was 
 opposed to the celebrated Vendome; but, unfortu- 
 nately', although the highest hopes were entertained 
 of the success of the campaign, nothing was efi'ected 
 during it which reflected particular honour on him 
 as general, or rendered material benefit to his 
 counti-y. For this tlie ministers were blamed. 
 1,500,000^. had been voted by the commons for 
 tliat particular service ; but notwithstanding that, 
 Argyle, upon landing at Barcelona, in the month of 
 May, found his troops destitute of victuals. In this 
 wretched condition he waited for some time, vainly 
 expecting the promised remittances, and at last 
 borrowed money on his personal credit, and took 
 the field. An action immediately took place, at 
 the pass of Prato del Hey, where the enemy were 
 re])ulsed; but all further advantages were, in a 
 great degree, impeded by the ill health of Argyle, 
 who was conveyed back to Barcelona in a state of 
 high fever. Still he pressed the ministers, and com- 
 plained of the way in which he was abandoned ; 
 but his remonstrances were inefiectual ; and, 
 althougli Vendome was again repulsed from tho 
 investment of Cordova, Argyle, unable to follow 
 him, was obliged to return disappointed to England. 
 The allusion already made to the differences 
 between Ai'gyle and Marlborough is to be further 
 illustrated by the fact, that although associated 
 together in the field of battle abi'oad, and in the 
 cabinet at home, still they were far from according 
 in strategic opinions, or concurring in political mea- 
 sures. Whether this personal opposition took its 
 rise from jealousy in Argyle, or whether it was 
 dictated by a sense of the im))ropriety of that 
 secret infiuence generally ascribed to Marlborough, 
 or whether again it proceeded from a perception of 
 the colour which some of tho peculatory charges 
 against the commander-in-chief assumed, it were 
 now difficult to determine precisely. It is probable 
 that each of these causes had an influence, and it 
 is certain that he was not only among the first to 
 speak against Marlborough, but that he also caused 
 the rejection of the last vote proposed, as an ac- 
 knowledgment of the lustre which the achievements 
 of the former liad, for so many years, slu'd over 
 the history of England. Thus, after having ac(iurred 
 a high reputation, titles and i)hices, for the effective 
 gallantry and military talents he had displayed in 
 assisting to gain Marlborough's battles, Argyle 
 became the impugner of the great general, and 
 siding in parliament v.ith his political opponents, 
 was removed by ministers frimi all his offices. 
 Those ministers however being <lisplaced in their 
 turn, Argyle not only resumed his former emi)loy- 
 ments, but obtained other and higher appointments. 
 Before his ])arliamentary votes led to his disgrace 
 at coiu't he had been a nn'inber of the privy coun- 
 cil, captain <jf the Scotch Horse (Juards, an extra- 
 ordinary lord of till' Scotch sessions, and, upon the 
 revival of the order, a knight of tlu^ thistle. He 
 was also conmumder-in-chief in Sc<jtlaiid, and hi;;h 
 commissioner of the Scotch iiarliament, in which 
 cai)acity lie was entrusted with tlio ]irinei|ial ma- 
 nagement of the celebrated union of the legislatures 
 of tlie two countries. The pruik'nce, talent, and 
 su(;cess witli which he carried this dillieidl nu'asiu'e 
 into elfei^t, were nnvardcd u|ion his return lo I^on- 
 don with the JOnglish titles of iJaron Chatham, ami 
 I'jarl of Greenwich. Such were his services and 
 
 I, 2
 
 136 
 
 WESTMINSTER ABBEY. 
 
 distinctions, during the reign of Queen Anne. On 
 tlie accession of George I. he enjoyed his full share 
 of the patronage and promotions bestowed upon the 
 Whigs by the house of Hanover. Fi-csh opportu- 
 nities for serving that family now presented them- 
 selves, and added to his celebrity. When the 
 rebellion of 1713 broke out under the Earl of Mar, 
 Argyle was again made commander-in-chief in 
 Scotland, and was expected to defeat the rebels 
 and pacify the country with vigour and dispatch. 
 But the measure of his success was far from keep- 
 ing pace with the desires of the government in 
 London: his military skill was criticised; even his 
 loyalty was aspersed; and when Lieutenant-colonel 
 Cadogan, late in the struggle, arrived with rein- 
 forcements, he found the instructions of the latter 
 so comprehensive, as in his judgment to imply 
 censure upon his conduct. Oft'ended at the slight 
 thus put upon him, he hastened up to London to 
 remonstrate. What little remained to be executed 
 in the way of war was, in the mean time, easily con- 
 cluded by Cadogan, who after pursuing Mar to 
 Aberdeen, (where the rebels dispersed as soon as 
 the flight of the Pi-etender and the lords in his con- 
 fidence to France took place) at length reduced the 
 stubborn clans, and established the authority of 
 government throughout the country. Ere this end 
 had been gained, Argyle reached London, and in 
 spite of remonstrances and reclamations boldly and 
 indignantly put forward, was, with his brother, the 
 Earl of Hay, dismissed from all employment. 
 
 About the year 1719 the co;inexiou which he 
 had hitherto preserved with Lord Townshend 
 and his political adherents, facilitated his return to 
 power, and he as well as the Earl of Hay again 
 engrossed various posts of honour and profit. The 
 theatre of his greatest employment was in liis native 
 land, where the principal direction of affaii's was 
 entrusted to his care anew ; and though the appre- 
 hension of some disturbances in consequence of the 
 Pretender's influence, was made a reason for sub- 
 jecting the people to the maintenance of a large 
 military force, still many acts were completed highly 
 serviceable to their interests. Laudable efforts were 
 made to conciliate the disaffected; the improvement 
 of the Highlands was sensibly attended to, and 
 much benefit was derived from various roads, which 
 were now for the first time constructed to develop 
 the commercial resources of the country. In 1718 
 he was created Duke of Greenwich, as a token of 
 the appi'obation with which h s exertions were esti- 
 mated, and after serving as steward of the house- 
 hold, and master-general of the ordnance, he was 
 created field-marshal. In 1739 he resigned his 
 ottiees, and went into opposition against Sir R. 
 Walpole's ministry. When that statesman resigned 
 a few years afterwards, Argyle was once more em- 
 ployed, but being seized with paralysis, died as stated 
 in hie epitaph, in 1743. By his personal friends, and 
 some Scotch writers, this nobleman's public conduct 
 has been commended in very flattering terms. By 
 them he is described as a man inflexibly attached 
 to whatever course he deemed right, never compro- 
 mised as to principle, by party bonds, or swayed 
 as to actions by desire of place; an able statesman, 
 eloquent speaker, and honest man. Others have 
 painted his grace in very diff"erent colours, as one 
 so variable as to have neither fixed principles nor 
 
 steady character ; keen, selfish, self-opinionated and 
 pompous, and neither patriotic as a statesman, nor 
 faithful as a party man. He was twice married : 
 his first wife was the exquisite beauty, daughter of 
 Lord Ballenden, who was so amorously pursued by 
 George II., and distinguished herself by the spirit 
 with which she resisted his uncouth addresses. He 
 had five daughters, but no son. His English titles 
 consequently became extinct ; but those of Scotch 
 origin were inherited by his brother, the Earl of 
 Hay. 
 
 Two other generals, contemporaries of the Duke 
 of Argyle, are commemorated in the Abbey : short 
 notices, therefore, may be not inappropriately added 
 here of their monuments. 
 
 Field-Marshal Wade has been honoured over 
 the door leading into the cloisters with a stately 
 column or trophy of arms, raised upon a sarcopha- 
 gus, which Time ajjpears advancing to destroy, 
 while Fame repels the aggressor. These figures 
 evince spirit and grace ; but much of the effect 
 they are calculated to produce is lost by the height 
 at which, contrary to the earnest remonstrances of 
 the ai'tist, Roubiliac, they are placed. The in- 
 scription seems to have been furnished by some 
 book-keeper m the War-Office. 
 
 To the memory of George Wade, Field-Mar- 
 shal of his Majesty's Forces, Lieutenant-General 
 of the Ordnance, Colonel of his Majesty's Third 
 Regiment of Foot Guards, Governor of Fort Wil- 
 liam, Fort Augustus, and Fort George, and one of 
 His Majesty's Most Honorable Privy Council. He 
 died 14 Mar. 1748, aged 75. 
 
 To Field-Marshal John, Earl Ligonier, the com- 
 panion and successor in arms of the great Marl- 
 borough, a monument has been erected in the area 
 near the North Cross aisle. The Muse of History 
 leaning upon an uni with one arm, unfolds in the 
 other a scroll inscribed with the names of the prin- 
 cipal engagements in which the deceased distin- 
 guished himself — Schellenberg, Blenheim, Ramil- 
 lies, Oudenarde, Taniei-e, Malplaquet, Dettingen, 
 Fontenoy, Roucoux, and Laft'eldt. Under the urn 
 a good medallion of the Earl is placed, in a round 
 band, adorned with military emblems. On a pyra- 
 mid behind the principal figure. History, Britannia 
 is seen in relief, sitting on a bale of cotton, emble- 
 matical of commerce, while around, connected by a 
 cordon, are medallions of the sovereigns under 
 whom the general served ; namely, Queen Anne, 
 and George I., II. and III. The design, not a very 
 meritorious one, and the execution, which is not 
 much better, ai-e by J. F. Jloore. The inscription 
 is as common-place and clerk-like as that of Field- 
 Marshal Wade. 
 
 In memory of 
 John Earl Ligonier, 
 Viscount of Inniskilling and Viscount of Clonmell, 
 Field Marshal and Commander-in-Chief of his 
 Majesty's Forces, Master General of the Ordnance, 
 Colonel of the First Regiment of Foot Guards, one 
 of his Majesty's most honourable Privy Council, 
 and Knight of the most honourable Military Order 
 of the Bath. 
 
 Ked XXVIII April, mdcclxx, aged xcii.
 
 JAMES CORNEWALL. 
 
 137 
 
 JAMES CORNEWALL, R.N. 
 
 Entering the Abbey from the great western door, 
 the eye is struck by a towering monument, six-and- 
 thirty feet in height, which records the name and 
 achievements of Jiimes Coraewall, a captain in the 
 royal navy. It was the first erected in the Abbey 
 by a parhamentary vote. Above the basement 
 rises a rock, witliin a recess of which appears the 
 sea-figlit whicli took place before Toulon, in 1743, 
 represented in relief. Underneath is a Latin epitaph. 
 Out of the rock spring a laui'el and a palm tree, 
 with a medallion of the captain suspended from 
 them: at either side stand female figures; the one 
 attended by the lion, personifying Britannia in the 
 habit of Minerva, and the other Fame. In the 
 allegory of this design there is nothing superior to 
 the insipidity natural to every subject of the sort: 
 the execution, however, is able, and the effect im- 
 posing. Sir R. Taylor, the architect, was the artist 
 employed to erect it. — 
 
 Inter pristinoe virtutis monumenta 
 
 Hac in JEde sacra, conservetur nomen 
 
 •Jacobi Cornewall, 
 
 Henrici Cornewall, de Castro Bradwardino, 
 
 In Agro Herefordiensi, Armigeri, 
 
 E filiis natu tertii; 
 
 Qui de pervetusta et illustri Plantagenistarum stirpe 
 
 Animum vere priscum duceus, 
 
 Rerum Navalium Dux evasit facile peritissimus, 
 
 Britonum teque lachrymis et applausu merito 
 
 decoratus; 
 
 Quippe qui Patrite causam 
 
 In Navali illo Telonem juxta certamine strenue 
 
 l)ropugnans, 
 
 Plumbi jugalisictu utroque pariter truncatus erure, 
 
 Ardorem suum commilitonibus supremum munus 
 
 morientis legans, 
 
 Occubuit invictus, 
 
 iii Id. Feb. a.d. mdccxliii. yEtat. suae xlv. 
 
 Cujus exiraia virtus 
 
 Ampliori elogio ad Posteritatis incitationem 
 
 commendari nequiit 
 
 Quam Honoris exemplo plane singular!; 
 
 Quum unanimi suffragio, Publicis expensis. 
 
 Hoc Monumi'ntum, viri fortissimi mcmoria;, 
 
 Senatus Britannicus Consecrari voluit. 
 
 Amongst the examples of pristine valour 
 
 In this sacred building, be there preserved the 
 
 name of 
 
 James Cornkwall, 
 
 Third son of 
 
 Henry Cornewall, of Bradwardine Castle, 
 
 In the county of Hereford, Esquire, 
 
 Who, deriving a spirit truly primitive 
 
 From the ancient and illu^^trious race of the 
 
 I'iantagcnets, 
 
 Sprang forth, with ease, a commander in naval 
 
 tactics, the most skilful. 
 Alike and desei-vediy adorned by the tears and 
 
 praises of Britons; 
 
 For vigorously combating, in the sea-fight off 
 
 Toulon, 
 
 The cause of his country. 
 
 A chain-shot at one blow broke both his legs. 
 
 Bequeathing to his comrades that last gift of a 
 
 dying sailor, his enthusiasm. 
 
 He ex])ired unconquei'ed, 
 
 On the 11th of Febi-uary, in the year of our Lord 
 
 1743, and of his age 45. 
 
 His eminent valour 
 
 Could not be recommended to the emulation of 
 
 posterity by any more ample eulogy 
 
 Than that truly singular proof of honour 
 
 By which the British parliament desire to 
 
 consecrate 
 
 With one voice, at the public charge. 
 
 This monument, to the memory of a bi-ave man. 
 
 A very imperfect account is preserved of this 
 distinguished officer : of his early career little is 
 known, but that he was made captain of the Sheer- 
 ness frigate, April 3, 1724. Of his services, or 
 manner of life for nine years, no fact has been 
 recorded. Being after this invested, ]\larch 3, 1 733, 
 with the command of a small armament, he pro- 
 ceeded into the Mediterranean, to exact reparation 
 for some injuries inflicted upon our merchant 
 vessels by the pirates infesting that sea. Upon this 
 trust he sailed on board of the Greyhound sloop, in 
 which he safely reached his point of destination, 
 the harbour of Yatuan, which is not far distant 
 from the strong fort of Sallee, upon the mouth of 
 the river Guero in the kingdom of Fez. The 
 demands which he was commissioned to make 
 would have been amicably conceded ; but disco- 
 vering that a Portuguese crew had been recently 
 captured and carried into slavery by the infidels, 
 he availed himself of the opportunity to insist upon 
 their libei'ation. Finding this requisition refused, 
 he blocked up the port completely, and cut the 
 corsairs from the sea. This prompt movement in 
 a short time produced the desired effect: the cap- 
 tives were released; the British merchants com- 
 pensated; and the squadron returned to England 
 without loss or bloodshed. 
 
 In 1741 the Bedford, of 71 gwis, attached to the 
 Heet under Admiral Sir John Norris, in the Atlan- 
 tic, was commanded by Captain Cornewall. From 
 that ship and station, which attbrded him no oppor- 
 tunities of distinction, he was removed into the 
 Marlborough, serving in the Meiliterranean, with 
 Admiral Matthews, a brave but unfortunate officer, 
 who was ilismisscd from his rank, on aocduntof the 
 events which siibsf(|ni'ntly occurred otf Toulnn, 
 where Cornewall fell with so nuich gallantry. The 
 battle wliich led to these contrary results of dis- 
 grace and glory, began to be fought at about half- 
 past one o'clock, April 1), 1743. Cornewall was 
 nominated one of the seconds to the commander- 
 in-chief, who onlered him to abandon the usual 
 line of action, and encouiitt'r the Real, a Spanish 
 ship, which was soon reinforced l)y another, 
 mounting 74 guns. The conflict between Corne- 
 w:ill and these vessels lasted for three hours and 
 thirty-five minutes, under unusual circumstances of 
 resolution and bravery. So desjieiate was the en- 
 counter, that at times the yard-arms of the Marl-
 
 138 
 
 WESTMINSTER ABBEY. 
 
 borough and Real touched together; nor were the 
 ships at any time of the action more distant from 
 each other than the reach of pistol-shot. Opposed 
 by a double force, the English suffei'ed severely: 
 Cornewall's legs were shot off ; the main and mizen 
 masts were soon after carried away, and, as they 
 fell, crushed his mutilated body into pieces. In 
 
 this emergency, his nephew carried on the engage- 
 ment until the Real was silenced, and drew off 
 with her companion, abandoning the Marlborough, 
 in a condition far too distressed to pursue a victory 
 which, though nobly gained, afforded neither satis- 
 faction to the government, nor credit to the sur- 
 vivors. 
 
 SIR CHARLES WAGER. 
 
 This admiral has a large monument in the north 
 transept. Upon a neatly-wrought double pedestal 
 sits a figure of Fame, holding a portrait of the 
 deceased, which is supported on the other side by 
 an infant Hercules. So far the design, being alle- 
 gorical, is spiritless and bad; but the statues are 
 well wrought, and bear a natural, though far 
 from a " divine " expression. The back-ground 
 is sheltered by a pyramid, under the apex of 
 which is placed a coat of arms. The lower pedestal 
 is occupied by a piece of relievo, descriptive of 
 the capture of the Spanish galleons in IT'^S, and 
 the upper is filled with the inscription. The mo- 
 nument was erected "by Francis Gasbury, Esq. 
 in gratitude to his great patron," and it was exe- 
 cuted by Scheemakers. 
 
 To the memory of Sir Charles Wager, Knt. 
 
 Admiral of the White, First Commissioner of the 
 
 Admiralty, and Privy Councillor : 
 
 A man of great natural talents, 
 
 Who bore the highest commands. 
 
 And passed through the greatest employments, 
 
 With credit to himself, and honour to his country. 
 
 He was in private life 
 
 Humane, temperate, just, and bountiful : 
 
 In public station 
 
 Valiant, prudent, wise, and honest ; 
 
 Easy of access to all : 
 
 Plain and unaffected m his manners, 
 
 Steady and resolute in his conduct ; 
 
 So remarkably happy in his presence of mind, that 
 
 no danger ever discomposed him. 
 
 Esteemed and favoured by his King, 
 
 Beloved and honoured by his country. 
 
 He died May 24, 1743, aged 77- 
 
 We know nothing of the life of Wager vmtil the 
 year 1692, when he appears to have become Cap- 
 tain of the Ruzee. From this date he continued 
 constantly in active but uninteresting employment: 
 in 1695 he commanded the Woolwich, of fifty-four 
 guns, in the Channel, under Sir Cloudesly Shovel, 
 shifted his commission to a guard-ship in 1699, 
 and in 1703 obtained the Hampton-Court, of seventy 
 guns, and was sent to cruise along the coast of 
 France with a commodore's flasr. 
 
 April 10, 1707, no sailed from Plymouth at the 
 head of nine ships of war, which were destined to 
 escort forty-five merchantmen, and to protect our 
 West Indian possessions from the encroachments 
 of the French. Arrived at his station, after a 
 prosperous voyage, he acquired very high credit 
 for the attention he paid to the interests of the 
 colonies, and the advantages that accrued to our 
 trade under his superintendence. As the winter 
 
 approached, two formidable reports were circu- 
 lated; the one, that De Grasse intended to attack 
 the Island of Jamaica; and the other, that his ob- 
 ject was solely to convoy a rich Heet of Spanish 
 galleons, which was about to rendezvous at the 
 Havannah. For either of these movements Wager 
 disposed himself with happy skill. Dividing his 
 force into two squadrons, he sent the one half to 
 watch the advance of the enemy, and retained 
 himself a force which he deemed sufficient to 
 master the galleons before any succour could reach 
 them. The undertaking was subjected to all the 
 vicissitudes incidental to the element upon which 
 it was formed. In the month of January he set 
 sail from Port Royal ; but had the mortification to 
 discover that his intended prizes would lie safe in 
 the harbour of Porto Bello until May. Returning, 
 therefore, to his station, with a hope of lulling 
 them into a belief that he was deterred from any 
 enterprize by the consciousness of inferior strength, 
 he remained inactive until the middle of May, 
 when he weighed anchor again, and had the mis- 
 fortune to encounter a severe storm, in which his 
 squadron, which consisted of only three sail of the 
 line, and a fire-ship, was much damaged. The 
 predicament in which he now lay was extreme : if 
 he returned to port, he ran the risk of missing 
 his object, and if he remained at sea, his shat- 
 tered state, and the superior numbers of the 
 enemy, rendered his success highly problematical. 
 With the usual intrepidity of the profession, he 
 determined upon the braver course, and carried 
 himself thi'ough every obstacle with exemplary 
 spii'it. 
 
 The enemy, to the number of seventeen sail, 
 were discovered at daybreak on the 28th of May, 
 off Carthageua, and seemed indifferent to any 
 movement which the small body of English could 
 offer. They bore on boldly in their course, as if 
 the superiority of their means must deter an at- 
 tack; but, finding themselves pursued, sought to 
 weather the island of Baru ; and failing in the 
 effort, formed in line, and evinced a determination 
 to come to a decisive entrasement. Wacer got 
 alongside of their centre and largest ship about 
 sunset, and immediately began the fight. But, 
 notwithstanding the gallantry of this act, his com- 
 panions, the Kingston and Portland, failed in their 
 duty, and both kept to windward, out of their sta- 
 tions, though repeatedly hailed by the commodore, 
 and challenged by his boats. Undejected by this 
 defection, Wager's ship, the Expedition, continued 
 hotly engaged with the Spanish admiral for an 
 hour and a half; when the latter blew up by acci- 
 dent, and only eleven of the crew were saved from 
 the wreck. About ten o'clock he came up with
 
 JAMES THOMSON. 
 
 139 
 
 the rear-admiral, and tiring upon him at hazard in 
 the dark, had the fortune to lodge a broadside so 
 effectually in his stern, that he was disabled from 
 making any farther way. Soon after this second 
 conquest, the Kingston and Portland came up, and 
 after a short fight the enemy surrendered, anil the 
 prizes, which proved highly valuable, were safely 
 captured. 
 
 This affair had no sooner been completed, than 
 Wager received dispatches from England, which 
 acquainted him with his promotion to the flag of 
 Rear-Admiral of the Blue squadron. December 2, 
 I7O8, he rose to be Rear-Admiral of the White, 
 and continuing in the command of the West In- 
 dian station until the ensuing autumn, let slip no 
 opportunity of maintaining the superiority of his 
 country upon the seas over which lie commanded. 
 
 Returned to England, he enjoyed the satisfaction 
 of receiving the most flattering proofs of public 
 approbation. The queen treated him with great 
 respect : he was knighted, and made Rear-Admiral 
 of the Red: addresses and votes of thanks poured 
 in upon hira from all quarters, and his character 
 for judgment, vigilance, and integi'ity stood univer- 
 sally acknowledged. An interval of relaxation 
 now occurred, and Wager led a private life until 
 George I. ascended the throne, when he was nomi- 
 
 nated to command in the Medltei-ranean. There 
 remains, however, nothing more to relate of his 
 career, but a list of honourable appointments, and 
 frequent promotions ; for, though frequeutly called 
 out on duty, he met with no opportunities for dis- 
 tinction. June 1(J, 1710, he was advanced to the 
 flag of Vice-Admiral of the Blue ; Febi-uary 1, 
 1717. he became Vice-Admiral of the White ; and 
 JIareh 15, I7IH, rose to be Vice-Admiral of the 
 Red. From the year 1722 to 17:50 he was vested 
 with several important connnissions, and upheld 
 his populai'ity by constant ability. His last voyage 
 was made in 1731, when a French invasion was 
 menaced, and a large flotilla was rejtorted to be 
 collecting at Calais and Dunkirk. Wager, who 
 was gazetted Admiral of the Blue, in the month of 
 July, repaired to Cadiz, with twenty ships of the 
 line, for the purpose of seeing a treaty ratified, 
 which ^^•as brought about between the Emperor of 
 Germany and the King of Spain, through the me- 
 diation of his Bi-itannic Majesty. Age now in 
 some degree disinclined him from active employ- 
 ment, but he filled several civil offices with an 
 increased reputation for talent, being First Lord of 
 the Admiralty from 1733 to 1741, when he under- 
 took the less fatiguing post of Treasm'cr of the 
 Navy, ui which he died. 
 
 JAMES THOMSON. 
 
 Thomson's monument, designed by Adam the archi- 
 tect, and executed by Spang the sculptor, adjoins 
 the statue of Shakspeare, in the Poets' Corner. 
 He is introduced resting one hand upon a book, 
 and holding the cap of liberty in the other. The 
 seasons are personified in relief on the pedestal, to 
 which an urchin with a crown of laurel points 
 attention. The epitaph is thus engi'aved : — 
 
 James Thomson, 
 .<Etatis 48 obiit: 27 Aug. 1748. 
 
 Tutor'd by thee, sweet Poetry exalts 
 Her voice to Ages, and informs the page 
 With Music, Image, Sentiment, and Thought, 
 Never to die ! 
 
 This Monument was erected mdcclxii. 
 
 James Thomson, son of the minister of Ednam, 
 in Roxburghshire, was bf)rn at his father's rectory, 
 September 7, 17^0. The family was numerous, and 
 appears to have been in narrow circumstances, 
 though mention is made by the biographers of a 
 little property, inherited by his mother, which 
 .Scotcli vanity dignified with the name of an estate. 
 The young poet owed the benefit of his education 
 to the generosity of a neighbouring clergyman, 
 n.amed iiiccarton, who sent him to the [lulilic 
 .school of .Jedbiirg, and afterwards to the iiigli- 
 school at Edinburgh. While yet a school-boy 
 Thomson was a versifier, though not much to his 
 own satisfaction; for it is reported that he used to 
 bum every New-year's day all the productions of 
 the preceding twelve months. Aftr;r residing two 
 years in tlie Scottisli capital, where he was Lord 
 Binning's tutor, he lost his fatiicr, and was there 
 
 joined by his mother. He now directed his studies 
 to qualify himself for the ministry, until the i)oetical 
 splendour with which he clothed some of his pro- 
 bationary exercises drew down upon him the cen- 
 sures of the professor of divinity, and damped his 
 ardour for a course of life, which thus seemed only 
 likely to enslave the energies of his genius. 
 
 Under this distress, he again turned his thoughts 
 to the muses, and, as is usually the case, found the 
 first judges, to whom he ventured to submit his 
 aspirations, acrimonious and unfavourable. There 
 was a lady, however, an acquaintance of his mother, 
 who, as she possessed money, was referred to as 
 an authority, and fortunately for the timid bard, 
 she not only appi'oved of his productions, but even 
 went so far as to coimtenance a design he had 
 formed of seeking emuhnnent and fame in London; 
 and promised the aid of her purse; but that solid h<lp 
 was never conferred; and the chief assistance which 
 Thomson received from his friends, on his journey 
 to London, was a bundle of recommendatory letters. 
 Those he carried ]irudcntly tied up in a jjocket 
 kerchief; but he had no sooner reached London, 
 than they were stolen from him as he loitered 
 gapingly along the streets. His finances were 
 already so reduced, that ho could not afford to 
 rej)laee the jiair of shoes which he had worn out 
 in his journey; and thus he stood, amidst llie con- 
 fusion of a strange metropolis, without either nie:ins 
 or ])rospect of money, exce])t from the sale of his 
 " Winter," which, though tlie last in order, was the 
 first of his "Seasons" which he completed. 
 
 He was fortunate enough, iiowcver, to make him- 
 self known to his countryman, Mullet the |)oi>l, wlio 
 was then tutor to the sons of tlir Duke of Mon- 
 trose; and by his assistance, aflrr n\any refiisiils,
 
 140 
 
 WESTMINSTER ABBEY. 
 
 succeeded in getting Millar, the bookseller, to pur- 
 chase his copyright for a small sum. The sale at 
 first was by no means remunerative, and celebrity 
 seemed far from likely to reward the maiden author, 
 when a gentleman named Whatley, well-known in 
 the literary circles of the day, perceived the merits 
 of the attempt, and delighted himself with praising 
 the new poem on " Winter," wherever he called, 
 or whoever he talked to. It was dedicated to Sir 
 Spencer Compton, with those expectations of pecu- 
 niary acknowledgment which were at that time the 
 usual returns for such compliments; but on this 
 occasion Thomson was again disappointed, until 
 Aax'on Hill, the unsuccessful writer of tragedy, 
 inserted some verses in the newspapers, which led 
 the baronet to excuse himself for not having re- 
 warded the poet, upon the plea that the latter had 
 never waited upon him. This hint was of course 
 taken, and TlKjmson received a present of twenty- 
 guineas. Pope and Bishop Rnndle made his ac- 
 quaintance about the same time, and the latter 
 introduced him to Lord Talbot. 
 
 During the next year, 1727, Thomson distin- 
 guished himself by three publications, another 
 Season, " Summer," a poem on the '' Death of 
 Sir Isaac Newton;" and one entitled "Britan- 
 nia." "Summer" he originally wished to dedi- 
 cate to his former jjupil, Lord Binning; but it was 
 eventually inscribed to Mr. Dodington, because the 
 kindness which had at first introduced the lord 
 to notice the poet, now led him to decline an act of 
 gratitude, which another person had more power 
 to recompense. " Britannia " decried the ministrj', 
 and therefore identified the author with the poli- 
 tical views of the parliamentary opposition. Thom- 
 son's reputation was now high, and the announce- 
 ment of a tragedy from his pen was received with 
 considerable interest. To such a pitch was the 
 expectation of the public wrought, that the rehear- 
 sals were attended by a fashionable audience, and 
 it was universally anticipated that the tragedy of 
 " Soplionisba," would both enrich the author and 
 exalt the stage in an unprecedented manner. But 
 the issue poorly accorded with so flattering a pre- 
 lude. " Soplionisba " liad no unusual success. 
 Though well attended at the fii-st representations, 
 there was little in it to affect the feelings; and 
 however the audience may have admired the dig- 
 nity of declamation, or the morality of sentiment 
 contained in the piece, they soon agreed that inci- 
 dents more moving, and characters more vivid, are 
 necessary to secure either interest or applause on 
 the theatre. 
 
 Of the remaining Seasons, " Spring " was pub- 
 lished in 1728; and "Autumn" in 17^0; when the 
 author's works were first collected and published 
 together. Respecting the dedication of " Spring " 
 to the Countess of Hertford, it has been told, that 
 it was an acknowledgment for the honour which her 
 ladyship had done the author, in inviting him one 
 summer to her seat in the country, in order to hear 
 her own verses read, and assist in the du'ection of 
 her studies. It was at first suggested that the 
 compliment would be repeated; but it is added, 
 that as Thomson was pleased to spend more time 
 in carousing with Lord Hertford and his friends, 
 than in helping her ladyship to woo the muses, he 
 was never asked again, and the celebrity of the 
 dedication was purchased at a cheaper rate than 
 was promised. 
 
 Solid consequences of the favourable position in 
 which Thomson now stood began to appear, in his 
 appointment to situations at once lucrative and 
 creditable. The Lord Chancellor Talbot sent him, 
 at the suggestion of Bishop Bundle, to travel with 
 his eldest son. The journey was undertaken with 
 the prospect of great enjoyment, and prosecuted 
 with a succession of delights. He lived in the first 
 style of fortune; had no expense of his own; com- 
 manded all the instructive novelties of art and 
 literature, both ancient and modern; embellished 
 his taste, and strengthened his mind; and, above 
 all, had the certainty of a competence upon his 
 return home. That event was occasioned much 
 sooner than he imagined: his charge died; he came 
 back to England, and was made secretary of briefs 
 in the Court of Chancery. Another fruit of this 
 continental excursion was "Liberty," a poem, in 
 five parts. The protracted administration of Sir 
 Robert Walpole had given rise to many warm re- 
 clamations as to the damage done to freedom by 
 the course and policy of his government, in all of 
 which Thomson and his party fearlessly participated. 
 The impressions thus made upon the mind of the 
 poet being forcibly confinned by the lamentable 
 state to which he found the continental states re- 
 duced by the arbitrary measures of uncontrolled 
 ministers, he resolved to give vent to his feelings 
 in a poem worthy of the greatness of the subject. 
 Two years were spent upon the undertaking, w hicli, 
 when completed, he esteemed his noblest perform- 
 ance. It is not, however, the one for which the 
 public has most approved, or remembered him. He 
 was a writer who could do nothing ill, and his 
 poem of " Liberty" will therefoi-e be found ample 
 in design, unbleniislied in execution, and classical 
 in style; and if it is not more read, and oftener 
 quoted, the reason plainly is, that in England the 
 theme of it is too fully understood, to leave much 
 interest for the general illustration he has given of 
 all the benefits it has procured, and the praises it 
 deserves. 
 
 Thomson was now at ease in liis fortune, and, as 
 is too commonly the case, his Muse participated in 
 the relaxation which plenty occasioned. But this 
 happiness was brief; his patron died; Lord Hard- 
 wicke became chancellor, and, after some delay, 
 superseded him ui his office, because the chancellor 
 would not give what the poet would not solicit. 
 The excuse was mean, and the act deserves repro- 
 bation. If merit is only to be rewarded when it 
 courts power, the page which connnemorates the 
 life of genius must continue to be always what it 
 has too often been, the miserable record of subser- 
 viency and injustice. Thomson was now saved 
 from a relapse into his original state of poverty by 
 a pension of lOOl. a-ycar from the Prince of Wales. 
 Being thus compelled to write, he pi'oduced, in 
 1738, his tragedy of " Agamemnon." Pope, who 
 always evinced a sincere regard for him, took a 
 warm interest in the success of the piece, and 
 attended the theatre upon the first night of its 
 representation, where he was no sooner recognized, 
 than a general round of applause was given by the 
 company. But no personal influence, nor private 
 interest, can pervert ]iopular taste ; a mere my- 
 thological story has rarely succeeded upon the 
 English stage; and in future, instead of wondering 
 at the failure of such attempts, we should rather 
 express astonishment that they should be made.
 
 ISSAC WATTS. 
 
 141 
 
 It was about tins time that Sir Robert Walpole 
 got the first act of Parliament passed which required 
 a license from the Lord Cliamberlain for tlie per- 
 formance of every play intended for representation 
 at either of the great houses. This legislative 
 measure was said to have been occasioned by the 
 conduct of a body of French comedians, who, not 
 content with mimicking the leading men of the 
 day, went the length of ridiculing the sovereign 
 himself in the broadest manner. The pi-ovocation 
 was certainly scandalous ; but the law is notwith- 
 standing a disgrace to any peojjle who pretend to 
 be either free, rational, or literary. The first play 
 that was forbidden under this new rule, was the 
 " Gustavus Vasa " of Brooke ; and the second, the 
 "Edward and Eleonora" of Thomson. What 
 reason there was for these interdictions, except in 
 the spirit of party, no man could even then divine : 
 both tragedies have since been performed, and 
 found quite harmless; the murmuring public, as in 
 all cases of the arbiti'ary exercise of power, sym- 
 pathized with the injured authors, and rewarded 
 them with liberal subsci'iptions. The mask of 
 " Alfred," jointly composed by Thomson and his 
 old friend Mallet, followed, containing the cele- 
 brated " Rule Britannia,'' which has divided the 
 honour of beiujr the national song of England with 
 " God save the King." 
 
 " Tancred and Sigismunda," the most successful 
 of Thomson's tragedies, was first played in IT 4b; 
 and for some time afterwards enjoyed its turn of 
 revival. That fortune, however, is not likely soon 
 to recur ; and the fact may be taken as decisive of 
 the author's ability as a dramatist. His plays are 
 good poems, but they fail to excite those feelings, 
 whether of tenderness or terror, which the bolder 
 incidents and higher characters of older authors 
 awaken. Thomson is diffuse in his stories and 
 narrations ; whereas tragedy, to earn its due meed 
 and command acclamation, should be brief in its 
 action, and always demonstrate rather than recount 
 events. 
 
 Once more Thomson's friends resumed the seats 
 of power, and again was he restored to fortune. 
 His friend, Mr. Lyttleton, made him Surveyor- 
 general of the Leeward Islands, a post which, after 
 paying a deputy, left the principal a clear 'MWl. 
 a year. It was in this state of enjoyment that he 
 sent into the world the "Castle of Imlolencc," the 
 last poem he lived to finish : for a final labour it 
 was most studiously laboured, and accurately jio- 
 lished. It is a rich picture of luxury, finely ima- 
 gined and floridly related ; but has neither been 
 read as extensively, nor praised as fully, as the 
 splendour of its style, the variety of its imagery, 
 and the beauty of its exuberant charms deserve. 
 
 Thomson was in the full enjoyment of fortune 
 and reputation, when, passing on the Thames from 
 London to Kew, in the summer of 1748, he caught 
 a cold, which turned to a fever, and put an end to 
 his life August 27, in the same year. He was 
 buried at Richmond, without either monument or 
 inscription, but his memory has been lionom-ably 
 dealt with in other places, and by various means. 
 The tribute which entitles him to rank in these 
 pages, sujiplies one proof of these, and the classical 
 elegy of Collins may be gratefully referred to as 
 evidence of another. After his death, his works 
 were edited by his friend and patron, Sir George 
 Lyttleton, to defray the expense of his monu- 
 ment, and a tragedy, entitled " Coriolanus," was 
 acted for the benefit of his family. The latter met 
 the fate, not undeserved by every jiresumptuous 
 effort to emulate Shaks))eare, whether the hope 
 be to rise where he soared, or to escape a fall 
 where he so rarely failed. The " Coriolanus " of 
 Thomson is utterly forgotten. More agreeable ob- 
 servations are to be made, not only upon his 
 writings but upon his actions also. He was a fond 
 relation, and a faithful friend ; his heart was gene- 
 rous and his hand open, and he never refused to 
 give when he had the jiower. He lias been cen- 
 sured for being infirm of pui'pose, and so unsys- 
 tematic, that even in his most prosperous days, 
 liis affairs were generally deranged ; and we are 
 also told, that his conviction of this weakness was 
 so strong as to lead him to design an eastern tale 
 exemplary of his own character, the title of which 
 was to have been " The Man wlio Loved to be in 
 Distress." As a poet, he is entitled to the highest 
 rank, and the gi-eatest praise. The " Seasons " 
 still enjoy a most popular celebrity, and eminently 
 merit all the eulogy that has been lavished upon 
 them. The style of vei'se, thought, and expression, 
 are all distinctive of the author, and each peculiarly 
 felicitous, somewhat elaborate it is true, but always 
 energetic, and if not most musical throughout, still 
 never harsh or rude. He sees everything that can 
 interest and excite in nature, and sets his sense of 
 each before the reader, with the addition of every 
 charm which the fancy of genius can jiour on them. 
 His descriptions of scenery are admirably appro- 
 priate and effective: when nature varies, he changes 
 sympathetically with her ; is always light when she 
 is lively, s]]leiidid when she is magnificent, and 
 majestic when she is sublime. The " Seasons" dis- 
 play at every turn and in every vicissitude, a mind 
 the most accomi)lished, and an eIoi]uence the most 
 rtorid. In fine, next to Milton, as the poet of blank 
 verse, Thomson, of all the poets of the eighteenth 
 century, may justly take rank. 
 
 ISAAC WATTS. 
 
 Dr. Watts lias l)een honoureil with a small 
 tabular monument of white marble, in the scjiith 
 aisle. It is dividccl into two parts liy a fascia, over 
 which appears a l>ust, supported ijy cherubs, iind 
 underneath, in reliiif, a representation of (Ik; doctor, 
 seated in the act of composition, with a descending 
 angel by his side, who opens to liini the mysteries 
 
 of the globe. The inscription is confined to tlio 
 dates of ills birth and di'atli. 
 
 Of Isaac Watts, who has been pronounci'd l>y 
 Dr. .Johnson, perhaps somewhat hastily, " the first 
 of the dissenters who courted atti ntion by tiie 
 graces of language," there ia but a meagre ac- 
 count to be given. In his case tliat dearth of ad-
 
 142 
 
 WESTMINSTER ABBEY. 
 
 venture and varied interest which proverbially 
 occurs in the hiograpliy of literary men, was in- 
 creased by a sickly constitution, and a life of bodily 
 infirmities. The delivery of a sermon, the com- 
 position of a hymn, the publication of a volume, 
 uniformly instructive, but never dazzling ; such 
 were the peaceful occupations of his time, and to 
 his printed works chiefly, therefore, can a reference 
 be made for the records of his modest existence. 
 He was born at Southampton, July 17, 1674, and was 
 the oldest of nine children. His father is reported 
 to have been originally a shoemaker, but he subse- 
 quently kept a boarding-school, and acquired station 
 by his money, reputation by his knowledge, and con- 
 sideration amongst his sect by the persecutions he 
 endured for his religious opinions in the reign of 
 Charles IT. The precocious aptitude for learning 
 which young Isaac is said to have displayed, was 
 extraordinary : it is affirmed that he began to study 
 Latin in his fourth year. Being afterwards sent to 
 the grammar-school of Southampton, he was taught 
 Latin, Greek, and Hebrew, by the Rev. Mr. Pinhorn, 
 and attained so conspicuous a proficiency, that it was 
 proposed to raise a subscription for the purpose of 
 entering him at the university. Bred a dissenter, 
 however, and conscientiously attached to his religi- 
 ous creed, he honestly declined the advantages which 
 such a course opened to his views, and repaii-ed m 
 1690, to an academy established for students of his 
 own persuasion, by the Rev. Mr. Rowe. There he 
 had Hughes the poet, and Horte, afterwards Arch- 
 bishop of Tuam, for companions, above whom he 
 was remarkable for the vivacity of his wit, which, 
 however, was always as decorous as his conduct was 
 exemplary. In his manners he was a pattern to his 
 school-fellows ; he also wrote his exercises, par- 
 ticularly in Latin, with a degree of judgment and 
 extent of attainments which reflected equal honour 
 on his talents and application. 
 
 In his nineteenth year he communicated with 
 the congregation of his tutor, Mr. Rowe, and left 
 his academy after the lapse of another twelve- 
 month. Two years were now spent in study and 
 the practice of religion at his father's residence, 
 after which he became tutor to the son of Sir 
 John Hartopp, at Stoke Newington. This office 
 occupied his cares for five years, from which, how- 
 ever, some intervals of relaxation were snatched, 
 and earnestly applied to a thorough comprehension 
 of the Holy Scriptures. His first ministerial ap- 
 pointment was the place of assistant to Dr. Chaun- 
 cey, and he preached his maiden sermon on the 
 birthday which concluded his four-aud-tvventieth 
 year. In three years more he succeeded Dr. 
 Chauncey in the charge of the congregation, but 
 was soon after attacked by a fit of illness, which 
 reduced him to such a state of weakness, that Mr. 
 Price was called on to aid him in the discharge of 
 his pastoral duties. As his health became gradu- 
 ally reiuvigorated he resumed his functions, and 
 remained zealously employed at his post until the 
 year 1712, when he was seized with a fever, which 
 lasted so long and violently, that his whole frame 
 was enervated for the rest of his life. 
 
 It was in this enfeebled condition that he attracted 
 the notice of Sir Thomas Abney, who gave him a 
 residence in his house, at Stoke Newington, which 
 he continued to enjoy until the hour of his death. 
 The interval included a term of six-and-thirty years, 
 and constitutes an honourable example of disinter- 
 
 ested generosity, and friendly dependence, which it 
 were by no means easy to match. From the date 
 of his admission into this family, the more active 
 business of the ministry was discharged by his 
 assistant, and his time was simply engaged in occa- 
 sionally preaching to his congregation, and in writ- 
 ing and publishing his works. His salary amounted 
 to 100?. a-year, one third of which he always ex- 
 pended in acts of charity. To this quiet state of 
 existence he only added the relief of familiar visits, 
 and private instruction. While any strength re- 
 mained to him the cure of souls appears to have 
 been his only occupation: religion vias always the 
 topic of his conversation, and wherever it gives 
 place to another subject in his writings, moral and 
 philosophical instruction is conveyed in its stead. 
 Thus usefully employed, his strength wore gradually 
 away, until November 2, 1748, when, after being 
 for some time confined to his bed, he expired of 
 mere bodily exhaustion. 
 
 Dr. Watts received his degree of D.D. from the 
 Universities of Edinburgh and Aberdeen, in 1728. 
 The honour was unsolicited, either by him or his 
 friends, and must be admitted to have been re- 
 spectably merited. His works, which extend to six 
 volumes, were edited after his death, with a prefa- 
 tory account of his life, by Dr. Gibbons. Volumes 
 i. ii. and iii. contain " Sermons, Religious Dis- 
 courses, and Essays," &c. Vol. iv., mcludes his 
 " Poems, a metrical version of the Psalms of David; 
 thx-ee books of Hymns and Spii'itual Songs; and 
 Horse Lyi'icse," also in three books. This last is 
 the publication which induced Dr. Jolmson to 
 enrol him among the British poets. Vol. v. com- 
 prises " Logic, or the Right Use of Reason, in the 
 Enquu-y after Truth ; The Improvement of the 
 Mind; The Knowledge of the Heaven and Earth 
 made easy, or the First Principles of Astronomy 
 and Geography, by the Use of the Globes and 
 Maps; Philosophical Essays; and a Brief Scheme 
 of Ontology." The Cth volume is solely devoted to 
 subjects of " Religious Controversy." 
 
 That the man who wrote on all these various sub- 
 jects must have possessed considerable industry, 
 power of mind, and information, will be easily cre- 
 dited. The controversial pieces are now seldom to 
 be met with, though Dr. Johnson commends "their 
 meekness of opposition, and mildness of censure." 
 The only point in them which has provoked recent 
 interest, has been founded upon some apparent 
 vacillation in the doctor's belief of the Trinity. His 
 " Logic," in which he borrowed from Le Clerc, lias 
 long been admitted into the Universities ; and his 
 " Improvement of the Mind," attained an exti-aor- 
 dinary circulation ; but neither of them are good 
 books. The greatest praise to be pronounced on 
 them is, that they set on foot a simplification of the 
 science ; while, on the contrary, the greatest fault 
 to be found with them is, that they retained still 
 much of the factitious mystifications of the Aristo- 
 telian system. Every man learns from his own 
 thoughts that the operations of the human mind are 
 simple in the extreme. There can be no course 
 therefore more opposed to nature and sense than to 
 confuse the brain of a scholar with an immense 
 series of crude distinctions, heavy rules, and ab- 
 struse dogmas, which prove little or nothing beyond 
 the unprofitable ingenuity of the writer. Such 
 works ought to be exploded from every sound 
 scheme of education, for the substance of all that
 
 SIR PETER WARREN. 
 
 143 
 
 can be safely affirmed or usefully inculcated respect- 
 ing the mind of man and the process of thought, 
 may be satisfactorily explained in a score of pages. 
 
 Nevertheless, the fact is not to be concealed, that 
 Watts has been a very popular author: there are 
 few books in the English language which have been 
 oftcner printed, or more widely circulated, than his 
 " Logic," his " Improvement of the Mind," and his 
 " Hymns." Indeed, this last volume, as a religious 
 work, may almost be said to rank next to the " Book 
 of Common Prayer;" and yet, perhaps, there is 
 more spirit in the similar devotional poetry of 
 Wesley. Nor was Watts's reputation as a man and 
 a pastor less favourable than as a ^vl•iter : gentle 
 and modest, tender to children, and compassionate 
 to the poor. He has been highly complimented 
 for his preaching: his enunciation was grave and 
 distinct, his delivery emphatic, and his mannei", 
 though never enforced by gesticulation, always 
 deeply impressive. In fluency of language and fer- 
 tility of ideas, he w-as rarely exceeded. Towards 
 tlie close of his career he used to pronounce his 
 discourses extemporaneously, a fact more creditable 
 to the character of his abilities thau could be con- 
 jectm-ed, for he appears to have possessed but little 
 originality. 
 
 Of his poetry Dr. Johnson has given, upon the 
 
 whole, a contradictory account, commencing, by 
 awarding him credit for several (lualities of the 
 pm-est order, and concluding with an eiunnoration 
 of positive faults, which far outbalance the opposite 
 statement. The truth is, he had fc^w of the attri- 
 butes of a poet, and wherever he ha])peued to com- 
 mand attention, or excite approbation, his success 
 proceeds rather from a familiarity with the classics 
 than his own natural powers. He is never rugged, 
 and seldom loose, or forced; but feeling, fancy, and 
 invention are qualities with which he was sparingly 
 imbued: his boldest passages are ill-sustained loans 
 from sacred writ ; nor does he attract by that 
 polished style for which a scholar is usually re- 
 markable. It is curious to observe, that though his 
 private chai'acter abounded with piety, benevolence, 
 and charitable acts, his poems dwell on few of the 
 mercies by which one would suppose such a man to 
 have been must affected. On the contrary, his verses 
 are darkened with terrors; heaven with him is in 
 general avenging, and the Deity foniiidaljle ; im- 
 precation and punishment overload his cadences, 
 and leave the page barren of those gentle breath- 
 ings of toleration by which a Christian pastor and 
 an enlightened philosopher ought chiefly to delight 
 to move the hearts of his readers. 
 
 SIR PETER WARREN, K.B. 
 
 The monument to the memory of Sii* Peter War- 
 ren is placed in the south transept. It is a costly 
 and imposing structure, by Roubiliac, remarkable 
 for the spirit and finish characteristic of the artist, 
 and all the figurative mystery for which the sculp- 
 ture of the country down to the present day has 
 almost invariably been reproved. The back-ground 
 is gracefully occupied by a falling flag, in front of 
 which is a figure of Neptune placing a half-body 
 bust of the admiral upon a pedestal. An ett'ective 
 personification of Navigation regarding tho bust 
 with intense expression fills the other extremity. 
 This is the inscription : — 
 
 Sacred to the memory of 
 
 Sir Petkr Warren, 
 
 Knight of tho Bath, and Vice-Adniiral of the Red 
 
 Squadron of the British Fleet, and 
 
 Member of I'arliament 
 
 For the City and Liljerty of Westminster. 
 
 He derived his descent from an ancient 
 
 family of Ireland: 
 
 I lis fame and honours from his virtues and abilities. 
 
 How eminently these were displayed, 
 
 With what vigilance and spirit they were exerted 
 
 In tlic various services wherein he had the hommr 
 
 to conmiand. 
 
 And the ha|ii)iness to conq\ier. 
 
 Will 1)0 more jjnjjierly recorded in the annals of 
 
 Great Britain. 
 
 On this tablet, Aft'ection with Truth must say, 
 
 Tiiat deservedly esteemed in private life, 
 
 And universally renowned for his public conduct, 
 
 The judicious and gallant officer 
 
 Possessed all tlie aTiiiabie i|ualities of the friend, 
 
 The gentleman, and the Christian: 
 
 But the Almighty, 
 Whom alone he feared, and whose gracious pro- 
 tection he had often experienced, 
 Was pleased to remove him from a place of honour 
 To an eternity of happiness, 
 On the 2!)th day of July, 1752*, 
 In the 46th year of his age. 
 Susannah, his afflicted wife, caused 
 This Monument to be erected. 
 
 * This was the month and year in which Joseph Gascnipne 
 Nightingale died, to whom, and to his wile, liouhili.-u' erected 
 the tomb in the Chapel of St. Jolm the Evangelist, which 
 has become so celebrated. The inscription is simple: 
 
 Here rest the ashes of Joseph Gascoigne Nightingale, of 
 Mamhead, in the County of Devon, Esq., who died July 20, 
 1".'J2, aged 50; and of Lady Elizabeth, his wife, daughter 
 and CO heiress of Washington, Earl Ferrars, who died Aug. 
 17, 1734, aged 27. Their only son, Washington Gascoigne 
 Nightingale, Esq., deceased, in memory of their virtues, did 
 by his last will, order this monument to be erected. 
 
 Mr. Peter Cunningham has appropriately selected in his 
 " Handbook to Westminster Abbey," some of the various 
 critical notices of this performance; in availing ourselves of 
 which we can safely recommend the volume as a most con- 
 venient, correct, and tasteful companion to all visitors who 
 desire to be well guided and informed while examining the 
 architecture and monuments of this interesting edilice. 
 
 " ' The bottom of the monument (says Washington Irving) 
 is rei)resented as throwing open its marble doors, and a 
 sheeted skeleton is starting forth. The shroud is falling 
 from his (leshless frame, as he launches his dart at his vic- 
 tim. She is sinking into her affrighted husband's arms, 
 who strives with vain and frantic effort to avert the blow. 
 The whole is executed with terrible truth and sjjirit ; we 
 almost fancy we hear the gibbering yell of triumph, bursting 
 from tlie jaws of the spectre.' 
 
 •' I, ike everything that is the subject of admiration, Mr.
 
 144 
 
 WESTMINSTER ABBEY. 
 
 Peter Warren, an officer eminent amongst his 
 contemporaries for his professional gallantry and 
 private virtues, was a native of Ireland, and born, 
 if the representation of his epitaph be true, about 
 the year 1703. It is generally reported that he 
 entered the navy at an early age, and yet no 
 account has been preserved of his services, until 
 the year 1727, when he was a post captam on 
 board the Grafton, which was one of the ships 
 under Sir Charles Wager in the Mediterranean. 
 Upon this station he could have spent no great 
 time, for he is soon after found sailing to the West 
 Indies, in the Soleby frigate, for the pm-pose of 
 executing the conditions of a peace with Spain. 
 From this voyage he retm'ned in 1729, and was 
 removed into the Leopard, of 50 guns, with which 
 he joined Sir Charles Wager, at Spithead, and 
 
 Nightingale's monument is also the subject of criticism. 
 Waiiiole calls it more theatric than sepulchral : by Flaxman 
 it is styled an epif:;rammatic conceit. ' The Death (says 
 Allan Cunningham) is meanly imagined ; he is the common 
 drybones of every vulgar tale. It was not so that MLlton 
 dealt with this difficult allegory. We are satisfied with the 
 indistinct image which he gives us : — 
 
 What seemed his head 
 The likeness of a kingly crown had on. 
 We have no grinning jaws, nor marrowless bones here. The 
 poet saw the difficulty, the sculptor saw none.' 
 
 " ' Still with this allegorical drawback, (says Mr. Cunning- 
 ham) it is a noble monument. The dying woman would do 
 honour to any artist. Her right arm and hand are con- 
 sidered by sculptors as the perfection of fine workmanship. 
 Life seems slowly receding from her tapering fingers, and 
 her quivering wrist. Those (he adds) who are not pleased 
 with the natural pathos of one part, are captivated by the 
 allegorical extravagance of another ; and persons who care 
 for none of these matters, find enough to admire in the diffi- 
 cult workmanship of the marble skeleton *.' 
 
 " On the south side of the monument is the artist's name 
 and the date: i. F. Roubiliac, invt. et sc. 1761. He died in 
 1762." 
 
 " Sir Francis Verb (d. 1608) — Adjoining the Nightin- 
 gale monument is a more ancient work, one of the finest in 
 the Abbey, a work of importance in the history of art in 
 England. This is the monument to Sir Francis Vere, the 
 great Low Country soldier of Elizabeth's reign, the general 
 of the English forces there for upwards of twenty years. He 
 was of the Oxford family, 'and brought,' as Naunton says, 
 ' more glory to the name of Vere than he took of blood from 
 the family of Oxford.' 
 
 " Four knights are represented kneeling and supporting 
 on their shoulders a table, on which lie the several parts of 
 a complete suit of armour. Underneath is a figure of Sir 
 Francis, lying in a loose gown on a quilt of alabaster. 
 
 " When Roubiliac was erecting his monument to Mrs. 
 Nightingale, he was found one day by Gayfere, the Abbey 
 mason, standing with his arms folded, and his looks fixed 
 upon one of the knightly figures which support the canopy 
 over the statue of Sir Francis Vere. As Gayfere approached, 
 the enthusiastic Frenchman laid his hand on his arm, 
 pointed to the figure, and said in a whisper, ' Hush ! hush ! 
 he will speak presently.' 
 
 " Walpole and Flaxman have expressed their praises, but 
 in a less enthusiastic way." 
 
 * " Roubiliac seldom modelled his drapery for his monu- 
 mental figures, but carved it from the linen itself, which he 
 dipped into warm starch-water, so that when he had pleased 
 himself, he left it to cool and dry, and then proceeded with 
 the marble ; tliis my father assured me he did with all the 
 drapery in Mrs. Nightingale's monument.'' — Smith's Life 
 of Nollekens, vol. ii. p. 86. 
 
 there remained for two years in consequence of 
 the unsettled state of our foreign relations. 
 
 In 1742, he was again in the Mediterranean, on 
 board a new sliip, the Launceston, of forty gims, 
 in which he captured the Peregrina, an eighteen 
 gun privateer, off Port Mahon. His next ship was 
 the Superb, of sixty guns, and his next station the 
 West Indies, where he became commodore of a 
 small squadron at Antigua, and distinguished him- 
 self by the alacrity and success of his movements; 
 for, between February 12 and June 24, 1744, he 
 captured no less than four-and-twenty prizes. 
 
 In 1745 an attack was made on Louisbourg, the 
 capital of Cape Breton, in North America, and 
 Commodore Warren was sent from the Leeward 
 Islands to superintend the naval operations con- 
 nected with the siege. Arriving at Canso, in Nova 
 Scotia, with fom* ships of forty guns each, April 25, 
 he found the troops prepared for service, and re- 
 embarking on the 29th, came to an anchor in 
 Gabarus Bay, which is only a mile below Louis- 
 burg, on the 30th. The opposition was feeble: 
 while the city was invested by the military, under 
 General Pepperel, Commodore Warren receiving 
 a reinforcement of three ships of the line, seized 
 upon two French frigates and a snow on the 20th 
 of Alay. The following morning he sailed in pur- 
 suit of a large ship, reported to be hovering off the 
 station, came up with her dui'ing the course of the 
 day, and after a short but earnest contest, made 
 her a capture. She proved to be the Vigilante, a 
 new French man-of-war, mounting 64 guns, carry- 
 ing five hundred and sixty men, and commanded 
 by the Marquis de Fort Maison. Her destination 
 was Louisburg, for the relief of which she was 
 heavily laden with stores, cannon, and gunpowder, 
 besides the proper equipments for a seventy-gim 
 ship, which was on the stocks at Canada. While 
 this advantage was acquired in one direction, a 
 French brigantine, charged with brandy and pro- 
 visions, made her appearance nearer shore, and 
 was also taken with ease. 
 
 The beneficial consequences of these enterprises 
 soon became evident. Bereaved of succour, the 
 French garrison was reduced to an extremity. 
 June 14, the preparations for a general assault by 
 land and sea were completed, but at fotu* o'clock on 
 the following mornmg a flag of truce came from 
 the city, and tenders of ca])itulation were sub- 
 mitted to the besiegers. Tlie messenger was 
 ordered to return for an answer on the following 
 day, when the commanders thought proper to take 
 possession of the place, upon the condition of trans- 
 porting the French free of expense to Rochefort, 
 and permitting them to keep their effects. Tlie 
 French flag was accordingly lowered, and the Bri- 
 tish colours hoisted in its place on the mornmg of 
 the 17tli instant, and in the afternoon of the same 
 day, Warren entered the hai'bour with considerable 
 state. Thus, after a siege of forty-seven days, the 
 Island of Cape Breton was subjected to the crown 
 of England, an essential victoi-y, for which Warren 
 was made rear-admiral of the blue. 
 
 Returning to England, he enjoyed an interval of 
 relaxation, but was nevertheless promoted to be 
 rear-admiral of the white during the ensuing year. 
 Early in 1747 two French squadi-ons, of great 
 foi'ce, were reported to be in a state of equipment 
 in Brest harbour, and Warren was appointed 
 second in command of a fleet imder Admiral
 
 SIR PETER WARREN. 
 
 145 
 
 Anson, which was commissioned to counteract 
 their movements. The ai-mamcnt, with which 
 Anson now came in contact, amounted to thirty- 
 eight sail, led by Monsieur de Jonquiere, and was 
 discovered oft" the coast of France on the 3rd of 
 May. As soon as the British admiral recognised 
 the enemy, he hung out signals for a line of battle. 
 These Warren aft'octing not to observe, gave notice 
 of a general chase, for which he set his top-gallant 
 sails. For this daring act, which the laws of the 
 service punished with certam death, he justified 
 himself at the moment, by observing to his cap- 
 tain *, that if he lost time in following the orders 
 of his superior, the French must inevitably escape, 
 and he was resolved to satisfy his conscience. For- 
 tunately for the result, Anson no sooner observed 
 tliese proceedings, than he fell in with Warren's 
 views, and, abandoning his first intention, made 
 
 • This Captain was Temple West, who afterwards became 
 an admiral, and usurped a conspicuous portion of public 
 regard, by the disinterestedness of his conduct, when the 
 unfortunate Byng was tried and executed. Upon that occa- 
 sion he was sent to England under arrest in the same ship 
 with the admiral, but was released from confinement, and 
 made a principal witness on the Court Martial. In this 
 capacity his conduct proved so acceptable to the ministry, 
 that he was instantly promoted in his flag, and nominated a 
 Lord of the Admiralty. But he had too much honesty to 
 avail himself of such invidious circumstances. He saw 
 that Byng was sacrificed to a faction, and he resolved not to 
 act under them. Accordingly, the first command to which 
 he was appointed was no sooner gazetted, than he addressed 
 a pulilic letter to the Admiralty, and spiritedly declared that 
 he would accept of no responsibility while the principles 
 upon which Byng had been executed, were inculcated by 
 Government. He has received the tribute of a monument 
 ill the north aisle, from which the following expressive in- 
 scription is copied : — 
 
 " Sacred to the memory of Temple West, Esq., who dedi- 
 cated himself, from his earliest youth, to the naval service 
 of his country, and rose with merit and reputation to the 
 rank of Vice- admiral of the White. Sagacious, active, in- 
 dustrious, a skilful seaman, cool, intrepid, and resolute, he 
 proved himself a gallant otlicer. In the signal victory ob- 
 tained over the French, May 3, 1747, he was captain of the 
 ship which carried Sir Peter Warren, and acquired peculiar 
 honour even on that day of general glory. In the less suc- 
 cessful engagement near Minorca, May 20, 17,')C, wherein, as 
 Rear-admiral, he commanded the second division, his dis- 
 tinguished courage and animated example were admired by 
 the whole British squadron ; confessed by that of France, 
 and, amidst the national discontent which followed, re- 
 warded as they deserved, by the warmest applauses of his 
 countr)', and the just ajiprobation of his Sovereign. On the 
 1 7th of November following, he was appointed one of the 
 Lords Commissioners of the Admiralty. He adorned his 
 station by a modesty which concealed from him his own 
 merit, and a candour which disposed him to reward that of 
 otliers. With these talents he possessed the milder graces 
 of domestic life; to the frank and generous spirit of an 
 oflicer, he added the ease and politeness of a gentleman ; 
 and with tlie moral and social virtues of a good man, he 
 exercised the duties of a Christian. A life so lionourable to 
 himself, so dear to his friends, so useful to his country, was 
 ended at the age of forty-three, A.D. 1757. To preserve to 
 posterity his fame and liis example, this monument was 
 erected by the daughter of the brave unfortunate Balchen, 
 the wife of Temple West, A.D. I7(il." 
 
 signs for a general chase. The British sailed on 
 eagerly, and the battle terminated highly to their 
 glory. But the business of this sketch is confined 
 to the conduct of Rear-admiral Warren. He carried 
 his flag on board the Devonshire, of GO guns, and 
 fell close upon the Serieux, which carried the 
 French Admiral. Having silenced this opponent, 
 he hastened to attack the Invincible, bearing the 
 flag of the Chevalier de St. George, who was second 
 in command ; and after a short encounter dis- 
 masted her also. The vigour of these assaults, 
 being ably seconded by his companions, the victory 
 was speedily completed, and si.x. two deckers, and 
 four frigates, were captured. It was for the gal- 
 lantry displayed upon this memorable occasion, 
 that Warren was honoured with the order of the 
 Bath. 
 
 Persevering in active service. Admiral Warren 
 was stationed with a squadron off" Cape Finisterre 
 in the month of July following, where he fell in 
 with two French ships of ^^■ar, convoying four 
 valuable merchantmen. Giving instant pursuit, the 
 whole body ran into a bay on the Island of Sisorgo, 
 where one of the men-of-war being fired in despair 
 by her crew, the merchantmen were got oft', and 
 conducted to Portsmouth. On the following day 
 he received notice from a privateer that a numerous 
 fleet of coasters had taken refuge in Sediere Bay, 
 near Cape Ortegal, and detached a sloop and doggei", 
 who returned to him two days after with five 
 prizes, and a Spanish frigate, and the more agreea- 
 ble assurance, that the guns lay spiked, and the 
 batteries overturned at Sediere, and that no le.«.s 
 than four-and-twenty vessels had been destroyed 
 in the bay. 
 
 After driving a French frigate of thirty-si.\ 
 guns on shore, near Cape Pinas, on the 8th of July 
 he returned to England, and was made vice-admiral 
 of the white. September 2, he set sail on another 
 cruise, but fell so ill tliat he was obliged to resign 
 his command, and retire to his se.at at Westlniry, 
 in Hampshire. Peace being jiroelaimed during the 
 following year, the fleet was dismantled, and he was 
 left without opportunity for distinction. He carried 
 with him, liowever, into private life a character 
 the most estimable, and a po])uIarity the must 
 enthusiastic. It was at the general election, in 1747, 
 that he became rcjircsentative of Westminster, 
 and on the 12th of May, 174'!, was nominated vice- 
 admiral of the red. Another instance of the con- 
 fidence with which he was regarded occurred in 
 1752, when the alderman's gown for the ward of 
 Billingsgate became vacant, and lie was unani- 
 mously presented with the freedom of the city of 
 Lonil(jn, for the express ]uiriios(> of being elected 
 into the ('(itu't of Aldermen. This unexpected honour 
 he cndeavoin-ed to decline, conceiving the duties it 
 would impose incompatible with his professional 
 avocations. The livery of the w^ard however per- 
 sisted in their ideas, and he was unanimously re- 
 turned for the office, but paid a fine of MH)/. rather 
 than miilertake it. This amicable altercation con- 
 cludcil, he jiaid a visit to Ireland, and was there 
 seized with lever, which siulilcnly closed his career 
 at the date specified on his monument.
 
 146 
 
 WESTMINSTER ABBEY. 
 
 DR. MEAD. 
 
 There is a pedestal tablet immediately under Mr. 
 Perceval's large monument in the north aisle, 
 which records the merits of Dr. Mead, who was 
 about the most popular and extensive medical 
 practitioner of the last century. This tribute to his 
 memory was executed by Scheemakers, and consists 
 of a tablet ornamented with emblematical devices 
 surmounted by a bust, under which is an appro- 
 priate epitaph in Latm. — 
 
 M.S. 
 
 RiCHARDi Mead, Archiatri, 
 
 Antiqua apud Buckingenses familia nati, 
 
 Qui famam hand vulgarem medicinam faciendo 
 
 In prima juventute adeptus 
 
 Tanta nominis celebritate postea inclaruit 
 
 Ut raedicorum hujus sajculi princeps haberetm*. 
 
 In segris curandis lenis erat ac misericors 
 
 Et ad pauperes gratuito juvandos semper paratus, 
 
 Inter assiduas an tern artis salutaris occupationes 
 
 Operibus non paucis docte et eleganter conscriptis, 
 
 Quse ingenio perspicaci et usu diutm*uo notaverat 
 
 In generis humani commodum vulgavit. 
 
 Literarum quoque et literatorum patronus 
 
 singularis 
 
 Bibliothecam lectissimam optimis et rarissimis libris 
 
 Veterumque artium monumentis refertam 
 
 comparavit, 
 
 Ubi ei'uditorura colloquiis labores levabat diunios. 
 
 Animo itaque excelso pra^ditus et moribus humanis 
 
 Orbisque literati laudibus undique cumulatus 
 
 Magno splendore et dignitate vita peracta 
 
 Annorum tandem ac famre satur placide obiit 
 
 XIV Kalendas Martias a.d. mdccliv. aetatis 
 
 sune Lxxxi. 
 
 Artium humaniorum damno baud facile reparabili 
 
 Quibus ifise tantum fuerat decus et prsesidium. 
 
 Bis matrimonio vinctus, 
 
 Ex priori decern suscepit liberos; 
 
 Quorum tres tantum superstites sibi reliquit, 
 
 Duas filias viris archiatrorum honore ornatis nuptas 
 
 Et unum sui ipsius nominis filium 
 
 Qui pietatis causa patri optime de se merito 
 
 Monumentum hoc puni curavit. 
 
 Sacred to the Memory 
 
 Of Richard Mead, an eminent Physician, 
 
 Who acquired during his earliest youth 
 
 No common reputation in the practice of medicine; 
 
 And subsequently flourished with a name of such 
 
 celebrity 
 That he was esteemed the first Doctor of his age. 
 
 Gentle and merciful in healing the sick. 
 And ever prepared to relieve the poor gratuitously. 
 Amidst the assiduous occupations of his salutary art, 
 He published, for the benefit of human kind. 
 Not a few worlcs, 
 The result of penetrating intellect and persevering 
 experience, and as learnedly as elegantly written. 
 
 A particular patron of letters and the learned. 
 He collected a choice library, filled with the best 
 and rarest books, and monuments of ancient art, 
 Where he soothed his labours with the conversa- 
 tion of the intelligent. 
 
 Thus gifted with a mind exalted, and manners the 
 
 most humane. 
 
 And covered from all quarters with the praises of 
 
 the literary world. 
 
 He placidly expired, satiated with fame and 
 
 friendship. 
 
 On the 14tli kalend of March, in the year of our 
 
 Lord MDCCLIV. and of his age lxxxi. 
 
 An injury not easily reparable to the polite arts. 
 
 Of which he was so great an ornament and 
 
 protection. 
 
 He was twice bound in marriase; 
 
 By the first he had ten children. 
 
 Of whom he left only three survivors. 
 
 Two daughters, married to eminent physicians, 
 
 And one son, bearing his own name, 
 
 Who in piety erected this monument 
 
 To the best of fathers. 
 
 Richard Mead was born at Stepney, then only a 
 village, near London, in August, 1673. He was 
 the eleventh son of the Reverend Mathew Mead, 
 who had been ejected from the living of the parish 
 for nonconformity Lu 1662, but who continued to 
 preside over a Presbyterian congregation in the 
 neighbourhood, until being accused of conspiracy 
 against the government, he found it prudent to 
 withdraw into Holland. This event took place in 
 1683. The subject of this sketch was then left 
 behind in England, and placed under the care of a 
 Mr. Singleton, who had lost the post of second 
 master at Eton school, for religious scruples of the 
 same nature. After a rapid proficiency in classical 
 attainments under this gentleman, young Richard 
 repau'ed to Utrecht in 1689, and after a three 
 years' course of study there, proceeded to Leyden, 
 where he began to devote his mind to the medical 
 profession, in company with the celebrated Boer- 
 haave. After visiting Italy, and receiving a degree 
 of M.D. at Padua in 1695, he spent some time at 
 Rome and Naples, and returning to London, 
 settled himself in the house he had been born in. 
 His practice and reputation grew rapidly ; but it 
 was. not until 1702 that he first appeared as an 
 author, in the form of a short treatise entitled " A 
 Mechanical Account of Poisons." This publication 
 attracted notice, and was reprinted several times; 
 but he gradually modified and retracted many of 
 his opinions on the subject, and seems at last to 
 have attained a conviction that he was unable to 
 support the theory u]ion which he originally started. 
 After becoming a Fellow of the Royal Society, in 
 wliich he subsequently attained the rank of vice- 
 president under Sir Isaac Newton, he was chosen 
 physician to St. Thomas's Hospital in 1703, a situ- 
 ation which he continued to hold until 1715, when 
 the multiplicity of his engagements compelled him 
 to resign it. 
 
 Durmg the year 1704, Dr. Mead again presented 
 himself before the public as an author, and under 
 curious circumstances. He entitled his composition 
 " De Imperio Soils et Luna; in Coi'pore Humano et 
 morbis inde oriundis;" on the " Influence of the 
 Sun and Moon over the Human Frame, and the
 
 ADMIRAL WATSON. 
 
 147 
 
 iSIaladies thence ai-ising;" 8vo. This was an attempt 
 to apply Newton's Doetrine of Attraction to animal 
 economy, and show that the living system, like the 
 sea and the atmosjihere, was periodically affected 
 liy the changes of the sun and moon. From some 
 readers, the manner in which this fancy was deve- 
 loped secured the approbation due to ingenuity; 
 but it is needless to observe that the principle was 
 unsustainable, and by consequence the reputation 
 of the treatise evanescent. 
 
 In the course of four years more he received a 
 diploma from the University of Oxford, and three 
 years after that was admitted into the College of 
 Physicians, in which he filled the office of censor 
 in the years 1716, 1719. and 1724. He now stood 
 at the head of his profession, and continued to main- 
 tain his rank until the time of his death, not merely 
 by a character for superior medical skill, but also 
 for his intimate acquaintance with science and 
 polite letters, and a liberal patronage and hospit- 
 able entertainment of the learned. Amongst other 
 acts of his generous nature, the pecuniary assist- 
 ance he afforded Carte the historian, for the pur- 
 pose of editing an edition of " The Ikon," deserves 
 to be particularly I'ecorded. In 1719 a plague broke 
 out at Mai-seilles, and so great an alarm was excited 
 in London, that Mr. Secretary Craggs applied to 
 
 Dr. Mead for an opinion of its contagiousness. The 
 result was a treatise dedicated to the secretary, 
 and called "A Short Discourse concerning Pesti- 
 lential Contagion," which went through ' several 
 editions. He was one of the first supporters of 
 inoculation for the small pox, and took a part in 
 the expei'iments tried upon the convicts in Newi'ate 
 to test its efficacy. In 1727, he was nominated 
 physician to George II., an appointment in which 
 he enjoyed the rare satisfaction of having as asso- 
 ciate i)hysicians his two sons-in-law, Dr. Wilniot, 
 and F. Nichols. In 1737 he was offered, but de- 
 clined, the presidency of the College of Physicians. 
 His mability, owing to the extent of his practice, to 
 attend to the duties of the office was the cause of 
 this refusal. Two other works from his pen remain 
 to be noticed, " De Moi'bis Biblieis," published in 
 1749, and " Monita Medica," in 1750. Dr. Mead was 
 buried in the Temple Church, and will be admitted 
 to have been held in the liighest estimation by the 
 I)rofessional men of his age, when it is remembered 
 that Dr. Fremd honoured him with the dedication 
 of his " History of Medicine," and that the propriety 
 of the selection has never been disputed. His library, 
 and collection of anti(|uities and paintings, were sold 
 by auction, and are still referred to by the curious 
 in such matters as amongst the best of the period. 
 
 ADMIRAL WATSON. 
 
 High above the door opening into the north cross 
 aisle * is a sumptuous monument to the memory of 
 this Admiral. The design by James Stuart being 
 wholly figurative is censurable, but the execution 
 by Scheemakers is masterly. The Admiral, robed 
 in the Roman toga, is introduced amidst a grove of 
 palm trees. On the one side is a personification of 
 the Goddess, or Genius of Calcutta, prostrate; and 
 on the other a similar statue of Chandernagore, 
 wiiich is to be distinguished by the chains with 
 whieh it appears bound. The inscription runs 
 thus: — 
 
 To the Memory of Charles Watson, 
 Vice-Admiral of the White, Commander- in-Chief 
 of his Majesty's Naval Forces in the East Indies, 
 
 • In the adjoining aisle, but more to the east, is another 
 monument, to Admiral Holmes, an officer of whom mention 
 occurs repeatedly in tliese pages. He is represented as a 
 Roman warrior, resting his hand on a cannon mounted on its 
 carriage. An anclior, flag staflT, and other naval emblems 
 diversify the back ground. It is a striking performance, 
 from the chisel of Wilton, an artist of considerable merit, 
 and not unworthy, particularly in jjoint of the execution of 
 his subjects, to be the successor of Roubiliac, but one by 
 whom nature and propriety are often sacrificed to effect. 
 Tbe inscription is thus engraved : — 
 
 To the Memory of 
 
 CiiAnr,ES HoL.MES, Esq. 
 
 Rear-admiral of tlie Wliite, 
 
 Commander-in-Chief of his Majesty's Fleet stationed at 
 
 Jamaica, 
 
 He died the 21st of November, 17CI, 
 
 Aged 50. 
 
 Rrected by his grateful Nieces, 
 
 Mary Stanwix, and Lucretia Sowle. 
 
 Who died at Calcutta, on the 16th of August, 1757, 
 
 In the 44th year of his age. 
 
 The East I.ndia Company, 
 
 As a grateful testimony of the signal advantages 
 
 which they obtained by his valour and conduct. 
 
 Caused this monument to be erected. 
 
 There are also three shields, conspicuously placed, 
 with the following dates: — 
 
 Gereah 
 
 Chanderna- 
 
 Calcutta 
 
 taken Fe- 
 
 gore taken 
 
 freed Jaiui 
 
 bruary 23, 
 
 March 2.S, 
 
 ary 2, 
 
 1 70(J. 
 
 1757, 
 
 1757. 
 
 The earliest account preserved of Admiral Wat- 
 son, in the annals of tlii^ navy, is an aiqtointment 
 to be captain of the Garland frigate, in Februai-y, 
 1738, which he retained until 1741, when, being 
 stationed in the Mediterranean, he was removed 
 into the Plymouth of sixty guns. His next ship 
 was the Dragon, on board of which he attracted 
 distinction for his gallantry in the affair oil' Toulon. 
 Returning to England, he soon after obtained the 
 I'rinccss Loui.sa, also of sixty guns, atfachccl to the 
 two s(]uadrons under Anson and llawke, which 
 encountered Messieui's do J()nf|uiere and De L'lhi- 
 tendier in 1747, occasions on which Watson greatly 
 ini|)roved his reputation for bravery and discrimi- 
 nation. 
 
 A short interval of peace supervened, but the 
 govci-nmcnt was so well jileased with Watson's 
 comluct, that during the course of the saiiie year 
 he was ma<le rear-admiral of the blue, and com- 
 niander-iii-chief of the North American station, 
 with the local rank of goveriu)r of Newfoundland. 
 From these occupations ho was withdrawn, in 17''J4,
 
 148 
 
 WESTMINSTER ABBEY. 
 
 to be transferred to tliat scene of his greatest 
 honours, the East Indies, over which, after a very 
 brief, but briUiant period of service, he ranked per- 
 haps only second to the celebrated Clive, amongst 
 the founders of the British ascendancy in Asia. 
 Arrived at Bombay in November, 1755, he promptly 
 undertook to overthrow the power of the noted 
 pirate Angria, by reducing the fortress of Geriah, 
 which was the capital of his dominions. The port 
 and harbour having been carefully sounded, Watson 
 collected his squadron, and after receiving on board 
 a detachment of troops, headed by Colonel Clive, 
 set sail for Geriah, February 7. As he approached 
 the place a Mahratta fleet, with a land force of 
 eight thousand men, put themselves under him, in 
 the character of allies. Thus succoured, he reached 
 his destination in safety, and sent a flag to summon 
 the fortress. By this time it was discovered that 
 Angria had quitted the fort, but his wife and family 
 still remained in it, and his brother-in-law, who 
 commanded in his stead, boldly declared that he 
 would fight to the last extremity. 
 
 Formidable arrangements were now made for 
 the attack. The English passed into the harbour 
 in battle an-ay, about noon, on the 12th instant, 
 and were saluted as they entered with a heavy 
 cannonade from the batteries on the land and armed 
 vessels on the water. This first assault was hotly 
 returned, and the contest raged on until four in 
 the afternoon, when a shell descended upon one of 
 the largest vessels amonjj the Indian fleet; she took 
 fire, the flames circulated fiercely, and after an 
 interval, the whole armament was consumed. Still 
 the enemy were undaunted, and the fight was main- 
 tained until six in the evening, when another shell 
 was thrown into the fort, and that took fire also. 
 The bombardment then ceased on both sides, and 
 the English indulged in anticipations of a surrender. 
 
 Aware that the Mahratta allies had been engaged 
 in hostilities against Angria before the British in- 
 terfered, and suspecting that if forced to cede the 
 place, the enemy might prefer a native to a foreign 
 victor, Watson advised Colonel Clive to avail him- 
 self of this temporary suspension of arms, and land 
 his forces to watch the issue of the siege. But the 
 followers of Angria were oven yet indisposed to 
 yield: they reduced the conflagration in the fort, 
 and recommenced the cannonade with hearty spirit. 
 The superiority of the British, however, was by 
 this time evident, and the fate of the besieged 
 became inevitable. Watson had warped his ships 
 close to the walls, and his guns soon effected a 
 breach. This fresh advantage acquired, he invited 
 the governor to surrender, who again refused. 
 
 On the following morning the English resumed 
 the attack with vigour, and the enemy resisted un- 
 dauntedly, until about one o'clock, when their prin- 
 cipal magazine blew up, and the gradual relaxation 
 of their fire showed that their spirits were broken. 
 At length a white flag was hoisted at about four 
 o'clock, and a pai'ley ensued. Even in this extre- 
 mity the besieged disdained the terms proposed for 
 their acceptance, and the battle continued until 
 past five o'clock, when the brother of Angria finally 
 submitted at discretion. 
 
 The power of Angria was now upset, and his 
 mother, wife, and children, became prisoners. Two 
 hundred pieces of cannon, six brass mortars, a 
 large stock of ammunition, and specie and eff"ects, 
 to the value of 130,000^., fell into the hands of the 
 
 conquerors. Watson, garrisoning the fort with six 
 hundred men, stationed four armed vessels to pro- 
 tect it by sea, and then returned with ease and 
 safety to Bombay. 
 
 After refitting his vessels, he set sail for Madras, 
 and there received intelligence of the capture of 
 Calcutta, and the tragedy of the Black Hole, by the 
 Nabob Rajah Dowla. No time was now to be lost; 
 Clive, Watson, and the government of the district 
 hastily concerted measures, and on the 5th of Octo- 
 ber the army w^as embarked, and the fleet set sail 
 for Calcutta. On the 5th of December, the squadron 
 cast anchor in Balasore Road, on the coast of Ben- 
 gal ; and on the 28th Watson proceeded up the river 
 with the Kent, Tiger, Salisbury, and the Bridge- 
 water ships (if war, and the Kingfisher sloop. By 
 the next day Clive had landed his men, invested 
 the fortress of Budjio, and after an hour's contest, 
 i-educed it to submission. The ships now proceeded 
 in their course up the river, and as fast as they 
 advanced the enemy retired from their possessions 
 along the shore, until Watson came to an anchor 
 before Calcutta, January 2, 1757- 
 
 A sharp cannonade was opened, but so superior 
 was the conduct of the British, that after a struggle 
 of two hours, the batteries were completely silenced, 
 the enemy flew from their guns, and the various 
 defences were successively seized upon with miex- 
 pected ease and despatch. In this happy move- 
 ment, wliich restored the British to their power on 
 the banks of the Ganges, only nine seamen and 
 three soldiers were killed, while the loss amongst 
 the enemy was considerable. Ninety-one pieces of 
 cannon, four mortars, and an abundant supply of 
 ammunition, stores, and provisions, were seized, 
 and the victors turned to urge the tide of success 
 into other quarters. 
 
 Accordingly, the city of Hooghly, situated higher 
 up on the river, was besieged. At this place lay 
 the Rajah's great storehouses of salt, the granaries 
 for the support of his army, and the various depots 
 from which alone he derived his means of carrying 
 on the war. As the value of such a place was im- 
 portant, no mean resistance to the besiegers was 
 anticipated. Yet, fortunately for their cause, the 
 attack was crowned with a success so speedy, that 
 no detail of its progress can be interesting. 
 
 Endeavours were now made to bring the Rajah 
 to a treaty, but he rejected every overture, whether 
 from Clive or Watson, with passionate energy, and 
 vowed to extirpate the British. With this decla- 
 ration he mustered an army amounting to 15,000 
 foot, and 20,000 horse, and on the 2nd of February, 
 1757, established himself in a position distant only 
 a mile from Calcutta. In the engagement which 
 ensued, Watson had no share, though he contri- 
 buted to the result by detaching from the fleet a 
 body of sailors COO strong. The Nabob was forced 
 to retreat with great loss and precipitation; and ere 
 long, yielding to the peremptory expostulations of 
 the vice-admiral, he entered into a correspondence 
 for peace, which was ratified without farther blood- 
 shed. 
 
 But, though tranquillity was thus established in 
 one way, the condition of our affairs in the very 
 same quarter was still deemed precarious. Our 
 ancient rivals, the French, held a strong position 
 in the neighbourhood, and there was strong reason 
 to presume that they sought to tamper with the 
 fidelity of our new ally, the Nabob. A determina-
 
 ADMIRAL WATSON. 
 
 149 
 
 tion to eject the French from the country was 
 aecoi'dingly formed, and the reduction of their 
 chief settlement at Chandernasjore was entrusted 
 to Vice-admii'al Watson and Colonel Clive. The 
 army, amounting to two thousand men, mai'chcd to 
 the spot overland, and the naval squadron, con- 
 ' sistinc of three ships of war, in which Rear-admiral 
 Pocock*, of the Kent, held the second rank, reached 
 
 • This officer subsequently became more distinguished as 
 Admiral Sir George Pocock, K.B., who has a monument in 
 the chapel of St. John the Evangelist. It is by the elder 
 Bacon, and is neither remarkable in point of design for fer- 
 tility of mind, nor in execution for vigour of hand. A taste- 
 less personification of Britannia grasps a thunderbolt in one 
 hand, and extends the other over a medallion of the Admiral. 
 The inscription mainly recapitulates the historj' of Pocock's 
 life, and may, therefore, give place to a more particular 
 notice. 
 
 George, the son of the Reverend Thomas Pocock, Chap- 
 lain to Greenwich Hospital, was born on the (ith of March, 
 1700, and entered the navy as a midshipman at the early 
 age of twelve. For one of his great grandfathers he had 
 Sir Thomas Turner, who was a Baron of the Exchequer 
 during the reign of Charles II., and for an uncle Sir George 
 Byng, afterwards Lord Viscount Torrington. By this latter 
 officer was young Pocock patronised, when, in I "IS, he 
 undertook hii famous expedition into the Mediterranean 
 for the purpose of enforcing, on the part of Spain, those 
 enactments of the Quadruple Alliance, upon which the 
 Peace of Utrecht was founded. A victory over the Spanish 
 fleet having restored the balance of power in Europe, a 
 tranquil interval of twenty years supervened, during which 
 Pocock advanced himself in his profession with easy credit. 
 He became first lieutenant of the Namur in 17.'!2, was 
 gazetted a post-captain in 173S, and was soon after ap- 
 pointed to the Aldborough, in which he was attached to the 
 Mediterranean squadron. There he continued to serve, 
 capturing a number of privateers, until 1741, when he re- 
 turned home, and during the next year received the Wool- 
 wich, from which, in 17-14, he passed into the Sutherland, 
 and escorted some of the Company's ships to the East. 
 Being next ordered to the West Indies, he succeeded Com- 
 modore Legge in the chief command of the Barbadoes sta- 
 tion on the 19th of September, 1747, and greatly distin- 
 guished himself by the judgment with which he disposed 
 his cruisers, and the ability with which upwards of forty 
 French vessels were thus captured. 
 
 Thrown out of active duty by the peace of Aix-la-Chapelle, 
 he remained in a private capacity until the close of the year 
 1751, when he was sent to co-operate with Admiral Watson 
 in the East. There he was raised to the flag of Kear-admiral 
 of the White in 1755, and to that of Rear-adniual of the 
 Blue during the course of the following year. After aiding 
 Watson in the several enterprises related above, he suc- 
 ceeded that officer in the chief command of the station, and 
 was declared Rear-admiral of the lied on the 31st of January, 
 1758. On the 29th of April, having then under his orders 
 seven ships of war, a frigate, and a store-ship, he came up 
 with an equal French force under the Count D'.\che, and 
 commenced an action off Fort St. David. His own conduct 
 on this occasion was perfectly that of an energetic and able 
 commander: he bore down in person on the opposing Admi- 
 ral with mtense resolution, but was not, for some time, 
 seconded, either from cowardice or incapacity, by bis rear, 
 and thus lost the chance of victory. For when the ships 
 astern did join in action, his van was disabled from pur- 
 suit, and he wa.s obliged to haul close on the wind, and 
 content himself with a hope of resuming the engagement 
 in the morning. That hope, however, he had not the 
 means of realising. The French escaped during the night, 
 and when day broke were neither to he seen or to be 
 traced. 
 
 After meeting Ach6 twice in July, and vainly attempting 
 encounters on both occasions, hit ambition was in some 
 
 the same place on the 18th of March. Upon their 
 first approach, they found the entrance blocked up 
 by a boom, and several vessels, which were sunk in 
 the channel. These obstructions, however, havin" 
 been diligently overcome, the men of war drew up in 
 line before the fort, on the 24th, and opened a furious 
 camionade from the water, while Cli\e began a re- 
 solute attack on land. The fire was hotly main- 
 tained for three hours, when a white flag was unex- 
 pectedly hoisted, and this, the last hold of France 
 
 degree gratified on the 5th of August. On that day he 
 found the French squadron sailing compactly off Negapalam, 
 and after considerable manoeuvring, brought on a close and 
 general engagement. For a while the enemy resisted with 
 steady gallantry, hut their line was soon broken, and a vic- 
 torious chace then began. No captures were made; the 
 French, however, suffered numerously in killed and wounded, 
 and were forced to fly to tlie Mauritius. 
 
 Of the events which happened under Pocock's command 
 in 1759, one only is memorable, and that took place on the 
 9th of September, when, after a hot fight of three hours, he 
 again put Ache to flight off Pondicherry. This action was 
 distinguished for its severity ; the French had eleven sail of 
 the line, and a frigate : the British were without any addi- 
 tion to their force, and though victors, suffered a loss of 500 
 in killed and wounded. 
 
 Returning to England in 1761, Pocock received the Order 
 of the Bath, was publicly thanked for his services by par- 
 liament and the East India Company, and made Admiral of 
 the Blue. In 17C2 he hoisted his fiag on board the Namur, 
 and, sailing to the Wtst Indies, undertook the conduct of a 
 mighty expedition against Cuba. That the expectations of 
 the country were disappointed on this occasion is a matter 
 of historical record ; but the blame of failure attached nei- 
 ther to the army or navy employed on the enterprise, but to 
 the inefficiency of the ministry who directed the affair. Ha- 
 vannah, the capital of the island, was taken, after a series 
 of masterly contentions, in which the fleet, under Pocock 
 and Ke|ipel, and the army, under the Earl of Albemarle, 
 behaved with much gallantry. A booty, valued at three 
 millions sterling, rewarded their labours; but no greater 
 efforts were deemed prudent, and the expedition broke up 
 without farther honours. 
 
 Revisiting London upon the ratification of peace in 1763, 
 Pocock was once more honoured by a vote of thanks from 
 the Parliament — a comjiliment which was also paid him by 
 the corporation of London, and several other public bodies. 
 But at the moment he stood most elevated in public estima- 
 tion, he withdrew altogether from the public service, by 
 throwing up his rank in 17(i6, provoked, as was supposed, 
 by a preference given to Sir Charles Saunders, in the post 
 of First Lord of the Admiralty. From this period he led a 
 private life, was waimly regarded as a fond husband, kind 
 father, and gentle friend, until April 3, 1792, when he ex- 
 pired at his house in Curzon Street, May Fair, London. His 
 remains were deposited in a family vault at Twickenham. 
 One son, and a daughter married to Earl Powiet, survived 
 to preserve the example of his virtues, and the reputation 
 of his name. 
 
 One of Pocock's captains is commemorated in the south- 
 west area, by three tablets meanly inserted in the quatrefoils 
 of the architecture. This was Captain, afterwards Rear-admi- 
 ral John Harrison, captain of the Namur during several of Sir 
 G. Pocock's successful engagements with I)'A<he, in one of 
 which he was wounded, and commander also under Pocock 
 in the armament against the llavannah, after which he con. 
 ducted the fleet and treasure safe to England. The excessive 
 fatigue suffered on this duty brought on a paralytic stroke, by 
 which he lost the use of one side. In this heli)less state he 
 lived twenly-eight years. His epitaph adds, that he was 
 firm in action, prudent in conduct, polished in society, 
 generous and humane in a profession, and ni)on an clrmcnt 
 where human virtue is of the most rigid kind, and human 
 nature is most severely tried. He died October 5, 1791.
 
 150 
 
 WESTMINSTER ABBEY. 
 
 on the Peninsula of India, submitted to the arms 
 of Great Britain. 
 
 A French army, however, was yet on foot in the 
 country, and it soon became apparent that the 
 Nabob, though he paid his bounden tributes to the 
 Company, was but too well inclined to join Monsieur 
 de Bussy, and bring about another rupture with 
 his new allies. This fatal propensity involved one 
 of the most memorable events in the history of 
 Bengal ; for the subsequent battle of Plassy not 
 only led to the final overthrow of the Fi'ench, but 
 also caused the deposition of the vacillating Nabob. 
 Some account of this great proceeding, and the 
 consequences emanating from it, was rendered by 
 Watson, in an official lettei-, dated on board the 
 Kent, off Calcutta, July the 16th, 1757; and it is 
 here inserted as a satisfactory description of the 
 fortune which thus added fresh honours to his own 
 reputation, and the arms of his country. 
 
 " By Captain Toby, of the Kingfisher sloop, I 
 informed you of the surrender of the town and port 
 of Chandernagore; and in the same letter I took 
 notice of the great reluctance which the Nabob, 
 Sur Rajah Dowla, showed in complying with the 
 articles of the peace, on which subject many letters 
 passed between us. In most of them he never failed 
 to be very liberal in his promises, but that was all 
 that could be obtained from him. These delays to 
 the final execution of the peace, were in effect 
 the same to the commerce of the kingdom, as if 
 none had been concluded. The leading men at 
 the Nabob's court, knowing his faithless disposition, 
 and perceiving no probability of an established peace 
 in their country, while he continued in the govern- 
 ment, began to murmur, and entered into a confe- 
 deracy to deprive him of it. Amongst these were 
 Jaffier Ally Cawn, who was one of his princijial 
 generals, and held several other considerable ap- 
 pointments. Nevertheless, having been greatly- 
 disgusted at the Nabob's repeated ill-conduct, he 
 became very zealous in the confederacy against 
 him, and communicated the design to ]\Ir. Watts, 
 the second in council of this place. By letters of 
 the 25th and 26th of April, the committee was 
 informed of this affiiir, which was debated with all 
 the attention and circumspection possible. On ma- 
 turely examining into the behaviour of the Nabob, 
 he appeared so far from complying with the articles 
 of the peace he had solemnly sworn to observe, 
 that he would not permit us to put a garrison into 
 Cossimbuzar, and had given strict orders not to 
 suffer even a pound of powder or ball to pass up 
 the river. These measures, added to the certain 
 accoimts we received of his having invited Mon- 
 sieur de Bussy, the French commanding officer in 
 the province of Golconda, to join him with all the 
 troops he could bring, left us very little reason to 
 believe he had any intention to continue even on 
 peaceable terms with us, any longer than he thought 
 himself unable to engage in a war against us. It 
 was, therefore, judged most advisable to join Jaffier 
 Ally Cawn with our troops, such a step appearing 
 the most effectual for establ.shing a peace in the 
 country, and settling the English on a good and 
 solid foundation. This being resolved,"and the 
 articles hereafter recited being agreed to, our army 
 marched on the 13th of last month, from Chander- 
 nagore, towards Cossimbuzar; and, in order that 
 Colonel Clive should have as many Europeans with 
 
 him as possible, I agreed to garrison Chanderna- 
 gore, and to send up with him on the expedition, a 
 lieutenant, seven midshipmen, and fifty seamen to 
 serve as gunners. I also ordered a twenty gun 
 ship to anchor above Hooghly, and keep a commu- 
 nication open with the colonel. 
 
 " On the 19th of June, Cutwa fort and town, 
 situated on this side of the river, which forms the 
 island of Cossimbuzar, were taken by a party de- 
 tached for the purpose. There the army remained 
 for two or three days, for the purpose of receiving 
 intelligence from Jaffier Ally Cawn, who it was 
 agreed, by all the confederacy, should succeed to 
 the Nabobship, as he was a man of family, held in 
 great esteem by all ranks of people. On the 22nd 
 the army crossed the river, and the next day had a 
 decisive battle with Sur Rajah Dowla, over whom 
 our troops obtained a complete victory, put his 
 army to rout, and took possession of his camp, with 
 upwards of fifty pieces of cannon, and all his bag- 
 gage. He was joined by fifty French soldiers, who 
 worked his artillery; and by the most authentic 
 accounts, his army consisted of twenty thousand 
 fighting men, exclusive of those under Jaffier Ally 
 Cawn, and Roy Dowlub, who did not act against 
 us. The number killed in the enemy's camp were 
 few, as they only stood a cannonading. We had 
 about nineteen Europeans killed and wounded, and 
 thirty Seapoys. 
 
 " Sur Rajah Dowla, after this defeat, withdrew 
 privately, as did Montoll, his prime minister, and 
 Monick Chaund, one of his generals. 
 
 " On the 2Gth of June, Jaffier Ally Cawn entered 
 the city of Muxadavad; and by a letter from the 
 colonel, of the 30th, we were informed of his having 
 placed Jaffier Ally Cawn in the ancient seat of the 
 nabobs of this province, and that the usual homage 
 had been paid him by all ranks of people, as subah 
 of the provinces of Bengal, Bahar, and Orixa. 
 
 " On the 30th, late at night, a letter came from 
 the colonel, advising that Sur Rajah Dowla was 
 taken prisoner: and on the 4th instant, he acquaint- 
 ed the committee of the Nabob having been put 
 privately to death by Jaffier Ally Cawn's son, and 
 his party. The specie in the treasury, upon exa- 
 mination, was found very short of expectation. How- 
 ever, the colonel has already sent down one-third 
 of the sum stipulated in agreement, and it is said 
 as much more will soon follow as will make up half. 
 The other half is to be paid in three years, at three 
 annual and equal payments. 
 
 " Mr. Law, who was the French chief at Cos- 
 simbuzai', and who had collected near two hundred 
 European troops, was coming to the assistance of 
 the late nabob, and was within a few hours' march 
 of him, when he was taken prisoner, which Mr. 
 Law hearing of, advanced no farther. Soon after 
 the colonel detached a party in search of him, 
 vmder the command of Captain Coote, of Colonel 
 Adlercron's regiment, consisting of two hundred 
 Europeans, and five Seapops, joined by two thou- 
 sand of Jaffier Ally Cawn's horse. We cannot, 
 however, yet expect to hear any thing of the con- 
 duct of this detachment, as it is uncertain how far 
 Captain Coote may be led after the French party." 
 
 To this letter was subjoined a translation of the 
 compact by which Jaffier Ally Cawn bound himself 
 to an alliance with the Company. It seems suffi- 
 ciently ciu'iouo to merit insertion.
 
 ADMIRAL VERNON. 
 
 151 
 
 " lu the presence of God and his Prophet, I 
 swear to abide by tlie terms of this agreement 
 while 1 have life, 
 
 Meer 
 
 Mahjiud Jaffier 
 
 Cawn Bahabar, 
 
 THE Slave of 
 
 Allum Geer 
 
 JlOGUL. 
 
 " The agreement and treaty with Nabob Sui" 
 Rajah Dowhi I agree to, and admit of. 
 
 " The enemies of the Enghsh are my enemies, 
 whether Europeans or others. 
 
 " Whatever goods and factories belong to the 
 French in the provinces of Bengal, Bahar, and 
 Orixa, shall be delivered to the English, and the 
 French shall never more be permitted to have 
 factories or settlements in these provinces. 
 
 " To indemnify the Company for theu' losses, 
 through the capture of Calcutta, and the charges 
 they have been at to repossess their factories, 1 
 will give one crore* of rupees. 
 
 " To indemnify the English inhabitants who suf- 
 fered through the capture of Calcutta, I will give 
 fifty lacks of rupees. 
 
 " To indemnify the losses suffered by Jentoors, 
 Moormen, &C., I will give twenty lacks of rupees. 
 
 " To the inliabitants, the Armenian Peons of 
 Calcutta, who suffered through the capture, I will 
 give seven lacks of rupees. 
 
 " The division of these donations I leave to the 
 admiral, the colonel, and the committee. 
 
 • One crore of rupees Is a hundred lacs, and one lac is 
 about 12,300/. 
 
 " Tlie lands within the Moratta ditch, all around 
 Calcutta, which are now possessed by other Ze- 
 mindars, and six hundred yards "all around, 
 without the ditch, I will give entirely to the Com- 
 pany. 
 
 " The Zemindary of the lands to the southward 
 of Calcutta, as low as Culpce, shall be in the hands 
 of the English Company, under their government 
 and orders, and the customary rents of e\cr\- dis- 
 trict within that tract shall be paid by the English 
 into the Kings Treasury. 
 
 " Whenever 1 send for the assistance of the 
 English troops, theii" pay and charges shall be dis- 
 bui-sed by me. 
 
 " From Hooghly downwards I will build no new 
 forts near the river. 
 
 " As soon as I shall be established Subali of the 
 three prtivinces, 1 will immediately perform the 
 preceding articles. 
 
 Dated the \bth of the Mooh Ramazan, 
 in the 4th year of the present reign." 
 
 Such were the signal exertions of Admiral Wat- 
 son during the short period of two years, at tlie 
 close of which his life was prematurely terminated. 
 The fatigue of constant service, and the op]>rcssion 
 of a climate to him constitutionally unwholesome, 
 excited a fever, of which he rapidly died at Cal- 
 cutta, on the day specified on his monument. His 
 funeral, which was public, was solemnized with 
 every feeling of sincere mourning. The inhabitants 
 honoured his memory with a handsome moinnnent 
 at Calcutta, and at home the king distinguished his 
 name by making his sou a baronet. 
 
 ADMIRAL VERNON. 
 
 The memory of this intrepid and characteristic 
 seaman is preserved in the north transept, by a 
 bust crowned with laurels by a figure of Fame, and 
 profasely decorated with naval trophies. It was 
 designed and executed by Rysbrack. The inscrip- 
 tion, which is sufficiently long and particular, fol- 
 lows thus: — 
 
 As a memorial of his own gratitude, 
 
 and f)f the virtues of his benefactor, 
 
 This monument was erected by his nephew, Francis 
 
 Lord Orwell, in the year 1703. 
 
 Sacred to the memory of 
 
 Edward Vernon, 
 
 Admiral of the White Squadron 
 
 of the British Fleet. 
 
 He was the second son of James Vernon, 
 
 Who was .Secretary of State to King William III. 
 
 and whose abilities and integrity 
 
 were equally consjjicuous. 
 
 Ill Ills youth ho served under the Admirals 
 
 Shovel and Ruokc; 
 
 By their example he learned to conquer. 
 
 By his own merit he rose to command. 
 
 In the war with Spain of mdccxx.m.x. 
 
 he took till' fort of I'ortobello 
 
 with six sliips: 
 
 a force which was thought uneijual to the attempt: 
 
 For this he received 
 
 the thanks of Im.iIi IIouscb of Parliament. 
 
 He subdued Chagre; and at Carthagena 
 conquered iis far as naval force 
 
 could carry victory. 
 
 After these services he retired, 
 
 without place or title, 
 
 from the exercise of public, 
 
 to the enjoyment of private, virtue. 
 
 The testimony of a good conscience 
 
 was his reward ; 
 The love and esteem of all good men 
 
 his glory. 
 
 In battle, though calm, he was active, 
 
 and though intrej)id, prndi'ut; 
 
 successful, yet not ostentations, 
 
 ascribing the glory to God. 
 
 In the Senate he was disinterested, vigilant, and 
 
 steady ; 
 
 On the XXX day of Octuber, Mncci.vii. 
 
 lie died, as he had lived, 
 
 the friend of man, the lover of his country, 
 
 and the father of the poor, 
 
 Aged LXXiii. 
 
 Edward Viirnon, thus eminently commended, was 
 descended from a Stalforilsliire family appr(i]iri- 
 ately ilhisli'ioiiM, which first settled in En;;land at 
 the Nornian Conquest, lie was iiorii at Weslinin- 
 Hter, November 12, 1(;«4. His father fille<l tli.- 
 post of secretary of state din-ing the reign of Wil- 
 liam and Mary, and originally designed liis son Id- 
 
 M 2
 
 152 
 
 WESTMINSTER ABBEY. 
 
 a civil employment; but the predilections of nature 
 being too strong for control, it was reluctantly 
 agreed that the sea should be the theatre of his 
 ambition. This point once settled, his mind was 
 directed with singular steadiness and success to 
 those studies whicli were held most conducive to 
 success in the chosen pursuit. He made his first 
 voyage under Vice-admiral Hopson, when the 
 French fleet and Spanish galleons were destroyed 
 in the harbour of Vigo. His employment now 
 became constant, and the services he was engaged 
 in were of the most varied and invi'^'orating descrip- 
 tion. In 1702 he was second lieutenant in an ex- 
 pedition against the West Indies, under Commo- 
 dore Walker; and in 1704, was at the battle of 
 Malaga, with Sir George Rooke, and served to 
 convoy the King of Spain to Lisbon, on which occa- 
 sion he received a costly ring and one hundred 
 guineas. In 1 705 he was promoted to the rank of 
 post captain, and ajipointed to command the Dol- 
 phin frigate, m which he sailed to the Mediterra- 
 nean, and was present under Sir John Leake, at 
 the surrender of Alieant. Transferred by that com- 
 mander to the Rye, he wa.s dispatched to England 
 with the news of victory ; but returned to the same 
 station without delay, and there continued under 
 the flag of Sir Cloudesly Shovel, though without 
 any opportunity of particular distinction until the 
 close of the year 170? *. 
 
 * In this year 1707, events occurred which put to the test 
 in the severest form the character of another naval oificer 
 whose niemorj- is preserved in the Abbey. This was Rear- 
 admiral Sir Thomas Hardy, knight, whose monument, by 
 R. Cheere, stands contiguous to the great western door. He 
 is introduced reposing on a sarcophagus, which Is supported 
 by a lofty pyramid of bright purple marble. A boy is weep- 
 ing over an urn at his side, the pedestal is enriched with 
 various devices neatly wrought ; and the inscription runs as 
 follows : — 
 
 Sir Thomas Hardy 
 
 To whose memory this monument is erected. 
 
 Was bred in the royal navy from his youth. 
 
 And was made a Captain in 1693. 
 
 In the expedition to Cadiz under Sir George Rooke 
 
 He commanded the Pembroke; 
 
 And when the Fleet left the coast of Spain to return to 
 
 England, 
 
 He was ordered to Lagos Bay, 
 
 \Miere he got intelligence of the Spanish galleons being 
 
 arrived in the Harbour of Vigo, 
 
 Under convoy of seventeen French men of war. 
 
 By his great diligence and judgment he joined the English 
 
 Fleet, 
 
 And gave the Admiral that intelligence 
 
 Which engaged him to make the best of his way to Vigo, 
 
 Where all the before-mentioned galleons and men of war 
 
 were either taken or destroyed. 
 
 After the success of that action. 
 
 The Admiral sent him with an account of it to the Queen, 
 
 Who ordered him a considerable present, 
 
 And Knighted him. 
 
 Some years afterwards 
 He was made a Rear Admiral, and received several other 
 
 marks of favour and esteem from her Majesty, 
 
 and from her Royal Consort, Prince George of Denmark, 
 
 Lord High Admiral of England. 
 
 He died August 16, 1732. Aged 67. 
 
 This biographical epitaph is the more valuable, as we 
 know but a few unimportant facts concerning the subject of 
 
 Early in the year I7O8, however, he was appoint- 
 ed to the Jersey frigate of 48 guns, and sailed to 
 the West Indies, in company with a reinforcement 
 for the squadron under Sir Charles Wager, who 
 then commanded that station. On his aii-ival at 
 Jamaica, the Jersey was employed as a cruiser, and 
 Vernon's success was highly creditable to his vigi- 
 lance and activity. Continuing in tlie same ship, 
 he remained in the West Indies till nearly the end 
 of the war. In May, 17 11, being on a cruize to 
 the windward of Jamaica, he captured a French 
 ship belonging to the port of Brest, which carried 
 thirty guns, and one hundred and twenty men. 
 During the remainder of the summer the Jersey 
 composed one of the squadron, under Commodore 
 Littleton, which was employed to watch the move- 
 ments of the enemy in the port of Carthagena. 
 
 The peace of Utrecht, soon after, gave almost 
 thirty years of repose to Europe, and placed Cap- 
 tain Vernon, with many other naval characters of 
 the highest merit, during the greatest part of that 
 time, in a private station. Hence there is little 
 to record of him, save a succession of appoint- 
 ments, which only serve to show the estimation in 
 which his professional abilities and experience were 
 held. In 1714 he led the Assistance of fifty guns, 
 one of the fleet sent to the Baltic, under Sir George 
 Norris, to assist the Russians against the Swedes; 
 and in 1726 commanded the Grafton of seventy 1 
 guns, one of the armament under Sir Charles ' 
 Wager, sent to the same quarter, to preserve the 
 peace of the northern states. 
 
 On the accession of George II. to the throne, in 
 1727, Vernon was chosen member of parliament 
 for the borough of Penrj-n, in Cornwall, and soon 
 distinguished himself by an active opposition to the 
 pacific measures of Sir Robert Walpole's adminis- 
 tration. As a frequent speaker in the House of 
 Commons, he was one of that minister's most trou- 
 blesome opponents, and stoutly contended that his 
 moderation was injurious to the honour of the 
 country, Vernon had no pretensions to oratory; 
 nor was there much of logic in his arguments; but 
 he possessed a sufficient readiness of words, and 
 always delivered his opinions with manly warmth 
 and freedom. These were forcibly pronounced, and 
 invariably proceeded from conviction, which was 
 perhaps most apparent when his judgment erred, as 
 at .such times they assumed a more positive air, and 
 wrought greater effects on his auditory, than views 
 better founded, and expressed by more eloquent 
 men, could have done. He spoke, certainly, too 
 often for his reputation; for on many occasions, 
 where neither experience lent him aid, nor the 
 habits of his life had been favourable to the acqui- 
 
 it, over and above those it presents to our notice. The 
 name of Sir Thomas Hardy frequently occurs in the naval 
 history of the period during which he lived, but was not 
 connected with any incidents of greater interest than are here 
 recited. He was constantly employed, and generally ujion 
 occasions which required judgment, vigilance, and courage. 
 He must also be thought to have fully deserved the eulogy 
 of his epitajih, for his conduct was at different times the 
 subject of public observation and inquiry, ordeals which he 
 regularly passed through with distinction. In 1707, he was 
 subjected to a court-martial upon a charge of not having 
 pursued the French fleet with sufficient vigour, but was 
 honourably acquitted. He was soon after called before tlie 
 House of Commons, and again before the Lords, but was at 
 ' both times dismissed with commendation.
 
 ADMIRAL VERNON. 
 
 153 
 
 sition of such information as the matter argued 
 required, he appeared foremost in t!ie ranks of op- 
 position. Notwithstanding this drawback, being 
 one who never wanted words, he seldom appeared 
 as if he had exhausted all that his mind could 
 furnish; but having said much, and apparently all 
 that could be advanced, seemed to possess a fund 
 in reserve superior still to what he had dis])Iayed. 
 From a constitutional violence of temper, he was 
 quick and impetuous in debate, and often let fall 
 unguarded observations, which in his cooler mo- 
 ments he would pi'obably have been happy to have 
 avoided. The expedition against Porto Bello is 
 supposed to have originated from some hasty ex- 
 pressions which he uttered in the debates relative 
 to the aggressions of the Spanish guarda custas in 
 the American seas. For, reproaching the adminis- 
 tration with the shameful inactivity of their mea- 
 sures, he pledged himself to reduce the town of 
 Porto Bello with a force not exceeding six sail of 
 the line, and the ministers accepted his ofl'er: glad, 
 perhaps, of an opportunity to remove so obnoxious 
 an opponent from the House of Commons, and as 
 probably not without a secret wish that he might 
 disgrace himself and his party, by failing to execute 
 what he boasted could be so easily achieved. 
 
 Thus taken at his word, new dignities were ne- 
 cessarily conferred upon him, and he was advanced, 
 July 9, 1739, to the rank of vice-admiral of the 
 blue, and appointed commander-in-chief of all his 
 majesty's ships in the West Indies. The force he 
 had required being collected, he hoisted his Hag on 
 board the Burford, of 70 guns, and sailed with his 
 fleet for Jamaica, where he ari-ived October 23. 
 Having refitted his squadron, he was enabled to 
 leave Port Royal, November 5, with the following 
 ships: — 
 
 r, f J -„ f Vice-admiral Vernon. 
 
 Buriord jO.... < ,^ , ■ m Air ^ 
 
 ( Captam 1 . Watson. 
 
 ,T i o . T/\ f Commodore Brown. 
 
 Hampton Court..70. . . . ■[ ^^^^^^.^^ ^^^^^^ 
 
 Norwich 50 Robert Herbert. 
 
 Worcester 60 Perry Mayne. 
 
 Stafford CO T. Trevor. 
 
 Princess Louisa. .CO T. Waterhouse. 
 
 Sheerness frigate. 
 
 On the 7th, the squadron being still at sea, the 
 admiral delivered his orders to the commodore and 
 ca])tains, appointing the following dis|)ositions for 
 the attack: — " Upon making the land of Porto BoUo, 
 and having a fair wind to favour them, and daj'- 
 light f(jr the attempt, to have their sliii)s clear in 
 all res])ects for immediate service; and, on tlie pro- 
 per signal, to form themselves into a line of battle, 
 as directed; and being formed, to follow in the same 
 order of battle to the attack, in the manner here- 
 after directed. And as the north shore of the 
 harbour of I'orto JJello is represented to the ad- 
 miral to b(; bolil and steep, on which, at the first 
 entrance stands Castle de Ferro, or Iron Castle*, 
 Commodore Brown and the ships following him are 
 directed to pass a caljle's length distance, giving 
 the enemy, as they move, an warm a fire as possi- 
 
 • Iron Castle, w;ih built on a steep rock at the N.E. point 
 of the hay, and Gloria Castle on tlie opposite side, on an 
 ascent a little nearer the town, which, with Fort .(eronimo, 
 were huilt hy the King of Spain on account of the import- 
 ance of the place to trade, after Sir Henry Morgan's expedi- 
 tion in 1G'J8. 
 
 ble, both from great guns and musquetry: then 
 Commodore Bi'own is to steer away for Gloria 
 Castle, and anchor as near as he can to the eastern- 
 most part of it, for the purjiose of battering down 
 the defences; but so as to leave room for Cajitain 
 Mayne, in the Worcester, to anchor astern of him 
 against the westermuost bastion, and there do tlie 
 same, and to follow such orders as the commodore 
 may think pr<qier to give him for attacking the said 
 castle. Captain Herbert, of the Norwich, after 
 giving his fire at the Iron Castle, is to push for the 
 castle of St. Jeronimo, lying to the eastward of the 
 town, and to anchor as near it as he possiljly can, 
 and batter it dciwn; and Ca]>tain Trevor, in the 
 Stafford, following the Admiral, to cimie to an 
 anchor abreast of the easternmost jiart of the Iron 
 Castle, so as to leave room for Captain Waterhouse, 
 in the Princess Louisa, to anchor astern of him, to 
 batter the westernmost part of the castle, and con- 
 tinue there until the service is completed, and make 
 themselves masters of it: the youngest officers to 
 follow the further orders of the elder in the ]irose- 
 cution of the attack ; and if the weather is favour- 
 able for it on going in, each ship, besides having its 
 long-boat towing astern, to have its barge alongside 
 to tow the long-boats aw.ay, with such part of the 
 soldiers as can conveniently go in them, and to 
 come under the admiral's stern, for his directing a 
 descent with them whore he shall find it most ju'o- 
 j)er to order. From the men's inexperience in 
 service, it would be necessary to be as cautious as 
 possible, to prevent hurry and confusion, and a 
 fruitless waste of powder and shot; the captains to 
 give the strictest orders to their respective officers, 
 to take the greatest care that no gim is fired but 
 what they, or those whom they jiarticularly ap- 
 point, first see levelled, and direct the (IJKcharge of ; 
 and that they shall strictly prohibit all their men 
 from hallooing or making irregular noise, that may 
 only serve to throw them into confusion, till the 
 service be performed, and when they have nothing 
 to do Ijut glory in the victory. Such of the shipH 
 as have mortars and cohorns on board 'are ordered 
 to use them in the attack." 
 
 On the 20lh of November the squadron came in 
 sight of Porto Bello, and there being little wind, 
 the .admiral made the signal to anchor about six 
 leagues fVoin th(; shore, lest he should be driven 
 eastward from the harbour. The next morning he 
 ])lied to w'indw.ard in line of battle, but the breeze 
 proving easterly, he was obliged to confine his 
 attack to the Iron Castle alone. The llatnpton 
 Court, in the van, began the assault with fury, and 
 was soon asHJsted by the Norwich and Worcester. 
 To thes(! ships the admir:il came up soon after, and 
 ke|)t on so severe a fire, that the Spaniards deserted 
 their batteries, and fled for security to their ambus- 
 cades. This ))eing once jierceivcd, the signal was 
 made for landing, and so promptly obeyed, that in 
 a few miiuites the seamen and troops were safely 
 debarked in front of the enemy's lower battery, 
 with the loss of only two soldiers. .As a substitute 
 for scaling lailders, one man set himself dose to 
 the wall under ;in embrasure, whilst another 
 climbeil upon his shoulders, and entered the fort 
 under the mouth of a great gun; — daring means, 
 by which, in a very few miiuites, tlie .S|)anish flag 
 was seized, and the British colours hoisted in its 
 place on the ])l!itform. 'I'lie Sptiniards in the ctistle, 
 struck with consternation at the boliiiiess of the
 
 154 
 
 WESTMINSTER ABBEY. 
 
 assailants, hung out the white flag, and sui'rendered 
 at discretion. On the following day the Castles of 
 St. Jeronimo and Gloria capitulated with honourable 
 conditions, and the British forces were put in full 
 possession of Porto Bello and its dependencies. 
 
 The loss sustained in killed and wounded did not 
 exceed twenty men, of which thi'ee were killed and 
 iive wounded on board Vernon's ship. The intelli- 
 gence of this important conquest, effected with such 
 spirit and expedition, was received in England with 
 the liveliest emotions of joy: both houses of parlia- 
 ment voted their thanks to the admiral for his con- 
 duct, and the corporation of London presented him 
 with the freedom of the city in a gold box. The 
 name of Vernon excited a degree of enthusiasm 
 unsurpassed on any other occasion; medals were 
 struck in his honour, and his effigy was displayed 
 throughout the kingdom. 
 
 In his conduct towards the vanquished foe, the 
 admiral was as distinguished for his humanity, as 
 he had been for his gallanti'y in attacking them. 
 The soldiers and seamen were strictly prohibited 
 from plundering the inhabitants of the town ; and, 
 to reward their merit, he distributed among them 
 10,000 dollars, which had been sent to Porto Bello, 
 for the payment of the garrison, a few days before 
 the place fell into his hands. As it had never been 
 the intention of government to retain Porto Bello, 
 which from its unhealthiness was termed by the 
 Spaniai'ds "the grave of the new world," the admiral 
 directed the ordnance found in the castles and fort 
 to be spiked and destroyed, except forty pieces of 
 brass cannon, ten field-pieces, four mortars, and 
 eighteen patteraroes, all of the same metal, which 
 were taken on board the fleet, and held as trophies 
 of the victory, on account of their intrinsic value. 
 The fortifications were then blown up, and com- 
 pletely ruined, that the place might no longer afford 
 an asylum to the gum-da castas, whose chief point of 
 rendezvous it had been in the depredations by 
 which they had incessantly annoyed the British 
 connnerce in that quai-ter for a series of years. 
 These diff'erent services performed, the admiral 
 sailed from Porto Bello on the 13th of December, 
 and shortly afterwards arrived in safety at Jamaica. 
 
 Having refitted his ships, Vernon, anxious for an 
 opportunity of fiu-ther distinguishing himself, sailed 
 from Port Royal, February 25, 1740, and made the 
 highlands of St. Martha, on the Spanish main, 
 March 1, whence he bore away for Carthagena. On 
 the 3rd, in the evening, he anchored with his 
 squadron before the town, in nine fathom water, in 
 the open bay called Playa Granda. On the Gth he 
 began a bombardment; and in three days dis- 
 charged about three hundred and fifty bombs, 
 which destroyed several edifices, and did consider- 
 able damage to the town; but the force he had 
 with him being inadequate to a regular attack, he 
 bore away with the fleet to Porto Bello. Having 
 repaired his damages, and watei-ed his squadron, 
 the next object of his attack was the Castle of 
 Chagre, situate at the entrance of the river of that 
 name, a few leagues distant from Porto Bello. He 
 passed up with the tide, on the 13th of the month, 
 and spent only two days in bombarding the castle, 
 when it surrendered at discretion, and he blew up 
 the fortifications. The plate, merchandize, &c., 
 which were of great value, were taken on board 
 the squadron, and on the 30th he returned to Porto 
 Bello, and thence to Jamaica, where the fleet being 
 
 in want of stores and supplies lay for some time 
 inactive. 
 
 The reduction of Porto Bello determined the 
 government at home to send out such a reinforce- 
 ment to the West Indies as should enable Vernon 
 to attack the moi-e formidable of the Spanish settle- 
 ments; twenty-five sail of the line, under the com- 
 mand of Rear-admu-al Sir Chaloner Ogle, with a 
 proportionate number of frigates, and a large body 
 of transports, having on board upwards of ten 
 thousand land forces, were accordingly dispatched 
 from England to his support. The military were 
 conducted by Lord Cathcart, a nobleman of high 
 character and great military experience, but who 
 died, unhappily for the expectations of his country, 
 soon after his arrival in the West Indies. The 
 vacant rank thus devolved on General Wentworth, 
 an officer without judgment or experience, and 
 utterly unqualified for the important post of a 
 commander-in-chief. His armament joined Admiral 
 Vernon, at Jamaica, January 9, 1741, and the force 
 under his direction then amounted to thirty-one 
 .sail of the line. 
 
 With this fleet, the most powerful that had ever 
 been collected m the American seas, he sailed fi-om 
 Jamaica, January 28. The first object was to 
 proceed off Port Louis, in the island of Saint Do- 
 mingo, in order to ascertain the strength and inten- 
 tions of a French squadron, supposed to be at 
 anchor in that harbour, and against which the 
 admiral thought it necessary to be on his guard, 
 as he had strong reason to believe the French 
 cabinet was unfavourable to the interests of Great 
 Britain. Arrived off the isle of Vache, about two 
 leagues from Port Louis, on the 12th of February, 
 he learnt that the French squadron had sailed for 
 Europe, in great distress for provisions, and with a 
 dreadful mortality raging through the crew. The 
 receipt of this intelligence led to a council of war, 
 composed of Admirals Vernon and Sir Chaloner 
 Ogle, and Generals Wentworth and Guise, in which 
 it was resolved that, after having taken in water 
 and wood in Tiberoon Bay, they should proceed to 
 Carthagena, on which place they resolved to make 
 a vigorous attack both by sea and land. 
 
 The fleet anchored, March 4, in Playa Granda 
 Bay, where Vernon made the necessary dispositions 
 for landing the troops, and conducting the attack, 
 and issued his instructions to the rear-admiral and 
 captains of the squadron. On the 9th, the admii-al, 
 with his own division, and that of Sir Chaloner 
 Ogle, followed by all the transports, got under 
 weigh, and brought to under the fort of Bocca 
 Chica, which defends the entrnnce of the harbour, 
 one of the noblest in the world, being some leagues 
 in circumference, and land-locked on all sides. 
 Between this harbour and the tov.n I'un two necks 
 of land, on which are the strong fortresses of Cas- 
 tillo Granda, and Fort Manzanella, which defend the 
 lesser harbour that touches on to the town. There 
 is, likewise, fort St. Lazar, which protects the town 
 on the land side, and though tlie sea beats against 
 the walls, there can' be no ajiproach to them, in 
 consequence of the formidable violence of the surf, 
 save directly through the harbours already des- 
 ci-ibcd. The first successes of the assailants pro- 
 mised a speedy and honourable termination of their 
 enterprize. In less than an hour the enemy were 
 driven by the fire of the shipping from the forts of 
 Chamba, St. Jago, and St. Philip, which mounted
 
 ADMIRAL VERNON. 
 
 155 
 
 iu all forty guns, and in the evening a detachment 
 of grenadiers was landed, which took possession of 
 them. The next day, the regiments of Harrison 
 and Wentworth, and six regiments of marines, were 
 landed without opposition, and by the loth, all the 
 artillery and stores of the army were brought on 
 shore. The following day, the general informed 
 the admiral that his camp was much incommoded 
 by the tire from a fascine battery on the west shore 
 of Bari-adera side, and Captains Watson and Bos- 
 cawen, having under them Captains Law and Coats, 
 with three hundred soldiers, and a detachment of 
 seamen, were therefore ordered to destroy it. This 
 party was surprised upon landing by a masked 
 Ijattery of five guns, which commenced a heavy 
 fire; but they soon obtained possession of it, and 
 proceeded to storm the battery. Of this, too, they 
 made themselves masters, with very inconsiderable 
 loss, although it mounted twenty 24-pounders, 
 and was guarded by a proportionate force. Having 
 spiked the cannon, and destroyed the platforms 
 and carriages, the detachment returned with some 
 prisoners to the fleet, and ^'ernon was so pleased 
 with the spirit and boldness evinced on this occa- 
 sion, that he rewarded each common man with a 
 dollar. 
 
 This success proved an inexpressible relief to the 
 army, and the general began to bombard the castle 
 of Bocca Chica, against which, on the 22nd, he 
 opened a battery of twenty 24-pounders. On the 
 23rd, Commodore Lestock was ordered iu, to batter 
 the castle on the west side with five ships; a service 
 which he performed with the greatest bravery, 
 though exposed to a very hot fire, by which the 
 gallant Lord Aubrey Beauclerk*, captain of the 
 
 • This young nobleman has a monument in the north 
 cross aisle, by Scheemakers. The design is plain, consisting 
 only of a pedestal and pyramid, into which is sunk a niche, 
 which contains a neat bust. The inscriptions are in poetry 
 and in prose, the former said to be by Thomson. 
 
 ■Rliile Britain boasts her empire o'er the deep, 
 This marble shall compel the brave to weep ; 
 As men, as Britons, and as soldiers, mourn — 
 'Tis dauntless, loyal, virtuous Beauclerk's urn. 
 Sweet were his manners as his soul was great, 
 And ripe his worth, though immature liis fate. 
 Each tender grace that joy and love inspire, 
 Living; he mingled with his martial lire; 
 Dying he bid Britannia's thunder roar. 
 And Spain still felt him when he breath'd no more. 
 
 Lord Aubrey Beauclerk was the youngest son of Charles, 
 Duke of St. Albans, by Diana, daughter of Aubrey de Vere, 
 Earl of Oxford. lie went early to sea, and was made a 
 commander in 1731. In 1740 he was sent upon that memor- 
 able expedition to Carthagena, under the command of Ad- 
 miral Vernon, in his Majesty's ship the Prince Frederick, 
 which, with three others, were ordered to cannonade the 
 Castle Bocca Chica. One of these being obliged to quit her 
 station, the Prince Frederick was exposed not only to the 
 fire from the Castle, but to that of Fort St. Joseph, and to 
 two ships that guarded the mouth of the harbour, which he 
 sustained for many hours that day, and part of the next, 
 with uncommon intrepidity. As he was giving his com- 
 mand upon deck, both his legs were shot (iff; but such was 
 his magnanimity, that he would not snlTer his wounds to be 
 dressed till he had communicated his orders to the first 
 lieutenant, which were, " To fight liis ship to the last extre- 
 mity." Soon afler this he gave some directions about his 
 private alfdirs, and then resigned his soul with the dignity 
 of a hero and a Christian. Thus was he taken off in the 
 
 Prince Frederic, was killed. A sufficient breach 
 being made in the castle, the general proposed to 
 carry it by assault, and accordingly the necessary 
 preparations having been made, the" troops marched 
 to the attack on the 2r)tli, at midnight, and no 
 sooner entered the breach, than the enemy, to their 
 great surprise, fled from the castle without firing a 
 gun. Captain Knowles, of the Litchfield, observing 
 theii- dismay and confusion, immediately landed 
 his men, and stormed Fort St. Jose]>h, the garrison 
 of which deserted their guns with like precipi- 
 tation. 
 
 The enemy, confounded by these successes, pre- 
 pared to sink some of their ships in the channel, 
 leading into the inner harbour, in order to prevent 
 the nearer approach of the British fleet, which 
 Vernon no sooner perceived than he directed the 
 seamen to board, and take possession of as many of 
 them as possible. This could not be carried so 
 speedily into execution, but that the Spaniards had 
 time to sink the Africa and the Don Carlos, two 
 seventy gun ships, and set fire to the St. Philip of 
 sixty guns, which blew up. The seamen, however, 
 boarded and took the Gallicia of eighty gun.s, the 
 Spanish admiral's ship, and succeeded in bringing 
 her oft". They next proceeded to cut the boom 
 which was moored across the channel ; and the 
 following day, the admiral, with several of the 
 ships of war, warped into the imicr harboui'. For- 
 tune continuing to favour the assailants, the Spa- 
 niards abandoned the strong fort of Castillo Granda, 
 and about the same time deserted Fort Manzanella, 
 on the opposite shore. 
 
 After surmounting so many difficulties with such 
 facility, and forcing the narrow channel, defended 
 by a. strong castle, three foi'ts, a boom, four ships 
 of the line, and two batteries, we need not wonder 
 that the besiegers emertained the most sanguine 
 hopes of their ultimate success, and thought that 
 little remained for them to do, but to t:ike posses- 
 sion of Carthagena. A ship was accordingly dis- 
 patched to England with intelligence to this effect, 
 and public rejoicings were made over the whole 
 kingdom, scarcely inferior to what might have been 
 indulged, had the absolute conquest of the place 
 occurred. Vernon was undoubtedly persuaded, 
 after the ease with which he had overcome past 
 difficulties, that Carthagena must inevitably sur- 
 render; but in this instance he had formed his 
 opinion too hastily, and was destined to experience 
 the severe mortification of a repulse. 
 
 In the early part of April the troops became 
 very sickly, and died in great numbers: but what 
 was most prejudicial to the service was, that the 
 cordiality between the conunanders-in-cliief, so re- 
 quisite for conducting with success the conjoint 
 ojierations of a ffeet and an army, can scarcely be 
 said to have ever existed between Vernon and 
 Wentworth. The only jjoint that was wanting to 
 comiilete the reduction of Carthageiui, was ]'\irt 
 St. Lazar; and as the Sjianiards were daily throw- 
 ing uj) new works, and making all possible prejia- 
 
 thirty-lirst year of his age; an illustrious connnandcr of 
 superior fortitude and clemency, aniial)le in his person, 
 steady in his atlections, ami equalled by few in the social 
 and domestic virtues of politeness, modesty, candour, and 
 benevolence. lie married the widow of Colonol F. Alex- 
 ander, a daiightcr of Sir II. Newton, Knt Envoy Kxtra- 
 oriliii.iry to the Court of Florence and the Hepublic of (icnoa, 
 and Judge of the High Court of Admiralty.
 
 156 
 
 WESTMINSTER ABBEY. 
 
 rations to defend themselves to the last extremity, 
 the general, who was severely reijroaclied by Vernon 
 for his inactivity, determined, without consulting 
 the latter, to attempt to carry the place by storm. 
 Generals Blakeney and Wolfe protested against 
 this as a rash and fruitless measure; and, as these 
 experienced officers had foretold, the enterprize 
 completely failed, after more than six hundred 
 men, the flower of the British army, had been 
 killed. 
 
 After this the besiegers gave up all hopes of 
 being able to reduce the place; and the rainy 
 season setting in with violence, the troops could no 
 longer live on shore *. They were, therefore, re- 
 embarked after the fleet had made an unsuccessful 
 attempt to bombard the town; and the armament 
 returned to Jamaica, having lost in the diff"erent 
 attacks, and by sickness, upwards of three thou- 
 sand men. The fortifications which had fallen into 
 the hands of the English were destroyed, under ihe 
 direction of Captains Knowles and Boscawen, and 
 the damage thus done to the Spaniards was sup- 
 posed to amount to half a million sterling. 
 
 The fleet arrived at Jamaica on the 19th of 
 May; and soon after, the admiral, agreeable to 
 instructions he had received from the ministry, sent 
 Commodore Lestock to Europe with eleven sail of 
 the line, and the homeward-bound trade under his 
 convoy. While the remaining ships of war and 
 transports were refitting at Port Royal, it was 
 agreed in a council of war, assembled at the gover- 
 nor's house, on the 2Gth of May, that an attack 
 should be made on the island of Cuba; and Vernon, 
 anxious to wipe away from the British arms the 
 stain of their ill success at Carthagena, exerted 
 himself to the utmost to render his department fit 
 for service. A supjjly of naval stores from England, 
 with three thousand recruits for the armj', enabled 
 the expedition to sail from Jamaica on the 1st of 
 July. The force under Vernon consisted of eight 
 ships of the line, one of fifty guns, twelve frigates, 
 fire-ships, and small vessels of war, and a fleet of 
 forty transports and store-ships, and with these he 
 anchored in Walthenham bay, on the south side of 
 the island of Cuba, on the 18th of July. The fol- 
 lowing day the troops were landed without opposi- 
 tion, and encamped in a plentiful country. Vernon, 
 with his usual sanguine disposition, changed the 
 name of the port he had taken possession of into 
 Cumberland harbour, and sent a dispatch to Eng- 
 land expressive of his hopes, that the whole island 
 of Cuba would soon be in possession of the British 
 forces. 
 
 It was resolved, in a council of war, that the 
 troops should march overland to St. Jago, a town 
 of considerable extent, about sixty miles from Wal- 
 thenham bay, which was reported to be wholly de- 
 fenceless on the land side, while the difliculties of 
 the navigation secured it from any danger of an 
 attack by sea. Nothing, however, of moment was 
 attempted in consequence of this resolution. The 
 
 * The heat is excessive and continual at Carthagena, and 
 the torrents of water incessantly pouring down, from May to 
 November, have this singularity, that they never cool the 
 air, which is only a little moderated, during the dry season, 
 by the north-east winds. The night is as hot as the day. 
 Hence the inhabitants, wasted by profuse perspiration, have 
 the pale and livid appearance of sick persons ; all their mo- 
 tions are languid and sluggish ; their speech is soft and 
 slow ; and their words generally broken and interrupted. 
 
 general continued inactive, save in occasionally 
 sending out a few small desultory parties, which 
 i-arely met with others to oppose them: and at length 
 informed the admiral, that he feared it would be 
 impossible for him to penetrate to St. Jago by land. 
 In consequence of this representation, the troops 
 were re-embarked on the 20th of October, and soon 
 after returned to Jamaica. 
 
 About this time Vernon wrote to the Duke of 
 Newcastle, then Secretary of State, earnestly soli- 
 citing to be recalled, and requesting, as the only 
 favour he should ask of the crown, that his conduct 
 in the expeditions against Carthagena and Cuba 
 might be strictly and publicly enquired into. He 
 assured the duke that, " until such orders should 
 arrive, he would forward every service for the 
 honour of his king and counti'y with the utmost 
 care and diligence, daily praying for a deliverance 
 from being conjoined to a gentleman, whose opinions 
 he had observed to be more changeable than the 
 moon, though he had endeavoured, agreeably to 
 his orders, to maintain the most civil correspond- 
 ence in his power with General Wentworth." 
 
 But a reinforcement of two thousand marines, 
 with two ships of fifty guns and a frigate, having 
 arrived from England on the 25th of January, 1742, 
 Vernon once more began to entertain hopes, that 
 he should be able, by some successful enterprize, 
 to obliterate the disgrace of the two former fruit- 
 less expeditions. After frequent councils of war, 
 which appear to have been held too often for the 
 good of the service, it was determined to land at 
 Porto Bello, and, after marching across the isthmus 
 of Darien, to attack Panama, a rich town situate 
 on the South Sea, which Sir Henry Morgan, having 
 f(n'merly marched across the isthmus, with five 
 hundred buccaneers, had taken with little difficulty. 
 Accordingly the necessary preparations were made 
 for the expedition, and the admii-al put to sea 
 about the middle of March, with eight sail of the 
 line, five smaller vessels, and forty transj)orts, 
 having on board three thousand eflPective men, 
 besides a body of five hundred negroes, raised for 
 the expedition by General Trelawney, the gover- 
 nor of Jamaica, who accompanied it himself with 
 several volunteers. 
 
 The armament arrived at Porto Bello, after a 
 tedious pas.sage of three weeks, occasioned by con- 
 trary winds and tempestuous seas. The Spaniards, 
 on the appearance of the British fleet, immediately 
 quitted the town and fled to Panama, so that the 
 troops landed without opposition. Vernon now 
 believed that something decisive might be effected 
 against the enemy; but great was his mortification 
 to learn that it was resolved in a council of war, 
 composed solely of land officers, to give up the 
 enterprize; and, after many ineffectual remon- 
 strances, he was obliged to re-eml)ark the troops a 
 very few days after they were landed. The fleet 
 returned again to Jamaica, and nothing of conse- 
 quence occurred during the subsequent part of the 
 time that Admiral Vernon held the chief command 
 on that station. In the month of September an 
 order arrived at Port Royal for the admiral and 
 general to return home. In December the admi- 
 ral took his passage in the Boyne for England, and 
 was soon after followed by Wentworth with the 
 soldiers that survived. 
 
 Before the departure of Vernon from the West 
 Indies, he addressed the Secretary of State, inform-
 
 ADMIRAL VERNON. 
 
 157 
 
 ing him, "that he could nut be insensible how great 
 a concern the disappointments on the several expe- 
 ditions must have been to his majesty; but begged 
 leave, at the same time, to say, in behalf of himself 
 and the officers and men that had served under his 
 command, that no part of the disappointment was 
 justly to be attributed to the sea forces: nor did he 
 think it was in want of courage or inclination to 
 serve his majesty in the land forces; but that this 
 unha|i])v event was jirincipally owing to the com- 
 mand falling into thehamls of General Wentworth, 
 who had approved himself no way equal to it. And 
 though the vice-admiral pretended to little expe- 
 rience in military affairs, yet it was his opinion, 
 that if the sole command had been entrusted to 
 him, the British forces would have failed in neither 
 of the expeditions, but would have made themselves 
 masters both of Carthagena and St. Jago, and with 
 the loss of nmch fewer men than had died through 
 the im])rudent conduct of General Wentworth." It 
 must also be observed that his opinion was em- 
 braced by the nation at large, and Vernon's popu- 
 larity suffered no diminution from the reverses of 
 fortune he had experienced, while acting in con- 
 junction with General Wentworth. 
 
 After his return to England, Vernon continued 
 unemiiloyed till the memorable year 1745. During 
 his retii'ement, being passed over in a promotion of 
 flag officers, he sent a letter to the Admiralty, too 
 characteristic of the temper and feelings of the 
 writer to be omitted here: — 
 
 " Sir, 
 
 •Nacton, June 30, 1744. 
 
 " As we that live retired in the country often 
 content ourselves with the information we derive 
 from the newspapers on a market-day, I did not so 
 early observe the advertisement from your office 
 of the 23rd of this month, that, in pursuance of his 
 Majesty's pleasure, the right honourable the lords 
 commissioners of the admiralty had made the fol- 
 lowing pnmiotions therein mentioned, in which I 
 could not but perceive there was no mention of my 
 name amongst the flag officers, though by letters 
 of the 10th instant, you directed to me as vice- 
 admiral of the red, and, by their lordshii)'s orders, 
 desired my opinion on an afi'air of his majesty's 
 service, which I very honestly gave them, as I 
 judged most conducive to his honour, so that their 
 l<irdshi[is could not be miinformed that I was in the 
 laml of the living. 
 
 " Though promotions are said to be made by 
 their lordships' orders, yet we all know the com- 
 munication of his majesty's pleasure must come 
 from the first lord in conmiission, from whom prin- 
 cipally his majesty is sup|)osed to receive the in- 
 formation, on which his royal orders are foinidcd ; 
 and as it is a known maxim in our law, that the 
 king can do no wrong, founded, as I apjirehend, on 
 the persuasion that the crown never does .so iiut 
 from the misinformation of those whose respective 
 jirovinces are to inform his majesty of the parti- 
 cular atiairs under their care, the first suggestion 
 that naturally o(M-urs to an officer, tluit has the 
 fullest testimonies in his custody of having happily 
 served his niaji^sty in the corinnan<l he was intrust- 
 ed with, to his royal approbali(jn, is, that your first 
 commissioner must either have informed his ma- 
 jesty that I was dead, or have laid something to 
 my ciiarge, rendering me unfit to rise in my rank 
 
 in the royal navy; of which, being insensible myself, 
 I desire their lordshi])S would be pleased to inform 
 me in what it consists, having, both in action and 
 advice, always, to the best of my judgment, endea- 
 voured to serve our royal master with a zeal and 
 activity becoming a faithful and loyal subject, and 
 having hitherto received the public ajiprobatiiin of 
 your board. I confess, at my time of life, a retire- 
 ment from the hurry of business, to prepare for the 
 general audit, which every Christian ought to have 
 perpetually in his mind, is what cannot but be 
 desirable, and might rather give occasion to rejoice, 
 than any concern, which (1 thank (jod) it does 
 very little; yet, that I might not be thought by any 
 one to have declined the public service, I have 
 thought proper to remind their lordships I am living, 
 and have (1 thank God) the same honest zeal 
 reigning in my breast, that has animated me on all 
 occasions to approve myself a faithful and zealous 
 subject and servant to my royal master: and if the 
 first lord commissioner, Daniel, Earl of Winchelsea, 
 has represented me in any other light to my royal 
 master, he has acted with a degeneracy unbecom- 
 ing the descendant of a noble father, whose memoi-y 
 I reverence and esteem, though I have no com])li- 
 ments to make to the judgment or conduct of the 
 son, &c. &c. 
 
 " Edward Vernon." 
 " To Thomas Corbett, Esq., 
 Secretary to the Admiralty." 
 
 That Vernon was passed over without promotion 
 was perhaps less the result of any design to under- 
 rate his gallantry and talents, than the ordinary 
 consequence of a general state of peace. How his 
 capacity was rated, is proved by the fact that, upon 
 the first prospect of danger, in the spring of the 
 year 1745, he was promoted to be admiral of the 
 white, and appointed to command a squadron of 
 observation in the North Sea, to watch the French 
 equipments at Dunkirk and elsewhei-e, which were 
 evidently intended for the invasion of (Jreat Britain. 
 The grandson of James II. encouraged by promises 
 of supiiort from the French ministry, and allured 
 by invitations from the disatt'ected in Scotland and 
 England, determined to make an attempt to recover 
 the crown of his ancestors, and at that time the 
 kingdom beluld itself with the utmost consternation 
 on the ])oint of being in\aded by a foreigner, siqi- 
 ported in his claims by the jxjwer i)f France. At 
 such a crisis the voice of the nation inqteriously 
 demanded that the ablest commanders should be 
 called into service, and .\dmiral Vernon's aiijioint- 
 ment was received with universal ai)|ux>bation. 
 
 In the month of .August, he had his flag flying 
 on board the .St. George, in I'ortsniouth harliour, 
 but soon after shifted it to the Norwich, and sailed 
 to the Downs, to watch the French armaments in 
 the o])])osite ])orts. This command was, ijcrhajis, 
 the most interesting of his whole life; and it is but 
 bare justice to his memory to observe, that no man 
 could have been more diligent or more successful 
 ill the service to which the necessities of his coun- 
 try culled him. 
 
 Il(! eoiitiiHK'd ill this station till January, I74'>, 
 when, in cons<'(|uence of some disputes with tlie 
 admiralty, he was ordered to strike his flag, lie 
 obeyed, and was never afterwards employ<(l. Va- 
 rious reasons have been assigiK-d for the disagrt'e- 
 ment between him and the admiralty. There were
 
 158 
 
 WESTMINSTER ABBEY. 
 
 probably faults on both sides. The naval adminis- 
 tration of that period was feeble and imbecile, and 
 he was not a man to conceal his sentiments. Con- 
 stitutional pride, popular fiivour, and the self- 
 consciousness of no ordinary degree of merit, had 
 rendei'ed Vernon unaccommodating and blunt in 
 manner and in principle. His friends remai-ked with 
 sorrow and indignation that a man, coui'ageous to 
 excess, and in the skill of his profession without a 
 superior, whose integrity was as unimpeachable as 
 his intrepidity was unconquerable; a man who had 
 fought and bled and conquered for his cointtry over 
 and over and over again, should, during the whole 
 course of his l(jng career, never have had one 
 post of honour or emolument, nor one title or dis- 
 tinction conferred upon him, in acknowledgment 
 of the important benefits he rendered to his country. 
 And the only reason they assigned for this ingrati- 
 
 tude and insult was, that Vernon honestly disap- 
 proved of the political measures pursued by the 
 minister of the day; and that for this, and nothing 
 but this, he was punished and degraded. He sub- 
 mitted to his compulsory retirement with great 
 impatience, and published several pamphlets in 
 vindication of his character. In these he was said 
 to have inserted some private correspondence be- 
 tween himself and the admiralty, which gave such 
 offence to the king, that, by his especial command, 
 he was struck off the list of admii-als. This hap- 
 pened April 11, 17-16, and he was never restored 
 to his rank. From thiit period he lived almost 
 totally in retirement, troubling himself but seldom 
 with public affairs, though attending the House of 
 Commons as member for the borough of Ipswich. 
 He died suddenly at his seat at Nacton, in Suffolk, 
 aged 73. 
 
 HANDEL. 
 
 Above the statue of Addison, in the Poets' Corner, 
 is the monument of this great musician, who vainly 
 provided for the honours of an interment and com- 
 memoration here in his last will and testament. It 
 is the work of Roubiliac, and was the last he lived 
 to finish. The back-ground is filled with an organ; 
 above, an angel is introiluced playing on a harp ; 
 and in front is placed a figure of the deceased in 
 the act of composing, and attitude of inspiration. 
 Beside him is the score of "the Messiah," and that 
 page open beginning, " I know that my Redeemer 
 liveth," &c. This statue has been generally praised 
 for a good likeness ; but it is not worthy of the 
 artist's reputation. The inscription only recapitu- 
 lates his name, and the dates of his birth and 
 death*. 
 
 * At the same elevation are two monuments which de- 
 mand particular notice, as much on account of the striking 
 manner in wliich they are finished, as the particular reputa- 
 tion of the names they record. Of these, the one nearest to 
 Handel was erected by Aufjusta, mother of George III. to 
 the memory of Stephen Hales, D.D. F.R.S., the philosopher. 
 It is tabular, and in relievo, presenting figures of Religion 
 and Botany supporting a medallion of the deceased. Under- 
 neath is a globe, on which, in allusion to the doctor's inven- 
 tion of the ventilator, the winds are displayed. The mere 
 allegory of this design cannot delight, but the grace and 
 neatness with which it is finished are very pleasing. Dr. 
 Hales was a clergyman deservedly eminent in botany, che- 
 mistry, and experimental philosophy. Born at Bekesbourne, 
 in Kent, during the year 1677, he was educated at Corpus 
 Christi College, Cambridge, and attained a fellowship in 
 1703. Devoting his mind, from this period, with great assi- 
 duity and no mean success to philosophical investigations, 
 he first became known by the invention of a brass machine 
 for the purpose of demonstrating the planetary sj stem. This 
 was the foundation of that ingenious piece of mechanism 
 subsequently completed by Rowley, and so well remembered 
 under the name of an orrery. In 1733 Hales obtained his 
 doctor's degree from the University of Oxford; and in 1741 
 communicated to the Royal Society his method for clearing 
 prisons, ships, &c. of foul air, by means of ventilators. 
 Among the published volumes of the same body are to be 
 found various papers, in which he made known several 
 other projects and inventions of great interest and utility. 
 Patronised by Frederick, Prince of Wales, and his wife, the 
 
 George Frederick Handel was born February 
 24, 1684, at Halle, in Upper Saxony, where his 
 father practised physic. He displayed a strong 
 passion for music when a boy ; but his father 
 destining him for the profession of civil law, forbad 
 him to touch an instrument. Notwithstanding this, 
 he contrived to practise in private, and when only 
 seven years old was accidentally heard playing on 
 a church organ, after service time, by the Duke of 
 Saxe Weifenfels, who was so much struck by the 
 
 Princess Augusta, he might have aspired to the highest 
 dignities of the Church ; but such was his moderation that j 
 he would not accept even of a canonry in Windsor, and 
 rested content with the living of Teddington, in Middlesex. 
 He was induced, however, to act as almoner and clerk of 
 the closet to her Royal Highness. Dr. Hales died on the 
 4th of January, 17C1, and is also to be praised for four 
 volumes of Statical Essays, a treatise on the ill conse- 
 quences of drinking spirituous liquors; Vegetable Statics; 
 and Vegetable Essays. 
 
 Not far removed is a sarcophagus projecting from the wall, 
 on which is seated a figure in the robes of a divine. It was 
 erected by Harley, Earl of Oxford, and commemorates John 
 Ernest Grabe, who was born in 1666, and educated at Ko- 
 ningsberg, in Prussia, where his father was professor of theo- 
 logy and history in the University. Becoming dissatisfied 
 with Lutheranism, because it wanted the essentials of an 
 uninterrupted episcopal hierarchy, he was on the point of 
 becoming a convert to Catholicism, when it was suggested 
 to him that the Church of England, possessing the features 
 he desired, was more congenial to his previous creed. To 
 England, therefore, he repaired, and had the fortune of 
 obtaining a pension of 100^. a year from William III. In 
 1698 he published the first, and in the year following the 
 second volume of " Spicilegium SS. Patrum," a collection of 
 tracts by the early fathers and heretics. In 1700 lie took 
 deacon's orders, and was presented with the chaplaincy of 
 Christ's Church, Oxford. Pursuing his critical studies, he 
 edited in succession the works of Justin Martyr, Irenjcus, 
 and Bishop Bull. But his greatest labour was a publication 
 of the Septuagint version of the Old Testament from the 
 Alexandrian Manuscripts. The first four volumes came out 
 by the year 1709 in folio and octavo, and the rest were 
 printed from posthumous manuscripts in 1719 and 1720. 
 He died Nov. 3, 1711, and was buried in the church-yard of 
 St. Pancras, Middlesex.
 
 HANDEL. 
 
 159 
 
 style of the pei-forraance, that he inquired his 
 name, and ultimately encouraged his father to cul- 
 tivate the bent of his genius. Accordingly, he was 
 placed under Zachaw, the organist to the cathedral 
 church at Halle, and profited so rapidly by the 
 instructions he received, as to be able to compose 
 church services with instrumental accompaniments 
 (luring the course of his first year's apprenticeship. 
 He continued for the space of three years after to 
 produce a new service for each recui-ring sab- 
 bath. 
 
 After surpassing his master both as a composer 
 and a performer, he was removed to Berlin in his 
 fourteenth year, and placed under the care of a 
 relative who lield a situation at the court. There 
 he is said to have benefited so much from the 
 lessons of Attilio, who conducted the Italian opei'a 
 with great success, that the king offered to send 
 him into Italy at his own expense, and vmdertake 
 the care of his fortune when his education should 
 be completed. But the monarch being prover- 
 bially capricious in such matters, Handel's parents 
 declined his patronage. After such an occurrence 
 it was impossible for the young musician to remain 
 at Berlin : he returned to Halle, panting for a visit 
 to Italy, but restrained from the journey by the 
 narrow circumstances of his parents. 
 
 Repairing therefore to Hambui'gli, where the 
 opera was powerfully supported, he lost his father, 
 and was necessitated to teach pupils, and accept 
 an inferior station in the orchestra. Ere long, 
 however, the jirincipal pianist, a dissipated man, 
 absconded from his creditors, and Handel put in a 
 claim for the seat. A trial of skill between him 
 and the performer on the second harpsichord en- 
 sued, and he won ; but the victory had nearly cost 
 him dear, for his rival, stung with mortification, 
 made a lunge at his breast with a small sword as 
 he was leaving the house, which must have pene- 
 trated to the heart, had not' a music-book which 
 he had fortunately stuck in his bosom, broke the 
 violence of the blow. Having thus acquired an 
 opportunity for the display of his talents, he soon 
 rose in reputation, and was made composer to the 
 theatre before the year elapsed. The iirst opera 
 lie set was " Almeria," which was repeated for 
 thirty successive nights ; and nearly equal applause 
 attended the representation of two others, " Flo- 
 rinda " and " Nerone," which he produced within 
 another year. This success procured him an inti- 
 macy with many influential admirers of his art, 
 and amongst other compliments, the Grand Duke 
 of Tuscany offered to take him through Italy free 
 of expense. This was an enjoyment which he had 
 long determined to avail himself of, but not in a 
 dependant state ; he therefore declined the liberal 
 proposal, and after i-emaining at Hamburgh for 
 five years, found lie had saved a purse of ducats, 
 which justified him in undertaking the journey on 
 his own account. 
 
 Florence was the first city of note at which he 
 made any stay : there he was honoured with IVre 
 access to the palace of the (jrand Duke, who ]in!- 
 vailcd upi/U hiui to comiiose jiis first Italian opera, 
 " llodrigo," for which he receiv(;(l a present of one 
 Iiundred sequins, and a service of plate. Proceed- 
 ing to Venice lie brought forward a second Italian 
 ojMTa, " Agri|i)iina," which was j)erforiued wilh 
 considerable api)lauHe for seven-aml-twenty nights. 
 From Napji's, wliich he visited next, he repaired 
 
 to Rome, and was nobly entertained and highlv 
 flattered by the most influential cardinals. \\'iiil"e 
 thus caressed, he had the honour of ]ilayiiig a pas- 
 sage which the dexterous Corelli found'ditKcult to 
 execute, and divided the palm with Scarlatti, who 
 was then esteemed the best pianist in Italv. But 
 notwithstanding all this superiority, and the re]m- 
 tation which accrued to him Ironi some hundreds 
 of very haii]iy pieces whicl; he composed, the man 
 seems not to have been well liked ; for his j)atrons, 
 as well as his equals, complained of the petulance 
 of his temper, and his gross pride. 
 
 After spending six years in Italy, he returned 
 to Germany, and was otlered a jiension of 1500 
 crowns, and the place of Chapel Master, by the 
 Elector, soon after Geoi'ge I of England, to fix his 
 i-esidence at Hanover. This liberal offer he ac- 
 cepted upon the condition of receiving a year's 
 leave of absence to fulfil an engagement with the 
 Elector Palatine at Dusseldorf, and avail himself 
 of a pressing invitation sent to him by the Duke of 
 Manchester and several English nobles. Accord- 
 ingly, after having been liandsomely dismissed 
 fi-om the palatinate, and paying a visit to his aged 
 mother and old master at Halle, he arrived in 
 London during the year 1710, was presented at 
 court, and distinguished by the most flattering 
 attentions. With the arrival of Handel may be 
 fixid the legitimate performance of Italian operas 
 in this country. His own " Rinaldo" led the way, 
 and was mucli esteemed. He became dii'ector of 
 the old house in the Haymarket, received a pen- 
 sion of 200/. a year from the Queen, and found 
 himself so well treated in every respect, that he 
 broke his promise to the Elector of Hanover, and 
 continued jirofitably employed in London. The 
 most popular of his productions about this period 
 were the grand " Te Deum " and " Jubilate," in 
 celebration of the peace of Utrecht. 
 
 The death of Queen Anne and succession of 
 George I. seemed at first to augur ill for the con- 
 tinuance of this prosperity. Conscious of the viola- 
 tion of a positive engagement, he could not pre- 
 sume to appear at court, and dreaded both disgrace 
 and resentment. From this dilemma, however, he 
 was soon rescued by the good otHces of a former 
 friend, the Baron Kilmansegge, who accomiianied 
 the new monarch to iMigland. Receiving notice of 
 a royal excursion on the river, he prej)ared some 
 music, and superintended the jierformance of it at 
 the landing of the jiarty for refreshment. The 
 king, taken by surprise, and pleased with the com- 
 ]KJsition, asked who it was to whom he was in- 
 ilebted for the entertainment, and u])on being told 
 to Handel, good-naturedly called him from con- 
 cealment, and not oidy i'orgave him, but doubled 
 his ])ension on the spot, and nominated him nuisic- 
 niaster to the royal family. 
 
 From the year 1715 to 1718 Handel resided 
 witli the Earl of Bui-lington, and spent the two 
 next years inider the Duke of Chaudos, who enter- 
 tained liim as chape l-niaster to the splendid choir 
 he established at Canons, his country-seat. It was 
 fur the service of tile magniricent chapel there that 
 h(! jiroduced those anthems and organ I'ugues, 
 which alone would liave sufficed to immortalize 
 his name. I''rom these avocations he was called 
 away in 17-0 to become Director of the Royal 
 A<'adcmy of Music, which was instituted u|)oii the 
 model of tlu^ similar establishnunt in Paris, for
 
 160 
 
 WESTMINSTER ABBEY. 
 
 the purpose of securing tlie nobility a more effective 
 x-epresentation of Italian operas, and supported by 
 a muniticent subscription to the amount of 50,000^. 
 But notwithstanding the great patronage thus con- 
 centrated for the success of tlie measure, some 
 weighty opposition was offered to it in consequence 
 of the influence possessed by liunoncini and Attilio, 
 who superintended the affairs of the old house. 
 To accommodate these differences, and settle the 
 question of superior talent, it was proposed that 
 Handel and Bunoncini should set an opera togethei', 
 each taking an act in his turn. "Muzio Scsevola " 
 was the produce of this competitory trial ; and the 
 palm being awarded to Handel, he went to Dresden 
 to engage a fresh body of singers, and opened the 
 academy with great applause. In this station he 
 continued eminently happy during a term of nine 
 years, and perhaps at no other j)eriod was music 
 so nobly cultivated in England. 
 
 The jealousy of actors, composers, and even 
 authors, is so proverbial, that it cannot, perhaps, 
 be thought at all strange, that, in 1729, Handel 
 and his di'amatic corps i'ell into a state of tumult, 
 which ultimately disgusted the public, and ruined 
 a most expensive establishment. The actors com- 
 plained of the violence to which the temper of the 
 composer subjected them, and the composer re- 
 torted that the caprice and arrogance of the actors 
 was unbearable. Stenesino, the principal male 
 singer, was the first to begin the quarrel, and 
 Caxestini, Cuzzoni, and others, ere long made it a 
 genei'al broil. Once exasperated, Handel refused 
 to compose for those who had ofi"ended him, and no 
 entreaties could induce him to swerve from his 
 declaration. By continuing inflexible, he forfeited 
 the patronage of the nobility, who set up another 
 house in Lincoln's-inn Fields, which was ])ut under 
 the management of Porpura, and made effectively 
 popular by the voice and talents of Farinelli. 
 
 Undaunted by this opposition, Handel made some 
 bold eff'orts to entertain the public. Entering into 
 a partnership with Heidegger, he went to Italy, 
 brought over several new singers, and commenced 
 the usual season with a very good company. But 
 though he struggled hard, he struggled vainly. 
 Heidegger left him after a three years' contest; he 
 continued the battle alone for another twelvemonth, 
 and was then forced to exchange establishments 
 with his rivals. No better fortune resulting fi'om 
 this removal, he shut up his doors, and entered 
 into a pai'tnership with Rich, in Covent Garden, 
 where his "Ariadne" was first played in 1733. 
 Still his cause advanced not: by degrees, he was 
 obliged to part with all the money he had saved to 
 pay his debts; and his passion, under the joint 
 pressure of disappointment and distress, became 
 ungovernable. A stroke of the palsy deprived him 
 of the use of his right hand, and he spoke and 
 acted with such extravagant violence, that by many 
 he was reputed insane. A temporary absence from 
 England, however, calmed his temper, while the 
 baths of Aix la Chapelle restored his injured health. 
 Upon his return to London, in 1736, he set Dry- 
 den's " Ode on Alexander's Feast " to music for 
 Covent Garden, where it was so well received that 
 overtures of accommodation were made to him 
 from the Opera House, and he was engaged to 
 supply, for the following season, two pieces, " Fara- 
 mondo " and " Alessandro Severo," which were 
 rewarded with a present of 1000/. So rapidly did 
 
 the hostile feelings from which he had suffered now 
 subside, that he i-ealised 1500/. by a benefit at the 
 Hayniarket in 1738. At this conjuncture, could he 
 only have submitted to write for Farinelli, and 
 consent to a becoming association with the other 
 composers, who had the chief management of the 
 opera, he might have restored his fortune and re- 
 putation with ease and rapidity. But dogged obsti- 
 nacy was his severest enemy : he would yield 
 nothing, and therefore received no favour. 
 
 After bringing out some more Italian operas at 
 Covent Garden, which fell short of success, he began 
 the composition of those oratorios which constitute 
 the great basis of his fame; and yet at the begin- 
 ning they were far from retm-ning satisfactory pro- 
 fits or praise. Nevertheless, he continued to i)ro- 
 duce them Lent after Lent, until tlie year 1741, 
 when, disgusted at the cool reception of the "Mes- 
 siah," which has ever since been esteemed the finest 
 of the series, he went over to Dublin. In that 
 capital no professional jealousies or fashionable 
 prejudices clouded the sunshine of his talents, or 
 marred the splendour of his entertainments, and 
 the "Messiah" was enthusiastically admii-ed. These 
 expressions of public favour induced the most be- 
 neficial consequences; for, upon his return to Lon- 
 don, after a profitable absence of nine mouths, 
 crowded audiences came to hear and ajiplaud the 
 composition. " Samson " was next put into re- 
 hearsal ; and the reputation of the oratorios in- 
 creased with every returning season. Among the 
 circumstances which operated to quell the voice of 
 the popular hostility he had for some time previous 
 encountered, it is not improbable that the tribute 
 which Pope paid to his talents in the " Dunciad " 
 availed much. 
 
 Such was the just estimate in which Handel's 
 great powers were held, when, in 1751, a gutta 
 Serena wliolly deprived him of sight, a misfortune 
 which had also befallen his mother some time before 
 her death. Although unflattered by any promises 
 of relief, he insisted that several operations should 
 be made, which were as fruitless as painful. But 
 this calamity had but little effect upon his spirits. 
 He continued to perform in public with his accus- 
 tomed precision and constancy, and even composed 
 several new pieces, though he engaged an assistant 
 for the general business of the orchestra. We are 
 told, however, that the performance of his own 
 melancholy air, " Total Eclipse," from the oratorio 
 of " Samson," ever after used to agitate him 
 strongly. Early in 1758, his health began to decay 
 rapidly; his appetite, which had always been keen, 
 then failed him; he abandoned all hopes of living, 
 and reprobated the confidence of his physicians 
 with emphatic warmth. April 6, 1759, he took his 
 place as usual in the orchestra, but expired, after 
 a few days' illness, on the 14th of the same month. 
 The solemnity of his funeral, for.which he provided 
 in his will, was honourably performed. The bulk 
 of his fortune, amounting to 20,000/., as he was 
 never married, he bequeathed to a niece; but gave 
 the copy right of his works to Mr. Smith, the pro- 
 fessor, who had latterly assisted him in the direc- 
 tion t)f the oratorio performances, which, it is 
 universally known, were repeated without inter- 
 mission down to a very recent period. But though 
 no longer given at the theatres, they arc still con- 
 stantly performed at the established musical meet- 
 ings throughout the country, as well as in the
 
 GENERAL WOLFE. 
 
 Kil 
 
 metropolis, where, if indeed that be possible, they 
 are increasing in popularity. But a more honour- 
 able tribute ot national ruspect for his name was 
 given in 1785, when a musical connnemoration, 
 consisting of pieces chosen exclusively from his 
 works, was held in Westminster Abbey. Five 
 hundred instruments gave due effect to the selec- 
 tions; their majesties and family, attended by the 
 principal nobility and gentry of the three king- 
 doms, added splendour to the scene, and the per- 
 formances were justly pronounced the grandest 
 ever exhibited to this country. 
 
 Handel ui person was large and ungainly ; in 
 manners rough ; coarse in his general tastes; and 
 gross in his appetite, which he always indulged to 
 excess. He has been reproached with penurious- 
 ness, and certainly possessed a very bad temper; 
 yet his heart seems to have been susceptible of 
 much kindness, and he performed acts of great 
 liberality. He is said to have frequently relieved 
 those who were friends to the poverty of his youth; 
 he supported his aged mother, and the widow of 
 his old master Zachaw, and would have provided 
 
 for his son, but his dissipation was incorrigible. 
 As a musician Handel stood alone; he founded a 
 great style, and it has not been surpassed. Decent, 
 grave, expressive, and majestic, he was the Milton 
 of music. The refined graces and light variety of 
 the Italian school, and the simplicity of our own 
 national ballads, are not to be found in his i^ores, 
 yet he has an unadorned strength peculiar to himself. 
 Deep concentrated force, a strong spirit, and indes- 
 cribable power characterise all his productions; but 
 his instrumental accompaniments, chorusses and 
 fugues, are, beyond comparison, energetic, full, and 
 overwhelming. Some composers have shown more 
 invention, and richer combinations ; others may 
 have more happily ajiproaclied natural feeling, ten- 
 derness, and jiassion; but no one has more nobly 
 proved the dignity of his art, no one has made music 
 more sublime than Handel, who is literally idolised 
 by the English with a universal fervour and con- 
 stancy, of which the nation has exhibited but one 
 similar example, namely, in its love and admiration 
 of Shakspeare. 
 
 GENERAL WOLFE. 
 
 Ln the northern aisle, near the chapel of St. Eras- 
 mus, stands a commanding monument of the fame 
 of General Wolfe. The design represents the story 
 of his death in the moment of victory, in a style that 
 is not without its faults, but with an effect that 
 has been repeatedly admired. To admit the merit, 
 the spectator must be content to overlook the gene- 
 ral's naked figure, and the introduction of a hea- 
 then goddess in a tragic scene, which no allegory 
 can deepen. In this, as in most cases of the kind, 
 a veracious moral is weakened by confounding the 
 imaginai-y with the real. The General is repre- 
 sented in his last agonies, pressing his hand upon 
 the wound in his breast, which caused his death, 
 and supported by a grenadier, who, with one hand, 
 gently raises his falling arm, and with the other 
 points to the figure of glory descending from heaven 
 to crown him with laurel. Upon the pyramid, in re- 
 lief, a highland sergeant is introduced contemplating, 
 with folded hands, the wreck of youth and valour: 
 the pictorial attitude and expression of this figure 
 have been highly commended. A view of Quebec is 
 faithfully sculptured, in relief, upon the pedestal, 
 in which the natural difficulties of the place, and 
 the dangers of Wolfe's service are boldly described. 
 The nearer a work of this kind comes home to the 
 life and actions of its subject, the more it ap- 
 proaches that end, namely, the conmienioration of 
 real life, for which the expenses of its erection have 
 been incurred. That, to be effectively told, should 
 be plainly as well as i>ersonally represented; and 
 no allegory or learned emblems can illustrate actual 
 merit half so well as a natural sketch. For tiiese 
 reasons, both the artist who designs, and the statuary 
 who executes a monument lik(! this, deserve a con- 
 siderable sliarc of praisi,-; they evince true talent; 
 and, even though the wr)rlimaiiship were as rude iis 
 here it is positively masterly, it were still jjrefer- 
 able, to the more elaiiorati; intent of many other 
 performances, which are meant to excite the name 
 
 feelings by more artificial means. The effect which 
 to be understood must be studied, will upon that 
 ground alone lose half the number of its admirers. 
 The remains of General Wolfe were buried at Green- 
 wich : in the Abbey the inscription is simply con- 
 fined to the following words : — 
 
 "To the memory of James Wolfe, major-general 
 and commander-in-chief of the British land forces, 
 on an expedition against Quebec, who, after sur- 
 mounting by ability and valour all obstacles of ai't 
 and nature, was slain in the moment of victory, on 
 the 13th of Septembei', 1759: — 
 
 " The King and Parliament of Great Britain 
 "dedicate this Monument." 
 
 James, the son of Lieutenant-general Edward 
 Wolfe, was born at Westerliam, in Kent, during the 
 year 17-2(». The i)rofession of his tather deciding 
 his own, he entered the army at an early age, and 
 attracted favourable notice by his spirited conduct 
 at the battle of Lafelte, before he had reached his 
 twentieth year. The next scene in which he ac- 
 quired jiersonal distinction, was the battle-field of 
 Minden, after which he servinl with credit at the 
 reduction of Louisburg, by General I'epperell and 
 Sir Peter Warren. But his reputation as yet was 
 by no means ])ublic: he passed through the various 
 degrees of the service with a character respected 
 by his superiors, and appreciated by his comrades; 
 still his talents were hardly known beyond the 
 military circles, an<l his genius and enthusiastic 
 bravery might have lain concealed for yeais imder 
 the cover of native modesty, had not the great 
 Chatham penetrated their force, and singled him 
 out for the cnterprizc which has immortalized liis 
 name. 
 
 Immediately preceding this a]i]iointment, the 
 peace of Aix-la-(1iai>ell<> seemed to have fixed the 
 traiKjuillity of the world u})on a firm biusis; the
 
 162 
 
 WESTMINSTER ABBEY. 
 
 contracting powei's were sti'ong in their declara- 
 tions of sincerity, and their subjects might well be 
 supposed to be firmly attached to peace by a deep 
 sense of the benefits it pi-omised to confer upon them. 
 But political professions and national feelings are not 
 always regulated by the ties of interest or honour; 
 and, perhaps, in proportion as the terms in which 
 they are couched are warm, they ought genei-ally to 
 be suspected hollow in intention. Many pages of 
 history confirm the justness of this observation; 
 and if more particular evidence were i-equired to 
 support it, the circumstances of the peace just men- 
 tioned would suffice. No compact could have been 
 more solemnly entered upon and coi-dially cemented 
 than it was, and yet no sooner had the articles been 
 signed, than some of its pi'incipal conditions were 
 violated, and the British possessions in North 
 America most flagrantly invaded by our old rivals, 
 the French. 
 
 Vigorous preparations were accordingly made to 
 resent the injury. Two fleets sailed from Spithead 
 in February, 1759, under the flag of Vice-admiral 
 Saunders, on board of which General Wolfe took 
 his passage to assume the command of a British 
 force destined to reduce Quebec, in North America. 
 Arrived at his point of destination, one determined 
 attack upon the French posts was resolved on, and 
 General Amherst with 12.000 men, after reducing 
 Ticonderago and Crown Point, was to proceed along 
 the river Sorrel, and form a junction with General 
 Wolfe, while General Prideaux and Sir William 
 Johnson performed a similar service against the 
 forts along the falls of Niagara. These different 
 positions being fortified with remarkable strength, 
 both by nature and art, were extremely difficult of 
 access; but such was the skill and force with which 
 the operations were conducted, that Niagara was 
 gallantly captured, while Ticonderago and Ci-own 
 Point were evacuated upon our approach. There 
 now remained the capital of Canada to add to this 
 series of conquests: the march of our victorious 
 detachments were accordingly directed towards 
 this object. 
 
 Quebec is an extensive and elegant town, elevated 
 upon a rock one hundred and twenty leagues from 
 the sea, where the confluence of the rivers St. 
 Charles and St. Lawrence takes place. Few posi- 
 tions could be more foi-midable, and no intrench- 
 ments better sunk, or more numerously defended, 
 than those by which it was then protected. When 
 Wolfe first beheld the local strength of the town, 
 the adverse nature of the country, and the number 
 and excellent disposition of the enemy, though of 
 a high and chivalrous temper, he is reported to 
 have thought the place impregnable, and to have 
 despaired of success. No laboui', no vigilance, no 
 talent, however, were spared to overcome the difficul- 
 ties by which he was opposed ; he employed himself 
 by night and by day, in preparing for an effectual 
 assault ; he erected batteries upon Orleans and 
 Levi Points, by which his guns commanded the 
 town, aVjove which he stationed Admiral Holmes, 
 and Admiral Saunders below. Meanwhile, by 
 various strategic movements, by marches and coun- 
 ter-marches, he studied to seduce the French com- 
 mander, Montcalm, from his security, but in vam: 
 strong in the conviction of his advantage, he was 
 not to be lured to change his position. 
 
 The fatigue and anxiety attendant upon these 
 arduous duties already began to work upon a con- 
 
 stitution naturally delicate; disappointment turned 
 into disease, and the English general was laid up 
 with illness. When only pai-tially recovered, he 
 forwarded home despatches, in which he minutely 
 i-elated the progress of the siege, and the preca- 
 riousness of his situation; and though the languor 
 of indisposition tinged the account with despon- 
 dency, still the vigour of the detail gave as strong 
 an assurance of the ability he had exercised, as the 
 elegance of the language proved his talents as a 
 writer and a scholar. This duty performed, he 
 resolved to persevere, and by directing some move- 
 ments up the river, under Admiral Holmes, suc- 
 ceeded in detaching one thousand five hundred of 
 the enemy from the town, in order to watch the 
 result. This first diversion effected, he ordered a 
 feint to be made by one part of the fleet upon the 
 intrenchmcnts below the town, while he sailed up 
 the river himself with the greatest part of his 
 army*. Thei-e he quickly shifted his men into 
 boats, and, aided by the return of the tide, dropped 
 down again with a rapidity that exceeded his ex- 
 pectation, and outmatched the vigour of his ad- 
 versary. The ships followed to cover his landing, 
 but the current unfortunately swept them away 
 from the proposed point of anchoi-age. Still they 
 did reach the shore, and Wolfe determined to 
 brave the issue, and scale the steep ascent above 
 them. No sooner were the orders given, than the 
 infantry nobly swung themselves upwards by cling- 
 ing to the stumps of trees and broken rocks; dis- 
 lodged the sentinels that guarded the only pathway 
 on the hill, and before the dawn had cleared, 
 formed themselves in battle array upon the top of 
 the eminence. 
 
 When the news of this desperate attack was con- 
 veyed to the French commander, he would scarcely 
 credit the report, and when convinced of its reality, 
 was content to regard it as one of those indecisive 
 feints in which Wolfe had so often indulged. But 
 he was soon undeceived ; for, advancing to observe 
 the movement, he beheld with astonishment that 
 both the fleet and army perfectly commanded the 
 town above and below, and that nothing but the 
 most decisive courage could save him from ruin. 
 He led forth his troops with promptitude, and after 
 a disposition of the forces, distinguished on both 
 sides by superior generalship and valour, the battle 
 began. Wolfe's principal direction to his men was, 
 to reserve their fire until they came close to the 
 enemy ; they obeyed, and the consequent destruc- 
 tion was awful. Foremost himself in the onset, he 
 received a bullet-wound in the head ; but disre- 
 gai'ding the injury, he bound a handkerchief over 
 his brow, and led on a fresh attack. Another and 
 deeper wound pierced his stomach, which he also 
 concealed, and was still enthusiastic in encourage- 
 
 * Professor Robison, of Edinburgh, then employed as an 
 engineer in the army under General Wolfe, happened to be 
 on duty in the boat in which the General went to visit some 
 of his posts the night before the battle, which was expected 
 to be decisive of the fate of the campaign. The evening 
 was fine, and the scene, considering the work they were 
 engaged in, sufficiently impressive. As they rowed along, 
 the General, with much feeling, repeated nearly the whole 
 of Gray's Elegy (which had appeared a few years before, and 
 was not generally known) to an officer who sat with him in 
 the stern of the boat, adding, as he concluded, that he 
 would prefer being the author of that poem to the glory of 
 beating the French next day.
 
 PULTENEY, EARL OF BATH. 
 
 163 
 
 ment and example, when a third bullet penetrated 
 his breast, and he was conveyed exhausted from 
 the midst of slaughter. But the victory was already 
 decided ; and though the detachment which had 
 been ordered up the river now returned fresh and 
 uninjured into action, still the main body of the 
 enemy was routed, and their reinforcement quickly 
 shared a similar fate. 
 
 Removed behind the ranks, and only attended 
 by a private and an officer, Wolfe, though he lay 
 struggling with agony, seemed to feel but one care, 
 and that regarded the fortune of the battle. He 
 entreated the orderly to lift him up, and enable 
 him to enjoy a view of the contest, but death 
 already dimmed his eyes, and he was forced to 
 confess that all was clouded and indistinct to his 
 sight. He then emphatically requested the officer 
 who stood by him to give him an account of what 
 passed, and was thus told that the enemy appeared 
 greatly broken. This information did not much 
 quiet him, and he rei)eated his enquiries, until he 
 was told that they were decidedly ix)uted. This 
 news seemed to give him ease, but he reiterated 
 his questions until he was promptly assured that 
 
 they fled in all directions ; whereupon he faintly 
 exclaimed, " I am satisfied," and instantly exi>ired. 
 Such was the death of Wolfe, grievous to' his coun- 
 try, but glorious to himself ; and though the vic- 
 tory he perished to gaiu was dearly desirable, still 
 the loss by which it was purchased was for a lon<r 
 time lamented as irrejiarable. His military repu° 
 tation amongst his countrymen was marked in its 
 progress by singular merit. Unaided by the patron- 
 age of family interest, the intrigues of party, or 
 the spirit of faction, he had risen to the fii-st 
 honours of his profession, without experiencing the 
 weakness of age, or the inconstancy of fortune, and 
 now fell in the arms of victory at the premature 
 age of five-and thirty. Few men have been more 
 warmly admired, or more bitterly regretted ; the 
 public mind was deeply agitated upon tlie occasion, 
 and though the victory was hailed with pride, the 
 death of the victor spread a gloom over its bright- 
 ness, which has hardly ceased to be felt at the pre- 
 sent day. England has had but few military heroes, 
 and seems to have felt, that in Wolfe she prema- 
 turely lost a most accomplished one. 
 
 PULTENEY, EARL OF BATH. 
 
 Wilton is the sculptor of the monument in the 
 north-east area, to Rulteney, Earl of Bath. The 
 execution of this work is much better than the de- 
 sign, which presents us with statues of Wisdom 
 and Poetry, with a large urn placed between them, 
 above which is a medallion of the deceased. The 
 inscription merely gives the date of his death, and 
 states that the monument was erected by his 
 brothel', the JIajor General. 
 
 William Pulteney, Earl of Bath, an orator and 
 statesman of considerable note at one period of his 
 life, was born in l(j82. His family was from Pul- 
 teney in Leicestershire, where they had long held 
 a good estate. His grandfather, Sir William Pul- 
 teney, represented Westminster in Parliament, and 
 made himself conspicuous in the House of Commons 
 by his independent conduct and manly eloquence. 
 His grandson, the earl, was educated at West- 
 minster School, and Christ Church College, Oxford, 
 and distinguished himself at both places by his 
 assiduity and talent. Queen Ainie visited the col- 
 lege while he was a student, and he had th(! honour 
 of being selected to address her in a congratulatory 
 siieech. After making the tour of Europe, as was 
 the fashion at that period with young men of good 
 family and prosjiects, he was introduced to the 
 House of Commons as memher for the borough of 
 Heydon, in Yorkshire, \>y Mi-. Cuy, a liberal 
 [jatrou, who Ijequeathed him 4(>,()()()^ and an estate 
 of 500/. a year. 
 
 Being a Whig Ijy family and education, he be- 
 came a steady and influential o])ponent of the Tory 
 administration by which the country was governed 
 during the reign of (iuecn Anm-, and evinced in 
 his addresses to tin.' House, a <lcgree of tact and 
 judgment highly cr<;dital)l<! to his years. It was 
 a rul(; with hini to speak seldom and with lircvity ; 
 to accustom himself to the house, to form a habit 
 
 of expressing such feelings and opinions as the pro- 
 gress of debate suggested to his mind ; and thus 
 gradually to accomplish himself as an orator. By 
 thi.s course of observation and practice he consi- 
 dered the most effective speaker was to be trained; 
 for thus the tone, tenor, and application of his ob- 
 servations must be always immediately derived 
 from the debate itself, and not from preconceived 
 ideas of what would be pertment and judicious on 
 the occasion. 
 
 Upon the accession of Gieorge I. he was made a 
 Privy Councillor and Secretary at War, support- 
 ing the administration of Sir R. Walpole with 
 marked zeal and ehjquence. A quarrel with that 
 statesman, however, threw him into the raidvs of 
 the opposition, of which he soon became the leader, 
 aiul in that popular station acquired considerable 
 reputation, lie was associated with Bolingbroke in 
 writing for the celebrated anti-ministerial jonrnid, 
 the " Craftsman," and >ipon fighting a bloodless 
 duel with Lord Hervey, was removed from the 
 Privy Council and the connnission of the peace ; a 
 mean attempt at degradation which defeated its 
 own aim, and rai.sed the object of it still higher in 
 pulilic favour. At length, however, Walpole was 
 obliged to resign, and Pulteney and his i)arty suc- 
 ceeded liini. At this moment, and for some time 
 before, the " Pati-iot Pulteney" was the name by 
 which he was always i)0|inlarly called. He now 
 became a peer, and sunk into the op]iosite extreme 
 of insignificance and contempt. The high prinei|)les 
 and the liberal policy lie and his friends ha<l advo- 
 cated with so nmcli ehxiuence for years together, 
 were suddenly thrown aside ; the patriot proved 
 himself an hypocrilieal partisan, and woidd have 
 been utterly forgcitten, but that ht? made himself 
 noted in his latter days liy bis love of money, and 
 the large possessions he accumulated.
 
 164 
 
 WESTMINSTER ABBEY. 
 
 MRS. GIBBER. 
 
 Formed for the tragic scene, to grace the stage 
 With rival excellence of grief and rage; 
 Mistress of each soft art, with matchless skill 
 To turn and wind the passions as she will ; 
 To melt the heart with sympathetic woe, 
 Awake the sigh, and teach the tear to flow ; 
 To put on frenzy's wild distracted glare. 
 And freeze the soul with horror and despair ; 
 With just desert enrolled in endless fame. 
 Conscious of worth superior Cibher came." 
 
 Churchill. 
 
 These lines are part of the warm and well-merited 
 eulogy passed by Churchill in the Roseiad upon 
 Susanna Maria Gibber, who was born about the 
 year I7I6. Her father, an upholsterer in Covent 
 Garden, had the honour of being talien for the 
 prototype of Addison's character of the Politician, 
 in Nos. 155 and 160 of the "Guardian." Dr. 
 Arne, the composer, was her brother ; and as she 
 evinced in her earliest days a strong talent for 
 music, he instructed her in that art. In due time 
 she made her appearance as an opera singer on the 
 stage of the little theatre in the Haymarket. Her 
 tones were sweet, her figure graceful, and her 
 action and execution judicious and clear ; she 
 therefore met with a flattering reception, and soon 
 ranked amongst the favourites of the company. 
 
 At this time the performances at the Haymarket 
 were represented by a body of revolted actors from 
 Drury Lane, under the directicm of Theophilus, 
 the profligate son of Colley Gibber, the comedian. 
 Theophilus had scarcely been left one year a 
 widower, with two infant daughters, when he 
 offered his hand to Miss Arne, with a sentimental 
 declaration, that her amiable manners and virtuous 
 disposition made her irresistible. Notwithstand- 
 ing this compliment, it is most likely that the ad- 
 vantages to be derived from her promising talents 
 were the principal inducements to an union, which 
 unfortunately was neither cemented by tender- 
 ness nor virtue. Be this as it may, Mrs. Gibber 
 was no sooner married, in 1734, than she was ex- 
 horted by her father-in-law to abandon singing, 
 and attempt the more arduous walk of tragedy. 
 The result showed how correct was the discern- 
 ment that prompted this advice. After being care- 
 fully tutored for the change, both by her father-in- 
 law and the author, she came out in 1736 as Zara 
 in Aaron Hill's tragedy of the same name, and 
 succeeded at a first trial. Repeated efforts at- 
 tracted increased applause, and she was speedily 
 elevated into the first rank of her profession. The 
 advantages acquired by her public career were ere 
 long forfeited by an incident in her private life. 
 Her husband's extravagance forced him to fly 
 from his creditors into France, and during his 
 absence she ci infracted an intimacy with a young 
 gentleman of fortune, named Sloper, respecting 
 which scandal hastened to speak with so loud a 
 voice, that Theojihilus returned from his voluntary 
 exile, and in 1738 claimed the satisfaction due to 
 injured honour in a court of justice. He laid his 
 damages at 5000/. ; but a case of connivance, or 
 rather of direct instrumentality upon his side was 
 
 set up against him, which it would seem the jury 
 must have believed, for they returned a vei'dict for 
 no more than 10/. 
 
 An immediate separation took place between the 
 parties, and the husband and wife lived no more 
 together. He was thrown into the King's Bench 
 prison, and after his liberation became so odious to 
 the public, as not to be tolerated on the stage ; so 
 that he dragged on a miserable existence of poverty 
 and perplexity until the year 1758 ; when, taking a 
 voyage to Ireland for the purpose of assisting 
 Sheridan in an opposition theatre at Dublin, the 
 ship in which he sailed was wrecked, and every 
 passenger drowned. She remained in prudent 
 seclusion until the notoriety of the affair subsided, 
 and her impropi-iety became merged in his greater 
 infamy. She then obtained an engagement at 
 Drury Lane, and for a series of twenty yeare filled 
 a station of almost unrivalled excellence. Her 
 sphere was parallel with that of Gan-ick : she per- 
 sonated the heroines of his heroes, and was con- 
 sidered peculiarly qualified to illustrate the style 
 of acting for which he was admired. She moved 
 with equal happiness of effect, either as the gentle 
 Celia, the indignant Hermione, the natural Juliet, 
 or the disappointed Alicia. In " King John " she 
 almost made Lady Constance the principal cha- 
 racter of the piece, and excited in it an interest 
 which even Garrick could not eclipse. According 
 to Victor, in his " History of the Stage," her looks, 
 tones, and action were matchless, in the scene, 
 where having lost her pretty Arthur, she flings 
 off all comforters, and cries : — 
 
 " Here I and sorrow sit; this is my throne! 
 Let kings come bow to it." 
 
 Davies, who was a qualified critic, gives an ela- 
 borate description of her person and powers in his 
 " Life of Garrick." From him, accordingly, we 
 leai-n, that her greatest merit lay in that simplicity 
 which needed no ornament, and in that sensibility 
 which despised all art. There was in her figure 
 little or no elegance, in her face only a small share 
 of beauty ; but nature had given her such sym- 
 metry of form, and fine expression of feature, that 
 she preserved every appearance of youth long after 
 she had attained middle life. The melody of her 
 voice was as powerful as the animation of her 
 countenance. In grief and tendei'ness her eyes 
 looked as if they swam in tears ; in rage and de- 
 spair they appeared to dart fla.shes of fire. In 
 spite of the mediocrity of her stature, she main- 
 tained dignity and grace in her action, and
 
 THOMAS GRAY. 
 
 IGo 
 
 was esteemed almost inimitable in her profes- 
 sion. 
 
 It is still more grateful to liave to add, that 
 under these circumstances of popular fortune, Mrs. 
 Cibber conducted hei-self ^Yith a propriety which, 
 in a great degree, atoned for the illicit connexion 
 already mentioned. In maturer years she suc- 
 ceeded in obtaining the friendship of many per- 
 sons not only of high rank, but of exemplary life. 
 Her aptitude for conversation was quick and 
 shining ; and she always possessed an air of natural 
 modesty, which made her a most engaging com- 
 panion. It was in this condition that she began to 
 feel the encroachments of that disorder which ter- 
 minated her life ; and its severity reluctantly com- 
 pelled her to lessen the frequency of her public 
 appearances. Still, however, she availed herself 
 of every interval of health to preserve her reputa- 
 tion undiminished, and even made it her favourite 
 exertion to enlarge her pretensions by taking some 
 parts in comedy. To this labour she was, in all 
 probability, incited by the ease with which both 
 Garrick and her rival, Mrs. Pritchard, alternately 
 assumed both the sock and buskin ; but she was by 
 no means equally successful in them. Churchill, 
 whose praise of her abilities in tragedy heads this 
 article, is comparatively as severe upon her efforts 
 in comedy, which he unhesitatingly ascribes to 
 mistaken vanity, and ill- directed emulation. 
 
 Whatever profession we adopt, or whatever 
 duties we midertake to perform in life, a spii-it and 
 zeal, even unto death, for the character of our 
 engagements can never fail to add to their respecta- 
 bility and our own reputation. The expiring patri- 
 otism of Chatham in the House of Lords is brilliant 
 and exemjjlary, as the fall of Nelson at sea, or of 
 Abercrombie on land ; and a corresponding feeling 
 of interest and regret is pi'oduced in finding the death 
 of Betterton or of Booth hastened by the devoted 
 passion with which they adhered to the stage, even 
 when exhausted nature had incapacitated tiiem for 
 activity. To some share of the pi-aise which has 
 very properly been lavished upon this enthusiasm, 
 Mrs. Cibber has also honourably been admitted. 
 
 Her health had been for a considerable time so 
 precarious, and the relapses of extreme suflering 
 so frequent, that she was in a manner lost to the 
 stage, and repeatedly ranked by the newspai)ers 
 amongst the dead for months before her demise 
 really took place. In December, l/Go, the kin" 
 commanded the comedy of the " Provoked Wife " 
 to be performed at the theatre in Drury Lane, and 
 she insisted upon representing Lady Brute, a cha- 
 racter for which she had always manifested the 
 greatest partiality ; yet at this conjuncture she was 
 critically indisposed ; the doctors were flattering 
 her with hopes of a recovery, and her friends were 
 most imjjortunate that she should by no means 
 hazard so desirable a consequence ; but to use her 
 own words, nothing could prevent her from paying 
 her duty before theu' majesties: she acted the 
 part ; her disorder returned with greater fiu-ce, 
 and she expii'ed on the 30th of January, l/GO'. 
 The conjoint influence of her merits and her 
 friends, suggested the distinction of an interment 
 in the cloisters of Westminster Abbey, and the 
 ceremony was honoui'ably perfonned, and respect- 
 ably attended. 
 
 Mrs. Cibber is also to be considered as an 
 authoress: she produced a pi'ctty little comedy, in 
 one act, from the French of St. Foix, entitled the 
 " Oracle ;" which was acted with success, and 
 printed in 8vo. during the year 1752. When word 
 of her death was brought to the green-room in 
 Drury Lane, Garrick pronounced the following 
 theatrical address to the com))any present : — 
 " Cibber dead ! Then tragedy expired with her ; 
 and yet she was the greatest female plague belong- 
 ing to my house. I could easily parry the artless 
 tlu'usts, and despise the coarse attacks of some of 
 my other hei-oines ; but wliatever was Cibber's 
 object, whether a new part or a new dress, she 
 was always sure to carry her point by the acute- 
 ness of her invective, and the steadiness of her 
 perseverance." In this case she nmst have been, 
 in point of address, as good a match for that dex- 
 terous manager behind the curtain, as slie was an 
 able assistant before the scenes. 
 
 THOMAS GRAY. 
 
 Under the monument of Milton, in tlie Poet's Cor- 
 ner of Westminster Abbey, is a large marble tablet, 
 in honour of Gray, by Bacon, R.A. It represents, 
 in relief, the Lyric Muse, holding a medallion 
 of the poet. The situation is low and unfavour- 
 able, and seems to have been meanly chosen to 
 illustrate the ej)itaph ; while neither the design nor 
 tiie performance are in any degree as happy as 
 some othiTs by the same hand. The lines in- 
 scribed are these : — 
 
 No mon; the Grecian Muse niirivall'd reigns: 
 To Britain let tin; nations lioniage pay; 
 
 She felt a Homer's fin; in Milton's strains, 
 A Pindar's rapture in the lyre of Gray. 
 
 Tiionias Gray was the son of a money-scrivener 
 on Cornhill, where lie wiis born Novinilicr 2f>, 
 17H'. He was from liis earliest years delicate in 
 
 health, and brought up in a cheerless and unhapjiy 
 home ; circumstances which are tiioiiglit to have 
 im])ressed ujjon his mind the mi?lancholy, and love 
 of retirement, which accom])anied him through life. 
 His father, a harsh nuui, at one |>eriod dcsiried 
 his wife, and left her to provid(! fV)r their .son, and 
 maintain herself, without any assistance from him. 
 His mother's lirother, named Antrobus, was an 
 assistant to tlu^ head-master at I'^ton, a circum- 
 stance which facilitated the young poet's entrance 
 to that school. There he formed the intimacies 
 with Horace Walpole and the jioet West, which, 
 with his subsecjuent friendshij) f(jr Mason, iiave 
 l)een so much dwtdt on in his biography and lettei"s. 
 In I7'M he became a pensioner at Pelerliouse Col- 
 lege, Cambridge, and tlii're gave early jii'ooi's of a 
 superior taste and proficiency in letters. With lli<' 
 mode of life and system of study, however, at this 
 
 N
 
 166 
 
 WESTJVIINSTER ABBEY. 
 
 university, he ajways declared himself dissatisfied. 
 His fellow-students, on account of the delicacy of 
 his complexion and manners, used to call him Miss 
 Gray. He took no degree, but came back to Lon- 
 don in 1738, and inscribed his name as a student- 
 at-law of the Inner Temple. 
 
 The friendship of Walpole diverted him from 
 persevering in this profession, by proposing a tour 
 on the Continent ; and they wandered together 
 over France and Italy. At Florence, however, some 
 disagreement arose, and they suddenly parted in 
 displeasure. Of this quarrel the cause has never 
 been explamed, and nothing more is known than 
 that Walpole afterwards confessed the fault of it 
 lay on his side. Gray remained abroad for some 
 time longer, ti-avelling with such privacy as be- 
 came his little fortmie, while his late companion 
 extended his route with all the facility and pomp 
 of aristocratic abundance. 
 
 There is pei'haps no name to be mentioned which 
 affords so decided a proof of the barrenness of 
 literary biography as does that of Gray. One sen- 
 tence would be almost comprehensive enough to 
 contain the few changes and events which occurred 
 during the rest of his life : — he dwelt in London, in 
 Cambridge, and made two excursions to the North 
 of England ; and one epithet would suffice to cha- 
 racterise it — it was studious ; while another sen- 
 tence would be long enough for the enumeration of 
 his writings — eleven odes, one elegy, and a hun- 
 dred or two miscellaneous couplets ; — and another 
 epithet would answer to describe them — they are 
 beautiful. But such brevity would make the bio- 
 grapher appear fastidious and his subject incon- 
 siderable : to be just it is necessary to be more 
 particular. Upon liis return from the Continent 
 in 1741, he buried his father, and found the inde- 
 pendence left him much smaller than he had ex- 
 pected it would prove. Disappointed in one respect, 
 he resolved not to expose himself to further cliagrin 
 by throwing himself upon the uncertamties of a 
 profession, and therefore, abandoning the law, re- 
 tired to Cambridge. There he took the degree of 
 Bachelor of Civd Law, and devoted himself, with 
 the exception of a long visit to London, to mental 
 improvement and enjoyment for the remainder of 
 his days. 
 
 In the year 1742 he seems to have turned his 
 thoughts most seriously to poetry, for during the 
 course of it he ^vrote his " Ode to Spring," which 
 was followed by those on the " Prospect of Eton," 
 and " To Adversity." He went through an ex- 
 tensive course of classical reading, was fruitful in 
 plans, but utterly destitute of the perseverance and 
 energy required to fulfil them. 
 
 The next occurrence amidst the placid flow of 
 his time which awakened any particular interest in 
 the bosom of Gray, or led to any excitement, was 
 the arrival of Mason, the poet, at Cambridge. 
 From acquaintances they soon became intimates, 
 and this friendship procm-ed us the first good 
 edition of our author's works, and an interesting, 
 though imperfect, account of his mind and studies. 
 In this retirement Gi'ay continued studying deeply, 
 for no other end than his own satisfaction ; and 
 enlarging his views, for no other object than the 
 pleasure he derived from their expansion. In 
 1747 he meditated a poem on " Government and 
 Education," and began, but had not the resolution 
 to finish it. This has often been a matter of un- 
 
 feigned regret ; as, from the many excellent lines 
 in the fragments we have of it, there can be little 
 doubt but that it would have been as excellent as 
 the subject is important. In 1750 he completed his 
 far-famed " Elegy in a Country Church-yard," 
 which, after having been surreptitiously printed 
 in a magazine, was formally published by Dodsley. 
 The author was immediately com-ted as a poet of 
 the highest feeling and capacity. There was no 
 voice raised agamst his popularity ; for then, as 
 ever since, the elegy found a mirror for every 
 image it presented, and an echo for every sen- 
 timent it revealed in the heart of each reader. 
 This is the admission of, to him, the invetei'ate 
 Dr. Johnson, by whom we are also assured, that 
 it presents a succession of thoughts so natm-al, 
 and expressions so congenial, that, though strictly 
 original in themselves, we fancy they have been 
 familiar to us from infancy. Now this is the 
 highest attainment of accomplished genius, and 
 there remains nothing more for the critic than to 
 reiterate the praises of a poem upon which it wei*e 
 vanity to expatiate in detail. 
 
 In 1753 Dodsley, the booksellei-, collected his 
 fugitive pieces together, and published them with 
 plates, by Bentley; but so scanty were the con- 
 tents, that in order to swell out something like a 
 book, he was obliged to print only on one side of 
 every page. Nevertheless, the public appears not 
 to have been discontented either with the poetry or 
 the engravings, for the impression was bought up 
 with great avidity. In 1757 he again came for- 
 ward with a frugal offering to his admirers, by 
 publishing his odes, entitled, " The Progress of 
 Poesy," and " The I3ard." They were read with 
 eagerness and sui'prise, but not with undivided 
 mtei'est. There were critics who affected not to 
 understand the lofty style in which they were ima- 
 gined and expressed, and who were vain enough to 
 think their success could be marred by ridicule : 
 two burlesque imitations by Lloyd and Colmau 
 were produced, under the heads of " Odes on Ob- 
 livion " and " Obscurity." But the opposition, 
 though clamorous for a while, proved ineffectual ; 
 the mock heroics soon fell into the obscm'ity, and 
 were forgotten in the oblivion, which they aspired 
 to celebrate. 
 
 Gray was now at the height of his fame. Taking 
 up his residence for three years near the British 
 Museum, he employed himself in reading and tran- 
 scribing. While thus engaged, Cibber, the Poet 
 Laureate, died, and he had the honour of refusing 
 to fill the vacant place. He returned to Cam- 
 bridge and settled himself at Pembroke Hall ; but 
 his constitution, naturally weak, was so shattered 
 by confinement, that a change of place and variety 
 of exercise were strongly recommended : he there- 
 fore undertook a journey into Scotland during tlie 
 summer of 1 765. There he met with Dr. Beattie, 
 one modest like himself, as well as a poet, and a 
 correct scholar : men so much alike in point of 
 habits, tastes, and dispositions, naturally became 
 friends. The University of Aberdeen offered him 
 the degree of Doctor of Laws, but having formerly 
 declined that honour at Cambridge, he thought 
 himself obliged to refuse it here. 
 
 Returning once more to Cambridge, he was ap- 
 pomted Professor of History by the Duke of Graf- 
 ton. As this was a situation which he had for- 
 merly solicited in vain from the Earl of Bute, he
 
 THOMAS GRAY. 
 
 1G7 
 
 was of course much gratified to receive it now 
 uuasked. He proceeded to lay down many plans 
 for a course of lectures ; but, witli his usual diffi- 
 culty of execution, neither composed nor delivered 
 any. The badness of his health made another jour- 
 ney necessary in 1769, and he visited the Lakes of 
 Cumberland and Westmorland. This was his last 
 excui"sion, for it was no sooner concluded than his 
 strength rapidly fell away. The gout, to which his 
 frame had long offered but a fauit resistance, set- 
 tled itself upon him with a fierceness which soon 
 laid hold of his stomach, and killed him in convul- 
 sions July 30, 1771. 
 
 Since his death three editions of his poems and 
 letters have been published, with accounts of his 
 life and character ; the first by his friend Mason, 
 the second and better by JMathias ; the third, the 
 only complete one, and the best, by the Rev. J. M it- 
 ford. The claims which his memory has on public 
 regard have been admirably refreshed by these 
 performances. His letters are models of interest- 
 ing and elegant composition, which no one can 
 read without wishing that to travel and to relate his 
 travels had oftener been the fortune of his cu-cum- 
 stances, and the inclination of his mind. Gray 
 was, perhaps, the most finished scholar of his day ; 
 he was not only profoimdly read in ancient and 
 modern literature, but deeply versed in history 
 and metaphysics ; and what was a still greater 
 merit, was at once an able and tasteful critic in 
 every branch of learning. He also wrote Latin with 
 great purity and nerve. His life, otherwise highly 
 commendable and exemplary, was an unbroken 
 course of moderate independence. It has been 
 objected that he was fastidious and effeminate ; 
 but if he lived chiefly for himself, it was always in 
 the pursuit of knowledge and the practice of virtue. 
 Though a poor man, he was not covetous ; out of 
 the little he possessed he was always willing and 
 glad to relieve the needy ; and of the money he 
 had saved he made judicious bequests. 
 
 As an author he had some peculiarities. He not 
 only wrote very slowly, but never began one line 
 before he had polished the preceding one perfectly 
 to his judgment. There was no rough copy, or 
 uiifinislied couplets to be seen on his papers ; all 
 with him was patient labour, and sure success. 
 Milton is reported to have had a conviction that 
 he composed with greatest fluency at particular 
 periods — such as the rise of the moon, day-break, 
 and the fall of eve ; but Gray carried the notion 
 to a greater excess, and imagined he could only 
 write when a fit or happy impulse seized him. 
 This fancy has been ridiculed as false and foppish, 
 but is, notwithstanding, likely enough to occur. 
 A man of inactive habits and continual study, such 
 a.s Gray was, occupies his mind for amusement, 
 and is in a manner led by the very sameness of 
 his lucubrations, to indulge in conceits and atl'ecta- 
 tion. Besides, all monotonous and sedentary jjui'- 
 suits have an irresistible tendency to (Migcnder low- 
 ness of spirits. 1 f the scholar's feelings are sensitive, 
 his mind is easily depressed; and if at all a moralizer 
 upon the pri'cariousness of hi'altli, the instaljilily 
 of fortune, or the uncertainty of life, his ambition 
 may be <|uickly damped, and he may not unnatu- 
 rally resign all ideas of distinction as so many 
 empty vanities. While thus overcome, ho may 
 think of great things hu has planned, but tliu 
 
 thought will be accompanied with a sense of weight 
 which he may easily suppose too heavy to bo 
 shaken off, because circumstances have never 
 forced him to try the experiment. As habit be- 
 comes nature, so this disposition may grow con- 
 firmed, until at last the muid will be loth to throw 
 off" the mastery that has been obtained over the 
 man, and permit itself to be roused or diverted. 
 
 A recent critic has well described Gray in the 
 following passage : — 
 
 " Lowly and melancholy by temperament and 
 from the circumstances of his early life. Gray de- 
 rived from study and meditation the strength and 
 cheerfulness that sterner spirits find in emulation 
 and action. He chose learning for his portion, and 
 with her came, in time, honour and reverence, and 
 the rare destiny of a perpetual name. In the 
 University, which necessity rather than choice 
 made his home, from a recluse student, slighted 
 for his diffident, perhaps his fastidious manners 
 and disposition, the object of rude jests and malig- 
 nant interpretations, he became the most distin- 
 guished resident, pointed toby the finger of popular 
 homage, and courted and esteemed by the illus- 
 trious and worthy. In the latter part of his life, 
 when it was known that Gray was in the college- 
 walks — it is said he preferred those of Queen's 
 — the halls, the lecture-rooms, and courts were 
 emptied of their inmates, who hurried to observe 
 at a respectful distance the author of the ' Elegy ' 
 and the ' Bard,' the self-supported philosopher of 
 cloistered life. His was not an aggressive or ob- 
 trusive melancholy ; he used not a personated 
 misanthropy to gain the barren recompense of 
 wonder, or of diseased sjTnpathy for selfish sin- 
 gularity ; but a modest sorrow, and an innate 
 shrinking from all ruder collision with healthier 
 or happier men. Books were to him a substantial 
 world, travelling and external nature his recrea- 
 tions. No man of that time had such command of 
 the materials of poetry ; none, in an age of acute 
 but dry speculation, attained to a more compre- 
 hensive or healthy philosophy. At a later period 
 the current of his soul might have flowed more 
 freely, and his feelings have been responded to by 
 spirits better aware than his contemporaries of 
 what was darkly at work within him. At an earlier 
 one he might have conferred with Spenser and 
 Sidney, or found his way to competence and fame 
 smoothed by tiie generous admiration of Essex or 
 Raleigh. In the eighteenth century his best gifts 
 were an unsunned trea-sure, his tastes prophetic, 
 and his intellectual life depressed by the ungcnial 
 atniosi)hero of an unimaginative age, material in 
 its pliiloso])hy, conventional in poetry, and drowsy 
 or indifl'erent towards art and nature. 
 
 " (iray's ' Letters ' were for the first time pub- 
 lished without change or mutilation by the Rev. 
 J. Mitford. His poetry is sometimes vitiis imi/a- 
 iik; his prose can mislead no one. It is the lan- 
 guage of a gentleman and a scholar, ' a ripe and 
 good one ;' of one who thought rightly, and felt, if 
 not always heartily, yet always without guile. To 
 no one can b(! more fitly applied the commenda- 
 tion of Archias, 'Cum ad naturam exiniiani ali|Ue 
 illustrem accesserit ratio <ju;edani c<informatioc|ue 
 doctriuje ; tum illud nescio (juid prujclarum ac sin- 
 guku'o aolere existei'c.' " 
 
 N 2
 
 168 
 
 WESTMINSTER ABBEY. 
 
 OLIVER GOLDSMITH, B.A. M.B. 
 
 High over the south door, in the Poets' Corner, is 
 an embellished medallion, by Nollekens, with a 
 bust in profile of the author whose name stands 
 prefixed to this sketch. So slight a tribute to his 
 memory is certainly a very inadequate testimony 
 of the variety or the greatness of his talents. The 
 bust, though unpleasing to contemplate, has been 
 praised for the fidelity of its resemblance to the 
 original ; and the Latin epitaph upon the tablet 
 under it, has been admired as the composition of 
 his friend Dr. Johnson. 
 
 Oliverii Goldsmith, 
 
 Poetse, Physici, Historici, 
 
 Qui nullum fere scribendi genus 
 
 Non tetigit. 
 
 Nullum quod tetigit non ornavit, 
 
 Sive risus essent movendi 
 
 Sive lacrymse ; 
 
 Affectuum potens et lenis Dominator : 
 
 Ingenio sublimis — vividus, versatilis, 
 
 Oratione grandis, nitidus, venustus, 
 
 Hoc monumento memoriam coluit 
 
 Sodalium Amor, 
 
 Amicorum Fides, 
 
 Lectorum Veneratio. 
 
 Natus in Hibernia Forneiae Longfordiensis, 
 
 In loco cui nomen Pallas, 
 
 Nov. XXIX. MDCCXXXI. 
 
 Eblanaj Uteris institutus, 
 
 Obiit Londini 
 
 April IV. MDCCLxxiv. 
 
 The Memory of 
 
 Oliver Goldsmith, 
 
 Poet, Philosopher, and Historian, 
 
 By whom scarcely any style of writing was left 
 
 untouched. 
 
 And no one touched, unadorned. 
 
 Whether to move laughter 
 
 Or tears ; 
 
 A powerful yet lenient master 
 
 Of the affections, 
 
 In genius sublime, vivid, and versatile, 
 
 In expression noble, brilliant, and delicate — 
 
 Is cherished in this monument 
 
 By the love of his companions. 
 
 The fidelity of his friends. 
 
 And the admiration of his readers. 
 
 Bom in the parish of Femes, in Longford, a county 
 
 of Ireland, 
 
 At a place named Pallas, 
 
 On the 29th November, 1731. 
 
 He was educated at Dublin, 
 
 And died in London, 
 On the 4th of April, 1774. 
 
 Oliver Goldsmith was the fifth of a family of eight 
 children. Soon after his birth, his father, the Rev. 
 Charles Goldsmith, removed to Lissoy, a village in 
 the neighbouring county of Westmeath, and within 
 the rectoi'y of Kilkenny West, to which living he had 
 been appointed. At Lissoy, the "sweet Auburn," 
 
 in " The Deserted Village," Oliver Goldsmith re- 
 ceived the rudiments of education from an old 
 woman, and Thomas Byrne, the village school- 
 master. His progress under these teachers was 
 far from satisfactory. He exhibited an unsettled 
 and eccentric turn of mind, and was considei-ed a 
 dull scholar. His father's intention at this time 
 was to make him a merchant. As his boyhood 
 advanced, however, he was sent to the diocesan 
 school of Elphin, in Roscommon, formerly super- 
 intended by his maternal grandfather, the Rev. 
 Oliver Jones, from whom his Christian name was 
 derived. Here he began to make rhymes and 
 show wit, and an effort was made to give him a 
 higher education. He was now only ten years old, 
 and had just had the small-pox, the traces of which 
 never altogether left his face. Dancing a horn- 
 pipe one da}', the musician, a boy who played the 
 fiddle, compared him to ugly j4isop ; on which 
 Oliver stopped, and recollecting that yEsop used to 
 have an attendant ape, utterly discomfited his as- 
 sailant by uttering the distich — 
 
 " Our herald hath proclaim'd this saying — 
 See ^sop dancing, and his monkey playing !" 
 
 Fx'om Elphin Oliver was sent to a school of re- 
 pute at Athlone, and subsequently to another 
 (conducted by Mr. Hughes) at Edgeworthstown. 
 Returning once from vacation at Lissoy to Edge- 
 worthstown, a cu'cumstance is said to have taken 
 place, which afterwards supplied the plot for " She 
 Stoops to Conquer." In passuig through a village 
 Oliver asked for an inn, and a wag directed him to 
 an adjoinmg house, which he had no sooner entered, 
 than he called lustily for supper, invited tlie land- 
 lord and family to join him, and otherwise "took 
 his ease in his inn." In the morning, he discovered 
 himself to be in a priratc house, and that the mas- 
 ter had seen his mistake, and, being a friend of his 
 father, humoured it. 
 
 In June, 1745, he was admitted a sizer of Trmity 
 College, Dublin. This class, who are always youths 
 in humble circumstances, in Goldsmith's time had 
 to carry up the Fellows' dinner, and to execute 
 other menial duties. These Goldsmith felt ex- 
 tremely degrading, and in after days he indignantly 
 denounced the practice of exacting them. Partly 
 from disgust, and partly from other causes, his 
 career at college proved by no means an honour- 
 able one. He had the misfortune, moreover, to be 
 placed under a harsh and tyrannical tutor, named 
 Wilder, who destroyed his collegiate prospects. In 
 1747, being elected an exhibitioner on the founda- 
 tion of Erasmus Smyth, an office which produced a 
 small annual emolument, Goldsmith invited a party 
 of young friends to a supper and dance at his cham- 
 bers. Hearing of this irregularity. Wilder pro- 
 ceeded to the convivial meeting, and inflicted 
 personal chastisement on Goldsmith, then above 
 eighteen years old, before all his friends. The 
 consequence was, that he left the University, and 
 wandered about the country hungry and penniless, 
 until his elder brother, Henry, hearing of his con-
 
 OLIVER GOLDSMITH. 
 
 IG!) 
 
 dition, went to his assistance, and got him re- 
 entered at college. 
 
 During this year his father died, and his circum- 
 stances became still more straitened. In 1749 he 
 was admitted bachelor of arts in due course, and 
 not two years later than usual, as the early biogra- 
 phies assert. His friends now wished him to enter 
 the Church, but he was averse to that mode of life, 
 and after idling a year or so, he became tutor in 
 the family of a llr. Flynn. He remained a year 
 in this situation, and, on leaving it, went to Cork 
 with thirty pounds iu his pocket, and a good horse 
 muler him. At the end of six weeks he i-eturned 
 to his mother without a penny of the money, and 
 with a very inferior horse : he gave her a rather 
 ambiguous explanation of his conduct in a letter 
 yet extant. He said that he had taken out a pas- 
 sage for America at Cork, but that, having gone 
 to the country for a day or two, the captain had 
 treacherously set sail without him. His friends 
 were pacified, and an uncle (the Rev. Dr. Conta- 
 rine) supplied him with fifty pounds to commence 
 the study of the law in Dublin. Thither Goldsmith 
 accordingly went ; but an evil propensity to play, 
 which he had exhibited on more than one occasion 
 before, led him to a gambling house, and he lost all 
 the money. 
 
 The extreme simplicity which formed the re- 
 deemino; charm of Oliver's character, and the hiffh 
 promise which his friends saw in him in spite of 
 his follies, led them again to contribute to his sup- 
 port, and, iu the autum of 1752, he proceeded to 
 Edinburgh, where he designed to qualify himself 
 for the profession of medicine. 
 
 In youth and in age Goldsmith was always the 
 same; quick to pity distress, and whenever he could 
 to relieve it ; insensible of the value of money, 
 untlirifty, and almost uivariably embarrassed by 
 some act of improvidence or another. A disposi- 
 tion thus kind but inconsiderate early involved 
 him in difficulties. At Edinburgh, a fellow-student 
 prevailing on him to become security for the 
 payment of a tailor's bill, he was obliged, in con- 
 sequence of his inability to keep the engagement, 
 to leave the place precipitately. But the tailor 
 pui-sued him with the long arm of the law ; he 
 was aiTcsted iu Sunderland, and conducted back 
 to the college by bailiffs. From this predicament, 
 however, the friendly interposition of his Professors, 
 Dr. Sleigh, and Laughlin Maclane, Esq., effected his 
 liberati(jn ; and ere long, abandoning the scene of 
 his impruilcnce and disgrace, he embarked on 
 board a Dutch nliip for Rotterdam. This event 
 took place in 17515 : his maternal uncle, the Rev. T. 
 Contarine, promised him funds to continue his stu- 
 dies at Leyden, and his situation was com])ara- 
 tivejy easy until death deprived him of that rela- 
 tion in 175G. Gambling again reduced him to 
 want ; and being thus abandoned to his own im- 
 ])ulses, he undertook to gratify a passion for travel- 
 ling. Having already passed through tlie greater 
 part of Flandi-rs, lie proceeded to Strasbourg, and 
 thence to Louvaine, where he obtained the degree 
 of Bachelor of Physic. In this latter city lu^ be- 
 came travelling companion to an Englisli gentleman, 
 whom he accompanied to Geneva, and was then 
 recommended as tutor to another countryman, a 
 youth who, suddenly elevated from tlie ilcsk of an 
 attorney's cliTk to the jxwsesaion of iiuli'pciicleiit 
 fortune, the bequest of a pawnbroker, ills uncle. 
 
 resolved to see the world. With this child of for- 
 tune Goldsmith made the tour of Switzerland, and 
 journeyed into the South of France. At Alarseilles 
 some disagreement, supposed to have been pecu- 
 niary, occurred between the pupil and his instruc- 
 tor, which ended in the receii)t by the latter of a 
 small portion of salary, which happened to be due 
 to him, and an immediate separation. Thus again 
 left to himself, and the world at large, the poet 
 made his way slowly and unaided through the 
 heart of France, and finally arrived at Dover in 
 the winter of the year 1758. 
 
 This is a brief outline of the scenes lie visited, 
 and the course he pursued ; but the circumstances 
 under which he travelled are still to be told. At 
 the moment of his embarkation his supplies were 
 limited; these soon failed entirely; and what ren- 
 ders the chai'acter of his journey more singular, is 
 the want not of certain but of probable means to 
 carry him forward. It is said that he set out witli 
 one shirt, a guinea, and his Hute. Twice indeed he 
 was fortunate cnougli to form connexions by which 
 his immediate expenses were defrayed, and a mo- 
 derate profit obtained; but for the greater part 
 of the time he wandered about, the object of 
 collegiate charity where his learning insured him 
 hospitality, and the emulous habits then observed 
 in such institutions entitled him to challenge any 
 member to the disputation of a thesis, in which 
 he was often as victor rewarded with a prize of 
 money. In those districts, however, where such 
 establishments were not to be found, he had to 
 seek shelter and a meal by a resource which, how- 
 ever interesting it may be to describe, must have 
 been very painful to experience. Among the few 
 articles of his travelling stock was a German flute, 
 upon which he was a tolerable performer; so that, 
 when all other means were exhausted, he played 
 the melodies of his native isle to the peasantry of 
 France and Flanders, and thus recommended him- 
 self to their benevolence by the charms of music, 
 now melancholy and now gay. 
 
 Arrived in London with only a few pence in Iiis 
 pocket, his mind became filled with gloomy appre- 
 hensions; for English life afforded no such reliefs 
 to distress as were formerly attainable on the con- 
 tinent. He applied to several ajiothecaries for tlie 
 humble place of journeyman, but, so rough was his 
 appearance, and so l)road his Irish accent, that 
 ridicule and insult were generally provoked l)y his 
 appeals. At length a chemist on Fishstreet-liill, 
 touched by his forlorn condition and the simplicity 
 of his manners, received him into his laboratory, 
 and there ho continued, until he discovered that 
 his former benefactor and fellow cr)untryman. Doc- 
 tor Sleigh, was in London. To him he repaired 
 without delay, but the doctor scarcely knew his 
 old pupil ; — " Such," according to his own words, 
 " is the tax the unfortunate pay to poverty." Wlien, 
 liow(!ver, a recognition did talc(^ jdace, his heart 
 was found as warm as ever; and the more fortu- 
 nate friend, wliiie he remained in London, shared 
 both his |iurse and his heart with the [loet. 
 
 Through him (loldsmitli obtained tln' place of 
 classical assistant in an academy kept by the Rev. 
 Dr. Milner, at Peckliam, in Surry. Here he had 
 tlie good fortune to meet Dr. (Jriffiths, the pro- 
 jector, iiro])rietor, and editor of the " Monthly 
 Review," and soon became an author. His iii-st 
 publication, according to some, was "The .Meni'iirs
 
 170 
 
 WESTMINSTER ABBEY. 
 
 of a Protestant condemned to the galleys of France 
 for his Religion. Written by himself. Translated 
 from the original, just published at the Hague, by 
 James Willington." This was printed by E. Dilly, 
 in 2 vols. 8vo., 1758, and rewarded with twenty 
 guineas. During this year, through the influence 
 of Dr. Milner, a hope of success in the medical 
 profession dawned for a moment upon him. He 
 was nominated to a medical situation in India, and 
 pi'esented himself before the College of Surgeons to 
 undergo the necessary examination ; but was " found 
 not qualified." He does not appear to have gone 
 back to the academy ; as Dr. Griffiths engaged to 
 give him board, lodging, and a fixed salary, for 
 contributing to the "Monthly Review." The terms 
 of this agreement were reduced to writing, but 
 broken by mutual consent, after a trial of seven or 
 eight months. Goldsmith then hired a room im- 
 mediately over Breakneck Steps, in Green Arbour 
 Court, Snowhill; finished "His Enquiry into the 
 Present State of Polite Literature," whicli was 
 published by Dodsley in 1759, and became a liberal 
 contributor to the magazines. 
 
 In the "Critical Review," an article upon some 
 miserable translation of "Ovid's Fasti," by a pe- 
 dantic schoolmaster, attracted the eyes of Smollet, 
 then editor of the " British Magazine," who imme- 
 diately sought him out and secured his co-opera- 
 tion. His contributions to this periodical were 
 afterwards collected together, and published in a 
 separate volume, with the title of " Essays and 
 Tales." Newberry, the bookseller in St. Paul's 
 Church-yard, was the last to engage his services 
 for the periodical press, by giving him 100^. a year 
 to write in the "Public Ledger." The "Chinese 
 Letters," afterwards printed by themselves, and 
 called the " Citizen of the World," were the fruit 
 of this compact. He also started, in 1749, a weekly 
 paper, called the " Bee," but it proceeded no farther 
 than the eighth number. 
 
 Removing his lodgings into Wine Office Court, 
 Fleet-street, he put the finishing touches to the 
 "Traveller," and "Vicar of Wakefield;" yet such 
 was his diffidence, that he kept them by him until 
 the pressure of debt compelled him to resort to the 
 friendly aid of Dr. Johnson, who exerted himself 
 to procure their publication, with equal honour and 
 success. Accordingly, the poem was sent from the 
 press in 1765, and the novel in 1766: and it is 
 cheering to add, that as the beauty of both compo- 
 sitions was extraordinary, so their reception was 
 most flattering. The " Traveller" is a poem which 
 delights by a refinement of imagery, and a happi- 
 ness of expression, such as no author of that day 
 had displayed. Upon the melody of its versification 
 it has been very properly observed, that Pope had 
 no competitor m that respect, until Goldsmith ap- 
 peared. Perhaps there is no similar production in 
 our language which philosophizes so charmingly; 
 and certainly, in point of correct reasoning. Pope 
 must yield the palm to Goldsmith. Nor is there 
 less to be said of the " Vicar of Wakefield," a tale 
 which has not been exceeded in purity of diction, 
 a natural interest of plot, or the choice variety with 
 which it exhibits humour, sentiment, and character. 
 It teaches the truest lessons of morality with a 
 simplicity that enchants while it instructs ; and 
 pourtrays the duties and foibles of life with a fide- 
 lity the least artificial or affected. 
 
 These two pieces established his fame, improved 
 
 his finances, and enlarged the circle of his acquaint- 
 ances. Becoming a member of the Literary Club, 
 he added to an intimacy with Drs. Johnson and 
 Percy, an acquaintance with Lord Nugent, Burke, 
 Sir Joshua Reynolds, &c. &c., and was employed 
 upon several profitable works. Distinguishing what 
 lie wrote principally for gain, we have to mention, 
 a " Life of Beau Nash," and "Selections of English 
 Poetry," which were produced during the summer 
 of 1763, while lodging at Canonbury House, Isling- 
 ton. Of the latter performance he was particularly 
 vain, for he used to remark, that above all his other 
 publications it showed the strength and propriety 
 of his judgment upon a subject, to the cultivation 
 of which he had devoted twenty years. A " History 
 of England, in a Series of Letters from a Nobleman 
 to his Son," followed, in 2 vols., Bvo., and was so 
 much praised for elegance and liberality, as to be 
 generally ascribed to Lord Lyttelton. A " History 
 of Rome," 2 vols., 8vo., came out in 1769, a " His- 
 tory of England," 2 vols., 8vo., in 1771, for which 
 Davies the bookseller gave 500/. ; the " Life of Bo- 
 lingbroke," and " Parnell's Poems and Life," and a 
 « History of Greece," 2 vols., 8vo., in 1773 and 1774. 
 Of these, one and all, it may be observed briefly, 
 that being expressed with neatness, and condensed 
 with fairness, they answered the purposes for which 
 they were designed, and that the greater part of 
 them remain popular to this day. 
 
 Goldsmith's di-amatic compositions are now to be 
 reviewed: they began with the comedy of the 
 " Good-natured Man," acted in Covent-garden, 
 January 29, 1768. Though bearing strong marks 
 of genius, and keen strokes of wit, this play was 
 not at first by any means so successful as might 
 have been expected. Curtailments, however, were 
 made, and it soon took high rank on the stage. 
 His profits from the third representation and copy- 
 right amounted to 500/. But the satisfaction caused 
 by this increase of wealth and reputation was con- 
 siderably lessened by the severity with which the 
 composition was criticised in some of the public 
 prints. A passion raged at that time in favour of 
 sentimental comedies, of which Kelly had just 
 then finished a specimen, entitled " False Delicacy," 
 at Drury Lane, where it received a run of patron- 
 age which far eclipsed the fortune of Goldsmith's 
 piece. Invidious comparisons were instituted be- 
 tween the two comedies, and some rigid strictures 
 passed upon the " Good-natured Man," which Gold- 
 smith felt with a depth of mortification he could ill 
 conceal: from intimate friends he and Kelly now 
 became passionate enemies. 
 
 From an attic in the library staircase of the 
 Inner Temple, Goldsmith next descended to an 
 elegantly furnished first-floor in Brick-court, Mid- 
 dle Temple, and indulged in habits of ease and 
 affluence. In 1770 he gave the world his "De- 
 serted Village," a most polished composition, which 
 had occupied his constant study for two years. 
 The bookseller gave a note for a hundred guineas 
 for the copy, which Goldsmith modestly returned, 
 explainmg to a friend that the sum was more than 
 the honest man could afford to give, or any modern 
 poetry was worth. He made his own estimate of 
 its worth, and would only receive at the rate of 
 five shillings the couplet. But the sale was so 
 rapid, that in a short time the bookseller was 
 enabled to show how well he could affiird to pay 
 the hundred gumeas ; the original off'er was there-
 
 OLIVER GOLDSMITH. 
 
 171 
 
 fore fulfilled. The "Deserted Village" was in- 
 scribed to Sir Joshua Reynolds ; and if there is to 
 be any qualification in our tribute of praise, it can 
 only be that there is an evident resemblance be- 
 tween it and the " Traveller." The conception of 
 the Traveller is more noble, and the ideas in it 
 more philosophical and enlai'ged ; and yet the inci- 
 dents and descriptions of the " Deserted Village " 
 are better liked and oftener quoted ; its simplicity 
 is more natui-al, its truths more kindly, and its 
 general tone and expression moi'e calculated to 
 awaken familiar affections, and make a lasting im- 
 pression on the heart. 
 
 Increased reputation, and even greater wealth, 
 were still in store for Goldsmith, and ably did he 
 earn his fruitful harvest of both, when in 1772 he 
 produced his comedy of " She Stoops to Conquer " 
 at Covent Garden Theatre. Sti-ange to say, the 
 only question as to the success of this matchless 
 piece was entertained before its representation, 
 and that by the theatrical critics of the house, and 
 even the actors themselves. By these different per- 
 sons " She Stoops to Conquer" was adjudged more a 
 farce than a comedy, and as such predestined to 
 failure ; but the result proved the vanity of criti- 
 cism, and Goldsmith exulted highly in the applause 
 the piece received. His receipts were considerable, 
 exceeding, with the price of the copyright, 800^. ; 
 yet such was the profusion of his liberality to indi- 
 gent authors and acquaintances, particularly from 
 his own country, that he found himself, before that 
 year terminated, involved in all the perplexities of 
 debt, and enveloped in the deepest gloom of de- 
 spondency and unavailing regret. 
 
 But though Goldsmith was indiscreet, he was 
 also industrious : he now undertook to produce for 
 the booksellers " A History of the Eai'th and Ani- 
 mated Nature." Such a work was certainly not 
 the best adapted to his talents or the nature of his 
 studies ; yet he exhibited throughout it the lively 
 versatility of his powers ; and if he failed in teach- 
 ing, he succeeded in entertaining. The learned 
 have never expressed a favourable opinion of it, 
 and perhaps a summary of all the merit it can pre- 
 tend to may be thus briefly made : — it redounded, 
 if not to the reputation, at least to the emolument 
 of the author, and that was more than one half of 
 his object ; and it answered the end of the pub- 
 hsher in selling well. The facility with which he 
 made liis money in this way, induced him to pro- 
 ject another work of a similar nature, which he 
 meant to call a " Universal Dictionary of Arts and 
 Sciences ;" but the booksellei's did not approve of 
 the plan, and the idea di'opped with the pro- 
 spectus. 
 
 The close of a chequered life now drew near. 
 He had for many years been affected by strangin-y, 
 which increased upon him in pain, as mental agita- 
 tion, provoked by the embarrassment of his affairs, 
 disturbed the gloom of his sick chamber. He re- 
 viewed the past with bitterness and fear, labouring 
 under acute disease, and the weight of lii'avy dclits, 
 which were the accumulations of sheer improvi- 
 dence. To such a pitch \v;us the disorder aggra- 
 vated by thus brooding over wasted resources, and 
 great advantages misused or thrown away, that he 
 fell into a nervous fever, which superinduced violent 
 
 fits of remorse, and drove him to dccl;u-e his dis- 
 gust of life. In this state he consulted an old 
 friend, Mr. Hawes, the apothecary, and expressed 
 an eager desire to try James's fever powdei-s. 'J"he 
 visitor opposed the idea urgently ; and, when he 
 found himself unlikely to prevail, begged that he 
 would at least call in a physician. The retpiest was 
 complied with, and Mr. Hawes' opinion strongly 
 confirmed by Dr. Fordyce ; but, deaf to all entreaty 
 and advice. Goldsmith persisted in his resolution. 
 He took the medicine, and died jirematurely at the 
 age of forty -five. Every attention was jiaid to liim 
 in his last moments, but no art could counteract 
 the effects of his own perverseness. An interment 
 in Westminster Abbey, suitable to the re]nitation 
 of the author, and the character of his friends, was 
 projected, but hastily abandoned as soon as it was 
 discovered that he had died deeply in debt. If the 
 same moral test had been enforced upon all similar 
 occasions, there would be fewer graves of great 
 men in Westminster Abbey. Goldsmith was buried 
 in the Temple church-yard, in the presence of a 
 few private friends. 
 
 A marked distinction is to be drawn between 
 Oliver Goldsmith as a man and as an author. In 
 the former we see little to admire, and much 
 to condemn ; weakness, vanity, and imprudence 
 are in that portrait predominant ; but (Oliver Gold- 
 smith, as an author, is justly entitled to the 
 highest meed of praise. Whether in prose or 
 poetry, he is equally excellent ; and no better ex- 
 ample of a style at once purely English and classi- 
 cal can be desired than is furnished by his ])ages. 
 Gentle and Iiumane, he never has any desire but 
 to please and improve ; he walks in paths that 
 are always flowery and healthful, and never seeks 
 to rise by unprecedented efforts, or to surprise 
 by unusual effects. Nature is his guide and com- 
 panion, and she is uniformly ecjnable and cheer- 
 ing. Perhaps no writer was ever more felicitous 
 in the measure of his art ; for he abounds in wit 
 and humour, without ever verging on the ;u5i>eri- 
 ties of satire, and is indefatigable in exposing vice, 
 without once pourtraying crime in false colours. 
 This is the mastery of art ; for it not unfre(juontly 
 happens that a glowing description of the delusive 
 snares by which the wicked are led into their ex- 
 cesses, induces others to tam])er with dangerous 
 j)leasures, from a vain idea that they may toiu-h 
 one extremity of evil, and notwithstanding keep 
 the other far removed. But Goldsmith is a writer 
 in whom all readers delight, because they feel that 
 he is to be trusted without reserve ; and in truth, 
 he is as pure in thought as in expression ; his 
 written nature is uiiexceptional)ly amiable ; the 
 kindliest spirit and blandest humour animate every 
 jiage ; there is a mingleil grace and strength, an 
 elegance and a simi)lieity in ids conqiositions, which 
 no other author exhibits with tlie same never- 
 failing ftrtility and refinement. Such was tlie 
 variety of his powers, and .such the felicity of his 
 performances, that lu! always seemed to excel in 
 whatever he last attempted ; and thus tlu; gene- 
 rality of readers may be always allowed to d(>id)t 
 wliellier in poetry he rivalleil the melody of l'o|'e, 
 nioi-e than in prose he emulated the simplicity of 
 Addison.
 
 172 
 
 WESTMINSTER ABBEY. 
 
 SAMUEL FOOTE. 
 
 Samuel Foote, a comic writer and actor, not ex- 
 ceeded in wit, licentiousness, or the powers of 
 mimicry, by any rival, was a native of Truro, in 
 Cornwall. The precise date of his birth has not 
 been discovered, but it is generally supposed to 
 have taken place during the year 17-1. The family 
 was highly respectable and estated; his father, 
 John Foote, enjoyed the posta of commissioner of 
 the prize office and fine conti'act, and i-epresented 
 Tiverton in parliament; and his mother was de- 
 scended from the families of Dinely and Goodere, 
 to whose joint estates she succeeded upon the 
 deaths of the last male heirs— Sir John Dinely 
 Goodere, Bart., and Samuel Goodere, Esq., Captain 
 of his Majesty's ship Ruby, who fought a barba- 
 rous duel, in which the one fell and the survivor 
 was executed for murder. Young Foote received 
 his education at Worcester College, formerly called 
 Gloucester Hall, Oxford, which stands indebted 
 both for its foundation and altered name, to the 
 liberality of Sir Thomas Cocks Winford, Bart., who 
 was his second cousin. One of his college pranks 
 has been recorded: — " Observing that the rope of 
 the chapel bell was allowed to hang near to the 
 ground in an open space where the cows were 
 Sometimes turned for the night, he hung a wisp of 
 straw to the end of it; the unavoidable consequence 
 was, that some one of the animals was sure to seize 
 the straw in the course of the night, and thus cause 
 the bell to toll. A solemn consultation was held, 
 and the provost undertook with the sexton to sit 
 up in the chapel all night, for the purpose of catch- 
 ing the delinquent. They took their dreary station; 
 at the midnight hour the bell tolled as before: out 
 rushed the two watchmen, one of whom, seizing 
 the cow in the dark, thought he had caught a gen- 
 tleman commoner; while the doctor, grasping the 
 animal by a different part of its body, exclaimed 
 that he was convinced the postman was the rogue, 
 for he felt his horn. Lights were speedily brought, 
 and disclosed the nature of the jest, which served 
 Oxford in laughter for a week." 
 
 An idle student, Foote removed to Loudon, and 
 proposed to be a lawyer in the Temple, but paid 
 no attention to that or any other serious pursuit. 
 He gave himself up to a life of pleasure, with all 
 the vivacity and carelessness peculiar to his cha- 
 racter. His first literary labour was a pamphlet 
 written in defence of his uncle Goodhere, who was 
 in prison for the murder of his brother. For this 
 he had ten pounds, and it is related, that " \yhen he 
 went to receive the wages of his task, he was re- 
 duced so low as to be obliged to wear his boots to 
 conceal that he wanted stockings. Having got the 
 money, he bought a jiair of stockings at a shop as 
 he passed along. Immediately after, meeting a 
 couple of boon companions, he was easily persuaded 
 to go to dine with them at a tavern. While the 
 wine was afterwards circulating, one of his friends 
 exclaimed, ' Why, hey, Foote, how is this ? You 
 seem to have no stockings on !' ' No,' replied the 
 wit, \\ith great presence of mind, ' I never wear 
 any at this time of the year till I am going to dress 
 for the evening; and you see (pulling out his recent 
 
 purchase) 1 am always provided with a pair for 
 the occasion.' " In this vain career he obtained 
 all that convivial sympathy and applause, which a 
 lively flow of elotjuence and rare powers of volatile 
 humoui" seldom fail to excite. In 1741 he married 
 and spent the honey moon in Cornwall with his 
 father, who soon after died. A short period sufficed 
 to exhaust his patrimony. The pecuniary embar- 
 rassments of the mother and sou are attested by 
 the celebrated coi'respondence given in the jest- 
 books, which is quite authentic, but rather too 
 laconically expressed. An authentic copy is sub- 
 joined : — 
 
 " Dear Sam — I am in prison for debt; come and 
 assist your loving mother, E. Foote." 
 
 "Dear Mother — So am I; which prevents his 
 duty being paid to his loving mother by her affec- 
 tionate son, Sam. Foote. 
 
 P. S. — I have sent my attorney to assist you ; in 
 the mean time, let us hope for better days." 
 
 It was in this state of things that Foote turned his 
 thoughts to the theatre, as the place most likely to 
 supply him promptly with the means of living. 
 
 Actors of genius are often the last to discover 
 the style in which nature destines them to excel, 
 and Foote, amongst others, is an instance to prove 
 the truth of the remark, for he made his first 
 appearance on the stage in the character of Othello. 
 That he gave little satisfaction in tragedy may be 
 easily conjectured, and that he should soon tire of 
 it was natural. He was quick, however, in disco- 
 vering his genuine vein: during the year 1747? lie 
 opened the little theatre in the Haymarket, with a 
 dramatic entertainment of his own composition, 
 entitled the " Diversions of a Morning," which was 
 acted beftire crowded audiences for forty days. 
 This piece has never been printed: it consisted of 
 detached scenes, into which were introduced imita- 
 tions of several individuals who were then well 
 kno\\Ti about London, for oddity of manner or of 
 character, or mode of living. All these Foote 
 mocked and took-off himself, with matchless effect; 
 he not only caught the tone of voice and style of 
 di'ess and action, but even succeeded in disguising 
 his figure so as to resemble exactly the persons of 
 his various subjects. The princijjal performers of 
 the day were accurately mimicked; and Woodward, 
 the physician, and Chevalier Taylor, the oculist, 
 stood amongst the prominent of the select carica- 
 tures. 
 
 The novelty of this undertaking occasioned as 
 much excitement, as the daring personalities on 
 which its pojudarity rested begot serious opposi- 
 tion. The police magistrates of Westminster at- 
 tempted to stop the perlormance, under the act of 
 parliament for limiting the number of theatres; 
 but the current of general patronage emboldened 
 the innovator to defy the law, by altering his adver- 
 tisement into a notice of " Mr. Foote giving Tea to 
 his Friends." The pretext answei-ed the purpose, 
 and he was suli'ercd to jn-oeeed without interrup- 
 tion. In 1748, he brought forward the " Auction
 
 SAMUEL FOOTE. 
 
 173 
 
 of Pictures," in which the chief characters from 
 real life were Cocks, an auctioneer ; Henley, the 
 well-known orator ; and Sir Thomas de Veil, a 
 justice of the peace for Westminster. This com- 
 position was never prmted, nor can the loss of it 
 be much regretted ; for out of all the dramas he 
 did publish, but one retains a place on the stage ; 
 and the reason is evident. Written for ephemeral 
 purposes, copying personal eccentricities, and de- 
 pending for success upon the art of the actor, in- 
 stead of the point of the dialogue, or the interest 
 of the plot, these pieces could only be understood 
 by a key, and lost all attraction as soon as the hap- 
 less objects of their satire withdrew fi'om the public 
 eye, or ceased to be marked as the originals of the 
 imitation. 
 
 Persevering in his course, he had the " Knights" 
 ready for the season of 17-1*J, and in the four cha- 
 racters of Sir Penurious Tritle, an incessant prater 
 of stale stories. Sir Gregory Gazette, an insatiable 
 caterer of news, without the capacity to understand 
 the most familiar paragraph, and a courting couple, 
 Tim and Miss Suck, afi'orded the usual measure of 
 entertamment. The finale of this piece was ren- 
 dered excessively ridiculous by a burlesque upon 
 the Italian Opera, in a vocal concert between two 
 cats. His reputation was now established upon a 
 money-making basis ; but having had the good for- 
 tune to fall in for a large legacy, he abandoned the 
 Haymarket Theatre, and led the life of a voluptu- 
 ary for five years. When his money was all squan- 
 dered, he returned to the royal theatres, appearing 
 in little sketchy pieces of his own composition. 
 This change was almost necessarily marked by 
 some improvements in the construction of his 
 dramas ; he now filled up his scenes with cha- 
 racters moi-e appropriately selected, and stories 
 more artistically told. " Taste," a comedy in two 
 acts, was the first of the performances thus offered 
 to the public in 1753, and was intended to expose 
 the impositions practised under the patronage of 
 that folly for articles of virtu, which was so nuich 
 in vogue about this period. But whether the 
 audiences were too infatuated with the prevailing 
 fashion, or whether tliey did not choose to see the 
 author deviate from caricaturing men to ridiculing 
 of things, certain it is that " Taste " met with a 
 very indifferent reception. For the first night or 
 two the opposition was considerable, and during 
 tiie whole run, which was l)y no means a long one, 
 the apjilause was neither loud nor hearty. Still it 
 should not be omitted that Foote's view of the sub- 
 ject was correct, and his treatment of it lunnourous. 
 He gave the profits of the piece to Worsdale, the 
 painter and actor, as an acknowledgment of the 
 talent he displa^x-d in the part of Lady Pentweasle. 
 
 " Till! Englishman in Paris," a comedy in two 
 acts, followed, at Covent Garden in the same year, 
 and met witii highly favouralile hearers. Mackiin, 
 for whose benefit it was produced, and his daughter, 
 were the original Buck and Lucinda ; Init Foote 
 himself .assumed the former part during the season, 
 and it then became a dispute amongst tiie critics, 
 whicli of tlie two did greater justice to it. 
 
 During tiie next two years he seems to have 
 been remiss rather as an author, liis entertain- 
 nii'Mt lor I754 consisting only of a revision of the 
 " Knights," which Ik; now brouglit out at Drury- 
 iane : in 175-'» he had nothing to olfer. l'"or 17''>(J, 
 liowever, he prepared the " Englishman Returned 
 
 from Paris," a comedy m two acts, which was a 
 sequel to the " fhiglishman in Paris." It was 
 acted at Covent Garden with great advantage and 
 has received the praise of being more dramatic 
 vai'ied, and complete than any of the preceding 
 pieces. " The Author," a comedy in two acts, was 
 his novelty at Covent Garden for 1757. In this 
 piece he returned to personality, and caricatured 
 the family pride of Mi\ Aprice, a Wclchnian, under 
 the nick-name of Cadwallader, with such i)ungent 
 fidelity, that a complaint was made to the Lord 
 Chamberlain, and the performance interdicted. 
 The " Author," however, claims the distinction of 
 having been occasionally revived. It was during 
 this year that Foote went to Dublin along with Tate 
 Wilkinson : their united mimici-y attracted large 
 audiences. On this occasion Wilkinson mimicked 
 even his companion, who, with the usual tliin- 
 skinnedness of the professed jester, did not relish 
 the joke, and said it was the only attemi)t of his 
 friend which did not succeed. At the end of this 
 year, we find Foote engaged in a totally new sjie- 
 culation in the Irish capital. He set up as a fur- 
 tune-teller, in a room hung with black cloth, and 
 lighted by a single lantern, the light of which was 
 scrupulously kept from his face : he succeeded so 
 far, it is said, as to realise ou some occasions 301. 
 a- day, m half-crowns from each dupe. Two years 
 aftex', when out at the elbows agaui in London, lie 
 paid his first visit to Scotland, borrowing a humlred 
 jiounds from Garrick to defray the expenses of his 
 journey. He was well received in Edinburgh 
 society, and by the i)ublic in general. 
 
 Improvidence and embarrassment had now kept 
 him systematically in a disgraceful extreme of 
 debt and persecution. The perplexity of his affairs 
 grew so thick in 1700, that, as a speculation for i-e- 
 trieving himself, he opened the Haymarket Theatre 
 during the summer months ; a practice so success- 
 ful that it has never since been abandoned. He 
 began this new tack with the " Minor," a comedy 
 in tlu'ee acts ; and, although his company was as 
 indiftcrent as it was hastily collected together, this 
 play drew him full houses for five-and-thirty suc- 
 cessive nights, and remained for many years after 
 a standard piece at the winter houses. His own 
 personifications were the principal attractions in it, 
 and the ivader may therefore desire to know, that 
 in the characters of Mr. Smirk, an auctitiiieer 
 named Laiigford was ridiculed ; of Mrs. Cole, the 
 well-known Mother Douglas was taken ott" ; and of 
 Shift, (<eorg(! Whitfield, the i>opular methodist, 
 was burlesqued. The coarse humour thus applied 
 to the sect of which Whitfield w:is an ornament, 
 created violent outcries and much controversy : 
 his fiock, liowever, could have felt but little of the 
 stigma, as they have never been theatrical visitors; 
 and l'"oote, ])rofiting by the scandal, cared little for 
 anything else. There is an anecdote told of this 
 piece which seems worth extracting. When tiie 
 ]»lay was finished i'or the stage, Foote sent a copy 
 of it to tlio Archbishop of Canterbury, re(|uesting 
 that if his Grace should see any thing obj(>ctioii- 
 alile in it, he would cxei'ciso a free use of liis ])en, 
 either in the way of erasure or correction. The 
 Archbishop, however, returned it untouehed, as- 
 signing as a reason to a friend, that lu' was sure 
 the wit ha<l <inly laid a trap for liini, and that if he 
 had jiiit his haixl to the manus<'i-ipl, either for cor- 
 rection or objection, the publication would have
 
 174 
 
 WESTMINSTER ABBEY. 
 
 been advertised to the world as " corrected and 
 prepared for the press by his Grace the Archbishop 
 of Canterbury." 
 
 Foote now resolved to settle himself yearly in 
 the Haymarket Theatre as soon as the winter 
 establishments closed ; and so well did the scheme 
 answer, that he persevered in it uniformly down to 
 the season before his death, and as regularly de- 
 rived from it a considerable mcome. Fortune, 
 however, never availed him much ; a slave to his 
 passions, the more he got the moi'e he spent ; and, 
 therefore, the longer he lived, the more deeply he 
 sunk into embarrassments. 
 
 In the summer of 1762 he stood forward pre- 
 pared with two plays, the " Orators " and the 
 " Liar," both comedies in three acts. The former 
 met with a good reception, but the representation 
 of the latter was deferred until the following winter, 
 when it was brought out at Covent Garden, and 
 gave but little satisfaction. It is a boi'rowed plot 
 from several hands, which has since been reduced 
 to a farce, and under that title been frequently 
 revived by John Palmer, who obtained singular 
 praise for his acting in it. Reverting to the " Ora- 
 tors," it is to be added that, as he was still under 
 the power of the magistrates, Foote thought it 
 prudent to advertise this entei-tainment as " Lec- 
 tures on English Oratory," and in truth the first 
 act of the " Orators " fully justified the announce- 
 ment. It was little more than a disquisition on 
 styles of elocution, interspersed with personal imita- 
 tions. The second act contained a humorous trial 
 of the Cock-lane ghost, and the last, a portraiture 
 of the noted Robin Hood Society. A leading per- 
 sonification in connection with the ghost was in- 
 tended to be Dr. Johnson ; and in the society 
 Sheridan was taken off, and George Falkner, a 
 Dublin printer and alderman, who had pushed 
 himself into notoriety as the proprietor of an Irish 
 newspaper. Johnson preserved his dignity from 
 public exposure by a stroke of characteristic deci- 
 sion. Dining one day at the house of Davies, the 
 bookseller, he was informed of the design entertained 
 by Foote, and knowing very well the kind of re- 
 monstrance to which alone the mimic was accessi- 
 ble, he asked his host if he knew the common price 
 of an oak stick. Being answered, sixpence, he 
 said, " Why, then, su", give me leave to send your 
 servant to purchase me a shilling one. I'll have a 
 double quantity, for 1 am determined the fellow 
 shall not take me off" with impunity." Foote soon 
 received information of this avowal of the Hercu- 
 lean lexicographer, and was further told that it 
 was Johnson's intention " to plant himself in the 
 front of the stage-box on the first night of the 
 proposed play, and if any buflbon attempted to 
 mimic him, to spring forward on the stage, knock 
 him down in the face of the audience, and then 
 appeal to their common feelings and protection." 
 It is almost unnecessary to add, that Johnson's 
 character was omitted. Johnson was not an ad- 
 mirer of Foote. He termed his mimicry not a 
 power, but a vice ; and alleged that he was not 
 good at it, being unable, he said, to take off any 
 one iniless he had some strong peculiarity. He 
 allowed, however, that he had wit, fertility of ideas, 
 a considerable extent of information, and was " for 
 obstreperous broad-faced mirth without an equal." 
 " The first time," said Dr. J., " that I was in com- 
 pany with Foote, was at Fitzherbert's. Having no 
 
 good opinion of the fellow, I was resolved not to 
 be pleased ; and it is very difficult to please a man 
 against his will. I went on eating my dinner pretty 
 sullenly, affecting not to mind him. But the dog 
 was so very comical, that I was obliged to lay down 
 my knife and fork, throw myself back in my chair, 
 and fairly laugh it out." He also told the follow- 
 ing anecdote, still more strongly illustrative of the 
 power of the wit : — " Amongst the many and various 
 modes which he tried of getting money, he became 
 a partner with a small-beer brewer, and he was to 
 have a shai'e of the profits for procuring customers 
 among his numerous acquaintance. Fitzhei-bert 
 was one who took his small beer, but it was so bad 
 that the servants resolved not to drink it. They 
 were at some loss how to notify their resolution, 
 being afraid of offending their master, who they 
 knew liked Foote much as a companion. At last 
 they fixed upon a little black boy, who was rather 
 a favourite, to be their deputy, and deliver their 
 remonstrance ; and having invested him with the 
 whole authority of the kitchen, he was to inform 
 Mr. Fitzherbert, in all their names, upon a certain 
 day, that they would drink Foote's small beer no 
 longer. On that day Foote happened to dine at 
 Fitzherbert's, and the boy, who served at table, 
 was so delighted with Foote's stories, that when he 
 went down stairs, he told them, ' This is the finest 
 man I have ever seen. I will not deliver your 
 message. I will drink his small beer.' " Falkner 
 was lampooned, but had his revenge. A signal 
 boaster, and intense lover of fame, he was so deeply 
 offended with the liberties thus taken with his 
 favourite airs, that he took advantage of a profes- 
 sional visit which Foote soon after paid at Dublin, 
 to institute an action for libel in the court of King's 
 Bench. The offender for a whUe pretended to re- 
 sist the proceedings, but finding it probable that 
 the business would run hard with liim he slipped 
 back to England, and left his bail to pay the penal- 
 ties of their bond for his appearance at the trial. 
 This breach of confidence was loudly and deserv- 
 edly censured ; but the stain has been in a great 
 degree wiped away by a prevailing belief that he 
 subsequently refunded the money. Here, too, it may 
 be observed, that although Foote's vices are by all 
 declared to liave been numerous, their enormity 
 has been somewhat mitigated by the credit he re- 
 ceived for the possession of many virtues ; like 
 other squanderers, he was not incapable of gene- 
 rosity. Falkner, it should be added, obtained 
 liberal satisfaction ; he had his damages paid, and 
 boasted that he had kicked Foote publicly. Dr. 
 Johnson's remark on this indignity was bitter : — 
 " Why," said he, '' Foote must be rising in the 
 woi'ld ; when he was in England, no one thought it 
 worth while to kick him." 
 
 For the three next seasons, " The Mayor of 
 Garratt," the " Patron," and the " Commissary," 
 were successively produced with the happiest effect. 
 Of the first, which was called a comedy, but like 
 all the series, is really a farce in two acts, it will 
 be enough to mention, that it is genuine in its 
 drollery, and has remained a constant favourite 
 with the public down to the present day. We are 
 told that Foote's Major Sturgeon was inimitable, 
 and also that Jerry Sneak has been the master- 
 piece of many subsequent actors. " The Patron " 
 was borrowed from " Marmontel's Tales," and ap- 
 plied to Lord Melcombe, that strange compound of
 
 SAMUEL FOOTE. 
 
 175 
 
 wit and frivolity, fashion and talent. This trifle, 
 Foote, in the dedication to Lord Gower, declares 
 to be the best of all he liad written down to the 
 date of its appearance. The "Commissary" abounds 
 with veins of the same pei"sonal and general ridi- 
 cule which made the preceding jiieces so popular, 
 and is chiefly remarkable for the introduction of 
 the celebrated Arne, under the name of Dr. Cat- 
 gutt. Could any merit prove a shield from satire, 
 the most accomplished musician the English nation 
 could then boast of would certainly have stood re- 
 spected and untouched ; but wit and mimicry have 
 always been unsparing. 
 
 The year I'JUO was to Foote an era of great revo- 
 lutions. Being on a visit at the Earl of Mex- 
 borough's country-seat, he fell from a horse and 
 fractured his leg so severely in two places that 
 amputation was required to save his life. He bore 
 the ojieration with fortitude and jocularity : at first 
 it appeared to augur fatally for his professional 
 fortune, and enemies were not wanting who ex- 
 claimed upon the fitness of that retribution which 
 had maimed the mimic of cripples, as for instance, 
 Falkner, the Dublin alderman, who wanted a leg. 
 Foote's imitation of the old man's lameness was 
 considered about the best feature of the personifica- 
 tion. Mocking, therefore, was here shown to be 
 catching ; but thei'e is nothing like suffering in 
 good company. Foote recovered his health and 
 spirits, and the Duke of York, who happened to be 
 at the Earl of ]\Iexborough's at this conjuncture, 
 took such an interest in his case as to patronise an 
 application he made for a patent. A suit thus 
 favoured soon found grace : Foote's fall took place 
 in Februarj', and in July a patent was made out, 
 by the terms of which he was authorised to build a 
 theatre in the city and liberties of Westminster, 
 and therein exhibit performances from May 14 to 
 September 1 4, during each year. Emboldened by 
 this grant, he bought and pulled down the old 
 house, and quickly built a new theatre, which was 
 thrown open to the public in May 1767. 
 
 The new establishment flourished rapidly, but it 
 was not until the summer of 1770 that the pro- 
 prietor came forward with a novelty of his own 
 composition, and that gained no popularity. It 
 was cntitlecl " The Lame Lover," and had an ap- 
 jiropriate character for the author, in the person of 
 Sir Luke Limp. " Piety in Pattens," however, his 
 next production, which was first acted in 177-^5 but 
 never printed, fully compensated for this failure ; 
 there is a long account of it in the '' Biogra|ihia 
 Dramatica," according to which the piece was 
 styled a sentimental comedy, and was introduced 
 in an cntertaiinnent called " The Primitive Pujiiiet- 
 show." The novelty of a design which undertook 
 to put down tli<; jirevailing rage for such sentimen- 
 tal comedies as "False Delicacy," &c., bmuglit a 
 crowd around the house that rendered the J lay- 
 market impassable for more than an hour. The 
 doors were broken o])en, and great numbers en- 
 tered tlic theatre without paying any tiling for 
 their admission. Hats, swords, canes, cloaks, &c. 
 were lost among the molt ; hidies fainted, &c. &c., 
 and sharpers triunipiu-d. The entertainment was 
 divided into three jiarts, vi/.,, an oration, a comedy, 
 and a scene with I'uncli. 
 
 Proceeding with the list of Foote's plays, accord- 
 ing to the order in which they were acted or 
 jirinted, we find " TIk; 13anki-upt " attracting great 
 
 applause in 177C: it was a comedy excellent in its 
 object, and strong in characters. " The Devil upon 
 Two Sticks," an extremely popular comedy, printed 
 in 177H, is memoi-able for a personification of Sir 
 William Browne, then president of the College of 
 Surgeons, who took the ridicule so good-naturedly 
 that he disarmed even the parent satirist. For 
 while praises of the performance were re-echoed 
 from all parts of the town. Sir William .sent a card 
 to Foote, comjilimenting him on the accuracy of 
 the imitation in general, but reminding him that 
 he had forgotten the doctor's niuft", which was for- 
 warded as a present. " The Maid of Bath," also 
 printed in 1778, can hardly be supposed to have 
 failed, when it is stated that the circumstances of 
 the piece were generally known to be real ; and 
 that Mr. Long, who left the great heiress. Miss 
 Tilney Long, late Mrs. Wellesley Pole, a fortune 
 of 20'0,0()()/!, was the hero of the story. Next in 
 the printed volumes come the " Nabob," and the 
 " Cozeners," both good and successful pieces. Mr. 
 Simons, in the latter, was accepted as a satire upon 
 Dr. Dodd. 
 
 Hitherto the licentiousness of Foote's theatrical 
 caricaturing had flourished without interruption, 
 but it was now destined, like every thing human, 
 to receive the bridle of adversity ; and such was 
 the severity of the application, that what remained 
 to him of life was embittered by the change. About 
 the year 1775, the noted Duchess of Kingston was 
 a topic of general conversation ; and Foote, ever 
 pi'ompt to avail himself of a hit, unscrupulously 
 brought her grace under the character of Lady 
 Kitty Crocodile, into a new comedy, entitled the 
 " Trip to Calais," upon the composition of which 
 he was then employed. Taking care to give pub- 
 licity to his intentions, proposals of a pecuniary 
 compensation for suppressing the exposure were 
 entered into. He asked 2000/., and was offered 
 1500/., but the negoeiation broke ott', and the lady 
 resorted for protection to the Lord Chamberlain. 
 Over him her influence prevailed : the character 
 was officially interdicted, and Foote was forced to 
 condense all the innocent parts of the " Trip to 
 Calais" into a new piece, which he called "The 
 Capuchins," and made attractive b}' advertising, 
 after his fashion, the characters, and amongst them 
 a friend to her grace, the Uev. Mr. Jackson, who, 
 in 1795, committed suicide while under a charge 
 of high treason at Dublin. 
 
 While the fate of the " Trip to Calais" remained 
 undecideil, the projiriety of the Lord Chamberlain's 
 interfei'ence was discussed in a public epistolary 
 controversy, remarkable for the gross violence with 
 wliich it was waged, and the abominable vilifica- 
 tions with which it abounded. One horrible im])u- 
 tation thus bruited acquired a fatal colouring, from 
 a j)riisecution which was soon after instituted 
 against Foote for unnatural criminality with a dis- 
 carded servant. In sulijuining the fact of his 
 acquittal, in full accordance with the opinion of 
 the i)residing judge, it is but fair to explain that 
 the affair was generally supposed to liave originated 
 in malice. Nor was his personal bearing, that last 
 crit(.Tion, barren of evidence for believing him in- 
 nocent of such ini'ainy : his vivacity flagged under 
 the odiinn of .suspicion, his mind became percept- 
 ilily Iroiililed, and his In altli rapidly dt'cayed. He 
 never after faced an atidii'nce with eoiilideiice. 
 Urged by tlio weight of these alHictions, he dis-
 
 17G 
 
 WESTMINSTER ABBEY. 
 
 posed of his theatre to Mr. Colman tlie elder, for 
 an annuity of 1500/., and some special privileges as 
 an actor. But he was in every respect incapable 
 of his former exertions : in the course of a few 
 months he was seized with ])aralysis on the stage, 
 and though he found himself sufficiently recovered 
 to spend the remainder of the summer at Brighton, 
 he could never once resume his profession. As the 
 winter approached, his physicians recommended a 
 warmer climate, and he repaired to Dover, with 
 the intention of passing into the south of France. 
 That jouniey, however, was not to be performed: 
 he fell into a second fit, October 1, 1777? and quietly 
 expii-ed during the course of the day. His body 
 was conducted to London, and honoured with a 
 public funeral in Westminster Abbey. The grave 
 is indicated by no stone, nor has any memorial of 
 his name been erected in the fabric. 
 
 Over and above the dramatic pieces already 
 mentioned in this sketch, Foote put his name to a 
 work entitled the " Comic Theatre," taken from 
 the French, and published in five vols. 12mo. 
 during the year 17C2 ; but out of the sixteen plays 
 it contains, only one, " The Yoimg Hypocrite," is 
 uudei'stood to have been his composition. Of his 
 own works, pi-inted in four vols. 12mo. to the num- 
 ber of six-and-twenty, "The IMayor of Garratt" 
 alone retains rank on the modern stage : it is 
 therefore reasonable to infer that, whatever popu- 
 larity his productions attained, was occasioned by 
 the subtle mimicry of their singular author, and 
 not by the talent with which he wrote. No fol- 
 lower has sui'passed him in reputation ; he was 
 
 perfectly a Proteus in changes and imitations, and 
 is described to us dancing from character to cha- 
 racter, and person into person, with the agility of 
 a puppet. Metamorphosis seems no fable when we 
 read of the simulations practised by Foote ; he was 
 an automaton of Pythagorean transmigrations. But 
 at this praise his panegyric ceases : the actor was 
 inimitable, the man insufferable. A spendthi'ift in 
 fortune, and prodigal in talent, he prostituted his 
 powers to gain, and cared nothing for the effect of 
 his performances beyond the amount of money 
 which they brought to his purse. Moral or im- 
 moral, he would make any hit that would tell ; and 
 although his writings may not offend with the 
 grosser vices of our early dramatists — althougli his 
 dialogue does not abound with profane oaths and 
 naked obscenity, the spirit of his compositions will 
 be found to have been more treacherously injurious. 
 His language was defamation, and his actions were 
 crimes ; his wit poison, and his sport death. He 
 pounced upon his victim as a cat paws a mouse, 
 with himiorous eccentricity. How he icoithl have 
 been bribed not to expose the Duchess of Kingston 
 has been I'elated ; and how he could be deterred 
 from mocking others througli fear of a beating. 
 Dr. Johnson rendered notorious. Can any conduct 
 then, be more frigidly heartless, or any vice more 
 meanly abject ? Yet was his address so arch, and 
 his flattery so fine, his conversation so prompt, 
 fertile, and jocose, and his every point so brilliantly 
 keen, that he was the delight of society, and a 
 charm to all who heard him. Such is the magic of 
 the mind ; Foote was the Harlequin of Genius. 
 
 PITT, EARL OF CHATHAM. 
 
 The Pitts did not appear as a family before the 
 seventeenth century, when they began to sow the 
 seeds of political power in the foulest parts of the 
 constitution. Considering the character of the great 
 genius they ])roduced in Lord Chatham, this origin 
 is curious. Their names are to be found in the lists 
 of almost every parliament, summoned at and after 
 the Revolution, for such boroughs as Old Sarum, 
 Corfe Castle, and Wareham, beginning with Tho- 
 mas Pitt, who sat for the fii'st of these small places 
 in the Convention Parliament of 1688. This Thomas 
 Pitt was governor of Madras, and Jamaica, and 
 realised a lai'ge fortune. He ]Hirchased while 
 abroad a large diamond for 20 400i?., which he sold 
 to the King of France for five times that sum. It 
 was at one time rumoured that Mr. Pitt had got 
 possession of this stone by unfair means, and Pope 
 popularised the scandal in the couplet: — 
 
 " Asleep and naked as an Indian lay, 
 An honest factor stole a gem away." 
 
 Ultimately Mr. Pitt printed an account of the 
 manner in which he obtained the diamond, which 
 seems to have been perfectly fair. He died m 1736, 
 leaving as his oldest son, Robert Pitt, of Boconnoc, 
 in Cornwall. The second son of this Robert, and 
 consequently grandson of Governor Pitt, as he used 
 to be called, was William, afterwards Earl of 
 Chatham, who was born in the pai'ish of St. James, 
 Westminstei", November 18, I7O8. Entering upon 
 the foundation of Eton school at a proper age, he 
 had for his companions in study George, afterwards 
 
 Lord Lyttelton; Henry Fox, afterwards Lord Hol- 
 land; Sir Charles Haubury Williams, the poet; and 
 Fielding, the novelist. His master was Dean Bland, 
 who is reported to have frequently pointed him 
 out to visitors as a young prodigy. In his eighteenth 
 year, he was sent to Trinity College, Oxford, and 
 tliere distinguished himself before a twelvemonth 
 had elajjsed, by a Latin poem on the death of 
 George I., which was printed by the University, 
 with several others upon the same subject. 
 
 At this early period, the gout, a disorder heredi- 
 tary in his family, began to make those attacks 
 ui^on his constitution from which he afterwards 
 suffered so severely. It was in consequence of this 
 affliction, that he was obliged to abandon the uni- 
 versity without a degree, and seek for some allevia- 
 tion of his pains in a milder climate. Thus he 
 travelled into France and Italy; and, although 
 not materially relieved in health, refined his man- 
 ners and enriched his mind by a large fund of 
 useful information. Returning to England, he was 
 first elected for the family borough of Old Sarum, 
 in February 1735, and about the same time, as his 
 fortune was small, amounting only to lOOZ. a-year, 
 obtained a cornetcv in the Blues. Taking his seat 
 with the opposition, he delivered his maiden speech 
 upon the. same occasion with his fonner school- 
 fellow, Lyttelton, the one moving and the other 
 seconding an address of congratulation to the king, 
 upon the marriage of the Prince of Wales, to 
 whose party he had attached himself. 
 
 His spirit and devotion to the cause he had
 
 PITT, EARL OF CHATHAM. 
 
 177 
 
 espoused in politics soon made him so remarkable, 
 that Sir Robei-t Walpole thought it worth his while 
 to abuse his authoritj' as a minister by dismissing 
 the young patriot from the army. Amongst an 
 independent people, an indignity of this kind only 
 adds importance to the person whom it is attempted 
 to injm-e or degrade. Pitt's talents were quickened 
 into bolder activity, and he found his loss honour- 
 ably compensated by the sympathy of his country- 
 men. He was warmly noticed by Lord Cobliam, a 
 ])()pular general, who had been treated in the same 
 arbitrary way by the minister: he was eulogised 
 by the poets*, and ranked among the most pro- 
 mising men of the day. That his position was 
 already commanding, and his proceedings formida- 
 ble, is sufficiently proved by tlie angry attacks made 
 upon his capacity and conduct in the ministerial 
 paper of the time. There he is alluded to as a 
 young man only just bi-ought into the house, and 
 already holding himself equal to Tully in eloquence, 
 and to the oldest senators in reputation and expe- 
 rience. The youth against whom such sarcasms 
 were levelled, must have supphed no common 
 evidence of energy and ambition. 
 
 At length the disagreements between the Prince 
 of Wales and his father ran into such extremes, 
 that the former was deprived of his apartments in 
 St. James's Palace, and compelled to form a sejia- 
 rate household in Leicester-square. Upon this 
 establishment Lyttleton was made private secre- 
 tary, and Pitt groom of the bedchamber. From 
 this period he became a constant speaker in the 
 iiouse, and was even accustomed to reply to Sir 
 Robert Walpole. An estimate of the character of 
 his eloquence was soon, therefore, publicly fonned, 
 from which we learn, that his voice was sonorous, 
 his delivery flowing, his manner warm and impi-es- 
 sive, his style forcible, and his matter convincing. 
 At this time the oratory of the House of Com- 
 mons was declamatory rather than argumentative; 
 and more polished than pointed: consequently he 
 was amongst the first v.ho rested on direct reason- 
 ing and facts. Still he had much to cope with; his 
 forward abilities were repulsed with an acrimony 
 over which personal reflexions too frequently pre- 
 ponderated. Up to the session of 1740 this system 
 of molestation continued unabated, but his patience 
 being at last exhausted, he eneountei'ed it with a 
 degree of spirit and ability that ]mt it down for 
 ever after. 
 
 Mr. Horace Walpole had observed, that formi- 
 dable sounds, and furious declamation, confident 
 assertions, and lofty perioils, might att'cct the young 
 and inexperienced; and that jierhaps the honour- 
 able gentleman might have contracted his habits of 
 oratory by conversing more with those of his own 
 age, than such as had greater opportunities of ac- 
 quiring knowledge, and more successful metliods 
 of communicating their sentiments. To this were 
 
 • Lyttleton published the following lines on the occa- 
 sion ; — 
 
 To William Pitl, ICtr/., on his losing hit Commtssion. 
 Long had tliy virtues marked tliee out for fame 
 Far, far superior to a Cornet's name : 
 This generous Walpole saw, and grieved to (iiid 
 So mean a post disgrace that iiol/le mind : 
 That servile standard from thy fre<d)orn hand 
 He took, and bade thee lead the patriot band. 
 Thomson also makes honourable mcniion of his name in 
 the "Seasons," as docs liammond in his " Elegies. " 
 
 added some remarks ujion veheincnt gestures, 
 theatrical emotion, iScc. &.C. 
 
 " Pitt instantly rose and rejilied," according to 
 Dr. Johnson, who reported the debate in tlicse 
 words, — " The atrocious crime of being a young 
 man, which the honourable gentleman has with 
 such spirit and decency charged upon me, I shall 
 neither attempt to palliate nor deny, but content 
 myself with wishing that I may be one of those, 
 whose follies cease with their youth, and not one 
 of that number who are ignorant in spite of expe- 
 rience. Whether youth can be imputed to any 
 man as a reproach, I will not assume the province 
 of determining: but surely age may become justly 
 contemptible, if the opportunities which it brings 
 have passed away without improvement, and vice 
 appears to prevail when the passions have subsided. 
 The wretch, who having seen the consequences of 
 a thousand errors, continues still to blimder, is 
 surely the object either of abhorrence or contempt, 
 and deserves not that his grey hairs should secure 
 him from insult. Much more is he to be abhorred, 
 \^ ho, as he has advanced in age, has receded from 
 virtue; who becomes more wicked with less temp- 
 tation; who prostitutes himself for money he camiot 
 enjoy, and spends the remains of his life in the ruin 
 of his country. But youth is not my only crime: 
 I am accused of acting a theatrical ])art. A thea- 
 trical i)art may either imply some ]ieculiarities of 
 gesture, or a dissinuilation of my real sentiments, 
 and an adoption of the opinions and language of 
 others. In the first sense, the charge is too trifling 
 to be confuted; and deserves only to be mentioned 
 that it may be despised. I am at liberty, like every 
 other man, to use my own language, and though I 
 may perhaps have some ambition, yet to please 
 this gentleman 1 will not lay myself under any 
 restraint; nor very solicitously copy his dictation 
 or mien, however matured by age or modelled by 
 experience. If any man shall, by charging me with 
 theatrical behaviour, imply that I utter any senti- 
 ments but my own, I shall treat him as a calum- 
 niator; nor shall any protection shelter him from 
 the treatment he deserves. I shall, on sucii an 
 occasion, without scruple, trample on all those lornis 
 in which wealth and pride always entrench them- 
 selves; nor shall any thing but age restrain my 
 resentment — age, which always brings one ])rivi- 
 lege, that of being insolent and supercilious without 
 punishment. But with regard to those whom I 
 have oH'ended, I am of opinion, that if I had acted 
 a borrowed part, 1 should have avoided their cen- 
 sure; the heat that otfended them is the ardour of 
 conviction, and that zeal for the welfare of my 
 country which neither hope nor fear shall inlhienee 
 me to su]>press. 1 will not sit unconcerned while 
 my liberty is invaded, nor look in silence upon 
 ])ublic robbery. I will exert my endeavours, at 
 whatever hazard, to ri'pel the aggressor, and drag 
 the thief to justice — whoever may protect them in 
 their villaiTiy, and whoever may jtartake of their 
 ]ihiii(l( r. And il tlu' honourable gentleman — " 
 
 Here hi- was interrui)ted by a cry of ord(-r from 
 Mr. Winnington, who was proceeding to eul'orci' 
 his opiiiiiiu by direct abuse, when I'ilt in his turn 
 retort<(l thf point of tjrder, and added, — 
 
 " If this h(! to ])resorve order, there is no danger 
 of imlecency from the most licentiinis tongue; fm- 
 what caluniiiy can he more atrocious, or VHl^^ri 
 
 J^
 
 178 
 
 WESTMINSTER ABBEY. 
 
 proach more severe, than that of speaking without 
 any regard to truth I Order may sometimes be 
 broken by passion or inadvertency, but will seldom 
 be re-established by a monitor like this, who cannot 
 govern his own passion while restraining the impe- 
 tuosity of others. Happy would it be for mankind 
 if every one knew his own province: we should not 
 then see the same man at once a criminal and a 
 judge, nor would this gentleman assume the right 
 of dictating to others, what he has not learned him- 
 self. That I may return in some degree the favour 
 which he intends me, I will advise him never again to 
 exert himself on the point of order, but whenever he 
 feels himself inclined to speak on such a subject, to 
 remember how he has now succeeded, and condemn 
 in silence what his censures will never reform." 
 
 It is considered, and apparently with reason, 
 that Dr. Johnson clothed many of Pitt's sentiments 
 upon this occasion in his own roimded periods. 
 We know, however, as a matter of certainty, that 
 the sentiments delivered by young Pitt in this 
 debate were considered highly appropriate and 
 triumphantly effective. The style and character 
 of his eloquence, and the tenor of his political 
 career, seem both to have taken their full forms 
 and definite course from this period, and to have 
 developed all those traits of dignity, decision, and 
 superior personal merit, which accompanied him to 
 the close of his career. He persisted vigorously 
 in opposition, until an address to the king for the 
 removal of Walpole was moved in the House of 
 Commons. This question he supported in a phi- 
 lippic of exti-aordinary, but ineffectual power: the 
 minister obtained a majority; yet found it pru- 
 dent to obviate re-agitation of the subject, by pro- 
 curing a dissolution of the parliament. The crisis 
 of his sway was come, however, and no art could 
 save him from falling. Pitt's eloquence had over- 
 powered the man and his measm'es with indelible 
 odium. In the new session several questions were 
 pushed to a division, which were m no other re- 
 spects of consequence than as trials of strength 
 between the two parties: these the minister lost, 
 and was therefore constrained to resign all his em- 
 ployments, with the title of Earl of Orford. Still 
 his interest with the king was undiminished, and 
 although he could not act himself, he was not pre- 
 cluded from influencing the measures brought for- 
 ward. He had felt the power and passion of his 
 adversaries, and dreading their resentment, exerted 
 himself keenly to break their strength, and com- 
 pound an administration out of the most greedy of 
 their party, and the least obnoxious of his own. In 
 this project he succeeded: Lord Carteret, Pulteney, 
 and a few others, were drawn into a negociation with- 
 out consulting their late friends; and satisfied with 
 the proposals tendered to them, entered upon office. 
 While this coalition was in a course of arrange- 
 ment, the parliament had been prorogued, and had 
 no sooner assembled again, than it became manifest 
 that the recent changes had provoked much discon- 
 tent : the new ministry were accused of having 
 bartered for theh' places, by insuring the safety of 
 Walpole, and two motions for an enquh-y into his con- 
 duct were immediately brought forward. Both were 
 ably advocated by Pitt*: the first failed by a majo- 
 
 * It is said that Pitt himself was willing to take office upon 
 the sMie terms, namely, that there should be no impeach- 
 menflBValpole. 
 
 suffig tei 
 
 nflva 
 
 rity of two; but the second, though carried in the 
 commons through all the stages of a bill, was thrown 
 out by the lords: the proceedings were never re- 
 vived. The usual course of parliamentary oppo- 
 sition was all that was now left to Pitt, and in that 
 he was indefatigable. He denounced the war, 
 corrected the policy, and exposed the imperfect 
 measures of the ministry with an amplitude of 
 talent and tenacious spirit, such as the country had 
 never before witnessed. To the admiration yielded 
 to him as an orator, was now superadded the rever- 
 ence due to a patriot. The indications of popular 
 sjTiipathy were of a description previously unknown 
 in this country; it was not the mere approbation of 
 the House of Commons, nor the wild applause of 
 the lower orders only, but the strong attachment 
 of all classes. Sarah, Duchess Dowager of Marlbo- 
 rough, in 1744 bequeathed him 10,000L " in consi- 
 deration of his public merit, and the noble defence 
 he made to support the cause, and prevent the ruin 
 of his country." Liberal as this tribute was, it was 
 exceeded; for after receiving in 1764, with a similar 
 declai-ation, a legacy of lOOOZ. from Ralph Allen, 
 Esq., Sir William Pynsent, of Burton Pynsent, in 
 Somersetshire, left him, in 1/65, an uniucumbered 
 estate of 3000^. a-year, upon the same account. 
 
 WhUe he was thus exalted in popular estimation, 
 his rise to place was gradually prepared by the 
 jealousies which began to prevail among the mmis- 
 ters. Lord Carteret, now Viscount Granville, in- 
 sinuated himself so adroitly into the favour of the 
 monarch, that his colleagues took alarm at his 
 ascendancy, and sought private means to under- 
 mine his power, lest such another exclusive sway 
 as Sir Robert Walpole had enjoyed should again 
 be obtained. Lord Cobham, as the leader of the 
 opposition, was the principal person to be secured ; 
 he was allowed to dictate his terms, and as soon as 
 they were ratified. Lord Granville was outvoted iu 
 the cabmet, and forced to reth-e. Pitt's introduc- 
 tion to office -was one of the stipulated conditions 
 of this change ; but there were some difficulties to 
 be suraiounted before the promise could be reduced 
 to performance. George II. had all along turned 
 from his person and politics with unmitigated aver- 
 sion ; he considered him the responsible agent of 
 all those acts by which the cabinet had lately been 
 convulsed, and the favourite interests of his Ger- 
 man politics contravened : — Lord Cobhani, therefore, 
 held it a matter of delicacy, as well as prudence, 
 to be content with the Duke of Newcastle's under- 
 taking that these prejudices should be removed, 
 and the object of them honourably provided for. 
 
 In consequence of this arrangement, Pitt became 
 a ministerial advocate in the session of 1745 ; and 
 hei-e it is to be observed, that in the very first 
 speech he made in his new character, he retreated 
 from principles which he had long and brilliantly 
 vindicated. As soon as assistance was claimed by the 
 crowii for the suppression of the Scotch rebellion. 
 Sir Francis Dashwood required the House to pledge 
 itself that care should be speedily taken to frame 
 such bills as would secure the people from the 
 corrupt and undue influence so notoriously exer- 
 cised during a late administration. This had been 
 a standard proposition with Pitt ; but he now ob- 
 jected to the vote ; first, because, as he asserted, it 
 was only brought forward to involve the existing 
 ministry in the odium of their predecessors, and 
 thus make them disreputable to the nation ; and
 
 PITT, EARL OF CHATHAM. 
 
 179 
 
 secondly, because he lield it to be ill-seasoned and 
 dangerous for them to waste their time in guard- 
 ing our liberties from corruption, when an enemy 
 was at hand to force by ai-ms all that was valuable 
 from om* grasp. This was an iiigeui(nis apology ; 
 but the tergiversation was not the less distinct. 
 The support aft'orded to the Government in the 
 distress of 1745 could not have been in any degree 
 weakened by a promise to redress stated grievances; 
 the season of political adversity has often proved 
 the most favourable to political improvement, and 
 the ministry could only have been strengthened by 
 a manly renunciation of abuses, the notoriety of 
 which went nigh to arouse m England the rebellion 
 that raged in Scotland. 
 
 It happened soon after, that an incidental subject 
 gave rise to some remarks upon the practice of 
 dismissing officers from the army, and reducing 
 men to the ranks without a court-martial, or any 
 inquiry into their conduct. Of this occasion Pitt 
 availed himself to uphold the prerogative of the 
 crown in its fullest extent, althougli it was one 
 which he had delighted to impugn when ui opposi- 
 tion himself. A more signal recantation followed 
 in 1751, when a treaty was closed with Spam re- 
 cognising her right to seize, detain, and search all 
 British vessels within certain lines of her American 
 dependencies ; and he acknowledged that he was 
 in error when he had fi)rmerly represented this 
 concession as an insuffei-able indignity. On this 
 point these, his second thoughts, were by no means 
 considered the best, for the right was subsequently 
 revoked, and has not since been allowed. 
 
 If this moderation, to use the gentlest phrase, 
 upon the part of Mr. Pitt, was adopted with the 
 view of conciliating the king, it met with that re- 
 turn which all subserviency deserves. He was left 
 to sit unproraoted on the ministerial benches, until 
 at last Lord Cobham was compelled to insist on 
 the fulfilment of the Duke of Newcastle's promise ; 
 and then it was found that the king would not 
 listen to it. The weight of Pitt's talents, not with 
 his party only, but the public, was now demon- 
 strated with extraordmary force and effect ; and a 
 ferment quickly arose in and out of parliament too 
 violent for any king or minister to withstand. 
 George II. was forced to succumb; the Pelham 
 family, Lord Cobham, and his friends were re- 
 stored to office, and Mr. Pitt, after being for a 
 short time Vice-treasurer of Ireland, was made 
 Paymaster to the Forces. Of his conduct in this 
 jireferment the most honourable account has been 
 I)re3erved: his actions fully confirmed the upright 
 character of his mind. Before this time it was a 
 custom with the paymasters to retain in their 
 hands a sura of 100,000/. under the pretence of 
 casual emergencies, which they investeil in the 
 funds for their own advantage. This abuse he 
 corrected; he lodged his receipts in the Bank of 
 England, and thei'e the due balance wits found 
 when he left liLs place. This integrity greatly 
 chagrined his enemies, and confirmed his reputa- 
 tion for virtue. A higher proof of his conscien- 
 tious rectitude was soon after giv(-n, whc^n a sub- 
 sidy voted by j)arlianient to the king of Sardinia 
 and Q,ueen t>i Hungary was made ]>ayable at his 
 office. A jjcr-centage, by way oi' perquisite, hud 
 hitherto been charged ni)on all disliurKiineiits of 
 the kind. I'itt, however, paid tin,- aniount without 
 any deduction, honestly declaring that the House 
 
 of Commons had awarded a certain sum, and the 
 servants of the crown were bound to give it entire. 
 When this act was reported to the king of Sar- 
 dinia, he commanded his ambassador to tender to 
 Mr. Pitt a sum of money, upon the terms of a 
 royal jiresent ; but this favour was also declined — 
 a pertinacious purity which incited his majesty to 
 exclaim, in the fervour of continental panegyric, 
 " Surely this Englishman must be something more 
 than mortal !" 
 
 In 1754, Mr. Pitt married Hester, the daughter 
 of Richard Grenville, Esq., a lady of congenial 
 education and spirit, with whom he spent a life of 
 unbroken harmony. This match cemented a j)oli- 
 tical connection of great influence, and by making 
 Lord Temple his brother-in-law, led to a friend- 
 ship of distinguished memory. But while his ])ri- 
 vate life was thus ha))py, he was by no means 
 satisfied with his public situation. The king, though 
 obliged to receive him as a servant, was far from 
 inclined to treat him with favour; for the continu- 
 ance of this aversion Pitt condemned his colleagues. 
 He seldom spoke in the house, and is only to be 
 noted about this date for a charitable bill to regu- 
 late the payments of the Chelsea pensioners. From 
 the want of cordiality in the cabinet public distress 
 resulted as a matter of course: Lord Anson lost 
 Minorca, our trade to the Mediterranean was 
 crippled; the introduction of a body of Hanoverian 
 troops into England, under a fear of French inva- 
 sion, excited loud nuirmurs; the ministers became 
 emban'assed; Pitt declined to aid them, and was 
 at last authorized by the king to fill up the offices 
 of government as he deemed most beneficial. Givmg 
 the admiralty to Lord Temple, he made his friend 
 Mr. Legge, chancellor of the exchequer, and became 
 secretary of state himself. To secure an interest 
 in the House of Commons, he ceded the treasury 
 to the Duke of Newcastle, and thus entered ujion 
 his first administration under the most flattermg 
 appearances of general confidence. 
 
 The aspect of public affairs soon assumed a better 
 appearance ; Pitt was the soul of his party, and he in- 
 fused his own vigour into its every council and every 
 act. It was a rule with him to disregard all party 
 distinctions and family interests; to employ men of 
 sterling talent, on whatever side he found them; 
 and to ensure victory by filling the army and navy 
 with officers of experienced skill and bravery. His 
 first care was to dislodge the Hanoverian troops 
 from the English garrisons, and upon sending them 
 back to the continent, to i)rovide for the uiternal 
 defence of the country by levying an able militia. 
 He raised new regiments in tiie highlands, and by 
 indicating confidence in the Scotch succeeded in 
 obtiiining it. He kept all the powers of the empire 
 alert by a series of unintermitted enterprizes, and 
 attacked the enemy in every (juarter of the globe. 
 He despatched fleets to the East and West Indies, 
 and forwanled another squadron to seize the island 
 of (jlorce, on the coast of Africa — an imdertaUing 
 as gallantly executed as it was propitiously designed, 
 and IVoni the late dearth of success, liailed with 
 delight by the ]ieople. Still, however, the sovereign 
 was not propitiated; on the contrary, the diflennces 
 between him and his new minister were soon fatally 
 aggravated. The canqiaigu on the continent had 
 s(,a in, and (Jeorge II. (letermintMl tosen<l the \U\ir 
 of Cuinbcrland to the relief of the King of Prussia, a 
 mode of interference wliich I'itt comleiHiMjil.^ H< 
 
 'M^
 
 180 
 
 WESTMINSTER ABBEY. 
 
 refused to advance money foi- the journey; and, 
 although by virtue of his office he delivered a 
 message from the crown, requesting a supply, he 
 would not support the motion. For this he and his 
 party were dismissed: the places of his friends 
 were easily supplied, but his remained unoccupied. 
 
 The public sense of this proceeding was pro- 
 claimed without hesitation or reserve. The free- 
 dom of the principal cities throughout the kingdom 
 was presented to the ejected minister in the most 
 complimentary manner; and addresses, expressing 
 general thanks, and an unqualified approbation of 
 his conduct, poured in on him from all quarters. ]n 
 short, the nation appeai'ed in a fever of excitement, 
 which neither intrigue nor command sufficed to 
 control: the king found it vain to withstand; and 
 shed tears of mortification, when forced to yield 
 the I'eins of government a second time to the dic- 
 tation of William Pitt, whose triumph was now in 
 the highest degree honourable and complete. He 
 placed his late rival, Mr. Fox, under him; and sub- 
 jected Lord Anson, who at his Majesty's pai'ticular 
 entreaty was allowed to remain at the admiralty, 
 under restrictions, which in a manner annihilated 
 his influence. The leading departments were again 
 conducted by his personal friends; confidence was 
 restored to the people, and warm hopes of national 
 prosperity again prevailed. 
 
 Upon resuming his station at the head of affairs, 
 Mr. Pitt laboured under several disadvantages: his 
 temporary successors had damaged, by their weak- 
 ness and indecision, the projects he had left in a 
 train of action; and he was thus i-educed to the 
 necessity of making considerable sacrifices, in order 
 to overcome the consequences of their incapacity. 
 At the very onset, two plans upon which he em- 
 barked were defeated; these were the expeditions 
 against Rochfort, on the coast of Fi'ance, and Louis- 
 bourg, in North America. They appeared rather 
 to have been defectively attempted by the com- 
 manding officers, than injudiciously projected; and 
 were more deplored than censured by the commu- 
 nity. But Pitt rapidly arranged the resources of 
 the state, and gave instant proofs of unabated spirit, 
 wisdom, and integrity. When the courts of Russia, 
 Denmark, and France, entered into a coalition, and 
 shut our ships out of the Baltic; he exemplified tlie 
 prompt and indomitable vigour of his character, by 
 immediately despatching a squadron, which seized 
 upon every Dutch vessel to be found at sea. This 
 intrepidity counteracted the danger; but it was 
 necessary to repeat the blow ; and he, therefore, con- 
 curred with the king in his project of arming 40,000 
 Hanoverians to assist the King of Prussia. Against 
 this policy it was urged that it was a renunciation 
 of the principles upon which he had condemned 
 the continental measures of the late ministry. For 
 him it was replied, that when circumstances change, 
 opinions must change also, that the situation of 
 Great Britain was at this conjuncture critical in 
 the extreme, and that the duty of the minister was 
 to save his country even at the expense of his con- 
 sistency. 
 
 During one of the first interviews between 
 George II. and Mr. Pitt, the minister, we are told, 
 said to the king, " Sire, give me ycnir confidence, 
 and I will deserve it." " Deserve my confidence," 
 retorted the sovereign, " and you shall have it." 
 We are now to observe both parties co-operating 
 upon th||| terras; the king was all assension, the 
 
 1 
 
 thega 
 
 minister all alacrity; parliament gave both its cor- 
 dial support ; the war prospered gallantly, and 
 France suffered severe distress. The year 1758 
 was marked by brilliant exploits. In Asia the 
 French lost Masulipatam, and were defeated in 
 two engagements at sea; in America, Louisburg, 
 the forts Du Quesne and Frontiniac, and the island 
 of St. John, were taken; Senegal surrendered, on 
 the coast of Africa; and in Europe the persevering 
 boldness of Hawke was rewarded by a series of 
 naval victories *. Nor was the following year dis- 
 
 * This campaign led to tlie erection of two monuments 
 in the south aisle; the one to Viscount Howe, elder hrother 
 of the great Admiral of the same name and title ; and the 
 other to tlie Hon. Lieut. Col. Townshend, a work of superior 
 merit. The tribute to Lord Howe has but few claims to our 
 notice or our praise. It represents the genius of tlie pro- 
 vince of Massachusetts, in New England, lamenting the 
 Colonel's fall, was designed by J. Stuart, and executed by 
 Scheemakers. The inscription relates in large characters 
 that 
 
 The province of Massachusett's Bay, 
 
 In New England 
 
 By an order of the Great and General Court, 
 
 Bearing date February 1759, 
 
 Caused this monument to be erected 
 
 To the memory of 
 
 George, Lord Viscount Howe, 
 
 Brigadier-General of his Majesty's Forces in North America, 
 
 Who was slain July 6, 1758, 
 
 On the march to Ticonderago, 
 
 In the thirty-fourth year of his age ; 
 
 In testimony of the sense they had of his services 
 
 And military virtues, 
 
 And of the affection their officers and soldiers bore to his 
 
 command. 
 
 He lived respected and beloved : the public regretted his 
 loss : to his family he is irreparable. 
 
 Col. Townshend's monument consists of a sarcophagus 
 supported by two Indians, and in the front of the sarco- 
 lihagus a representation in relief of the Colonel's death. 
 Both the figures of the Indians and the death scene are 
 admirably executed, with the usual drawback of dressing 
 English soldiers as ancient warriors. The design was by 
 Adams the architect, and T. Carter enjoys the reputation of 
 having been the sculptor; but NoUekens used to say, that 
 the tablet part, which is very clever, was modelled by one 
 Eckstiene. 
 
 This Monument was erected 
 
 By a disconsolate parent, 
 
 The Lady Viscountess Townshend, 
 
 To the Memory of her fifth son, 
 
 The Hon. Lieutenant-Colonel Roger Townshend, 
 
 Who was killed by a cannon-ball, 
 
 July 25, 1759, in the twenty-eighth year of his age. 
 
 As he was reconnoitring the French lines at Ticonderago, 
 
 In North America. 
 
 From the Parent, the Brother, and the Friend, 
 
 His social and amiable manners, 
 
 His enterprising Bravery, 
 
 And the integrity of his Heart, 
 
 May claim the tribute of Atfliction : 
 
 Yet, Stranger, weep not ; 
 
 For though premature his death, 
 
 His life was glorious. 
 
 Enrolling him with the Names of those immortal Statesmen 
 
 and Commanders 
 
 Whose Wisdom and Intrepidity, 
 
 In the course of this comprehensive and successful War, 
 
 Have extended the Commerce, 
 
 Enlarged the Dominion, 
 
 And upheld the Majesty of these Kingdoms, 
 
 Beyond the idea of any former age.
 
 PITT, EARL OF CHATHAM. 
 
 181 
 
 tinguislied by results less glorious. The captiu'e 
 of Quebec was immortalized by the death of Wolfe; 
 and Ticonderago, Crowupoint, and Niagara, fell 
 successively befoi-e our arms. In the West Indies, 
 Guadaloupe, Marie Galante, Desiderade, and other 
 islands were seized. Havre was bombarded by 
 Rodney, and Brest blockaded by Hawke; the Hano- 
 verians in our pay won the battle of Minden; and 
 on the 20tli of November, the naval strength of 
 Fi-ance was annihilated in an engagement oft" 
 Brest. 
 
 Such was the state of affairs when George II. 
 was succeeded on the throne by his grandson 
 George III.; and a party of the young kmg's 
 friends was directly formed to eject Mr. Pitt. No 
 palace intrigues, however, could .as yet counteract 
 the advantages which his genius had procured 
 abroad. Tlius Montreal and all Canada fell into 
 our possession: the islands of Martinique, St. Lucia, 
 Grenada, and St. Vincent were obtained; and Belle- 
 isle, on the coast of France, and Pondieherry, in 
 Hindoostan, were taken. ^Meanwhile the courtiers' 
 coalition graduallj- prevailed ; the policy of the 
 triumphant minister was checked and opposed sys- 
 tematically, until at last, after having brought the 
 power of France, during an administration of only 
 three years, to a lower ebb than it had been re- 
 duced by the achievements of Marlborough in a ten 
 years' war, he found himself outvoted in the coun- 
 cil, and was obliged to vacate his office. 
 
 Repugnance to Mr. Pitt's principles and person 
 occasioned this public misfortune; but as it was 
 impossible to deny the greatness of his services, so 
 it was deemed prudent to recompense them with 
 the customary honours. His lady was therefore 
 gazetted Baroness Chatham, in her own right, with 
 a reversion to her issue male, and an annuity of 
 3000/. for three lives was granted to support the 
 dignity. Of these various matters an account was 
 given by the late minister himself in a letter ad- 
 dressed to the town-clerk of the city of London, 
 which, to save a less interesting explanation, is 
 inserted : — 
 
 " Dear Sir, 
 
 " Finding to my great surprise, that the cause 
 and manner of my resigning the seals is grossly 
 misrepresented in the city, as well as that the most 
 gracious and spontaneous marks of his majesty's 
 approbation of my services, — which marks followed 
 my resignution, — -have been infamously traduced, 
 as a bargain for my forsaking the jjublic; 1 am 
 under the necessity of declaring the truth of both 
 these facts, in a manner which, I am sure, no gen- 
 tleman will contradict. A difierenee of opinion, 
 with regard to measures to be taken against Spain, 
 of the highest importance to the honour of the 
 crown, and the most essential national interests, — 
 and this founded on what Sjiain had already done, 
 not on wliat that court may further intend to do — 
 was tiie cause of my resigning the seals. Lord 
 Temple and I submitted in writing, and signed Ijy 
 us, our most luimble sentiments to liis majesty, 
 which being overruled by the rest of the king's 
 servants, I resigned the seals on Monday the 5th 
 of tills month, in order not to remain responsible 
 for measures which I was no longer allowed to 
 guide. Most gracious public marks of his niaj''sty's 
 approbation of my sirviees followed my resit;nation. 
 They are unmerited and unsolicited, and 1 shall 
 
 ever be proud to have received them from the best 
 of sovereigns. I will now only add, my dear sir, 
 that I have explained these matters only for the 
 honour of truth; not in any view to court return of 
 confidence from any man, who, with a credulity as 
 weak as it is injurious, has thought fit hastily to 
 withdraw his good opinion from one who has served 
 his country with fidelity and success; and who 
 justly reveres the upright and candid judgment of 
 it, little solicitous about the censures of the caijri- 
 cious and ungenerous. Accept my sincerest ac- 
 knowledgment for all your kind friendship, and 
 believe me ever with truth and esteem, 
 " My dear Sir, 
 " Haves, " Your faithful friend, 
 
 "Oct. 15, 1761. « W. Pitt." 
 
 But though removed from tlie seat of govern- 
 ment, his policy was still destined to prevail, and 
 he triumphed as much out of place as in it ; for 
 in the month of January the ministers were com- 
 pelled to issue tliat declaration of war against 
 Spain which he wished to have made. Being re- 
 turned to the new parliament for the city of Bath, 
 he regarded measures rather than men, and gave 
 his best support to the projects which had been so 
 reluctantly adopted after he had advised them. To 
 pursue the history of Lord Bute's unpopular admi- 
 nistration were here out of place : it is enough to 
 mention that, after a mean violation of the former 
 pledges given to the king of Pnissia, a peace which 
 ought to have been dictated on the proudest terms, 
 was conceded with advantages to the courts of 
 France and Spain. M'hen the ti'eaty was laid be- 
 fore parliament, Pitt, although labouring under 
 an excruciating illness, spoke against it, leaning 
 on two friends, until the House gave him the 
 unusual indulgence of delivering his sentiments 
 seated. The speech lasted for three hours : he re- 
 viewed his own acts and the conduct of his oppo- 
 nents with fulness and jterspicuity ; he canvassed 
 every point of his own policy, and every article of 
 the treaty, with forcible ])recision, and laid open the 
 utter weakness of the proceeding before the House 
 with incontrovertible skill and ett'ect. The harangue 
 was a conclusive exposition of the incapacity of 
 government ; the ministers tottered on to their cer- 
 tain fall ; two overtures were ineffectually made to 
 bring in Mr. Pitt, the one in llU'.i, the other in 
 17(i5 ; but he pertinaciously objected to connect 
 himself with Lord Bute ; and the iMar(|uis of Rock- 
 ingham at last took the head of the Treasury. 
 Under this administration it is to bo remembered 
 the American Stamp Act was passed into a law, 
 an unfortunate measure, which was earnestly de- 
 precated by Mr. Pitt. 
 
 The state thus imsettled, and the people equally 
 dissatisfied, a eliani^i! was not to be av(>ided ; and 
 accordingly, in 176'J, Mr. Pitt was authorized to 
 nominate a ministry. For himself he chose the 
 post of Lonl Privy Seal, and was created Ivirl of 
 Chatham, in the tiusk of filling up the other ap- 
 pointments lie ])roceeded with his wonted decision, 
 and coiniileti'd a list of coadjutors without consult- 
 ing with a single friend. This indepenih'uce led to 
 serious disagreenu'nts : Lord Temple told him he 
 wished to make iiimself a dictator, and refused to 
 act with him on any but equal terms. lUit he felt 
 too seciLre to admit of any control, or deviate fi-om 
 th<; arrangement fixed on by his own judgment as
 
 182 
 
 WESTMINSTER ABBEY. 
 
 the best. He hoped to govern unshackled by sinis- 
 ter influence, and solely trasted for support to the 
 honesty of his views, the confidence of the king, 
 and the attachment of his fellow-countrymen ; he 
 stood, therefore, resolute and unyielding : the 
 friends met in coldness, and parted with angry 
 warmth. 
 
 This disagreement involved the Cliatham admi- 
 nistration in heavy embai'rassments. The head of 
 it was chagrined to find adversaries in those he 
 desired to possess as colleagues, and was in a man- 
 ner constrained to give their places to strangers, 
 connected together by no ties of mutual regard, 
 established confidence, or reciprocal influence. He 
 had now to experience, that in England unsullied 
 integrity and splendid talents are not of themselves 
 sufficient to give security to the highest situations, 
 and that the government of the nation, and of a 
 party, are things totally distinct. Temple and 
 Chatham together constituted a host: the one 
 moved by the graciousness of his address, the 
 other conmianded by the greatness of his powers ; 
 but apart, they fell the prey of conflicting interests. 
 It was in vain that the former laboured to attach 
 some men of family interest, weight, and dignity to 
 his side ; he had professed to prosper independent 
 of such connexions, and they would not forgive the 
 asjiiration. Under this pressure of cares his health 
 suffered considerably ; he was obliged to visit Bath, 
 where he remained ailing and inactive during the 
 rest of the year. As soon as he was able to travel, 
 he took a house at Hampstead, but soon after re- 
 moved to his seat at Hayes, because he thought 
 the air there better. While thus incapacitated 
 both by indisposition and disgust, he necessarily 
 took little share in the counsels of the cabinet ; in- 
 deed, the abstract of this, his second administra- 
 tion, is nothing more than a painful story of bad 
 health, aggravated by intrigues which he was too 
 incensed to grapple with, and yet deeply mortified 
 that he did not siu'mount. During the whole period, 
 negotiations for a change were going on with the 
 king, and several substitutions in office were actu- 
 ally made while he remained in the country. At one 
 time his infirmity was such, that the seal was put 
 into commission, and the parliamentary session 
 passed over without his attendance. Such a state 
 of things could not long continue ; the minister 
 who never interferes and is seldom consulted, virtu- 
 ally ceases to be a directing authority or responsi- 
 ble agent ; so that in December, 1767, he was 
 ultimately roused to the propriety of relinquishing 
 a station, which he could not hold either to his 
 own honour, or the satisfaction of the country. 
 This, perhaps, is the only passage in the life of the 
 Earl of Chatham, which the reader can neither 
 envy nor admire ; it may, therefore, be somewhat 
 satisfactory to characterize it in his own words : — 
 " When," said he, upon a subsequent occasion, 
 " I was earnestly called upon for the public ser- 
 vice from Somersetshire, I came on the wings of 
 zeal ; I consented to preserve a peace which I 
 abominated, — a peace I would not make, but would 
 preserve when made : I undertook to preserve a 
 government by law, but to shield no man from 
 public justice. These terms were accepted — I 
 thought with sincerity accepted. I own I was 
 credulous ; I was duped, I was deceived ; for I 
 soon found there was no original administration 
 to be suffered in the country. The same secret in- 
 
 visible influence still prevailed, which had put an 
 end to all preceding administrations as soon as 
 they opposed or declined to act under it." Of this, 
 the second of Lord Chatham's administrations, the 
 character is so obvious as to call for no particular 
 desci'iption. It failed altogether to satisfy the pub- 
 lic necessities and the ambition of its chief ; but it 
 was not the less forcibly stamped with marks of 
 his vigorous mind, and fruitful of important con- 
 sequences. The aristocratic body was too strong to 
 be beaten by one man in a single encounter, but so 
 heavy was the blow dealt by his hand, that it has 
 not since recovered from the effect of it. Lord 
 Chatham unquestionably was the first English states- 
 man who broke through the grand union of aristo- 
 cratic families then dominant in the country, and 
 who, from the revolution to his administration, had 
 uninterruptedly domineered over the king and the 
 country. 
 
 Being now emancipated from office, his first 
 object was a reconciliation with Lord Temple, 
 which was soon effected. For two sessions indis- 
 position did not permit him to take his seat in 
 parliament, but in 1770, the general excitement 
 stimulated him also into indignant vigour. England 
 was exasperated by the unconstitutional proceed- 
 ings relative to the Middlesex election, and America 
 maddened by the most odious measures of taxation. 
 On the first day the parliameiit assembled he at- 
 tended in his place, and pronounced a speech me- 
 morable in the annals of oratory for the astonishing 
 powers it displayed, and the mighty effects it pro- 
 duced. Upon this, and several occasions imme- 
 diately subsequent, he may almost be said to have 
 fought with his opponents personally, and to have 
 always flung them from him crippled and defeated: 
 it is no hj'perbole to speak of the thunders of elo- 
 quence, when describing the deep vehemence with 
 which he launched forth his denunciations; for the 
 ministers seemed actually to crouch and fall pros- 
 trate before him. The Lord Chancellor Camden 
 divided with him, and was dismissed; several other 
 resignations took place, and before the year ended 
 he drove the Duke of Grafton from place. Some 
 idea of the power of these speeches may be gathered 
 from an extract: — 
 
 " I thank my God, my lords, for having thus 
 long preserved so inconsiderable a being as I am, 
 to take a part upon this great occasion, and to 
 contribute my endeavours, such as they are, to re- 
 store, to save^ to confirm the constitution. My 
 lords, I need not look abroad for grievances: the 
 grand capital mischief is fixed at home; it corrupts 
 the vei'y fountain of our political existence, and 
 preys upon the vitals of the state. The constitution 
 has been violated — the constitution at this mo- 
 ment STANDS violated. Until that wound be healed, 
 until that grievance be redressed, it is in vain to 
 recommend union to parliament, in vain to pro- 
 mote concord among the people". If we mean 
 seriously to unite the nation within itself, we must 
 convince them [the petitioners] that their enquiries 
 are regarded, that their complaints shall be re- 
 dressed. On that foundation, I would take the lead 
 in recommending peace and hai'mony to the people; 
 on any other, 1 would never wish to see them united 
 again. If the breach in the constitution be effect- 
 ually repaired, the people will of themselves return 
 to tranquillity — if not, may discord prevail for
 
 PITT, EARL OF CHATHAM. 
 
 183 
 
 ever! I know to what point this doctrine and this 
 language will appear directed; but I feel the prin- 
 ciples of an Englishman, and I utter them without 
 apprehension or reserve. The crisis is indeed 
 alarming: — so much the more does it require a 
 prudent relaxation on the part of government. If 
 the king's servants will not permit a constitutional 
 question to be decided according to the forms and 
 on the principles of the constitution, it must then 
 be decided in some other matiner; and rather than 
 it should be given up — i*ather than the nation 
 should surrender its birthright to a despotic minis- 
 ter, 1 hope, my lords, old as I am, I shall see the 
 question brought to issue, and fau-ly tried between 
 the people and the government. My lords, this is 
 not the language of faction: let it be tried by that 
 criterion, by which alone we can distinguish what 
 is factious from what is not — by the principles of 
 the English constitution. I have been bred up in 
 these principles, and know, that when the liberty 
 of the subject is invaded, and all redress denied 
 him, resistance is justified. If I had a doubt upon 
 the question, I should follow the examjile set us 
 by the most reverend bench, with whom I believe 
 it is a maxim, when any doubt in points of faith 
 arises, or any question of controversy is started, to 
 appeal at once to the greatest source and evidence 
 of our religion, — I mean the Holy Bible. Now 
 the constitution has its Political Bible, by which, 
 if it be fairly consulted, every political question 
 may and ought to be determined. Magna Charta, 
 the Petition of Rights, and the Bill of Rights, form 
 the code, which I call the Bible of the English Con- 
 stitution. Had some of his majesty's unhappy pre- 
 decessoi-s trusted less to the comments of their 
 ministers, had they been better read in the text 
 itself, the glorious Revolution would have remained 
 only possible in theory, and would not now have 
 existed upon record, a formidable example to their 
 successors." 
 
 In 1772 he seems to have resolved to take no 
 farther part in public business; he was absent from 
 the house for two sessions. Affairs continued to 
 grow still more desperate; in 1774 lie was induced 
 to return to his seat, and in a series of admirable 
 speeches, which it is impossible to particularise in 
 the limited comp.ass of these ])ages, pourtrayed the 
 fatal policy of the war, foretold its issue, and cha- 
 racterized in glowing terms the independent pros- 
 perity in arms and arts to which we were urging 
 on the Americans. 
 
 " I am astonished !" he exclaimed, " shocked to 
 hear such principlesconfessed — toliearthem avowed 
 in this housi; or in this country; principles e(|ually 
 unconstitutional, inhmnan, and unchristian! My 
 lords, I did not intend to have encroached upon 
 your attention, but I cannot repress my indigna- 
 tion — 1 feel myself impelled by every duty. My 
 lords, we are called uj)oii as members of this house, 
 as men, as Christian men, to protest against such 
 notions standing near the throne, i)ollutiiig the car 
 of maj(;sty. — ' That (Jod and nature; put into our 
 liands.' 1 know not what ideas that lurd may en- 
 tertain of God and nature; but 1 know th:it such 
 abominable principles are equally alihorrent to 
 religion and liumanity. VVh.at ! to attriljute the 
 sacred functions of Cod and nature to tlu; Indian 
 scalping knife — to tiie cannibal savage, torturing, 
 murdering, roasting, and eating — literally, my lords, 
 
 eating the mangled remains of his barbarous bat- 
 tles ! Such horrible notions shock every principle 
 of religion, divine or natural, and every feeling of 
 humanity: and, my lords, they shock every senti- 
 ment of honour; they shock me as a lover of 
 honourable war, and a detester of murderous bar- 
 barity. These abominable principles, and this more 
 abominable avowal of them, demand the most deci- 
 sive indignation. I call upon the right reverend 
 bench, those goodly ministers of the gospel, and 
 jiious pastors of our church; I conjure them to join 
 in the holy work; — I appeal to the wisdom and the 
 law of this learned bench, to defend and support the 
 justice of their country ;— I call upon the bishops to 
 interpose the unsullied sanctity of their lawn — u\)0\\ 
 the judges to interpose the purity of their ermine, 
 to save us from this pollution; — I call upon the 
 honour of your lordships to reverence the dignity 
 of your ancestors, and to uphold your own; — 1 call 
 upon the spirit and humanity of my country to 
 vindicate the national character; — 1 invoke the 
 genius of the constitution. From the tapesti'y that 
 adorns these walls, the innnortal ancestor of this 
 noble lord * frowns with indignation at the disgrace 
 of his country. In vain he led your victorious fleets 
 against the boasted armada of Spain; in vain he 
 defended and established the honour, the liberties, 
 the religion, the Protestant religion of his country, 
 against the arbitrary cruelties of popery, and the 
 inquisition, if these more than popish cruelties and 
 inquisitoi'ial practices are let loose amongst us; to 
 turn forth into our settlements, among our ancient 
 connexions, friends, and relations, the merciless 
 cannibal thirsting for the blood of man, woman, 
 and child ! to send forth the infidel savage — against 
 whom? against your Protestant brethren, to lay 
 waste their country, to desolate their dwellings, 
 and annihilate their race and name, with these 
 horrible hell-hounds of savage war — hell-hounds, I 
 say again, of savage war ! Spain armed herself with 
 blood-hounds to extirpate the wretched natives of 
 America, and we improve on the horrid example 
 even of Spanish cruelty against our brethren and 
 countrymen in America, of the same language, 
 laws, liberties, and religion, endeared to us by 
 every tie that can sanctity huniaiuty. My lords, 
 this awful subject, so inqxirtant to our honour, our 
 constitution, our religion, demands the most » H'ec- 
 tual encjuiry; and 1 again call upon your lordships, 
 and the united powers of the state, to examine it 
 thoroughly and decisively, and to stamp upon it an 
 indelible stigma of the public abhorrence; and I 
 again imi)lore those holy prelates of our religion to 
 do awav with those iniquities froni amongst us. Let 
 them perform a lustration ; let them purify tins 
 house and this country from this sin." 
 
 Lord Chatham was now a venerable nobleman of 
 seventy. During the last twelve years of his life 
 the gout had fastened so closely upon his constitu- 
 tion, that it never left him a day without pain. But, 
 though his body was wasted by excruciating infi)'- 
 mities, hismitul wassoinid and uninqiaired. During 
 five sessions of this perioil he had made repeated 
 motions, and introduced various bills to relieve the 
 
 • The (Iffcat of the Spanish armada l)y Howard, Earl of 
 Notlin(,'haiii, i» wrnunlit ill worsted 011 tlic liaiiKi"K« nfHu- 
 lloiiBc.' of l'ccr« : lliis speech was a reply to Lord llowjird of 
 KlhriK'liani, ;i descciidant from Hint ^'ullallt nobluiiiaii, 11 
 skflcli of wlioso life will he found at page 'i7.
 
 184 
 
 WESTMINSTER ABBEY. 
 
 sufferings of the nation ; he had twice received the 
 formal thanks of the city of London, &c. &c., and 
 in 1778, pressed forward with undiminished ardour 
 in the prosecution of his favourite objects — peace 
 with America, and the constitutional satisfaction of 
 the people. He had often avowed his readiness to 
 die for his cause, and the wish was registered in 
 heaven — he now expired a victim to it. 
 
 On the 7th of April, the house of peers was sum- 
 moned to entertain a motion from the Duke of 
 Richmond, for an address to the king on the state 
 of the nation, in the terms of which the policy of 
 recognising the independence of America was insi- 
 nuated. Cliatham repaixvd to his seat in the feeblest 
 condition, and delivered his final speech against the 
 measui'o. The following is an absti'act of the Uttle 
 he had strength to say: — 
 
 " I lament, my lords, that my bodily infirmrties 
 have so long, and especially at so important a crisis, 
 prevented my attendance on the duties of parlia- 
 ment. 1 have made an effort almost beyond the 
 powers of my constitution to come down to this 
 house this day — it is, perhaps, the last time I shall 
 be able to enter its walls — to express the indigna- 
 tion I feel at an idea which I understand has gone 
 forth of yielding up the sovereignty of America. I 
 rejoice, my lords, that the grave has not closed 
 upon me, that I am still alive to lift up my voice 
 against the dismemberment of this ancient and most 
 noble monarchy ! Pressed down as I am by the 
 hand of infirmity, I am liitle able to assist my 
 country at this perilous conjuncture; but, my lords, 
 while I have sense and memory, I will never con- 
 sent to deprive the royal offspring of the House of 
 Brunswick, the descendants of the Princess Sophia, 
 of their fairest inheritance. Where is the man that 
 will dare to advise such a measure ? My lords, his 
 majesty succeeded to an empire as great in extent, 
 as its reputation was unsullied. Shall we tarnish 
 the lustre of this nation by an ignominious surren- 
 der of its rights and fairest possessions 1 Shall this 
 great kingdom, that has survived whole and entire 
 the Danish depredations, the Scotch inroads, and 
 the Norman conquest- — that has stood the threat- 
 ened invasion of the Spanish armada, now fall 
 prostrate before the house of Boui-bon? Surely, my 
 lords, the nation is no longer what it was. Shall a 
 people that seventeen years ago was the terror of 
 the world, now stoop so low as to tell its ancient 
 and inveterate enemy — take all we have, only give 
 us peace l It is impossible. I wage war with no 
 man or set of men: I wish for none of their em- 
 jiloyments; nor would I co-operate with men who 
 still persist in unretracted error; or who, instead 
 of acting on a firm decisive line of conduct, halt 
 between two opinions, even where there is no middle 
 way. In God's name, if it is absolutely necessary 
 to declare either for peace or var, and" the former 
 cannot be preserved with honour, why is not the 
 latter commenced without hesitation? I am not, I 
 confess, well informed of the resources of the king- 
 dom; but I trust it has still sufficient to maintain 
 its just rights, though I know them not. But, my 
 lords, any state is better than despair. Let us, at 
 least, make one effort, and if we must fall, let us 
 fall like men." 
 
 Here he was obliged to pause and rest: he had 
 still a plan to propose for the recovery of America, 
 and though Lord Temple asked his leave to rise 
 
 and unfold it, he refused the assistance, saying, 
 " No, no, I will do it by and by." He accordingly 
 made two or three unsuccessful efforts to stand, but 
 nature was exhausted — he fainted, and fell down 
 on his seat. Lord Temple and the Duke of Cum- 
 berland raised him up in a state of insensibility: the 
 house adj-ourned, and he was removed in a day or 
 two to his favourite villa at Hayes, in Kent, and 
 died there. May 11, 1773, under circumstances of 
 profound condolence and respect. 
 
 Signal honours wei-e rendered to his memory : the 
 House of Conmions paid his debts, amounting to 
 40,000^., and provided a public funeral. His body, 
 after lying in state for three days in the painted 
 chamber of the House of Lords, was interred with 
 great pomp, within about twenty yards of the north 
 entrance to Westminster Abbey, and then the monu- 
 ment was voted which records his fame in the west 
 transept. Upon this stately pile he is represented 
 clothed in his parliamentary robes, and in the act 
 of speaking. The right hand is lifted forward, and 
 the whole attitude is happily conceived to impress 
 that style and manner which so peculiarly charac- 
 terized his address. On the sarcophagus beneath, 
 are Prudence twisting a serpent round a mirror, 
 and Fortitude striking a spear against the column ; 
 Britannia sits in front, and two massive figures of 
 Earth and Ocean recline at her feet. The artist 
 employed was Bacon, the Academician : the statue 
 of his lordship is well designed, and well wrought ; 
 but it is impossible not to complain that the natui-al 
 feeling of admiration which it excites, should be 
 darkened and confused by such a bulk of allegorical 
 decorations. Johnson exploded mythology from our 
 poetry, but we still want a genius to purify the fine 
 arts from similar affectation. The inscription, a 
 simple truth, reads as follows : — 
 
 Erected by the King and Parliament 
 
 As a testimony to 
 
 The Virtues and Ability 
 
 of 
 
 William Pitt, Earl of Chatham. 
 
 During whose administration, in the reigns of 
 
 George II. and George III. 
 
 Divine Pi'ovidence 
 
 Exalted Great Britain 
 
 To a height of Prosperity and Glory 
 
 Unknown in any former age. 
 
 A man such as William Pitt, Earl of Chatham, ap- 
 pears but seldom on the political arena. Original, 
 hardy, bold, dignified, and uncompromising, he 
 despised party, and crushed coi-ruption : his pas- 
 sion was patriotism, and his ambition fame in its 
 highest degree and purest essence. His genius, 
 fitted for any station, is nobly attested in the con- 
 text of a successful life. His eloquence was not of 
 that cori-ect and polished order which has obtained 
 preference by the style of classical^ but it spi-ung 
 from conviction, and was animated by a fire that 
 overthrew all contention : there is an amplitude in 
 the matter of his speeches, an enlarged breadth in 
 his views, a copiousness in his elucidations, by 
 which he seems in a manner to stretch out his 
 mind — draw and encompass in the most distant 
 objects, and charm even irrelevant points to his 
 purpose. Alternately familiar and exalted, argu- 
 mentative and declamatory, it was always hap])y ; 
 he lit upon his subject as if by chance, and let
 
 DAVID GARRICK. 
 
 185 
 
 loose his thouglits " by flashes, wliich, like those of 
 the eye, may be felt, but not followed." Both in 
 the senate and the cabinet his talents constituted 
 an era ; he found supei-iors in no capacity, and 
 has not as yet been approached by an equal. Well 
 has it been said by a periodical critic : — " Neither 
 Pitt nor Fox could look over and beyond their age 
 like Chatham and Burke : they could only direct 
 its passions and embody its prejudices. It has been 
 truly remarked by Mr. Macaulay in the Edinburgh 
 Review, .that many of Lord Chatham's earlier 
 speeches in the House of Commons, now pre- 
 served, were avowedly the composition of Dr. 
 Johnson, whose measured style, formal periods, 
 balanced antithesis, and total want of pure racy 
 English, betray their author at every step, while 
 each debate was made to speak exactly in the 
 same manner. For some years after he ceased to 
 report, or rather to manufacture, that is from 
 1751 downwards, a Dr. Gordon furnished the news- 
 papers with reports consisting of much more accu- 
 rate accounts of what had passed in debate, but 
 without any pretence to give more than the mere 
 substance of the several speeches. The debates 
 upon the American Stamp Act in 17C4, are the 
 fii-st that can be said to have been preserved at all; 
 through the happy accident of Lord Charlemont, 
 assisted by Sir Robert Deane, taking an extraor- 
 dinary interest in the question, as bearing upon 
 the grievances of Ireland, and accordingly they 
 have handed down to us some notes from internal 
 evidence plainly authentic of Lord Chatham's cele- 
 brated speeches upon that great question. A few 
 remains of his great displays in the House of Lords 
 have in like manner been preserved chiefly in the 
 two speeches reported by Mr. Hugh Boyd, the 
 second of which, the most celebrated of all, upon 
 the employment of the Indians in the American 
 war, w'e have reason to believe was revised by 
 Lord Chatham himself ; and if so, it certainly was 
 the only one that ever received such revision." 
 
 As a man, Lord Chatham's private character was 
 highly esteemed ; to adopt the words of Lord Ches- 
 terfield, it was stained by no vice, and sullied by 
 no meanness. But it was also considered proud 
 and unamiablo : there was a stoical assurance of 
 superiority about him, which distanced equality 
 and chilled friendship: George III. is reported to 
 have complained that his presence impaired roy- 
 alty. He was im]iatient of contradiction, and had a 
 l)ride of will and determined passion that frequently 
 embarrassed his own policy and the proceedings of 
 government by precipitate denunciations. Thus he 
 
 reviled Carteret, Lord Granville, when living, and 
 eulogized him w hen dead, even to the avowal that lie 
 owed to him all his knowledge as a statesman. He 
 utte ed the bitterest philippics against, and would 
 have impeached, at one time, Sri- Robei-t Walpole ; 
 yet he afterwards negotiated for ottico upon the 
 express condition that Walpole was not to be 
 prosecuted, and would quote his aufhoritv at con- 
 venience as that of a great and good man. At one 
 time he declai-ed Lord Anson unfit to command a 
 cock-boat on the river Thames, and at another 
 gratefully affirmed that he was the greatest naval 
 commander for wisdom, care, and experience the 
 country ever possessed. These, nevertheless, may 
 be regarded as the praises of atonement, and as 
 such must be i-espected as so many proofs of the 
 generosity of his heart. When his sister. Lady 
 Staiihope, accepted a pension from Sir R. Walpole, 
 he wrote her a sharp letter, expressing his indig- 
 nation that the words Pitt and pension should ever 
 alliterate in his family : when he became a pen- 
 sioner himself, the lady enclosed him back his own 
 letter. The few who were admitted to social inti- 
 macy with him have paid warm tributes to his 
 worth, and describe him as lively and agreeable, 
 delighting the circle of his fire-side by a versatility 
 of wit, adapted to every vein of conversation, and 
 a playful humour equal to every companion. 
 
 His countess survived him : she had borne him 
 three sons and two daughters, of whom John suc- 
 ceeded to the titles and estates; William enmlated 
 his father as a statesman, and James-Charles died 
 young : of the latter, Hester became Countess of 
 Stanhope, and Harriet married the Ilonoui-able 
 E. J. Elliott. What are still called Lord Chatham's 
 speeches have been collected in three vols. 8vo. ; 
 a volume of letters written to his nephew, after- 
 wards Lord Camelford, has also been published, as 
 well as his correspondence while minister. The 
 letters to Lord Camelfoi'd do him credit ; they arc 
 written with ease, good feeling, and correctness, 
 and contain in the way of advice much that is 
 excellent, and nothing inappropriate. This praise, 
 however, cannot be applied to his official writings, 
 which have disaj^pointcd his admirers, and robbed 
 his character of much of the dignity and indepen- 
 dence that seemed naturally to belong to it. In 
 these compositions he can be scarcely said to pre- 
 serve a decent self-respect; his manner of address- 
 ing George III. is constrained, submissive, and 
 abject, and his style of writing has neither grace 
 nor beauty of language, nobility of sentiment, or 
 greatness of mind. 
 
 DAVID GARRICK. 
 
 Gakrick's monument, a theatrical conceit, of which 
 the design exhibits neither taste nor invention, and 
 ^he execution jiroduces no ])!easing eti'ect, is el(;vated 
 ^n the Poets' Comer. 'J'lie actor appears drawing 
 back, with extended arms, a pair of curtains, behind 
 which is a medallion of ShakHj)eare : at the sides 
 are figures of tragedy and coini'dy. Of this pc-rform- 
 aiice Charles Lamb, in the " Essays of l",lia," says, 
 "Taking a tour the other day in the Abbey 1 was 
 struck with the aHectcd attitude of a figure, which 
 I do not remember to have seen i)efore, and which 
 
 upon examination proved to l)e a whole length of 
 the celcbi-ated Mr. (Jarrick. Though 1 would not 
 go so far with sonii; g<K)d Catholics abniad as to 
 shut players altngetlier out of consecrated ground, 
 yet I own I was not a little scandalisi'd at the in- 
 troduction of theatrical airs and gestures into a 
 j)lace set apart to remind us of the saddi'st realities. 
 (Joing nearer I found inscribed under this Iniriesejuo 
 figure; a farnigo of false tliounht and iinnsense."' 
 'I'liat farrago it is now our duty to place Infore the 
 reader: —
 
 186 
 
 WESTMINSTER ABBEY. 
 
 To the memory of David Garrick, who died in 
 the year 1779} at the age of sixty-three. 
 
 To paint fair Nature, by divine command, 
 Her magic pencil in his glowing hand, 
 A Shakspeare rose — then, to expand his fame, 
 Wide o'er this " breathing world," a Garrick came. 
 Though sunk in death the forms the Poet drew, 
 The Actor's genius bade them breathe anew; 
 Though, like the bai-d himself, in night they lay. 
 Immortal Garrick call'd them back to day: 
 And till eternity, with power sublime, 
 Shall mark the mortal hour of hoary Time, 
 Shakspeare and Gai-rick, like twin stars, shall shine. 
 And earth L-radiate with a beam divine. Pratt. 
 
 This monument, the tribute of a friend, was erected 
 in 1797. Webber Fecit. 
 
 David Garrick, the most celebrated actor pro- 
 duced by the English stage, was born at Hereford 
 in I7O6. His family was French. His grandfather 
 first settled in England seeking refuge from the edict 
 of Nantes. His lather served in the army, and re- 
 tiring from it with the rank of captain and half pay, 
 married a daughter of one of the vicars of Lichfield 
 Cathedral, in wliich city he also resided. At the 
 grammar school of Lichfield David Garrick re- 
 ceived the first elements of education, and gave 
 the earliest proof of dramatic talent by prevailing 
 upon his school-fellows to play the " Recruiting 
 Ofticer," in which he himself performed the part 
 of Sergeant Kite, when only twelve years old. Soon 
 after he was sent to Lisbon, where an uncle exten- 
 sively engaged in the wine trade received him into 
 his establishment. With this gentleman his stay 
 was short. He returned to Lichfield, and was 
 placed under his celebrated townsman Dr. Johnson, 
 who had just attempted an academy for young gen- 
 tlemen. Garrick was his only scholai-, and ere 
 long the disappointed master and his solitary pupil 
 set out to seek their fortunes in London. 
 
 This journey, which took place early in the year 
 173(;, has been ordinarily represented as a specu- 
 lative adventure upon the part of both the travel- 
 lers ; but whatever may have been the case with 
 Johnson, Garrick seems to have been dii-ected to a 
 fixed purpose, and to have been fairly provided with 
 means for its attainment. He carried with him a 
 letter of i-ecommendation from Gilbert Walmesly, 
 the I'egistrar, whom J(jlmson has so feelingly com- 
 memorated in the "Lives of the Poets," to Mr. 
 Colson, an eminent mathematical schoolmaster at 
 Rochester. Under this tuition it was intended that 
 Garrick should improve himself, while he kept his 
 terms as a law student at Lincoln's Inn, where he 
 was admitted March 9, 1736. It cannot, in all 
 probability, be thought strange, that the youth who 
 had gained no literary distinction when under the 
 insti'uction of an able master, should now fall short 
 of the merit of voluntary application to a dry study. 
 Alike indiff'erent to law and mathematics, Garrick 
 fortified himself by none of the acquirements which 
 his new situation off"ered to his mind. Ere long the 
 death of his father made him his own master, and 
 soon after, his uncle bequeathed him a thou.sand 
 pounds. He abandoned the law, engaged in the 
 wine ti'adc with a brother in Durham Yard, failed, 
 and then threw himself on the stage. 
 
 His first appearance was at Ipswich, during the 
 summer of 1741, under the assumed name of 
 
 Lyddal, and the management of Giff'ard, who also 
 occupied the London theatre in Goodman's Fields. 
 Garrick's success, even at a first effort, was com- 
 plete: he began with the part of Aboam in "Oroo- 
 uoko," and ran througli a variety of characters 
 with such constant applause, that when the town 
 season commenced in October, Giffard gave him 
 an engagement. It has been represented that his 
 services had been px-eviously declined by the pro- 
 prietors of the large houses, but there appears no 
 evidence of such a fact; and the ch'cumstances of 
 the case seem to refute the siipposition. Be that 
 as it may, he challenged the admiration of a metro- 
 politan audience as Richard III., October 19, 1741, 
 and decided his theatrical fortune in one night. The 
 accounts which describe this event are characteristi- 
 cally dashed with a glowing vein of the theatrical 
 sublime: we are told, for instance, " that his concep- 
 tion of the part was so clear, his powers of execution 
 so great, and the combination of talents he displayed 
 so rich, varied, and uncommon, that he fixed his 
 fame at one stamp, not only equal, but superior, to 
 any actor of the time then present or past. Like 
 the sun bursting from behind a cloud, he put forth 
 at his very earliest dawn a somewhat more than 
 meridian brightness. The polite establishments 
 were deserted ; the carriages of the fashionable, the 
 wealthy, and the noble, poured down through the 
 narrowness of the city to the obscurity of the east 
 end, and every rank and order of society crowded 
 to express their wonder at the newly-sprung 
 Roscius." 
 
 Tempering this panegyric, without being tran- 
 sported by its mflation, we may safely affirm of 
 Garrick's first appearance, that it was distinguished 
 by original merits which justified high praise. He 
 was four and twenty ; comparatively inexperienced 
 in the profession, and yet had the coui'age to make 
 an innovation equally sanctioned by sound judg- 
 ment and good taste. Laying aside the cliaimt, 
 and affected rotundity equally formal, as well as 
 the stiff and methodical action of the old school, 
 he delivered himself in a natural tone of voice, and 
 with perfect ease and freedom of bearing. This 
 was a signal improvement, and it must have been 
 efTected with considerable ability, or it would not 
 have been tolei'ated without resistance. There was 
 also a commendable degree of tact evinced in his 
 choice of the part of Richard: it requu'ed no dignity 
 of stature, and little personal restraint, while it 
 abounded with those strong and sudden variations 
 of feeling and action, which gave ample scope for 
 the compass of voice and style of attitude in which 
 he excelled. 
 
 The advantages conferred by Garrick's popula- 
 rity on tlie ignoble theatre in Goodman's Fields, 
 naturally excited the resentment of the greater 
 establishments, and two measures were adopted to 
 subdue the attraction. Giffard was menaced with a 
 prosecution for infringing upon their patents by 
 performing tlie regular drama, and Garrick was 
 tempted from his services by the offer of a mor^ 
 lucrative engagement at Drury Lane. This he ac" 
 cepted. Concluding the season of 1742 with in- 
 creased distinction, he passed the summer in Dublin, 
 where his reception was equally flattering. It was 
 in this year that he began to exhibit the great ver- 
 satility of his powers by assuming characters not 
 only in comedy, but even in broad farce. To enu- 
 merate all his performances, or describe the parti-
 
 DAVID GARRICK. 
 
 187 
 
 cular effect which he produced at each efi'ort, were 
 a minute task inconsistent with the brevity imposed 
 upon these sketches. It must, therefore, suffice to 
 observe, that ho continued a prosperous career at 
 Drury Lane until the winter of the year 1745, when 
 a stage (juarrcl with JMackUn and some others, 
 wliieh excited considerable attention at the mo- 
 ment, but lias long lost its interest, induced him 
 to go a second time to Dublin, where he was made 
 joint-manager with the elder Sheridan of the 
 theatre in Smock Alley. 
 
 During this interval the fortune of the large 
 London houses was disastrous. Drury Lane labour- 
 ed under a complication of difficulties, and Covent 
 Garden was only enabled to wind up the year's ac- 
 counts somewhat favoui-ably, by giving Garrick 
 300/. for six performances. The engagement was 
 renewed during the next year, and there ended his 
 appearance as a hired actor; for such was the 
 crowd he now drew with him, and so complete the 
 desertion from the one theatre while he played at 
 the other, that the Drury Lane patent was repeat- 
 edly brought into the market for sale. Tenders of 
 it wei'e made to several pei'sons, but no one seemed 
 willing to risk any thing upon it, though the price 
 demanded was very moderate. At last it was sug- 
 gested that Garrick, who had by this time acquired 
 a character for discretion and frugality, should be 
 introduced to assist Mr. Lacy, the only remaining 
 proprietor of any responsibility. The proposal once 
 accepted, conditions were soon adjusted: a renewal 
 of the patent was solicited and obtained; Lacy un- 
 dertook to direct the general property, while Gar- 
 rick managed the stage; and the house opened 
 under auspicious circumstances, with the best pro- 
 logue of the age, composed by Dr. Johnson and 
 delivered by Garrick, in the spring of 1747. Bear- 
 ing in mind the intimate terms upon which the 
 great author and actor started together in life, a 
 lively satisfaction is to be felt at beholding their 
 tiilents combined on an occasion so interesting as 
 this. At the same time it is to be observed, even at 
 the risk of dispelling a pleasant supposition, that 
 the friends do not seem to have preserved much 
 cordiality in all their social relations. There are 
 two frigid notes in GaiTick's correspondence which 
 tend to show that when the actor grew rich, while 
 the author remained poor, the usual distance ob- 
 served between independence and dependence was 
 fox'mally kept up between them. 
 
 Dr. Johnson to Mr. Garrick. 
 
 "Dear Sir, May 18, 17C5. 
 
 " I know that great regard will be had to 
 your opinion of an edition of Sliakspeare; I desire, 
 therefore, to secure an honest ])rejudice in my favour 
 by securing your suffrage; and that this prejudice 
 may really be honest, I wish you would name such 
 plays as you would see, and they shall be sent to 
 you by, sir, 
 
 " Your most humble servant, 
 
 " Sam. Jounson." 
 
 Mr. Garrick to Dr. Johnson. 
 
 « Dear Sir, Ma;/ rJlst, 17«5. 
 
 " My brother greatly astonished me this 
 morning l)y asking nie, if I was a subscriber to 
 your Sliakspeare? I told him yes, that I was one of 
 the fii-st, and as soon as I heard of your intention; 
 and that I gave you at the same time b'jnie other 
 
 names, among which were the Duke of Devonsliire, 
 Mr. Beighton, &c. I cannot immediately have' 
 recourse to my memorandum. thou>;h I remember 
 to have seen it just before 1 left Eirglaiui. I hope 
 that you will recollect it, and not think me ea])able 
 of neglecting to make you so triffing a compliment, 
 which was doubly due from me; not only on ac- 
 count of the respect I have always had for your 
 abilities, but from the sincere regard I shall ever 
 pay to your friendship. 
 " I am. Sir, your most obedient, humble servant 
 " David Garrick." 
 
 It would not perhaps be an easy matter at this time 
 of day to prove which of the two first began Imnible- 
 servanting the other ; and yet there are few persims 
 who will not feel that they could settle the point 
 without evidence. 
 
 The company mustered upon this occasion was 
 strong in numbers, and commanding in talent: 
 Barry*, Macklin, Mrs. Woffington, Mrs. Clivc, and 
 
 • Spranger Barry, the only actor of the day who ap- 
 proached Garrick as a rival, was interred in the cloisters of 
 Westminster Ahbey, and sliould therefore be conimemorated 
 here. A writer in Blackwood's Magazine, who seems to 
 have witnessed his performances, thus describes his merits : 
 "In Romeo, he disputed the palm with Garrick; iirLear, 
 approached to an equality; and in Othe]^and Alexander 
 the Groat, shone unrivalled." Born and educated in Dublin, 
 he there made his lirst appearance on the stage. His chief 
 sources of attraction were the gifts of bountiful nature; a 
 melodious voice, handsome figure, and very gentlemanly ad- 
 dress. He preceded Garrick on the London boards, became 
 manager of the Dublin Theatre about the year 1700, and in 
 that speculation lost all liis property. Coming back to Lon- 
 don after this disaster, he continued to play the leading 
 parts in Tragedy at Covent Garden, Drury Lane, and the 
 Haymarket, until the period of his death, which took place 
 during the year 1777, at the age of fifty-eight. He was 
 married, but left no issue. His wife was the fair tragic 
 actress Mrs. Dancer, subsequently better known by the 
 name of her third husband, Mr. Crawford. 
 
 Another of Barry's contemporaries is commemorated by a 
 tablet near his own monument. This is Hannah Pritchard, 
 whose maiden name was Vaughan. and who was born in 
 1711. Being introduced to Booth, when very young, as an 
 aspirant for theatrical distinction, she is said to have been 
 encouraged by his praise, and made her first apjieavance in 
 the Haymarket, probably with no very decided success, as 
 we find her afterwards playing in Goodman's Fields, and 
 even at Bartholomew Fair. At these places she was praised 
 for a natural, lively, and droll style of performance. On ob- 
 taining an engagement at Drury Lane, however, she adopted 
 a more serious cast of characters, coming out as Rosalind, 
 and chiefly distinguishing herself in Lady Macbeth and 
 similar parts. As a tragic heroine .she had no rival among 
 her contemporaries, except Mrs Cibber, whose life we give. 
 Mrs. Pritchard retired from the stage alter having t)cen 
 upon it thirty-six years. She spent the close of her life and 
 died at Bath. Her epitaph, part prose and part poetry, is as 
 follows : 
 
 To the memory 
 
 Of Mrs. PiirrcnAiiD, 
 
 This tablet is here placed by a voluntary subscription 
 
 Of those who admired and esteemed her. 
 
 She retired from the stage, 
 
 Of which she had long been the ornament, 
 
 In the mouth of April, 17118, 
 
 And died at Hath in the nioiitli »f August following, 
 
 In the I-'ifty-scvcnth jear of her age. 
 
 Iltr comic vein had every ch.oni to jilease, 
 
 "I'was Nature's dictates breathd with Nature's case:
 
 188 
 
 WESTxMINSTER ABBEY. 
 
 Mrs. Gibber, headed the roll; but what with jea- 
 lousy of the acting manager, and the intrigues of 
 Covent Garden, they, one after another, broke their 
 engagements, and, though some found it prudent to 
 return, particularly Mrs. Gibber, they wei-e never 
 all of them reunited under the same authority. 
 These disappointments, however, disheartened Gar- 
 rick in no apparent degree; he had great vivacity 
 of mind, and untiring enei'gy of action; he now re- 
 doubled his exertions, and soon brought the theatre 
 to a flourishing state. Of the means by which this 
 end was attained, his own dramatic compositions 
 formed no mean portion: of them, therefore, it may 
 be proper to treat here. His first essay was the 
 farce of the " Lying Valet," produced in Goodman's 
 Fields so early as the year 1741, and taken from 
 the French: acquiring the praise due to an inter- 
 esting plot and novel characters, it was often played. 
 This was followed, and with greater success, by 
 " Miss in her Teens, or the Medley of Lovers," a 
 diverting farce, produced at Govent Garden in 1747, 
 which retained its place on the stage for a consi- 
 derable time. " Lethe," a dramatic satire, as it is 
 now printed, appeared at Drury Lane, in 1749, but 
 claims an earlier birth. It was his first production, 
 having been performed at Drury Lane, in 1740 ; it 
 was I'eproduced at Goodman's Fields during the fol- 
 lowing year ; pi-inted in 1745, and finally enlarged, 
 as before stated, hi 1749. But though the wit of this 
 piece was confessedly good, and the points strong, 
 and though Garrick played three different charac- 
 ters in it with his wonted facility, much opposition 
 was offered to its reception. Perseverance and 
 corrections, however, smoothed its way, and it at 
 last became a standard drama. " The Fairies," an 
 opera, from the " Midsummer Night's Dream," and 
 " The Tempest," an opera, also from Shakspeare's 
 play of the same name, were brought forward, the 
 one for the season of 1755, and the other for that 
 of 175G. The music to both was composed by Smith, 
 and pleased, but the compilations themselves were 
 feeble, they only answered the purposes of the 
 moment. " Gatherine and Petruchio," produced in 
 175G, being nothing more than a judicious transpo- 
 sition of Shakspeare's " Taming of the Shrew," re- 
 quires no connnent. " Florizel and Perdita," acted 
 in the same year, stands in the same predicament: 
 it is only an extract from the " Winter's Tale." 
 " Lilliput," a dramatic entertainment, which was 
 got up for Woodward's benefit, in 1757, may be 
 dismissed with a notice that it was played by chil- 
 dren: it boasts, however, one revival. The farce 
 of the " Male Goquette," a second compliment to 
 the same be'ne'ficiare, had more merit, and, not- 
 withsfcmding the solecism of the title, succeeded to 
 some popularity. The characters whom it exposed 
 to ridicule were the dandies of that day, who passed 
 by the name of Daffodils. " The Guardian," a 
 comedy m two acts, was a charitable contributiou 
 
 Ev'n when her powers sustain'd the tragic load, 
 Full, clear, and just, the harmonious accents flow'd; 
 And the big passions of her feeling heart 
 Burst freely forth, and sham'd the mimic art. 
 Oft on the scene, with colours not her own. 
 She painted Vice, and taught us what to shun ; 
 One virtuous track her real life pursu'd, 
 That nobler part was uniformly good ; 
 Each duty there to such perfection wrought. 
 That if the pri cepts fail'd th' example taught. 
 
 W. Whitehead, P. L. 
 
 to a benefit given at Drury Lane in 1 759, for the 
 relief of Ghristopher Smart, an unlucky poet, then 
 suffering imprisonment for debt. Taken from the 
 " Pupille" of Fagan, it is simple and sentimen- 
 tal: it was published in 1773, and has been occa- 
 sionally revived. " The Enchanter, or Love and 
 Magic," a musical drama, acted in 1760, is distin- 
 guishable as the piece in which Leoni, the singer, 
 was originally inti-oduced to the stage. " The Far- 
 mer's Return from London," was an interlude 
 presented to Mrs. Pritchard for her benefit in 
 1762, but frequently repeated on account of the 
 humorous account it gave of the follies and won- 
 ders of the town — the Goronation and the Gock-lane 
 Ghost. " The Glandestine Marriage," a comedy in 
 five acts, first performed in 1766, is beyond ques- 
 tion the best composition to which the name of 
 Garrick is attached; the elder Golman, however, 
 who was admitted on the title-page to the honour 
 of johit authorshiii, used to say, " Garrick brought 
 me two acts, desiring me to put them together, and 
 do what I c<juld with them. I did put them toge- 
 ther, for I put them into the fire, and wrote the 
 play myself." " Neck or Nothing," a fai'ce from 
 the French of Le Sage, was damned in 1766; and 
 "Gymon," a dramatic romance, acted durmg the 
 following yeai', deserved the same fiery late, but 
 produced nevertheless considerable efi'ect by a mis- 
 placed richness of scenery and musical embellish- 
 ment. " The Peep behind the Curtain, or the New 
 Rehearsal," was a farce which ran with unconunon 
 applause for one hundi-ed and eighty nights during 
 the season of 1767. The music was by Barthelemou, 
 a man of such ready talent and pleasing address, 
 that Garrick promised to make his fortune. The 
 first work put into his hands for this great pur- 
 pose, was the music to this farce, by which Garrick 
 cleared some thousands of pounds, but out of which 
 he only gave the musician forty pounds, though he 
 had promised him fifty guineas. This statement 
 reminds us of Goldsmith's saying of Garrick, " that 
 he often thought to be generous, but that whenever 
 that happened the ghost of a halfpenny was sure 
 to frighten him." " The Irish Widow," a comedy 
 in two acts, from the French of Moliere, was suc- 
 cessful in 177-- "The Ghristmas Tale," a dramatic 
 entertainment, in five parts, was hooted from the 
 stage in 1774, notwithstanding the beauties of some 
 scenery by De Loutherbourg, and music by Dibdiu. 
 " Bon Ton, or High Life above Stairs," was repre- 
 sented for the benefit of King, in 1775, and much 
 praised for liveliness, character, and moral. " May 
 Day," a musical farce, acted in the same year, is 
 only memorable for the first introduction of Miss 
 Abrains, the singer, who composed the popular air 
 " Crazy Jane." " The Theatrical Candidates," a 
 musical prelude, in 1775; and " Linco's Travels," 
 an interlude for King's benefit, in 1777, were his 
 last compositions. It is to be observed, however, 
 that he acquired considerable reputation by the 
 altei-ations, and even additions which he introduced 
 at ditt'erent times into several of our standard 
 dramas, such as Wycherley's " Country Girl," Ben 
 Johnson's " Every Man in his Humour," Shirley's 
 " Gamester," &c. &c. 
 
 Garrick married in June, 1749 : his lady was an 
 opera dancer from Vienna, the place of her birth, 
 whence she came to this country with high I'ecom- 
 niendations to the Earl of Burlington. Her maiden 
 name wac originally Viegel, which, for the sake of
 
 DAVID GARRICK. 
 
 189 
 
 softness, she afterwards cliaiiffpcl into Violette. 
 Whetlier from admiration of lier jn-ofessional ac- 
 complishments, or respect for the friends wlio in- 
 troduced her, she was treated by her noble patron 
 with niarked attention, was made an inmate at 
 Burlington House, watched over by the countess 
 with maternal care, and presented with COOOi^. 
 upon the day of her marxnage. Circumstances so 
 extraordinary gave rise to an idea that she was 
 related to his lordship ; but there is no evidence 
 to justify such an o])inion. The match was in every 
 res])ect a cordial and hap]\v one : the circle of 
 Garrick's ac(|uaintance included the most distin- 
 guished men in literature and the arts ; he was 
 moreover familiar with the gi'eat ; and, by a happy 
 admixture of respectful ease and unexceptionable 
 decorum, secured for his wife the society of the 
 leading characters of the day, and made her the 
 mistress of a home every way worthy of a woman 
 of character and talents. 
 
 The reputation in which Garrick now stood be- 
 fore the world was, beyond a question, far superior 
 to any pi-eviously enjoyed by a memljer of his pro- 
 fession. Successful as an author, and as an actor 
 equally accomplished in tragedy, comedy, and farce, 
 he was more particularly honoured as a reformer 
 of the pure drama, and a reviver of the works of 
 its chief idol, Shakspeai'e. But, though his career 
 nmst in truth be described as prosperous and pro- 
 fitable from beginning to end, yet an evident par- 
 simony in his managerial system, and occasionally 
 something like a vain indifference to authors, 
 brought down upon him several mortifying ebulli- 
 tions of popular hostility. The year 1755 was 
 marked by one of these. The press liad been for 
 some time employed to rail against \\liat was then 
 termed the arancioug disposition of the Drury Lane 
 proprietors, who grudged the expense of varying 
 the public entertainments with a more decorated 
 stage, dancing, music, gay scenery, &c. The bare 
 merits of ancient authors were alone offered for 
 amusement, and this was set down as an instance 
 of great presumption. In order to appease these 
 murmurings, a ballet-master was a))pointed, with 
 full powers to collect an effective body of figurants, 
 who in a short time amounted to a hundred in 
 immber. They were drawn from Italy, Gei-many, 
 Switzerland, and France, and were ])resented be- 
 fore the town in a grand dancing entertainment, 
 entitled the Chinese Festival, lleantime, however, 
 a war was declared against Fi-ance, and on the in- 
 stant another clamour was raised against the ma- 
 nagers; who were now reprnaehed for encouraging 
 a set of French actors and workmen, and thus 
 employing the common enemies of the country. 
 This was an unfortunate predicament; the new 
 engagements had Ijeen entered into in obedience to 
 the ]iui>lic voice, and that voice was now thundered 
 against the proprietors in tones of dire resentment 
 for that very acquiescence. Dui-ing tlir lirst night 
 on wjiich the liallit was brought forward, the king 
 attended the tliiatre, and tln' |)eri'ornianceH passed 
 over with a stifled comixisure ; but on the follow- 
 ing cvem'ng nothing could stem the exasperation of 
 the audience. ThiH opjiosition was i)i'rsiHted in for 
 five successive rcprcs(;ntations ; IjIowh were nightly 
 struck in the liouse, a continued tumult pri'vailed, 
 anrl at last, afti.T doing considi^rable dama;,'*! to the 
 intfrior of the theatre, a mob proceeded (o (iarriek's 
 residence, in Southampton Street, and demolislied 
 
 all his windows. The piece was, therefore, laid 
 aside, and G:u-rick complained that he lost 4000/. 
 by the uproar. 
 
 After spending the years 17G4and 1/05 in a con- 
 tinental excursion for the benefit of his health, he 
 returned to London, and was received with the 
 most flattering congratulations. From this period 
 he declined new parts, but C(mtinued to api)ear 
 from season to season in those old charactei-s which 
 had flrst made him a favourite. In 17C9 he sig- 
 nalized his admiration of Shakspeare, by insti- 
 tuting the Stratford Jubilee, an undertaking which 
 afforded amjile materials for wit and ridicule to 
 the public prints of the day, and was in the cele- 
 bration all but damped into a positive failure by 
 rainy weather. For this disappointment, however, 
 he was comjiensated in another way : he introduced 
 the ceremony as a spectacle upon the stage, and it 
 was repeated to ci'owded audiences for ninety-two 
 nights. In 1773 death deprived him of his jtartner, 
 Mr. Lacy, and the sole management of the theatre 
 thenceforv.ard devolved upon his shoulders. Un- 
 disturbed popularity attended his eflorts imtil the 
 year 1776, when, feeling satisfied with the fortune 
 and fame he had acquired, he resolved to retire 
 into private life, lie dis])osed of a moiety of his 
 interest in the patent for 37,000/. ; and after per- 
 forming the part of Don Felix in the " Wonder," 
 for the benefit of the Theatrical Fund, took leave 
 of the audience in these terms : — 
 
 " Ladies and Gentlemen, 
 
 " It has been customary witli persons under my 
 circumstances to address you in a farewell epilogue. 
 I had the same intention, and turned my thoughts 
 that way ; but, indeed, 1 felt myself as incapable of 
 writing such an epilogue as 1 should now bo of 
 speaking it. The jingle of rhyme and the language 
 of fiction would but ill suit my present feelings. — 
 (Here we are told he paused and wept.) — What- 
 ever may be the changes of my future life, the 
 deep imi)ression I have of your kindness will always 
 remain Jwir (hand u|ion breast) fixed and unalter- 
 able. I will very rt-adily agree to my successors 
 having more skill and ability for their station than 
 I have, but I defy them all to take more sincere 
 and more uninterrui)ted pains for your favoui", or 
 to be more truly sensible of it, than is your most 
 obedient grateful servant." 
 
 Garrick spent the remainder of his life, during 
 the winter at his house in the Adelphi, and during 
 the sunnner at ;i ni'at residence on the Thames, 
 near lIanq)ton Cnurt. In the latti'r, and in the 
 character of a country gentleman, the king put 
 him into the commission of the ])eace, but he was 
 not destined to enjoy either honour or haiipiness. 
 The stone, a disorder to which he had been long 
 subject, now began to make such inroads on his 
 constitutidn that he was seldom free IVciin )iains, or 
 e(|Ual to the excitement of society. With ;i iiopc 
 of alleviating its tortui'es he was inducid to avail 
 Iiimself of some <juaek medieinr's, and by inju- 
 diciously tampering with the malady, increased its 
 ravages. During the Christnnis of 177" I'o was 
 taken violently ill while on a visit to Lord Spen- 
 cer at Althorpe, but recovered sufliciently to rv- 
 lurn slowly to London, and expire at his houst! 
 in the Adelphi, January 20, 1779. His funeral 
 took pliice on the first day of the following month :
 
 190 
 
 WESTMINSTER ABBEY. 
 
 it was a public one, solemnized with pomp, and 
 attended by the highest characters in the country. 
 His body was interred iu front of Shakspeare's 
 tomb, and his widow was afterwards interred by 
 his side. Amongst other tributes of I'espect paid 
 to his memory was a monody written by Sheridan, 
 and spoken at Drury Lane. 
 
 As a man, Garrick's character has generally 
 been represented as infected with excessive vanity* 
 and parsimony, two faults for which his friend and 
 tutor. Dr. Johnson, was accustomed alternately to 
 condemn and defend him with warmth. As an 
 actor, we can only infer his capabilities from the 
 variety of parts to which we find liis name at- 
 tached, and adopt a description of his peculiarities 
 from the attestations of those who were his con- 
 temporaries. In his Life by Davies, or by Murphy, 
 but particularly in the former, a full detail of his 
 many excellencies will be found. The following is 
 the summary in which the editor of the Biogi-aphia 
 Dramatica compresses the information thus de- 
 rived : — 
 
 " Garrick in his person was low, yet well-shaped 
 and neatly proportioned, and having added the 
 (jualitications of dancing and fencing to that natu- 
 ral gentility of manner which no art can bestow, 
 but with wlaich our great mother Nature endows 
 many, even from infancy, his deportment was con- 
 stantly easy, natural, and engaging. His com- 
 plexion was dark ; the featui-es of his face pleasing 
 and regular, but animated by a full black eye, bril- 
 liant and penetrating. His voice was clear, melo- 
 dious, and commanding ; and although it might 
 not possess the strong overbearing powers of Mos- 
 sop, or the musical sweetness of Barry, yet it ap- 
 pears to have a much greater compass of variety 
 than either ; and from his judicious manner of 
 conducting it, enjoyed that articulation and pierc- 
 ing distinctness which rendered it equally intelli- 
 gible, even to the most distant parts of an audi- 
 ence, in the gentle whispei's of murmuring love, 
 the half-smothered accents of in-felt passion, or 
 the professed and sometimes awkward conceal- 
 ments of an aside speech in comedy, as in the 
 rants of rage, the darings of despair, or all the 
 open violence of tragical enthusiasm. 
 
 " His particular forte or superior cast in acting, 
 it Would be perhaps as difficult to determine, as it 
 would be minutely to describe his several excel- 
 lencies in the very different casts in which he at 
 various times thought proper to ajjpear. Particular 
 
 * All the world has talked of Garrick's love of jiraise. 
 The following is a specimen from his correspondence : — 
 
 " Mr. Pitt to Mr. Berenger. 
 
 " Friday, one o'clock. 
 
 " Lady Hester and Mr. Pitt hope Mr. Berenger is better, 
 and return him many thanks for his obliging good offices 
 with Mr. Garrick. Inimitable Shakspeare ! but more match- 
 less Garrick! always as deep in nature as the poet, but 
 never (what the poet is too often) out of it. Continue to 
 give us your good offices if you like to be truly thanked, or 
 your friend to be truly admired." 
 
 On the back of the note. 
 
 " The note on the other side I received from Mr. William 
 Pitt, and it is in his own hand-writing. 
 
 ''Richard Berenger." 
 
 In Garrick's hand-writing. 
 
 " A note from Mr, Pitt, to Berenger, about me — having, 
 at his request, acted Macbeth. Rich and exquisite flattery." 
 
 superiority was swallowed up in his universality ; 
 and should it even be contended that there have 
 been performers equal to him in their own re- 
 spective fortes of playing, yet even their partisans 
 must acknowledge thei'e never existed any one per- 
 former that came near his excellence in .so great a 
 variety of parts. Tragedy, comedy, and farce, the 
 lover and the hero, the jealous husband who sus- 
 pects his wife's vii-tue without cause, and the 
 thoughtless lively rake who attacks it without de- 
 sign, were all alike open to his imitation, and all 
 alike did honour to his execution. Every passion 
 of the human breast seemed subjected to his powers 
 of expression ; nay, even time itself appeared to 
 stand still or advance as he would have it. Rage 
 and ridicule, doubt and despair, ti'ansport and ten- 
 derness, compassion and contempt, love, jealousy, 
 fear, fury, and simplicity, all took successive pos- 
 session of his features, while each of them in turn 
 appeared to be the sole possessor of those features. 
 One night old age sat on his countenance, as if the 
 wrinkles she had stamped there were indelible ; 
 the next, the gaiety and bloom of youth seemed to 
 overspread his face, and smooth even those marks 
 which time and muscular conformation might have 
 really made there. Of these truths no one can be 
 ignorant, who ever saw him in the several cha- 
 racters of Lear or Hamlet, Richard, Dorilas, 
 Romeo, or Lusignan ; Ranger, Bays, Drugger, 
 Kitely, Brute, or Benedict. In short, Nature, the 
 mistress from whom alone this great performer 
 borrowed all his lessons, being in herself inexhaus- 
 tible, and her variations not to be numl)ered, it is 
 by no means surprising, that this, her darling son, 
 should find an unlimited scope for change and 
 diversity in his maimer of copying fi'om her various 
 productions. As if she had marked him out for 
 her truest representative from the cradle, she be- 
 stowed on him such powers of expression in the 
 muscles of his face, as no performer ever yet pos- 
 sessed ; not only for the display of a single passion, 
 but also for the combination of those various con- 
 flicts with which the human breast at times is 
 fraught ; so that in his countenance, even when 
 his lips were silent, his meaning stood pourtrayed 
 in characters too legible for any to mistake it.'' 
 
 Facts, however, are the best testimonies of merit, 
 and we shall give one which is generally considered 
 authentic : — 
 
 " During his visit to France, he made a short 
 excursion from the capital with the celebrated 
 Parisian performer, Preville. They were on horse- 
 back, and Preville took a fancy to act the part of 
 a drunken cavalier. Garrick applauded the imita- 
 tion, but told him he wanted one thing which was 
 essential to complete the picture ; he did not ' make 
 his legs drunk.' ' Hold, my friend, (said he) and I 
 will show you an English blood, who, after having 
 dined at a tavern, and swallowed three or four 
 bottles of port, mounts his horse on a summer 
 evening to go to his box in the country.' Proceed- 
 ing immediately to exhibit all the gradations of 
 intoxication, he called to his servant, that the sun 
 and the fields were turning round him ; whipped 
 and spurred his horse until the animal reared and 
 wheeled in every direction ; at length he lost his 
 whip, his feet seemed incapable of resting in the 
 stirrups, the bridle dropped from his hand, and he 
 appeared to have lost the use of all his faculties.
 
 MAJOR ANDRE. 
 
 191 
 
 Finally, lie fell from his horee in such a death-like 
 manner, that Preville gave an involuntary cry of 
 horror ; and his terror greatly increased \\hen he 
 found that his friend made no answers to his ques- 
 tions. After wiping the dust fi'om his face, he 
 asked again, with the emotion and anxiety of 
 friendship, whether he was hurt ? Garriek, whose 
 eyes were closed, half opened one of them, hiccuped, 
 and, with the most natural tone of intoxication, 
 called for another glass. Proville was astonished ; 
 and when Garriek started up and resumed his 
 usual demeanour, the French actor exclaimed, 'My 
 friend, allow the scholar to embrace his master, 
 and thank him for the valuable lesson he has re- 
 
 As an author, Garriek was only respectable : be- 
 sides the dramatic works already noticed, he com- 
 posed an infinitude of prologues, epilogues, songs, 
 and epigrams, remarkable for liveliness and un- 
 common varietj'. Dr. Johnson has observed that 
 Dryden wrote better prologues than Garriek, but 
 that Garriek wrote more good ones than Dryden. 
 He commemorated the death of Mr. Secrctai-y 
 Pelham in an ode, which, as we are told, ran 
 through four editions in six weeks, and ridiculed a 
 Mr. Fitzgerald, who had attacked him through the 
 " Craftsman," in a poem called "Frihieriad," which 
 has been pointedly commended by Churchill. This 
 effusicm, however, affected his interests in an lui- 
 expected way ; for, soon after its appearance, Fitz- 
 gerald roused up a party who compelled the ma- 
 nagers of Drury Lane to abandon a privilege which 
 tliey had retained up to this period — of refusing 
 any admissions at half-price upon the night of a 
 new representation. His principal rival was Mos- 
 sop ; they played Romeo against each other for 
 
 twenty successive nights, and carried on a second 
 contest in Lear, on which the following pretty lines 
 were written : — 
 
 " The town confess, in different ways, 
 The merit of their Lears ; 
 To Mossop they give loud huzzas, 
 To Garriek only tears." 
 
 GaiTick's coi'respondence was published after the 
 death of his widow in two volumes, J!vo. The let- 
 ters, seven or eight hundred in number, extend 
 over a period of thirty-eight years, and seem to 
 have been arranged and preserved by his own 
 hand, with a view to postlmmous biography. A 
 modern critic, reviewing these volumes, takes a 
 view of Garrick's life and conduct, which is worth 
 extracting for its coi-rectness. The mainspring of 
 his actions seems to have been a restless solicitude 
 to stand always well with his friends, correspond- 
 ents, the world, and himself. To gain this cud, lie 
 neglected nothing, and never despised trifles. He 
 despised not ti'itles in pecuniary matters, and he 
 grew rich ; he despised not trifles in matters of a 
 pi'ofessioual nature, and he became and continued 
 eminent ; he despised not the merest trifle of ap- 
 plause, and he was immensely popular. He could 
 not rest contented under any digree of reproach 
 deserved or undeserved. He could not carelessly 
 put up with the slightest degree of disapprobation 
 even from the humblest and most insignificant ; 
 and this feeling was so strong, that when, at the 
 close of his career, an anonymous lilieller attacked 
 him under the signature of Cassius in one of the 
 daily pajiers, Garriek replied at full length, and 
 even confessed " honestly, that he would much 
 rather have had his assailant's praise than his 
 blame." 
 
 MAJOR ANDRE. 
 
 Major Andrl's monument, erected, as the inscrip- 
 tion states, by George III., is in the soutli aisle. 
 However touching the recollections it excites, it is 
 by no means an effective work. An insipid figure, 
 meant to I'epresent Jiritaiiiiia, appears seated on a 
 sarcophagus, in front of which a confused scene is 
 sculptured in relief, in wiiich Washington is sup- 
 posed to receive a letter from the prisoner as he is 
 about to bo led to execution. This part of the mo- 
 nument and the statue are by Van Gelder; Adams 
 furnished the design. There are two inscriptions as 
 follow, — 
 
 Sacred to the Memory 
 
 of 
 
 Major John Andre, 
 
 Wiio, raised by his merit at an early period of life 
 
 To the rank of Adjutant (jeneral 
 
 Of the liritish Forces in America, 
 
 And employed in an important but hazardous 
 
 ( uterjirize. 
 
 Fell a sacrifice to his zeal for his King and 
 
 Count i-y, 
 
 on the 2nd of October, \^U0, 
 
 Aged twenty-nine, 
 
 Universally beloved by the army in which he 
 
 served, 
 
 And lamented even by his Foes. 
 
 His Gracious Sovereign, King Georce HI., 
 Has caused this Monument to be erected. 
 
 The remains of ]\Iajoii John Andre 
 
 Were on the lOlh of August, 11121, removed from 
 
 Tappan, 
 
 By James Buchanan, Esq. 
 
 His Majesty's Consul at New York, 
 
 I'nder instructions from his Royal Highness the 
 
 Duke of York, 
 
 And with the permission of the Dean and Chapter, 
 
 Finally deposited in a grave. 
 
 Contiguous to this Monument, 
 
 Ou the'2«th of November, DJ21. 
 
 The fate of Major Andre was of that severe and 
 melancholy cast which seldom fails to affect the 
 public feeling sti'ongly. In him, moreover, <'vi'ry 
 tiling seems to have combined to excite interest 
 and I'espect. It was not only on account of his 
 execution as a spy, but from the whole tenor of his 
 caiHH'i', ))rivate as well as ])ublic, that a character 
 of romance attached itself to his name and lueiiiory, 
 ill a degre(! sehlom met with, lie was born at 
 Lichfield, in 17<''>L ''""1 alter receiving a good edu- 
 cation, wliich gave liis mind a literary turn ever 
 after, was bred to commerce. W'liilo yt^t a very 
 young man he met at Buxton, and fell in love with
 
 192 
 
 WESTMINSTER ABBEY. 
 
 a young lady, wiio at first returned his affection. 
 Her friends however interfered, and objecting to 
 Andre's youth and want of fortune, prevailed upon 
 her not only to break off her correspondence with 
 him, but soon after to bestow her hand upon 
 another. Meantime Andre' had become a mer- 
 chant's clerk in London, and itapjiearshad cherished 
 his piission for the inconstant with intense devotion. 
 He was so chagrined by the intelligence of her 
 marriage that he i-esolved to abandon commerce 
 and his country, and thus entered the army for 
 foreign service. Obtaining a commission, he was 
 ordered to the United States of America, then 
 carrying on their war of independence against the 
 mother country. There his talents and accom- 
 plishments pushed him quickly into distinction, and 
 he became a major in the army, and adjutant- 
 general to the forces serving under Sir H. Clinton, 
 in his twenty-eighth year. At this period the Bri- 
 tish troops were quartered at New York, and 
 Arnold, one of the American generals, proposed to 
 become a traitor to the cause he served and betray 
 the places he held to the British. The plan, which, 
 if it had succeeded, would probably have soon 
 brought the war to a termination, being entertained, 
 a fit person to communicate with Arnold was next 
 to be chosen. To this difficult and dangerous trust 
 Major Andre was appointed by Sir H. Clinton, and 
 after carrying on for some time a correspondence 
 under feigned names, Andre consented, at the earnest 
 entreaty of Arnold, to a personal interview for the 
 purpose of finally an-auging the details. They met, 
 the plan was settled, and to be carried into execu- 
 tion on the following Monday, and Andre having 
 received the necessary written papers from Arnold, 
 prepared to return. He had obtained plans of the 
 forts, and minute directions as to the measures to 
 be adopted by the British in taking possession of 
 them, after the way had thus been opened. The man- 
 ner in which this was to be done was as follows : — On 
 the appearance of the English to attack West-Point, 
 Arnold was to march the greater part of the troops 
 out of the fort, and entangle them in gorges and 
 ravines, where he was to wait while the British 
 made their way by passes left unguarded, and 
 attacked the weakened fort at certain points where 
 they were to find an easy admittance. To facilitate 
 their movements, a link in the chain across the river 
 had been removed, so that it would give way on the 
 slightest shock. These and other preparations would 
 inevitably have given the English an easy ti-iuinph. 
 Andre' projected the capture of Washington on his 
 return, and it is believed that to this, the betrajal of 
 his chief, the betrayer of his country gave an unre- 
 luctant assent. 
 
 An unforeseen change in the situatiou of matters, 
 however, had occm-red during the conference. 
 Colonel Livingston, govei-nor of Montgomery fort, 
 disliking the coutinued proximity of the sloop that 
 conveyed Andr^, had caused a four-pounder to be 
 di-agged to a point of land from which the shot 
 could reach hex', and had begun such a serious 
 cannonade, that the commander was compelled to 
 move some miles lower down. The boatmen wliom 
 Andre' expected to row him back would not under- 
 take the increased distance, and at Arnold's request, 
 Andre' stayed all the day, with the view of attempt- 
 ing to return by land. Before setting out he was 
 prevailed upon to take off his uniform, and put a 
 plain di'ess on. This imprudent act sealed his 
 
 fate; for the laws of war regard a disguised foe as a 
 spy. He was now provided by Arnold with pass- 
 ports, and commenced his journey on horseback at 
 twilight, that being considered the safest time. 
 Andre' and his guide passed all the American posts 
 with safety, crossed the Hudson, and at last beheld 
 the English videttes, when Smith, his guide, looking 
 all around, and seeing no one, said, " You are safe, 
 good bye," and retook, at full speed, the road by 
 which they had come. Andre', on his part, believ- 
 ing all danger over, put spurs to his horse, and rode 
 four leagues further in safety, and was about enter- 
 ing Tarrytown, the border village, when one or two 
 armed men, not iu uniform, started out and seized 
 his bridle, crying, " Where are you bound ?" Be- 
 lieving himself out of the American lines, Andr^ 
 answered with another question, " Where do you 
 belong to ?" " To below," was the reply, indicating 
 the English side, down the river. " So do I," cried 
 Andi-e' incautiously, confirmed in the mistake that 
 they were English; " I am an English officer, on 
 urgent business, and do not wish to be longer de- 
 tained." " You belong to our enemies," was the 
 stern answer, " and we arrest you." When the 
 unfortunate officer saw his error, he heaped offer 
 upon offer of rewards, his watch, money, perma- 
 nent provisions, every thing or any thing, if they 
 would let him escape. But his captors, young coun- 
 try lads, had not drawn the sword for lucre : animated 
 in the love of country and their duty, they resisted 
 his tempting offers, and, searching his person, dis- 
 covered his papers in his boots. Being taken to 
 the nearest commanding officer, Andre's first care 
 was to apprise Arnold of his capture. Li this he 
 succeeded, and the traitor was enabled to escajjc 
 with his life. He then disclosed his own name and 
 rank, and being conducted before General Wash- 
 ington at Tappan, or Strangetown, was tried by a 
 court martial of fourteeu officers, amongst whom 
 were Generals Rochambeau and La Fayette, recent- 
 ly arrived from France. The prisoner urged that he 
 had come ashore with a flag of truce, which Arnold, 
 a major-general in the American army, had full 
 power to grant: this was unquestionable. Against 
 him, on the other hand, it was contended that by- 
 assuming a false name, and throwing off his regi- 
 mentals, he had, of his own accord, deprived liim- 
 self of the pi-otection conceded by the flag. The 
 members of the court were divided in opinion, but 
 the majority decided that he was a spy, and as such 
 he was ordered for execution. Entreaties, remon- 
 strances, and threats, were resoited to iu vain by 
 Su' H. Clinton and the British authorities, to save 
 his life, but to no purpose. Andre' himself met his 
 fate with becoming fortitude, indulging neither in 
 complaints nor remonstrances, but submitting him- 
 self w-ith calmness to an uievitable event. Only one 
 earthly object seemed to cling tenaciously to his 
 heart — it was that of his first' love. He hid her 
 miniature in his mouth when taken prisoner, and 
 wrote one of his last letters to her while in capti- 
 vity. But she was herself no more, having died 
 of consumption a few months before. He craved 
 one boon from his enemies, and that was to be 
 allowed to die the death of a soldier. This was 
 asked iu the following letter to Washington: — 
 
 " Sir, 
 
 " Buoyed above the terrcir of death, by the 
 consciousness of a life devoted to hououz-able pur-
 
 ADMIRAL KEMPENFELT. 
 
 193 
 
 poses, and stained with no action which can give 
 me remorse, I trust that the request wliieh I maice 
 to your Excellency at this serious period, and which 
 is to soften my last moments, will not lie rejected; 
 sympathy towards a soldier will surely induce your 
 Excellency, and a military tribunal, to ado]it the 
 mode of my death to the feelings of a man of 
 honour; let me hope. Sir, that if aught in my cha- 
 racter impresses you with esteem towards me, if 
 aught in my misfortunes marks me as the victim 
 of policy, and not of resentment, I shall experience 
 the operation of those feelings in your brenst, by 
 being informed I am not to die on a gibbet. I 
 have the honour to be, your Excellencj', 
 " John Andre, 
 " Adjutant of British Forces in America." 
 
 No answer was returned, probably from a wish 
 
 to avoid embittering his last hours by a sense of 
 disgrace. It was not until he was led 'to the jilace 
 of execution that he perceived he was to be Inmc. 
 Even then, however, his etiuanimity did not fa'il 
 him; " it is but a momentary pang," "he exclaimed, 
 and without further cxprtssuig his feelings, sub- 
 mitted himself to the rope, and elicited by the man- 
 ner in whieli he suffered, the respect of those who 
 felt bound to be his executioners. " Andre," said 
 Washington, " met his fate with that fortitude which 
 was expected from an accomplished man and a 
 gallant officer." 
 
 Major Andr^ has further claims to notice. He 
 excelled in painting and music, and was also a poet. 
 A humorous piece of his entitled the " Cowchase," 
 which anticipated the style of Cowper's " John 
 Gilpin," was published at New York in 1780, and 
 has always been spoken of as a composition of merit. 
 
 ADMIRAL KEMPENFELT. 
 
 Admiral Kempenfelt, with wliosc name a melan- 
 choly popularity has associated itself in conse- 
 quence of his sudden death by the sinking of the 
 Royal George man-of-war at Spithead, with all 
 her crew aboard, is connneinorated by a tablet in 
 the Chapel of St. John the Evangelist, on which 
 Bacon, Junior, has poorly sketched a column, with 
 a ship sinking, and the figure of a man ascending 
 to an angel aloft. Thei-e is a meagre epitaph, 
 written without taste or propriety as follows : — 
 
 In memory of Richard Kempenfelt, Esq. 
 
 Rear Admiral of the Blue, 
 
 Who was lost in his majesty's Ship, Royal George, 
 
 Which ovei'setand sunk at S])ithead on the 29th of 
 
 August 1782. 
 
 By which fatal event 
 
 About 900 persons were launched into eternity, 
 
 And his King and Country deprived of the services 
 
 of a great and meritorious officer, 
 
 In the 64th year of his age. 
 
 This monument was erected pursuant to the will 
 
 of his In'othei", 
 
 GusTAVus Adolpiius Kempenfelt, Esq., 
 
 Who died at his seat, Lady I'lacc, Hurley, Berkshire, 
 
 On the 14th of March, IHOJi, aged 87 years ; 
 
 Of whose Philantlir<i])y and lluinanity. 
 
 His liberal subscriptions and bequests to most of 
 
 the charitable institutions in this country, 
 
 Will be lasting records. 
 
 Richard Kempenfelt, Rear-admiral of the Bhi(>, 
 and the subject of this memorial, was ))orn at 
 Westminster in October, 1718. His father, a native 
 of Sweden, held the rank of Lieutenant-governor 
 of Jersey during the reign of George 1., and was 
 the original of Addison's " Captain Sentry," in the 
 second immber of th(! ".Spectator." ^'oimg Kem- 
 penfelt became a mids]ii|iman in the tenth year of 
 his age, rcceiv(;d a limiti-nant's <-oiMmission on tlu; 
 14lh of January, 1741, and was made a master 
 and commander in 17'>'». l)uriiig tiie following 
 year he was ajipointed to the Eli/.a of sixty-four 
 guns, in which he distinguished himself gr<'ally in 
 the East Indies, first, dining the' action wiiich took 
 l^lace between Coimiiodore Steevins and tiio (Juunt 
 
 D'Ache in 1758, and soon after in convoying, with 
 pi'udence and complete success, some troops to the 
 relief of Madras, when besieged by the French 
 under Count Lally. Upon the death of Commodore 
 Steevens, he became Admiral's Captain to his suc- 
 cessor. Sir Charles Cornish, and took a signal jiart 
 at the well-known siege of Manilla, for which he 
 received promotion on the s])ot from Sir William 
 Draper. After several unimportant changes from 
 ship to ship, he was nominated to the charge of a 
 squadron, which was ordered to intercept a French 
 fleet, sailing out of Brest in 1781 to reinforce the 
 Count de Grasse in the West Indies. Unfortunately, 
 however, the French were discovered to be so nmeh 
 his superiors not only in the number, but in the 
 weight of their ships, that he dared not phace con- 
 fidence on the issue of a regular battle. Taking 
 advantage, therefore, of the weather-gage, he sailed 
 alimg the enemy in line of battle abreast, until 
 their van, by a lucky chance, haj>i)ened to shoot 
 considerably a-he:ul of their rear, and ex]iose a 
 large convoy to faint jirotection. At that conjunc- 
 ture, Kempenfelt bore up a-liead in full order of 
 battle, cut off the whole convoy, amounting to 
 fifteen vessels, sunk four frigates, and then towed 
 his ]irizcs into Portsmouth full in the teeth of his 
 adversary, whom he h()n<inre(l with a runm'ng fight 
 the whole way. Preferred to the Royal (Jeorge in 
 tlie spring of 1782, h(^ sailed on a cruise after the 
 i^'rcnch West India Meet, as si'cond in conunand to 
 Admiral Hari'inglon, and had a share in the hoiiour.s 
 of capturing two line-of-battle ships and four tnms- 
 ports. As soon as preparations were made for 
 the relief of (Jibraltar, the Royal George was 
 ordered upon the Mediterranean station, but being 
 somewhat leaky, it was determined to cnulk her as 
 she lay at anelior. Accordingly, on the 2!tlh of 
 August, the Weather being fair, and the wind UKide- 
 rat<', she was heeled on her side until the work- 
 men n^ached the leak. Their labours weiv nearly 
 finished, when a sriuall took the uplifted side while 
 the crew were tt diimer, and the lower deck holes 
 to leeward having been nnaccountably left o])eti, 
 llic sea eTitered in torrents, and in less than eight 
 minutes the noblest vessel in the IK et was sunk.
 
 194 
 
 WESTMINSTER ABBEY. 
 
 So rapid was her descent, that not a signal of 
 distress was made ; of 1200 persons who hap- 
 pened to be on board, 900 perished, and two smaller 
 vessels were swallowed up in the immense vortex 
 thus created. 
 
 Cowper sung this fatal accident in one of his most 
 stirring pieces, beginning aptly with the well-known 
 lines, 
 
 " His sword was in its sheath, 
 His fingers held the pen, 
 When Kempenfelt went down 
 With twice four hundred men." 
 
 While upon the subject of fatal shipwrecks, it 
 may not be altogether misplaced to direct attention 
 to a monument in the nortli transept, commemo- 
 rating the loss of the Victoi-y in 1744, with Admiral 
 Sir .J. Balchen and near a thousand souls on board. 
 It is by Seheemakers, and although it will be 
 found not without faults, if criticised in detail, yet 
 as an attempt to represent a sea-storm in marble, 
 it must be admitted to evince considerable power 
 in the artist. The epitaph, a good old English 
 composition, is a moral history in itself : — 
 
 To the memory of Sir John Balchen, Knt. Ad- 
 miral of the White Squadron of his Majesty's 
 fleet, who, in the year 1744, being sent out Com- 
 mander-in-Chief of the combined fleets of England 
 and Holland to cruise on the enemy, was, on his 
 return home in his Majesty's ship, the Victory, 
 lost in the Channel by a violent storm ; from which 
 sad cii'cumstance of his Death, we may learn, that 
 neither the greatest Skill, Judgment, or Experience, 
 joined to the most firm, unshaken resolution, can 
 
 resist the fury of the winds and waves : and we 
 are taught, from the passages of his life, which 
 were filled with great and gallant actions, but ever 
 accompanied with adverse gales of fortune, that 
 the Brave, the Worthy, and the Good Man meets 
 not always his reward in this World. Fifty-eight 
 years of faithful and painful services he had passed, 
 when being just retired to the government of Green- 
 wich Hospital, to wear out the Remainder of his 
 Daj's, he was once more, and for the last time, 
 called out by his King and country, whose Interest 
 he ever preferred to his own, and his unwearied 
 Zeal for their service ending only in his Death ; 
 which weighty misfortune to his Afflicted Family 
 became heightened by many Aggravating Circum- 
 stances attending it : yet, amidst their Grief, had 
 they the mournful Consolation to find his Gracious 
 and Royal Master mixing his concern with the 
 general lamentations of the public, for the Cala- 
 mitous Fate of so Zealous, so Valiant, and so Able 
 a Commander ; and as a lasting memorial of the 
 sincere love and esteem borne by his Widow to a 
 most Aff"ectionate and Worthy Husband, this Hono- 
 rary Monument was erected by her. 
 
 He was born Feb. 2, 1669, married Susanna, 
 daughter of Col. Apreece, of Washingly, in the 
 County of Huntingdon. Died October j, 1744, 
 leaving one son and one daughter, the former of 
 whom, George Balchen, survived him but a short 
 time ; for being sent to the West Indies in 1745, 
 Conmiander of His Majesty's ship the Pembroke, 
 he died in Barbadoes in December the same year, 
 aged twenty-eight, havmg walked in the steps, and 
 imitated the virtues and bravery of his good but 
 unfortunate father. 
 
 SIR EYRE COOTE, K.B. 
 
 In the north cross aisle, immediately behmd the 
 lofty monument to Lord Robert Manners, and Cap- 
 tains Bayne and Blair, — stands a mai'ble tribute 
 by Banks, to the memory of Sir Eyre Coote. As 
 is usual with the works of almost all our artists, 
 the chief deti'action from its merits is an allegorical 
 design. In the centre is a trophy of armour, piled 
 up against a palm-tree; on the left. Victory is per- 
 sonified in the act of hanging a portrait of the gene- 
 rat from the tree; and on the right, a Mahratta 
 captive appears doubled in grief. His hand leans 
 upon an inverted cornucopia, the contents of which 
 are falling upon a shield, traced with the arms of 
 Great Britain. This figure has been much admired, 
 and certainly, for attitude and expression, it de- 
 serves all the praise it has received — it is a very 
 hapj)y performance. The locality of the scene is 
 indicated by the elephant beneath. The workman- 
 ship of this monument is correct and masterly, but 
 it bears an air of nakedness and incompleteness, 
 because the centre, comprising the tree and armour, 
 is deficient in size and grandeur. The inscription 
 runs thus: — 
 
 This Monument is erected by 
 
 The East India Company, 
 
 As a memorial of the military talents of 
 
 Lieutenant-General Sir Eyre Coote, K.B. 
 
 Comniauder-in-chief of the British Forces in India, 
 
 who, 
 
 By the success of his arms in mdcclx. and mdcclxi., 
 
 Expelled the French from the coast of Coromandel. 
 
 In MDCCLXxxi. and mdcclxxxii. 
 
 He again took the field in the Carnatic, 
 
 In opposition to the united strength of the French 
 
 and Hyder Ally ; 
 
 And in several engagements 
 
 Defeated the numerous forces of the latter ; 
 
 But death interrupted his career of glory 
 
 On the xxviith day of November, mdcclxxxiii. 
 
 In the fifty-eiglith year of his age. 
 
 EjTe, the son of ChiJley Coote, by Jane, sister of 
 George, Lord Carteret, and a descendant from 
 the Irish family which was raiseil to the earldom 
 of Mountrath, for services rendered to the cause 
 of Charles I. by Sir Charles Coote, Bart., was 
 born in Ireland in 1726. Adopting the profes- 
 sion of arms, he was attached to the royal troops 
 employed to quell the Scotch i-ebellion in 1745, and 
 nine years afterwards accompanied Colonel Adle- 
 cron's regiment to the East Indies. In that country 
 he obtained a cajitaincy in 1757, and was ordered 
 to take possession of Calcutta, upon the surren- 
 der of that place to Admiral Watson. This duty 
 gave him the rank of governor, but he was almost 
 immediately superseded in it by the arrival of 
 Colonel Clive. He next assisted in the reduction 
 of Houghley and Chaudenagore; and at the memo- 
 rable battle of Plassey, acted so prominent a part,
 
 SIR EYRE COOTE. 
 
 195 
 
 as to share the honours wliich crowned that 
 victory. 
 
 Towards the close of tlievear 1759, General Lally 
 made an effort to revive tlie military fortune of 
 France in the East, by atteniptin"- to capture 
 Trichinopoly with an army of French and confede- 
 rate Inilians. Coote, now raised to the rank of 
 colonel, collected all the forces under his command 
 together on the coast, and invested Vandewash. 
 Three days sufficed to reduce tlie place, and make 
 the garrison prisonere of war. Passing on to Ca- 
 rongoly, he pushed another siege with such force 
 and diligence, that within four days after the open- 
 ing of his batteries, that garrison also submitted. 
 
 During this short interval, Lally called in his 
 detachments, and made vigorous dispositions for 
 recovering a place so important as Vandewash. He 
 had already effected a practicable breach, when 
 Coote made his appearance, and a battle ensued 
 July 22, 1760. General Lally counted 2200 Euro- 
 peans, and somewhat more than 9000 blacks; Cokmel 
 Coote mustered I7OO Europeans, and only 3000 
 blacks: the contest was fierce and ]>r<itracted, until 
 the French gave way, and abandoning their camp, 
 their caimon, and all the implements employed at 
 the siege, left 1000 men dead and wounded upon 
 the scene of action. Lally fled in confusion to Pon- 
 dicheiTy, and Coote prosecuted the advantages of 
 a victory, which reflected the highest honours upon 
 his name and talents, with increased vigour. He 
 took Chittiput in a few days, and, without allowing 
 himself repose, marched directly upon Arcot, and 
 commenced a fresh siege. The trenches were 
 opened, February 5, 17^1; on the 10th, the capital 
 of this immense province surrendered, and up- 
 wards of 300 Eui'opeaus were made prisoners of 
 war. 
 
 PondicheiTy was the next strong hold he at- 
 tacked: a siege of two months reduced it, and with 
 that loss the power of France was annihilated in 
 the East. Coote was now made Governor of Fort 
 St. Geoi'ge at Madras; but some differences arising 
 between him and the local authorities, he returned 
 to England, where the character of his achieve- 
 ments was properly estimated, and promptly ho- 
 noured: he received the military order of the bath, 
 and was presented by the directors of the East 
 India Company with a sword, hilted with diamonds, 
 and valued at 700^. His regiment happening to be 
 quartered in Scotland, the ministers availed them- 
 selves of the o|)portunity to make him governor of 
 Fort St. George in that country. 
 
 But he was- not destined to remain long absent 
 from the sphere of his first victories: in 1779, the 
 death of General Clavering again left vacant the 
 chief command of the British forces in the Indies, 
 and Sir Eyre Coote, though labouring under infir- 
 mities which made the climate almost certainly 
 fatal, was urged to accept the post. He acquiesced, 
 and was accordingly gazetted a member of tlie 
 su[)reme government of Bengal, aii(l conmiander- 
 in-chiff of the British forces in the east. Scarcely 
 had he arrived at the seat of liis authority, when 
 Hyder Ally iuvadeil the (Jarnatic, and lu^ w;ts 
 obliged to liasten down to the coast of Coroniandel 
 witii all the strength he could muster. In July 
 17'n,a liattic took ])lace at J'orto Novo, between 
 the troojts thus drawn together, in wiiich he struck 
 tiie first blow of moment against tiie mii,'lit of his 
 o{)ponent, by giving an utter defeat to l')(),000 min, 
 
 with a chosen band amounting to no more than 
 10.000. 
 
 The operations of 1782 began under very unpro- 
 mising appearances: the French availing them- 
 selves of the ])ower and talents of Hyder Allv to 
 regain a footing in India, took the field under Ge- 
 neral Lally, with that mighty prince. Sir Eyre 
 Coote met with unusual obstacles in advaneiu"' his 
 troops from Madras, and found himself so much 
 crippled, that he was obliged to appeal to the mi- 
 nister in England, for the purpose of obtaining that 
 full authority properly belonging to the station he 
 occupied. This embarrassment was soon after in- 
 creased, by the utter defeat of a gallant detachment 
 under Colonel Braithwaite, on the banks of the 
 Coleroon, where 2000 men, wedged in a hollow 
 square, and only strengthened by thirteen j)ieces 
 of cannon, resisted the charges of 20,400 able 
 troops for six and twenty hours. 
 
 Such were the circumstances which now prompt- 
 ed the energy, and (juickened the movements, of 
 Sir Eyre Coote. Vandywash, so often the point of 
 attack, was again the one most exposed to danger, 
 but tlie bare protection of a place so important 
 did not satisfy the character or talents of the 
 British general. Finding the enemy, although 
 completely reinforced, indisposed for battle, he de- 
 termined to seek him upon his own ground. Hyder 
 Ally, however, a wary commander, thought little 
 of appearances; and, as the English advanced upon 
 him, retreated, witliout caring for the discredit 
 which such a stej) might stamp u])on his fame. 
 Thus far baffled. Sir Eyre Coote held a council of 
 war, and proposed an attack upon the great maga- 
 zines, which were deposited in the strong fortress 
 of Arnee, suggesting that a movement which must 
 eftectually cut off his supplies, would, in all pmba- 
 bility, compel their opponent to abandon that ]iru- 
 dential line of conduct, wliich held the issue of tlie 
 campaign in suspense. 
 
 The plan being unanimously acceded to, the 
 English broke up their camj), and Hyder Ally no 
 sooner penetrated their design, than he marched 
 down from the hills with all expedition, determined 
 to run every risk for the safety of tlie only hold 
 which afforded him his ])reseiit means of warfare. 
 On the 22ii(l of June, 1782, the main body of the 
 English army was within five miles of Arnee, and 
 an advanced party was actually marking out the 
 site of an encampment before the place, when a 
 sudden cannonade iu the rear announced the ap- 
 proach of an enemy, who was supposed to be several 
 miles distant. Critical as this surprise was, and 
 gi'eat as the advantages were which it gave to the 
 attack, yet it neither occasioned disorder amongst 
 our troops, nor perplexity to their general. Tlio 
 fire began early in tlie morning, and various man- 
 uDuvres rapidly succeeded, but it was halfquust one 
 o'clock before Sir Eyre Coote succeeded in concen- 
 trating the diftVrcnt attacks upon one ])lan and 
 ]ioint. That, however, iiad no sooner been done, 
 than the iiiipi'tuosity of the Urilish bore down every 
 resistance, and llyder's army broke in several di- 
 rections. A total rout eiisui'd; the ]nirsiiit eoiiti- 
 mied until evening, but a deficieiiey of cavalry upon 
 our side, and a super.ibundance of it 011 tlie other, 
 l)rechideil those effective consequences which ought 
 to have signalized so perfect a victory. 
 
 This was the bust battle in which Hyder Ally and 
 Sir Eyre Coote faci'd each other; it was also the
 
 196 
 
 WESTMINSTER ABBEY. 
 
 last in which cither of them took a part; and it has 
 generally been represented, that the heavy cares 
 imposed upon their respective commands, tended 
 in a great degree to abridge the lives of both. In 
 1783, Sir Eyre resumed his command enfeebled 
 and exhausted, and died at Madras during the same 
 year. His body was conveyed to England, and 
 interred in the parish church of Rockburn, in 
 
 Hampshire. A short time before his death became 
 known in London, the House of Commons thanked 
 him for his public services; and the vote, unac- 
 Icnowledged as it was by the object to whom it was 
 addressed, served as a fit panegyric upon his me- 
 mory, which has been further preserved by the 
 just honours of the monument, which has entitled 
 him to a notice in the order of these pages. 
 
 JONAS HANWAY. 
 
 Tn the north cross aisle of Westminster Abbey, is 
 a monument raised by voluntary subscriptions to 
 record the virtues of Jonas Hauway. It was ex- 
 ecuted by Moore, the sculptor, and consists of a 
 sarco))hagus surmounted by a pyramid which is 
 topped with a lamp, and relieved by a medallion of 
 the deceased. On the front of the sarcophagus, 
 Britannia, decorated with the emblems of her state, 
 is introduced in the act of distributing sailors' 
 dresses to poor boys. The following is the inscrip- 
 tion : — 
 
 Sacred to the memory of 
 
 Jonas Hanway, 
 
 Who departed this life September the 5th, 1786, 
 
 aged 74, 
 
 But whose name liveth, and will ever live whilst 
 
 active piety shall distinguish 
 
 The Christian, integrity and trutli shall recommend 
 
 The British Merchant, and universal kindness 
 
 shall characterise 
 
 The Citizen of the World. 
 
 The helpless infant nurtur'd through his care, 
 
 The friendless Prostitute slielter'd and reformed. 
 
 The hopeless Youth rescu'd from misery and ruin 
 
 And trained to serve and defend his country, 
 
 Uniting in one common strain of gratitude. 
 
 Bear testimony to their Benefactor's virtues : — 
 
 This was the Friend and Father of the Poor. 
 
 Jonas Hanway was born August 12, 1712, at 
 Portsmouth, where his father was storekeeper in 
 the dock-yard. Upon the death of the latter, which 
 took place suddenly, his widow removed to London, 
 and there bred up, with singular prudence and 
 affection, four children, of whom the subject of 
 this sketch was the oldest. After an ordinary 
 education, in which he attained some proficiency 
 in Latin, Jonas was bound apprentice in his seven- 
 teenth year to a merchant in Lisbon, and was re- 
 markable for the neatness of his person, and the 
 punctuality of his conduct. In that city he sub- 
 sequently entered ujion the business of a factor on 
 his own account, but, in all probability, with no 
 great success, for he returned to London within a 
 year or two after the expiration of his apprentice- 
 ship. No relation of his circumstances is ])re- 
 served from this period until the year 1743, when 
 he sailed from the Thames to St. Petersburgh, and 
 formed a j)artnership with a merchant named 
 Dingley. Events soon occui-red which induced 
 him to diverge from the immediate duties of this 
 connexion, and the following is an abstract of the 
 cause and consequences of the change. 
 
 In the year 1738, one Elton, an enterprising 
 sailor who had roved for some time among the 
 Tartars of Bokhara, submitted a proposition to the 
 
 British factors in Russia, for introducing a trade 
 into Persia by way of the river Volga and the Cas- 
 pian Sea. This project being favourably enter- 
 tained, a cargo of goods was entrusted to Elton, 
 who completed the journey with a rapidity and 
 success which gave universal satisfaction. An act 
 of Parliament was passed for the protection of the 
 trade, and ships were built to carry it on ; when 
 Elton unaccountably deserted from the merchants, 
 and went into the service of Nadir Shah, the Per- 
 sian monarch, who made him superinteudaut of the 
 coast along the Caspian. 
 
 Such was the dilemma in which Hanway boldly 
 offered to prosecute the undertaking : his terms 
 were accepted, and he set out from St. Peters- 
 burgh with a caravan of twenty loads of merchan- 
 dise, September 10, 1743. Taking Moscow and 
 Astrachan in his route, he reached Astrabad on the 
 opposite shore of the Caspian in safety during the 
 month of December, and landed his goods with an 
 assurance of protection. At this point, however, 
 his good fortune abandoned him, and he was pre- 
 cipitated into a maze of danger and suffering, such 
 as few would have had the fortitude to endure, or 
 the address to overcome. An insurrection sud- 
 denly broke out in the city, and the ringleaders, 
 not content with seizing on the merchandize, rob- 
 bed him of his money, and even deliberated uiJuu 
 the best means of carrying him off" into the interior 
 of the country. From this state of insult and 
 cruelty he managed to effect a precipitate retreat ; 
 but instead of Hying to the ships, and altogether 
 forsaking the venture, he had the courage to pur- 
 sue the beaten shah, and obtain compensation for 
 the loss of the property committed to his charge. 
 To follow him through all the privations he now 
 submitted to, or the imminent risks he ran, would 
 far exceed the limits prescribed for this sketch. It 
 must, therefore, suffice to state, that after a perilous 
 journey of two months, he came up to the camp in 
 a most exhausted condition, and obtained a decree 
 addressed to tlie general, who had by this time 
 quelled the revolt, by the terms of which a delivery 
 of all the merchandize, which it was presumed had 
 now been recovered, and the payment for any defi- 
 ciency, were ordered. 
 
 The fulfilment of this grant involved a recurrence 
 of all the fatigue and peril he had already encoun- 
 tered ; but he retraced his steps with resolute 
 patience, and had the satisfaction of receiving 
 eighty-five per cent, upon the value of the whole 
 cargo in the month of June, 1744. Yet even, when 
 the affairs of his trust were thus hapjiily settled, 
 iiis troubles did not terminate. The unhealthiness 
 of the season and intensity of his suft'erings brought 
 on a violent fit of sickness, and he was detained at
 
 JONAS HANWAY. 
 
 1»7 
 
 Reshd for three mouths in a state bordering on | 
 dissolution. The vigour ot" his constitutiuii, luiw- 
 ever, rose superior to tliis attack, and ho returned 
 in safety to St. Petersburgh after an absence of 
 one year and sixteen weeks, during which he had 
 traversed about tive tliousand four hundred EngUsh 
 miles. The circumstances of tlie undertaking hav- 
 ing been submitted to arbitration, were ultimately 
 adjusted with amicable feelings, and Han way con- 
 tinued to reside at St. Petersburg until the month 
 of July, 1750. At that period, making his way 
 back to England by land, he inspected tlie curiosi- 
 ties of the principal cities in the north of Europe, 
 and fixed himself with a moderate fortune at a 
 sister's liouse in the Strand, before a year expired. 
 
 The first occupation to which he now devoted 
 himself was the publication of his travels, which 
 a])peared in January, 17o3, in four vols. 4to., and 
 ran through four editions. Once successfully in- 
 fected with the contagion of authorship, he con- 
 tinued to indite and publish whenever occasions 
 brought a subject at all within his grasp ; so that 
 if not one of the most able, he was at least one of 
 the most indefatigable t)f writers. Thus, when the 
 question of naturalizing the Jews came on tor dis- 
 cussion in the House of Commons, i\lr. Hanway, 
 although at the time recruiting his health at Tun- 
 bridge Wells, sent up a manuscript pamphlet against 
 the measure to London, which went to a second 
 edition. The part he acted in this business was 
 one neither liberal nor philanthropic, and therefore 
 adverse to the humanity which characterised his 
 life. If the inconsistency is to be in any respect 
 extenuated, it can only be upon the plea that his 
 faith was superstitious in some of the denunciations 
 of the Bible. But the natural rights of all men are 
 equal, and it ought always to be a matter of pru- 
 dence as well as piety, to leave the punishment of 
 those errors which a mistaken religion may beget, 
 to the justice of that Power which can alone pene- 
 trate the merits of conscientious differences of 
 opinion. The Scriptures award no temporal penalty 
 upon heathen or heretic ; and thus the man, or body 
 of men, who, from a belief in God and a future 
 state of happiness or misery apjjortioned to good 
 or evil, adopts that general system of morality 
 wiiich secures the order of society, has an inherent 
 claim to every advantage enjoyed in tliiit state, of 
 which the prosperity is maintained by his industry, 
 and the honour ui)liel(l by his virtues. Persecution 
 and exclusion are constructively the same; the one 
 is an hypocritical modification of the other, and so 
 long a.s that is enforced, no man can flatter himself 
 with the hope that the crimes of martyrdom arc 
 exterminated ; for the barburous s<>i)histry which 
 upheld tiie inquisition in Spain has only a shade of 
 difference from the selfish bigotry which accords 
 ofticial emijloynunt and civil privileges to those 
 only who conform to an estaljlished creed. In this 
 respect the Catholic in Madrid, the Protestant in 
 London, and the Turk in Constantinoi)le, have too 
 long acted together upon a connnon rule, and have 
 varied from tlie Pagan Ronum, not so nuudi in the 
 principles of their conduct, as in the extremes to 
 which they have carried them out. 
 
 The o])])osition to this measure was strong and 
 malignant, luit the jiarliament voted the act into a 
 law, and for once the Jew horn in Kn^Hand w:is 
 allowed to inherit the ])rivilcgcs ol a suliject. The 
 justice of the concession, however, wsis bhoi't-lived: 
 
 the characteristic terrors of the country were ex- 
 cited, a clamour followed, and the bill was repealed 
 during the very next session. To this unbecoming 
 result, Hanway had the poor satisfaction of contri- 
 buting, by three more pamphlets, entitled " A Re- 
 view of the i)roposed IS'aturalization," " Three 
 Letters in Reply," and an " Answer to Test and 
 Contest." These performances are now deservedly 
 forgotten, and it were therehn-e unavailing to con- 
 demn the warmth with which they were worded, or 
 the misapprehensions on which they were founded. 
 
 The next object which attracted his attention was 
 one of indisputable utility: in 1754, a Mr. Spranger 
 of Covent Garden. proposed that Westminster should 
 be paved in a uniform manner; and Hanway im- 
 mediately addressed a letter to the i)rojector, in 
 which he developed a plan for reducing the idea 
 into practice. Strikuig as this improvement cer- 
 tainly was, yet six years were permitted to inter- 
 vene before anything was effected; but when at 
 last the reformation was undertaken, all the cljanges 
 he wished to introduce were adopted. Thus the 
 streets first began to be divided into carriage road 
 and footway; the shopkeepers' old signs, those 
 massive impediments to a free pros])eet and air, 
 were demolished; a paving- board was established, 
 street-keepers were appointed, and the stranger's 
 progress through the metropolis was facilitated by 
 the inscription of the naitie of every street at its 
 corners. 
 
 In the following year much alarm was created 
 by the equipment of a formidaljle armament at 
 Brest, and Mr. Hanway ottered the country his 
 " Thoughts on Invasion." From a consideration 
 of the additional number of seamen who might 
 thus be reciuired for the service of the state, he 
 was now promjited to those exertions by which the 
 Marine Society was ultimately established. This 
 commendable charity took its rise from a sugges- 
 tion given by a barrister named Fowler Walker to 
 Sir John (then Mr.) Fielding, for collecting such 
 boys as might be l)rought before him in his magis- 
 terial capacity, either as petty thieves or vagabond 
 beggars, and fitting them out by subscription fiir 
 saihu's. Four hundred boys had in this manner 
 been withdrawn fnmi the haunts of vice, and sent 
 to serve at sea, when Mr. Hanway called a public 
 meeting at the Royal Exchange, for the purpose of 
 founding a society to recruit the fleet \\ ith lands- 
 men and boys. The proposal was i-eceived with 
 consideriible approbation, and the object prose- 
 cuted with great vigour and perseverance. Mr. 
 Walker's design was incorjiorated with Mr. H;in- 
 way's; a large contribution was gathered, and a 
 house of business erected in Bishojjsgate Street at 
 a cost of 40()t»/. The general prosperity of the 
 concern may be inferred from on(! statement : in 
 less than six years from the period of the founda- 
 tion, the governors contributed no less than l(),'2l{tl 
 sailors to the pnlilic service. 
 
 After ]>urcliiisinga governorship of' the I'oundling 
 Ilosj)ital, in IV^li, and pul)li.shing a pamphlet aginnst 
 some of the customs then observed in that instilu- 
 tion, Hanway addressed his cares to provide an 
 iisylum for those most miserable of all miserable 
 beings, the prostitutes of the metropolis. The curliest 
 refuge of this kind w;is oinned at Kome in (>-(>; tin' 
 second at Najiles in i:t-J4; tin- thinl at Sc\ille in 
 l.j.'iO; and the fourth at London in 17'>)i. I'r. 
 Johnson may be said to have Ikm n ilir fust ni.oi in 
 
 I'
 
 198 
 
 WESTMINSTER ABBEY. 
 
 England who advocated such a merciful abode. 
 But its establishment was directly occasioned by a 
 pamphlet from Mr. Dingley, the Russian merchant 
 already mentioned in this sketch, who, in 1758, 
 printed " A Proposal for establishing a Place of 
 Reception for penitent Prostitutes." Ever upon 
 the alert, Hanway immediately adopted the idea, 
 and recommended it to the public in a series of 
 letters. Upon this occasion, as well as in the cases 
 of the Marine Society, and metropolitan paving 
 project, he compensated by an eager industry for 
 the absence of original merit, and thus acquired 
 the honour of being ranked amongst the primitive 
 founders of a most beneficent charity. 
 
 To expatiate upon the various acts of so busy a 
 character, and exemplify the many good reasons he 
 had for exertion, were enough to fill a volume: it 
 must, therefore, suffice to observe that he benefi- 
 cially filled the office of steward to the Stepney 
 Society, instituted by some masters in the mer- 
 chants' service, during the year 1074, for the pur- 
 pose of apprenticing orphans and poor children to 
 marine trades; that he endeavoured to obviate the 
 cruelty of impressment, by employing a large mus- 
 ter of government sailors in the merchant service 
 dui'ing the intervals of peace; that he contributed 
 to abolish the custom of giving vails, by publishing 
 
 "Eight Letters to the' Duke of ;" that he 
 
 helped to get an act of parliament for alleviating 
 the hardships of the poor chimney-sweeper; tried to 
 I'eform the police of London; and also that he made 
 himself somewhat ridiculous by printing "Thoughts 
 on Musick," in 1765. His plans for the protec- 
 tion of parish poor are marked by a generous per- 
 severance and essential benevolence, which, in jus- 
 tice, require a more particular notice. After five 
 years spent in exploring the workhouses of Lon- 
 don, he printed the observations he had made dui'- 
 ing the period of his inquiries; and, although he 
 failed in rousing that degree of sympathy and ex- 
 tent of reformation to which he aspired, the virtue 
 of his intentions was unquestionalDle, and the ne- 
 cessity of some corrective measures was admitted 
 by all impai'tial judges. 
 
 He found that twenty-three children had been 
 committed to one nurse, in the parish of St. Clement 
 Danes, during the year 17<i5, and that out of this 
 number, in January 1776, two had been discharged, 
 and only three remained alive: that out of seventy- 
 eight children received into the workhouses of the 
 united pai'ishes of St. Andrew and St. George, 
 Holborn, during the .same period, sixty-four died 
 before a twelvemonth elapsed: that thirty-seven 
 out of forty-eight perished within another year m 
 the workhouse of St. Luke's parish; and, in short, 
 that there were some jiarishes to be found which 
 had not a single child living in the workhouse at 
 the year's end. That such a state of things as tliis 
 could have been exposed, and not be corrected, seems 
 hardly credible; yet such is the fact: it demanded 
 more than the energy and perseverance of Mr. Han- 
 way to ameliorate the condition of the London poor. 
 He had, however, the satisfaction of being partially 
 successful; for he obtained, by his own exertions, 
 and at his sole expense, two acts of parliament to 
 redress these evils; by the one of which, in 1761, 
 every parish within the bills of mortality was com- 
 pelled to keep and publish an annual list of all the 
 childi-en received, discharged, and demised under 
 its care; and by the other, in 1766, all infants 
 
 belonging to the same parishes were directed to be 
 nursed under special guardians until the age of six 
 years, at a certain distance from town. 
 
 In 1762 a deputation of merchants from the city 
 of London, with Mr. Hoare, the banker, at their 
 head, requested Lord Bute that some beneficial 
 notice might be taken of Mr. Hanway by govern- 
 ment. The result of this application was his ap- 
 pointment, during the same year, to be a commis- 
 sioner for victualling the navy. Upon the enlarged 
 income thus produced, he took a house in Red 
 Lion-square, and lived in a style wdiich enabled 
 him to attract the pleasures of a more social ac- 
 quamtance. Though the duties of the situation 
 were urgent for his years, he contrived to find 
 leisure for other avocations, of which the more me- 
 ritorious were the establishment of a lock hospital 
 at the west end, and marine schools throughout the 
 kingdom. 
 
 In 1783 his health began to decline, and he re- 
 signed his situation, but was, notwithstanding, per- 
 mitted to receive his full salary. In this easy state 
 of retirement, he still continued as active as usual 
 in charitable concerns ; until a disorder in the 
 bladder superinduced a strangury, which put a 
 period to his existence September 5, 1786. 
 
 His biographer asserts, that nothing in life became 
 him more tlian the dying, and certainly he seems 
 to have met his end with creditable equanimity. 
 He bore a tedious and painful illness without im- 
 patience or complaint : when assured by his phy- 
 sicians that a recovery was hopeless, he sent for 
 his ti'adesmen, and paid them with his own hands, 
 bade his friends in London adieu in per'son, and 
 took leave of those m the country by letter. After 
 receiving the sacrament, and offering his body to 
 the surgeon for dissection, if any benefit could be 
 derived from the op ration, he discoursed upon the 
 state of his affairs, heard his will read, gave up his 
 keys, and expired in a shivering fit at michiight. 
 
 The life of Jonas Hanway presents no exhibition 
 of original talents or signal deeds, but, notwith- 
 standing, is far from destitute of a beneficial moral. 
 Without genius or learning, he had good sense, 
 strong feelings, and a readiness of speech, which 
 enabled him to discover, pursue, and exemplify 
 many a valuable object in a manner as honourable 
 to himself as important to others. That he had 
 some vanity, and tinted his character witii not a few 
 traits of the busy-body is evident; but if he troubled 
 the world to tiresomeness upon some matters, he 
 contributed to the good of his species in other re- 
 spects, which are by no means to be held despicable, 
 because seldom attended to by more gifted minds. 
 One prominent trait of his character deserves uni- 
 versal imitation; all that he could do he was always 
 ready to do; and no man could indite a pamphlet, 
 make a speech, or wade through the onerous 
 labours of solicitation which have long been indis- 
 pensably requisite to the getting any thing up in 
 London, with more sanguuie perseverance or hap- 
 pier address than he uniformly displayed. Most of 
 the undertakings in which he took an active share 
 have already been alluded to, and some idea of his 
 indefatigability as a writer may be entertamed 
 from the fact, that he began to pi-int in 1753, and 
 at the time of his death was the author of no less 
 than sixty-four books and pamphlets upon one 
 subject or another.
 
 EPHRAIM CHAMBERS. 
 
 199 
 
 SIR R. TAYLOR. 
 
 A PLAix tablet of white marble, surmounted by an 
 urn, in the Poets' Comer, bears the following in- 
 scription, in which equal jiraises for being a first- 
 rate architect and an active justice of the peace, 
 are mingled together without either discrimination 
 or taste. 
 
 Sacred to the memory 
 
 Of Sir Robert Taylor, Knt. 
 
 Whose works 
 
 Entitle him to a distinguished rank 
 
 In the first class 
 
 Oi British ArcJdUds. 
 
 He was eminently useful to the Public 
 
 As an active and impartial ]\lasistrate ; 
 
 He rendered himself deservedly dear 
 
 To his Family and Friends 
 
 By the uniform exercise 
 
 Of every social and domestic Virtue. 
 
 He died on the 2()th day of September, 1788, 
 
 Aged 70 years. 
 
 Sculpture and architecture used to form, not 
 very long ago in England, a common profession. 
 The subject-matter of the labours of the sculptor 
 and architect being, in a literal sense, the same — 
 stone-cutting and shaping, it seems to have been 
 held for a time, that the two arts ought to proceed 
 hand in hand, and be inseparable. Gibbs and Kent 
 carried this union to the greatest extent : the name 
 of the former is associated with seven, and that of 
 the latter with four monuments in the Aljbej'. Sir R. 
 TayUir, whose life and labours we are now briefly to 
 notice, has more legitimate pretensions tlian either 
 of those artists to high rank both as a sculptor and an 
 architect, for he began life as a statuary, and after- 
 wards, abandoning the practice of that profession, 
 confined himself to architecture, in which he ac- 
 quired a fair reputation and large fortune. He was 
 born and studied under Sir 11. Cheere. After visit- 
 ing Rome he returned to England, and settled into 
 good practice. The monument of Captain Cornc- 
 wall, already described at page i:{7, and that of 
 Genei-al Guest in the noi'th transept, the statue of 
 Britannia at the Bank of Enghind, and the bas- 
 relief on the pediment of the Mansion House, are 
 specimens of his ability as a sculptor. But he soon 
 gave up this art altogether, and devott^l himself 
 exclusively to architecture, in which Ik^ acquired a 
 higher character. The villa l)uilt for Sir Charles 
 Asgill at Richmond, and Gorliambury, liuilt for 
 Lord Grimston, and the bridge at Henley on 
 Thames, have been generally commended as taste- 
 
 ful and appropriate structures. His public em- 
 ployments were exceedingly numerous and pro- 
 fitable. As architect to the Bank, he added con- 
 siderably to that edifice, which has since been 
 externally rebuilt by Sir J. Soane. He succeeded 
 Sir W. Chanibei's* at the Board of Works, and wiis 
 Survej'or to the Admiralty, Greenwich and the 
 Foundling Hospitals, and various other public bodies 
 and institutions in different parts of the kingdom. 
 Occupations so numerous argue uncoTumon industry 
 as well as talent, and of this virtue and its usual com- 
 panions, frugality and temperance. Sir U. Taylor 
 was a rare example. He rose every morning at four 
 o'clock, and, to save time, always travelled at night, 
 satisfying nature with the repose obtained in his 
 cai'riage. His food was always plain, and his use of 
 it moderate. The fruits of tliis system of life were 
 conspicuous. His death did not take jtlace until 
 he was seventy-four years old, and although he 
 had not more than eighteen pence wlien he began 
 life, he left behind him a fortune of 180,000/. in 
 1783 he was chosen Sheriff of London and Middle- 
 sex, on which occasion he was knighted. 
 
 • Sir 'William Chambers was buried, but has no monu- 
 ment, in the Poets' Corner; another proof, in addition to 
 the many we miylit cite to show, that the honours of West- 
 minster Abbey liave not always been proportioned to the 
 merits of those on whom they have been conferred. As the 
 arcliitect of Somerset House, one of the few public buildings 
 ill London worthy of belonging to a metropolis; and as the 
 author of a "Treatise on Civil Architecture," the best work 
 of the kind produced by the profession up to the period of his 
 death, his claims to posthumous distinction cannot l)e con- 
 sidered inferior to those of other architects who are more 
 conspicuously commemorated here. Sir William Chambers 
 was of Scotch descent, and born at Stockholm, in Sweden. 
 He received his educaiion at Ripon, in Yorkshire, and 
 began life as a mercantile sailor, visiting China in the capa- 
 city of supercargo to some Swedish traders. He afterwards 
 settled ill London, and was very successful as a draughtsman. 
 Lord liute, to whom he was introduced, procnied him the 
 place of drawing-master to the Prince of Wales, afterwards 
 George 111., a fortunate aiipointment, wliich led to his sub- 
 sequent emplovmcnt as Royal Architect and Surveyor-gene- 
 ral. He excited some sensation by introducing a taste for 
 the Chinese style of gardening and building, upon which he 
 published a work, keenly attacked in the celebrated "He- 
 roic Kpistles to Sir W. Chambers." Lord liesborough's villa 
 at Roehamptoii was one of the earliest, and the M;ir(|nis of 
 Abercorn's mansion at Duddingstone, near Edinburgh, one 
 of the stateliest of his works. Sir William was treaMiicr to 
 the Royal Academy, a member of the Royal and Antiijuarian 
 Societies, and died aged sixty-nine in 179G. 
 
 EPHRAIM CHAMBERS, F.R.S. 
 
 Multis pervulgatus. 
 
 Panels notus, 
 
 (iui vifam iiit^r lucem et unibram. 
 
 Nee eruditus neir idiiita, 
 
 Literis deditus, traiisegit; sed ut iioino 
 
 Q,ui nihil Ininiani ali<Miuni a si' juitat. 
 
 Vita sinml ac laboriljus functus, 
 
 Hie requiesccre vohiit, 
 
 El'IIItAIM (JlIAMI'.KUS, l-'.R.S. 
 
 Obiit XV. .Mali, mi)i;cxl. 
 
 Common to many, known by few, 
 
 Wlio between light and shside. 
 
 Neither learned nor siinjile. 
 
 Passed ;i life (k'vuteil to lili i-attire; 
 
 But as a man held nothing biinuiii ton ign fnuii 
 
 his cause, 
 
 His days .and labours tugilhcr discharged, 
 
 Wvvi'. wished to rest 
 
 Ei'iiiiAiM ("nAMiiicii.s, F.R.S. 
 
 He died May xv. Mmcxi.. 
 
 !• 2
 
 200 
 
 WESTMINSTER ABBEY. 
 
 Such is the epitaph on a marble tablet, executed 
 by R. Hedges, in the north cloister; and had it also 
 informed the reader that the subject of it was the 
 compiler of the fii'st Cyclop;edia edited in Great Bri- 
 tain, it might be quoted as the most valuable and 
 perfect specimen of necrological composition upon 
 recoi'd. For, although the name of Chambers is 
 deservedly well known, although his literary exer- 
 tions have always been duly esteemed, and although 
 his existence is almost within the memory of man, 
 yet is there little known of him but what is briefly 
 comprised in the preceding lines, which are his 
 own composition. Thus his epitaph, though short, 
 is, in strict truth, all but a complete summary of 
 his life; and the meagre additions that can be 
 tacked to it can only be considered as a commen- 
 tary upon the text. 
 
 The only account of him being the one in the 
 Biographia Britannica, the following particulars are 
 solely compressed from that valuable woi'k. He 
 was born at Kendal, in the county of Westmore- 
 land, but in what year has not hitherto been ascer- 
 tained. His parents were quakers, and he was 
 bred up to their religious tenets, though he never 
 appears, when arrived at manhood, either to have 
 professed or observed them ; nor, indeed, to have 
 attached much consequence to any sect or parti- 
 cular creed. Neither the place nor the natui'e of 
 his first education are known, but it seems reason- 
 able to infei', from the modest persuasion of his 
 family, that it included no greater accomplishments 
 than are generally considered necessary for a mer- 
 cantile life. It has been asserted, however, that he 
 went for a short time to a school kept by the father 
 of the learned Bishop Watson, at Kendal. He was 
 apprenticed to Senex, a globe-maker, in London, 
 and during his residence with that skilful mechanic 
 is said to have imbibed the partiality for scientific 
 pursuits, which so significantly distinguished the 
 maturity of his career. Here again we are unin- 
 formed, whether he remained with his master dui'- 
 ing the whole period of his apprenticeship, or 
 whether he left him before the expiration of that 
 term. Still the conjecture has been hazarded that 
 he served out the usual time; and not only digested 
 the pi'oject of a general Dictionary of arts and 
 sciences, but actually wrote several of the articles 
 for it behind his counter. It has also been held 
 ])robable, that he founded his knowledge of the 
 sciences, and cultivated a general style of compo- 
 sition during his apprenticeship; and that disco- 
 vering the initiatory soui'ces of literary emolument, 
 through the medium of the periodical publications, 
 he was fortunate enough to establish such ii con- 
 nexion with them, as enabled him to enter upon 
 the pursuits of authorship with a fair prospect of 
 being able to derive a subsistence from it. 
 
 The first independent residence Chambers is 
 known to have possessed was apartments in 
 Gray's Inn, London; and in them he continued to 
 reside during the remainder of his days. The first 
 edition of his " Cyclopiedia " appeared, in 2 vols, 
 folio, in 1728, though the dedication to the king 
 bears the earlier date of October 15, 1727. It was 
 published by subscription, at four guineas a set, 
 and raised the author so high in reputation, that he 
 had the honour of being elected into the Royal 
 Society, November 6, 1729. Ten years passed away 
 before a second impression, with additions and cor- 
 rections, was called for, but the subsequent editions 
 
 succeeded with a more creditable rapidity; for the 
 third was required in 1739, the very year after the 
 second; the fourth in 1741, and the fifth in 1749. 
 
 The sale of a work is the sure proof of its value, 
 and no bad one of its merits: from the foregoing 
 statement, therefoi-e, it may properly be affirmed, 
 that Chambers deserved considerable praise. The 
 conception was not entirely original in our lan- 
 guage; for Harris's " Lexicon Technicum," though 
 more confined in its plan, and compressed in its 
 size, had preceded the " Cyclopaedia " with popular 
 success. Neither can it be admitted that Cham- 
 bers was the fittest author in point of capacity or 
 acquirement, for improving this example. Never- 
 theless, if we are to believe (and there appears no 
 contradictory evidence on the point before us) that 
 he was a self-taught scholar, we must then award 
 him the meed of piercing and even original talents; 
 while in gratitude we are bound to respect him, for 
 presenting to his countrymen a most useful publi- 
 cation in a form so commanding, that minds of 
 greater power made the undertaking complete as 
 soon as a decent opportunity admitted their emula- 
 tory labours. The most disparaging censure i)ro- 
 nounced against it is, that it was a servile compila- 
 tion; and that there is some truth in the charge 
 cannot be denied, though the editors of the French 
 " Encyclope'die," who urged it with the greatest 
 acrimony, made it with the least grace. Chambers 
 certainly extracted and copied without any scrupu- 
 losity, but he did not pilfer from his rivals; whei'cas 
 the French compilers were neai'ly as free in draw- 
 ing without acknowledgment from their native 
 authors, as he was in making use of his own coun- 
 trymen. Chambers borrowed at home because 
 there the loan was most easily effected ; and the 
 French, because they detected in his pages a large 
 mass of materials which their own praiseworthy 
 production contained, immediately accused him of 
 piracy; an absurd charge, which involves the asser- 
 tion that Gi'eat Britain had no native writers who 
 treated on the ai'ts and sciences. The only foreigner 
 from whom Chambers translated to any great extent 
 was Wolfius, and after this admission, there remain 
 but two serious objections to the manner in which he 
 executed his labours. The first, that by concealing 
 his authorities he assumed a character of origina- 
 lity which did not belong to him, deserves all the 
 reprobation it has received; but the second, that 
 by an injudicious selection of heads he has confused 
 the essence of his matter, does not appear to be so 
 well grounded; for it is palpably the interest of such 
 a series of volumes to disperse information into the 
 greatest alphabetical variety possible. Here, there- 
 fore, we can only I'evert to that estimate of Cham- 
 bers's merits which has been already summed up: 
 he is more to be commended for what he led others 
 to do, than for what he did himself ; at the same 
 time that the circumstances under which he worked 
 aff"ord clear evidence of a strong and penetrating 
 understanding. 
 
 The " Cycloppedia" is a book which grew in value 
 and increased in merits almost year by year: some 
 mention, therefore, of its continuous history may 
 perhaps be introduced with propriety' as well as 
 interest in this sketch of the life of its parent. 
 AVhile a sixth edition was in contemplation, the 
 proprietors resolved to enlarge the contents by a 
 supplement in 2 vols, folio, and for the execution of 
 this addition fixed upon the late George Lewis
 
 EPHRAIM CHAMBERS. 
 
 201 
 
 Scott. That gentleman's preferment, however, about 
 the same time to the post of sub-preceptor to 
 George III., tlien Prince of Wales, prevented him 
 from continuing in the chief management of the 
 concern. His duties were therefore transferred to 
 Dr. John Hill, and the supplement was thus printed 
 with both names. In process of time, it was deter- 
 mined to condense the whole into a new work, and 
 after some unimportant changes of editors, the 
 design was entrusted to the late Dr. .Vbraham Rees. 
 The impression thus produced was for several years 
 decidedly the best we j)ossessed. It began to ap- 
 pear weekly in 4to numbers, during the year 177^, 
 and was completed in 1785. Its sale was extensive, 
 and its reputation standard: it received material 
 additions as new discoveries exploded ancient doc- 
 trines, and was perfected in eighty parts, which was 
 bound up in forty volumes. 
 
 Resuming the life of Chambers, it remains to be 
 observed, that although ,the " Cyclopa?dia " was 
 evidently the principal occupation of his life, and 
 must be considered the sole basis of his reputation, 
 yet his labours were by no means confined to this 
 one undertaking. He took an active share in con- 
 ducting the " Literary Magazine,"' an unsuccessful 
 periodical, set up in 1735; and also joined with 
 Mr. Martyn, formerly professor of botany at the 
 University of Cambridge, in preparing an abridged 
 translation of those philosophical transactions which 
 were printed by the Royal Academy of Sciences at 
 Paris. This work did not appear until 1742: it 
 eon.sisted of five volumes, 8vo, and by no means 
 fulfilled the expectations which had been formed of 
 its deserts. Martyn, in a subsequent publication, 
 was ungenerous enough to avow that the censure 
 applied to Chambers's portion of the task; but this 
 assertion is to be cautiously entertained, for, as the 
 latter was dead when the volumes went to press, 
 the former must have edited them, and by conse- 
 quence should have corrected what he could not 
 approve, particularly as there seems to have been 
 ample time allowed him for the purpose. One other 
 work has been ascribed to Chambers, namely, the 
 translation of that excellent French treatise on 
 pei-spective, which is generally styled the " Jesuits'." 
 It was originally sold in 4to, is decently executed, 
 and has passed through several editions. 
 
 Upon the face of these statements it is manifest, 
 that Chambers must have si)ent a life of singular 
 industry; but the fact is established by more posi- 
 tive proof ; for his amanuensis has declared, that 
 between the years 1728 and 1732, his writings 
 filled no less than twenty folio volumes, so closely 
 
 copied out, that the contents would at least have 
 extended, in print, to thirty volumes of the same 
 size. With such habits, his health sutiered consi- 
 derably, and he was at last conipelli d, l)y the re- 
 monstrances of his physicians, to exchange the con- 
 finement of his chambers in Gray's lim, for the 
 purer air of the suburbs. He accordingly took 
 lodgings at Canonbury House, Islington; wliouce, 
 Wt receiving the necessary relief, he was obli<;ed 
 to make a journey into the South of Fi-ance. This 
 excursion wrought some benefit: he returned to 
 England, and again resided at Canonbury House. 
 In these quarters, however, his old complaints re- 
 turned with a violence his constitution was unable 
 to resist, and a quiet death quickly ensued. As his 
 life was retired, so his obsequies were modestly 
 respectable: his grave was excavated immediately 
 under the tablet already described. 
 
 The peroration to Chambers's Life in Dr. Aikin's 
 Biogra])hical Dictionary, is expressed with so much 
 truth and precision, that it is almost literally ex- 
 tracted here: — 
 
 "It is remarkable," says the writer, "that no 
 part of the foregoing narrative makes us acquainted 
 with the time of the birth or probal)le age of Cham- 
 bers. From the year 1728 to the date of his death, 
 we reckon only twelve years, and it is probal)le that 
 if he had died remarkably young, the fact would 
 have been noticed. If he went apprentice, as is 
 usual, at the age of fourteen, and quitted his service 
 at twenty-one; and if we may conjecture that he 
 was sixty years old when he died, there will remain 
 a chasm of twenty-seven years, concerning wliieh 
 we have no account, except we allow the interval 
 to have been filled up by the composition of his 
 great work. The intellectual character of Chambers 
 appears to have been sagacity and attention: his 
 application was indefatigable; but it seems ratiier 
 to have been the application of a man of business, 
 than of a philosopher ardent in the pursuit of dis- 
 coveries. To read, to understand, and to connnu- 
 nicate, appears to have been the only concern of 
 his life. He was an excellent teacher, but we have 
 no proof that he was any thing more, or that the 
 plan of his occupation permitted him to strike into 
 any new j)aths. His temper was cheerful, but im- 
 petuous; his mode of life reserved, economical, and 
 regular — a virtue which was the more heavily im- 
 pressed upon his nature, inasmuch as the emolu- 
 ments he received from his literary labours were 
 trifiing in conqiarison with the profits derived by 
 tlie booksellers from theii' sale." 
 
 EDWARD COOKE, 11. N. 
 
 Edward Cooke, a captain in the Royal Navy, is 
 commemorated by a large tabular mcjnuinent, neatly 
 executed by Uacon, junior, in the cliapel of St. 
 Michael. He is introducod sinking into tlu^ arms 
 of a sailor, the right hand extended, and the lift 
 encircling his colours. I'rom tlw; clouds above :i]>- 
 pears a half-body bust of Victory descending with 
 a wreath, ami underneath th(^ engagement in which 
 he fell is delineated. At the one side Ktantis an 
 elephant, and at the other a tiger ; the former 
 emblematical of India in general, the hitter of 
 
 Bengal, which was tlie sccno of the action liere 
 illustrated. This is a pleasing ])erforniance lioili 
 in design and execution, the insijiid personitication 
 of Victory excepted. It can never cease to be a 
 matter of censure and regret, that in liandling 
 facts so striking as those lure iiourtrayed, Irulli 
 should 1)0 conlounded with fiction, and the moral 
 excitement of a great and virtuous example be 
 enervated by unnatural illustration and incon- 
 sistent imagery. The inserii'tion is I bus en- 
 graved : — 
 
 L
 
 202 
 
 WESTMINSTER ABBEY. 
 
 This monument was erected by 
 
 The East India Company 
 
 As a grateful testimony to the valour and eminent 
 
 services of 
 
 Captain Edward Cooke, commander of his 
 
 Majesty's ship Svbille, 
 
 Who on the 1st of March," 1799, after a long and 
 
 well-contested engagement. 
 
 Captured La Forte, a French frigate of very 
 
 superior force. 
 
 In the Bay of Bengal, 
 
 An event not more splendid in its achievement, 
 
 than important in its result 
 
 To the British trade in India. 
 
 He died in consequence of the severe wounds he 
 
 received in this memorable action, 
 
 On the 23d of May, 1799, aged 29 years. 
 
 To this brief account a few historical events are 
 all that can be added to make up a biographical 
 sketch. Neither the date nor locality of Cooke's 
 birth have been particularised in those publications 
 which are commonly devoted to biographical notices 
 of naval men, and even the circumstances of his 
 parentage have been differently related. It has 
 been said that he was a son of the memorable cir- 
 cumnavigator bearing the same name ; but that 
 repi'esentation is erroneous : his father was Colonel 
 Cooke, who married a sister of Admiral Boyer, and 
 was a magistrate and Member of Parliament for 
 the county of Middlesex. The period of Edward's 
 admission to the navy, and the character of his 
 early services and ])romotions are facts, like the 
 time and manner of his birth, not specified in the 
 naval histories. He was made a lieutenant in 1790, 
 and was with that rank attached to Lord Hood's 
 squadron in the Mediterranean, and there entrusted 
 with a secret expedition to Corsica. In 1793, he 
 was again commissioned by the same e(jinmander 
 to pass through the French fleet blockaded before 
 Toulon, and engage the town to surrender to the 
 British ; an arduous labour, which he executed 
 with prudence, intrepidity, and success. Being 
 next privately hurried into Sardinia to raise a body 
 of reinforcements, he speedily returned with 2500 
 effective men. As an acknowledgment of these 
 services, he was gazetted a Post Captain during 
 the following year ; and in 1796, appointed to La 
 Sybille, a frigate, carrying forty-four guns. It was 
 on board of this vessel, and at the head of a small 
 squadron, that he soon after sailed upon that des- 
 tination in the East, from which he never re- 
 turned. 
 
 In this quarter of the globe he was particularly 
 active during the year 1798 : on the 12th of Janu- 
 ary he captured a coaster oft' Luconia, from which 
 he took 4000 dollars ; and on the next day entered 
 the harbour of Manilla, where, by deluding the 
 enemy into a belief that his vessels were French, 
 he boarded and made prizes of seven boats armed 
 with swivels and great guns, and manned with 232 
 men. This success led to no greater consequences, 
 for it was immediately discovered, that of two 
 large money- ships which were the principal ob- 
 jects of pursuit, the one had disembai-ked her trea- 
 sures, and the other lay not at Manilla, but at 
 Cavita. Proceeding, therefore, along the coast, 
 he arrived before the fort of Sambonngan at the 
 close of the month, and made an attempt to carry 
 the place by storm, which, after a smart cannonade 
 
 of two hours, was abandoned as impracticable. 
 The remainder of the year was occupied in pi'o- 
 tecting the convoy to China. 
 
 Early in the year 1799, notice was given that a 
 French frigate of the first rate and superior force 
 had seriously annoyed our Indian trade, and Cap- 
 tain Cooke immediately set sail on a cruize. On 
 the evening of the 28th, he was drawn into Balasore 
 roads, by the flashes of some guns in the distance, 
 and there found La Forte, French frigate, mount- 
 ing forty-four guns, and having eight prizes in tow. 
 The vessels came in sight about half-past ten o'clock, 
 and the Frenchman affected to bring La Sybille to 
 by firing a shot, which was ineffectually followed 
 by a second and a third gun. By this time the ships 
 wei'e within hail, and Admiral de Serci, the French 
 commander, a gallant veteran in his sixtieth year, 
 ordered his adversary to strike. In answer to 
 this summons Cooke closed upon the enemy so 
 boldly, that his main yard arm lay between their 
 main and mizen masts. In this situation he opened 
 his first broadside: it carried away sixty men, and 
 so powerfully was his fire kept up, that the French 
 were driven three times from their hatches. De 
 Serci was killed, and the chief command devolved 
 upon the fii'St lieutenant, an enthusiast, who fought 
 with smgular bravery, and excited his men in the 
 most passionate terms. Ere long, he too fell, and 
 with him drooped the spirit of opposition; Cooke 
 meantime continued his fire, and worked immense 
 havoc; the larboard, starboard, and main shrouds 
 of the La Forte were, with the exception of a single 
 pail', all shot away; and, as a last resort, the French 
 endeavoured to prevent their capture by flight. In 
 this effort their masts went overboard, and they 
 were thus reduced to the necessity of crying out for 
 quarter, after a resistance, which endured with 
 great bravery, for an hour and forty minutes. 
 
 The advantages resulting from this engagement 
 to the East India Company were very considerable; 
 they recovered possession of eight merchantmen 
 valuably laden, and had the neighbouring seas 
 cleared of a daring enemy. The present, however, 
 like many another victory, was dearly acquired. 
 A grape-shot, of the largest size, had passed through 
 the fleshy part of Cooke's arm, penetrated through 
 the side^ and escaped near the spine: he received 
 another wound in the bi-east, and a third in the 
 ribs. These injuries occasioned a violent fever, 
 with an exfoliation of shattered bones, under which 
 he lay delirious for two and twenty days. Some 
 hopes of his recovery were entertamed during the 
 month of April, but he relapsed into a state of dan- 
 ger, and expired at Calcutta, after great sufferings, 
 on the 20th of May. The body was interred at 
 Calcutta, with naval and military honours, and the 
 respect due to his name and abilities was testified 
 by the erection of that monument at home, which 
 has been described at the head of this article. 
 
 A character for superior skill," daring, and for- 
 titude, is established in the few incidents which 
 connect this summary together; but these were not 
 the only virtues for which the name of CMptain 
 Edward Cooke was cherished, or his fate lamented. 
 There was a modesty in his private conduct, a 
 humanity in his actions, and a moderation in the 
 use he always made of authority, deserving the 
 highest praise. It was always his care to abstain, 
 as much as possible, from making mere money 
 prizes : a sense of the distress which unoffending
 
 JOHN BACON. 
 
 203 
 
 individuals thus dejirived of tlieii" fortunes are 
 destined to suffer, led him to this. The manner, 
 too, in which he treated prisoners was liberal in 
 the extreme: he held them under restraint for as 
 short a time as possible ; he entertained them 
 
 during the interval with ceremonious hospitality ; 
 and, upon liberating tlieni, used to decline to exact 
 a parole, because he held it dishonourable to inea- 
 pacitiite any man fi-om serving his country. 
 
 JOHN BACON, R.A. 
 
 John Bacon, sculptor and Royal Academician, was 
 the son of a clothworker, and born in Southwark, 
 November 24, 1740. In his infancy he had two 
 narrow escapes from a violent death ; for when 
 only five years old, he fell into a soapboiler's pit, 
 and must have perished had not a man accidentally 
 entering the yard, observed the top of his head 
 above the lees, and drawn him out. Soon after he 
 fell under a cart in the street; the wheel went over 
 his right hand, but two projecting stones intercept- 
 ed its weight, and the limb was fortunately saved 
 from being crushed. It has been asserted, as is 
 generally the case with men who have distinguished 
 themselves in the arts, that lie evinced an early 
 propensity to drawing; but it is more probable that 
 his talents were not only first excited, but entirely 
 developed by his being liound apprentice at the age 
 of fourteen to a porcelain merchant named Crisp, 
 in Bow Churchyard, Cheapside, where he was 
 taught to paint on earthenware, and afterwards 
 occasionally employed upon the decorations wrought 
 at a manufactory of china, belonging to the same 
 gentleman, at Lambeth. In this occupation he 
 enjoyed the opportunity of occasionally noticing 
 various models which the sculptors of the day were 
 in the habit of sending to be burnt. Thus from 
 the moulding of shepherds and shepherdesses, and 
 their crooks and lambs, the idea suggested itself to 
 him of imitating the models, and attemi)ting the 
 bolder formations of art. After some rude eilbrts, 
 he applied himself to discover a more durable 
 means of preserving the fruits of his labour; 
 and succeeded after many trials and persevering 
 efforts in constructing statues in a composition 
 of artificial stone sui)crior to any in previous use. 
 The first work for which he challenged attention 
 in this line, was a small figure of Peace, after 
 the antique, which ho produced hi \l^>ii; and such 
 was his skill, that between the years 17(i:i and 
 17CG, he obtained no less than nine i>remiums from 
 the Society for the Encouragement of Arts. When 
 the term of his ajiprenticesliip was expired, his 
 name and cDiinexion were; sufficient to enable him 
 to establish a manufactory of his own; and he set 
 to work on tlie jjremiscs whi(;h have since acquireil 
 so high a reputation, and have been more recently 
 known a.s belonging to Mrs. Coode. 
 
 Bacon was three and twenty before he grajijiled 
 with solid marble, ami as his proficiency hitherto 
 had beeneiiiefly self-acquired, so was he in his new 
 pursuits cntiri^ly self-taught. The first diitieulty 
 that tlireati-ned to arnst his jirot^rcss, was liis 
 ignorance of any mamn'r by which he could transfei- 
 the form of his model to the stono, a task which is 
 technically called "glutting out the points." l''or 
 this purpose he taxed his ingenuity, and ere long 
 produced an instrumi-nt ormachin(! wiiicli ha.s sinci' 
 grown into general use in the profession, both in 
 
 England and on the continent. When about twenty- 
 eight years old, he removed his residence from the 
 city, where the connexions of his family were con- 
 centrated, to the west end of the town, as a neigh- 
 bourhood more conducive to success in his ])rofes- 
 sion. It was also about this time that he attended 
 the lectures in the Royal Academy, then recently 
 chartered, and received his first regular instructions 
 in the art of modelling sculpture. In 17'>!) he ob- 
 tained the first gold medal ever given by that body, 
 was admitted an associate in the following ye\ar, 
 and at the ensuing exhiliition raised his rei>utation 
 to the first rank of English sculpture, by a statue 
 of l\Iars. This production attracted the favoui-able 
 notice of the Archbishop of York, who was thinking 
 at the time of presenting a bust of George III. to 
 the Hall of Christ's Church College, Oxford. For 
 this work the archbishop introduced Bacon to the 
 king, and a judicious compliment paid by the latter 
 upon the occasion has been preserved. The king 
 imiuired if he had ever been out of the kingdom, 
 and being answered in the negative, replied, " I am 
 not sorry for it; you will do England the greater 
 credit." 
 
 The manner in which this bust was finished gave 
 so much satisfaction, that orders now came fast 
 upon Bacon from the most inlluential quarters. 
 The king desired him to finish another liust for the 
 University of (Jiittingen; this was followed by a 
 third, ami a fourth was soon after ordered for the 
 meeting room of the Society of Auti<iuaries. The 
 dean and fellows of Christ Church also engaged him 
 to add to the collection of busts with which they 
 honour the more conspicuous memljers of their 
 college; and he modelled, amongst others, the heads 
 of (leneral Guise, the Bisho]! of Dublin, and the 
 Primate of Jreland. In 177'i he i)resented the 
 Sot-iety for the Encouragement of .Arts with the 
 two striking statues in plaster which ornament their 
 great room, and which were acknowledged by a 
 formal vote of thanks, and their large gold medal 
 inscribed, " Eminent Merit." In njd he was em- 
 ])loyed by the Governors of Guy's Hospital, in 
 Southwark, to model the stitue of their founder, 
 which now stands iu the sipiare of that buililing, 
 ami soon alter he was chosen to erect the monu- 
 ment of Dunk, Ivirl of Halifax, in Westminster 
 Abbey. The works conlided to his care, about this 
 period, were cither ordered or comjileted somewhat 
 in the following rotation: — a marble urn, sacn'cl to 
 the nuniory of tiie great Earl of Chatham, placeil 
 by the (lire<'tion of his countess in the gardens at 
 liui-ton I'ynsent, Somersetshire; a monument iu 
 celebraliiMi of the gallantry of Major j'iirson, 
 voted bv till' iidiabitants of .lei'sey; and a slaiiie of 
 .Ju.l;;e |tlackston(s for All Souls'* College, ()\t.inl. 
 The more memorable of his exhibitions at the Hoyal 
 Academy about the samo timo were hiH atatucH of
 
 204 
 
 WESTMINSTER ABBEY. 
 
 Mars and Venus, a colossal bust of Jupiter, a 
 colossal personification of the river Thames, and a 
 monument subsequently placed in the cathedral of 
 Bristol, for Mrs. Draper, once so celebrated as the 
 Eliza of Sterne. 
 
 During the progress of these occuiiations he had 
 become a Royal Academician ; but perhaps a more 
 convincing assurance of the superiority of Bacon's 
 talents, is to be drawn from the result of his com- 
 petitions with other artists. Bacon's success in 
 tenders of this description was singularly happy; 
 out of sixteen instances in which he pi'oposed for 
 professional employment, he only failed once in 
 carrying off the palm. It was in this honourable 
 way that he obtained the grant for executing that 
 masterpiece of his art, the monument to the Earl 
 of Chatham, in Westminster Abbey; and few have 
 ever contemplated its effect who could deny that 
 the execution of it was eminently worthy of an 
 occasion so exciting, and of a subject so exalted. 
 As the work of a man, who acquired his excellence 
 with but few advantages from scientific example or 
 instruction, and with no assistance whatever from 
 foreign travels or Italian study, it must ever hold 
 a high place in English sculpture, and rank as one 
 of the most valuable proofs we possess, of the growth 
 of natural ability, and the strength of British talent 
 unassisted by any other than its own powers, and 
 the limited resources of a domestic education. As 
 frequent notice is taken of the more considerable 
 of Bacon's productions in this volume and its com- 
 panion, we shall not enlarge here upon the number 
 or character of his works. The more celebrated of 
 those not already specified are the statue of Lord 
 Chatham, in the Guildhall of London; the bronze 
 group, in the square of Somerset House; the figure 
 of Lord Rodney, at Jamaica ; of Lady Miller, 
 at Bath ; of Eliott, Lord Heathfield, at Buck- 
 land, near Plymouth ; Sir George Pocock, and 
 Mason the poet, and Bishop Thomas, in Westmin- 
 ster Abbey; Howard the philanthropist, Johnson, 
 Sir William Jones, and General Dundas, in St. 
 Paul's; the President of the India House, London; 
 a colossal group for India, in celebration of the 
 Marquis Cornwallis's achievements; the equestrian 
 statue in bronze of William III., in St. James's- 
 square, London, and the statue of Henry VI., in 
 Eton Chapel. 
 
 Bacon was a man of exemplary worth in private 
 life, and eminently artistic in point of character and 
 temperament. AH his conceptions were vivid, 
 though his expression of them was generally la- 
 boured and sometimes obscure; his feelings were 
 strong, and his sympathy so quick as to be easily 
 moved to tears. Whatever he undertook, he pur- 
 sued ardently, and in a manner overpowered bj' 
 the intensity of his application, the abundance of 
 
 his resources, and the determination of his will. 
 His peculiarities were often carried into society 
 with an exactness not always felicitous or agreeable. 
 He would never .nllow a friendly visit or social in- 
 tercourse on a Sunday, but spent the day in prayer 
 and sermon with his family; and if an acquaintance 
 called, no matter what his rank or object. Bacon 
 would only permit him to speak of spiritual grace 
 and religious works, or listen to a chapter from his 
 Bible. With all this strictness, however, was min- 
 gled a diffidence which in general rather produced 
 a smile at the earnestness of, than a rebuke for the 
 importunity of his zeal. A more distressing conse- 
 quence was the effect produced upon his peace of 
 mind by the political events of the period. Bacon 
 was one of those very susceptible fearers, who 
 construed every motion made against the ministry, 
 and every speech delivered in jn-aise of liberty, into 
 so many certain prognostics of latent treason, and 
 pre-determined revolution. Hetortui-ed himself with 
 fanciful anticipations of the overthrow of church 
 and state, and all the horrors of a republican 
 anarchy; braced his spirit to fight for the friends 
 of order, expended his fortune on the cause of godli- 
 ness, became one of the voluntary subscribers at 
 the Bank, armed his sons and workmen in the 
 defence of his coimtry, and then abandoning the 
 higher departments of his profession, diverted his 
 declining years by working out religious allegories 
 and moral fables. 
 
 His death was sudden; he was seized with inter- 
 nal inflammation on Sunday, August 4, 1799> and 
 expired on the morning of the following Wed- 
 nesday. During this short interval he prepared 
 himself for death with placid resignation and modest 
 hope; he expressed himself contented, and died with- 
 out ]iain. By a first wife, he left two sons and a 
 daughter; and by a second, who survived him, three 
 sons more. The two eldest cultivated the profes- 
 sion so highly adorned by tlieir father, and after 
 obtaining several academical distinctions, put the 
 finishing touches to many works which he had not 
 time to complete. By his will Bacon forbad the 
 vanity of all j)osthumous honours at his funeral; he 
 was interred in Westminster Abbey, where a plain 
 stone inscribed with the following religious epitaph 
 of his own composition, is the only ornament over 
 the grave of a man whose life was principally occu- 
 pied in decorating tombs for others. — 
 
 John Bacon, R. A. 
 
 Born 1740, died 1799. 
 
 What I was as an artist, seemed to me 
 
 Of some importance while I lived; 
 
 But 
 
 What I really was as a believer in Jesus Christ, 
 
 Is the only tlmig of importance to me now. 
 
 THE EARL OF MANSFIELD. 
 
 William IMurray, fourth son of David, Earl of 
 Stormont, was born March 2, 1705. The place of 
 his birth has been variously related. By some 
 Scone is named, by others Perth, and by the regis- 
 try of his admission into Christ's College, Bath. 
 It is reported, however, that his Lordship resolved 
 
 these contradictions by explaining, that the officer 
 at Oxford mistook the broad Scotch pronunciation 
 of Perth for Bath. How far this may have been a 
 true blunder, it were now hard to determine ; but 
 if we may suppose that it was young Murray him- 
 self who furnished the particulars of his birth and
 
 THE EARL OF MANSFIELD. 
 
 205 
 
 pui'entage to tlie registrar, the confusion will still 
 prevail. For it is certain that he came to London 
 when only three years old, that he was educated in 
 England, that he spent little or uo time in Scot- 
 land, and was always free from the accent and 
 dialect peculiar to that country. These latter facts 
 render any others of little moment ; for the mere 
 locality of a man's birth is utterly inconsequential. 
 The persons who bring him forth, and bring him 
 up, and the place in which he is reared, are the only 
 circumstances to which the curious in metaphysics 
 can trace any effect, inasmuch as it is the disposition 
 which a man may be supposed to inherit from the 
 blood of his progenitoi-s, and the degi'ee in which 
 character may be moulded by the prevailing modes 
 of thinking and living of his earliest associates, and 
 in .some cases, perhaps, by particular scenery, that 
 influence may lie imparted to the stages of child- 
 hood, and interest to an account of them. 
 
 At the age of fourteen William Murray was ad- 
 mitted into Westminster School as a King's Scholar, 
 and speedily gave proofs of inicommon abilities, 
 amongst which an aptitude for declamation was 
 particularly remarked. In 1723 he stood first on 
 the list of those who competed for an election to 
 Oxford, and was accordingly entered at Christ's 
 Church College during that year. He took his 
 degrees of B.A. in 1727, of ]\LA. in 1730, and soon 
 after made what was then called the grand tour on 
 the Continent. His name api)ears subscribed to 
 one of the Latin poems published by the univer- 
 sity to honour the memory of George L ; and in the 
 same volume will be found another effusion from 
 his future parliamentary rival, the great Pitt, Earl 
 of Chatham. This, and another collegiate exercise, 
 in the same language, upon Blenlieira, are the only 
 public evidences we jiossess of that poetical taste 
 upon which Pope founded the celebrated tribute — 
 " How sweet an Ovid is a Murray lost." 
 
 After his return from the Continent, MuiTay be- 
 came a student-at-law of Lincoln's Inn, and was in 
 due course called to the bar. Unlike the generality 
 of those who pursue the same profession, he grew 
 at once into reputation, and rose rapidly in honours. 
 His practice lay chiefly in the Court of King's 
 Bench and before the House of Lords; and it is 
 observable, that at the very begimiing he was 
 esteemed in the o])inion of the public precisely as 
 at the climax of his career, being regarded as one 
 whose talents far exceeded his acquirements, a 
 graceful and felicitous speaker, but not a Ictirned 
 lawyer. His business, however, was considerable : 
 in 1730 he was retained by the city of Edinburgh 
 to oppose tlie progi-ess of the bill of pains and 
 penalties, by wliicli the government evinced its 
 displeasure at the excesses of the Porteus mob, 
 which is now best known as an incident in Sir 
 Walter .Scott's beautiful story of the "Heart of 
 Mid-Lotliian." The bill passed into a law, and the 
 unlucky Lord Provost and C;ity of Edinburgh were 
 licavily amerced ; but Murray's exertions so far 
 fulfilled the expectation of his employers, that they 
 afterwards presented him with the freedom of their 
 cor|)oration in a gold box. 
 
 From this period he seems to have ranked as 
 one of the hading men at the bar. In November 
 17.38 he maiTie<i Lady Elizabeth Finch, daughtt.'r 
 of the Earl of Wincliulsea ; in 17-13 he was ap- 
 jwinted Solicitor-general in the room of Sir John 
 Strange, and elected member of parliament for 
 
 Boroughbridge, in Yorkshire, an lionour which 
 was repeated during the years I747 and 1754. In 
 the House of Commons he gave that assistance to 
 the ministry which was expected from his station, 
 and made liis support more tlian ordinarily accept- 
 able by the effect of his eloquence, which bein<T 
 characterised by fluency, temper, and a very graci- 
 ous style, seldom failed to attract attention. For 
 these c|ualities, as well as his othcial position, he 
 was chosen one of the managers of the impeach- 
 ment of Lord Lovat in 17-10, a laborious and unen- 
 viable distinction, which was in his case not a little 
 increased by one of the parts which fell to his lot, 
 that of replying to evidence before judgment was 
 delivered, and thus destroying one by one the last 
 hopes of the accused. Yet such was the delicacy 
 with which he acquitted himself of this duty, that 
 he ensured the a]i])robation of his own party, and 
 was even comjilimentcd by the unfortunate Lovat. 
 The Lord Chancellor Talbot concluded his charge 
 by observing, " The abilities of the learned ma- 
 nager who just now s])oke, never apiJcared with 
 greater splendour than at this very hour, when his 
 candour and humanity have been joined to those 
 great abilities which have already made him so 
 conspicuous, that I hope one day to see him add 
 dignity to the lustre of the first civil employment 
 in this nation." To this praise Lord Lovat added, 
 with that air of noble good humour by which the 
 close of his life was distinguished, " I thought my- 
 self very much loaded by one Murray, who, your 
 Lordshi|)S know, was the bitterest evidence there 
 was against me. I have since suffered from another 
 Mr. Murray, who, I must say with ))leasure, is an 
 honour to his country, and whose ability and learn- 
 ing is much beyond what is to be expressed by an 
 ignorant man like me. 1 lieard him witli pleasure, 
 though it was against me. I have the honour to 
 be his relation, though, perhaps, lie ncitlier knows 
 it nor values it. But I wish that his being born 
 in the North may not hinder him from the pi-efer- 
 mcnt that his merit and learning deserve," 
 
 The time, however, was one of fierce distraction, 
 and the Solicitor-sreneral came in for no common 
 share of obloquy. By one party he wa.s disliked 
 on account of his political station, and the manner 
 in which lie upheld it; and to another he was not 
 less obnoxious, because; his family were Jacobites. 
 Out of the imblic ]ir<jiidice in this latter resjiect a 
 strange affair grew, that nnist have been not a little 
 vexatious to a man rising raj)idly in place, and 
 enjoying a first-rate jiractice. In 17«">3, a .Mr. 
 Fawcett, then Recorder of Newcastle, happened to 
 mention at a public dinner, that he remembered 
 the time when Dr. Johnson, afterwards Bishop of 
 (jloucester, was very ill-affected, and accustomed 
 to drink the Pretender's health. The slory got 
 wind, and in time reached Loiulon, where it crt'ated 
 so great an impression, that .Mr. Pelhaiu eonnuis- 
 sioned a friend to iuscertain its truth. Meing thus 
 interrogated, Fawcett declared that at such a ilis- 
 tancc of time he could not positively remember 
 whether or not Johnson had re;dly done as he? had 
 first said ; l)Ut that he was certain the Solicitor- 
 general and his old school-fellow, .Mr. Stone, had 
 repeatedly ilrank the rretender's health u|ioti their 
 knees. The ministry and th<' king himself are all 
 said to h;ive slighted the aifair; liut so nnich was 
 it talked of, that lit last the Duke of li.driud 
 founded a motion on it in the House of Lords early
 
 200 
 
 WESTMINSTER ABBEY. 
 
 in 1753. A debate and a division took place, but 
 the numbers were never reported, nor was any- 
 thinif material elicited : so that Lord Melcombe 
 fairly enough remarks in his diary, " it was the 
 worst judged, the worst executed, and the worst 
 suppoi'ted point that I ever saw of so much ex- 
 pectation." 
 
 But the truth of tlie character here given to this 
 proceeding was more strongly evinced in the sequel; 
 only a year after it occurred, Mr. Murray was made 
 Attorney-General, in the room of Sir Dudley North, 
 who became chief-justice of the Court of King's 
 Bench; and upon the death of the latter, in 1756, 
 he again succeeded him in the chief-justiceship, 
 and was created Baron of Mansfield. In this judi- 
 cial capacity he was not long in adding to his repu- 
 tation: the order to which he brought the practice 
 of the court, the promptitude with which business 
 was dispatched, the fairness with which he gene- 
 rally charged juries, and the regularity, moderation, 
 and eloquence with wliich he pronounced his judg- 
 ment, attracted the attention of the public, and 
 secured all the praise which a faithful discharge of 
 official justice eminently deserves, and in England 
 never fails to obtain. There were, however, some 
 who still regarded him as more of an orator than 
 a lawyer ; and it cannot be denied that in his 
 decisions he frequently used to rely rather upon 
 an equitable reasoning of the case, than on a rigid 
 I'eference to the abstruse records of past litigation. 
 But it must also be stated, that his judgments in 
 general satisfied his suitors; for a report has been 
 printed in which it is shown that, for the number 
 of causes heard, there were fewer motions for new 
 trials in the Court of King's Bench, as well as 
 fewer appeals from its jurisdiction, dui'ing his time, 
 than at any pi'eceding interval of equal duration. 
 He excelled in subtle and seductive argumentation 
 so much, that Lord Ashburton used to observe of 
 him, "when he is wrong, the faults of his reasoning 
 are not easily detected; when he is right, he is 
 irresistible." 
 
 From all this it does not seem too much to aver, 
 that with his contemporaries, and with posterity, 
 the fame of Lord Mansfield must have stood, and 
 would still stand higher, if he had applied his 
 talents to the law only. But as a peer he was 
 involved in politics, and as a judge he was often 
 linked with the minister of the day, and biassed in 
 favour of prerogative. His popularity fluctuated 
 with the vicissitudes of the state; until at last, after 
 successively gracing the triumphs of principles the 
 most conflicting, and men the most opposed to each 
 other, his name lost a great share of the respect in 
 wliich it had been held by many of his countrymen. 
 The first ministerial cares upon which he entered 
 were the most creditable to himself, and the most 
 beneficial to the country; foi% accepting the chan- 
 cellorship of the exchequer in April, 1757, he suc- 
 ceeded in reconciling the friends of Mr. Pitt and 
 Mr. Legge to act with Mr. Fox, and thus established 
 the administration which shed such formidable 
 glory upon the latter years of the reign of George II. 
 This task accomplished, he resigned the exchequer 
 seals after holding them for two months, and was 
 off"ered but declined the place of lord high chan- 
 cellor. This ]n'omotion was again tendered to him 
 in 1770, and once more in I77I, but he consistently 
 refused it. 
 
 To pursue the public conduct of Lord Mansfield 
 
 through the reign of George III., would be to 
 write a history of the ministerial conflicts which 
 so violently agitated the country fi-om the first 
 accession of that jirince to the throne, down to the 
 period of his lordship's death. During all that 
 time Lord Mansfield never opposed the govern- 
 ment, one only interval excepted, and that was 
 limited to the brief administration of Lord Rock- 
 ingham, in 1765. It will be easier to conceive than 
 to describe the animadversions to which he sub- 
 jected himself from the friends of the popular cause 
 by uniformly supporting the American Stamp Act, 
 and the war it led to, by advocating the expulsion 
 of Wilks from the House of Commons, and main- 
 taining the exploded doctrine, that in all cases of 
 libel the spirit and intention of the publication 
 should be decided not by the jury, but by the court 
 alone. His conduct on the trial of Woodfall for 
 publishing " Junius's Letters," turned the severe 
 pen of that extraordinary writer against him, and 
 pushed his unpojiularity to its extreme point. On 
 the other hand, it is to be borne in mind that Lord 
 Mansfield was far from being a uniform propagator 
 of arbitrary principles of government. His ad- 
 mirers, and they are by no means few in number, 
 show by quoting the opinions and decisions he de- 
 livered from the bench, that he was an enemy to 
 violent exertions of power, an opponent of many of 
 the vexatious proceedings which the intolerant laws 
 then in force permitted, and, above all, that he 
 befriended and suffered in the cause of religious 
 toleration. He voted in favour of the Roman Ca- 
 tholic Relief Bill, in 1780, and was punished for his 
 liberality by Lord Gordon's mob, who attacked and 
 burned his town-house during the furious riots of 
 that }ear. The whole mansion, furniture, pictures, 
 librai'V, manuscripts, and deeds, were reduced to a 
 heap of ashes. This injury he bore with generous 
 fortitude: he had a right to recover compensation 
 from the hundred, but he refused to seek it; and 
 when applied to upon the subject, returned a deli- 
 cate answer, from which the following is an ex- 
 tract: — " Besides what is irreparable, my pecuniary 
 loss is great. I apprehended no danger, and there- 
 fore took no precaution. But how great soever that 
 loss may be, I think it does not become me to seek 
 reparation from the state. I have made up my 
 mind to my misfortune as I ought, with this conso- 
 lation, that it came from those whose object mani- 
 festly was general confusion and destruction at 
 home, in addition to a dangerous and complicated 
 war abroad. If I should lay before you any account 
 or computation of the pecuniary damage I have 
 sustained, it might seem a claim or expectation of 
 being indemnified. Therefore, you will have no 
 further trouble upon this subject from," &c. &c. 
 
 Lord Mansfield was raised to an earldom in 
 1776, and continued to discharge his public duties, 
 uniil increasing infirmities compelled him to resign 
 in 1788. He lived comparatively in retirement 
 mitil March 20, 1793, when he quietly expired at 
 his seat, Caenwood, Hampstead. He desired in 
 his will that he might lie privately interred in 
 Westminster Abbey, and there accordingly his body 
 was deposited in the north cross aisle. The .spot is 
 indicated by a lofty monument, by Flaxman, R.A., 
 for which A. Bailey, Esq. of Lyon's Inn, left 2500^. 
 A robed statue of his lordship, seated in judgment, 
 is elevated upon a circular pedestal of noble dimen- 
 sions: to his left stands Justice with the statera
 
 JAMES MACPIIERSON. 
 
 207 
 
 poised; to his right, Wisdom expounding law; and 
 between the two is au emblematical trophy com- 
 posed of his lordshij)"s arms, the mantle of honour, 
 the fasces, curtana, &c. To the back of the chair 
 on which he sits, is atiixed his motto, " Uni ^^([uus 
 Virtuti — E(jual to virtue alone:"' and underneath, 
 circled by a wreath of laurel, is the poetical em- 
 blem of Death, amongst the ancients — youth, lean- 
 ing on an extinguished torch, between two funeral 
 altars. The epitaph is not in the pm'est style of 
 sentiment or expression. 
 
 Here Murray, long enough his country's pride, 
 Is now no more than Tully or than Hyde. 
 
 Foretold by A. Pope, and fulfilled in the year 1 793, 
 When William Earl of Mansfield died, full of 
 
 years and of honours : 
 
 Of honours he declined many — those which he 
 
 accepted were the following : 
 
 He was appointed Solicitor-general 1742, 
 
 Attorney -general 1754, 
 
 Lord Chief Justice and Bamn Mansfield 1756, 
 
 Earl of Mansfield 1770. 
 
 From the love which he bore to the place of his 
 
 early education, he desired 
 
 To be buried in tliis Cathedral, 
 
 Privately, and would have forbidden that instance 
 
 of human vanity, the 
 
 Erecting a monument to liis memory ; 
 
 But a sum, 
 
 Which, with the interest, has amounted to 2J00/., 
 
 Was left for that purjxise by A. Bailey, Esq., of 
 
 Lyon's Inn, which 
 At least well-meant mark of esteem he had no 
 
 previous knowledge or suspicion of. 
 
 And had no power to prevent being executed. 
 
 He was the fourth son of David, fifth Viscount 
 
 Stormont, and married 
 
 The Lady Elizabeth Finch, daughter to 
 
 Daniel, Earl of Nottingham, 
 
 By whom he had no issue ; 
 
 Born at Scone, 2n(l iMarch, 1704 ; 
 
 Died at Kenwood, 20th March, 179:{. 
 
 JAMES MACPHERSON. 
 
 James Macpherson, according to his account the 
 translator, but in reality the author, of " Ossian's 
 Poems," obtained the distinction of an interment 
 in the Poets' Corner, by vainly ]iroviding for it in 
 his will. Burn during the year ITMi, at Ruthven, 
 in Inverness-shire, he had no patrimony but the 
 honour of being descended from one of the oldest 
 clans in the highlands, ami was respoctablj- edu- 
 cated at the Universities of Aberdeen and Edin- 
 burgh. His first effort as an author was made in 
 173f{, when he printed a poem entitled the " High- 
 lander," exhibiting some strength and imagination, 
 but rude and undigested. He was destined for the 
 church, but it does not appear that ho was ever 
 ordained, or, at least, that he ever obtained a cure. 
 Little is known of his early life; but it is affirmed, 
 that in 1760, ho officiated as private tutor in the 
 family of Mr. Graham, of Balgowan. 
 
 It was in this humltle situation he produced a 
 degree of excitement seldom eipialled in the literary 
 world, by publishing his " Fragments of Ancient 
 Poetry, collected in the Highlands of Scotland, and 
 Translated from the Gaelic or Erse Language." 
 The assertion that these pieces were tiie composi- 
 tion of an age not only remote, l)ut proverbially 
 barbarous; the singularity of the style, and boldni-ss 
 of the incidents and imagery, caused a general sen- 
 sation of surprise and admiration, and the voiuiiie 
 was bought up with singular avidity Ijoth by the 
 lovers of antiipiity and the muses. This impression 
 was vividly increase<l Ijy a declaration from Mac- 
 pliei-son, that many other and finer ])ieee8 were 
 buried in the recesses of the highlands, where his 
 want of money and of leisure prevente<l liim from 
 travelling to catch them up. A subscription there- 
 fore wius set on foot to enable him to rescu(; these an- 
 cient geius from oljscurity: lie left his tutor's jilace, 
 and after some tiiiK; sent forth " i''ingal," an i-pic 
 poem, composed by (Jssian, the son of Fingal, King 
 of the Highlands. In a year more he fiiiishe<l 
 " Temora," also by OHsian,and aH the astonishment 
 [irovoked upon the ajipearance of tiie first transla- 
 
 tions was deepened by these performances, a warm 
 altercation upon tlie subject of their authenticity 
 was soon marshalled. 
 
 The Scotch, with Dr. Blair at their head, su]i- 
 ported the poems as national jiroperty, and asserted 
 at great length, and with considerable eloquence 
 and ingenuity, the correctness of ^laepherson's 
 representations ; while the English, led by Dr. 
 Johnson, vindicated the cause of literature in gene- 
 ral by refusing to believe in those representations 
 until the original poems were produced. They never 
 were produced, and therefore the (juestion of au- 
 thenticity must be considered incontestably nega- 
 tived. To sujjpose that poems so long, so elabo- 
 rate, so full of incident, refined imagination, and so 
 minutely polished and jjcrfect, could be ])reserved 
 for ages by no other medium than tradition — by a 
 father repeating them to his son, and that son then 
 transmitting them by rote to his children, and so 
 on for centuries, is unnatural and unreasonable in 
 the highest degree. Nor is it less inuiistroiis to 
 pretend that jiieces abounding with the ornament, 
 and all the artistic interest which the most culti- 
 vated education and refined feelings sup]ily, could 
 have been composed or ])opiilarised in a bai'))anius 
 age. This was theriHexion of the unprejudiced, and 
 certaiidy no grounds of o|)position could have been 
 more judiciously taken: there is not a single record 
 to jirovo the <'xistence of I'ingal or Ossian, and the 
 Ii'ish are as warm in a.sserting that both were lli- 
 ))ernians, as the Scotch that llicy were indigenous 
 highlanders. The sinqile truth seems to be, tiiat 
 both in Ireland and in Scotland various legends have 
 been curn'Ot from time innnemorial, in which the 
 names of Fingal and Ossian alxiund ; these are 
 characterisi'il by a wild language and romantic 
 incidents: Macpherson heard them, anci adopting 
 them as a basis, fashioned out of tliein, «ith won- 
 derful skill and talent, a series of poems alter the 
 most approved fashion, which he gave to the world 
 under a name proverbially venerated among all 
 who were ae<{uainled with tlx' (iaelic tongue.
 
 208 
 
 WESTMINSTER ABBEY. 
 
 Nevertheless, the hitrinsic merits of the poems 
 conciliated a host of enthusiastic admirers, and 
 translations were called tor by tlio different nations 
 of Europe. Professed critics discussed and com- 
 mented upon them, and they were quoted as sub- 
 stantive evidences of the manners and customs of 
 antiquity by historians. The ))lind Ossian and the 
 blind Homer were feelingly arrayed together, and 
 the graceless heath of the "highlands was compared 
 with the luxuriant groves of Parnassus, and wor- 
 shipped as classical by thousands of impassioned 
 votaries. As the sale of the translations increased, 
 and the popularity of the translator rose higher, so 
 the outcry for the originals grew louder, and the 
 folly of allowing the question at issue to remain a 
 mere matter of opinion, unsupported by positive 
 evidence, was strongly expressed. Promises of the 
 required proofs, and the production of the pieces 
 said to exist, were repeatedly made, until at last 
 Macpherson, instead of convincing, attempted to 
 silence all doubt by an assumption of arrogant 
 confidence. For this he was severely chastised by 
 Dr. Johnson in his " Tour through the Hebrides," 
 and retorted in a menacing letter, which drew from 
 the literary Colossus an indignant defiance. Before 
 parting with this subject it may be proper to add, 
 that so long as Macpherson lived the controversy 
 was persisted in, and that it did not even cease to 
 exist when lie died. The opinion now universally 
 received is, that the poems are fictions, highly cre- 
 ditable to the author's talents beyond a doubt, but 
 very discreditable to his truth and honesty. 
 
 Wherever a man finds many admirers it is his 
 own fault if he does not secure some friends: Mac- 
 pherson soon felt that he was possessed of talents 
 for business as well as invention, and managed to 
 be taken out to Pensacot, in Florida, by Governor 
 Johnson, in the capacity of secretary. He set sail 
 in 17G4, and after executing the duties of his office, 
 and settling the affaii's of the government, paid a 
 visit to several of the West Indian islands, and 
 North American provinces, and returned to Eng- 
 land in I7C6. He now resumed his literary avoca- 
 tions, and after awhile ushered forth an introduc- 
 tion to the "History of Great Britain and Ireland," 
 4to. This work had many claims to favourable 
 notice; it displayed ingenious research, was written 
 with elegance, but unfortunately roused many as- 
 sailants by its i)artiality for the legends of " Celtic 
 Antiquity." 
 
 Macpherson's next work was a translation into 
 poetic prose of the " Iliad and Odyssey of Homer," 
 an elaborate waste of time and application, which 
 produced neither money nor praise, and seems to 
 have thoroughly disgusted liim with such subjects. 
 His studies were now exclusively given up to his- 
 torical and political matters, and so intense was his 
 
 industry that he printed a " II istory of Great Bri- 
 tain from the Restoration to the Accession of the 
 House of Hanover," in 2 vols. 4to, to which were 
 subjoined, by way of authorities, two volumes of 
 " Original Papers." The latter consisted in the 
 main of selections from the papers copied by Carte 
 the historian from the " Stuart Papers," in the 
 Scotch College at Paris; from the papers belonging 
 to the House of Brunswick- Lunenburg, in the pos- 
 session of Mr. Duane, and some others procured 
 by himself. This history was a compilation of merit, 
 tinctured it is true by a strong partiality for the 
 exiled family, and built in the main upon the re- 
 presentation of facts given by James II. in his 
 manuscript account of his own life, yet it set a 
 great many facts, formerly unknown or mistaken, 
 in a just and striking light. The different charac- 
 ters were drawn with spirit and effect, and the 
 reflexions were frequently judicious, and sometimes 
 profound. Much offence was taken at the work by 
 the friends of civil liberty, but the party at that 
 time in office was so well pleased with the princi- 
 ples it developed, that they associated with the 
 author upon intimate terms, and received the aid 
 of his talents as a supporter of their administra- 
 tion. 
 
 Finding himself thus placed under the wing of 
 power, Macpherson continued to advocate the mi- 
 nisterial policy of the day in several panii)hlets, of 
 which that entitled the " Rights of Great Britain," 
 asserted against the claims of the colonies in 1776, 
 was the best written, both in style and argument, 
 and consequently the most highly praised and ex- 
 tensively read. His " Short History of the Last 
 Session of Parliament," 1770, was equally admired. 
 As a reward for these services he was appointed 
 to the lucrative post of secretary to the Nabob of 
 Arcot, whose multifarious business was then ex- 
 tremely perplexed, and remained for years after 
 unsettled. Macpherson indited several appeals 
 to the public in behalf of the prince, and was then 
 introduced to the House of Commons as mem- 
 ber for Camelfoi'd, in order to support the nabob's 
 interest. This honour was confirmed at the elec- 
 tions for the yeai-s 1784 and 1790. Soon after this 
 latter event his health began to decline, and he 
 retired from public business to a seat he had built 
 and named Bellevue, near Inverness, where he 
 expii'ed in the month of Febi'uary, 179C. His pi-o- 
 perty was good, and he proved true even in death 
 to the imposition by which he had acquired a 
 questionable reputation and fortune. He left by 
 will 1000^. for the publication of the original 
 " Ossian," 300^. more for the erection of a monument 
 to himself at Inverness, and the expenses of re- 
 moving his body for interment to the Poets' Corner! 
 
 WILLIAM MASON, M.A. 
 
 Directly facing the entrance into the Poet's Cor- 
 ner is a memorial in white marble of the poet Mason. 
 It is a piece of relief not over finely executed by 
 Bacon, and comprises only a figure of Poetry lean- 
 ing in an attitude of grief over a medallion of the 
 
 deceased. The inscription istobe praised forits neat- 
 ness and brevity. 
 
 Optimo Viro 
 
 GuLiELMO Mason, A.M. 
 
 Poetse,
 
 WILLIAM MASON. 
 
 209 
 
 Si quis alius, 
 
 Culto, casto, pio, 
 
 Sacrum. 
 
 Ob. 7- Apr. 1797. 
 ^tat. 72. 
 
 Sacred 
 
 To an excellent JIan, 
 
 William Mason, A.M. 
 
 A Poet, 
 
 If any, 
 
 Chaste, cultivated, and pious. 
 
 He died April the 7th, 1797, 
 Aged 72. 
 
 William ]Mason, the son of a clergyman, who 
 held the vicarage of the Holy Trinity, at Kingston- 
 ii))on-Hull, in Yorkshire, was born in 17-5. Being 
 admitted in due time to St. John's College, Cam- 
 bridge, he took his first degree in 1745, after which, 
 removing to Pembroke College, he commenced his 
 friendship with Gray, and obtained a fellowship in 
 1747. Two years afterwards he became a Master 
 of Arts. He took orders in 1754, when the patron- 
 age of the Earl of Holdernesse procured him the 
 place of Chaplain to his Majesty, and the valuable 
 rectory of Aston, in Yorkshire. 
 
 Mason's first public appearance as an author 
 occurred in 1749, when he had the honour of com- 
 ])osing a respectable ode for the installation of the 
 Duke of Newcastle as Chancellor. This poem, 
 though little heeded by his Grace, was favourably 
 received by the public, as was his succeeding " Mo- 
 nody to the Memory of Pope," a studied, but not 
 inefi'eetive piece, in a style which has been long 
 and deservedly exploded. " Isis," an elegy pro- 
 duced about the same time, was schoolboyish, and 
 rejected from the subsequent editions of his works. 
 But his " Elfrida," a dramatic poem, published in 
 1752, gave him permanent rank as a poet. In this, 
 as well as in " Caractacus," which followed in 1759, 
 he imdertoolc to revive the form of the ancient 
 Greek drama, in all its pomp of chorus and purity 
 of scenic action, a task which, though unsuccessful 
 on the stage, was rewarded with high conq)liments 
 in the closet. His genius being decidedly lyrical, 
 he naturally interwove with his dialogues some 
 lofty si)ecimens of the richly ornamented ode, 
 which elevated him in the pulilic estimati(jn, as the 
 next best composer of that kind of poetry to his 
 friend Gray. In stating that he failed to inspire 
 that interest which is the true purpose of all tra- 
 gedy, it should be added, that he did not intend 
 his i)ieces for the theatre, wiiich, with a disdain 
 p(!culiar to his literary character, he pronounced 
 degraded beneath the level of its ancient dignity. 
 Hence, the atti'uqits which were subsequeiilly made 
 to introduce them on the stage in a nuitilated and 
 dist(n'ted form were opposed equally to his wishes 
 and his first designs ; and it can iiardly excite sur- 
 I)rise that they never attained |>opularity, though 
 " Klfrida" was set to nmsic by (jliardini, and " Ca- 
 ractacus " l»y Dr. Arne. 
 
 Enjoying high re|)Utation, Ik.' brou^^ht forwai'd 
 a volume of new odes in 175'>, evidently written in 
 imitation of the diction and imagery of his friend 
 Gray. They liave neither ina|)propriately nor w;- 
 verely been considered to display more labour than 
 invention. Thi.s redundance of artificial uttnictions 
 
 was moderated in his "Elegies," which first appeared 
 in 17<'S, and are for the greater part written with 
 that simplicity of thought and language befitting 
 the order of composition to which they belon". In 
 theia are those noble aspirations of virtue and free- 
 dom which give Mason a distinct and superior cha- 
 racter as a poet : he is consistently an adv<icate of 
 the purest morality, and a warm juitron of all that 
 is honourable in civil liberty. He collected all his 
 jwems, with the exception of his " Installation Ode," 
 anil "Isis," in 17f'4, and jiublished them together 
 in one 8vo volume, which went through repeated 
 editions. 
 
 Devoting his powers to a different line of sub- 
 jects, he produced in 1772 the first j)art of the 
 " English Garden ;" a didactic and descriptive 
 poem in blank verse, of which the fourth and con- 
 cluding book was published in 17<'il. The purport 
 of this undertaking was to recommend, by the 
 charms of poetry, that modern style of landscape 
 gardening which has exploded the formal (piincunx, 
 straight avenue, and rcctaiigtdar walk. His vei'sifi- 
 cation, constructed on the purest models, is embel- 
 lished by some lively descriptions ; but the pre- 
 ceptive parts are so frecjuent and minute, that the 
 whole was regarded more as a display of profes- 
 sional skill than a proof of poetical art, anci being 
 C(nisidered dry by the first readers, was expelled by 
 their aversion from the favour obtained by liia 
 other writings. 
 
 In July, 1771 » Gray died, and in 1775, Mason 
 paid an honouraljle tribute to the me'.nory of his 
 friiiid, by preparing an edition of his works, to 
 which were prefixed a memoir of his life, and a 
 character of his writings. The account of the life 
 was agreeably relieved by interspersing original 
 letters connected with the narrative, an example 
 which has been adcjpted to great advantage by sub- 
 sequent biographers, and in this instance was pe- 
 culiarly opi)ortune, on account of the jiaucity of 
 incident and anecdote in the subji'ct matter. The 
 book was well received; the rcMiiarks ottered upon 
 the habits and genius of his deceased friend, and 
 the exenqjlifications adduced of the uprightness of 
 his mind and the variety of his aceiuiri-nients and 
 accomplishments, being held credital)le to the taste 
 and attachnu nt of Mason. Such was tin; oiiiiiionof 
 contemimraries; but it was afterwards discovered, 
 that papers were cither suppresse<l, or neglected, 
 which estaljlish the profundity of (iray's judgnu lit, 
 and the extent of his knowledgi-, in a more striking 
 manner thauMason had exhibited them. His(|uarto 
 consequently fell into disuse, and lias been wholly 
 superseded by more than one superior biography. 
 
 Mason's warm advocacy of civil liberty has lieeii 
 already alluded to, Ijut requires a more jiarlicular 
 notice. Not content wilh avowing liberal principles, 
 he was ahvays promjil in acting up to his profes- 
 sions, and thus repeatedly concurred with the 
 friends of reform in the neighbourhood of his own 
 residence, in an effectual ojtposition to obnoxious 
 |)ublic measures. During the American war he 
 took ailvanlage of Ailmiral Kefqxd's court marlial, 
 to address "An Odi; to the Naval Officers tif (ireat 
 Brilain," in which he strongly expressed his disap- 
 probation of the hostilities carried on against the 
 ti'aiisallaiili<r siihjc'Cts of the state. With a similar, 
 but more niiHtakeii spirit, he greeted Mr. I'itt'H 
 accession to power in 17''-. w'ilh an "Ode," replete 
 with sentiments of manly patriotism, though some-
 
 210 
 
 WESTMINSTER ABBEY. 
 
 what enervated by profuse embelHslimeiit. Tin's 
 homage was doubtless incited by the zeal with 
 which he co-operated with the Yorkshire Associa- 
 tion for procuring a reform in parliament, a mea- 
 sure which Mr. Pitt had supported with a strength 
 so hardy, and a spirit so commanding, that Mason, 
 in common with many of the Whigs, regarded the 
 young politician, not without a show of reason, as 
 a heaven-born minister, in quite a different sense 
 from that afterwards applied to him. 
 
 From this political diversion, however, he soon 
 reverted to more congenial pursuits, and, in conse- 
 quence of an early predilection for the art, revised 
 and improved, to the utmost of his mature al)ilities, 
 for such are his own words, a translation of " Fres- 
 noy's Latin Poem on Painting," which he had begun 
 in his youth. It was ]>ublished in a quarto volume 
 in 1783, and was enriched with many additions, of 
 which the principal compi'ised annotations, fur- 
 nished by Sir Joshua Reynolds. Few undertakings 
 have ever been better executed than this was ; it 
 combines elegance of language, purity of versifica- 
 tion, and a correct appreciation of the original. It 
 was equally well executed and received; and com- 
 pletely superseded the previous version by Dry den. 
 
 Mason, as a churchman, effected little that enti- 
 tles him to commemoration. Besides his rectory 
 at Aston, he had the place of precentor and canon 
 residentiary in the cathedral of York. In 1788, he 
 preached in this church " An Occasional Discourse," 
 subsequently printed, which described the abomi- 
 nations of the slave trade, and denounced the bar- 
 barity of that infamous traffic. It was one of the 
 first and most energetic blows levelled against the 
 practice. During this year, he became the editor 
 of the poems of his friend Whitehead, the poet 
 laureate, to which he prefixed a biographical me- 
 moir: wanting the intrinsic interest which belongs 
 to the similar taslc he performed for Gray, this 
 labour was indifferently performed, and unsuccess- 
 ful. In the next year the centenary commemora- 
 tion of the revolution called forth his poetical 
 talents in a "Secular Ode," which breathed his 
 wonted spirit of inde|)endence and liberty. 
 
 Having by this time earned a standard reputa- 
 tion, he reposed awhile from exertion, and lived in 
 easy dignity. In 1795 a passion for music, in which 
 constant cultivation made him proficient, induced 
 him to publish "Essays, Historical and Critical," 
 in one volume, 12mo. In this work he is not denied 
 the merit of having introduced judicious remarks, 
 and useful suggestions; but his notion of simplify- 
 ing church music, and his attacks upon many 
 established usages, prevented it from being received 
 as an authority. Two years afterwards he made 
 his last literary offering to the public, a volume of 
 " Poems," in which he pruited various pieces, some 
 revised from the productions of his youth, and 
 others the effusions of old age. Amongst the latter, 
 was a " Palinody to Liberty," in which he an- 
 nounced that he had changed his political opinions 
 in consequence of the violence of the French Revo- 
 lution. In this recantation, to which Burke had 
 led the way, there will appear nothing very surpris- 
 ing, if we consider the ojiulent respectability, the 
 accomplished ease, ind advanced years of ]\iason. 
 It was rather natural that one so happily circum- 
 stanced should have caught the common epidemic 
 
 of apprehension, and dreaded lest the action of 
 principles which had disorganized a neighbouring 
 country, might, if too much encouraged, produce 
 an equally fatal effect in Great Britain, and dis- 
 turb the quiet of his own declining life. These 
 convei'sions are easily to be explained, and not 
 much to be lamented. The abuse of a good cause is 
 no argument against its virtues, and of all men the 
 English ought to be least afraid of a revolution. 
 To return, however, to the volume of poetry, it has 
 the true character of age and subdued energy; no 
 faults or errors to offend the judgment, but no 
 beauties to excite our interest, or impi-ove our taste. 
 Mason's death took place at his rectory, and was 
 occasioned by a mortification in one of his legs, 
 which he happened to graze on the shin as he was 
 stepping into his carriage. He was married, but 
 losing his wife, in 17G7) when she was only twenty- 
 eight, left no family. She was the daughter of 
 William Shearman, Esq., of Kingston-upon-HuU, 
 and lies buried in Bristol Cathedral, where a mo- 
 nument is ei'ected to her memory, inscribed with 
 some affectionate lines of his own composition. In 
 private life he was esteemed for active worth and 
 extensive benevolence, exemplary qualities, which 
 in him were counteracted by those airs of stateli- 
 ness and confident superiority, which have often 
 been described as peculiar to the church dignitary. 
 These naturally detracted somewhat from his ))opu- 
 larity, but they are stated to have never interfered 
 with the exercises of his virtues. In letters he 
 was rather distinguished for tasteful acquirements 
 than genius, often er inflated than original, and more 
 impetuous than sublime. His reputation is now 
 mainly preserved by "Eifrida " and " Caractacus," 
 poems, of which it is observable, that the foi'mer is 
 the more careful, and the latter the more success- 
 ful composition. " Eifrida " violates the truth of 
 historj' in the most important respects; where the 
 embarrassment of the plot is deepest, the author is 
 most apparent; and where it is the most likely to 
 affect the reader, he is least successful; the inter- 
 vention of the chorus seems always fortuitous, and 
 the catastroi)he, because strictly conformable to the 
 Grecian model, is indix'ect, feeble, and unmoving. 
 The language, however, is uniformly classical, and 
 well conceived. In " Caractacus," lie has taken a 
 bolder license, with happier effect. The story is 
 true, the action varied and rapid, and the chorus 
 appropriate; for it was the province of the Druidi- 
 cal bards to found the subjects of their effusions 
 and instrumental accompaniments upon moral and 
 religious truths. From this judicious combination 
 of harmonious circumstances Mason has produced 
 a noble drama: the scene is sublime, the subject 
 and descriptions are impressive, the incidents mov- 
 ing, the style elevated and grave, the characters 
 noble. It is remarkable that Mason thought 
 "Eifrida" better than "Caractacus," and of all his 
 compositions plumed himself most highly upon the 
 " Essay on Gardening,'' a work already nearly for- 
 gotten — dry in its language, and poor in its ideas. 
 This supplies another instance of the mistakes to 
 which authors are liable in estimating their la- 
 bours, and almost goes to prove that poets, like 
 mechanics, value most what requires the greatest 
 pains.
 
 SIR GEORGE L. STAUNTON. 
 
 211 
 
 BISHOP WARREN. 
 
 Dr. John Warrex, successively Bishop of St. 
 David's and of Bangor, has a monument upon the 
 south wall of the north transept. In the centre is 
 a scroll with the epitaph ; a mournful figure of 
 llehgion with the cross on one side, and on the 
 other au angel. Westmacott, Junior, was the 
 sculptor. 
 
 Near this Place are interred the Remains 
 Of the Ri^iht Reverend John Warren, D.D. 
 
 Bishop of St. David's in 1779, 
 
 And translated to the See of Bangor in 17«3. 
 
 These Episcopal Stations he filled for more than 
 
 twenty years 
 
 With great Abihty and Virtue. 
 
 His Charity, Liberality, Candour, and Benevolence 
 
 Will long be remembered. 
 
 His eminent Learning and unwearied Application 
 
 Rendered him highly serviceable to the Laws 
 
 As well as the Religion of his Country, 
 
 Towards which he was most sincerely attached. 
 
 He wa-s the son of Richard Warren, D.D. 
 
 Rector of Cavendish, and Archdeacon of Suieolk, 
 
 And Brother of Richard Warren, M.D. 
 
 Celebrated for his Knowledge and successful 
 
 Practice, 
 
 And many Years Physician in Ordinary to his 
 
 Majesty. 
 
 He married Elizabeth Southwell, Daughter of 
 
 Henry Southwell, Esq., of Wksiieacii, 
 
 Cambridgeshire : 
 
 Who, fully sensible of his many distinguished 
 
 Virtues, 
 
 Has offered this grateful Tribute to his Memory 
 
 Witli the most unfeigned Sincerity and Respect. 
 
 He died on the 27th of January, 1800, 
 
 In the 72nd year of his age. 
 
 Bishop Warren was educated at St. Edmond's 
 Bury School, and at Gonville and Caius College, 
 Cainhridtre, where lie graduated B.A. in 17^0, 
 M. A. 1754, S.T.P. \n2. Bishoi) Gooch gave him 
 the living of Levrington, in the Isle of Ely ; and 
 Bishop Keene, whose chaplain he was, collated him 
 to the rectory of Teversham, in Cambridgeshire. 
 Afterwards the same patron gave him the rectory 
 of Snailwell, also ia Cambridgeshire, for whicii he 
 resigned Leverington. At the same time he was ap- 
 poiirted to the seventh prebendal stall in I'^ly Cathe- 
 dral. He was Archdeacon of Bangor while Bisiiop 
 of that see, and a rich, if not a very distinguished 
 churchman ; as besides the income derived from 
 the iireferinents just mentioned, his wife brought 
 him a large fortune. He was considered a good 
 man of business, and well acfjuaiiited with tlie 
 duties of his slati.jii, and attentive in discharging 
 them. He had powerful enemies, nevertiieless. 
 
 according to the admission of his admirers ; but 
 tliese, they contend, opposed him from party mo- 
 tives. He was the author of the " Historical ac- 
 count of the Royal Franchise of Ely," printed in 
 the apjiendix to Bentham's history of that eliureh, 
 and published a few sermons preached on particular 
 public occasions. 
 
 Nearly oppcisite, and close to the back of Lord 
 Mansfield's great monument, is a statue by Sir R. 
 Westmacott to the memory of Mrs. Warren, who 
 survived her husband, the Bisiioj), many ye;u-s. 
 This ])iecc has been much admired as the best of 
 Sir Richard's works, and it will be found, upon a 
 close examination, to possess considerable merit. 
 The distressed mother witli her child on her lap, 
 her bare attire, and the bundle of sticks at her 
 feet, is a touching object of charity, represented 
 without exaggeration, and in j)eriect good taste. 
 The impression produced upon the mind by the 
 idea that a person of Mrs. Warren's wealth and 
 accomplishments devoted herself to the relief of 
 such objects, is in good kee]iing with the character 
 of a bisliop's wife and a Christian lady. The statue 
 is said to be a likeness of Mrs. \\'arren in her 
 youth. On the pedestal are the following lines: — 
 
 Sacred to tlie Memoi-y of 
 
 Elizai'.etii Wakhen, 
 
 Daughter of Henry Southwell, Esq. 
 
 Of Wisbeach, in the County of Cambridge, 
 
 And widow of the Right Reverend 
 
 John Warren, D.D. 
 
 Late Lord Bishop of Bangor. 
 
 She was distinguished for the j)urity of lier taste, 
 
 And the soundness of her judgment. 
 
 Her prudence and discrimination 
 
 Were in no instances more cons])icuous 
 
 Than in selecting the objects 
 
 Of her extensive charity. 
 
 The widow and the fatherless 
 
 Were protected and relieved, 
 
 And the virtuous, who had fallm Imm prosperity, 
 
 Had peculiar claims to her benevolence. 
 
 Though mild and gentle in her manners, 
 
 Yet she was remarkable 
 
 For the firmness and vigour of her mind. 
 
 Stedfast in the faith of Christ, 
 
 She livi'd to ilhistnite his precepts, 
 
 And died reposing mi his merits and iiiti rcession. 
 
 She de|iarli(l this life March 2!», llild, aged i;;{. 
 
 Her surviving sister, Mary, widow of the 
 
 Right Honorable Sir James Eyre, Knt. 
 
 Lord Chief Justice of the Court of Common Pioas, 
 
 In testimony of lier sincere afl'ection, 
 
 Has erected this nioiiumeut to her memory. 
 
 SIR GEORGE L. STAUNTON, RART. 
 
 A MODEST table monununt in the north aisle com- 
 memorates tin; merits and stirvices <>f tiie secretary 
 of our first emlmssy to China, and the author of tlie 
 publislied account of it. There are two parts: on 
 the upper, in reli< f, is a figure of tlie doceaHud in- 
 
 structing a native of the East, and 011 the lower the 
 following epitaph. 
 
 In the north aisle of WcBtminster abbey 
 Are deposited the rtiiiaius cif
 
 212 
 
 WESTMINSTER ABBEY. 
 
 Sir George Leonard Staunton, Bart., 
 
 of Cargin, county of Galway, Ireland. 
 
 His life was devoted to his country's service 
 
 In various parts of the globe ; 
 
 His conduct, on all occasions, was distinguished 
 
 By firmness, prudence, and integrity, 
 And in a peculiar manner displayed in the treaty 
 
 of peace 
 Concluded with Tippoo Sultaun in 1784, by which 
 The British interests in India were promoted and 
 
 secured. 
 Born 19th April, 17^7 ; died 14th January, 1801. 
 
 Sir George Staunton was the son of a country 
 gentleman, whose estate lay at Cargin, named as 
 his birthplace. Being intended for the medical 
 profession, he was sent to study physic at Mont- 
 pellier, and there took his degi-ee of M.D. Settling 
 in London, he appears to have sought to introduce 
 himself to notice by his writings : he translated 
 Storck's "Treatise on Hemlock," and compared the 
 literature of France and England in an essay for 
 the "Journal Etranger." A favourable opinion of 
 his character and literary abilities must have been 
 entertained at this period, as we find him on friendly 
 terms with Dr. Johnson, a man who tolerated in 
 his circle no mediocrities or pretenders to excel- 
 lence. Boswell gives an excellent letter, written 
 by Jolinson to Staunton, when the latter went to 
 establish himself in the West Indies, about the year 
 1762. There it was he began to rise to eminence 
 and fortune. He practised both as a physician and 
 a lawyer ; bought an estate at Grenada, where 
 he served the office of Attorney General, and at- 
 tracting the notice of his fellow countryman, Lord 
 Macartney, the governor, he became his secretary, 
 and continued in that office until the island was 
 
 captured by the French, and the governor was 
 made prisoner. Soon after his release. Lord Ma- 
 cartney was made Governor of Madras, and made 
 Staunton again his secretary. In this capacity he 
 particularly distinguished himself by talents, ad- 
 di'ess, and courage. He was one of the commis- 
 sioners who treated with Tippoo Sultan, and showed 
 so much tact and intrepidity on more than one 
 occasion, that the East India Company rewarded 
 liim on his return home with a pension of 500^. a 
 year, while the government created him a baronet, 
 and the University of Oxford conferred upon him 
 the honour of LL.D. The manner in which lie 
 arrested, with a very small force, Stuart, a general 
 who had resisted the authority of the governor, and 
 the address with which he prevailed on Admiral 
 SufTreiu to suspend hostilities before the official an- 
 nouncement of peace with the French was made in 
 1774, were acts spoken of in tei-ms of the highest 
 commendation. When Lord Macartney was sent 
 as ambassador to China, Sir George accompanied 
 him as secretary, enjoying also the provisional title 
 of envoy and minister extraordinary; and upon 
 his return to England gave an account of the pro- 
 ceedings in two 4to volumes, which, like the mission 
 itself, disappointed the public, though by no means 
 discreditable to the writer's learning, observation, 
 and diligence. His official services, and the activity 
 of his life, in which he had had not a few difficulties 
 and dangers to surmount, had by this time seriously 
 affected his health, and incapacitated him from 
 labour. He suffered while writing the account of 
 his embassy to China under severe illness, from 
 which he never recovered, and died in London at j 
 his house in Devonshire-street, Portland-place, 
 at the period already specified. 
 
 SAMUEL ARNOLD, Mus. Doc. 
 
 Samuel Arnold, Musical Doctor, was born in Lon- 
 don, during the year 1739, and received his musical 
 education, first under Mr. Gates, and then under 
 Dr. Nares, as a chorister in the Chapel Royal of 
 St. James. His attention to study was so assiduous, 
 and his progress in the art so favourable, that he 
 secured a feeling of strong regard from his first mas- 
 ter. Gates, who at his death bequeathed him a legacy. 
 It was not until about the year 1760 that he was 
 properly known to the public, when Beard the singer 
 and manager made him composer to Covent Garden 
 Theatre. Beard is described as a natural singer, 
 with a manly voice, and simple execution ; and 
 Arnold naturally adapted the style of his composi- 
 tions to the character of his emjiloyer's performance. 
 His merit was fully established in his first produc- 
 tions, the qualities of which are marked in the music 
 to the " Maid of the Mill," an opera which met 
 with considerable applause at the period of its first 
 appearance, and is still occasionally repeated. He 
 was still more successful in sacred music. In 1767, 
 he occupied himself with the "Cure of Saul," an 
 oratorio, the words of which v.ere written by the 
 unhappy Dr. Brown, author of Barbarossa. "This 
 work he enjoyed the satisfaction of seeing received 
 with ready popularity; but, perhaps, the use he 
 made of it was even more praiseworthy than its 
 very production. The Society for the Benefit of 
 Decayed Musicians was, at that time, not only im- 
 
 poverished in its funds, but also indifi"erently pa- 
 tronized at its annual concerts. Arnold presented 
 the copyright of the " Cure of Saul " to the institu- 
 tion; its merits drew a numerous audience, and 
 contributed in a striking degree to re-establish an 
 admirable charity. The oratorios of "Abimelech," 
 the " Resurrection," and the " Prodigal Son," which 
 ranks as the masterpiece of its author, were issued 
 before the musical public in fertile succession. 
 With this stock he rented the right of giving sacred 
 concerts at the little theatre in the Haymarket for 
 some Lents successively, and found his talents res- 
 pectably rewarded. He next embarked in the ma- 
 nagement of the same entertainments at Covent 
 Garden, but was unfortunate there. Drury Lane 
 being at that time powerfully supported by a more 
 direct patronage from court, and a coi'responding 
 resort of fashion, Arnold was a considerable loser. 
 A little before this adventure, he published, in 
 score, four sets of s<jngs, composed for Vauxhall, of 
 which many are still remembered for flowing ease 
 and instrumental combination. Arnold married in 
 1771, a lady of fortune, the daughter of Archibald 
 Napier, doctor in physic ; and during the same 
 year he became the purchaser of the Marvlebone 
 Gardens. To add to the gaiety fur which the spot 
 was then so fashionably known, he erected a scenic 
 stage, and composed for it several burlettas, which 
 evinced the versatility of his powers, and gained an
 
 SAMUEL ARNOLD. 
 
 213 
 
 ample meed of favour. In these short but inter- 
 esting pieces, many performers of jiarticular note 
 made their appearance, among whom may be par- 
 ticularised Miss Harper, afterwards ]\Irs. Bannis- 
 ter, Miss Catley, Reinhold, and Charles Bannister. 
 Another novelty of his introduction at the same 
 place, was a Signor Torre and his fireworks; and 
 the curious in such exhibitions, have asserted that 
 the ingenuity and splendour manifested in his dis- 
 plays, more especially in an ignition styled the 
 " Cave of Vulcan," were greater than tlie country 
 had before witnessed. The emoluments derived 
 from these entertainments were soon destined to 
 cease: the lease expired in 177'n f>iid the proprie- 
 toi-s finding it most advantageous to raise houses 
 upon the site of lamp-lit arcades, and vocal bowers; 
 Alarylebone Gardens wei'e covered over with an in- 
 tegral part of the metropolis. 
 
 His most conspicuous honours awaited .Vrnold in 
 the year 177«5- When Lord North was instituted 
 Chancellor of Oxford University, Arnold was re- 
 quested to permit his " Prodigal Sou " to form a part 
 of the ceremony, while the poet Gray was invited 
 to celebrate the installation by an ode. Being 
 offered an honorary degree in the theatre of the 
 university, he begged leave to entitle himself to it 
 by the usual academical course, and in conformity 
 with the statutes of the university, he therefore 
 passed into the school-room, to stand an examina- 
 tion, and submit an exercise. Doctor Hayes, the 
 nmsical professor of the university, not only dis- 
 pensed with the examination, but returned his score 
 unopened, assuring him that it was unnecessary to 
 scrutinize an exercise by the composer of the 
 " Prodigal Son." 
 
 During this interval, Arnold still retained liis 
 post as musical eomitoser at Covent Garden. Beard, 
 ills original supporter, had left the stage with a 
 well earned competence, and his successor, Geoi'ge 
 Colman the elder, was sufficiently convinced of 
 Arnold's merit and popularity to make no change 
 in his department. For the same reasons, when in 
 177f' Foote retreated from mimic life at the Hay- 
 market, and Colman succeeded in obtaining a con- 
 timiation of the patent, the doctor was engaged to 
 give to his new venture the aid of those services 
 by which the old one had been so often benefited: 
 he filled the post until he died. When in 1783 the 
 situation of organist and composer at the chapel 
 royal St. James, was left unoccupied by the death 
 of his old master. Dr. Nares, he was sworn into it. 
 Again, when the commemoration of Handel in 
 Westminster Abbey was determined on in 1784, he 
 was complimented with the rank of a sub-director, 
 and received a medal from the king, as a mark of 
 the approbation which his services on the occasion, 
 and the success of the performan(;e, deserved. Thus 
 too, when in 1789 the subscribers to the Concerts 
 of Ancient Music came to a resolution of i)utting 
 their entertainments more authoritatively under 
 the direction of a member of the profession. Dr. 
 Arnold was elected to the honour by a large majo- 
 ritv, though he had no less men than Drs. Cooki; 
 and Dupuis for his competitors. 'J"o this catalogues 
 of ap[)ointmentH two othei-s remain to be addid; 
 for Dr. Ilorsley, without any solicitation, madi; him 
 organist of Westminster Abi)ey in 171*3; ami in 
 I7!((; he was chosen conductor of the perfornianccH 
 at St. Paul's Catlndral for tin- Annual Feast of the 
 Sons of the Clergy. 
 
 During the succession of yeai-s here run over, 
 Arnold planned an edition of the works of Handel. 
 He began to luiblish it in parts in 178fi, and ctm- 
 tinued them down to the hundred and eighteenth 
 number, in which are included all the coniiiositions 
 of that superior master, his Italian operas alone 
 excepted. This task, certainly one of no ordinarv 
 magnitude and merit, was highly patronized duruig 
 the course of its execution; and must still be con- 
 sidered estimable, though it has been in a great 
 measure superseded by the subsequent labours of 
 Dr. Clarke. Nearly at the same time he also pub- 
 lished three vohmies of cathedral music, in scores, 
 with a Volume of accompaniments for the organ, 
 which he intended shoulil serve as a continuation of 
 the greater work on the same subject by Dr. Boyce. 
 These have not been as popular as the anthems. 
 
 Though but a partial mention has been as yet 
 made of the compositions by which he entertained 
 the theatres, it may easily be conjectured, that, 
 during all this lapse of time, he must have added 
 considerably to the number of his early produc- 
 tions in this style; and in point of fact, few men 
 have so often contributed nuisic to plays, operas, 
 farces, and the other minor diversions of the stage. 
 They exceed fifty pieces ; but it may suffice to 
 extract the names of " The Maid of the Mill, "The 
 Castle of Andalusia," "The Agreeable Surprise," 
 "Inkle and Varico," "Gretna Green," "The Sur- 
 render of Calais," and " Mejuntaineers."' This list 
 might be still farther swelled by the titles of con- 
 certos, canzonets, glees, trios, and catches, instru- 
 mental lessons and religious services, in abundance; 
 but it is umiecessary. 
 
 Dr. Arnold died at his house in Duke-street, 
 Westminster, October 22, 1802, and was buried in 
 Westminster .\bbey on the 2!)th of the same month. 
 His age was sixty-three; and his tomb was simk in 
 the north aisle, between the monuments of Croft 
 and Purcell. Above the spot a tablet had been 
 affixed, which re]u-escnts a sickle severing a lyre, 
 and tells the reader by what hands it came there, 
 first in a prose e])ita|)h, and afterwards in a poetic 
 eulogy. There are two inscri])tions, one in prose and 
 the other in poetry, but neither conmiendable. 
 
 To 
 The beloved 
 And respected Memory 
 Of Samuel Arnold, 
 Doctor of Music. 
 Born July 30, O. S. 1710, Died October 22, 1802. 
 Age(l ()2 years and two months. 
 And is interred near this spot. 
 This tablet is erected by his affiicled Widow, 
 Here rests of genius, probity, and worth, 
 All that belongs to nature and to earth ; 
 The heart that warmly filt ami freely gave; 
 The hanil that pity slrotchcd to help and save; 
 The form that lati' a glowing spirit warni'd ; 
 Whose s<'ience tutored, and whose talents chaiin'd. 
 That spirit, Hed to liim who spirit gave. 
 Now smiles triumphant o'er the feeble grave, 
 That could not chain it here ; and joins to raise 
 With lliaven's own choir, the song of prayer and 
 praise. 
 
 Oh, simile rcver'd ! our nation's loss and priilo ! 
 (I''or nuite was Harmony when Arnold dird !) 
 "Oh ! let thy still-loved son" inscrilx' thy f>ton.', 
 And with "a motlier's sorrows" mix his own.
 
 214 
 
 WESTMINSTER ABBEY. 
 
 CHRISTOPHER ANSTEY. 
 
 The lively writer of the Bath Guide has a tablet 
 of white niai'ble on a variegated back groinid, 
 awkwardly placed against the pillar of the arch, 
 dividing the poet's corner, and most inappropriately 
 inscribed with a long old-fashioned Latin epitaph. 
 
 Oddly enough no mention is made in this long 
 panegyric of one talent possessed by the deceased 
 in no mean degi'ee, and which might have furnished 
 some apology for the language chosen in this me- 
 morial of his merits ;— a taste, namely, for Latin 
 versification, which he produced with elegance and 
 facility. 
 
 Christopheri Anstey, Armigeri, 
 
 Alunmi Etonensis 
 
 Et Collegii Regalis apud Cantabrigienses dim Socii; 
 
 Poetas 
 
 Literis elegantioribus adprime ornati, 
 
 Et inter principes Poetai-um 
 
 Qui in eodem genere floruerunt 
 
 Sedem eximiam tenentis. 
 
 Ille annum circiter 
 
 MDCCLXX. 
 
 Rus suum in agro Cantabrigiensi 
 
 Mutavit Bathonia, 
 
 Quem locimi ei prjeter omnes dudum arrisisse 
 
 Testis est celeberrimum illud Poema 
 
 Titulo inde ducto insignitum : 
 
 Ibi deinceps sex et triginta annos commoratus, 
 
 Obiit A. D. MDCccv. 
 
 Et setatis suae octogesimo prime. 
 
 At non Poetae fama cum ipso peribit, quem legent 
 omnes, omnes quem requirunt ; cujus carmine nullum 
 in aures dulcius descendit melos, nullum memoria 
 citius retinet aut lubentius. Proprium illi fuit 
 materiem sui carminis, non nisi ex ipsa fontium 
 origine haurire : aliena vitavit tangere, aut si qua 
 tetigit, pulchriora fecit et sua. Perpaucis unquam 
 cimtigit, aut in vita et moribus hominum posse 
 acutius cernere, aut eorum leviora vitia, ineptias, 
 pravEe religionis deliramenta, et quiequid ficti sit 
 et simulati felicius adumbrare : Perpaucis ludere 
 tarn amabiliter, neque enim ille Ridiculum suum 
 insuavi vel acerbo miseebat, aut sales sues imbuebat 
 veneno, delectare natus, non kedere : Pectus Illi 
 tenerrimum fuit, Christiana benevolentia incoctum: 
 Jocari autem, ac ludere, versatili ejus ingenio non 
 erat satis, potuit enim ad rem seriam ac lugubrem 
 aliquando transcurrere, baud solertior lectoi'i risum 
 niovere, quam tristi querimonia elicere laehrymas. 
 Hiec inter animi oblectamenta, Ille per Vitse semi- 
 tam nee spe nee metu impeditam progressus, annos 
 prius attigit seniles, quam senectutem sibi obrepen- 
 tem senserat, ingenio adhuc vigens, cum memoria 
 ailimc rerum tenaci, intus domique felix, honoratus 
 foris, suavitate morum ac sermonum omnibus qui- 
 buscum conjunctissime vixerat, ipsis in prsecordiis 
 coUocatus. 
 
 Sacred to the Memory 
 
 of Christopher Anstey, Esq., 
 
 student of Eton, 
 
 and formerly Fellow of King's College, Cambridge. 
 
 A Poet 
 
 surpassingly accomplished in polite literature. 
 
 and holding a high rank 
 
 amongst the eminent Poets 
 
 who flourished in tlie same style of composition : 
 
 About the year 
 
 1770, 
 
 He moved from his seat in Cambridgeshire to Bath, 
 
 A place grateful to him beyond all others, 
 
 As that most popular poem witnesses 
 
 which he distinguished by its name. 
 
 After living there for six and thirty years 
 
 He died in the year of our Lord 1805, 
 
 and of his age 81. 
 
 But with the poet his fame will not die, whom all 
 read, all demand ; than whose verse no melody falls 
 sweeter on the ear, nor is more quickly and freely 
 retained by the memory. To him it was peculiar to 
 draw the subject of his verse from an original source; 
 he avoided the matter and style of other writers, 
 or if he haply touched them, he made them his 
 own by making them more beautiful. Few men 
 ever applied keener powers of discernment to life 
 and the manners of society, or sketched with 
 happier effect its lighter vices and follies, the ex- 
 travagances of corrupt religion, its dissimulation 
 and false pretences : few could disport more good- 
 naturedly ; for born to gratify and not to hurt, he 
 mingled with his ridicule nothing unpleasant or 
 bitter, and never steeped his wit in poison. Seethed 
 in Christian benevolence, his was a heart most 
 tender ; to joke however and disport merely did 
 not satisfy his versatile talents, equally potent when 
 they passed to serious affairs and sorrowful, and 
 proving him not less skilful m drawing tears than 
 in moving laughter. Amidst those mental recrea- 
 tions he trod the path of life unchecked, and un- 
 retarded by hope or fear, and attained an old age 
 before he began to feel that he was old . with his 
 mind still vigorous, his memory retentive, happy 
 in heart and at home, and honoured abroad for the 
 suavity of his manners and address, he died fast 
 bound in the aff'ections of every one with whom he 
 had ever been intimate. 
 
 The outline of Mr. Anstey's life, given in this 
 epitaph, is more than enough to suggest, that as it 
 was altogether barren of incident, a sketch of it 
 must necessarily be remarkable for even more than 
 the ordinary dearth of interest, proverbially belong- 
 ing to the biography of literary men. He appears, 
 in the fullest sense of the words, to have been little 
 more than a gentleman of fortune, who lived at 
 Bath at ease. That little was made up of some 
 light poetry, of which however we are bound to 
 speak in no disrespectful terms. He had gone it 
 appears to the free school of Bury St. Edmonds, 
 before he went to Eton, and took his Bachelor's 
 degree at Cambridge in 1746. After he had ob- 
 tained his fellowship, a whimsical quarrel with his 
 superiors prevented him from proceedmg M.A. 
 The death of his mother, who was an heiress, in 
 1754, put him in possession of a considerable estate 
 at Trumpington near Cambridge. Upon that event 
 he resigned his fellowship and mamed Ann daughter
 
 THOMAS BANKS. 
 
 215 
 
 of Felix Calvert, Esq., of Alburv Hall, Herts, by 
 whom lie had a family of thirteen children. In 
 1/06 he published the poem, by the popularity of 
 which he is now remembered as a literary man, " The 
 Bath Guide," in which he satirised the prevailing 
 follies of that iashionable waterinj-place, with a light 
 and lively wit and most amusing effect. But the man- 
 ners thus felicitously exposed have ceased to exist, 
 and with them the interest of the poem has died 
 away. Its popularity, when it first appeared, was 
 great. Dodsley the bookseller gave 200/. for the 
 copyright, and after the sale of two editions re- 
 turned it to the author in 1777, with a declaration 
 that he had never made more money by any publi- 
 
 cation in the same time. Mr. Anstey gave his pro- 
 fits to the infirmary at Bath. In the same style he 
 afterwards wrote the Election Ball, whiih was less 
 successful. He also produced an i'lii;y(in the death 
 of the Alarijuess of Tavistock in IJfJ?". The Patriot 
 in 17(;8, A. C. W. Bamfylde, Arm. Epistola, I777, 
 Envy, 177», and Charity, 177'J. As a writer of 
 correct and tasteful Latin verse he lias been much 
 commended. His translations of Gray's Elegy and 
 Gay's Fables into that language, are amongst the 
 best specimens of his talents in that way. A splendid 
 edition of his works, with a sketch oi" his life, was 
 published after his death by his son. 
 
 THOMAS BANKS, R.A. 
 
 In England sculpture followed in the steps of paint- 
 ing, and may be said to have been only naturalised 
 amongst us upon the institution of the Royal Aca- 
 demy. Before that period foreigners alone were 
 patronized, and by consequence, few native produc- 
 tions of merit are to be found in our public build- 
 ings up to the eighteenth century. For although 
 Gibber by his figures of raving and melancholy 
 madness before Old Bedlam, and Bird by his sta- 
 tues for St. Paul's, may be instanced as, in some 
 degi-ee, competitors with Sir John Thornhill and 
 Hogarth ; yet they neither attained nor deserved 
 the rank and consideration enjoyed by the painters. 
 With Reynolds and the Royal Academy, a new 
 era took its rise ; and amongst the gifted body 
 of men who contributed to raise sculpture to an 
 equal rank with painting, and are moreover entitled 
 to remembrance for the virtues of their private 
 lives, Thomas Banks, the royal academician, has 
 conspicuous pretensions. He was the eldest son of 
 William Banks, land-steward to the Duke of Beau- 
 fort, and was born in 1735. Thus he stood next to 
 Bacon in order of time, while he was on a level with 
 him in point of merit: the fortunes of a higher patron- 
 age gave a wider scope to the abilities of the former, 
 but the influence of equal genius reflected rival 
 honours upon the productions of the latter. Evinc- 
 ing an aptitude for the operations of art at a very 
 early age, Banks was bound apprentice to Kent, 
 the architect, a man of extensive practice and good 
 repute. Taste, however, soon emboldened him to 
 direct his talents exclusively to .sculpture. He 
 became one of the fir.st ])U]iilH of the Royal Aca- 
 demy, and was rewarded with many distinctions 
 during the progress of his initiatory studies. After 
 gaining s<'veral jirizes, lie w:us elected on the foun- 
 ilatiijii to travel on the Continent, and complete his 
 education in Italy, whore the society sujiplied their 
 students with the means of support for a tenn of 
 three years. Banks found that peri(jd too short to 
 satisfy his desire for ini|irov(ni<'nt: he outstayed 
 the time, an'l fro-fcitcd his slijiend. 
 
 Being thus coiiiixllcd to look ;ifter other means 
 of support, lie aildnsHcd himself to the notice of 
 his countiymen visiting Home, and by their interest 
 was enabled to forward sevej-al examples of his art 
 tf» England, under very flattering circumstances. 
 Of these, three liave been particularly j)raisetl: — 
 a bass-relief in marble, representing ('aract^'icus 
 
 brought prisoner with his family before Claudius, 
 which wa.s purchased by the Duke of Buckingham, 
 and now ornaments the entrance hall at Stowe; — a 
 marble figure of Psyche stealing the golden fleece, 
 designed as a portrait of the Princess Sophia of 
 Gloucester, and an allegoi-y of love tormenting the 
 soul, in a figure of Cupid catching a buttei-fly. Ad- 
 mirers were speedily atti'acted by these productions, 
 and as many beauties were discovered in them, 
 the fortunate sculptor was gratified to find the 
 symmetry of his forms, the grace of his contours, 
 and the delicacy of his execution, compared with 
 the exquisite relics of those ages to which his mind 
 had been so closely and constantly directed. 
 
 The positive advantages resulting from this po- 
 pularity were however neither equal to his expec- 
 tations, nor adequate to his support; and he was 
 reluctantly compelled to return to England. Scarce- 
 ly, however, had he time to establish himself in a 
 connexion, or jjut forth fresh work, when a flatter- 
 ing invitation to visit Ru.ssia was presented to him 
 from the Empress Catherine. He accordingly set 
 out for Petersburg, taking with him the figure of 
 Cuj)id above mentioned. Ujion his arrival it was 
 purchased by his royal patron, who caused a tem- 
 ple to be erected for its reception, in the gai'dens 
 attached to her palace at Czarscocelo. 
 
 Notwithstanding this conqiliiiientarv beginning, 
 Banks was again doomed to disapiiojnlment. Tiie 
 cold climate of Ru.ssia disjigreed with his constitu- 
 tion, and he was forced, at the end of two years, to 
 return and court popularity in his native country. 
 The first distinction now fiffered to him was a fel- 
 lowship in the Royal Academy, in acknowledgment 
 for which he presented that body with the Fallen 
 Titan, which is to be s<'en in the council room. A 
 iiiniiMinent for Penelope, thi' only daughter of Sir 
 Brooke Booihby, in .Ashbourne Clinrch, was the 
 next subject of interest ottered to his chisel. It 
 has been vividly applauded for the tenderness of 
 the concc|)tion, and the eli'gance of the execution. 
 The (diild api'iars rc.--liMg on a mattress, with its 
 ))art(<l hands thrown n|jwards to the head, and its 
 feet loosclv crossed. The only diajiery is a thin 
 frock, g'-ritly confined by 11 sat-li, which is twistrd 
 to oni- siili', as if in the inqiatiencc of sickiK'SS ; (he 
 wiiole attitude and I'Xpression iieautii'iilly exciting 
 regret at the idea, that tin- little creature slmuld 
 have ex]iii'ed in an efl'ortio toss itself into .-in e:isier
 
 •216 
 
 WESTMINSTER ABBEY. 
 
 situation. One anecdote of tlie powerful effect jn-o- 
 (luced by this monument has Ijeeii mentioned, and 
 deserves preservation. It was first exhibited at 
 the Royal Academy, and it is said that the late 
 Q,ueen Charlotte and her daughters, after eontem- 
 ])lating its beauties for some time in silence, burst into 
 teai's together, and hurried from the apartments, too 
 much overcome to examine the remaining works. 
 
 A performance as touching in sympathy, but 
 greater in design and moral, was soon after pro- 
 {tosed to Banks. This was the colossal statue in 
 marble, of Achilles bewailing the loss of Briseis on 
 the sea-shore, a magnificent undertaking, which 
 the remainder of his life did not entirely suffice to 
 perfect, and which v.as jiresented by his family to 
 the Briti.sh Institution, in Pall-Mail, where it now 
 stands, an ornament simple and grand, in the lower 
 hall. Ap[iosite to the mention of this establishment, 
 it is to be added, that its stone front was designed 
 by Banks, whose successfid hands are also to be 
 recognised in the groups of figures at the entrance: 
 they were executed to illustrate the primitive des- 
 tination of the building as the Shakspeare Galleiy. 
 
 The latter years of Banks's career were cliiefiy 
 devoted to production of monuments. Amongst 
 them were those of Sir Clifton Wintringhani, the 
 physician, Isaac Watts, Soten, governor of Batavia, 
 
 Woollet, the excellent engraver, and Sir Eyre 
 Coote, in Westminster Abbey ; and to those of 
 Captains Burgess and Westcott, in St. Paul's. Of 
 these labours, however, no particular examination 
 can be necessary here, as most of them are noticed 
 ui the sketches of the subjects they commemorate. 
 The death of Banks, after a life of arduous exer- 
 tion, is now to be recorded : it took place February 2, 
 1805, at the honourable age of seventy-four years. 
 A plain tablet, on the ledge of a window in the 
 north aisle, commemorates his merit. Thus the 
 ai'tist, who was so long and so eminently engaged 
 in decorating the graves of others, is himself dis- 
 tinguished only by the simph st of posthumous 
 honours. The inscription reads as follows : — 
 
 In memory of Thomas Banks, Esq., R. A. 
 
 Sculptor, 
 
 Whose superior abilities in his profession 
 
 Added a lustre to the arts of his country; 
 
 And whose character, as a man. 
 
 Reflected honour on human nature. 
 
 His earthly remains were deposited, by his desire, 
 
 On the south side of the church-yard at 
 
 Paddington; 
 
 His spirit is with God. 
 
 WILLIAM BUCHAN, M.D. 
 
 William Buchan, doctor in medicine, was ho- 
 noured with an interment in the cloisters, in consi- 
 deration of his merits as the author of the most 
 popular work on the subject of his profession, 
 which, up to the date of his death, had Iieen pro- 
 duced in the country. He was born in 1 729, at the 
 romantic village of Ancram, in Roxburghshire, and 
 was sent, at the proper age, to a grammar school at 
 Jedburg. There his advancement was so trratifv- 
 ing, and his fondness for books so manifest, that 
 his father, a respectable man, enjoying a small 
 entailed property of his own, the produce of which 
 he augmented by cultivating an adjoining farm, 
 resolved to educate so promising a scliolar for a 
 liberal profession. Young Buchan was accordingly 
 sent to the University of Edinburgh, with the view 
 of studying for the church, but he had no sooner 
 matriculated, than he forsook theology for mathe- 
 matics; and such was the promptitude with which 
 he acquired the science, that in a short time he 
 was able to act in the capacity of preceptor. 
 
 It was by this means that he formed an acquaint- 
 ance with the medical scholars of the university, 
 and from their conversation was induced to direct 
 his attention to their pursuits. The city of Edin- 
 burgh was, at that period, springing into the healthy 
 reputation for excellence in the study and practice 
 of surgery and physic, wliich was soon after so 
 creditably improved; the professors wei-e men of 
 learning and research, of the school of Boerhaave; 
 and Buchan soon became satisfied, that a better 
 prospect of emolument and reputation was held out 
 by following their pursuits, than the kirk of Scot- 
 land. To medicine, therefore, he finally devoted 
 Ids mind. 
 
 Nine years passed in preparatory occupations; 
 
 and after taking his doctor's degree in the Roj'al 
 College, for which he read an inaugural discourse 
 on the management and diseases of children, he 
 settled as a practitioner at Sheffield, in Yorkshire. 
 There his practice soon became so respectable, that 
 after a competition with no less than ten candidates, 
 he was elected physician to that branch of the large 
 Foundling Hospital, which was established by par- 
 liament at Ackworth. In this charge he confirmed 
 his character for ability: in the course of two years, 
 he reduced the deaths from six to one in fifteen, 
 and introduced many judicious regulations, by 
 which the burthens of the establishment wei'e ma- 
 terially reduced. The House of Commons, however, 
 dissatisfied with the advantages derived from it, 
 discontinued its support, and the institution sunk. 
 
 Returning to Edinburgh, Buchan married a lady 
 of the name of Peters, with whom he received a 
 small fortune, and upon the strength of her con- 
 nexions began to practise in that city. A vacancy 
 soon after this occurred in one of the physical pro- 
 fessor's ch.airs, and he became a candidate for it. 
 Professorships used then to descend almost heredi- 
 tarily in particular families; Buchan attempted, but 
 failed, to break through so pernicious a custom. He 
 now conceived the plan of a work which should lay 
 open the principles of medical knowledge to the 
 public, and render its prescriptions intelligible to 
 the wants of every reader. The result of his reflec- 
 tions was the production of the " Domestic Medi- 
 cine," a book which made its first appearance at 
 Edinburgh, in the year 17/0, with a dedication to 
 Sir John Priugle, President of the Royal Society, 
 who was distiintly related to the author. 
 
 If th:it test of literary excellence which Dryden 
 laid down for his plays in rhyme, namely, the praise
 
 WILLIAM PITT. 
 
 217 
 
 and satisfaction of those for whom the author writes, 
 is to be received as a standard, Buehan's " Domes- 
 tic Medicine" must be regarded as a publication of 
 considerable merit. Its success was extraordinary : 
 it ran through no less than twenty editions during 
 his lifetime, and made tiie fortiuie of Smellie the 
 printer, in whose hands the copyright was vested. 
 Like all other works which have been composed for 
 the purpose of communicating tlie secrets of a pro- 
 fession to the uninitiated, its reception was opposed 
 by the men whose intiuence it tended to undermine; 
 and as Blackstone's " Commentaries " have never 
 been quoted as an authority amongst lawyers, so 
 Buchan's "Medicine" has systematically been con- 
 demned by the faculty. Such a book was wanted 
 because it was purchased ; and of value, because it 
 I'emains popular to this day. Nor was its reception 
 less flattering abroad than it had proved at home: 
 it was translated into all the civilized languages of 
 Europe; and even made a classical authority in 
 the German schools, through the medium of a 
 Latin version. Upim its appeai'ance in Eussia, the 
 late Empress Catherine honoured the author with 
 a fine gold medallion, and complimentary epistle, 
 in which she expressed her conyiction of the utility 
 of his exertions for the welfare of his species, and 
 thanked him for the pleasure she had received from 
 liis book. 
 
 But whatever reputation Buchan may have de- 
 served to gain, it is certain that he suffered greatly 
 from the jealousy of his professional brethren. His 
 practice declined, and even the number of his ac- 
 quaintances so decreased, that when, in 1775, Fer- 
 guson, the celebi'ated itinerant lecturer on natural 
 philosophy, bequeathed him a valuable collection of 
 instruments, he did not hesitate to imitate the 
 course of his departed friend. Assisted by his son, 
 who conducted the experimental department, he 
 delivered a course of lectures at Edinburgh dm-ing 
 the usual season, for three successive years, and 
 was attended by ci-owded auditories. With the 
 novelty of this undertaking, however, its popularity 
 subsided: he at length found it prudent to disjiose 
 of tlie apparatus, and resolved to try and push his 
 fortune in London. 
 
 At this great goal for talents of every description 
 
 he was well received, and soon found himself estab- 
 lished in good practice. A man of greater energy 
 and perseverance would now have aceunuilated 
 wealth; luit Buchan was moderate in his worldly 
 ambition, and, ere long, contented hiiiiseU' with re- 
 ceiving patients at his rcsidince in Percy-street 
 RatlilHine|>lace. He continued to write, and pro- 
 duced at intervals a " Treatise on Syi)hilis," an 
 " Essay on the treatment of Children,"'" Advice to 
 Motliers," and ui)on being consulted by the govern- 
 ment ujion the best means of bettering the condi- 
 tion of the jioor, brought out a panqdilet upon the 
 subject, which received the thanks of the Board of 
 Agriculture. 
 
 The decline of Buchan's life was spent with ease 
 and respectability, at lodgings in Paternoster- row. 
 An agreeable companion, he delighted in society; 
 and as his information was various, and his memory 
 unusually retentive, he seldom failed to impart both 
 instruction and pleasui'e. His disposition was gene- 
 rous to a fault, and his eagerness to patronize rising 
 merit conspicuous. Thi^ early bent of his mind to 
 mathematics made him fond of astmnomy; he was 
 constantly in the haliit of visiting Dr. Maskelyne, 
 the astronomer royal, and used to pass many a 
 starry night in observing the planetary system. He 
 is also entitled to the i)raise of having confirmed 
 Mr. Lowndes in his first experimi'iits on the sub- 
 ject of medical electricity, and of having su;;gested 
 to him many improvements in a [lursuit, which has 
 been subsequently priisecuted to the most inq)ort- 
 ant results. 
 
 In closing this memoir, it should not be sup- 
 pressed, that Buchan was a man who professed 
 nothing more than he practised, and as a physician, 
 observed all he prescribed. His constitution was 
 naturally good; and by these means he never suf- 
 fered from a day's illness, initil he was attacked by 
 the disorder which terminated his life. That was 
 the dropsy, under which he lingered for some 
 months, and then placidly expired February 2,'), 
 1805. His grave is distinguished by a plain bust 
 and marble tablet, which simply announces that he 
 was the 
 
 Author of the " Domestic Jledicine." 
 
 WILLIAM PITT. 
 
 Tmk monument voted to the memory of this able 
 statesman, by the House of Commons, surmounts 
 the arch over the great eastern door. It is the 
 work of Sir 11. Westmacott, an artist who has been 
 much flattered for the composition of his designs. 
 l'r)r this merit the performance before us is conspi- 
 cuous; but there is a broad distinction to hi- drawn 
 between tlie taste- with wiiicli a subject is arraiige^l, 
 and the degree of power with which it apjieals to 
 the understanding ami the; feelings: in this respect 
 Mr. Pitt's monumei\t is egregiously inconsistent. 
 He is presented to us h(;re, robed as tin- Chancellor 
 of the Exchequer, and in the act of aildressing the 
 House; while History, jicrsonified as a feniahi catch- 
 ing his portrait, is sealed on onesiile; and Anarchy, 
 ])ers<inifie(l as a man, nakc'd, and bound with ehaiuH, 
 completes the group on the other siile. It is to be 
 
 i-egretted, that where so much skill and mechanical 
 aliility have been dis])layed, reality and lid ion 
 sliould appear so olfeiisively confuundeil togellier, 
 and that the mere idea conveyed by the perform- 
 ance should ]>roye an absurdity. 
 
 William Pitt, the second son, and fourth child of 
 the first Karl of Chatham, was born on the 25ih of 
 May, 175!t. •>! his early years imich has been 
 written, and but little that is specifically iuteresliug 
 has been ascertained, lie appiars to have accpiired 
 the Greek anil Latin lan^juaijes with ]» i-iiiiar faci- 
 lity, to have i-elihhed his niatlieniati(;il studies, and 
 more significant still, to have h:id the bent fit of 
 his father's instruction in eloi-ution, who is repr<^- 
 sented to have accustomed him, even when a diild, 
 (o conyerse withiiul restraint, and to declaim before 
 him extemporaneously from the jiarlour chair-s. Ho
 
 218 
 
 WESTMINSTER ABBEY. 
 
 was first put under a private preceptor, the Rev. 
 Dr. Wilson, subsequently a canon of Windsor, who 
 superintended his education under the paternal 
 roof from his sixth to his fourteenth year. From 
 that gentleman's care he was removed to Pembroke 
 College, Cambridge ; where, in 1 772, Dr. Pretty- 
 man, who afterwards took the name of Tomline, 
 and filled the see of Lincoln, became his tutor. 
 After pi'oceeding in due course Bachelor and Mas- 
 ter of Arts, degrees for which he spiritedly refused 
 to avail himself of the privileges attached by the 
 University to the son of a peer, he entered himself 
 a student-at-law of Lincoln's Inn, and wa-s called 
 to the bar in 1780. Before this period, he had 
 lost his gifted father, who, dying in 1778, left the 
 future statesman to work out his cai'eer with a 
 narrow fortune, in his nineteenth year. 
 
 In his profession he does not appear to have 
 sought, and certainly did not obtain, nmeh practice. 
 He is known to have held only a few briefs, with 
 one of which, however, he displayed a degree of 
 ability, that was rewarded by some compliments 
 from Earl Mansfield, before whom it was argued. 
 His father had destined him for political life, pro- 
 phesying, that he was sure to obtain distinction as 
 a {)arliamentary leader, and to the honours of that 
 rank he aspired, almost as soon as he became of 
 age. The IJniversity of Cambridge was the first 
 corporate body he endeavoured to represent, but 
 he was rejected by the electors with contempt. 
 Soon after, however, the Duke of Richmond pre- 
 vailed upon Sir James Lowther to return him for 
 one of his boroughs ; and accordingly he was in- 
 troduced into the House of Commons, under the 
 patronage of that baronet, as one of the members 
 for Appleby, in January, 1781. 
 
 Once established as a public character, he lost 
 no time in putting forward his claims to distinction. 
 He pronounced his maiden speech in support of 
 Mr. Burke's bill for a i-eform of the civil list. It 
 was delivered with some embarrassment, but ex- 
 cited considerable attention, and no common praise. 
 Burke racily pronounced him not only a chip of 
 the old block, but the old block itself, while Fox 
 carried him off" to Brookes', where he was at once 
 elected a member, and started fairly as a whig. 
 He thus opposed Lord North's administration, and 
 the American war; and, consequently, advocated, 
 during the course of the sessi(jn, many of those 
 motions by which Mr. Fox and his friends pre- 
 pared their way to office. 
 
 That object w^as accomplished in 1782, and young 
 Pitt was then offered, but declined place. He did not, 
 however, oppose the new ministers ; on the contrary, 
 concurring with them in the liberal principles upon 
 which they professed to act, he bore testimony to 
 their talents and their virtues, and gave a hearty 
 vote in favcjur of the several important measm'es 
 by which they signalized a brief interval of power. 
 He took up the great question of Parliamentary 
 reform, and in a speech of great force, but of great 
 temperance also, of sound views, and of discreet 
 suggestions, called "for a committee to enquire 
 into the state of the representation in Parliament, 
 and to report to the House their observations there- 
 upon." The motion was defeated, but it was hailed 
 by the public with approbation, and tended, in a 
 striking manner, to give importance to the character 
 of the young statesman. 
 
 Long before the year closed, Mr. Fox, and his 
 
 friends, resigned their situations, in consequence of 
 the sudden death of Lord Rockingham, and the 
 Earl of Shelburne was deputed by the King to 
 compose a fresh ministry. Pitt was one of the first 
 to whom application was made, and as he had the 
 spirit to insist, that, if employed at all, he should 
 be employed in no secondary rank, he was gazetted 
 Chancellor of the Exchequer in July, 1782. He 
 had thus the distinction of discharging some of the 
 highest functions in the state in his three and 
 twentieth year. His triumph, however, was destined 
 to be as short as the one enjoyed by the party to 
 which he succeeded. Mr. Fox, by coalescing with 
 Lord North, secured an irresistible majority in 
 Parliament. The session had no sooner opened 
 than the contest between the two sides of the 
 House began, with a degree of violence that made 
 the true point at issue but too plainly manifest 
 to the country. In these debates the youth 
 and inexperience of the new Chancellor of the 
 Exchequer formed a prominent topic of reproach, 
 but he met the attack with a manly spirit and 
 efficient strength. His speeches at this early but 
 vigorous period of his career, exhibit a ripe 
 and capacious mind, ample acquirements of a 
 sterling order, principles far from illiberal or con- 
 tracted, a dignified spirit, ingenuous conduct, and 
 accomplished eloquence. Being dislodged fi'om 
 office, after an administration of eight months, he 
 comported himself with patriotic decency. Without 
 appearing soured by disappointment, or animated 
 by resentment, he revived his motion for a parlia- 
 mentary reform, in the session of 1783, with undi- 
 minished zeal and ability ; and not only seconded, 
 but outstepped the coalition ministry, in their 
 enactments for a reduction of the taxes, and an 
 abrogation of useless places. Ere long, however, 
 the bold policy of Mr. Fox's India Bill startled him 
 into vigorous opposition, and after a month's com- 
 bat, he was at the head of the Exchequer and 
 Treasury. This distinction stands by itself in our 
 history; there is no other instance of a man holding 
 the high places of leader of the House of Commons 
 and Prime Minister of England at the early age of 
 twenty-four. Unexampled as this position was, it 
 was assailed and sustained with inicommon strength 
 and ability. Mr. Pitt was minister, but Mr. Fox 
 commanded the votes of the House of Commons by 
 a large and vehement majority. Debate followed 
 debate, and on successive divisions he was always 
 left in a minority. In vain he attempted to bring 
 forward the India Bill which he afterwards carried, 
 the House would not receive it; and after stand- 
 ing for a length of time with manly spirit and 
 consummate ability against an overwhelming oppo- 
 sition, he dissolved the Parliament, and proclaiming 
 himself the ardent supporter of the royal preroga- 
 tive, succeeded, at the general election of 1784, in 
 depriving 160 members of the coalition of their 
 seats. 
 
 Finding himself at length efficiently supported, 
 his first care was to pass an India Bill, which 
 being only an amendment of Mr. Fox's measure 
 may be shortly described. He left the commerce 
 of the East India Company independent, he allowed 
 them the patronage of civil and military offices, 
 but insisted, that once appointed, their servants 
 should be promoted by seniority ; he left them the 
 choice of a governor-general, but gave the nomina- 
 tion of a commander-in-chief to the crown ; and
 
 WILLIAM PITT. 
 
 219 
 
 retained Mi-. Fox's iJta of a Board of Control, 
 and improved Judicature, witli tliis dift'erence, that 
 the government, and not eitlier parliament or the 
 company, obtained the jirivilege of composing both 
 the one institution and the other. 
 
 Mr. I'itt was now member for his own univer- 
 sity : that Cambridge, which only a year before 
 had spurned, now i-eceived him witli open arms. 
 He continued in office for eighteen years. The 
 history of such an administration would be a his- 
 tory of the empire during that period. A few only 
 of its leading features can be here imjierfectly 
 sketched. Finding himself securely placed in office, 
 he turned his attention without delay to new sub- 
 jects; he gave fresh proofs of the strength and ex- 
 tent of liis talents, and of the correct and compre- 
 hensive views his mind seemed naturally to adopt 
 of every subject when first presented to it, and dis- 
 passionately considered. He found the country 
 financially and administratively in a most embar- 
 rassed condition, and ere long instituted a new sys- 
 tem, which stood out conspicuously and most advan- 
 tageously from almost every thing of the kind that 
 had been previously attempted, and also from much 
 tliat he himself subsequently carried into effect. He 
 reduced the expenditure of the state to less tlian 
 sixteen millions a-year, and thus enabled parlia- 
 ment to apply a large sum amuially to the reduction 
 of the national debt; he devised an entirely new plan 
 for the management of tlie Sinking Fund, which 
 then met witli the aiiprobation of Mr. Fox, and 
 has since been satirically commended as one which, 
 if its author had been content to observe, would 
 have been triumi)hantly successful. This was only 
 a portion of his meritorious labours. In 1787 he 
 examined and arranged the various securities consti- 
 tuting the national debt, and the different branches 
 of the revenue, and by altering some, and regulat- 
 ing and consolidating all, took care that the amount 
 of debt due, and the assigned resources for its pay- 
 ment, were ascertained and provided for; that the 
 dividends or interest upon tlie debt, the means of 
 redeeming them, and meantime the annual civil and 
 military contingencies of the state, and the jiroper 
 supplies for the encouragement of internal industry, 
 should be duly forthcoming and supplied. All this 
 may be fairly said to have now been set before the 
 legislature and the people, for the first time, in a 
 systematic and satisfactory form. It is impossible, 
 in noticing these labours, not to pause in admira- 
 tion of their Herculean greatness and complete 
 success. They afford imperishable evidence of the 
 inilustry, integrity, and courage of tin; minister; 
 they led to a quick return of national prospe- 
 rity, then deeply involved in consequence of the 
 unconstitutional continuance of the extravagant war 
 with America; they produced a Hourishiiig foreign 
 trade, and domestic wealth and content, but were 
 8<)on, strange to say, wholly abandoned by their 
 author, who thus a|)i)ears to have begun liis career 
 by being one of the most honest and economical 
 finance mitiisters England ever saw, and who ended 
 his administration by being one of the most inipi'in- 
 cipled and extravagant. In tins latti-r respect the 
 eminence of his talents still distinguished him. He 
 proved not less potent in creating debt and com- 
 mercial <.'mbarra.HHment, than he hail shown himself 
 efficient in removing them, and showed himself a 
 niatchlc!ss but unenviable nia.ster in the production 
 of good and evil. 
 
 That such a minister should not long continue to 
 be a parliamentary retonner was natural. He re- 
 newed his former motion in 17J!4, but making the 
 question an open one, was di'feated by two hundred 
 and forty-eight to one hundred and' seventy-four, 
 and there concluded his labours in the cause'. But 
 the praise which lie forfeited in one way he acquired 
 in another: he contracted a favourable treaty of 
 commerce with France. Two projects of a war 
 with Russia and Spain, which he entertained for a 
 time, seemed likely to endanger his position; but 
 he was preserved by the sense of the country at 
 large, guided by the discretion of Mr. Fox. 'liis 
 disagreement with Russia was ])rovoke(l by an un- 
 important dispute between that power and Turkey, 
 respecting the occupation of Oczacow, while the 
 peltry of Nootka Sound instigated him to a (luarrel 
 with Spain for these fatal possessions — the Falkland 
 Islands. Recovering from these injudicious move- 
 ments, he retrieved his character by amicable trea- 
 ties, and was thus enabled to .secure a jiowerfnl sup- 
 port for his subsequent contest with revolutionary 
 France. Though the op])osition which he encoun- 
 tered throughout that undertaking was violent, it 
 is nevertheless demonstrable that lie was far from 
 acting with precipitation, or without provocation. 
 The policy of the French concerning tlieo])ening of 
 the Scheldt interfered directly with our comnu'rcial 
 interests; and the fatuity of their decrees in favour 
 of a system of universal fraternisation, was as wild 
 as it was nationally oti'ensive and constructively 
 hostile. The debatable point, therefore, was, whether 
 .such doctrines and iiroceedings justified a war. Mr. 
 Pitt held that they did, and he must be admitted to 
 have su])p(irted his opinion with signal talents. The 
 conquests and victories obtiiined in the issue, recon- 
 ciled the majority of the nation to his views; tlie op- 
 position c<intinued vainly to deploi-e the waste of 
 money and loss of blood with which they were 
 bought; but the alternative they recoinmeiKled was 
 not tried; and the people, seldom inclined to con- 
 trast prospective losses with present gain, revelled 
 in all the delirium of ill-foun(led success. 
 
 There remain two main features of Mr. Pitt's 
 policy to bo ])articnlarly mentiuned: the fii-st in- 
 volves his conduct in repressing tlu' liberty of the 
 subject, on account of the excitement which was 
 caught from the march of l''rench freedom, aiul the 
 other involves the dispute alxiut a regiiicy. Very 
 decided opinions ])revailed on both points. The 
 suppression of the Corresponding and Constitutional 
 Societies was i)rndent; for license, such as those 
 bodies indulged in, is clearly repugnant to the 
 order of good government, and the spirit of Briiisfi 
 law. But the suspension of the Habeas Corpus Act, 
 and the prosecution of Home Tooke and others for 
 constructive treason, were arliitrary and indefensi- 
 ble in the extreme. The very reasons adduced in 
 favour of the extinction of the societies, operated as 
 so many irresistible arguments against the seve- 
 rity by which attachment to them was punished; 
 for it were no difiicult task to prove, that as the 
 constitution of the country recognizes a riglil in 
 the people to lair means fnr obtaining a ri'ilress of 
 their grievances, so it prci\ ides the gmcrnment with 
 power to repress diMalbction, whether prescriptive 
 or ovei't, by the ordinary course of law. l''roni Mr. 
 Pitt's con<luct relative to the Hi geiicy there can be 
 little giMund of dissent ; for, setting aside the iiillu- 
 ence which a desire to retain his power may be 
 
 I
 
 220 
 
 WESTMINSTER ABBEY. 
 
 presumed to have had upon his conduct, it is not 
 to be doubted that the broad principle upon which 
 he ultimately adjusted the pouit at issue was just 
 and constitutional. 
 
 Such was the general tenor of Mr. Pitt's admi- 
 nistration, when ia 1801, an event, from which a 
 result of the kind was least to be expected, con- 
 strained him to resign. This was the union with 
 Ii'eland, an act of eminent political expediency, ad- 
 mii'able in the design, but most defective in the 
 execution. Pi'osecuted through its various stages 
 by the most flagitious agency, by unwaiTantable 
 intimidation, barbarous cruelties, and excessive 
 bribery, one stipulation was at last made for the 
 purpose of reconciling the majority of the people to 
 the loss of a domestic legislature, and that stipulation 
 was violated. The Irish Catholics were promised 
 a full restoration of their civil rights; but as soon 
 as the affair was ratified, that long persecuted body 
 was abandoned to its previous condition of igno- 
 miny and injustice. Mr. Pitt, indeed, at first re- 
 signed his authority, because a superior influence 
 interfered to pi'event the obsei-vance of the equit- 
 able conditions upon which the union was obtained. 
 But when it is remembered how very soon after he 
 returned to a full possession of his former powers, 
 and how positively he discountenanced the re-agi- 
 tation of a question, which, if unjust, it was a 
 crime to promise, and if just, a greater crime to 
 withhold, it is impossible not to pronounce this 
 the most inconsistent of his several inconsistencies, 
 and the least honourable passage in his public 
 life. 
 
 The resignation just alluded to occurred in 1801, 
 and his return to the treasury and the exchequer 
 took place in 1804. During this interval of privacy 
 he retired to Walmer Castle, in Kent, a seat which 
 he enjoyed as constable of Dover Castle, and there 
 devoted the talents which had been employed upon 
 the fortunes of empires, in ti-aining two regiments 
 of the Cinque Port Volunteers. Long as he had 
 deprecated a peace, yet he now concurred in the 
 treaty of Amiens, and supported the minister who 
 made it, until he discovered that the admiralty was 
 weak, and then lie upset the government. The fii'st 
 aim of his third administration was to renew the 
 wai', and form a continental league against the 
 usurpations of Buonaparte: it failed as two others 
 had done, which he previously entered into for the 
 same purpose. The consequences pressed heavily 
 upon his mind. At this conjuncture he is said to 
 have wished for the co-operation of Mr. Fox and 
 Lord Grenville; but the king would not listen to 
 his overtures, and he was left to struggle without 
 help in his extremity. The distress thus occasioned 
 was augmented by mortification at the impeach- 
 ment of his friend Lord Melville, and at last his 
 constitution broke down under the pressure of 
 anxiety. Once debilitated on a bed of sickness, 
 disorders the most complicated and fatal arose, and 
 all hopes of preserving his life disappeared. His 
 nervous system became so deranged, that he enjoyed 
 no rest for weeks successively; a fit of the gout 
 next made its appearance, water on the chest then 
 came on, and ere long he lay helpless between sleep 
 and insensibility. Such was the melancholy state 
 in which this great minister expired, .January 23, 
 1806. It has been remarked that the day of his 
 death was also the annivei-sary of his introduction 
 into the House of Commons. 
 
 That the loss of such a man must have been 
 acutely felt, and his memory highly lionoured, will 
 be easily conceived. His body lay in state in the 
 Painted Chamber of the House of Lords, and his 
 funeral, which was made public by the House of 
 Commons, took place, under all the circumstances 
 of heraldic pomp, and public excitement. His grave 
 was sunk close to the coffin of his father m the 
 north transept of Westminster Abbey. Notwith- 
 standing the length of time during which he had 
 been in office, he had saved no money, but died 
 40,000/. in debt. These obligations were discharged 
 out of the public pui'se. Besides the national mo- 
 nument in the Abbey, other memorials of his fame 
 were also raised. A sum of 8000/. was subscribed 
 for a statue in the University of Cambridge, which 
 has been executed by Nollekens; and an indescrib- 
 able something, equally expensive and inelegant, 
 was also erected by the corporation of London In 
 Guildhall. 
 
 That Mr. Pitt's qualifications as a speaker were 
 of the first order, is admitted on all sides, for they 
 were universally admii-ed : he had an excellent 
 voice, and a calm appropriate enunciation ; but paid 
 no attention to action, or to attitude. His words 
 flowed with a most engaging ease; liis periods were 
 rounded with an imposing art; his choice of lan- 
 guage and style were harmonious, and his line of 
 argument, and the arrangement of his matter, 
 logical and sti'ong. Added to all this, his address 
 was full of ingenuity: upon a complicated subject 
 no one knew better how to suigle out and enforce 
 the points that most suited, or to evade those others 
 that least answered his purposes. His tone was 
 moderate, his manner pei-suasive, and the tenor of 
 his observations invariably marked by a vigorous 
 sense and a lofty mind. He had not the ma- 
 jestic strength of his father, who seemed to triumph 
 rather by lifting himself up above his subject and 
 his adversaries, than by carrying on an equal contest 
 with them; nor had he the lusty earnestness of 
 Fox, who entered the lists of discussion with a ge- 
 nerous impetuosity, who sought to conquer, by lay- 
 ing aside all art and stratagem, and aspired to 
 overthrow his enemy upon his greatest vantage 
 ground ; and yet, perhaps, he attained more success 
 as an orator than either the one of these great men 
 or the other. Burke is removed out of the parallel of 
 a comparison with him, by the univei'sality of his 
 genius; Grattan, ever original and the same, sur- 
 passed him with clear distinction in his peculiar 
 style; and Sheridan also exceeded him in wit and 
 brilliancy. Still, Mr. Pitt's eloquence was excel- 
 lently adapted to his position; equally discreet and 
 determined, as the leader of a parliamentary majo- 
 rity, he often thought it more prudent to point out 
 the reasonableness of government, than to dissipate 
 the liberality of opposition; and thus evinced a pecu- 
 liar tact, rather in upseting any effect they might 
 chance to make u]ion his own friends, than by con- 
 testing their questions with the same powei-s as those 
 by which alone they were enabled to advance them. 
 Hence, too, the nobler attributes, and nicer beauties 
 of the art, are rarely discovered in his speeches: he 
 appears to possess no passion, and but little heart; 
 his imagination seldom or never expands, and his 
 speeches are barren of those standard propositions, 
 and pi'ofound discoveries, which abound in orators 
 of superior genius. Sarcasm and irony were almost 
 the only auxiliaries to which he resorted, and of
 
 CHARLES JAMES FOX. 
 
 221 
 
 them his use was as refined as his power was deep 
 aud copious. 
 
 An idea of his character as a man and a states- 
 man remains to be given. His private virtues and 
 social qualities were abundant; to the world he 
 appeared cold and distant, but his friends averred 
 that his disposition was complacent and enjjaging, 
 and his temper sweet and cheerful. By them the 
 kindness of his heart, the gentleness of his man- 
 ners, the playfulness of his humour, and the genero- 
 sity of his spirit, were enjoyed with delight, and when 
 lust, remembered with concern. In every stage of 
 life his honour was high, and his disinterestedness 
 illustrious. Greatly ambitious, he was superior to 
 wealth, title, and popularity. The only pecuniary 
 recompense, other than the common salary, he re- 
 ceived for his protracted services, was the warden- 
 ship of the Cinque Ports, and that post was pressed 
 upon him by the king in a manner that scarcely ad- 
 mitted of refusal. As a financier he exceeded all 
 liis predecessors: he found the country impover- 
 ished and exhausted, with an income scarcely ade- 
 quate to the expenses of a peace, and a debt of 
 enormous weight; yet he devised a skilful plan for 
 the reduction of that debt, and raised the public 
 credit to a condition of unprecedented pr<>si>erity. 
 When he came into power, our commercial affairs 
 were at the lowest ebb; but when he died, the ex- 
 ports of Great Britain were higher than they had 
 ever been before. Viewed generally, and impar- 
 tially compared, it is evident, that though he raised 
 more money than any former minister, he devised 
 his schemes with precise judgment, apportioned his 
 taxes with an apt discrimination, and brought his 
 receipts coequal with his estimates. He set aside 
 the old rules of finance, and balanced the income 
 and expenditure of the nation. If in the coalitions 
 which he entered upon against France he was un- 
 successful, in the measures which he directed 
 against that power himself, he was always trium- 
 phant — Howe, Abercrombie, Duncan, St. Vincent, 
 and Nelson, achieved immoi-tality under his aus- 
 pices*. 
 
 • There are several monuments erected in the Abbey, as 
 well as in St. Paul's Cathedral, to officers who fell while 
 paining the series of victories here alluded to. That to 
 Hervey and Hutt, Captains of the Brunswick and the 
 Queen, who died gloriously in Lord Howe's memorable vic- 
 tory of the first of June, may be fairly referred to as a sample 
 of the whole. These officers are commemorated in the nave. 
 The design is one of those dull allegories that seem to be^ in- 
 exhaustible ; they endure positively by the mere negative force 
 of stupidity. Colossal figures, meant to represent Fame and 
 IJritannia, are placed at either side of a large vase, against 
 which medallions of the deceased are suspended. Britannia 
 
 Such in substance is the panegyric of his ad- 
 mirers; but it has on the other side "been remarked, 
 that from a friend he became an enemy to jiojiular 
 rights; that if he was one of the first to advocate 
 the question of reform, he was also the first to turn 
 against it; that if he levied a richer revenue than 
 any predecessor, he also contracted a heavier debt; 
 that if lie devised a sinking fund, he also neutra- 
 lised all the benefits attached to its operation, by 
 diverting it from its original purposes ; that he 
 affected the honour of deiireeatiiig the inhumanity 
 of a slave trade, but never availed hiinsilf of the 
 power to abrogate its enormities; and finally, that 
 he violated his pledged faith to the Roman Catho- 
 lics of Ireland. By most men Mr. Pitt's character 
 and career seem now to be regarded in tlie latter 
 point of view. He was a man whose mind at one 
 time promised to shape events, but he afterwards 
 permitted events to sha])e his mind. Had he put 
 into action the jtrineiples upon which lie professed 
 to consider that the C(}Uiitry ought to be governed, 
 when first he became a public man, he might have 
 rendered his name immortal. He apjiears to have 
 felt that the circumstances of the country demanded 
 a regenerating and expansive i)olicy, yet allowed 
 a repressive and contracted one to be adopted. 
 He ought to have created great clianges, but he 
 p()st])iuu'd them; and instead of leading the age, he 
 held it back by a series of violent and umiatm'al 
 efforts, which infiicted heavy losses and injuries 
 upon the industry, the wealth, and the hajipiness 
 of his country. 
 
 has her old trident and lion, and Fame her wings and the 
 usual trumpet. For this, nevertheless. Bacon, Junior, re- 
 ceived 3150/. 
 
 In the same school of design, but better in point of execu- 
 tion, is Nollekens' large structure to celebrate the three 
 Captains, Bayne, Blair, and Lord Robert Manners, who fell 
 in Rodney's great battle of April 12, 1782. This monument 
 cost 4000^. ; but a few words will be enough to describe it. 
 It is a rostral column, rising out of the hulk of a seventy-four 
 gun ship. The story or action meant to be told is about as 
 uninteresting and unnatural as it is possible to conceive. 
 The ollicers' bodies, as a matter of course, were committed 
 to the sea. Neptime is here introduced upon a sea-horse, 
 after having delivered them up to (ienius aiul Britannia, 
 who have hung up their likenesses to incite the enuilation 
 of all future naval officers. High up on the top of the co- 
 lumn is Fame with a wreatli of laurel, looking very much 
 as if about to exclaim, in good tavern style, " One cheer 
 more !" Of this nuinunient Allan Cuiniinghain well re- 
 marked, "There Is nothing in this but the common mate- 
 rials of ten thousand munuments : such designs may be 
 made by receipt." All. however, is done that art, in the 
 absence of genius, can do. 
 
 CHARLES JAMES FOX. 
 
 Chari.es .Jamf.s Fox, distinguished for many years 
 a-s tlie.Man of the l'eo|iic, was the third son of Ih'iiry, 
 first Lord Holl;ind, by tln' Lady (i>M>rgiaiia Len- 
 nox, daughter of the Duke of Kichmoiid, and born 
 January 24, 174}). I>oril Holland is remembered 
 in party politics as a jiaymaster of the forces, in 
 which place he was the object of some severe asper- 
 sions, a Secretary of Stale, and an o]iponent of the 
 
 great F.arl of Chatham, under whom he afterwards 
 took office; and it is a fact somewliat singular, that 
 two sons of these slatesmen rcsunnd llie i-areer of 
 ]iolitical hostility persisted in by their ]mniils, and 
 evi;n urgi'd it to a far more signal extreme, with 
 tills memorable difftrenci', however, tli.-it the son of 
 the Tory l'"ox rose to be a Whig of the most vigo- 
 rous and comiirehensive liberality, while flie son of
 
 222 
 
 WESTMINSTER ABBEY. 
 
 the jiopular Pitt degenerated into a staunch and 
 uncompromising Tory. The childhood of Charles 
 James Fox was marked by unusual indications of 
 talent : he was therefore early destined to public 
 life. His father was amongst the first to discover and 
 prize the superiority of his mind, and neither time, 
 money, nor encouragement were spared to develope 
 his powers, and ft)rm his character. A fatal in- 
 dulgence was at the same time exercised, which 
 ultimately tended to vitiate in no small degree the 
 splendid gifts of nature. While yet a mere boy, he 
 was allowed to sit at table with the general visitors, 
 and there to contradict, dispute with, and correct 
 his seniors. Nor was his own home the only place 
 in which he was encouraged to anticipate manhood ; 
 for it is generally represented, that when only 
 thirteen years old, he was allowed five guineas a 
 night for a play-purse at the Faro-table. Two 
 consequences were thus produced : the habit of 
 thinking freely and uttering boldly whatever he 
 thought, tended to make him a prompt public 
 speaker; and it also led to much of that precipitance 
 in judgment, and inconclusive argumentation, which 
 detracte . from his sterling abilities; while the pre- 
 mature familiarity with suj)ertluous money and the 
 gaming table must have occasioned that reckless- 
 ness of his pecuniary interests and inveterate 
 attachment to dice, which threw so dark a shade 
 upon his bright reputation, and deeply emban-assed 
 the last years of a distinguished life. 
 
 The first place that has to boast the honours of 
 having instituted him in letters, is Wandsworth, 
 where he was for a time at a private seminary. At 
 Eton, to which he was next removed, the Earls of 
 Fitzwiiliam and Cai'lisle, and the Duke of Devon- 
 shire were his school-fellows. Notwithstanding the 
 indulgent manner in which he had been brought 
 up, he gave several proofs of his proficiency in 
 study, which were inserted in the Musse Etouenses. 
 The promise of his reputation was further attested 
 in the following lines written by the Earl of Car- 
 lisle, at this period : — • 
 
 " How -will my Fox, alone, by strength of parts. 
 Shake the loud senate, animate the hearts 
 Of fearful statesmen ; wliile around ye stand 
 Botli Peers and Commoners listening your command! 
 While Tully's sense its weight to you alfords, 
 His nervous sweetness shall adorn your words. 
 What praise to Pitt, to Townshend e'er was due, 
 In future times, ray Fox, shall wait on you!" 
 
 The education which had thus far auspiciously 
 prospered, was completed at Hertford College, Ox- 
 ford, where he principally acquired that intimate 
 acquaintance with the Greek classics which he 
 cherished through all the chequered stages of his 
 conspicuous career. He took no degree; but the 
 man whose critical knowledge secured the respect 
 of Dr. Johnson, and the praise of Dr. Parr, must 
 have been no ordinary scholar. 
 
 Upon leaving the University, Fox was sent to 
 make the tour of Europe. For this folly his father's 
 impatience to witness his first appearance on the 
 political stage did not alliiw him much time ; nor 
 was much time necessary. He was already accom- 
 plished in the vanities and vices which were its 
 chief ornaments, yet he seems to have added to his 
 pi-evious stock of theni, and to have been highly 
 complimented upon his return home for the style of 
 the chapeau de bras, red-heeled morocco shoes, and 
 blue hair-powder, in which he then delighted. Yet 
 
 these were pardonable infirmities, when compared 
 with the excesses to which the gamingtable pre- 
 cipitated him ; excesses little to be wondered at, 
 when it is added that his father is said to have 
 thrown away a fortune upon him in ten years. 
 
 Fox took his first seat in the House of Commons 
 in 1768, and was a minor at the time. Adopting 
 his father's politics as a matter of course, he sided 
 with the ministry, and delivered his maiden speech, 
 full of fire and ingenuity, against the reception of a 
 petition, iu which Wilkes prayed to be allowed to 
 satisfy his constituents by attending his duty in the 
 house. Talents thus directed soon obtained a place: 
 he was made a Lord of the admiralty in 1770, and 
 a Commissioner of the Treasury in 1772. Upon 
 this stage of his career it is mmecessai'y to dilate : 
 he stood before the public trained to a given part, 
 at the instance of others, hardly by his own con- 
 viction. To show that he fully supported the cha- 
 racter for exti'aordinary ability which his earliest 
 youth had inspired, it may be enough to mention 
 that he already attracted the notice of Junius. But 
 however rashly the impetuosity of youth and the 
 influence of party may have impelled him to be- 
 come the advocate of arbitrary principles, the 
 generosity of his nature led him even now to be- 
 friend the cause of religious freedom, by speaking 
 and voting in favour of a bill introduced by Sir 
 William Meredith, for the purpose of giving relief 
 from the thirty-nine articles. This step was taken 
 in opposition to the avowed sentiments of Lord 
 North, and a coldness is said to have sprung from 
 it, which was soon after increased by a difference 
 of opinion respecting the committal of Woodfall, 
 the printer. A stronger cause of solicitude for the 
 stedfastness of Fox's adherence to Toryism was ex- 
 cited by the intimacy he now began to cultivate with 
 Burke. Against this we are told. Lord North more 
 than once remonstrated; the practice of associating 
 with the leading members of the opposition, was in 
 the judgment of the premier destructive. " If," .said 
 he upon one occasion, " we see a woman frequently 
 coming out of a bagnio, though we cannot swear 
 she is not vii-tuous, yet we should judge of her by 
 her company." Fox, however, lost his father in 
 1774, and being possessed of a fortune, was free to 
 follow the course most congenial to his frank and 
 liberal disposition. He had already divested himself 
 of every symiHoni of the coxcombry that tarnished 
 his talents upon his return from the continent, and 
 now bore himself with the ease and freedom be- 
 coming his natural tastes and feelings. The cautions 
 of the minister were disregarded; Burke seized him 
 by the sympathy of genius, and a friendship of me- 
 morable importance was cemented between them *. 
 
 • " As it was with the faces of the men of this noble fa- 
 mily, so was it also with their minds. Nature had done much 
 for them all. She had moulded them of that clay of which 
 she is most sparing. To all she had given strong reason and 
 sharp wit; a quick relish for every physical and intellectual 
 enjoyment ; constitutional intrepidity, and that frankness by 
 which constitutional intrepidity is generally accompanied: 
 spirits which nothing could depress ; tempers easy, generous, 
 and placable; and that genial courtesy which has its seat in 
 the heart, and of which artificial politeness is only a faint 
 and cold imitation. Such a disposition is the richest in- 
 heritance that ever was entailed on any family. 
 
 " But training and situation greatly modified the fine quali- 
 ties which nature lavished with such profusion on three 
 generations of the house of Fox. The first Lord Holland was
 
 CHARLES JAMES FOX. 
 
 223 
 
 Before a year elapsed the Treasury was re- 
 modelled, and liis name omitted in the commission. 
 
 a needy political adventurer. He entered public life at a 
 time when the standard of integrity among statesmen was 
 low. He started as the adherent of a minister who had in- 
 deed many titles to respect; who possessed eminent talents 
 both for administration and for debate ; who understood the 
 public interest well, and who meant fairly by the country; 
 but who had seen so much perfidy and meanness, that he 
 had become sceptical as to the existence of probity. Weary 
 of the cant of patriotism, Walpole had learned to talk a cant 
 of a different kind. Disgusted by that sort of hypocrisy 
 which is at least a homage to virtue, he was too much in 
 the habit of practising the less respectable hypocrisy which 
 ostentatiously displays, and sometimes even simulates vice. 
 To Walpole, Fox attached himself politically and personally, 
 with the ardour which belonged to his temperament. And 
 it is not be denied, that in the school of Walpole he con- 
 tracted faults which destroyed the value of his many great 
 endowments. He raised him^elf, indeed, to the first con- 
 sideration in the House of Commons ; he became a consum- 
 mate master of the art of debate ; he attained honours and 
 immense wealth; but the public esteem and confidence were 
 withheld from him. His private friends, indeed, justly ex- 
 tolled his generosity and good-nature. They maintained, 
 that in those parts of his conduct which they could least 
 defend, there was nothing sordid ; and that, if he was mis- 
 led, he was misled by amiable feelings ; by a desire to ser\e 
 his friends, and by anxious tenderness for his children. But 
 by the nation he was regarded as a man of insatiable rapa- 
 city and desperate ambition ; as a man ready to adopt, with- 
 out scruple, the most immoral and the most unconstitutional 
 measures ; as a man perfectly fitted, by all his opinions and 
 feelings, for the work of managing the parliament by means 
 of secret service money, and of keeping down the people 
 with the bayonet. Many of his contemporaries had a mo- 
 rality quite as lax as his ; but very few among them had his 
 talents, and none had his hardihood and energy. He could 
 not, like Sandys and Doddington, find safely in contempt. 
 He therefore became an object of such general aversion as 
 no statesman since the fall of Strafford has incurred — of such 
 general aversion as was probably never in any country in- 
 curred by a man of so kind and cordial a disposition. A w eak 
 mind would have sunk under such a load of unpopularity. 
 But that resolute spirit seemed to derive new firmness from 
 the public hatred. The only effect which reproaches ap- 
 peared to produce on him, was to sour, in some degree, his 
 naturally sweet temper. The last steps of his public Hfe 
 were marked not only by that audacity which he had derived 
 from nature, not only by that immorality which he had 
 learned in the school of Walpole, but by a harshness which 
 almost amounted to cruelty, and which had never been sup- 
 posed to belong to his character. His severity increased the 
 unpopularity from which it had sprung. 
 
 " Within a few months after the death of this remarkahle 
 man, his second son, Charles, appeared at the head of the 
 I)arty opjiosed to the American war. Charles had inherited 
 the bodily and mental constitution of his father, and had 
 been much— far too much under his father's inlliience. It 
 was indeed impossible that a son of so affectionate and noble 
 a spirit should not have been warmly attached to a parent 
 who possessed many fine qualities, and who carried his in- 
 dulgence and liberality towards his children even to a culpa- 
 ble extent. The young man saw that the ])erK(>n to whom 
 he was bound by the strongest ties, was, in the highest de 
 gree, odious to the nation; and tlie effect was what might 
 have been expected from his strong passions and constitu- 
 tional boldness. He cast in his lot with his fatlier, and 
 took, while still a boy, a deep part in the mo.st unjustifiable 
 and unpopular measures that had been adopted since the 
 reign of James II. In the debates on the Middlesex Klec- 
 tion he distinguished himself, not only by his precocious 
 powers of elociuence, but by the vehement and scoriiftil man- 
 ner in which he bade defiance to public (ipinioii. He was iit 
 that time regarded as a man likely to be the most formidable 
 
 To what extent resentment or conviction may have 
 operated over the step which he was now in a 
 manner necessitated to take, no one can determine. 
 After joining the opposition and becoming a Whii;, 
 he remained ever truly firm to the i)rinciples upon 
 which the change was made, and continued to 
 enforce them witli surpassing elocution, persever- 
 ance, and effect. The adversary witli whom lie 
 oftenest contended was his late patron, Lord 
 North, and the policy which he mainly resisted, in- 
 volved the serious loss of America. As there are 
 now none to doubt that he was as much Lord 
 North's superior in senatorial ability, as in his 
 judgment of the fatal issue with which the war 
 was big ; it is unnecessary in a brief sketch to 
 desci-ibe separate speeches, or to commend par- 
 ticular views, however correct the one, or bril- 
 liant the other. While the measures he advised 
 were systematically rejected, he was recognised as 
 a leader of the House of Commons, in conjunction 
 with Burke, Barre, and Dunning. Nor did his 
 reputation rest solely on parliamentary merits ; he 
 became a member of the Literary Club, and, like 
 Burke, exchanged tastes and criticisms with Sir 
 Joshua Reynolds, Goldsmith, and Dr. Johnson. 
 
 The esteem in which he was generally held ap- 
 peared conspicu(ms at a general election in I'iiiO, 
 when he was elected for Westminster by a ma- 
 jority of more than TOO votes. Events as they 
 succeeded contiriiud his ch:iractir as a statesman, 
 by verifying his [iredictions ; the war, always cala- 
 mitous, became still more unpopular ; Lord North, 
 and his infirm party, tottered on to a final discomfi- 
 ture until 17}i2, when a new administration was fonn- 
 ed under the Manjuis of liockingham, with Mr. 
 Fox as secretary for foivign atlairs ; and the nation 
 conceived a hope that a body of men was seated in 
 power, pledged to adopt a lilH-ral line of action, and 
 effective enough to succeed in it. Nor wci-e the 
 new ministers lax in performing their promises : 
 a series of bills and resolutions was proposed and 
 carried, which jiurified the constitution in several 
 essential branches. Peace was ottered to the Dutch ; 
 all contractors with governnuiit were excluded 
 from seats in the cnnnnoiis ; custom and excise 
 officers were incapacitated from voting at elections; 
 the arbitrary proceedings against Wilkes were ex- 
 punged from the journal of the house ; Burke's 
 reform bill abolished numberless u.seless places; and 
 the discontent of Ireland was judiciously appeased 
 by an honest recognition of the in<le])endence of her 
 legislature. It is however one of the curiosities in the 
 history of oiu' |iarty politics, that these men defeated 
 Mr. l'itt"s well concerted proposal for a nform of 
 the House of Conniions. The sudden death of the 
 Manjuis of Rockingham jiut an imlorcseen period 
 
 champion of arbitrary government that b;id appeared since 
 the Revolution ; to he a Bute with far greater jwiwcrs; a 
 Manslield with far greater courage. Happily I. is father's 
 death liberated him early from the pernicious inlliience by 
 which he had been misled. His miiul expanded. His range 
 of observation became wider. His genius broke through 
 early prejudices. His natural benevolence and magnaniiiiily 
 bad lair iday. In a very short lime he appeared in a situa 
 tlon worthy of his underslanding and of his heart. From n 
 family whose name was associ.ited in the public mind with 
 tyranny and corruption; from a party of which the iheoiv 
 and tile practice were einmlly servile; from the midst cifllie 
 I.utlicIlK, the Dysons, the Darriiigtons, came Inrlh the great 
 est iiarliaiiunlary defender of civil .iiid rcligiuiis lilu-rly." — 
 Eiliiihiirijlt lleriiw.
 
 224 
 
 WESTMINSTER ABBEY. 
 
 to this state of thing's. The ministi-y were divided 
 in their choice of a leader to fill the vacancy : Fox, 
 Burke, Sheridan, and their friends considered the 
 appointment to belong to the Duke of Portland, by 
 virtue of a previous understandin2; ; but the Earl 
 of Shelburne obtained it privately from the king. 
 When Mr. Fox waited upon his Majesty he was 
 told, not only that the Premier's place had been 
 given away, but that Lord Shelburne's office of 
 secretary of state had been filled up without any 
 consultation with him or his friends. Not to resign 
 (for which he was afterwards much blamed) under 
 such circumstances seemed to him unavoidable, 
 and the step was quickly adopted. 
 
 This step involved some consequences of peculiar 
 interest ; the first was the nomination of Mr. Wil- 
 liam Pitt to be Chancellor of the Exchequer ; the 
 second, a peace ; and the third, a coalition between 
 the friends of Fox and Lord North. The session 
 of 1783 had no sooner opened, than the opposition, 
 now doubly strong, commenced a fierce attack upon 
 the new ministry. Little interest, however, was ex- 
 cited by their speeches or proceedings, their incon- 
 sistency was too gross not to be severely censured. 
 The junction of two parties who for years had 
 maintained different principles, and pursued op- 
 posite measures, bore evidence of no other purpose 
 than a forcible resumption of place. It must also 
 be admitted, that the course pursued by Mr. Fox 
 and his adherents, amounted very nearly to an act 
 of tergiversation ; for their declaration had all 
 along been that Lord North, as a minister, was in- 
 capable and corrupt : obnoxious in his policy, and 
 ruinous in his undertakings. The same Lord North 
 however reappeared without deviating to any marked 
 degree from his former line of action, while Mr. Fox 
 seemed to hold that right now which he had recently 
 opposed as wrong. Thus the coalition was deserved- 
 ly unpopular, but prevailing in both houses by a 
 censorious majority, it soon displaced the ministry, 
 and Mr. Fox again became the secretary for foreign 
 affairs, and secured for his intimate friends their 
 former places. 
 
 The fate of the coalition ministry supplies a lesson 
 to statesmen ; it was established to all appearances 
 upon a strong parliamentary foundation, yet proved 
 as short-lived as the weakest association of political 
 adventurers could have been. In Lord North and 
 his old colleagues were found all the advantages 
 derivable from experience in office, and a long 
 established and intimate acquaintance with the 
 king's peculiar habits and views of government ; in 
 Fox, Burke, Sheridan, Dunning, and Barre, the 
 power of genius, and the light of liberal knowledge 
 were conspicuous ; while in the rank and property 
 of the connections of the two parties, all that 
 aristocratic influence was shown which is considered 
 necessary to the stability of an administrative body 
 in this country. Nevertheless, there was a secret 
 poison in the composition of the cabinet which it 
 was impossible to eradicate or overcome : forced 
 upon the crown, and indifferent to the people, it 
 was soon violently dissolved, and has never been 
 regretted as a public loss. And yet the use to 
 which Mr. Fox's party, for it certainly predomi- 
 nated, applied their authority, was not unworthy of 
 their character and principles. After opening a 
 way to the conciliation of America, they applied 
 themselves to the refoi-m of our Indian government, 
 and thus evinced the sincerity of their attachment 
 
 to those measures which they had been the first to 
 recommend as indispensable to the welfare of the 
 empire. The famous bill introduced by Mr. Fox 
 for this latter end is well known to have disclosed 
 the rock upon which he split. It was opposed by 
 Mr. Pitt in the commons, because it violated the 
 charter guaranteed to the company by all the forms 
 of law, and rejected by the lords, because the king 
 conceived its provisions to be so many infringements 
 upon the prerogative of the crown, which he strained 
 his utmost influence to preserve. 
 
 This being the first and perhaps the greatest 
 measure of oi'iginal legislation proposed by Mr. Fox, 
 it may not be misplaced to notice briefly the prin- 
 cipal opinions advanced for and against it. On all 
 hands, it was agreed that our East India affairs had 
 been grievously mismanaged ; that the company, if 
 not in a state of insolvency, was at least so deeply 
 embarrassed as to be incapable of preserving their 
 possessions for any length of time ; and that great and 
 indefensible wrongs had been inflicted upon the 
 natives. The imperious necessity of some radical 
 cure for these disorders was evident, and it may be 
 added that the nature of Mr. Fox's remedy was 
 judicious, because when Mr. Pitt afterwards came to 
 legislate upon the subject, he only modified the pro- 
 ject of his rival, and accomplished by a circuitous 
 what he would have effected by a direct course. 
 Between the two bills there was less a difference of 
 the objects to be realized, than of the means em- 
 ployed to attain them. Mr. Fox proposed that the 
 affairs of the company, both territorial and connner- 
 cial, should be taken out of the hands of the court of 
 proprietors, and the court of directors, and be vested 
 in eight commissioners, who were to hold their 
 places upon the same tenure as English judges, and 
 be appointed, in the first instance, by the parlia- 
 ment, but afterwards by the crown. Mr. Pitt, on 
 the other hand, allowed the company to conduct its 
 commercial affairs, but placed the government of 
 its territories under a board of control, which is 
 solely constituted by, and during the pleasure of the 
 crown. Of the objections urged against Mr. Fox's 
 proposal, those which seemed to have carried the 
 most weight, were, first, that the infraction of the 
 charter granted by the crown, guaranteed by par- 
 liament, and paid for by the company, was unjusti- 
 fiable. Thatargument, however, wasnot ill answered 
 by observing, that any contract, however sanctioned, 
 must become morally vitiated, when it operates to 
 the injury and oppression of mankind : Burke re- 
 marked with reason, that the parliament had sold 
 an exclusive jjrivilege to trade, but not a license to 
 rob and tyrannise. The second objection was, that 
 the administration of a government by a Board of 
 commissioners was new and unconstitutional : but 
 this also might have been met by a refei'ence to the 
 political government of Ireland, which had been re- 
 peatedly superintended by a board of lords justices; 
 and a precedent for a commercial administration of 
 the same sort, was to be found in the institution of 
 the board of trade during the i-eign of king William. 
 The third objection was, that a nomination to office 
 by any authority, save the crown, as well as the es- 
 tablishment of commissioners to officiate for life, 
 were things unknown to the constitution, and incon- 
 sistent with its interests : that they were unknown 
 is undeniable ; that they would have proved incon- 
 sistent with its mterests remains a problem. This 
 provision however was seized upon more than any
 
 CHARLES JAMES FOX. 
 
 225 
 
 other as an irresistible arjjument for rejectinjij the 
 bill ; it being vi()lentl_v couteiided, that if it passed 
 the Whigs would obtain an extent of jiati'onage so 
 valuable and enduring as to give them a tenure of 
 office wholly independent both of parliament and 
 the crown. In tine, Mr. Fox's proposal was cha- 
 racteristic of the man ; it was spirited, uncompro- 
 mising, liberal, and strongly defined ; and it is 
 doubtful whether he would have diminished the in- 
 fluence of the crown more than his rival increased 
 it. It should not be forgotten that the speech in 
 which he introduced the measure, is universally 
 considered one of the most powerful and brilliant 
 he ever delivered. 
 
 Upon the rejection of the bill by the lords, the 
 king availed himself of the discomfiture of the ob- 
 noxious coalition to appoint j\Ir. Pitt pi'emier. But, 
 as the former party still retained a majority in the 
 House of Commons, the new administration was 
 outvoted in a series of motions, intended to jirove 
 that no minister ought to remain in office without 
 the support of the conmions. Pitt resisted this op- 
 position with uncommon vigor and signal effect ; 
 but when he found it working the obstruction of all 
 public business, dissolved the parliament, and ap- 
 pealed to public opinion. The election of 17K4 
 established him firmly on an eminence, from which 
 his abilities enabled him to preside for years over 
 the affairs of his country, if not with unanimous 
 applause, certainly with memorable effect. No 
 less than IGO of Mr. Fox's party were rejected by 
 their former constituents, and even his own return 
 for Westminster was carried with difficulty. At 
 the final close of the poll, the received numbers 
 were, for Lord Hood, 0094; for Mr. Fox, G233; 
 and for Sir Cecil Wray, 5998. But such was the 
 violence of the contest, that a protest against Mr. 
 Fox's return was handed to the high bailiff, who, 
 moved, according to the common report, by par- 
 tiality, left it to a sci-utiny of the house, to deter- 
 mine the second member. So much time was 
 occupied in the adjustment of this difference, that 
 Mr. Fox's friends found it necessary to procui'e 
 him an intermediate election for a borough; upon 
 the final declaration of the house in his favour, he 
 brought an action against the high bailiff for his 
 misconduct, when damages to the amount of 2000/. 
 were obtained from him, and distributed by Mr. 
 Fox amongst the different charities of Westmin- 
 ster. Upon this occasion he surprised his most 
 intimate friends and warmest admirers by the mi- 
 rmte information he disj)layed with respect to the 
 practice of election committees, to a)>struse points 
 in the statutes bearing upon such proceedings, and 
 a profound aiicl accurate perception of the law and 
 constitution of i)arliament. 
 
 Mr. Pitt now carried every question with a large 
 majority, but as Mr. Fox still headed an opposition 
 respectable in jioint of numbers, and great in power, 
 th(! ])olitics of the country were debated for a scries 
 of years, with a display of energy and talent, such 
 ;is hud seldom been witnessed and has ni.'ver been 
 siir|iasscd. Whatever too might have been the prin- 
 ciples with which Mr. l''ox set out in |iulilic life, 
 whatever the innnediate motives that brought about 
 his first cliange, or led to his more recent connexion 
 with Lord Nortfi, itcamiot be doubted, that mature 
 nflcction had now brought him to co-operate head 
 and he;irt with that party, which rests its claims to 
 public su])iJort upon ius devotion to the popular 
 
 features of the constitution, and regards the invio- 
 lability and progressive extension of the rights of 
 personal freedom as the most vital eknunt '\)f the 
 British constitution. These principles he apjilied to 
 governments in general, thus enlarging with com- 
 prehensive generosity tlic cause of liberty throughout 
 the world. Bound as we are to notice his weaker 
 these the better parts of his nature and jiublic ser- 
 vices, should not be overlooked or undervalued. 
 Short as some passages of his career may have 
 fallen of that high standard by which a mind such 
 as he possessed is properly to be measund, no 
 second instance, perhaps, can be pomted out, where 
 a statesman carried with him, into the seat of 
 power, more of those just and noble feelings which 
 actuated him while a competitor for place, or who 
 left behind him a light, when he was snatched from 
 the scene, by which his successors were led to dis- 
 cover principles and effect results, possibly neither 
 foreseen nor contemplated by him, but not the less 
 legitimately the offspring of the sjiirit he cherished 
 and the seed he sowed in the constitution of his coun- 
 try. In power lie had no long experience; it was 
 his lot to pass by far the greater portion of his life 
 in the ranks of opposition; and it is in the character 
 of a leader to that wholesome portion of the British 
 legislature, that he takes a pi'ominent i>lace in the 
 political history of his era. It was, therefore, as an 
 orator and prupounder of liberal ojiinions, that he 
 chiefly attained so nmch credit and intluenec amidst 
 a host of men whose eloquence and abilities, natu- 
 ral as well as acquired, were pre-eminent. If he had 
 not the varied philosophy and dazzling imagery of 
 Burke, the bright conceit and studied elegance of 
 Sheridan, the fine and Horid rotundity of Pitt, he 
 yet possessed those original qualities wliicli can 
 never fail to create a powerful impression upon a 
 popular body of the most cultivattd description. 
 With sufKcient fervour to prove his earnestness, and 
 enough of passion to warm courage, he showed that 
 he felt more than he acted; and borrowed little or 
 no effect from the mei'e beauties of speech. As 
 tropes and figures gave no charm to his style, so 
 his delivery was seldom studiously impressive, or 
 his action gracefully varied. An ease of manner 
 and frankness of disjiosition were the most percep- 
 tible traits of his nature; and a j)eculiar happiness 
 of sim]>lification and convinciveness combined, was 
 the leading chai-acteristic of liis ekxiuence. He 
 divested the most intricate subject of its difliculties 
 in the fewest and most intelligible terms, solved the 
 doubts it involvi'd with the nicest facility, and 
 ]ilaced its innate strength in naked ]iurity Ixforc 
 tlie api)rehension of his heari rs. Pirliajis, in this 
 respect, he may bt' consiihred to have shown the 
 way to that goitlemanly style of fastidious famili- 
 arity, which distinguishes the subdui'd declama- 
 tion of existing orators in the House of Connuous. 
 To this excellence was sujieradiK'd nmch of close 
 ri'asoning and acute logic, though rather episodi- 
 cally introduced than systematically arranged, and 
 a generous exhibition of those I'ldarged views « liiidi 
 supirior understandings only can conceive or illus- 
 trate. Nc'ver trilling, ami scldcjiu desultory, lu^ 
 proceeded direct u|ion the vital |)oints of every 
 great question, and aiine<l at an innnediate triunqdi 
 of conviction; but it is impossible to desciibe here 
 how often or how well the success was repi'Uted. 
 
 The circumstances under which Fox began this, 
 his second courst' of o|)iiositioii, were highly unfa-
 
 22C 
 
 WESTMINSTER ABBEY. 
 
 vourable: the voice of the public was loudly de- 
 clared against the course he had lately adopted; 
 the influence of the government was powerfully 
 applied to run liim down, and it was not without a 
 severe and expensive struggle that he carried his 
 election for Westminster, as just described. But 
 as he soon resumed, with an energy peculiarly liis 
 own, the advocacy of popular measures, and perse- 
 vered in attacking every act and principle of the 
 minister that afforded a cause of dispute, or pretext 
 for censure, he gradually recovered his hold on the 
 affections of his countrymen; and if Mr. Pitt con- 
 tinued the most powerful, Mr. Fox remained the 
 most popular, subject of the realm. 
 
 The impeachment of Warren Hastings was the 
 next memorable proceeding that engaged a share 
 of his exertions; but as that is noticed in the life 
 of Hastings, no account of its origin or end is 
 offered hei-e. 
 
 In i7H8, Fox proposed to seek relief by a 
 journey into France and Italy, taking as a compa- 
 nion Mrs. Armstead, a lady to whom he allied 
 liimself by a private marriage, and for whom he 
 always evinced a warm affection. The pleasures 
 of the excursion were suddenly interrupted by the 
 King's illness, and he returned with speed to Lon- 
 don. On the parliamentary debates that now ensued, 
 respecting the choice of a regent, it cannot be desir- 
 able to dilate : Whigs and Tories distinguished 
 themselves bj' their eloquence; but the recovery of 
 the monarch put a period to diffei'ences, respecting 
 which it perhaps may be fairly declared, with the dis- 
 putant in the " Vicar of Wakefield," that much is to 
 be said on both sides. Strong objections were urged 
 against the line of argument adopted by Mr. Fox 
 and his adherents, in maintaining that the Prince 
 of Wales had an inherent right to the regency, and 
 nearly as much offence was taken at the declaration 
 of Mr. Pitt, that his royal highness had no more 
 right to a preference than any other subject. If, 
 liowever, Fox^s meaning may be explained in the 
 sense of claim, and tiie construction is by no means 
 forced, his views will not appear unreasonable; for 
 assuredly nature, if not law, seemed to designate 
 the heir apparent for the office. Be this as it may, 
 the sense of the nation appears to have C(jincided 
 with another affirmation made by Mr. Pitt, that 
 parliament alone had a right to provide for the 
 emergency. 
 
 A greater epoch now approached, and Fox ac- 
 quired higher reputation under the singular events 
 that characterised it. In the years 1790 and 1791, 
 Mr. Pitt pi'oposed to go to war with Spain and 
 Russia ; but was successfully controlled by I\Ir. 
 Fox, who convinced the country of the impropriety 
 of such a pi'oceeding. 
 
 The French revolution next broke out, and he 
 earned his title of the " Man of the People." 
 Warmed by the apparent triumph on the continent 
 of those liberal principles of government which he 
 had so often contended for at home, he stood forth, 
 without hesitation, one of their first and most en- 
 thusiastic advocates on this occasion, and even ad- 
 hered to them long after the fair promises they had 
 held out, had disappeared in a tumult of violence 
 and bloodshed. — " The evil," he said, " was strong, 
 and must receive a strong cure: it were best, there- 
 fore, to let the change work its own consequences." 
 When the infatuation of the Republican leaders 
 provoked the English ministry into a war, he re- 
 
 probated with peculiar earnestness and force the 
 impolicy of our interference with the domestic busi- 
 ness of another nation, condemning the injustice 
 of fighting against free principles, and ridiculing 
 the idea of preserving the constitution at liome from 
 the contagion of foi-eign example, by protracting 
 hostilities, which were in themselves a bar to the 
 settlement of the uiternal dissensions we complained 
 of and sought to punish. But the excitement pro- 
 duced by the conduct of the French was so ener- 
 getic, the language expressed by the friends of civil 
 and religious freedom so uncompromising, and the 
 anarchy on the continent so startling, that many 
 former advocates of liberal measures were ten-or- 
 struck. In England, a cry of self-preservation was 
 vehemently raised, and in the agitation to which 
 it gave bii'th, Fox had the mortification to see him- 
 self abandoned by many old and influential sup- 
 ported. Malignant abuse was heaped upon his 
 character ; and some writers were so daring as to 
 pronounce him a reckless partisan of the worst 
 political heresy, and a profligate enemy to the con- 
 stitution of his country. 
 
 The first and most important of these separations 
 took place with Burke, who may almost be termed his 
 political father, and whose horror of the I'evolution 
 amounted to an intellectual frenzy. He and Fox 
 had ceased to meet often or intimately in 1790, and 
 early in the next session. Fox took occasion in 
 alluding to the new state of things in France, to 
 express an opinion favourable to their success, and 
 regret the inconsistency of the latter in not coin- 
 ciding with him. Burke instantly replied, with all 
 the heat characteristic of his temper and his oi-a- 
 tory, and perhaps no scene more passionately affect- 
 ing than that which ensued is to be instanced in 
 our Parliamentary history. " Mr. Fox and I have 
 often differed," said he, "and there has been no 
 loss of friendship between us ; but there is some- 
 thing in this accursed French constitution that 
 envenoms every thing." " There is no loss of friend- 
 ship between us," whispered Fox, — "But there is!" 
 replied Burke : " I know the price of my conduct ; 
 our friendship is at an end." — In this altercation, 
 the tenderness of Fox's nature was amiabl)' evinced; 
 he burst into tears while adverting to their severed 
 friendship, and made repeated concessions. But 
 Burke resisted every offer of reconciliation — offers 
 too, which it is painful to add were reiterated even 
 at his death-bed, and even then rejected. 
 
 ]\Iomentous years of strife abroad and discontent 
 at home passed over, and Fox remained stedfast 
 in the duties imposed upon the leader of an oppo- 
 sition, whose pride it was to stand by the declining 
 popularity of civil and religious freedom in England. 
 In 1790 he moved the House of Commons to relieve 
 the dissenters, by a repeal of the Test and Corpora- 
 tion Acts, but was baffled by overwhelming numbers. 
 A better fortune attended his exertions to improve 
 the law of libel, by giving juries a right to bring in 
 a general verdict of guilty or not guilty, upon the 
 whole matter charged befoi'e them, and thus correct 
 the fatal prescription of the judges, who used up to 
 that period to lay it down as law, that the proof 
 of a publication supplied evidence of a guilty inten- 
 tion, and sufficed for a verdict. The act now passed, 
 made the jury equal judges of the law and the fact 
 of the case, and it is still gratefully distinguished 
 by the name of its author. Nor was he less zealous 
 in enforcing the necessity of a Parliamentary re-
 
 CHARLES JAMES FOX. 
 
 227 
 
 fiirm, that vitiil question, wliicli was abandoned by 
 Mr. Pitt when he took ottice, as a bait to win the 
 favour of royalty, aiul llie corrupt courtiers who 
 fatten upon its induij;ence. He also appeared with 
 enviable assiduity and happy eminence, in the sup- 
 port wiiich he gave first to Mr., now Earl Grey, 
 and tlien to ^Ir. Wilbei-force, in tliose noble aspira- 
 tions of philantiiropy, by which the slave-trade was 
 denounced and ultimately suppressed. 
 
 This conduct begot a correspcniding spirit in his 
 constituents; at the election for 17!>(> ho headed the 
 poll for Westminster by a consideralile majority : 
 the numbers stood, for Mr. Fox, 5160 ; for Lord 
 Hood, 4814 ; and for Mr. Home Tooke, 2819. In 
 the new Parliament matters proceeded as of old, 
 the ministry were decisive and superior, the oppo- 
 sition compact and energetic. Unusual violence 
 and rancour were now displayed by botli parties, 
 the nation was split into contending factions. Clubs 
 and associations were formed, and public meetings 
 held ; declamation and tumult were the order of 
 the day, and were making a powerful impression 
 upon the public mind and organising formidable 
 bodies of supportei-s ; "the sovereignty of the people" 
 became a favourite toast at their reunions; and for 
 proposing it at a public dinner, Mr. Fox's name was 
 struck from the Privy Council in l^Liy 17!)8. Soon 
 after this, either his patience or his fortitude seems 
 to have been exhausted ; notwithstanding all the 
 ])opularity with which his exertions were crowned, 
 the administration stood deaf to his warnings and 
 unmoved by his opposition, and at last he ceased to 
 frequent the House. Things remained nearly in 
 this state until the Union was declared with Ire- 
 land, and the treatment experienced by the Roman 
 Catholics occasioned a change of ministers. Mr. 
 Addington succeeded to power, the peace of Amiens 
 was negociated, and Mr. Fox came forward to bear 
 testimony to the merits of that measure. 
 
 The restoration of tranquillity having thus secured 
 the great objects for which he had so long con- 
 tended. Fox expressed a wish to retire from public 
 life, at the approaching dissolution of Parliament. 
 But the importunity of his friends overruled the 
 desire, and he was prevailed upon to stand another 
 contest for Westminster in 1802 ; when the voters 
 were, for Mr. Fox. 2fi73 ; for Sir Alan Gardiner, 
 24:{4 ; and for Mr! Graham, 1691. It was after 
 this election that he paid the visit to Paris, which 
 was so much noticed on account of the distinguished 
 reee])tion he met with from Buonaparte, tlien First 
 Consul, who entertained him at a pulilic dinner, and 
 placed his bust in the library of the Tuileries. it 
 wa-s also during this year that he pronounced in 
 the House of Commons his celebrated eulogy upon 
 his friend the Duke of Bedford: it is said to be the 
 only speech he corrected for the i>resH. 
 
 No man could stand higher in pul)lic estimation 
 than Mr. Fox n(jw did ; but notwillistanding the 
 unpopularity anil signal failure of his former coali- 
 tion will) Lord North, he seems to have still been 
 not disinclined to such compromises, and to have 
 been l>y no means fastidious in tiie use of expedients 
 to obtain i)lace : the measures of a minister were 
 with him a]i|iareiitly the only things of motmnt. 
 Rumours of a conjiiiiction between him and Mr. I'itt 
 were invidiously cireulatiMl wIhii tin' latter 'lisplac<'d 
 Mr. Addington ; and considerable disiillcetion wuh 
 expressed at the concessions wiiieli be made, when 
 the death of Mr. Pitt, in UlOG, once more opened 
 
 tlie cabinet to him. At this juncture he united 
 with Lord (irenville, gave a seat in the cabinet to 
 Lord KUenborough, even promised the king not to 
 brmg forward the Catholic question, and agreed to 
 continue the war recommenced by his rival. The 
 last inconsistency was in a great degree forgiven, in 
 consequence of his earnest declaration that he de- 
 sired a peace most cordially, and would certainly 
 establish it as soon as the interests of the country 
 would permit. In resuming ottice he fouiul the nation 
 involved in war, which, to be closed with honour, 
 must obviously, jis he contended, be prosecuted with 
 vigour. 
 
 At last, after years of opposition, the undisturbed 
 possession of oftice seemed to be reserved for Mr. 
 Fox. His great competitor was no more, but it 
 was too late for the enjoyment of ambition ; the 
 limits of his own existence cut short his career. 
 His health, already on the decline, was now further 
 weakened by the fatigues of office, and bis regular 
 attendance in parliament became interrupted. A 
 fatal disease, dropsy, made its apjiearance with a 
 force that battled the skill of his physicians, and 
 it became manifest that bis life and services ap- 
 proached theli' close. The operations usually re- 
 sorted to in such complaints were twice performed 
 upon him without producing any effect, and be ex- 
 pired without a struggle at the Duke of Devon- 
 shire's villa, in Chiswick, on the evening of Satur- 
 day, September 13, 1806. TIius his administration 
 endured for no more than six months ; but even 
 that brief period sufficed to his signal capacity 
 for Some great works of imperishable honour and 
 importance. In this interval he procured a Inunane 
 law for tiie purpose of limiting the duration of 
 military service, and immortalised bis memory by 
 the abolition of the slave trade, a measure to which 
 Mr. Pitt had only given the aid of his oratory, but 
 which Mr. Fox solenndy carried through both 
 houses of parliament, and in the face of an opposition 
 from which almost any other minister would have 
 shruidi. The virtue of this act, which would alone 
 suffice to consecrate his fame, is above all praise : 
 there is too nnicli reason to suppose that, had it 
 not been achieved by so intrepid a friend to 
 humanity, its enormities might have subsisted for 
 years, and Great Britain might have been dej)rived 
 of the glory which this example set to the world. 
 
 Mr. Fox's funeral took jilace on the aimiversary 
 of his first election for Westminster, October 10, 
 1806. The ceremony was ])erformed with great 
 pomp ; the streets through which the procession 
 passed were lined with the VVestininstir Volunteers, 
 the bells of all the ]>arish churches tolled :us it 
 moved along, and most of tlic shops througiiout tiie 
 metropolis were closed during the day as a mark of 
 pul)lic sorrow. His grave was sunk in the great 
 north cross, close to the coHin of Mr. Pitt : liis 
 monument is pku-ed in the adjoining aisle. It wiis 
 executed by .Sir K. Westmacotl, ]{. A. and com- 
 ])rises fcjiir statues as large as litV. A heavy figure 
 of the <li-ceased a|i|iears extended on a mattress, 
 with Liberty supporting his head, and Peace hang- 
 ing forward ovir his feet. In front is a slave on his 
 knees, looliiiig at tlio expiring statesman and ex- 
 pressing with clas|ied liaiids his thanks for the 
 rmaiicipation of his race. There is no epitajih 
 or inscription. It is ;i costly perforinance, but dull 
 in ilcsign. ;ind ordinary in jHiiiit of execnlion. Of 
 the four figures tliusln\e aloiie exbihils niei'il, and
 
 228 
 
 WESTMINSTER ABBEY. 
 
 yet there is something comic in the appearance of 
 a thick-lipped negro in wliite marble. 
 
 In person Mr. Fox was short, broad, and prone 
 to corpulence: his features were peculiarly striking, 
 his eye-brows black and bushy, and the general 
 expression of his featui'es indicative of deep sagacity. 
 Of his excellent qualities, the most flattering testi- 
 monies abound : mild and attractive in his manners, 
 he ctmibined the simplicity of childhood with the 
 strength of genius, and has been described by Gib- 
 bon as the being, of ail that are human, most per- 
 fectly exempt from a taint of malevolence, vanity, 
 or falsehood. When to this character is added 
 Burke's estimate, and, be it remembered, he gave 
 it years after their disunion, that he wa.s a man 
 made to be beloved, it will be easily admitted tliat 
 the numerous friends by whom he was so constantly 
 caressed, had no common cause for their attach- 
 ment. But if his virtues were eminent, his failings 
 were also great : he dissipated an independent 
 fortune within a few years after he inherited it, 
 and almost to the last stage of life seriously in- 
 jured his character by pernicious associations and 
 habits. Even in the very meridian of his fame 
 he gave laws to St. Stephen's one day, and to New- 
 market the next. The feelings of his friends ujion 
 this subject may be gathered from one of Horace 
 Walpole's letters, in which he is described as a 
 broken gamester: "The moi'e marvellous Mr. Fox's 
 parts, the more one is provoked at his follies, which 
 comfort so many rascals and blockheads, and make 
 all that is admirable and amiable in him, only a 
 matter of regret to those who love him as I do." 
 And yet strong as his passion for play was, it never 
 made him mean, or hardened the natural generosity 
 of his disposition. He used to consider the charm 
 of the gaming table to be in the pursuit and not in 
 the attainment of the object in view, and asserted 
 that men in general were allured to it less by the love 
 of money than by the love of excitement. We find 
 the appalling fact recorded, of his having remained 
 at hazard for 22 consecutive hours, losing at the rate 
 of 5001. in each hour. So infatuated indeed was he 
 with this passion, that he was once heard to declare 
 the greatest pleasure in life was to play and win, and 
 the next greatest to play and lose. Under this 
 stimulating course of life, it is wonderful to think 
 that he sustained his part as a politician and pre- 
 served his honour from corruption. The equa- 
 nimity of his mind was truly beautiful, and shone 
 with a redeeming lustre upon occasions which we 
 should otherwise be unable to contemplate without 
 disgust. Wraxall in his memoirs relates, that 
 
 Topham Beauclerk quitted him once at six o'clock 
 in the morning, after having passed the vvliole night 
 unsuccessfully at Faro. He called upon him in the 
 evening, expecting to see him greatly depressed ; and 
 found him in his drawing room reading Hei'odotus 
 in the original. " What would you have me do ?" he 
 said; " I have lost my last shilling." The inevitable 
 consequences of a life of this description saddened 
 while they degraded the fall of liis life. Always in 
 debt, executions continually in his house, and indif- 
 ferent if notinsensible to the disgrace and dishonesty 
 of being unable to satisfy a single engagement he 
 contracted, he at last became a pensioner upon his 
 party, the richer members of which paid a sort of 
 private contribution annually, which formed his only 
 means of livins; for several years. 
 
 As an author, Mr. Fox is known by some pieces 
 of minor poetry ; a few papers in the Englishman ; 
 a letter to the electors of Westminster, published 
 in 1703, and read with great avidity ; and a post- 
 humous publication, edited by his nephew, Lord 
 Holland, and entitled "The History of the Early 
 Part of the Reign of James II., with an Intro- 
 ductory Chapter." This fragment he intended to 
 enlarge into a History of the Revolution, but no 
 great regret has been expressed for the loss of it, 
 as the specimen does not exhibit any merit equal 
 to the general reputation of the writer. H is sj>eeches 
 have been collected together, and printed in 3 vols. 
 8vo. 
 
 The following lines, written by his warm friend, 
 Georgiana, Duchess f)f Devonshire, for an inscrip- 
 tion to a bust at Woburn, contain perhaps the 
 highest poetical eulogy that has been delivered 
 upon his character : — 
 
 " Here, midst the friends he loved, the man behold, 
 In truth unshaken, and in virtue bold ; 
 Whose patriot soul and uneorr.ipted mind 
 Dared to assert the freedom of mankind ; 
 And whilst, extending desolation far. 
 Ambition spread the baleful llames of war, 
 Fearless of blame, and eloquent to save, 
 'Twas he — 'twas Fox, the warning counsel gave, 
 'Midst jarring conquests stemm'd the tide of blood, 
 And to the menaced world a sea-mark stood ! 
 
 Oh ! had his voice in mercy's cause prevail'd. 
 What grateful millions had the statesman hail'd; 
 Whose wisdom bade the broils of nations cease, 
 And taught the world liumanity and peace! 
 But though he fail'd, succeeding ages here 
 The vain yet pious eflbrt shall revere. 
 Boast in their annals his illustrious name. 
 Uphold his greatness, and confirm his fame !" 
 
 PASCAL DE PAOLI. 
 
 In the great south aisle is a handsome bust and 
 tablet, by Flaxman, to the memory of this once 
 popular patriot and general. The bust has been 
 much praised for the fidelity of its resemblance to 
 the original; the inscription, which seems to have 
 been penned by an English courtier, and is not 
 accurately true in all its statements, presents itself 
 in the following order: — 
 
 D. O.M. 
 
 To the Memory of 
 Pasquale de Paoli, 
 
 One of the most eminent and most illustrious 
 
 characters . 
 
 Of the age in which he lived. 
 
 He was born at Rostino, in Corsica, April the 5th, 
 
 1725, 
 
 Was universally cliosen, at the age of thirty. 
 
 Supreme head of that island. 
 
 And died in this Metropolis, February the 5th, 1807, 
 
 aged 82 years. 
 
 The earlier and better part of his life he devoted to 
 
 The cause of Liberty ; 
 
 Nobly maintaining it against the usurpation
 
 PASCAL DE PAOLI. 
 
 229 
 
 of Genoese and French tyranny: 
 
 by his many and splendid achievements, 
 
 his useful and benevolent institutions, 
 
 his patriotic and public zeal manifested upon every 
 
 occasion. 
 
 He, amongst the few who have merited so glorious 
 
 a title, 
 
 most justly deserves to be hailed 
 
 The Father of his Country, 
 
 Being obliged by the superior force of his enemies 
 
 to retire from Corsica, 
 
 he sought refuge in this land of liberty, 
 
 and was here most graciously received 
 
 (amidst the general apjilause of a magnanimous 
 
 nation) 
 
 into the protection of his majesty, King George 
 
 the Third, 
 
 by whose fostering hand and munificence 
 
 he not only obtained a safe and honourable asylum, 
 
 but was enabled during the remainder of his days, 
 
 to enjoy the society of his friends and faithful 
 
 followers, 
 
 in affluent and dignified retirement. 
 
 He expressed to the last moment of his life the 
 
 most 
 
 Grateful sense of his I\Iajesty's paternal goodness 
 
 towards him, 
 
 Praying for the preservation of his sacred person, 
 
 and the prosperity of his domhiions. 
 
 The foreigner thus distinguished amongst us was 
 the second son of Hiacinte Paoli, an officer who 
 was created a marquis, grand treasurer, and mar- 
 shal-general of the island, during the transitory 
 reign of the unfortunate Theodore the First, King 
 of Corsica. Upon the interference of the French 
 with the affairs of his country, the marquis sought 
 a retreat in Naples, and there devoted himself to 
 young Pascal, whose talents displayed themselves 
 with remarkable precocity. The Jesuits who edu- 
 cated him, prophesied his celebrity: after being in- 
 troduced at court, he received a commission in the 
 Neapolitan service. Taught to cherish a strong 
 love for his native isle, to retain a just sense of her 
 wrongs, and a hatred of her oppressors, he began 
 life vividly impressed with the spirit of the many 
 noble passages in the ancient classics, which incul- 
 cate the love of libei-ty; and from his very youth 
 projected the enfranchisement of his fellow-coun- 
 trymen. Their position was well calculated to excite 
 the sympathy of a young and ardent mind. The 
 dominion of the republic of Genoa over that devoted 
 island had grown more sanguinary the longer it 
 lasted; men obnoxious to the ruling tyranny, whom 
 the process of the law couhl not reach, were darkly 
 removed by the dagger of the assassin; the ])atieiice 
 of the people was exhausted, and then at last des- 
 pair arose. The Corsicans conspired, invitations 
 and entreaties were addressed to all who could co- 
 operate or lead in the work of deliverance ; and 
 amongst others, Paoli revisited the land of his 
 birth for the avowed pui-posc of emanci[iating it 
 from a foreign yoke. 
 
 Upon his first arrival, h(^ undertook the post of 
 secretary to a kinsman, naiiud Caflori, who |)rac- 
 tised as a [>hysiciaii, and had been chosen one of 
 the insurgent chiefs. He was soon assaHsinatcd, 
 and then J'aoli claimed t\w vacant leadership, lie 
 was ojjposed by a Signor Matra; and so violently 
 did the spirit of partisanship rage amongst the 
 
 friends of liberty, that a sort of battle was fought 
 between the supporters of the rival candidates, in 
 which the Paolists were beaten, and compelled to 
 fly. Matra, therefore, succeeded in his election; 
 but, ere long, shared the fate of Cafl'ori, and then 
 Paoli succeeded, acquiring a jiower far more ample 
 than he either expected, or seems at first to have 
 desired. A general assembly of the generals, and 
 re}n-esentatives from the different towns and pa- 
 rishes, came to an unanimous vote, that one political 
 and general chief was indispensably necessary to 
 their common safety, and that General Paoli alone 
 was worthy of the post So far the tide of events ran 
 smooth and prosperous: a different course of things, 
 however, soon set in. Paoli found himself elected 
 chief without opposition, but also without any means 
 to support the power, save those he derived from 
 the resources of his own ingenuity; for there was 
 neither money in the treasury, nor arms in the 
 arsenal. In this ])redicament his first care was to 
 satisfy the people that he had no desire to arrogate 
 imcontrojled authority; he therefore took pains to 
 render all his acts and ordinances as strictly as 
 possible conformable to their ancient customs and 
 manners. He insisted upon the aid of two coun- 
 sellors of state, and a representative from one of 
 the jirovinces, who was changed every month. 
 
 While expelling the Genoese from nuuiy places 
 in the island where they still retained a fast and 
 dangerous hold, he attempted to ini]irove the con- 
 dition of the people, whom jn-otractcd thraldom had 
 sunk into a state of almost brutal depravity; he 
 opened a university at Corte, and directed the esta- 
 blishment of schools in every town and village. 
 Meanwhile, hostilities were carried on with varia- 
 ble success; the open country was cleared of the 
 Genoese, but the fortified towns offered no vain 
 resistance to the imtrained and ill armed natives. 
 Such a state of things was only to be overthrown 
 by desperate measures; and with a deep resolution 
 of expelling the tyrants, and securing the prosj)e- 
 rity of the island, Paoli led his little army to the 
 siege of the Castle of San Fiorenzo. It was com- 
 posed of brave and trusty men; better prepared 
 to " do or die," than instructed in tactics or the 
 modes of systematic attack; they were, moreover, 
 un])rovi(led with a single cannon. The injury they 
 could inflict upon a place regularly fortified and 
 defended, was therefore but trifiing; but they per- 
 severed firmly for years; the repulilic of Genoa be- 
 came seriously alai'nied; and to support its posses- 
 sions, sent forward a reinforcement of five hundred 
 men. At the end of a ten years' struggle a negotia- 
 tion was opened with France, which resulted as was 
 naturally to be expected from a power so successful 
 in intrigue, and ambitious of colonial jjower. Six 
 battalions of French troops invested the maritime 
 towns of Corsica, and (Jenoa unilcrtook to transfer 
 the island for 4,000,(1(10 livrrs, while conferences 
 were carried on with I'aoli, by which he was tacitly 
 confirmed in his chiefiaincy. A second ))0(ly of 
 troops from !•" ranee, under the Marquis of Chau- 
 velin, in \T(iii, canu; into contact with the independ- 
 ent army under I'aoli. This n'inforcenuMit con- 
 siHte<l of eight thousand nwn, ]U'otected by a fleet 
 of t('n sail, and gaimd advaulagi's in almost every 
 encounter with lln- undisci|>liuiMl natives. Still the 
 resist.-ince wsi-S gallani ; the ('orsicans generally suc- 
 ceeded in their sUirruishes, :ind the French com- 
 mander was compclle(l to apply for a(lditi<iual sup-
 
 2'M 
 
 WESTMINSTER ABBEY. 
 
 port from home. Paoli then collected all his strength 
 for a signal blow, and giving battle to the invaders, 
 September 5, iJGIi, completely triumphed. The 
 Fi'eneh lost four pieces of cannon, and the colours 
 of their royal legion, while their general was forced 
 to fly to Bastia for safety, where a truce highly 
 favourable to the cause of independence was readily 
 granted. This however was broken by Dumourier, 
 afterwards celebrated as the republican general, 
 and at that time an adjutant in the French forces 
 in Corsica. Convinced of what ought to have been 
 the result of a contest between forces so unequally 
 matched, he set the suspension of arms at defiance, 
 seized upon the post of Isola Rosa, and carried the 
 castle of Giralette by storm. 
 
 Thus revived, the struggle raged on with fury, 
 and the French government sent forward a third 
 body of reinforcements. The Corsicans still re- 
 sisted with spirit, but their valour could not long 
 resist numbers and arms so decidedly superior. 
 Paoli only ceased to fight when, one after the other, 
 liis followers had been cut off". After various 
 adventures, he succeeded in reaching an English 
 frigate, and was conveyed to Great Britain, where 
 his exertions were admired by men of all parties; 
 he was presented at court *, received a pension of 
 1200^. a-year, and thus was enabled to five in 
 affluence; caressed by the great, and befriended by 
 Johnson, Goldsmith, Reynolds, and the most emi- 
 nent men in literature and the arts. His table 
 always hospitably covered, every exile, like himself, 
 from a home and the continent, was welcome. 
 
 Three and twenty years had thus passed away, 
 when an unexpected event once more summoned 
 liim to political activity. France, on the eve of a 
 
 • Horace Walpole, writing to Sir H. Mann, observes, " I 
 fiave seen your friend Paoli. I found him last week at court, 
 and could not believe it when I was told who he was. I had 
 stood by hira lor some minutes, taking liim for an English, 
 or at least for a Scotch offtcer. Nobody, sure, ever had an 
 air so little foreign ! He was dressed in scarlet and goid, 
 and the simpliciiy of his whole appearance had not given 
 me the slightest suspicion of anything remarkable in him. 
 Afterwards in the circle, as he stood by me, he asked me 
 some indifferent question, without knowing me. I told him, 
 without naming myself, that you were my particular friend. 
 He said he had written many letters to you, but believed 
 they had been intercepted. I replied, I would do him jus- 
 tice, and tell you so. The king and queen both took great 
 notice of him. He has just made a tour to Bath, Oxford, 
 &c., and was every where received with distinction : so Mrs. 
 Macaulay, it seems, has not laid him under an interdict." 
 
 revolution, determined to make Corsica a depart- 
 ment, and secure to the people the same laws and 
 liberties as the great nation herself aspired to pos- 
 sess. To effect this, Paoli was invited to Paris. 
 After resigning his pension from the king of Great 
 Britain, he obeyed the invitation. Presented before 
 the bar of the National A.ssembly in 1 7'JO, he deli- 
 vered an eloquent address in favour of the claims 
 of his native country to justice and freedom, and 
 w&s ultimately voted into his former office, for 
 wliich, after swearing fidelity to the French king, 
 he set out at the jiublie expense. The death of 
 that monarch involved Paoli in difficulties as 
 arduous as any he had before encountered. Corsica 
 became the theatre of violent dissensions, and it 
 was soon evident that nothing short of uncontrolled 
 domuiion would satisfy the National Assembly. 
 Under these adverse prospects there only remained 
 the choice of a dependence either upon England or 
 upon France ; the former was preferred ; her fleet 
 was then riding triumphantly in the Mediterra- 
 nean; and Paoli sunnnoning a meeting of his coun- 
 trymen, proposed a union of Corsica with Great 
 Bi-itain. The project was received with acclama- 
 tion, and the British forces under Sir John Mooi'e 
 and Lord Nelson, expelled the French from the 
 island. 
 
 There is now left but little to add to the life of 
 Paoli, and that little is to be told with pain. Some 
 disagreements occurred between him and the Bri- 
 tish authorities, which became so unpleasant that, 
 sooner than remain in an offended position, he be- 
 came a voluntary exile, first in Italy, and after- 
 wards in England. At Leghorn he lost the re- 
 mains of his fortune by mercantile failures; and in 
 London was discountenanced by the court, and for 
 a while unrelieved by the government. He settled, 
 first in an obscure lodging near Oxford-sti'eet, and 
 afterwards in a small house in the Edgware-road. 
 Here it is that the account of his epitaph is incor- 
 rect: from this period, his life was certainly retir- 
 ed; it was also dignified, but it was by no means 
 affluent. The common opinion was, that our go- 
 vernment treated him ill: that we honourably pa- 
 tronised him while there appeared a likelihood of 
 our being benefited by his services, but publicly 
 neglected him when there remained nothing to be 
 acquired from his assistance. His life, therefore, 
 may be cited both as an example of the fickleness 
 of fortune, and the ingratitude of political asso- 
 ciations. 
 
 AGAR, EARL OF NORMANTON. 
 
 The monument of Dr. Agar, Archbishop of Dublm, 
 and Earl of Normanton, is in the north aisle, and 
 the work of Bacon, Junior. It is not a discredit- 
 able performance. The bishop, nearly in the size 
 of life, ai)pears in his robes, attended by his clergy 
 on one side, and distributing Bibles to the poor, 
 who gather round him on the other. On the pedes- 
 tal a perspective view of the present cathedral of 
 Cashe! is introduced, as to the buildiug of which 
 this prelate affected some pride, which will be a 
 .natter of surprise to those who know how majestic 
 wa-s the ancient edifice that was mad'j a ruin for 
 the sake of the modern structure. 
 
 Sacred to the Memory of 
 
 Charles Agar, D.D., Earl of Normanton, 
 
 And Archbishop of Dublin. 
 
 He was educated at Westminster School, and was 
 
 a student of Christ's Church, Oxford : 
 In I7C8 he was consecrated Bishop of Cloyne in 
 
 Ireland, 
 
 And translated from thence to the Archbishopric 
 
 of Cashel in 1779: 
 
 In 1795 he was created Baron Somerton, of 
 
 Somerton, in the County of Kilkenny, 
 
 And Viscount Somerton in 1800 : 
 
 In the following year he became Archbishop of
 
 AGAR, EARL OF NORMANTON. 
 
 231 
 
 Dublin, 
 
 And in 1806 was created Earl of Normanton. 
 
 He departed this life on the 14th of July, lliO'J, 
 
 Aged 72 years ; 
 
 And rests near this spot in the same grave with 
 
 his uncle, 
 
 The Right Honourable Welbore Ellis, 
 
 Baron Mendyp. 
 
 In the course of his Episcopal Labours, 
 
 No less than seventeen Churches, and twenty-two 
 
 Glebe Houses for the Residence of his Clergy 
 
 Were built under his direction and assistance ; 
 
 And he erected, principally at his own expense, 
 
 the Cathedral Church of Cashel. 
 
 As a Statesman and a Prelate, he was an able and 
 
 zealous supporter 
 
 Of the Religion which he professed and taught. 
 
 And of the Country at whose Councils he assisted. 
 
 His care for the welfare of the Church is testified 
 
 By the numerous Acts of Parliament which he 
 
 framed 
 
 For its permanent regulation and support. 
 
 The perfect state in which his Dioceses were left. 
 
 And the veneration imjiressed by his talents 
 
 and virtues 
 
 In the hearts of those over whom he presided, 
 
 Are far more noble Monuments 
 
 Than any which can be Erected 
 
 To his memory. 
 
 The family of Agar is of recent origin as a 
 bi-anch of the aristocracy. They sprung from a 
 Yorkshirenian, who marrying the only daughter 
 of Welbore Ellis, Bishop of Meath, settled in Ire- 
 land, and there died in 1733. This transplantation 
 of the family prospered with so rapid a fortune, 
 that no less than three members of it became peers 
 during the course of a few years, namely, the sub- 
 ject of this sketch ; Agar, Viscount Clifden ; and 
 Agar, Lord Callan. The titles and estates of the 
 two latter are now enjoyed by Loi-d Dover. 
 
 The dates in the epitaph of this Episcopal Peer, 
 would of themselves be enough to satisfy a person, 
 however slightly acquainted with the history of 
 Ireland, that he must have belonged to that once 
 powerful body — at length, it is to be hoped, finally 
 extinct — the political bishops of the Established 
 Church; men whose services, zealous, no doubt, yet 
 not always successful, in behalf of the reformed 
 religion in that country, were profusely rewarded 
 with titles, appointments, estates, and patronage. 
 The first preferment obtained in the Irish Church 
 by young Agar, after entering into holy orders, 
 was a chaplaincy to the Duke of Northumberland, 
 
 who was Lord-lieutenant in 1763. He next ob- 
 tained the Deanery of Kihnore, and then started 
 in his episcopal career. While he held the see of 
 Cashel, he made 40,000?. in a single fine for the 
 Palliser estate, by running his own life against that 
 of the existing lessee. Emoluments such as these 
 enabled him to amass and leave behind him a for- 
 tune of 400;000/. The praise given him in his 
 C|)itapli for the building of churches should be 
 ([ualified by the fact, that he did not give his own 
 money for the purpose : public funds existed for 
 the building and purchasing of churches and glebes. 
 The extent of the benefits he conferred upon the 
 working clergy was limited to a direction issued in 
 1807, that all incumbents in his diocese should ]iay 
 their curates in future Tol. a year instead of 50/. 
 their previous allowance. Nor will any man who 
 venerates anticjuity, and the time-honoured monu- 
 ments of Christianity, think well of this bishop's 
 taste, however flatteringly described upon his mo- 
 nument, in completing what his predecessor in the 
 see of Cashel began, the substitution, namely, of a 
 new for the old cathedi'al of that archbishopric. 
 The rock of Cashel, celebrated from the earliest 
 ages of Christianity, contains to this day a ruin so 
 splendid of the old cathedral, that the first impres- 
 sion produced by a stranger on visiting it, is one of 
 surprise that even now it is not restored. Yet this 
 was the relic of antiquity that Archbishop Agar's 
 predecessor unroofed and turned into a ruin, ex- 
 posing to the action of the weather and sure decay 
 tombs without number, and various specimens of 
 architecture full of interest and merit. The bishoji 
 was a Privy Councillor of Ireland, and a trustee of 
 the linen manufacture, and held besides various 
 places of trust and honour. A constant attendant 
 at the Privy Council during the rebellion of 1798, 
 and the subsequent discussions respecting the Union, 
 he was deeply compromised in the odium excited 
 by the cruelties, the treachery, and the corruption 
 by which that disgraceful period of Irish history 
 was so darkly characterised. He was married to the 
 daughter of Mr. Benson, a Dublin merchant, and 
 died at his house in Great Cumberland Street, Lon- 
 don, leaving three sons, and one daughter, married 
 to Lord Hawarden. The Irish, whose proverbial wit 
 is never moi-e keenly exercised than in giving a 
 nick-name that is sure to stick, used to call him 
 Agar the Hagar, and considered him penurious 
 and exacting. For ourselves we are free to confess, 
 that for the prelate ^^•ho could seek praise for de- 
 secrating the old cathedral of Cashel, we can feel 
 but little respect or regard. 
 
 SPENCER PERCEVAL. 
 
 Of the Riglit Honourable Spencer Perceval, Chan- 
 cellor of the Exche(|uer, and first Lord of the 
 Treasury, only a succinct account has been given 
 in the poi)ular sources of biograjdiical iiiforniation ; 
 for his talents added no lustre to his high station, 
 and nothing in his public career appears elevated 
 or original. TIk; honours which followed his death 
 gave him an eminent place in the order of this 
 work ; but it cannot be suppressed, that those 
 honours were mainly attributable to political ex- 
 
 citement, and a natural spirit of sympathy for the 
 tragical circmnstances under which lie lost his 
 life. 
 
 Descended from an ancient family, which had 
 been connected with the )nil)lic service of the 
 country for ujnvards of a century before his time, 
 he was born November 1, 17'''2, at the house of his 
 father, John, second Earl of Egmont, in South- 
 Audley-street, London. His early years were spent 
 at Charlton, the family scat in Kent, where lie 
 
 n2
 
 232 
 
 WESTMINSTER ABBEY. 
 
 received the rudiments of education, and foinned 
 an early attachment for the youngest daughter of 
 Sir T. Spencer Wilson, who afterwards became his 
 wife. After passing through Harrow school, he 
 entered himself at Trinity College, Cambridge. 
 Unwearied study and conspicuous abilities led him 
 to the highest academical honours, and proceeding 
 M. A., in 1782, he became a member of Lincoln's 
 Inn in the following year. He was called to the bar 
 in Hilary Term 1780, went the midland circuit, 
 and pleaded in the Court of Chancery, as well as 
 in the King's Bench ; but his practice was never 
 extensive, though he is said to have displayed 
 encouraging promises of forensic excellence. The 
 noiseless preferment to which he rose must there- 
 fore be ascribed, in a great measure, to political 
 influence. His first official rank was counsel to 
 the Admiralty ; his second, counsel to the Univer- 
 sity of Cambridge. He obtained a silk gown in the 
 thirtieth year of his age ; was nominated Solicitor 
 general in 1799, and Attorney-general in 1802. 
 This post he resigned upon the accession of Mr. 
 Fox to power, in 18tt(i, and with that event, his 
 career as a lawyer may he said to terminate, and his 
 course as a minister to begin. His professional places 
 he owed to the patronage of Mr. Pitt, whose notice 
 he attracted by a pamphlet written to prove that 
 an impeachment of the House of Commons does 
 not abate by a dissolution of Parliament. 
 
 His first introduction into Parliament, a circum- 
 stance which resulted from the patronage of his 
 family, occurred during the year 1797. North- 
 ampton was the place he sat for, and he continued 
 to represent that borough, without intermission, 
 until the day of his sudden death. Taking his seat 
 on the ministerial benches, he avowed the prin- 
 ciples of a Tory, and soon earned praise for the aid 
 he gave to his party. Dispassionate in his manner, 
 reasonable in his style, and firm in his language, 
 he gradually rose to be the adopted champion of 
 the high church party ; and while he vindicated 
 all the established practices and doctrines of Pro- 
 testant ascendancy, repudiated every measure by 
 which liberal statesmen proposed to reconcile re- 
 ligious animosities, and place all sects upon terms 
 of harmonious equality. 
 
 Such was the political character of Mr. Perceval, 
 when Mr. Pitt's death placed Mr. Fox in power. 
 On that occasion he for the first time took his seat 
 on the opposition benches. Soon after, upon the 
 dissolution of Mr. Fox's ministry, in consequence 
 of its attempt to emancipate the Roman Catholics, 
 Mr. Perceval made his appearance unexpectedly as 
 Chancellor of the Exchequer, and leader of the 
 House of Commons. The report has been currently 
 received, though never positively authenticated, 
 that when the differences between the Prince of 
 Wales and his consort first broke out, Mr. Perceval 
 was retained as the professional adviser of her Royal 
 Highness, and in that capacity undertook the com- 
 position of a book, intended to convince the public, 
 not only that the lady was innocent of the charges 
 brought against her, but was even entitled to re- 
 taliate for certain injuries offered to herself. As 
 it seems pretty clear that a work of this nature was 
 actually printed, the doubtful part of the story is, 
 whether Mr. Perceval's preferment to the Exche- 
 quer, coupled with a grant of the office of Chancellor 
 of the Duchy of Lancaster for life, a job so bare- 
 iaced, that shame compelled him to resign it as soon 
 
 as it became a subject of animadversion in the 
 House of Commons — was procured by an engage- 
 ment upon his part to abandon his client, and to 
 suppress a publication so obnoxious. The point lies 
 buried deep in the mysteries of political intrigue, 
 and we can only proceed to describe the public 
 course of the new minister. He took the lead of 
 his associates, and had the arduous task of counter- 
 acting a powerful parliamentary op|)osition, made 
 doubly formidable by a series of disagreeable enact- 
 ments, and disastrous events. Almost the first 
 proceeding of this administration was highly censu- 
 rable : apprehensive of the assistance which it was 
 in the power of Denmark to lend to the prosperous 
 cause of France, ministers despatched a British 
 fleet and army to Copenhagen, seized upon the 
 naval force of that peaceful ally, and conveyed it 
 by superior violence to England. An enmity had 
 thus been scarcely sown with the Danes, when the 
 foundations of a war were laid with the Americans, 
 by an arbitrary refusal to deliver up a few sailors 
 seized on board the Chesapeake frigate, upon the 
 presumption of their bemg British subjects. Our 
 foreign connexions were additionally embarrassed, 
 in 1808, by a declaration of war from Spain ; and 
 though Sir Arthur Wellesley did honour to our 
 arms by tlie victory of Vimeira, yet the defeat of 
 General Whitelocke at Buenos AjTes, and the fatal 
 retreat of Sir John Moore's army upon Corunna, 
 threw a gloom over the affairs of the country. 
 
 Our naval exploits, too, failed to strike with their 
 usual splendour ; while in domestic matters, the 
 parliamentary disputes concerning the droits of the 
 Admiralty, the impeachment of the Duke of York, 
 and a general sense of the corruption of the mi- 
 nisterial majorities in the House of Commons, ex- 
 cited a just and reanimated exclamation against the 
 government. The state of things becoming still 
 more deeply involved by the disgrace of our Wal- 
 cheren expedition, the Duke of Portland, Lord 
 Castlereagh, and ]\Ir. Canning, resigned their 
 places ; and the two Chancellors, Lord Eldon and 
 Mr. Perceval, were left almost alone to manage the 
 affairs of the nation. They made several unavail- 
 ing attempts to reinforce themselves by the co- 
 operation of the Lords Grey and Grenville, but 
 finding it impossible to conciliate the liberal party 
 in the Parliament, remodelled the administration 
 amongst their former friends. 
 
 In these changes the post of first ;lord of the 
 treasury was added to Mr. Perceval's former office. 
 No great satisfaction, however, seems to have been 
 felt by the country at these measures ; the Penin- 
 sular war proceeded successfully, although, as the 
 Duke of Wellington afterwards confessed, " the pay 
 of the army was six months in arrear, a circum- 
 stance which has never before been heard of in a 
 British army in Europe ;" but the arbitrary com- 
 mitment of Sir Francis Burdett to the Tower upon 
 a futile charge of having violated the privilege of 
 parliament, raised an ominous popular commotion, 
 which was in no degree abated by the contentions 
 resulting from the king's mental dei-angement, and 
 the revived altercations respecting the establish- 
 ment of a regency. Upon these questions, and, 
 indeed, upon all others issuing out of the circum- 
 stances which have already been alluded to in this 
 sketch, Mr. Perceval emphatically and eagerly 
 vindicated the conduct of the government, as well 
 as the principles upon which it acted. Highly as
 
 RICHARD CUMBERLAND. 
 
 233 
 
 that conduct, and those principles, however, were 
 thouglit of by their followers, they were regarded 
 not only as highly illiberal but grossly corrupt by a 
 large and inHuential body of the people, and it is not 
 now to be fairly questioned that heavy misfortunes 
 were entailed upon the counti-y by them. The 
 public burthens were enormously increased, the 
 revenue suffered from repeated defalcations, and 
 the public interests and the character of the nation 
 were neither advanced nor improved by any ad- 
 vance in the pruiciples of good government or 
 political economy. 
 
 Nevertheless, Mr. Perceval's administi'ation ap- 
 peared to be energetically founded, and no speedy 
 change of measures or men was apprehended. 
 The poHcy of persevering in a most expensive 
 warfare, and the propriety of resisting all domestic 
 innovations, seemed to be firmly confirmed, when 
 a melancholy termination was suddenly put to his 
 career, and his life. On the 11th of Muy, 1812, he 
 repaired to the house of commons, and had passed 
 through the folding doors of the lobby, when a 
 pistol was discharged against him by a man named 
 Bellingham. The ball penetrated into the heart ; 
 he expired in a few moments ; and his murderer 
 was hung at Newgate within a week. For this act, 
 of which the criminality is only equalled by its 
 insanity, Mr. Perceval offered no provocation, and 
 Bellingham gave the following justification. He 
 had been involved in some mercantile difficulties in 
 Russia, which were followed up by an arbitrary 
 imprisonment for the term of two years. He 
 claimed, but failed to obtain redress at the hands 
 of the British Ambassador, and returned home, 
 broken in fortune, to petition for compensation 
 from his owii government. He importuned various 
 ministers with remonstrances, but urged no con- 
 sideration upon which they felt justified in relieving 
 him. He had formerly been afflicted with insanity, 
 and the disease now seizing upon him again, he 
 formed the outrageous resolution of revenging his 
 own misfortunes by taking away the life of a fellow- 
 creature. 
 
 Mucli consternation, and a deep sjTnpathy, were 
 excited by this tragical offence ; and while the 
 public concern was fully vivid, a very liberal j)ro- 
 vision was made for the family of the fallen minister, 
 and the most respectful tributes were paid to his 
 
 memory. In private life he was esteemed an af- 
 fectionate and exemplary man, and when thus 
 removed from the sphere of politics, all parties 
 concurred in a panegyric upon his virt\ies, and oon- 
 dolence for his h)ss. A pension of 20(W. a year 
 was granted to his widow, another of lOttO/. was 
 given to his eldest son, which was to be increased 
 to 2000/. upon the death of his mother, and 50,000/. 
 were settled upon eleven younger chiUlnii. A 
 monument to his memory in Westminster Abbey 
 was the last subject respecting him to which the 
 house of commons devoted its attention. It is 
 placed in one of the windows of tlie north aisle, and 
 is well designed and executed, by Sir R. West- 
 macott, R.A. ; but in the allegorical style. An 
 effigy of the unfortunate minister is introduced 
 upon a mattress, with a statue of Power, indicated 
 by the fasces, weeping over him, and figures of 
 Truth and Temperance, the one distinguished by a 
 bridle, and the other by a mirror, erect at his feet. 
 Along the back-ground runs an animated scene in 
 basso-relievo, descriptive of the lobby of the house 
 of commons at the moment of his fall : it is 
 evidently a good jicrformance : but who can avoid 
 regretting that this, which is a jjrincipal, sluiuld 
 here be converted into a secondary illustration of 
 the death of the subject ? 
 
 Notwithstanding these high honours, and the 
 profuse liberality of the house of commons to his 
 family, Mr. Perceval's memory has not been che- 
 rished with affection by the ])ublic, or spoken of 
 with approbation by the historians of the events of 
 the age. Col. Napier amongst others has given a 
 very unfavourable character of him in tlu' History 
 of the Peninsular war. ''Narrow, luirsli, fatriious, 
 and illiberal, in evei-y thing relating to public mat- 
 ters, this man's career was one of unmixed evil. 
 His bigotry taught him to oppress Ireland, but his 
 religion did not deter him from passing a law to 
 prevent the introduction of medicines into France 
 during a pestilence. He lived by faction ; he had 
 neither the wisdom to support, nor the manliness 
 to put an end to the war in the Peninsula ; and 
 his crooked contemptible ])olicy was shewn, by with 
 holding what was necessary to .sustam the contest, 
 and throwing on the general the responsibility of 
 failure." 
 
 RICHARD CUMBERLAND. 
 
 Cumberland's pedigree was conspicuous for literary 
 eminence. His father, a divine remarkable for his 
 clas.sical attainments, was Bishop of Clonfert, in 
 Ireland ; his grandfather, on the mother's side, 
 was Dr. Richard Bentley, the eminent scholastic 
 aiinotator and editor ; and his great grandfather 
 was Richard Cumberland, Bishop of Peterbonnigh, 
 a prelate respected for his talents and publica- 
 tions; and still more for his piety and disinterestcd- 
 nesH. 
 
 The immediate subject of this sketch was an 
 only son, born at the Master's Lodge of Trinity 
 College, (Cambridge, Feb. 19, I7''12. He amused his 
 old ago by recording his own memoirs, and has 
 thus, in a great meiisure, facilitated the task of re- 
 
 counting the events of his life, and the fruits of his 
 study. In his sixth year he was sent to the 
 grannnar- school of Bury St. Fdnnnid's. His mas- 
 ter, the Rev. Arthur Kiiigsniaii, who had been a 
 fellow collegian of Dr. IJiiitley, was a pedagogue of 
 the (lid sehoiil, and once boasted to the great critic, 
 that ho would make his grandson as good a scholar 
 as Bentley himself, to which the doctor replied, that 
 he had forgotten more than ever Mr. Kingsman 
 knew. Cumberland was next sent to Westminster 
 school, where he had Vincent Mom'iie, tlu' ele- 
 gant writer of Latin verse, for his usher, and Col- 
 man and LI'iyd for his sclionl-rellows. In his 
 fourt(;enth year he became a member of Trinity 
 College, Cambridge, and ho took a bachelor's
 
 234 
 
 WESTMINSTER ABBEY. 
 
 degree witli great credit ; but impaired his health 
 by intense application. At that period he used 
 to allow liiniself only six hours for sleep ; to live 
 almost entirely upon milk, and refresh himself 
 by frequent warm baths. These habits brought 
 on a fever, and he was compelled to i-ecruit bis 
 strength by a visit to his family at York. Fi'om 
 them, however, he soon returned, and was already 
 feeding his ardour with the prospect of a fellow- 
 ship, when a readier path to independence was 
 suggested to him. He was offered the place of 
 private secretary to the Earl of Halifa.\ *, President 
 of the Board of Trade ; who received the young 
 political aspirant with unusual consideration, pro- 
 curing lodgings for hira in Downing-street, and 
 arrany-inff that he should mess with the chief secre- 
 tai-y to tlie board, when not engaged to dme from 
 home. Notwithstanding all this cai'e, Cumberland 
 confessed that he was entirely out of his element ; 
 his head was filled with the flowers of litei'ature, 
 and he exchanged their sweets reluctantly for the 
 thorny mazes of state affairs. The Duke of New- 
 castle was then Prime Minister, and to him Lord 
 Halifax introduced his pi-oteg^. Calling at the 
 Duke's mansion in Lincoln's Lin Fields together, 
 Lord Halifax was immediately invited in, and re- 
 
 * This nobleman's monument is in the north cross aisle, 
 and presents a bust, which has been praised for the fidelity 
 (if the likeness, supported by two urchins, of whom the one, 
 upholding a mirror, and treading on a mask, indicates Truth; 
 the other, offering the insignia of the Garter, represents 
 Honour. The ledge of the pedestal is enriched with devices, 
 and the following inscription : — 
 
 Sacred be the Monument which here is raised by gratitude 
 
 and respect. 
 
 To perpetuate the memory of 
 
 George Montague Dunk, Earl of Halifax, 
 
 Knight of the Most Noble Order of the Garter, 
 
 Whose Allegiance, Integrity, and Abilities 
 
 Alike distinguished and exalted Him in the reign of 
 
 George II. and of George III. 
 
 In the year 1745, (an early period of his Life) 
 
 He raised and commanded a Regiment 
 
 To defend his King and Country against the alarming 
 
 Insurrection in Scotland. 
 
 He was soon after appointed First Lord of Trade and 
 
 Plantations, 
 
 In which Department 
 
 He contributed so largely to the Commerce and Splendour 
 
 of America, 
 
 As to be styled " Father of the Colonies." 
 
 At one and the same time He filled the united great 
 
 Offices of 
 
 The First Lord of the Admiralty, 
 
 Principal Secretary of State, 
 
 and Lord Lieutenant of Ireland. 
 
 He was afterwards appointed Lord Privy Seal ; 
 
 On the resignation whereof he was recalled to the important 
 
 Duties of 
 
 Principal Secretary of State, 
 
 And deceased (in possession of the Seals) June 8th, 1771. 
 
 His worth in private Life was eminent and extensive, 
 
 And was best testified In/ the Honour and Esteem 
 
 Which were borne him living. 
 
 And the Lamentation bestowed on his Ashes. 
 
 Among many Instances of his liberal Spirit, o7ie deserves to 
 
 be distinctly recorded. 
 
 During his Residence in Ireland, 
 
 He obtained the grant of an additional 4000i. per Annum for 
 
 all subsequent Viceroys, 
 At the same time nobly declining that emolument himself. 
 
 mained for upwards of two hours, while Cumber- 
 land was left in an ante-room by himself : — when 
 his turn of admission came, Lord Halifax had 
 departed, and the Duke, stripped to his shirt, was 
 too busy washing himself to afford his new acquaint- 
 ance more than a two minutes audience. 
 
 The next political character to whom he became 
 known, was Bub Doddington, afterwards Lord 
 Melcombe Regis, whom he had an opportunity of 
 meeting at his father's Parsonage of Fulham. Of 
 the eccentric master of la Trappe, Cumberland has 
 preserved an interesting description. Nothing can 
 be more curious than for the reader to turn from 
 the speeches and diary of Lord Melcombe, replete 
 with keen point, and superior knowledge, and re- 
 mark Cumberland's account of the ostentation of 
 his habits, the foppishness of his manners, and the 
 vanities of his dress. Here was a scholar, states- 
 man, and a wit, who delighted every company and 
 was an ornament to the parliament, and yet who 
 loaded his person with a gaudy wardrobe of rich 
 silks in the most antiquated patterns and cuts, and 
 rivalled even that pink of peers. Lord Chesterfield, 
 in his fastidious care of his person. 
 
 While thus enjoying a life of leisure, Cumberland 
 obtained a lay fellowship in his college, and became 
 an autiior. He wrote a pliiy on the subject of 
 Caractacus; and offered the ' Banishment of Cicero,' 
 a tragic poem, in five acts, to Garrick, who declined 
 to represent it. It was then printed : its reception 
 justified the refusal ; but nothing discouraged he 
 produced " St. Mark's Eve," a poem, from which 
 he derived neither reputation nor profit. The pa- 
 tronage and kindness of his friends prevented him 
 from feeling these failures in one respect; he was 
 appointed to the place of Crown Agent for the 
 province of Nova Scotia, and acquired 3000Z. by 
 marrying in 1758, Elizabeth, only daughter of George 
 Ridge, Esquire, of Kilmiston, in Kent. In this lady, 
 according to his own words, he possessed one, to 
 whom the virtues of her heart, and the charms of 
 her person, had rendered permanently dear to him. 
 
 The ministerial changes upon the accession of 
 George III., brought Lord Halifax to the high office 
 of Viceroy of Ireland ; and Cmnberland accompa- 
 nied his patron to the seat of government in the 
 capacity of Ulster Secretary. At the same time he 
 was entrusted with the care of his lordship's pro- 
 perty, whicli was in a very embarrassed state. The 
 residence in Ireland was passed under circum- 
 stances highly agreeable and advantageous: lodged 
 in the castle of Dublin, and moving in the first rank 
 of society, he had the satisfaction of seeing his 
 father made bishop of Clonfert. His account of 
 himself during this period, represents him in a 
 high state of gratified excitement. He found that 
 the proverbial stories of Irish hospitality had not 
 done justice to the people ; for he enjoyed at their 
 tables a luxury of fare, and magnificence of enter- 
 tainment, such as he had never been introduced to 
 in England. Foremost on the roll of liigh livers, 
 he was much surprised to discover the clergy ; 
 amongst whom the abundance of rich meats and 
 claret made some inroad upon that temperance to 
 which he had ijeen bred, in the duller temperature 
 of England. Here we have him sitting up with the 
 printer of a newspaper, until two o'clock in the 
 morning, and swallowing immense potations, with 
 only one solitary strawberry to redeem sobriety, 
 which mine host's doctor used to recommend for
 
 RICHARD CUiMBERLAND. 
 
 235 
 
 its cooling properties. At the same table was a 
 man who had received his reprieve at the gallows, 
 and the judge who had condennied him ; yet the 
 harmony of the entertainment was neither embit- 
 tered by reflection, nor embarrassed by contrasts 
 — this was the golden reign of good-fellowship, and 
 every guest was at his ease. 
 
 Moi-e influential honours now awaited the patron, 
 and were expected by the protege. Lord Halifax 
 resigned the Vice-royalty of Ireland to be made 
 Secretary of State in England ; and Cumberland 
 applied for the place of Under Secretary, which 
 was in the premier's gift. But let no man, what- 
 ever be his claims, ever ask a favour without pre- 
 viously learning that it is likely to be granted. 
 When Cumberland proposed himself for the ottice, 
 he had the mortitication of being told, " that he was 
 not fit for evervthinjj," and after an unbroken ser- 
 vice of eleven years, he had to return to a jirivate 
 station with a pension of 200/. a-year. Chagrined 
 and discontented, he again turned his mind to lite- 
 rature, and became a confirmed writer of plays. 
 He produced the " Summer Tale," which lived for 
 nine nights, and soon after the " Brothers," a 
 comedy, which received sufticient favour to lay the 
 foundations of a higher reputation. In the follow- 
 ing year he brought out the most popular of his 
 productions, " The West Indian,'' in which he 
 availed himself of his acquaintance with Irish life, 
 to introduce a character drawn from that country. 
 His expectations of this piece were far from exces- 
 sive : he ottered it to Garrick for a picture of the 
 Holy Family, copied from Andi-ea Del Sarto. For- 
 tunately the actor did not agree with the author, or 
 the latter must have been a considerable loser by 
 the exchange. The West Indian was played for 
 eight and twenty successive nights, and besides 
 150/. for the copyright, produced a considerable 
 amount of profit. 
 
 By this time his character as an author was 
 generally respected ; the University of Dublin 
 complimented him with a degree of LL.D. ; and he 
 lived upon intimate terms with Burke, Reynolds, 
 Goldsmith, and Johnson. From associations such 
 as these he was again summoned by the great. 
 Lord Germain received the seals of the Colonial 
 Department, and made Cumberland Under Secre- 
 tary. From this elevation he was destined to one 
 yet higher in rank, but less beneficial. In 1780 
 the ministry .sent liim \i])on a diplduiatic mission to 
 Spain, with a view of detaching that power from 
 France, and thereby opening a channel for the 
 termination of hostilities. To prevent suspicions 
 he first proceeded to Lisljon, with the avowed pur- 
 j)ose of recruiting the health of a sick daughter. 
 Thence he made his way privately to Aranjuez, 
 where he rejjresents himself as having been favour- 
 ably received by the king, a man of gentle disposi- 
 tion, and unpresuming dignity. The negociations 
 were opened, and he flattered himself he had suc- 
 ceeded in gaining the favour of the monarch, when 
 intelligence of Lord George Gordon's riots arrived, 
 and everything was susjiendc^d upon an expectation 
 that anothiT revolution was at hand in iMigland. 
 Notwithstanding this interr\i|)tion, Ik; was so nolieed 
 by the king, and so courted by the nobility, that lie 
 took a large house, gave entertainments, and was 
 publicly recognised as a political character. This 
 delay disj)l(;ased the ministry at home ; they com- 
 plained that he should have returned when the 
 
 negociations at first broke off" ; and to mark their 
 sense of his imprudence, refused to pay his ex- 
 penses. This was a severe blow. The" King of 
 Spain, who saw how innocently he had been de- 
 feated, and knew how severely the n.isfortune 
 would be visited upon him at home, had the gene- 
 rosity to send him an in<lenniitication for the ex- 
 l)enses of his mission. This Cumberland very pro- 
 perly declined. Ujxju his return to England he 
 memorialised the Treasury in vain ; he addressed 
 every minister, and by each of them had a deaf ear 
 turned to his remonstrances ; and importuned Loi'd 
 North with calls and complaints, until the very 
 servants, as he himself confessed, rejiulsed him 
 with insult from the door. Such was tlie termina- 
 tion of his political cai'eer : lie had expended ujion 
 it all the ready money he possessed, ami was now 
 compelled to part with the last aci-e of his patri- 
 monial estate to defray the debts incurred by it. 
 
 He parted with his house in Portman-square, 
 and took up his residence, under circumstances 
 more suitable to his diminished fortune, at Tun- 
 bridge Wells. There his literary pursuits were 
 again resumed ; the number of his jilays multiplied 
 yearly, and his reputation was farther increased 
 by the publication of the Observer, a series of 
 essays, after the manner of Steele, Addison, and 
 Johnson, many of vkliich have been censured, and 
 some well thought of. One portion of his literary 
 labours, original in point of merit and deservedly 
 successful in api)lication, was his exemplary attack 
 upon those violent prejudices which had long been 
 so vulgarly and forcibly entertained against the 
 whole body of the Jews, whom he generously vin- 
 dicated in the essays of the Observe!*, and tiie 
 comedy of " The Jew." 
 
 At Tunbridge Wells Cumberland continued to 
 reside, with the exception of a few tem])oi'ary visits 
 to London, until the close of his life ; and he loved 
 the place for the influence lie was allowed to possess 
 over its little politics. His patronage sufficed to 
 carry the election of a master of ceremonies ; and 
 being chosen by the volunteei's, first Major-com- 
 mandant, and afterwards Lieutenant-coloiud of their 
 corps, he used to pride himself in marching a 
 couple of miles at their head. His life was easy, 
 though not atflucnt, and lie congi'atulated himself 
 that he was at last ])laeed in his element. It was 
 in this condition that he met with an ojiportunity 
 of exercising his good nature in a striking manner, 
 by forgiving the former conduct of Lord North, 
 now Earl of Guilford, a nobleman who, like himself, 
 overcome in politics and ruined in fortune, had re- 
 tired from the world, and was left, in a state of 
 blindness, to meditate iiiion the disappointments of 
 ambition, the ingratitude of ]iolitieal friends, and 
 the hollowness of state honours. With him Cum- 
 berland live<l awliil(>, amusing his solituile by read- 
 ing and conversation, until he was snatched away 
 from the mortifications of this world to the oi'deal 
 of that other existence, which most men hope to 
 find better, and few can fear to find worse. 
 
 y\fter this loss Cumberland went on reading and 
 writing with unwearied assiduity ; but with dimi- 
 nished interest, .-md drclining jiopularity. His 
 "Anecdotes of Eminent Painters in Spain," and 
 " Memoirs of his own Life," ))iiblislied in l(10r>,are to 
 be excepted from his list of failures: they were re.ad 
 with satiHl'action, and had a reputable circulation. 
 He also undertook the editorship of a Quarterly
 
 23G 
 
 WESTMINSTER ABBEY. 
 
 Review, but it soon ceased to appear. Of a con- 
 stitution originally good, his health was scarcely 
 ever varied by the vicissitudes of his life. He had 
 seven children, four boys and three girls ; of the 
 former, two died before him in the service of their 
 country, and two remained in it after his death. 
 He died in London, while on a visit to a friend in 
 Bedford Place, Russel Square, May, 7» 1811, aged 
 80 years ; and was honourably interred at the foot 
 of Addison's monument, in the Poets' Corner of 
 Westminster Abbey. 
 
 Few authors have contributed more to our lan- 
 guage than Cumberland, whether we consider the 
 diversity, or the number of his writings. His essays 
 are intei'esting, and his plays agreeable ; yet, in all 
 he wrote, he may be said to have pleased more 
 than to have instructed ; and to have excelled 
 rather in the quantity than the quality of what he 
 produced. In the case of the Jews, he disabused 
 society from an old unfounded prejudice, in a 
 happy manner, and with the best effect. For that 
 service he is entitled to commendation in every 
 record of British literatui'e. 
 
 A catalogue of Cumberland's works would fill 
 
 pages, and include almost every style of composi- 
 tion. In theology he composed sermons, and a 
 book of evidences of the Christian religion ; — in 
 verse, he translated fifty of the Psalms of David ; 
 wrote two heroic poems, " Calvary," and " Retro- 
 spection," and published no less than sixteen 
 volumes of pamphlets and fugitive pieces; — for the 
 stage he brought forth as many as three- and-thirty 
 tragedies and comedies, of which the " West In- 
 dian," the " Fashionable Lover," the " Wheel of 
 Fortune," and the " Jew," are now alone remem- 
 bered ; — he produced three novels, which were 
 generally praised; and was the author of nine more 
 miscellaneous works in prose, besides two or three 
 controversial pamphlets. Of this stock, by far the 
 lai'ger portion was out of print before the author 
 died ; but there is one particular praise to which 
 they are all entitled, such as few writers upon 
 general subjects can be said to have deserved — 
 there is not a thought hinted, nor an expi-ession 
 used, throughout his numerous volumes, at which 
 modesty can shrink, or by which morality is not 
 promoted. 
 
 GRANVILLE SHARP. 
 
 Granville Sharp has been deservedly honoured 
 with multiplied memorials of gratitude, as the pro- 
 pagator of many principles which have greatly 
 elevated the character of modern liberty. His 
 family has attained distinction in the established 
 Church : his father, Dr. Thomas Sharp, was a pre- 
 bendary of Durham, and his great grandfather. 
 Dr. J. Sharp, was Archbishop of York. Granville 
 was born at Durham, during the year 1734, and 
 received the rudiments of education at the gram- 
 mar-school of that city. In the spring of 1750 he 
 arrived in London, and was bound apprentice to a 
 linen-draper on Great Tower Hill ; but after a 
 service of three years, his master, one Halsey, 
 died, and he changed his station once or twice in 
 consequence of some conflicting judgments in the 
 Lord Mayor's Court upon the subject of the re- 
 maining period of his apjirenticeship, which was 
 concluded in the factory of Bourke and Co., Irish 
 merchants, in Cheapside. His first master was a 
 Quaker, his second, an Independent, the Irishmen 
 were Catholics, and some other person with whom 
 he lived, appeared, according to Mr. Sharp's re- 
 port, to have no religion at all. This experience, 
 he was afterwards accustomed to say, early taught 
 him to make proper distinctions between the reli- 
 gious opinions of men and their actions. 
 
 Sharp was a controversialist even in his boyhood: 
 he carried on disquisitions with singular freedom 
 and spirit, not only with the different masters 
 under whom he lived, but with the domestics in 
 their several establishments. In order to prosecute 
 this wordy warfare with success, he read much, 
 and in the issue became as remarkable for his 
 learning as his philanthropy. Thus a dispute with 
 a Unitarian who quoted Greek, determined him to 
 study that language ; and soon aftei', an alterca- 
 tion with a Jew impelled him to become a master 
 of Hebrew, on which tongue, as connected with the 
 
 interpretation of the Pentateuch, he has published 
 some critical pamphlets. 
 
 In 1757 his mother's demise put him in possession 
 of some ready money, and the interest of his family 
 procured him a subordinate situation in the Ord- 
 nance Office. It was under circumstances humble 
 as these that his attention was first directed to a 
 question which ultimately struck the chains of 
 slavery from tlie limbs of thousands, and wiped a 
 most disgraceful uncertainty from the books of 
 English law. This, too, was the noble achieve- 
 ment of an individual nearly as powerless as he 
 was private. Passing through the streets of Lon- 
 don, Granville Sharpe was one day struck with the 
 miserable figure of a negro, trembling with want 
 and sickness, and scarcely strong enough to beg 
 for charity from the crowded passengers. Com- 
 passionating an object so friendless and miserable, 
 he stopped to enquire his story, and learned that 
 he was a slave from Virginia, abandoned by the 
 master who brought him to this country, because 
 the change of climate had destroyed his health, 
 and rendered him unequal to labour. The negro's 
 Tiame was Somerset : at Mr. Sharp's instance he 
 was conveyed to Bartholomew's Hospital ; was 
 carefully attended through his sickness, and upon 
 his recovery provided with a decent situation. 
 
 This favourable change made the slave again 
 valuable to his master, who seized upon him as his 
 property, and had him committed' to [irison as a 
 runaway. The negro in this distress applied to 
 his former benefactor, who immediately resorted 
 to the Lord Mayor. That functionary, after inves- 
 tigating the case at the Mansion House, declared 
 that Somerset was free. But the master, still bent 
 on his purpose, seized the slave by the collar, and 
 impudently forced him towards his ship, declaring 
 that he would sail without delay. Mr. Sharp was 
 not remiss in claiming the protection of the superior
 
 GRANVILLE SHARP. 
 
 237 
 
 courts, but encountered the most trying difficulties 
 before he succeeded in fully obtaining it. The ob- 
 stacles he met with seem to have strengthened the 
 virtuous determination. Discouraged by an opinion 
 given by York and Talbot, the attorney and solicitor 
 gener:»l of that period, and also by judge Blaekstone, 
 his conviction of being right in his views was still 
 so strong, that he devoted himself closely during two 
 years to the study of English law, in order to qualify 
 himself to be the effective vindicator of the oppressed 
 and unjjrotected negro. He prosecuted Somerset's 
 master for an assault, and brought the slave by a 
 writ of Habeas Corpus before the twelve judges, 
 who after repeated hearings, and various sittings, 
 at last solemnly and unanimously declared, Feb- 
 ruary 7, 1772, that " the power of slavery was in 
 England acknowledged by no law, and can never 
 be supported ;" on the contrary, " that as soon as 
 any slave sets his foot upon British ground, he is 
 free !" The uitrepid perseverance and firm bene- 
 volence that procured this memorable judgment, 
 could not fail to excite the deepest impressions. 
 From this moment slavery became the unceasins: 
 object of Sluu'p's honourable hostility, and every 
 act that could enlarge the principles of universal 
 freedom, a predominant passion of his nature. With 
 these feelings he published his ti'act, entitled " A 
 Representation of the Injustice of Slavery" in 1779) 
 and soon after collected a number of the deserted 
 negroes, who were then begging about the purlieus 
 of London, and sent them back to Africa. This led 
 to the establishment of our colony at Sierra Leone. 
 Two institutions of the most laudable nature, and 
 important uses, resulted from these exertions : 
 " The Society in opposition to the Slave Trade " 
 was founded in 1787, and Granville Shai'p being 
 father of the cause, was elected Chaii'man of the 
 Committee. Some years afterwards the African 
 Institution was established, and Mr. Sharp was 
 chosen a director. 
 
 These latter facts deserve notice : a paper war 
 has been maintained with some virulence of late 
 years, as to the respective claims of Mr. Wilber- 
 force and Mr. Clarkson to be considered the fathers 
 of the anti-slavery Cause. But the dates here 
 given show that Mr. Sharp was the first father. 
 The only rival we have ever heard of, is one set up 
 by the Quakers, who boast that their body produced 
 the earliest advocate that appeared to contend for 
 the abolition of this inhuman traffic. His name 
 was Thomas Wool man, his birth-place New Jersey, 
 and his trade that of a tailor. He wrote many 
 pamphlets and made many journeys to talk and 
 preach on his favourite cause, came to England to 
 propagate his charitable views respecting it, and 
 died at York in 1772. This was the year in which 
 Siiarpe first j)ul)licly mooted the question. He was 
 followed by I'orteus in 17811, by lianisay in 1784. 
 In 1785 Clarkson came into the field, and Wilber- 
 forcc publicly in 1787 or 1788. But there is one 
 man who is entitled to priority over both Clarkson 
 and Wilberforce ; to coeval claim with lljinisay ; 
 and whose influence upon the mind of tlie growing 
 generation must have been great. In 1784, William 
 C(>w|)fr ])ul)lislR'd in the "Task" his indignant 
 denunciation of slavery, and his exhortation to 
 abolish it, beginning — 
 
 " lUt finds his fellow Riiilty of a skin 
 Not coloured like tiis own." 
 
 From this series of successful measures, it is 
 necessary to turn back a little for the purpose of 
 stating, that at the commencement of the unfoi-- 
 tunate contest between Great Britain and her 
 American colonies, Sharp resigned his post in the 
 Ordnance rather than be concerned even in that 
 subordinate capacity, either with any men, or any 
 measures, that might tend to depress the cause of 
 freedom throughout the world. Existing circum- 
 stances made this act no ordinary sacrifice ; for 
 the expenses of his repeated suits at law, in the 
 case of Somerset, had nearly exhausted his personal 
 fortune ; and almost his only pi-ospect of compe- 
 tence lay in the emoluments of his office. These, 
 however, he had the s])irit not to admit into 
 competition with his principles, and the protector 
 of the helpless thus came to stand in want of 
 assistance himself. For many years after this 
 event, he was necessitated to live with his bro- 
 thers, who entertained him with cordiality and 
 affection. 
 
 In I78O, he was left a small legacy by a female 
 relation; and this second beginning of independence 
 w-as in the course of a few years augmented by the 
 bequests made to him on some other deaths in his 
 family. Amongst those whose loss he had to regret 
 was a brother, whose business he managed for the 
 widow for six years ; after which, the concern was 
 advantageously disposed of. He then took up his 
 residence in the Temple, and devoted himself, with- 
 out any intenniption, to a life of quiet study and 
 active philanthropy. In this character he acquired 
 the highest reputation ; he proved himself an able 
 linguist, profoundly read in divinity, and critically 
 acquainted with the languages in which the different 
 portions of the Scripture were originally written. 
 Ilis way of living in other respects may be judged 
 of by the representation of his friends, who state, 
 that in his actions severely moral, and in his habits 
 strictly temperate, he was sprightly in conversa- 
 tion, exquisitely fond of music, and much attached 
 to polite society. 
 
 Notwithstanding these various merits, a narrow 
 line of conduct remains to be noticed, by which, in 
 the opinion of many, ]\Ir. Sharp has sumewhat 
 blemished the general complexion of a life other- 
 wise pure. It is painful to have to add, that so 
 good a man is obno.xious to the charge of bigotry. 
 He was a warm friend of Bible Societies, and in 
 advocating them, occasionally betrayed a want of 
 that universal toleration in religious matters, which 
 he so ai'dently strove to extend to all civil concerns. 
 A period arrived, at which he gave a decided jjroof 
 of weakness in this respect, evincing unfortunately, 
 that libei'al and just as he would be to suffering 
 humanity, he would set off" against the indulgence 
 no light severity in restraining the mind and con- 
 science. When the absurd cry of No I'opery re- 
 vived a tumult of old alarms and wrongs in tlic 
 year 1813, Mr. Sharp lost sight of his generosity, 
 and head('(l that worst of all factions, a religious 
 faction, becoming, on July T, chairman of the Pro- 
 testant Union. Certain it is, that I'ducation and 
 comiexiiins closely associated him with the theolo- 
 gical doctrines of the estalilished Church of Kngland ; 
 but support of them did not involve as a necessary 
 or Ijccoining conseipiencc, a vin<lictlvi' op|)o.siii(iu 
 to all who held (lili'treiit opinions, nor would it 
 have dctract('<l from llie sincerity of his bi'lief, or 
 the zeal of liis di;votioii, had he shunned intimate
 
 238 
 
 WESTMINSTER ABBEY. 
 
 contact with men, who however they may have 
 professed exclusion only, yet really fell nothing 
 short in the maxims they promulgated and the 
 ends they aimed at, of the injuries of persecution. 
 Charity, the gentle handmaid of toleration, is the 
 first and most graceful companion of Christianity ; 
 and no religion, however benevolent in other pre- 
 tensions, can deserve our confidence or love if defi- 
 cient of that virtue. A man is answerable to the 
 laws of society for his actions; but for his conscien- 
 tious opinions, he is only responsible to that Being, 
 which moulding his powers as to Him seemed best, 
 has left the mind of his creatures perfectly free. 
 Akin with anti-Catholic prejudice, and his wish to 
 deprive the followers of that faith of a proper 
 share in the blessings of a constitution, which they 
 were the first to found, and have always been fore- 
 most to defend, was a strange notion he enter- 
 tained, that all the evil of life was immediately the 
 result of an agency, which the devil maintained 
 amongst mankind. Superadded to this infatuation 
 was a conviction drawn from a heated explanation 
 of the Scriptures, that the millennium was about to 
 be consummated, without intervention or delay. 
 But these exceptions from a character of general 
 humanity and unadulterated integrity, are more 
 to be regretted than censured : the inconstant 
 incidents of human existence, have over and over 
 again made it palpably evident, that neither sense 
 nor learning, strength of mind, nor goodness of 
 heart, will at all times secure us from the excesses 
 of burning zeal, or the delusions of an excited ima- 
 gination. 
 
 The termination of the life of a good man now 
 drew on, and he completed his career with amiable 
 resignation and equanimity. The decay of his 
 strength had been gradual and without suffering, 
 and he died without a struggle or a sigh, at Fulham, 
 where a modest tablet in the north side of the 
 church attests the place of his grave. The Coi-pora- 
 tion of London have placed his bust in the Court of 
 Common Council, and the African Institution erected 
 a tablet, with a bust in profile, to his memory in 
 Westminster Abbey, of which the execution was 
 entrusted to Chantrey, and the composition of the 
 following epitaph to William Smith, Esq., the 
 member for Norwich : — 
 
 Sacred to the Memory of 
 
 Granville Sharp, 
 
 ninth son of Dr. Thomas Siiarp, 
 
 Prebendary of the Cathedrals and Collegiate 
 
 Churches of York 
 
 Durham and Southwell, 
 
 And grandson of Dr. John Sharp, Archbishop of 
 
 York, 
 
 Bom and educated in the bosom of the Church of 
 
 England, 
 
 He ever cherished for her institutions the most 
 
 unshaken regard, 
 
 while his whole soul was in harmony with the 
 
 sacred strain — 
 
 " Glory to God in the highest, on earth peace and 
 
 good will towai-ds men " — 
 
 On which his life presented one beautiful comment 
 
 of glowing piety and unwearied beneficence. 
 
 Freed by competence from the necessity, and by 
 
 content from the desire, of lucrative occupation. 
 
 He was incessant in his labours to improve the 
 
 condition of mankind. 
 
 Founding public happiness on public virtue. 
 
 He aimed to rescue his native country from the 
 
 guilt and inconsistency 
 
 of employing the arm of Freedom to rivet the 
 
 fetters of Bondage, and establish for the Negro 
 
 race in the person of Somerset, the long-disputed 
 
 rights of human nature. 
 
 Having in this glorious cause triumphed over the 
 
 combined resistance 
 
 of Interest, Prejudice, and Pride, 
 
 He took his post among the foremost of the 
 
 honourable band associated to deliver Africa 
 
 from the ra])acity of Europe, 
 
 By the abolition of the Slave Ti'ade. 
 
 Nor was Death permitted to interrupt his career 
 
 of usefulness, till he had witnessed that act of 
 
 the British Parliament by which the Abolition 
 
 was decreed. 
 
 In his private relations he was equally exemplary : 
 
 and having exhibited through life a model of 
 
 disintei'ested virtue, 
 
 he resigned his pious breath into the hands of 
 
 his Creator, 
 
 in the exercise of charity, faith, and hope, 
 
 On the sixth day of July, A. D. mdcccxiii. in the 
 
 Seventy-eighth year of his Age. 
 
 READER ! 
 
 If' 
 on perasing this tribute to a private individual. 
 
 Thou shouldest be disposed to suspect it as partial, 
 
 or to censui'e it as diffuse, 
 
 know that it is not panegyric, but history. 
 
 Erected by the African Institution of London, A.D. 
 
 MDCCCXVI. 
 
 Mr. Sharp's numerous publications afford the 
 strongest evidence of the earnest benevolence, the 
 active utility, and the diversified talents and studies 
 by which his life was distinguished. He was the 
 author of an " English Grammar," an " Introduc- 
 tion to Music," a "plan of Parliamentary Reform," 
 an " Alphabet for Foreigners," a " Declaration of 
 the People's natural Right to a share in the Legis- 
 lature, which is the fundamental principle of the 
 British constitution of State," 1778. " Remarks on 
 the uses of the definite article in the Greek of the 
 New Testament, containing many new proofs of 
 the Divinity of Jesus Christ ;" " Remarks on the 
 C8th Psalm, addressed to the consideration of the 
 House of Israel." " Remarks on several very Im- 
 portant Prophecies," in five parts, 17(>8 — 73, a 
 " Representation of the Injustice of Toleratmg 
 Slavery," 1769.
 
 CHARLES BURNEV 
 
 239 
 
 JAMES WYATT. 
 
 There is a simple tablet well designed in the 
 Poets' Comer, to the memory of James Wyatt, the 
 architect. It is thus inscribed. 
 
 Sacred to the memory 
 
 Of James Wvatt, Esq. 
 
 Who, 
 
 Having devoted many yeai-s of his youth 
 
 To the study of the pure IModels of Antiquity abroad, 
 
 was. 
 
 At the early age of twcntj'-two, 
 
 Transcendently distinguished in his Profession 
 
 As an Architect in this Country ; 
 
 And havuig sustained the dignity of that Profession 
 
 For forty -five years, 
 
 During the principal part of which he held the 
 
 offices of 
 
 Architect of tliis Clmrch, 
 
 And Surveyor General of his iMajesty's Works, 
 
 Departed this life the 4th day of September 1813. 
 
 In private life he was remarkable for his meek, 
 
 unassuming and disinterested disposition. 
 
 His professional ability was the combined result 
 
 Of superior genius, science, and energy. 
 
 James Wj-att, the first of a family, which, since 
 he became distinguished, has contributed not a few 
 members to the profession of the fine arts, was born 
 of a respectable family at Burton in Staft'ordshire. 
 His education up to his fourteenth year seems to 
 have been a common one. At that age, however, some 
 rude architectural models he produced, determined 
 his family to rear him to that profession, and being 
 fortunate enough to get him introduced to the 
 familj' of Lord Bagot, when about to proceed as 
 ambassador to Italy, he was received into the suite 
 of that nobleman. At Rome, we are told, as a pi'oof 
 of the zeal and attention he paid to his improvement, 
 
 that he measured the whole of the dome of St. 
 Peter's, lying on his back on a ladder slung hori- 
 zontally, without cradle or handrail, at a height of 
 300 feet from the ground. He spent altogether 
 six years in Italy, during two of which he placed 
 himself under Viscentini at Venice. On his return 
 home he settled in London, where the first work of 
 magnitude entrusted to him was the rebuilding of 
 the Opera House, after which orders poured in so 
 tiiickly upon him, that thoughoftered a carte blanche 
 by the empress of Russia to establish himself at 
 St. Petersburg, he wisely determined to devote his 
 labours to his own country, in which he soon placed 
 himself at the head of his profession. Besides the 
 office of Surveyor-general, a compliment was paid 
 to him by the Royal Academy, which evinced in a 
 gratifying manner the sense entertained of his 
 talents, by his brother artists. A dispute amongst 
 the Academicians having induced Mr. West to 
 resign the Chair, Mr. Wyatt was unanimously elect- 
 ed in his stead, but upon the reconciliation of the 
 disputants withdrew from the oftice, which was again 
 given to Mr. West. The principal buildings con- 
 structed by Mr. Wyatt, were, Mr. Beckford's cele- 
 brated but unfortunate Fonthill Abbey, which fell 
 down, Cashiobury, Hanworth Chui'ch, Doddington 
 and Ashbridge Halls. 
 
 It has been remarked as somewhat singular, that 
 though educated in the Roman school nf urcliitec- 
 ture, the works by which he acquired hisrei)u(ation 
 are Gothic. In his own time tliese were highly 
 thought of, at present the general opinion of their 
 merit is not so favourable. His death was sudden 
 and violent. The carriage in which he was travel- 
 ling to town was overturned on the road, near 
 Marlborough ; and in the fall he suft'ered a concus- 
 sion of the brain, which killed him instantaneously. 
 
 CHARLES BURNEY. 
 
 In the north aisle, immediately under the monu- 
 ment of Dr. Blow, is a marble tablet with the fol- 
 lowing inscription, written by his daughter, the 
 celebrated Madame D'Arblay, but not a worthy 
 specimen of her literary talents : — 
 
 Sacred to the Memory of 
 
 Charlivs Bltrney, Mus. Doc. F.R.S. 
 
 Who, full of years and full of virtues, 
 
 The pride of his family, and the delight of society, 
 
 The unrivalled cliicf, and scientific 
 
 Historian 
 
 of his tiuieful art ; 
 
 Beloved, revered, and regretted, 
 
 Breathed in Chelsea ('olleg(,' his last sigh ; 
 
 Leaving to [)o«terity a fatiic uiiltlcniislu'd ! 
 
 Raised on tin- iiobli' basis of inti-llectual attainments. 
 
 High principles, and pure benevolence. 
 
 Goodiii'ss with gai<'ty, talents with taste. 
 
 Were of his gifted mind the blciidcil attributes ; 
 
 While the genial hilarity of his airy spirits 
 
 Animated or softened every earthly toil ; 
 
 And a conscience without reproach 
 
 ])repared. 
 
 In the whole tenour of liis mortal life, 
 
 Through the mediation of our Lord Jesus Christ, 
 
 His soul for Heaven. 
 
 The scholar and nnisician thus warmly com- 
 mended was born at Shrewsbury in 172(>. After 
 receiving the rudiments of a literary education at 
 the grammar school of his native town, he was 
 removed to (liester, where he made good progress 
 in the study of the higher brandies of knowledge. 
 An early inelination for nnisic had induced liis 
 lialf-brotlier James to give him some lessons in the 
 art while at Shrewslmry, and as the growth of 
 his years ripened this propensity, Ik^ was )ilaced 
 un<ler Balcer of ("hester, who was one of Dr. l!low"s 
 piqiils. In lyn he n turned home to his family.
 
 240 
 
 WESTMINSTER ABBEY. 
 
 and passed three unprofitable years, anxious to ad- 
 vance himself in his profession, but wholly deprived 
 of any opportunity of practice. At length he had 
 the fortune to meet with Di". Arne, who was so 
 well pleased with his ai)pearance, that he received 
 him as an apprentice for three years. Thus re- 
 moved to London, his talents soon attracted both 
 notice and preferment. In 1749 he was elected 
 organist to St. Dionis Backchurch, in Fenchurch- 
 street, at an annual salary of 30/., and was engaged, 
 puring the same year, to preside at the organ 
 during a series of concerts performed at the King's 
 Arms Tavern, in Cornhill. More valuable occu- 
 pation was soon after offered to him : he composed 
 for Drury Lane theatre, the music in the dramas of 
 ' Robin Hood,' by Moses Mendez ; ' Alfred,' by 
 Mallet ; and the pantomime of ' Queen Mab,' which 
 continued to be played every season for thirty years. 
 These were the labours of twelve months, at the 
 close of which his health was so much injured, that 
 a rapid consumption was apprehended, and he was 
 obliged to leave the metropolis for the benefit of 
 relaxation and air. 
 
 Retiring therefore to Lyme Regis, in Norfolk, 
 he was chosen organist to the parish church, with 
 a salary of one hundred pounds a year. Here he 
 continued for nine years ; and in that period formed 
 the design of compiling a general history of music. 
 Finding his health re-established in 17G0, he gladly 
 returned to the metropolis with a largeyoung family, 
 and pursued his profession witli increased emolu- 
 ment and reputation. His eldest daughter, at this 
 time about eight years old, obtained considerable 
 notice in the musical woi'ld, by her superior per- 
 formance on the harpsichord ; and he maintained 
 his own popular character by the composition of 
 several concertos, which were deservedly admired. 
 In the winter of ITOU he brought out, at Drury 
 Lane, ' The Cunning Man,' a translation of Rous- 
 seau's, ' Devin du Village,' which had amused his 
 retirement at Lyme : it was a free, playful, and 
 engaging version, but it had no success. After a 
 lapse of three years, he was made a doctor in music 
 by the University of Oxford, on which occasion he 
 produced an exercise in the musical school, con- 
 sisting of an anthem of great length, with an over- 
 ture, airs, recitative, and chorusses. This per- 
 formance, equally elaborate and meritorious, at- 
 tracted considerable approbation, and secured the 
 distinction of many rehearsals at the music meetings 
 of the university, under the direction of the memo- 
 rable Emanuel Bach. In the following year he 
 travelled through France and Italy, as well with a 
 view of improvement, as to collect materials for his 
 yet unfinished History of Music, a project which he 
 never once permitted to sleep in his memory, from 
 the moment at which he first conceived it. 
 
 The result of this journey was the publication, in 
 I77I) of his ' Musical Tour, or the present State of 
 Music in France and Italy.' The work was well 
 received, and deemed so good a model for all com- 
 piling travellei's, that Dr. Johnson professed to 
 adopt the plan of it in his account of the Hebrides : 
 speaking of his own book, the lexicographer ob- 
 served — " I had that clever dog Burney's Tour 
 in my eye." In 1772, he travelled through the 
 Netherlands, Germany, and Holland, and in the 
 course of the next year jjrinted the particulai's of 
 the excursion in two volumes 8vo. It was also 
 during the course of this year that he was elected 
 
 a fellow of the Royal Society. In 1776 appeared 
 the first volume in 4to,, of his 'General History of 
 Music' The remaining volumes were published at 
 irregular periods, so that the four, of which it now 
 consists, were not completed until the year ITiiO. 
 For this work the name of Dr. Burney is chiefly to 
 be commemorated : alike remarkable tor industry, 
 variety, and judgment, it supplied the only source of 
 critical information which the general reader could 
 appi'oach, upon one of the most interesting arts, and 
 its professors, and immediately acquired a favonr- 
 ble character. 
 
 In 1775} at the desire of Sir John Pringle, he 
 drew up, for the Philosophical Transactions, an ac- 
 count of Little Crotch, the infant musician, who has 
 since been honoured with the Professorship of 
 Music in the University of Oxford, and was con- 
 sidered the most learned composer of his day. 
 
 The grand musical festival which took place in 
 commemoration of Handel, during the year 1785, 
 at Westminster Abbey, was considered deserving 
 of a particular description, and the Historian of 
 Music was fixed upon as the most competent person 
 to draw up a notice of it*. A splendid volume in 
 4to. was accordingly produced by Dr. Burney 
 within the year. He gave the profits to the Musical 
 Fund, and was considered, in the life of Handel, to 
 have written the best specimen of a musical 
 memoir then extant in English. In 1796, he pub- 
 lished an account of the life of Metastasio, in 3 vols. 
 8vo. — a work which has been censured, as destitute 
 of that critical arrangement and knowledge of the 
 subject which characterised his former publications. 
 Dr. Burney is also named as the author of an 
 ' Essay towards tlie History of Comets,' and a 
 ' Plan of a Public Music School.' 
 
 To the musical compositions by Dr. Burney, 
 already noticed, thei'e remain to be added a copious 
 catalogue of Sonatas for two violins and a bass, in 
 two parts ; six cornet pieces, with an introduction 
 and fugues for the organ ; a canzonet and songs ; 
 six duets for two German flutes ; six concertos for 
 the violin, &c. in eight parts ; two sonatas for a 
 pianoforte, violin, and violoncello, in two parts ; 
 and six lessons for the harpsichoi'd, &c. &c. 
 
 For many years Dr. Burney resided in the house 
 once occupied by Newton, in St. Martin's-street, 
 Leicester-square, but during the last twenty-five 
 years of his life, he dwelt at the chambers appro- 
 priated to the organist of Chelsea College, — a situa- 
 tion to which he was appointed at the special 
 instigation of his majesty George III. Here he 
 spent the close of his life in easy circumstances, 
 until death terminated his career, at the full age 
 of 88 years. His remains were deposited in the 
 bui'ial ground belonging to the establishment. 
 
 * Among the many talented men associated together upon 
 this signal occasion, was Edmund Ayrton, Mus. Doc. who 
 was interred in the cloisters. He "svas born at Ripon in 
 Yorkshire, and has been much commended for his composi- 
 tions of cathedral music. He was a gentleman of the Chapel 
 Royal, and a Vicar Choral of St. Paul's Cathedral, and 
 Westminster Abbey. During the year 1 784 he took his degree 
 as Doctor of Music, in the University of Cambridge, com- 
 posing, as his exercise, a grand anthem for a full orchestra, 
 which was highly praised, and afterwards performed with 
 an enlarged band at the general thanksgiving celebrated in 
 St. Paul's, for the peace of 1784. At the commemoration of 
 Handel, he officiated as a director, and died honourably re- 
 garded in 1808.
 
 CHARLES BURNEY. 
 
 241 
 
 Dr. Burney is chiefly to be considered for the 
 variety of his labours, and rather to be praised as 
 an author than a musician. His hterai'v works are 
 .still read and ciucited, but his musical compositions 
 seem to have been forgotten. As a scholar, he was 
 well acquainted with the classics, and the polite lan- 
 guages of modern Eui'ope. Personally acquainted 
 with the distinguished characters who flourished 
 during his life-time, he possessed a fund of anec- 
 dote, wliich made his conversation as interesting at 
 the table, as his lucubrations were engaging m the 
 closet. In private Ufe he appeared with corre- 
 s|)onding excellence : exemplary as a husband, a 
 father, and a friend, spirited and easy in his man- 
 ners, he combined, according to his biographer, 
 " all the graces, witliout the formality of the Ches- 
 terfield politeness, and led a life of utility to others, 
 with honour and happiness to himself." 
 
 Dr. Burney was twice married, and had eight 
 children, of whom four ai'e deserving of particular 
 record, for the superior abilities they inherited 
 from him. It has already been observed how his 
 eldest daughter was celebrated for extraordinary 
 attainments in music ; the second, married to 
 Monsieur d'Arblay, is the authoress of " Evelina," 
 and those memoirs which appear likely to rival the 
 po])ularity of Boswell's Life of her great friend 
 Johnson. His eldest son, James, entered the navy, 
 sailed round the world with Captain Cook ; edited 
 two voyages by that memorable ch-cumnavigator ; 
 published some judicious tracts upon the best 
 means of a national defence against invasion ; and 
 died an Admiral in 1821. His second son, the 
 Reverend Charles Burney, LL.D., has a monument 
 in the south aisle of the choir, and is therefore 
 entitled to some further notice here. 
 
 Born December 6, 1757, during his fiither's resi- 
 dence at Lyme, Dr. Charles Burney was admitted 
 on the foundation of the Charter-house school, in 
 February, 17(J8. Removing in due course to Cains 
 College, Cambridge, he distinguished himself by 
 patient study and a deep familiarity with the Greek 
 cla-ssics. At this univei'sity, however, he made no 
 gi'eat stay, but proceeded to King's College, Aber- 
 deen, where he took his degree of A. M. in 1781. 
 During the ensuing year he became assistant at an 
 academy near Highgate, and soon after under 
 master at a school kept by Dr. Rose, a translator 
 of Sallust, at Chiswick. His introduction to the 
 latter gentleman was effected by the fi'iendship of 
 Dr. Dunbar, the Professor of Moral Philosophy at 
 Aberdeen, and he married Miss Rose m 178:$. Her 
 father was one of the oldest contributors to the 
 Monthly Review, and Burney now became a critic 
 iti the same mis.-ellany. His first papers were on 
 the Monostrophica of Mr. afterwards Bishop Hunt- 
 ingford : they attracted immediate attention, and 
 thus he continued to write equally to the advantage 
 of tlie publication, and the improvement of his own 
 reputation. 
 
 Ill June, 17^3, he opened a school on his own 
 account at Fairlawn House, Hanniiersniith, whence, 
 after a lai)Se of seven years, Ik- removed to (jlreen- 
 wich, where he flourished until his death. He 
 received the degree of LL.D. from the universities 
 of Gla.sgow and Aberdeen, in IT.i'i, and entered into 
 holy orders during the year 1807. His first pre- 
 ferment in tiie Cliurcli took place in 1811, when he 
 was nominated to the vicarage of Heme Mill, and 
 api)ointed Chaplain to his Majesty. In the course 
 
 of the following year, the Archbishop of Canter- 
 bury presented him to the affluent rectory of St. 
 Paul's, Deptford, and gave him a mandate' for the 
 honour of Doctor of Divinity. He afterwards re- 
 ceived a prebend m the Cathedral of Lincoln, and 
 was inducted to the rectory of Cliffe, in the county 
 of Surrey. To this series of appointments are to be 
 added those of Professor of Ancient Literature in 
 the Royal Academy, and Honorary Librarian to 
 the Royal Institution. 
 
 Dr. Burney's ecclesiastical distinctions were not 
 conferred upon him initil the vigour of his consti- 
 tution was nearly worn out : — he began to feel a 
 slow but certain decline of strength soon after his 
 retirement to Deptford. On the morning of Christ- 
 mas day, 1 8 1 7, he was struck with apoplexy as he was 
 preparing for the pulpit, and expired after a struggle 
 of three days. He was buried at Deptford, where 
 the inhabitants subscribed for a monument, which 
 was executed by Goblet, and inscribed by Arch- 
 deacon Thomas. 
 
 In literature, Dr. Burney held a high rank as a 
 critic and a scholar. Of the publications by which 
 he acquired his reputation, the following are the 
 principal. — An Appendix to Scapula's Greek Lexi- 
 con, from the manuscripts of Dr. Askew; an edition 
 of the Choral Odes of .^Eschylus ; Philemon's Greek 
 Lexicon; Remarks on the Greek Verses of Milton; 
 an Abridgment of Pearson's Exposition of the 
 Creed ; Sermons, and a small impression of Latin 
 Epistles by Dr. Bentley, and some others. He was 
 celebrated for the judgment he displayed in the 
 collection of a library, which was purchased after 
 his death by Parliament, and is now in the British 
 Museum : it consisted of 14,000 volumes, richly 
 bound, and arranged upon the plan of beginning 
 with tlie earliest copies, and carrying each author 
 down to the last edition of his works. Among the 
 more conspicuous treasures of this selection, were 
 the Townly Homer, valued at so high a price as a 
 thousand pounds ; and the Codex Crippsianus of 
 the Greek orators. Many of his classics were ad- 
 ditionally valuable for the manuscript notes attached 
 to them I)y Bentley, Markland, and H. Stephens. 
 
 It is interesting to be able to add that Dr. Burney 
 was equally admirable as a man and a scholar. 
 Social and hospitable, witty, and yet good-natured; 
 he is descril)ed as one courted by those above him, 
 loved by those beneath him, and immeasurably 
 prized by his equals. His monument in the north 
 aisle, consists of a good bust surmounting a pedestal 
 tablet of mai'ble by S. Gahagan, on which appears 
 this Latin epitaph : — 
 
 A. 
 
 i 
 
 Q. 
 
 Carolo. Burneio. LL.D. ST.P. A.S. Et. R.S. 
 
 Sodali 
 
 Grajcarum. Litterarum. Et. Latinarum. Professor! 
 
 In. Regia. Academia. Londinensi 
 
 Georgio. Tertio. Britanniarum. Regi. A. Sacris 
 
 Ecclesiie. Lincolnieiisis. Pnelieiidario 
 
 Cliffiiu. Et. Ecclesiie. 1). I'auli. l)ei>tfordiensis 
 
 In Agro. t'auliauo. Rectori 
 
 SchoUo. Grenovicensis. Per. xviii. Annos. Magistro 
 
 (iui. Vixit. Annos. Ix. Dies. xxiv. 
 
 Deccssit. Quinto. Cal. Januar. Anno. Sacro 
 
 cio in ccc xviii. 
 
 Et. Deptfordiie. Seiuiltus. Eat
 
 242 
 
 WESTMINSTER ABBEY. 
 
 Discipuli. Ejus. Hoc. Monumentum. Pecunia 
 
 Collata. Posuerunt 
 
 luerant. In. Hoc. Viro 
 
 Plnrimse. Et. Reconditse. Litter£e 
 
 Judicium. Artis. Critiese. Prseceptis 
 
 Stili. Que. Frequentissima. Exercitatione. Limatum 
 
 Et. In. Nodis. Rei. Meti-ic«. Solvendis 
 
 Eximia. Qutedani. Sollertia 
 
 In. Libris. Quos. Latine. Aut. Anglice. Conscrlpsit 
 
 Lucidus. Erat. Sententiaruni. Ordo 
 
 Et. Sine. Fuco. Nitor. Verborum 
 
 Sermoneni. Ejus. Ad. Magnam 
 
 Et. Ingenii. Et. Doctrinee. Opinionem 
 
 Coramendabant 
 
 Motus. Animi. Ad. Excogitandum. Celeres 
 
 Vox. Plena. Et. Canora 
 
 Acies. Oculorum. Acerrima. Ilia. Quidem 
 
 Sed. Hilaritate. Totius. Vultus. Suaviter. Temperata 
 
 Et. Argutite. Jueundissimo. Lepore. Conditae 
 
 Quum. Juvenes. Ad. Politiorem. Humanitatem 
 
 Intbrmaret 
 
 Accuratius. Quoddam. Et. Exquisitius. Docendi 
 
 Genus. Adhibebat 
 
 Et. In. Mentibus. Eorum. Ad. Omne. Officii 
 
 Munus. Instruendis 
 
 Personam. Magistri. Summa. Fide. Et. Dignitate 
 
 Tuebatur 
 
 Hasce. Ad. Laudes. Accesserunt 
 
 Singularis. Vitse. Atque. Naturse. Comitas 
 
 Quae. Optimi. Cujusque. Benevolentiam. Conciliabat 
 
 Et. Discipulos. Ad. Amorem. Et. Reverentiam 
 
 Preceptoris. Sui 
 
 Miriiice. Alliciebat 
 
 Assiduum. Et. Vehemens. Studium. In. Promendis 
 
 Consiliis 
 
 QuEe. Ludimagistris. Indigentlbus. Aut. Senio 
 
 Coufeetis 
 
 Solatium. Ac. Perfugium. Prsebere. Possent 
 
 Et. Digna. Honiine. Perfecte. Erudito. Diligentia 
 
 In. Coniparanda. Bibliotheea 
 
 Quse. Libris. Aliis. Manu. Scriptis 
 
 Aliis. E. Prelo. Emissis 
 
 Ita. Oniata. Fuit 
 
 Ut. Post. Mortem. Possessoris. Luctuosam 
 
 Emeretui*. Sumtu. Publico 
 
 Et. Jussu. Anglici. Parlamenti 
 
 In. Britannico. Museo. Collocaretur 
 
 Maxime. Autem. In. Burneio. Elucebant 
 
 Voluntas. In. Anglicam. Ecclesiara. Propensissima 
 
 Spes. JEtevnce. Salutis. Pie. In. Christo. Posita 
 
 Et. Consuetudo. Pure. Atque. Caste 
 
 Venerandi. Deum. 
 
 i 
 
 Q. 
 
 To Charles Burney, LL.D. S.T.P. A.S. and R.S.S. 
 
 Professor of the Greek and Latin languages 
 
 In the Royal Academy of London, 
 
 Chaplain to George the Third, King of Britain, 
 
 Prebendai-y of Lincoln Cathedral, 
 
 Rector of Cliff, and the Church of St. Paul, at 
 
 Deptford, 
 
 In the County of Kent, 
 
 Master of Greenwich School during xviii years. 
 
 Who lived Ix years and xxiv days. 
 
 Died on the fifth kalend of January, in the holy 
 
 year cio lo ccc xviii. 
 
 And was buried at Deptford, 
 
 His scholars subscribed for this monument. 
 
 Innate in this man 
 
 Was varied and profound erudition, 
 
 A judgment polished by the rules of criticism. 
 
 And the constant exercise of a good style. 
 
 And an exquisite skill 
 
 In solving the intricacies of metre : 
 
 In his works, whether written in Latin or in English, 
 
 The flow of his sentences was lucid ; 
 
 And a choice of words, elegant without being 
 
 enervated. 
 
 Recommended his language 
 
 To a high character for genius and learning. 
 
 His mind was quick in perception. 
 
 His voice full and musical. 
 
 His eye piercing in the extreme, 
 
 But softly tempered by the sprightliness of his 
 
 whole countenance 
 
 And the pleasantest graces of latent wit. 
 
 When imparting to his pupils the higher polish of 
 
 education, 
 
 He exhibited a talent for instruction the most 
 
 precise and exquisite. 
 
 And in forming their minds to every call of duty, 
 
 Protected the character of the Master with the 
 
 greatest truth and dignity. 
 
 To the matter of these praises was added 
 
 A singular gentleness of manners and disposition. 
 
 Which conciliated the kindness of all the good. 
 
 And in a wonderful manner allured 
 
 The scholar to love and reverence his preceptor. 
 
 In advancing an Institution 
 
 Which afforded comfort and a refuge 
 
 To poor and aged schoolmasters. 
 
 His zeal was sedulous and ardent. 
 
 His diligence was worthy a man thoroughly learned, 
 
 In collecting a library. 
 
 So rich in manuscripts 
 
 And published works, 
 
 That after the mournful death of the Possessor, 
 
 It was bought at the public cost, 
 
 And placed in the Bi-itish Museum, 
 
 By order of the English Parliament. 
 
 But what shone most brightly in Burney, was 
 
 An intense affection for the Church of England, 
 
 A hope of salvation piously founded in Christ, 
 
 And a habit chaste and sincere, 
 
 Of venerating God. 
 
 DEAN VINCENT. 
 
 William Vincent, Dean of Westminster, is grate- 
 fully remembered for the Zealand effect with which 
 he supported a comprehensive system of repairs and 
 restorations of the Abbey, in part suggested and in 
 part completed while he held his office. He was a 
 
 citizen of London, and born November 2, 1775, in 
 Lime street ward, of which his father, a merchant in 
 the Portuguese trade, was for many years deputy. 
 The earthquake at Lisbon, by the commercial failures 
 it occasioned, impoverished him, but one of his sons
 
 RICHARD BRINSLEY SHERIDAN. 
 
 243 
 
 stai'ted in the same business, that of a packer, 
 prospered in it, and was able to assist William, who, 
 bein<5 elected in 1757 from Westminster School, in 
 which he was a king's scholar, on the foundation, to 
 Trinity College, Cambridge, proceeded M.A. in due 
 course, and obtained a fellowship. Returning to 
 Westminster he became an usher, and continued in 
 that post until 1771, when, upon the resignation 
 of Dr. Pearson Lloyd, he was appointed second 
 master. In the same year he was nominated a 
 Chaplain in ordinary to the king, and took his D.D. 
 degree. In 1778 the Dean and Chapter gave him 
 his fii-st preferment in the Church, the vicarage of 
 Longdon, in Worcestershire, which he resigned in 
 six mouths, upon being collated by the Archbishop 
 of Canterbury to the rectory of All-hallows, Thames- 
 street. In 1784, he was appointed Sub-almoner to 
 the king, and in 1788 head master of the school. 
 In 1801 he became, at the instance of Mr. Pitt, a 
 Prebendary, and Dean in 1802. For this gradual 
 rise to distinction and wealth in his vocation as a 
 teacher and a clergyman, it is satisfactory to add, 
 that Dr. Vincent stood indebted to his high cha- 
 racter, and his learned acquirements in the classics, 
 history, and theology. In 1793 he published a 
 4to pamphlet in Latin, on an obscure passage in 
 Livy, entitled " De Legione Manliana Qurestio, ex 
 Livio desumpta." During the two next years he 
 produced " The oi'igination of the Greek verb, an 
 hypothesis," and " the Greek verb analysed, an 
 hypothesis." In 1797, appeared his more laborious 
 work, "The commentary on the voyage of Nearchus," 
 which was followed by the " Periplus of the Ery- 
 tlirtean Sea," in two parts. These works gave Dr. 
 Vincent a high reputation amongst the learned, both 
 in England and upon the Continent, but they added 
 little to his popularity. This result, however, was 
 attiiined by his defence of public education, which, 
 though hastily written, to conti'overt the opinions 
 of Dr. Rennell, Master of the Temple, and Dr. 
 O'Beirne, Bishop of Meath, ran through tliree edi- 
 tions in a short period, and proved the only one of 
 liis woi'ks by which he made money. His firm and 
 liberal conduct in directing the restoration of the 
 roof of the lantern, accidentiiUy destroyed by fii'e 
 iu 1803, and in recommending and forwarding the 
 
 repairs authorised by a committee of the house 
 of commons, attracted and deserved considerable 
 praise. 
 
 He was buried in St. Benedict's Chapel, and has 
 a pyramidal tablet between the nionumeuts of Drs. 
 Busby and South, with the following inscription. 
 
 Hie requiescit 
 
 Quod mortale est 
 
 GuLiELMi Vincent, 
 
 Qui Puer 
 
 Sub domus hujusce penetralibus 
 
 Enutritus, 
 
 Mox 
 
 Post studia academica confecta, 
 
 Unde abiit, reversus, 
 
 Atque ex imo prpeceptorum gradu 
 
 Summam adeptus, 
 
 Decanatu timdem hujusce ecclesijB 
 
 (Quam unice dilexit) 
 
 Decoratus est. 
 
 Qualis fuerit vita, studiis, et raoribus 
 
 Lapis sepulchralis, taceat, 
 
 Ortus ex honesta stirpe Vincentiorum 
 
 De Shepy in agro Leicestriensi, natus 
 
 Londiui Nov's secundo 1739. Denatus 
 
 Decemb's 21mo 1815. 
 
 Here rests 
 
 All that is mortal of 
 
 William Vincent, 
 
 Who having, when a boy, been reared 
 
 In the Cloisters of this College, 
 
 Returned to them 
 
 Upon the completion of his academic course. 
 
 And having risen from the office of ushei'. 
 
 To be Head Master, 
 
 Was at length lionoured with the Deanery of this 
 
 Church, 
 
 The sole object of his affection. 
 
 What his life, studies, and moral character were, 
 
 This sepulchral stone should not express. 
 
 He wa-s descended from the reputable family 
 
 Of Vincent of Shepy, in Leicestershire, 
 
 Was Born in London, November 2, 1739. 
 
 Died, December 21, 1815. 
 
 RICHARD BRINSLEY SHERIDAN. 
 
 Genius has been hereditary for successive genera- 
 tions in the family of the Shcridans. The Rev. 
 Dr. Thomas Sheridan, the friend of Dean Swift, is 
 commemorated by the first men of his time as ii 
 cliussical master of high re|)ute and deep learning; 
 a.s being singularly ill-starred, but eminently good- 
 humoured ; a fiddk^r and a wit, who kejit his jien 
 and violin incessantly in motion. He translated the 
 .Satires of Persius, and the Philoctetes of Sophocles. 
 After conducting his school for some time with 
 great success, he sold his interest in it for 400/. 
 which he soon spent ; exchanged his living, was 
 ch(.-ated, anrl at last (li(;d, as he bad lived, totally 
 careless of iMoniifd matters, and heavilyiiiibai-rasserl. 
 ills son Thomas aildcd inucli to the literary cha- 
 racter of the family, Init little or nothing to its 
 
 stock of prudence, wealth, or economy. He was 
 educated at Westminster School, and preferred by 
 the honest dint of talent to a king's scholarsliip ; 
 but unable to retain the place from want of the 
 moderate sum of 14/. for fees, he was obliged to 
 forego the chances of j)refernient, and return to 
 Ireland. Tiiere, however, he succeeded in gradu- 
 ating at Trinity College, Dublin, and as the readiest 
 means of distinction and emolument within his 
 contracted reach, adopti'd the stage for a jirofes- 
 sion. The influence of his fellow-students pushed 
 him into jiublic favour, which his own assiduity 
 retaine<l. He became, in ([uick succession, the 
 ])rincip:il |icrlornicr, maniigi'r, and ]iropi'iitor of 
 the Dublin Tlii'atrc ; and held his office for eight 
 ycar.s, with considerable personal and popular ad-
 
 244 
 
 WESTMINSTER ABBEY. 
 
 vantage, until a political ferment destroyed his 
 house, and drove him from the country. He brought 
 forward IMiller's translation of Voltaire's " IMaho- 
 met." A strong party at that time opposed to 
 the Court, caught at every line in which liberty 
 was alluded to, and ajjplauded the sentiments, as a 
 reflection upon the corruption of the ministerial 
 party. The manager, unwilling to make his theatre 
 the scene of political reprobation, expunged the 
 bold passages, and provoked another and a still 
 more violent outcry. The favourite lines were 
 called for, and when the hooted actors, fearful for 
 their own popularity, hinted that they were for- 
 bidden to comply with the wishes of the house, 
 Sheridan was called for ; and refusing to appear, 
 the theatre was demolished, amidst the loudest 
 asseverations that he never again should be per- 
 mitted to appear befoi-e a Dublin audience. 
 
 In the midst of this tumult, a pamphlet, written 
 in his favour by a lady, made its appearance, which 
 so struck his attention, that he solicited an intro- 
 duction to the authoress, a Miss Chamberlain, and 
 ultimately, by one and the same accident, lost a 
 theatre and gained a wife. After vainly attempting 
 to establish a large classical school, he came over 
 to England, with a family of three sons. Here he 
 quickly added to his former reputation, by occa- 
 sional performances at the principal theatres, and 
 more particularly by a series of rhetorical lectures, 
 delivered with credit and applause at Oxford, Cam- 
 bridge, and in London. He now compiled an 
 English Pronouncing Dictionary: and his lady also 
 put in a favourable claim to literary distinction by 
 writing " Sydney Biddulph," a novel ; " Nourjahad," 
 an oriental tale ; and the comedies of the " Dis- 
 covery," the " Dupe," and the " Trip to Bath." 
 
 Of these intellectual parents, Richard Brinsley 
 Sheridan, born in Dorset- street, Dublin, was the 
 third son. He received the first elements of educa- 
 tion from his mother, and was then transferred to 
 a private academy, kept by Mr. White, in Grafton- 
 street, Dublin. When his mother surrendered him 
 to this his first master, she pronounced him an 
 impenetrable dunce ; and it was a curious circum- 
 stance, that, extraordinary as his talents subse- 
 quently proved, he attained no distinction while a 
 school boy. In 1762 he was sent to Harrow, where 
 he fagged his pai't, incorrigibly indifferent to all 
 emulation, and acquired just enough of rote learn- 
 ing to escape the cat. The brightness of his eye, 
 and the vivacity of his manners, conciliated a gene- 
 ral regard: his masters. Dr. Sumner and Dr. Parr, 
 were satisfied that his mind was cast in no ordinary 
 mould, but, though a latent talent was discovered, 
 it was not developed, and neither art nor persua- 
 sion availed to lay open the energies of his mind. 
 
 Being taken from Harrow before he attained his 
 eighteenth year, he is supposed to have had his 
 taste polished, and his intimacy with the classical 
 authors of England guided by irregular but able 
 lessons from his father. The limited means of the 
 family precluding an entrance into either of the 
 Universities, he was made a student of law at the 
 Temple, and early inspired to seek fame in litera- 
 ture. These adverse circumstances were not ]>er- 
 haps without theii- good effect ; had not Sheridan 
 been forced to exert himself by the most impe- 
 rious necessity, we should, in all probability, never 
 have been gratified by the fruits we now possess 
 of his genius. One of his first literary efforts, the 
 
 first too that ever met the light in print, was a 
 translation of the Greek poems of Aristsenetus, 
 written in conjunction with a former school fellow, 
 named Halhed, in 1770, and published without any 
 success, by Wilkie, of St. Paul's Churchyard, in 
 1771- Two more projects were soon after entered 
 into by the same firm;— the first an opera, in three 
 acts, upon the model of Midas, and to be called 
 " Jupiter ;" and the second, a literary periodical, 
 which Sheridan wished to call " Hernan's Miscel- 
 lany," and Halhed, " The Reformer." But the opera 
 was never finished, and only one paper of the 
 periodical was composed, when Sheridan, now just 
 passed twenty-one, fell upon a train of events which 
 wrought an essential change in his affairs. 
 
 Visiting Bath with his father, in 1772, he first 
 saw Miss Linley, the theatrical singer, and daughter 
 to the well-known musical composer. This lady is 
 pamted to us by her contemporaries, as no less 
 admirable for the accomplishments of a liberal 
 education than for the charms of a captivatmg per- 
 son and an exquisite voice. Once introduced to 
 her, Sheridan fell in love ; and as he told the story 
 of his passion with assiduous ardour, it is easy to 
 conceive how a girl of eighteen received a hand- 
 some suitor, distinguished for an engaging address 
 and manners. But there were far greater obstacles 
 than maiden reserve to be surmounted: Mr. Linley 
 felt no disposition to countenance a suitor utterly 
 destitute of fortune ; and the prospects of the 
 lovers were far from cheering, until other circum- 
 stances produced an excitement, which soon set 
 prudence at defiance. 
 
 In the train of Miss Linley's numei'ous admirers 
 was a Mr. Mathews, well known as a man of fashion 
 and fortune. To him a paragraph in the newspapers, 
 reflecting upon the intimacy between Sheridan and 
 Miss Linley, was traced through the printer ; and 
 a duel, marked by great skill and courage, immedi- 
 ately took place between the rival lovers, Sheridan 
 disarmed his adversary, and compelled him to sign 
 a retraction of the obnoxious paragraph ; and this 
 apology was inserted in the same newspaper which 
 had fii'st conveyed the calumnj' to the public. 
 Mathews, however, made this publication a ground 
 for fresh quarrel ; and a second meeting, under 
 circumstances of increased irritation, ensued. After 
 discharging their pistols without effect, the parties 
 attacked each other with swords ; the struggle was 
 fierce and equally contested, until an attempt made 
 by Sheridan to disarm his adversary obliged liim to 
 close ; and they both fell, with their blades broken 
 by the shock. Matliews, as the stronger man, had 
 now so palpably the advantage, that he called upon 
 the other to beg for his life ; — the answer was, " I 
 scorn it ;" and they continued to mangle each 
 other, until Sheridan lay powerless with wounds, 
 the dangerous appearance of which offered but few- 
 hopes of life. 
 
 A confinement of several weeks, however, restored 
 his health, and his gallantry and love were rewarded 
 by a matrimonial excursion to the Continent. Re- 
 turning to London, he lived for a time in Orcliard- 
 street, Oxford-street, where the want of fortune 
 and employment soon reduced him to a state of 
 embarrassment. His pride would not suffer his wife 
 to pursue her profession, and receive the wages of 
 tlie public ; the proprietors of the Pantheon offered 
 her lOOOZ. for a performance of twelve nights, and 
 1000^. more for a benefit — a splendid means of
 
 RICHARD BRINSLEY SHERIDAN. 
 
 i45 
 
 liquidating the pressing demands upon her hus- 
 band's empty puree ; but every overture of the kind 
 was rejected with fixed disdain. For this eunduct 
 in a man, without estabHshed means of support, and 
 ah'eady embarrassed witli debt, there is perliaps 
 some excuse to be found in conscious ability, and a 
 resolution to mahitain his family ))y the exeirise of 
 his own talents. The comedy of the " Rivals," re- 
 presented for the first time, January 17, 1775, was 
 good earnest of much that followed. Its original 
 success was marred by some disapprobaticju con- 
 jectured to have proceeded from Lee Lewis's im- 
 perfect conception of the broad humour of Sir 
 Lucius O'Trigger. But Sheridan quickly pene- 
 trated the feeling of the audience, and soon after 
 brought the comedy forward with alterations, which 
 established it in general favour. To this day it 
 keeps, and is likely ever to retain a fast hold of the 
 stage ; yet the performance is more the sketch of 
 juvenile fancy than a copy of real life. The cha- 
 I'acters, however, are powerfully combined and con- 
 ti'asted ; while the number of incidents represented, 
 and the diversity of interest created, arc striking 
 and consistent. 
 
 The farce of " The Scheming Lieutenant, or, St. 
 Patrick's Day," was Sheridan's next dramatic per- 
 formance. It was written in forty-eight hours, for 
 the benefit of Clinch, whose representation of the 
 character of Sir Lucius O'Trigger had given un- 
 qualified satisfaction to the author and the public. 
 Encouraged by reputation and wealth, Sheridan 
 pi'oceeded with the composition of the " Duenna," an 
 opera, in which tiie musical talents of his father-in- 
 law, Linley, were happily combined with his own 
 expanding powers. The reception of this piece 
 was splendid ; and it was long esteemed in dra- 
 matic circles as the best specimen ever produced 
 upon the British stage of that pleasant school 
 of art, the English ballad opera. Its only com- 
 petitors, in point of popularity for a length of time, 
 were " Artaxorxes," " The Maid of the Mill," and 
 " Love in a Village." The music of Arne in Arta- 
 xerxes is beyond competition the best produced up 
 to that i)eriod on our theatres ; but the superioi-ity 
 of the " Duenna," in plot, wit, character, ])athos, 
 and general effect, must be still felt by all who read 
 or hear it. 
 
 The profits derived by Sheridan from these dif- 
 ferent plays, though not ascertained may be in- 
 ferred, from the expensive manner in which he 
 began to live. He became the fashion, gave good 
 dinners, was introduced by Dr. Johnson, with a 
 flattering eulogy, to the celebrated Literary Club in 
 Gerard-street, Soho, and obtained the friendHliip of 
 Mr. Fox. Burke, who knew his father well, in all 
 pr(Jjability was ac(iuainted with iiim upon his first 
 arrival in London ; liut it is certain that hence- 
 forward the brilliant trio were intimate companions. 
 And j)erhaps more genius combined in the same 
 frieiidshiji, marked at almost every step with per- 
 sonal and puljlic interc.-st, the world never saw 
 before, jiiid is little likely to bihold again. 
 
 In 177'' ''iirrick retirecl fi-oni Dnuy L:iue 'I'liea- 
 tre, and Lindley, .Sheridan, and Dr. I'onl, liecanie 
 projirietors of it : Sheridan's first work for the 
 season was an alteration of Vanbrugh's comedy, 
 "The Relapse," into the "Trip to Scarborough ;" 
 which met witii success. "The School f'(u- Scandal " 
 was next produced, and obtaini'd for the author l)y 
 unanimous consent the rank of first comic poet of 
 
 the eighteenth century. In fertility and felicitv of 
 wit, expression, character, incident, and moral," the 
 "School for Scandal" is nniver.silly considered one 
 of the very best plays in our language. It was no 
 doubt founded upon'Wycherloy's " I'lain Dealer," a 
 comedy distinguished by a kindred vein of polished 
 sarcasm, well-bred malice, and refined intrigue, but 
 long banished from the stage by its extreme licen- 
 tiousness. The character, common enough in life 
 though seldom presented on the stage, which \Vy- 
 cherley sketched in Varnish, Sheridan painted a full 
 length portrait of, in Joseph Surface, leaving his 
 admirers however to regret, that the contrast or 
 set of!' to it, in the School for Scandal, was far less 
 striking and complete, than the unique Manly of 
 the Plain Dealer. Nevertheless, after allowing for 
 every drawback that can fairly be made on the 
 score of imitation, Sheridan's claims to merit as 
 the author of this comedy will be found to be of 
 the highest order. 
 
 " Tiie Camp," and " The Critic," were his next 
 performances, of which the first added most to his 
 purse and the latter to his reputation. In 177t> 
 his predecessor, Garrick, died, and he honoured his 
 memory with a monody, which was spoken by Mrs. 
 Yates. Standing nearly as high as he could reach 
 in this career, his active spirit now turned for dis- 
 tinction to one more elevated still. A ijeneral elec- 
 tion was about to take place, and Mr. Fox proposed 
 that he should be returned for one of the boroughs 
 belonging to the party. To this arrangement the 
 noble lord, in whose nomination the right of the 
 patronage lay, objected, that high as Sheridan's 
 talents were, still they were not favourable to par- 
 liamentary eminence. Sheridan however was of a 
 different opinion. He swore emphatically, that it 
 was in him, and should come out, and addressing 
 himself with confidence to some intimate friends at 
 Staftbrd, was highly approved of by them and the 
 electors, and returned in 1780 to the House of 
 Commons. 
 
 For the success which crowned Sheridan's exer- 
 tions in parliament, a far higher meed of praise is 
 to be awarded than for his theatrical triunqihs. 
 He was the only man of transcendent talent who 
 for many yeai's had devoted himself to write for 
 the stage ; there he had no rivals ; but in parlia- 
 ment the case was widely diH'erent. On that 
 arena he had both to emulate and oppose men, 
 whose genius was not only of the first oi'der, but 
 who had been long trained to exercise their capa- 
 cities in the most moving resources of arduous 
 experience. Hence the remark, that though no 
 statesnum in either house surpassed him in ability, 
 yet he was unci|ual to many in information. No 
 member spoke with more ingenuity, wit, vigour, or 
 elo(juence; but several addressed themselves to the 
 subject more argumentatively and more fully and 
 justly. When the ministry changed, in 1782, She- 
 ridan was a|ipointed Under Secretary of State to 
 iiis friend iMr. Fox. Retiring with his party from 
 office, he siieci'eded, iipon their I'eturn to power, to 
 the ])ost of 'i'reasurer of the Navy, and obtained a 
 Seat in the I'rivy Council. Of the two most uiqio|iu- 
 lar measures on which his friends connnittiHl lliem- 
 selves, Sheridan is said to have foresi'en the dis- 
 astrous results. We allude to Mr. Fox's India itili, 
 and the coalition with L(ird North ; to liotii of 
 which, illnuj been allirinid, Sheridan was decidedly 
 opjiosed. 
 
 s
 
 240 
 
 WESTMINSTER ABBEY. 
 
 At this period a member of Parliament had even 
 less power to recommend himself to favourahle 
 notice than he now enjoys by anything but his 
 eloquence. In that, Sheridan soon became so cele- 
 brated, that only three names can be ranked before 
 his— those of Fox, Burke, and Pitt, and they sur- 
 passed the age in which they appeared. The first 
 speech by which Sheridan attained distinction, was 
 pronounced in favour of Mr. Fox's India Bill. His 
 opposition to Mr. Pitt's Perfumery-tax, established 
 his reputation for happy point and raillery ; but 
 the trial of Warren Hastings, for which he was 
 one of the managers, ]>resented the opportunities 
 from which he gathered his brightest laurels. His 
 address upon the third charge, "for money cor- 
 ruptly and illegally taken," was copious, animated, 
 and effective. His examination of Mr. Middleton 
 exhibited an imcommon display of acuteness and 
 information ; but his summing up of the evidence 
 on the Begum charge far eclipsed all com])etition. 
 It was an uninterrupted flow of rich and cap- 
 tivating eloquence, for five hours, and was acknow- 
 ledged, by friends and adversaries, to constitute the 
 most perfect combination of argument and oratory 
 ever delivered within the walls of Parliament. So 
 much did it abound with every feeling that could 
 agitate, every art that could win, every embellish- 
 ment that could dazzle, and every power that could 
 control the mind, that when he ceased to speak, 
 the House I'ose with three distinct bursts of ap- 
 ])lause, and declared itself, upon the motion of Mr. 
 Pitt, imequal to the impartiality of a judicial pro- 
 ceeding, whilst the efl'ects of the hai'angue lay fresh 
 on every mind. 
 
 The zealous attachment subsisting between She- 
 ridan and Mr. Fox, made him a firm supporter of 
 the j)rinciples which popularised his party, and a 
 warm advocate of the policy by which that great 
 ])arliamentary leader sought to oppose the progress 
 of our war against the French Revolutionists. He 
 was thus led to i-esign, amongst other valuable 
 friendships, the one he had long enjoyed with 
 Burke. In the popular movement out of Parlia- 
 ment at this period, he took an active share, was 
 a constant attendant at the Whig Clubs, and fre- 
 i|uently exercised his eloquence at the public meet- 
 ings of the day, with an energy and effect which even 
 rivalled the greatest of his parliamentary displays. 
 The various connexions thus unavoidably estab- 
 lished, made him a principal witness on several of 
 the state trials which created such intense interest 
 amidst a discontented people. Amongst the number 
 of important measures in the Senate which he dis- 
 cussed, those connected with the Regency, the 
 Mutiny at the Nore, and the Irish Union, were the 
 most conspicuous, either for public interest or per- 
 sonal distinction. 
 
 Nearly twenty years had thus elapsed, during 
 which he had often promised, yet he never once pro- 
 duced, any thing for the theatre. At length he 
 brought forward, in 1799, his tragedy of " Pizarro," 
 from the German of Kotzebue. In forming our judg- 
 ment of this play, one circumstance must not be 
 overlooked, and that is, that Sheridan had long been 
 manager of Drury Lane Theatre. Convinced as 
 he must have been of the faults of his original, 
 interest only could have led him to turn the general 
 partiality for Kotzebue to a personal account. In 
 writing " Pizarro," his sole object must have been 
 to gratify the prevailing taste of the town, and fill 
 
 the coffers of the theatre ; and certainly there was 
 much ingenuity exhibited in combining together 
 in one piece so many dejects of popular taste. 
 " Pizarro," if no worthy specimen of his dramatic 
 genius, compared with his former pieces, may at 
 least claim the praise of managerial dexterity. It 
 enjoyed a most enviable run, and long remained a 
 standing play of general attraction. The " School 
 for Scandal" procured, by intrinsic value, both 
 honour and wealth for the author ; " PizaiTo," by 
 a happy subserviency to the prepossessions of the 
 public, obtained still greater emolument for the 
 pro])rietor of the house. 
 
 In ISOG, the death of Mr. Fox occasioned a 
 vacancy in the representation of Westminster, and 
 Sheridan was the only man looked up to as a 
 worthy successor to the post so long and ably filled 
 by that great statesman. He was therefore pro- 
 posed in opposition to the unfortunate Mr. Paull ; 
 but was far removed from a prospect of success 
 imtil he was advised to combine his interest with 
 the ministerial candidate. Sir Samuel Hood, a com- 
 mon, but discreditable artifice, by which he at last 
 secured the requisite majority. He lost however 
 the confidence of the constituents, and when next 
 obliged to present himself before them, he stood, of 
 four candidates, lowest on the poll. He managed 
 to gain a seat for Ilchester ; but from this period 
 declined in public estimation. Bereft of the support 
 of his early friends, and embarrassed in his private 
 aftairs, the natural indolence of his character over- 
 came him ; his attendance at the House became 
 infrequent, and his speeches gradually lost the 
 freshness and energy for which they had been so 
 remarkable. At last some strong charges of du- 
 plicity during the course of a negociation for a 
 cliange of ministry affected his reputation with the 
 Whigs ; his theatre was accidentally burnt dt)wn, 
 he lost his seat in Parliament, and his fortune, 
 both public and private, was reduced to the lowest 
 ebb. For this extreme of misfortune much sym- 
 pathy was felt, although there was no room to 
 doubt that it was the consequence of his own indo- 
 lence, mismanagement, and extravagance. Some 
 generous and well-directed efforts were made to 
 I'etrieve his affairs, but they proved ineffectual. His 
 faults were incurable. The man who once wastes 
 the bounty fortune has lavished on him, seldom 
 finds the goddess a second time propitious. And 
 yet Sheridan was doubly prosperous. In 1792 he 
 lost his first wife, and three years afterwards mar- 
 ried Miss Ogle, daughter of the Dean of Winches- 
 ter, with whom he obtained a large sum of money. 
 With that he purchased an estate at Polesdon in 
 Surrey, and as he held the office of Receiver- 
 general of the Duchy of Cornwall, and retained 
 liis interest in Drury Lane, he seemed to be placed 
 beyond the reach of pecuniary distress. Yet when 
 the affairs of Drury Lane Theatre were arranged 
 in 18II, the 40,000/. awarded to Sheridan as his 
 share of the property, proved insufficient to satisfy 
 the debts to which he was liable. 
 
 The close of Sheridan's career is as melancholy 
 as any other upon record. He had always accus- 
 tomed himself to habits of high living and profuse 
 hospitality ; as an author and a theatrical pro- 
 prietor, fortune greatly favoured his views ; but, 
 like all his family, he was wantonly im[)rudent, and 
 though continually receiving money, was always in 
 debt. At last every I'esource failed him ; he was
 
 CHARLES, EARL OF STANHOrE. 
 
 247 
 
 ultimately compelled to retire into seclusion, and 
 struggle with poverty. The four final years of his 
 life were spent under the severest humiliations; he 
 was arrested for debt, and though released in a 
 few daj'S, lived in constant apprehension of being 
 again captured. In this wretched condition he 
 sought a temporary relief for his cares in wine, 
 and completely broke down his constitution by 
 unrestrained indulgence in it. His niiud failed 
 him amidst these last reverees ; his stomach be- 
 came disordered, and rejected food, and he lay 
 delirious for five months. A few days before tlie 
 approach of his dissolution he recovered his senses, 
 and died resigned on Sunday, July 7> ISKJ. It is 
 lamentable to add, that, for some time prior to his 
 demise, he pined in his room under arrest ; and it 
 was only by the firiuness and humanity of the late 
 Dr. Baiilie, that an obdurate attoruey was pre- 
 vented from removing him to die in a jail ! Such 
 was the death of a man of genius ; such is a melan- 
 choly lesson of life. He who had been the ornament 
 
 and delight of every company, and a distinction to 
 the age in which he lived, was left to expire in the 
 bitterest extreme of want and neglect. 
 
 When his death was publicly announced, a vivid 
 but vain feeling of commiseration was publicly ex- 
 pressed. His body was removed to the house of 
 Mr. Peter Moore, then M.P. for Coventry, where 
 it lay in state, and was visited by crowds of ad- 
 mirers. No funeral since that of Lord Nelson was 
 so splendidly attended by men of all ]>arties. At 
 the head of the mourners were the Dukes of York 
 and Sussex, the first Ministers of State followed, 
 and the procession, which was the more interesting 
 because on foot, was continued in a long line by 
 almost every man of rauk or ability in the metro- 
 polis. His grave adjoins that of Cumberland, near 
 the monument of Addison, in the south transcjit of 
 Westminster Abbey, where the spot may be distin- 
 guished by a common blue stone inscribed with 
 his name. 
 
 CHARLES, EARL OF STANHOPE. 
 
 Charles, third* Earl Stanhope, though the least 
 praised on the family monument at the end of the 
 choir, was, nevertheless, one of the most singular 
 
 * The second Earl was born August 15, 1714, and suc- 
 ceeded to the titles of the family when only seven years old. 
 His guardian was the celebrated Earl of Chesterfield, by 
 whom especial pains were taken with his education. Nor 
 were these unrewarded : it is admitted on all hands that this 
 peer was not exceeded in his knowledge of ancient and 
 modern languages, and a profound acquaintance with ma- 
 thematics. For these acquirements, the panegyric of his 
 epitaph is simple truth. He was a scholar, and the patron 
 of scholars. But he applied liis learning solely to the grati- 
 fication of his private hours, and in no respect obtruded his 
 attainments upon the public, except as a senator. In that 
 character, however, he was deservedly popular. His endea- 
 vours to reduce the expenditure of the country, and to ex- 
 tend the liberty of the people; his hostility to tlie American 
 war, and the proceedings respecting Wilkes's Middlesex elec- 
 tion, reflected equal honour upon the correctness of his 
 judgment, and the ardour of his patriotism. His epitajjh is 
 in the stilted style, as follows : — 
 
 To the Memory of 
 
 Philip second Earl Stanhope, 
 
 Conspicuous for universal Benevolence, 
 
 Unshaken public Integrity, 
 
 And PRIVATE Worth. 
 
 Deep were his researches 
 
 In Philosophy, 
 
 And extensive his Ideas 
 
 For liis Country's Good. 
 
 He was ever a determined Supporter 
 
 Of the Trial hij Jury, 
 
 Of tlie Freedom of Elections, 
 
 Of a numerous and well-regulated Mililia, 
 
 And of the Liberty of the Prem. 
 
 On the 7th day of March, 1 78(5, 
 
 (and in the 72d year of his Age 
 
 He terminated an Honourable Life, 
 
 Spent in the Exercise of Virtue, 
 
 In the linproveiiient of Science, 
 
 And in the Pursuit of Truth. 
 
 and celebrated men of the age in which he lived, 
 or the house from which he sprung. He was a 
 patriot, a philosopher, and a philanthropist of 
 eminent desert and purity. A second son, he was 
 born August 3, 1753, and sent, in his eighth year, 
 to Eton School, where he remained until he was ten, 
 but was then removed with his family to Geneva, 
 in consequence of the delicate health of his elder 
 brother. His death in l/fiG made Charles heir to 
 his fathers titles : the celebrated Le Sage was his 
 tutor, and under him he became rapidly distin- 
 truished for his classical and mathematical attain- 
 ments; so much so, that in his eighteenth year he 
 obtained a premium from tlie Swedish Society of 
 Arts and Sciences, for the best treatise on the 
 pendulum. The paper was written in French, and 
 not only disiilayed considerable skill in the lan- 
 guage, and proficiency in science, but detailed vari- 
 ous original experiments made by the young peer 
 m person. 
 
 Returning to England, he stood candidate for 
 the representation of Westminster ; but failing 
 there, was rcturiie(l for the borough of lligh- 
 Wyconibe. He sixju commanded general admiration 
 by the independence of his conduct. .Marrying a 
 daughter of the great Cbatliam, he adopti'd the 
 views of that truly noble Lord, declared himself a 
 staunch friend to jiarliamcntary reform, o])posed 
 the American war with great vigour, made en- 
 lightened eft'orts in favour of religious toleration, 
 an<l souglit on every occasion to reduce the national 
 debt, and lighten the burthens of the people. Nearly 
 as he was related to Mr. I'ilt, he nevertheless de- 
 clined both ]ilaco and ]H'nsiou with liiiu when the 
 liberalily of his early jirincipies began to abate, 
 and oii])osed his adniinistratioii with singular per- 
 tinacity. But tiiough warm in his advocacy of the 
 French revolution, he voted with the minister on 
 tlie subject of the regency. 
 
 There is, perhaps, no series of motions in tln' 
 history of tiie IJritisli rai'liauieiit more curious and 
 extraordinary than those brought forward by the 
 
 s 2
 
 240 
 
 WESTMINSTER ABBEY. 
 
 third Earl of Stanhope. Always thinkino; for him- 
 self, he always acted by himself, recognised no 
 party, viewed every subject upon its own merits, 
 and supported or opposed it with honest feelings. 
 Meritorious as this line of conduct was, it never- 
 theless met with a peculiar fate ; for, as he linked 
 himself with no jiarticular body of men, many even 
 of those who agreed with him in oj)inion would not 
 give liim their support, because they did not choose 
 to speak out with his frank spirit. The repeated 
 motions he made for religious toleration, and a 
 peace with revolutionary France, supjily the strong- 
 est proofs of the isolated position lie held. So ex- 
 treme was his want of iniiuonce in this respect, that 
 he frequently could not procure a seconder for his 
 motion, and thus obtained the name of the ' Mino- 
 rity of One.' Extreme as his opinions were then 
 considered, they are now entertained by even mo- 
 derate politicians. There was a quaintness in Lord 
 Stanhope's manner and matter as an orator, which 
 made him one of the most humorous speakers of 
 his day. His delivery was ungraceful, and his per- 
 sonal appearance careless; his body tail and lank, 
 his face pale and thin, and his brow high and bald. 
 Many of his sayings were terse and epigrammatic ; but 
 the peculiarities of his person and manner, and the 
 strong consistency of his ])olitical opinions, destroyed 
 hisdomestic felicity. The J'rench revolution, as origi- 
 nally commenced, met with his warm and decided 
 approbation, and even after its bloody consequences 
 had repelled a large body of its early admirers, he 
 continued true to his first opinions. This conduct 
 by no means implied approbation of those ciinse- 
 quences, but the alarm was then at such a height 
 that men could not consider things rationally, and 
 Lord Stanhope was denounced as one who would 
 be a Marat under fitting circumstances. This had 
 the effect of separating his Lordship from his family. 
 Lady Esther Stanhope (since renowned for her 
 oriental career). Lady Lucy, and Lady Griselda, 
 his thi'ee children by Lady Esther Pitt, and his three 
 sons by a second Lady, the daughter of Governor 
 Grenvil, all left him, and tlirew themselves on the 
 guardianship of their uncle, the prime minister, 
 Mr. Pitt. The eccentricities undoubtedly inherent 
 in Lord Stanhope's character, formed the ostensible 
 cause, at least, of this sepai-ation. He hated war, 
 and would have none of his sons soldiers ; lie 
 adored independence, and wished his junior sons to 
 enter the useful professions, and not to accept of 
 offices, or sinecures, or pensions, or become in any 
 way burthensome to the country. Here the children 
 were at variance with the father. Two of them 
 entered the army, several of them were endowed 
 with pensions, and we may conclude by stating, 
 that the earl remained separated fx'om his family to 
 the last. 
 
 As a man of science, however, Lord Stanhope 
 obtained a far higher character, and with much 
 greater satisfaction. To record and explain all his 
 ])lans, inventions, and discoveries, were a task too 
 lengthy for these pages ; the following summary, 
 however, will aftord no mean opinion of his talents 
 and indefatigability : — 
 
 L He devised a way to detect fraudulent prac- 
 tices in the coinage, and obviate forgery. 2. He in- 
 
 vented a composition for securing houses from 
 conflagration, of which the curious particulars are 
 detailed in the Philosophical Transactions for ITJH, 
 and the practicability was proved by a trial in the 
 presence of thousands, at his seat, Chevening in 
 Kent. 3. He found out a new mode of burning 
 lime, by aiding the power of the kiln with a wind- 
 furnace, and also discovei-ed a new composition for 
 roofing houses, consisting of tar, chalk, and clean 
 sand. 4. He was one of the first to suggest elec- 
 triral experiments upon the ' returning stroke,' and 
 proved his capability of grappling with the highest 
 scientific questions, in a decidedly practical way, by 
 the mode of protecting houses against the terrible 
 eflects of lightning, which he fully investigated 
 and proved bj' experiments.. A dispute was at 
 that time agitating the scientific world, upon the 
 proper shape for electrical conductors. Franklin 
 had recommended long pointed conductors, but the 
 printer of Philadeliihia was one by whose advice 
 some persons in Britain would not then be saved, 
 either from lightning or any other impending agent 
 of destruction. Some intensely British philosopher 
 suggested the use of short conductors ending in a 
 ball, and the royal palaces were secured, as was 
 fitting, after this patriotic fashion. In fact, science 
 became political. As might be expected. Earl 
 Stanhope took the side of science and natural truth, 
 heedless whence that truth was enunciated, and 
 demonstrated the superiority of Franklin's mode, 
 besides giving publicity to many original thoughts 
 of his own, on this and other points connected with 
 the subject of electricity. 5. He invented a ma- 
 thematical machine, which solved problems in 
 multiplication and division to any extent. 6. He 
 was among the earliest inventors of the steam- 
 boat, and made the first experiment on one of 
 those most ingenious of vessels at his own ex- 
 pense on the river Thames. 7- The double in- 
 clined plane, for improving the construction of 
 locks, is also to be ascribed to his lordship. 8. 
 His, too, is the printing press, now in general 
 use, and commonly distinguished as the Stanhope 
 press. It proved a vast improvement on preceding 
 printing-presses. By this instrument will his me- 
 mory go down to posterity, as the creator of an 
 epoch in the noblest of all human arts. He has also 
 been called the inventor of stereotyping, and if that 
 be not the case, he had the merit, at least, of being a 
 great improver of this most important process, which 
 was introduced by his means mto general use. 
 
 Earl Stanhope died of dropsy at his seat in Kent, 
 December 17, 1816. Of hisjiublished works,nume- 
 rous papers in the Philosophical Transactions ex- 
 cepted, the following is a catalogue : 1. " A Trea- 
 tise on the Means of Preventing Fraudulent Pi-ac- 
 tices in respect to the Gold Coin." 2. " Principles 
 of Electricity." 3. " Observations on Mr. Pitt's 
 Plan for the Reduction of the National Debt." 
 4. " Letter to Mr. Burke on the French Revolu- 
 tion." 5. " The Rights of Juries defended, and the 
 opposition to Mr. Fox's Libel Bill refuted." 6. 
 " Principles of the Science of Tuning Instruments 
 with fixed Notes." T. " An Address to the People 
 of Great Britain and Ireland, on the subject of the 
 Union,"
 
 WARREN HASTINGS. 
 
 illt 
 
 FRANCIS HORNER. 
 
 Fraxcis Horner is comniemorated in tlie north 
 cross aisle by a statue from the chisel of Cliantrej', 
 which is robed in a barrister's gown, and holds a 
 book in the right hand. Of this piece of scidpture 
 enough will have been said when it is observed, 
 that in every respect it justifies the reputation of 
 an artist, who, for the exact delineation of modern 
 costume, has raised his name above all his contem- 
 poraries. The attitude is natural, the expression 
 earnest, the likeness faithful, and the execution 
 faultless. The epitajih, a composition of appropriate 
 neatness, is thus engraved : — 
 
 To the memory of 
 
 Francis Horner, 
 
 Who, by the union of great and various 
 
 ac(iuirements. 
 
 With inflexible integrity, and unwearied devotion 
 
 To the interests of the country, 
 
 raised himself to an eminent station in society, 
 
 and was justly considered to be one of the 
 
 Most distinguished members of the House of 
 
 Commons. 
 
 He was born at Edinburgli, in 1778, 
 
 Was called to the Bar, both of England and 
 
 Scotland, 
 
 And closed his short, but useful life, at Pisa, 
 
 in 1817. 
 
 His death was deeply felt, 
 
 And publicly deplored in Parliament. 
 
 His affectionate friends, and sincere admirers, 
 
 Anxious that some memorial should exist 
 
 Of merits universally acknowledged. 
 
 And of expectations which a premature death 
 
 Could alone have frustrated, erected this monument, 
 
 A. D. 1823. 
 
 This inscription resembles a few others which 
 the reader has already been invited to notice in the 
 course of the work: — it is a pattern in its own 
 style, i-elating with elegant brevity, and great good 
 feeling, the n)ain facts which distinguished the life, 
 and the conspicuous traits which elevated the cha- 
 racter, of the individual it connnemoratcs. Of one 
 whose time was either consumed in study, or con- 
 fined to mere professional avocations, it is prover- 
 bial that but little can be told; but that little 
 dwindles away, and becomes reduced almost to 
 nothing, when the subject falls jirematurely into 
 liis grave. Such wiia the case with Mr. Horner, a 
 gentleman, who, to uncommon powers of mind, 
 
 added uncommon application and acrpiirements; 
 but of whom the only particulars that are preserv- 
 ed, save those recited on his monument, are these 
 few. The place of his birth was the old town of 
 Edinburgh: the date of it, August 12. He was edu- 
 cated at the high school and university of his native 
 city, and called to the Scotch bar in 1708, and the 
 English in 1805. His talents first became known 
 by his contributions to the " Edinburgh Review," a 
 periodical, the best beyond comparison of any that 
 preceded it, and not as yet surpassed in merit 
 or in reputation. He was one of the projectors 
 of it, and continued while he lived one of the ablest 
 of the very able writers, w ho co-operated to esta- 
 blish and sustain it. At school and at college. Lord 
 Brougham, Lord -Jeffrey, and others of the same 
 order of talent, were Mr. Horner's class fellows and 
 competitors, yet he was unifonnly dux. Dr. Adams 
 the rector used to describe him as the only boy he 
 ever knew who carried an (jld head on young shoul- 
 ders. He had no tutor, and kept the lead by dint 
 of close study and sheer talent. To this habit of 
 early application he owed, if not the origin, at least 
 the aggravation of the severe pulmonary complaint 
 by which his useful career was prematurily cut 
 short. He was first brought into parliament by 
 Lord Henry Petty, afterwards JLuvpiess of Lans- 
 down, as member for St. Ives, in 180G. Through 
 his lordship, then chancellor of the exche(iuer, he 
 obtained the laborious office of commissioner for 
 the liquidation of the Carnatic claims, which, when 
 his party went out of office, he was induced to 
 throw up, from a feeling that the independence of 
 his character would be compromised by holding a 
 place of emolument under a government which his 
 political principles did not permit him to sujiport. 
 He was eminentas a political economist. In 1810, 
 he brought the report of the celebrated Bullion 
 Committee before the House of Connnons in a four 
 hours' speech, not less able than it was long. Men of 
 all parties agreed in thinking highly of him; his aldli- 
 ties were every way eminent, and displayed with a 
 gentleness not always met with in men of genius. 
 The firmness of his principles, and the mode- 
 ration with which they were uniformly expressed, 
 coupled with the pure sense of honour by which Jus 
 life wa-s regulated, obtained" for his opinions a de- 
 gree of consideration, and for his advice an extent 
 of confidence, which no young member of parlia- 
 ment had been ever beforo honoured with, except 
 Mr. Pitt. 
 
 WARREN HASTINGS. 
 
 A SMALL tabh^t of whiti; marble, in the north tran- 
 sept, with a bust l)y Bacon, junior, is the plain me- 
 morial of the once powerful Warren Hastings. The 
 epit;i[di however displays ni(jre pretension. — 
 
 Sacred to the memory of 
 The Right H<inoural,le Wauki:.n Hastings, 
 
 Governor-general of Beng.-d, 
 
 Member of his Majesty's most honourable 
 
 I'rivy Couneil, LL.I)., V.R.S., 
 
 Descended from the elder liraneh of the ancient 
 
 and noble family of 1 limtingilnn. 
 
 Selected for his vaiiuus taliiits and intecrity, 
 
 He was appointed by iiarlianunt, in 177>',
 
 250 
 
 WESTMINSTER ABBEY. 
 
 The first Governor-general of India, 
 
 To which high office he was thrice re-api)oiuted by 
 
 the same authority. 
 
 Presiding over the India Government, 
 
 During thirteen years of a most eventful period, 
 
 He restored the affairs of the East India Company, 
 
 From the deepest distress to the highest prosperity, 
 
 And rescued the possessions from a combination 
 
 of the most powerful events ever leagued 
 
 against them. 
 
 In the wisdom of his councils, and the energy 
 
 of his measures. 
 
 He found unexhausted resources. 
 
 And successfully sustained a long, varied, and 
 
 Multiplied war with France, Mysore, and the 
 
 Mahratta states, 
 
 Whose power he humbled. 
 
 And concluded an hcmourable peace. 
 
 For which, and fur his distinguished services, 
 
 He received the thanks of the East India 
 
 Company, 
 
 Sanctioned by the Board of Conti-ol. 
 
 The kingdom of Bengal, the seat of his government, 
 
 He ruled with a mild and equitable sway, 
 
 Preserved it from invasion, 
 
 And while he secured to its inhabitants the 
 
 Enjoyment of their customs, laws, and religion, 
 
 And the blessings of peace. 
 Was rewarded by their affection and gratitude: 
 Nor was he more distinguished by the highest 
 
 Qualities of a statesman and a patriot. 
 
 Than by the exercise of every Christian virtue. 
 
 He lived for many years in dignified retirement, 
 
 Beloved and revered by all who knew him, 
 
 At his seat of Daylesford, iu the county of 
 
 Worcester, 
 
 Where he died in peace, in the 8(ith year of his age, 
 
 August 22, 1818. 
 
 This Memorial was erected 
 
 By his beloved Wife, and disconsolate Widow, 
 
 M. A. Hastings. 
 
 Were it not that the averments of epitaphs have 
 always been held sacred from criticism, we should 
 have been constrained to fall foul of this composi- 
 tion, in which all is praise and adulation, unmixed 
 with censure or the slightest reproof, of one \\hose 
 character and career were of the most questionable 
 description; a man most infelicitously immoi'talised 
 by extraordinary talents, pre-eminent success, and 
 enormous depravity as a statesman. 
 
 Born, December 6, 1732, at Daylesford, in Wor- 
 cestershire, of which his grandfather, a poor man, 
 was the rector, he lost both his parents in his in- 
 fancy, and was taught to read and write with the 
 peasants' children of his native village. In his 
 eighth year he was taken to London by his uncle 
 Howard Hastings, who held a place iu the Cus- 
 toms, and was put to school at Newington, where he 
 was well taught and badly fed. Two years after 
 he was removed to Westminster school. There he 
 played in the cloisters,and then rowed on the Thames 
 with Cowper the poet, and in 1750 was shipped 
 off to Calcutta as a clerk in the secretary's office. 
 
 In the celebrated sketch of the life of Hast- 
 ings by Mr. Macaulay, the reader is fascinated and 
 subdued no less by the animated ability of the 
 writer, than by the glowing vein of deep romance 
 that pervades his subject matter. This irresistible 
 
 charm seems to be inhei-ent in the fortune of Hast- 
 ings; it breaks out in the days of his earliest infancy, 
 accompanies him through all the vicissitudes of his 
 lofty career, and attends him faithfully to his death- 
 bed, after so long a retirement at his much-loved 
 Daylesford. There we first find him an orphan, and 
 poor in the extreme, and there we take leave of 
 him after having ruled a mighty empire, and after 
 having won and lost two large fortunes, the 
 secluded owner of the estate upon which he was 
 born, an estate moreover of which his forefathers 
 had been the original possessors, and which he 
 when a boy determined to recover. The family- 
 was of remote antiquity, and high distinction. One 
 branch in the fourteenth century held the peerage 
 of Pembroke, another the earldom of Huntmgdon. 
 The lords of the manor of Daylesford claimed to 
 be the heads of these, but were destroyed by their 
 zeal for royalty in the civil wars, and ultimately 
 obliged to sell the estate to a London merchant. 
 The last link which connected the family of Hast- 
 ings with Daylesford, was the rectory held by 
 Warren's grandfather. But as Mr. Macaulay gra- 
 phically relates, "the daily sight of the lands which 
 his ancestors liad possessed, and which liad passed 
 into the hands of strangers, filled Warren's young 
 brain with wild fancies and projects. He loved to 
 hear stories of the wealth and greatness of his pro- 
 genitors, of their splendid housekeeping, their loy- 
 alty, and their valour. On one bright summer da^', 
 the boy, then just seven years old, lay on the bank 
 of the rivulet which flows through the old domain 
 of his house to join the Isis. There, as threescore 
 and ten years later he told the tale, rose in his 
 mind a scheme which, through all the turns of his 
 eventful career, was never abandoned — he would 
 recover the estate which had belonged to his 
 fathers; he would be Hastings of Daylesford. This 
 purpose, formed iu infancy and poverty, grew stron- 
 ger as his intellect expanded and as his fortune 
 rose. He pursued his plan with that calm but in- 
 domitable force of will, which v»'as the most striking 
 peculiarity of his character. When, under a tro- 
 pical sun, he ruled fifty millions of Asiatics, his 
 hopes, amidst all the cares of war, finance, and 
 legislation, still pointed at Daylesford. And when 
 his long public life, so singularly chequered with 
 good and evil, with glory and obloquy, had at length 
 closed for ever, it was to Daylesford that he re- 
 tired to die." 
 
 An absence of fifteen years, during which his 
 energetic talents obtained liim several stations of 
 rank and trust, and a creditable knowledge of ori- 
 ental literature, also sufficed for the acquisition of 
 a fortune, so far commensurate with his desires 
 that he returned to spend a life of ease in England. 
 Well had it been for him that liis ambition had 
 never again diverted him from his home. In pri- 
 vate society, he was iniiversally liked and respect- 
 ed; his tastes were literary, and his friends scho- 
 lars; he became intimate with Dr. Jolmson, and, 
 at his suggestion, proposed the foundation of a Per- 
 sian lectureship at Oxford. But having dissipated 
 his money in four years, he was glad to accept the 
 ])lace of second in council at the presidency of 
 Aladras, and depart from England without delay. 
 In a year he obtained the presidency, in which he 
 continued until 1773, when an act of j)arliament 
 raised him to the fatal supremacy of Governor- 
 general of India. It was on his second passage out
 
 WARREN HASTINGS. 
 
 251 
 
 to India that Hastings formed his violent attach- 
 ment to the wife of a German named Imhoff, \vho 
 called himself a baron, and was seeking his fortune 
 as an ai-tist. An agreement was made amongst 
 the parties that, in consideration of a sum given by 
 Mr. Hastings, the German should sue out a divorce 
 hi his native country, so as to enable his wife to 
 enter upon a new alliance. This plan, strange to 
 say, was carried into execution in all its parts, and 
 Mrs. Imhoff, twenty years after, flourished at the 
 court of Queen Charlotte as Mrs. Hasthigs. 
 
 Hastings, as generally happens when men of su- 
 perior intellect are associated Mith others of infe- 
 rior capacity, was violently opposed in council. At 
 the end of three years Lord North, to whose influ- 
 ence he owed his elevation, became dissatisfied with 
 his conduct, and desired to depose him. A propo- 
 sal to this effect was entertained by the East India 
 Directors, and supported by thirteen votes, forming 
 the bare majority of the court. The subject, how- 
 ever, was reconsidered and rejected. In 1778 ter- 
 minated the period to which the act of parliament 
 limited his commission; but Lord North now pro- 
 posed his re-appointment, and it was carried first 
 for one, and afterwards for ten years. These con- 
 tinued favours appeared to augur well for the 
 future; nevertheless, a fortunate close of this second 
 administration was one for the enjoyment of which 
 he was not destined. In l/So, he returned to Eng- 
 land, to answer charges upon which the House of 
 Commons had impeached him befoi'o the lords, of 
 high crimes and misdemeanours. 
 
 In a short sketch like this, it would be impossible 
 to particularise the several charges brought for- 
 ward, or the various events out of which they 
 arose. The character of Hastings's administration, 
 however, may be judged of by a few passages. His 
 efforts to promote the interests, extend the sway, 
 and enrich the treasury of his employers, were 
 anxious, incessant, and unscrupulous. He was not 
 personally avaricious and grasping to a correspond- 
 ing extent, but at the same time he stands by no 
 means exempt from the reproach of sordid views, 
 with regard to his own f(n'tune. Amongst his worst 
 acts was the death of an obnoxious Hindoo, named 
 Nuneomar, whose condemnation he procured by a 
 series of judicial persecutions. Another was the 
 subjugation of the brave and independent Rohillas, 
 for which purpose he sold the services of an army. 
 As a set off for the ini(juity of these proceedings, 
 his apologists contend that his vigour saved oiu" 
 empire in the East. It is impossible to deny that 
 there is much truth in the assertion. 
 
 The attiick upon I'.enares was one of those pub- 
 lic crimes upon a grand scale, which dazzle by tlu; 
 magnitude of the undertaking, and almost confound 
 the sense of right and wi-ong by the display of 
 wonderful talent re(juired to achieve them. " Hast- 
 ings," .says Mr. .Macaulay, " had to find the means, 
 not only of carr\ iiig on the govei'ument of Ueiigal, 
 but of maintaining a most costly war against both 
 Indian an<l Enrojiean enemies in the Carnatic, and 
 of making remittances to England. A few years 
 bef(jre this time he had obtained relief by plunder- 
 ing the Mogul, and enslaving the Rohillas ; nor 
 were the resources of his fruitful mind by any 
 means exhausted. 
 
 " His first d<;sign was on Benares, a city in 
 wealth, po])ulation, dignity, and sanctity, among llic 
 foremost of Asia. It was commonly b(;lievcd that 
 
 half a million of human beings was crowded into 
 that labyrinth of lofty alleys, rich with shrines, 
 and minarets, and balconies, and carved oriels, to 
 which the sacred apes clung by hundreds. The 
 schools and temples drew crowds of pious Hindoos 
 from every province where the Brahniinical faith 
 was known. Hundreds of devotees came thither 
 every month to die ; for it was believed that a pecu- 
 liarly happy fate awaited the man who should pass 
 from the sacred city into the sacred river. Nor 
 was superstition the only motive which allured 
 strangers to that great metropolis. Connnerce had 
 as many pilgrims as religion. All along the shores 
 of the venerable stream, lay great fleets of vessels 
 laden with rich merchandise. From the looms of 
 Benares went forth the most delicate silks that 
 adorned the balls of St. James's, and of the Petit 
 Trianon; and in the bazaars, the muslins of Bengal 
 and the sabres of Oude were mingled with tlie 
 jewels of Golconda and the shawls of Cashmere. 
 This rich capital, and the surrounding tract, had 
 long been under the inmiediate rule of a Hindoo 
 prince, who rendei-ed homage to the Mogul empe- 
 rors. During the great anarchy of India, the lords 
 of Benares became indejiendent of the court of 
 Delhi; but were compelled to submit to the autho- 
 rity of the Nabob of Oude. Oppressed by this for- 
 midable neighbour, they invoked the protection of 
 the English. The English protection was given; 
 and at length the Nabob Vizier, by a solemn treaty, 
 ceded all his rights over Benares to the Comjiany. 
 From that time the rajah was the vassal of the 
 govei'nment of Bengal, acknowledged its supremacy, 
 and sent an annual tribute to Fort William. These 
 duties Chcyte Sing, the reigning prince, had ful- 
 filled with sti'ict punctuality. Hastings, determined 
 to rob this prince of his treasures, was at no loss for 
 a pretext. In 1778, on the first breaking out of the 
 war with France, Cheyte Sing was called upon to 
 pay, in addition to his fixed tribute, an extraordi- 
 nary contribution of 50,000/. In 1779, an equal 
 sum was exacted. In 1780, the demand was re- 
 newed. Cheyte Sing, in the hope of obtaining some 
 indvilgence, .secretly ottered the governor-general 
 a bribe of 20,000/. Hastings paid over the bribe 
 to the Company's treasury, and insisted that the 
 rajah should instantly comply with the demands of 
 the English government. The rajah, after the 
 fashion of his countrymen, shuffled, solicited, and 
 ])leaded poverty. The grasp of Hastings was not 
 to be so eluded. He added another 10,00(V. as a 
 fine for delay, and sent troops to exact the money. 
 " The money was paid. But this was not enough. 
 The late events in the south of India had increased 
 the financial embaiTassments of the Comiiany. 
 Hastings was determined to plunder Cheyte Sing, 
 and, for that end, to fasten a quarrel on him. Ac- 
 cordingly, the rajah was now required to keep a 
 body of cavalry for the service of the British go- 
 vernment. Hi; objected and evaded. This was 
 exactly what the govfrnor-gcneral wanted. He had 
 now a jjretext for treating the wealthiest of his 
 vassals as a criminal. " 1 resolved," these are the 
 words of Hastings himself, " to draw from Iiis guilt 
 the means of relief to the Company's distresses, to 
 make him pay largely for his pardon, or to exact 
 a severe vengeance for ])ast delimniency." The 
 plan was simply this, to demand larger and birger 
 contributioTis, till the rajah should be driven to re- 
 monstrate, then to call iiis remonstrance a crime.
 
 252 
 
 WESTMINSTER ABBEY. 
 
 and to punisli him by confiscating all his posses- 
 sions. 
 
 " Cheyte Sing was in dismay. He offered 200,000/. 
 But Hastings would accept nothing less than half 
 a million, and began to think of selling Benares to 
 Oude, as he had formerly sold Allahabad and 
 Rohilcund. He resolved to visit Bsnares, and was 
 received with every mark of reverence by Cheyte 
 Sing— who came near sixty miles, with his guards, 
 to meet and escort the illustrious visiter. He ex- 
 pressed his deep concern at the displeasure of the 
 English. He even took off his turban, and laid it 
 in the lap of Hastings — a gesture which, in India, 
 marks the most profound submission and devotion. 
 Hastings behaved with cold and repulsive severity. 
 Upon arriving at Benares, he sent to the rajah a 
 paper containing the demands of the government 
 of Bengal. The rajah, in reply, attempted to clear 
 himself from the accusations brought against him. 
 Hastings, who wanted money and not excuses, was 
 not to be put off by the ordinary artifices of eastern 
 negotiation. He instantly ordered the rajah to be 
 arrested, and placed under the custody of two 
 companies of sepoj's. 
 
 " In taking these strong measures, Hastings 
 scarcely showed his usual judgment. He was now in 
 a land far more favourable to the vigour of the hu- 
 man frame, than the Delta of the Ganges — in a land 
 fruitful of soldiers, who have been found worthy to 
 follow English battalions to the charge and into the 
 breach. The rajah was popular among his subjects. 
 His administration had been mild ; and the pros- 
 perity of the district which he governed presented 
 a striking contrast to the depressed state of Bahar, 
 under our rule — a still more striking contrast to 
 the misery of the provinces which were cursed by 
 the tyranny of the Nabob Vizier. The national 
 and religious prejudices with which the English 
 were regarded throughout India, were peculiarly 
 intense in the metropolis of the Brahminical super- 
 stition. It can, therefore, scarcely be doubted that 
 the governor-general, before he outraged the dig- 
 nity of Cheyte Sing by an arrest, ought to have 
 assembled a force capable of bearing down all op- 
 position. This had not been done. The handful of 
 sepoys who attended Hastings, would probably have 
 been sufficient to overawe Moorshedabad, or the 
 Black Town of Calcutta, but they were unequal to 
 a confTict with the hardy rabble of Benares. The 
 streets surrounding the palace were filled by an 
 immense multitude, of whom a large proportion, as 
 is usual in Upper India, wore arms. The tumult 
 became a fight, and the fight a massacre. The 
 English officers defended themselves with desperate 
 courage against overwhelming numbers, and fell, 
 as became them, sword in hand. The sepoys were 
 butchered. The gates were forced. The captive 
 prince, neglected by his jailers during the confusion, 
 discovered an outlet which opened on the precipitous 
 bank of the Ganges, let himself down to the water 
 by a string made of the turbans of his attendants, 
 found a boat, and escaped to the opposite shore. 
 
 " But if Hastings had, by indiscreet violence, 
 brought himself into a difficult and perilous situa- 
 tion, it is only just to acknowledge that he extri- 
 cated himself with even more than his usual ability 
 and presence of mind. He had only fifty men 
 with him. The building in which he had taken up 
 his residence was on every side blockaded by the 
 insurgents. But liis fortitude remained unshaken. 
 
 The rajah, from the other side of the river, sent 
 apologies and liberal offers. They were not even 
 answered. Some subtle and enterprising men were 
 found who undertook to pass through the throng of 
 enemies, and to convey the intelligence of the late 
 events to the English cantonments. It is the 
 fashion of the natives of India to wear large ear- 
 rings of gold. When they travel, the rings are laid 
 aside, lest they should tempt some gang of robbers; 
 and, in place of the ring, a quill or a roll of paper 
 is inserted in the orifice to prevent it from closing. 
 Hastings placed in the ears of his messengers 
 letters rolled up in the smallest compass. Some of 
 these letters were addressed to the commanders of 
 the English troops. One was written to assure his 
 wife of his safety. One was to the envoy whom he 
 had sent to negociate with the Jlahrattas. Instruc- 
 tions for the negotiation were needed ; and the 
 governor-general framed them m that situation of 
 extreme danger, with as much composure as if he 
 had been writing in his palace at Calcutta. 
 
 " Things, however, wei-e not yet at the worst. An 
 English officer, of more spirit than judgment, eager 
 to distinguish liimself, made a premature attack ou 
 the insurgents beyond the I'iver. His troops were 
 entangled in narrow streets, and assailed by a fu- 
 rious population. He fell, with many of his men ; 
 and the survivors were forced to retire. 
 
 " This event produced the effect which has never 
 failed to follow every check, however slight, sus- 
 tained in India by the English arms. For hundreds 
 of miles round, the whole country was in commo- 
 tion. The entire population of the district of 
 Benares took arms. The fields were abandoned by 
 the husbandmen, who thronged to defend their 
 prince. The infection spread to Oude. The op- 
 pressed people of that province I'ose up against the 
 Nabob Vizier, refused to pay their imposts, and put 
 the revenue-officers to flight. Even Bahar was 
 ripe for revolt. The hopes of Cheyte Sing began 
 to rise. Instead of imploring mercy in the humble 
 style of a vassal, he began to talk the language of 
 a conqueror, and threatened, it was said, to sweep 
 the white usurpers out of the land. But the Eng- 
 lish troops were now assembling fast. The officers, 
 and even the private men, regarded the governor- 
 general with enthusiastic attachment, and flew to 
 his aid with an alacrity which, as he boasted, had 
 never been shown on any other occasion. Major 
 Popham, a brave and skilful soldier, who had highly 
 distinguished himself in the Mahratta war, and in 
 whom the governor-general reposed the greatest 
 confidence, took the command. The tumultuary 
 army of the rajah was put to rout. His fastnesses 
 were stormed. In a few hours, above thu-ty thou- 
 sand men left his standard, and returned to their 
 ordinary avocations. The unhappy prince fled from 
 his country for ever. His fair domain was added 
 to the British dominions. One of his relations, in- 
 deed, was appointed rajah ; but the Rjijah of 
 Benares was henceforth to be, like the Nabob of 
 Bengal, a mere pensioner. 
 
 " By this revolution, an addition of 200,000/. a- 
 j'ear was made to the revenues of the Company. 
 But the immediate relief was not as great as had 
 been expected. The treasure laid up by Cheyte 
 Sing liad been popularly estimated at a million 
 sterling. It turned out to be about a fourth part 
 of that sum ; and, such as it was, it was seized and 
 divided as prize-money by the army."
 
 WARREN HASTINGS. 
 
 253 
 
 Such were tlic pi-oceedings of the government 
 for which Hastings was now called to account. Per- 
 sons undoubtedly have been arraigned before tlie 
 sword of justice, whose crimes were of a blacker 
 dye, wliose lives were of greater importance, and 
 whose condemnation or acquittal involved conse- 
 quences of deeper concei'n to the people at whose 
 tribmial they stood ; but these and many consider- 
 ations of a similar nature seem to have been 
 absorbed iu the intense interest which was created 
 by the liost of talent and the astonishing powers 
 displayed upon the investigation. Burke, who has 
 acquired the reputation of having been the most 
 accomplished orator this or any other country ever 
 produced, led the impeachment, and pronounced, 
 during the course of it, speeches equal to any of 
 those which he delivered upon otlier occasions : 
 Sheridan, too, distinguished it by most brilliant 
 harangues, of which, one in particular, according 
 to the report of all who heard it, constituted the 
 noblest piece of eloquence that had been heard or 
 recorded by ancient or modern times, wliether at 
 the bar, in the senate, on the judgment-scat, or 
 from the pulpit ; while Fox, Pitt, and Windham, 
 Contributed during its various stages the additional 
 attraction of their unconmion powere. 
 
 The proceedings began in the session for ITiiG, 
 and closed during the one for 179-1, thus including 
 a term of nine years. Unexampled as this length of 
 prosecution appears, the statement only applies to 
 what was strictly the duration of the trial. The con- 
 duct of Hastings had been a topic of parliamentary 
 inquiry and animadversion for some time previous. 
 For instance, two committees of the House of Com- 
 mons, the one open, the other secret, delibei-ated 
 upon the affairs of India in 1780 and 1781, and 
 reported that " Wan-en Hastings, Esq., Governor- 
 general of Bengal, and William Hornby, Esq., 
 president of the council at Bombay, having ia 
 sundry instances acted in a manner repugnant to 
 the honour and policy of this nation, and thei-eby 
 brought great calamities on India, and enormous 
 expenses on the East India Company ; it is the 
 duty of the directors of the said company to pursue 
 all legal and effectual means for the removal of the 
 said Governor-general and President from their 
 said offices, and recall them to Great Britain." 
 
 That this denunciation would have been followed 
 up to the extreme which it ultimately reached, if 
 Mr. Fox's India Bill had not supervened, appears 
 very problematical. At least the steps recommended 
 were not pursued until that celebrated measure 
 came to be discussed. Then it was that Mr. Burke 
 stigmatised Ha.stings as the Captain-general of ini- 
 quity, and resorted to his alleged misconduct as an 
 argument in favour of the act, a line of attack 
 which was challenged l)y the Lord Chancellor 
 Tliuilcjw, who answered," If Hastings be the dcjio- 
 ])ulator of provinces, let his crimes he brought for- 
 ward, but let the question bo decided upon its own 
 merits." Burke was a man of too ardent a temper 
 not to take up the gauntlet thus thrown down, and 
 to this, in all likelihoo<l, the nation st-mds indebted 
 for the subsequent [iroceedings. Some time wa.s 
 consumed in acquiring infoniiation, anil some far- 
 ther delay was riccasioncd by the absc iici,' of tin? 
 Goveruor-gcucral from England, lie returned, 
 
 however, during the recess of 1/85; Parlianunt 
 re-assembled on the 24th of Januai-y, 1780 ; and 
 on the 17th of February following, Burke opened 
 the impeachment in form. 
 
 To go into a cause so prolix, stage after stage, 
 would tire the reader as completely as the original 
 tired out the public. In the end, Mr. Hastings was 
 acquitted, less because he was proved innocent, 
 than because it seemed an endless labour to 
 support by legal evidence the whole extent of his 
 criminality. 
 
 Being thus, after a nine years' ordeal, I'ecognised 
 an innocent subject in the eye of the law, and having 
 expended all his means in his defence, Hastings 
 received some compens.ation from the East India 
 Company, w ho, whatever may have been his deserts 
 or demerits, had been largely benefited by his 
 administration. A sum of money much less tlian 
 he had spent, and 4000^. a year for life were voted 
 to liim. He was sworn in his old age a Privy 
 Councillor, and earnestly solicited, but could not 
 obtain a peerage : he never after intei-fered with 
 political matters. He had purchased the family 
 estate at Daylesford, and there he withdrew, closing 
 his life in privacy, as is stated in his epitaph. 
 
 Such was the extraordinary career of Warren 
 Hastings. His character, according to a recent 
 critic, is more likely to be seen in a false light, than 
 that of any other Indian administrator. From 
 having been singled out as the object of parlia- 
 mentary impeachment, he in the first instance suf- 
 fered from, at least, rhetorical misre]n'csentation ; 
 and then, again, a reaction having taken place in 
 his favour, he was elevated higher than ho deserv- 
 ed. Admitting that the difficulties in which he 
 found himself placed, as Governor General of India, 
 were peculiarly great, we cannot admit tliat he 
 came well out of them. He seems to have carried 
 to excess the crooked and short-sighted policy of 
 temporary expedients, of craft, of finesse, in one 
 word still more expressive, of tricking. Mr. Mill 
 mentions it as remarkable how few of his political 
 arrangements produced the effects expected from 
 them, and how much his administration consisted 
 in a perpetual change of ill-concerted measures. 
 In fact, Hastings appears to have been a man 
 neither intellectually nor morally strong ; a man 
 who had constantly Heating before him vapor visions 
 of vast dominion, and unbounded wealth, but ha<l 
 no clear conception of the means to his ends ; and 
 who in the absence of all clear ideas, rushed inqie- 
 tuously at whatever seemed to him at the moment 
 to lead the way lie desired, altogether regardless of 
 the misery he might inHict, liy pursuing such a 
 course : uj)on the wliole, a weak, bad ruler. 
 
 In his private circle he appears, by all accounts, 
 to liave been truly amiable, and nuicli respected; 
 so nmch so, that could the estimate of his lite be 
 suimncd up from the testimonies of numerous per- 
 sonal friends alone, it is scan-cly possible to con- 
 ceive the idea of an individual possessed of more 
 interesting (lualities. He was always attached to 
 letters, and is known as an aullior by some tracts 
 on India, a volume of fugitive jxietry, and several 
 speeches, which were iironoinu'cd in his own de- 
 fence, and subsequently printed.
 
 254 
 
 WESTMINSTER ABBEY. 
 
 JAMES WATT. 
 
 Not to ]ierpctuate a name, 
 
 Which must eudure while the peaceful arts 
 
 flourish, 
 
 But to show 
 
 That mankind have learned to know those 
 
 Who best deserve their gratitude. 
 
 The King, 
 
 His Ministers, and many of the nobles 
 
 And commoners of the realm, 
 
 Raised this Monument to 
 
 James Watt, 
 
 Who, directing the force of an original Genius, 
 
 Early exercised in philosophic research. 
 
 To the impi-ovement of the Steam Engine, 
 
 Enlarged the resources of his Country, 
 
 Increased the power of man. 
 
 And rose to an eminent place 
 
 Among the most illustrious followers of science. 
 
 And the real beuefactoi's of the world. 
 
 Bom at Greenock, mdccxxxvi. 
 Died at Heathfield, in Staffordshire, mdcccxix. 
 
 This inscription, written l>y Lord Brougham, and 
 one of the few specimens of chaste and expressive 
 English to be met with amongst the numerous 
 epitaphs in the Abbey, is appropriately engraved 
 upon the pedestal of the large statue, by Chantrey, 
 so injudiciously placed in the narrow precincts of 
 the chapel of St. Paul. 
 
 James Watt, above almost all others an essential 
 benefactor of the human race, was born at Green- 
 ock, January 19, 17^6. His great grandfather was 
 a farmer in Aberdeenshire, who was killed in one 
 of Montrose's battles. For his part in this proceed- 
 ing his little property was confiscated. He left a 
 son, who being educated by distant relations, esta- 
 blished himself as a teacher of mathematics and 
 the principles of navigation, in the suburb of Craw- 
 furd's Dyke, Greenock, of which he was baillie. 
 James Watt, his second son, rose in station and 
 respectability, amassed, and then lost a fortune, 
 and must by the variety of his avocations have 
 been a man of active and enei'getic talent. He was 
 baillie and treasurer of the corporation, followed 
 the trade or occupation of purveyor of apparatus 
 and instruments for navigation, and was a buildei-, 
 and a merchant. James, the celebrated engineer, 
 was the son of this gentleman. His health h-om his 
 earliest infancy was extremely delicate. From his 
 mother, whose maiden name was Muirhead, he 
 received his first lessons in reading, and then he 
 was sent to the parish school of Greenock. Sick- 
 ness, however, did not permit him to be a constant 
 attendant at his class. He was confined by it to his 
 bedroom during the greatest part of the year, and 
 left to follow his own way of spending his time. 
 How well he occupied himself while his own mas- 
 ter, is shown by the anecdotes M. Arago collected 
 in his " Eloge of Watt," not less celebrated than 
 eloquent and high-minded, read before the Royal 
 Institute of France. A frieud one day foimd young 
 James stretched upon the ground, tracing all sorts 
 of lines with a piece of chalk. "How can you suffer 
 
 this child to trifle away his time ?" said the visitor, 
 " why not send him to school ?" '' See what he is 
 doing,'' said his father, " before you blame him." 
 The boy was six years old, and he was solving a 
 problem in geometry. Such a youth was sure to 
 attain an early proficiency in various branches of 
 knowledge. At the age of eighteen he was sent to 
 London, and apprenticed to a maker of mathema- 
 tical instruments. In less than a year, however, 
 the state of his health compelled him to retui-n to 
 Scotland. A year or two after this, paying a visit 
 to some friends at Glasgow, he was encouraged by 
 them to set up in business in that city, and in 
 1757 opened a shop in the university of that city, 
 being patronised by Dr. Adam Smith, the author 
 of "The Wealth of Nations;" Dr. Black, the 
 chemist; and Sinips'm, the geometrician. In 1703, 
 being about to marry his cousin. Miss Miller*, he 
 left his rooms in the universitj', and became an 
 engineer. The high reputation he had already ac- 
 quired led to extensive practice in his new profes- 
 sion, and he was soon fully occupied in making 
 surveys and estimates for canals, harbours, and 
 other public works. 
 
 We have now to speak of the invention and im- 
 provements of the steam engine, by which Watt 
 has immortalised his name, and added immeasur- 
 ably to the increased wealth, comfort, and enjoy- 
 ment of mankind. The histoi-y of this, the only real 
 wonder-worker, is traced back by curious inquir- 
 ers into remote ages. Ideas and demonstrations 
 of the first principles of its action are detected some 
 thousands of years ago. Hero of Alexandria pro- 
 duced a machine more than a centni'y before the 
 Christian era, which generated steam from water 
 by heat, but no attempts to bring this power of 
 emission into practical use appears before the time 
 of the Marquess of Worcester. M. Arago insists 
 that we owe the engine in use not to James Watt, 
 but Solomon de Causan, an architect in the ser- 
 vice of Charles I., who was employed in designing 
 hydraulic ornaments for Richmond Palace, and de- 
 scribes, in a work dedicated to the King of France, 
 a machine for producing jets of water in a manner' 
 similar to Hero's steam jets. It is surprising that a 
 philosopher of such penetrating genius and practical 
 abilities, and M. Arago possesses both in an eminent 
 degree, should venture to rest so great a claim upon 
 such a slight foundation. The Marquess of Wor- 
 cester proceeded a step further in testing and 
 demonstrating the properties of steam ; about twenty 
 years later. Sir Samuel Morland projected a method 
 of employing it as a mechanic power; and Denis 
 Papin, a native of France, -about the year 1G90, 
 contrived an engine, rude and imperfect, as may 
 well be supposed, acting with steam and the pres- 
 sure of the atmosphere, for lifting water. We next 
 find Captain Savery, about the year 1G98, erecting 
 engines for lifting water, somewhat on the principle 
 
 • This lady, whom Watt fondly described in his private 
 journal as the comfort of his life, died in childbed of a third 
 boy. After a few years of widowhood, Watt had the happi- 
 ness to find another wife worthy of him in a Miss Macgregor.
 
 JAMES WATT. 
 
 of the sucking-pump. Not lore; after Savery had 
 invented his engine, Thomas Newcomen, an iron- 
 monger, and John Calley, a glazier, botli of Dart- 
 mouth in Devonshire, began to direct their atten- 
 tion to the employment of steam as a mechanic 
 power. Their first engine was constructed about 
 the year I7II. This machine still acted on the 
 principle of condensing the steam by means of cold 
 water, and the pressure of the atmosphere on the 
 piston. It was found of great value in pumping 
 water from deep mines; but the mode of its con- 
 sti-uction, the great waste of fuel, the continual 
 cooling and heating of the cylinder, and the limited 
 capacities of the atmosphei-e in impelling the piston 
 downward, all tended to circumscribe its utility. 
 Our knowledge of what might be done by steam 
 was in this state, when the subject, happily for 
 science and society, attracted the attention of Mi*. 
 Watt. He was at this time residing in his shop- 
 chambers at the University of Glasgow, and had 
 speculated with his friend, Professor Robisou, as 
 to the practicability of applying steam to move 
 wheeled carriages, and had also made some experi- 
 ments with Papin's digester, already adverted to, 
 when in the winter of 17G3-4 the university pro- 
 fessor of natural philosophy sent him a small model 
 of Xewcomen's invention to be repaired. Struck 
 w ith the imperfections of the atnujspheric engine, 
 and the powers it called into existence, Watt con- 
 ceived the idea of making it a complete machine, 
 and employing steam as an ordinary mechanical 
 agent. In his various investigations and exixjri- 
 ments for this purpose, he made several valuable 
 discoveries, and was completely successful. He had 
 two princijial defects to overcome, the first was the 
 waste of fuel, not less than three-fourths of the 
 whole employed, occasioned by the quantity of heat 
 required to concenti-ate the steam \\hich the water 
 injected by every stroke of the piston into the 
 cylinder, diminished as soon as generated; and the 
 second was its not employing the expansive force of 
 steam as a moving power. It is impossible to enter 
 into and describe here the sagacious thought and 
 profound reflections, the infinite experiments, the 
 inexhaustible skill, and the many exquisite inven- 
 tions, by which the genius of this great man finally 
 brought his admirable machine to a state of com- 
 jilete perfection. But even when all this had been 
 done, he was far from seeing the end of his difli- 
 culties. He liad succeeded, but money was neces- 
 sary to secure a property in the invention, and 
 carry it into profitable operation, and he had no 
 pecuniary resources of his own. In this dilemma 
 he applied to Dr. Roebuck, who had i-ecently esta- 
 blished the Carron iron works near Glasgow, and 
 had extensive coal works at Kinnoul, in the same 
 neighbourhood. The doctor agreed to provide the 
 ri;(|uisite fun<ls upon being secured in two-tliirds of 
 the profits of the invention, and upun this agreement 
 Watt took out his first ]iatent in 17'>I>, a"d erected 
 his first engine at Kimioul. Promising as the state 
 of Watt's affairs now ajjpeared, he was still by no 
 moans in a safe position. Dr. Roebuck, who belonged 
 to the class of sjiirited speculators, was engaged in 
 numerous undertakings, and soon after he had 
 forni(;d his conn(,clioii with Watt, became irreco- 
 verably involved in pecuniary embarrassments. .So 
 little did Watt now consider that he could turn his 
 patent to a good account, that he ap]ilii d hiniscIC 
 for sonic yeai-s almost entirely to the ordinary work 
 
 of a civil engineer. At last, about the year 1774, 
 when all hopes of any farther assistance from Dr. 
 Roebuck were at an end, he met and closed with a 
 proposal made through his friend Dr. Small of 
 Bii-mingham, to remove to that town, and enter 
 into partnership with the eminent hardware nianu- 
 fticturer, Mr. Boulton, whose extensive establish- 
 ments at Solio had already become famous over 
 Europe, and procured for England an unrivalled 
 reputation for the arts there carried on. Accord- 
 ingly, an arrangement ha\ ing been made with Dr. 
 Roebuck, his share of the patent was transfen-ed 
 to Mr. Boulton, the new firm of Boulton and Watt 
 was formed, and began to make steam-engines in 
 the year 1755. An extension of his patent for 
 twenty-five years from this date was now obtained, 
 in consideration of the acknowledged national im- 
 portance of his invention, and an engine was erected 
 at Soho, which all persons interested in such ma- 
 chines were invited to hispect. They then proposed 
 to erect similar engines wherever required, on the 
 liberal principle of receiving as payment for each, 
 only one-third of the saving in fuel which it should 
 effect, as compared with one of the old construction. 
 During the whole twenty-five years, over which his 
 renewed patent extended, the perfecting of his in- 
 vention was Watt's chief occupation; and notwith- 
 standing a delicate state of health, and the depress- 
 ing affliction of severe headaches, to which he was 
 constantly subject, he persevered with unwearied 
 diligence in adding new improvements to the me- 
 chanism of the engine, and devising the means of 
 applying it to new purposes of usefuhiess. He de- 
 voted, in particular, the exertions of many years to 
 make the action of the piston comnuuiicate a rota- 
 tory motion in various circumstances, and between 
 the years 1781 and 1785 took out four different 
 patents for inventions having this object in view. 
 
 All that is forcible and graphic in language has 
 been exhausted to describe the nature and powers 
 of the engine thus perfected, and yet every expla- 
 nation falls short of the wonders it accomplishes, 
 and the countless useful and noble effects it pro- 
 duces. It has revolutionised the whole emjiirc of 
 human industry, and added incalculably to the 
 productive powers of the human species. Like the 
 trunk of the elei)hant, that picks up the smallest 
 pin and rends the strongest oak, it is equally 
 adapted to the most minute and the most enlarged 
 uses. It engraves a seal, and crushes masses of 
 obdurate metal like wax before it; draws out, with- 
 out breaking, a thread as fine as gossamer, and 
 lifts a ship of war like a liaubk' in the air. It em- 
 broiders nmslin, and forges anchors ; cuts steel 
 into ribbons, and drains morasses ; empties out 
 the stagnant volumes of water that choke up col- 
 lieries and mines ; impels loaded vessels against 
 the fury of the winds and waves ; and last of all, 
 seems destined to annihilate distance, by fiying 
 with millions of human beings in its train, on the 
 railways of lOurojie and America, at the rate of 
 forty miles an hour. 
 
 At Birniingham Watt became intimate with Dr. 
 Priestley, anil further distinguished himself as a dis- 
 coverer in the chemieal expei'iments which that 
 ]>hilosop!ier ami his associates ]iroseeiited with so 
 much success. His jirincipal claim to merit in this 
 r<.'S]iect, is the true theory of the composition of 
 water, in which he is now held lo have ]ireceili'il 
 Cavendish and Lavoisier. His paper, contributed
 
 25(> 
 
 WESTMINSTER ABBEY. 
 
 to the Trnnsactioiis of the Royal Society, and 
 entitled " Thouglits on the Constituent Parts of 
 Water and deplilogistieated Air, witli an Account 
 of some Experiments on that suliject," furnishes 
 the evidence of tliis great discovery. Another 
 liaper contributed to the Philosopliical Transac- 
 tiiins, "On a new method of preparing a Test- 
 liijuor to sliow the presence of Acids and Alkahes 
 in Chemical Mixtures," introduced the valuable 
 process of bleaching by chlorine ; and to Watt the 
 Fine Arts owe the instrument for copying statues. 
 The modern polygraph, or copying press for letters, 
 and the double pen, are also his inventions. 
 
 Mr. Watt died, as he deserved, full of wealth, 
 years, and covered with fame, August 25, 1819. 
 M. Arago dwells with a noble indignation upon 
 the inadequacy of the honours conferi-ed by Eng- 
 land u[ion so distinguished an ornament of the age 
 and the country to which he belonged. Unques- 
 
 tionably it is a reproach to the government that no 
 title was conferred upon him. But if neither king 
 nor minister of state thought fit to exalt him in 
 this respect, a miild like his could hardly have felt 
 sore at such neglect, gratified as it must have been 
 to pei'ceive that the learned of all countries bore 
 ample testimony of the general admiration in which 
 he was held by his contemporaries. His survivors 
 have been liberal in offering tributes to his memory. 
 Shakespeare amongst our poets, and Nelson and 
 Wellington amongst our naval and military heroes, 
 may have had a greater number of statues raised 
 to them, but no philosopher, neither Bacon nor 
 Newton, have been more highly extolled by orators 
 and authors of every party and school, nor so re- 
 peatedly celebrated with appi'opriate splendour in 
 marble and in bronze, as James Watt, the unrivalled 
 inventor of the steam engine. 
 
 HENRY GRATTAN. 
 
 The biography of Henry Grattan, fully and effi- 
 ciently written, is the history of Ii-eland during 
 the time he lived. A statesman and a patriot of 
 the highest talent and purest character, and an 
 orator, matchless for the graphic force and ardour 
 of his eloquence, we find him at the very dawn of 
 his political career, exercising a mighty and most 
 beneficial influence over the affaii's of his country, 
 and gradually elevating the people and their in- 
 stitutions, from the lowest stages of abject depen- 
 dence and degradation, to a liberal state of consti- 
 tutional freedom. The public services of such a 
 man are not to be enumerated, much less described, 
 in the compass of a short sketch like this. He was 
 born in the year 1751, and completed his education 
 in the University of his native city, where he was 
 early distinguished as the classical rival of Mr. 
 Fitzgibbon, afterwards Earl of Clare, Mr. Foster, 
 the last speaker of the Irish House of Commons, 
 and luany othei's in the constellation of bright names 
 that shone with such splendor on that era. His father 
 was a barrister, and recorder to the Corporation of 
 Dublin, enjoying a good practice at the bar, the 
 just reward of talent and integrity. To the same 
 profession young Grattan was also destined: accord- 
 ingly, after entering his name at the King's Inn 
 of Court, in Dublin, he proceeded to London, and 
 kept his terms in the Temple. While thus occu- 
 pied, he formed intimate acquaintances with Hugh 
 Boyd, and Mr. Eden, afterwards Lord Auckland, a 
 circumstance only mentioned here, because the let- 
 ters of Junius were at one time attributed to this 
 trio. While thus eating his way through the Tem- 
 ple, he began to exercise himself for public speak- 
 ing ; the metliod he adopted for this purpose was 
 singular. In one of the houses where he lodged, 
 his landlady imagined, from the eccentricity of his 
 manner and habits, that he was mad, and com- 
 plained to one of his friends, that the gentleman 
 used to walk up and down in her garden most of 
 the night, spcakmg to himself, and, though alone, 
 addressing some one on all occasions, whom he 
 called " Mr. Speaker." It Avas not possible, she 
 added, that he could be in his senses, and she 
 
 begged that they would take him away: if they did, 
 she promised to forgive him all the rent which was 
 due. During the summer months, he used to remove 
 totheneighbourhoodof Windsor Forest; when there, 
 in the midst of romantic scenery, and a delightful 
 prospect, his time was happily spent. Whole nights 
 were passed rambling through the thick plantations 
 by moonlight. Sometimes he would pause, and ad- 
 dress a soliloquy to a tree. In one of these mid- 
 night rambles, he stopped unconsciously before a 
 gibbet, and commenced one of his habitual and 
 animated harangues, when he suddenly felt a tap 
 at his shoulder, and turning round, was asked by a 
 stranger, " How the Devil did you get down ?" To 
 which the rambling orator replied, " Sir, I suppose 
 you liave an interest in that question." 
 
 Being called to the Irish bar in 1772, he walked 
 the hall of the Four Courts in Dublin, with an empty 
 
 bag, for some three or 
 
 four years, and then seems 
 
 to have given up all hopes of rising by a profession, 
 in which the most liberally endowed minds are not 
 generally the most likely to acquire the highest re- 
 putation. To this resolution the death of his father, 
 who left him a competent fortune, in all probability 
 materially contributed. We now find him in the 
 accomplished society of the first circle in Ireland, 
 taking parts in private theatricals, playing Mac- 
 duff, to Flood's Macbeth, and writing prologues 
 and epilogues for the performers. Being intro- 
 duced to the late Earl of Charlemont soon after, 
 lie was returned to the Irish House of Commons in 
 1775, for the borough from which that admirable 
 nobleman took his title. In this capacity, the first 
 of Grattan 's speeches, that has been preserved, was 
 delivered upon a motion made by the late Marquess 
 of Londonderry, then Mr. Robert Stewart, relative 
 to the public expenditure. It is in every respect a 
 favourable earnest of his future fame. To under- 
 stand, even imperfectly, the proceedings in which 
 Grattan now began to take a lead, a few words 
 descriptive of the condition of Ireland (that counti-y 
 so proverbially notorious for persecution, misery, 
 and discontent,) are absolutely necessary. Without 
 them it would be impossible to comprehend the
 
 HENRY GRATTAN. 
 
 257 
 
 career for wliich Grattaii liad disciplined his spirit. 
 The Irish parHament, though orij;inany intended to 
 be a distinct and independent authority, was vir- 
 tually and to all purposes an abject instrument of 
 corruption in the hands of the government. Acts 
 of the English legislature had not only subjected 
 the ])eople of Ireland to laws made in the English 
 Parliament, but no law could be proposed in the 
 Irish parliament, unless it had previously been 
 ratified and approved by the minister in England. 
 The staple trade of the country consisted of woollen 
 and linen manufactures, and provisions. Of these, 
 the woollen manufacture had long been wholly pro- 
 hibited ; that of linen was loaded with enormous 
 duties, and confined to internal consumption; while 
 provisions, butter, bacon, cattle, &c. were exclu- 
 ded from the foreign market. No Irish merchant 
 could trade to the Indies, or export or import goods 
 in any but an English vessel. It is impossible to 
 conceive measm'es more vexatiously calculated to 
 exhaust the resources of the island, or beggar its 
 population. There were other grievances not less 
 galling and injurious. The Catholics, who at that 
 and every other time constitvited the great majority 
 of the inhabitants, groaned under a penal law of 
 unexampled cruelty. In truth, it is difticult to 
 read of a state of things so outrageously tyrannical, 
 and conceive that in the eighteenth century any 
 portion of the dominions of Great Britain could 
 have been so barbarously afflicted by legal enact- 
 ments. No Catholic was allowed to marry a Pro- 
 testant ; if he' sent his child to a foreign seminary 
 he forfeited his estates, while, to prevent the educa- 
 tion of the offspring in the faith of its parent at 
 home, it was declared a felony for any Catholic to 
 teach a school. If the child turned a Protestant, 
 he was permitted to wTest away the father's pro- 
 perty, unless he also apostatized. No Catholic 
 could purchase land in fee-simple, or hold a lease 
 for more than thirty years, or lend money on 
 moi'tgage, or even bu}' an annuity. If he died 
 intestate, the next of kin who happened to be a 
 Protestant became his heir-at-law, to the exclusion 
 of his wife, son, daughter, brother, sister, &c. &c. : 
 and reversely, when a Protestant died intestate, 
 all the Catholic relations, to the tenth generation, 
 were incapacitated from inheritance. Catholics 
 were debarred from every civil office and privilege 
 of honour or emolument, fi'om the shrievalty of 
 a county, and a scat on a jury, a vote at a vestry, 
 the election of a member of parliament, down to 
 the choice of a petty constable. A i)artial relaxa- 
 tion of the penal code had taken place in 177-, 
 after Lord George Gordon's riots, but as a whole, 
 such was the condition of his country, and such 
 the grievances of his countrymen, when, on the 
 19th of April, 1710, Henry Grattan fii'st came for- 
 ward in the Irish House of Commons, with a decla- 
 ration of rights. The speech in which he pressed 
 this motion has been considered the best he ever 
 pnjnounced. Rapid and animated, keen and argu- 
 mentative, it is at the same time grand an<l sini]ile, 
 admirable ui conception, and complete in execution. 
 
 " If I had lived when the fith of William took 
 away the woollen manufacture, or when the Cth 
 of George I. declared this country to be depen- 
 dent, and subji'ct to laws to be enacted by the 
 Parliament of England, 1 shouhl have mad(! a 
 coveJiant with my own conscienco to seize the first 
 
 moment of rescuing my country from the ignoniinv 
 of such acts of j)Ower ; or, if I'had a son, 1 should 
 have administered to him an oath, that he would 
 consider himself as a person separate and set apart 
 for the discharge (jf so imi)ortant a duty. Upon 
 the same principle am 1 now come to move a decla- 
 ration of right, the fii-st moment occurring since 
 my time, in which such a declaration culd lie 
 made with any chance of success, or without ag- 
 gravation of oppression." 
 
 "Let corruption tremble; let the enemy, foreign 
 and domestic, tremble; but let the friends "of liberty 
 rejoice at these means of safety, and this hour of 
 redemption. Yes; there does exist an enlightened 
 sense of rights, a young appetite for freedom, a 
 solid strength, and a rapid fire, which not only jiut 
 a declaration of right within your power, but put 
 it out of your power to decline one. Eighteen 
 counties are at your bar ; they stand there with 
 the compact of Henry, with the charter of John, 
 and with all the passions of the people. ' Our lives 
 are at your service, but our liberties, we received 
 them from God ; we will not resign them to num.' 
 Speaking to you thus, if you I'epulse these petitioners, 
 you abdicate the privileges of Parliament, forfeit 
 the rights of the kingdom, repudiate the instructions 
 of your constituents, bilge the sense of your country, 
 palsy the enthusiasm of the people, and reject that 
 good, which — not a Lord North, not a Lord Buck- 
 inghamshire, not a Lord Hillsborough, but a cer- 
 tain providential conjuncture, or, rather, the hand 
 of God seems to extend to you. Nor are we only 
 prompted to this when we consider our strength ; 
 we are challenged to it when we look to Great 
 Britain. The people of that country are now wait- 
 ing to hear the Parliament of Ireland speak on the 
 subject of their liberty. It begins to be made a 
 (juestion in England, whether the jirincipal persons 
 wish to be free. It was the delicacy of former 
 Parliaments to be silent on the subject of com- 
 mercial restrictions, and to show a knowledge of 
 the fact, and not a sense of the violation. You have 
 spoken out ; you have shown a knowledge of the 
 fact, but not a sense of the violation. On the 
 contrary, you have returned thaidis for a partial 
 repeal made on a principle of power : you have 
 returned thanks as for a favour ; and your exulta- 
 tion lias brought your charters as well as your 
 spirit into question, and tends to shake to her 
 foundation your title to liberty. Thus you do not 
 leave your rights even where you found them. 
 You have done too much not to do more; you have 
 gone too far not to go on ; you have brought your- 
 selves into that situation in which you nmst silently 
 abdicate the rights of your country, or publicly 
 restore them. It is very true, you may feed your 
 manufacturers, and landlords may gt^t their rents ; 
 or you may export woollens, and load a vessel with 
 liaize, serges, and kerseys ; au<l you may bring 
 back again, directly from tlu: plantations, sugar, 
 indigo, speckle-wood, beetle-root, and i)an('llas. 
 But liberty, the foundation of trade, the charters 
 of tlie land, the independency of parliament, the 
 Securing, crowning, consunnnation of every thing, 
 are yet to come. Without them, the work is im- 
 perfect, the foundation is wanting, the ca|)it:il isj 
 wauling, trad<' is not free, Ireland is a c(jlony with- 
 out ihe biiU'lit of a charter, and you are a synod 
 without the |irivileg.s of a Parliament."
 
 258 
 
 WESTMINSTER ABBEY. 
 
 " Sir, we may hope to dazzle with illuminations, 
 and we may sicken with addresses ; but the public 
 imagination will never rest, nor will her heart be 
 at ease — never ! so long as the Parliament of Eng- 
 land exercises or claims a legislation over this 
 country : so long as this shall be the case, that 
 very free trade, otherwise a perpetual attachment, 
 will be a cause of new discontent. It will create 
 a pride to feel the indignity of bondage ; it will 
 furnish a strength to bite your chain ; and the 
 liberty withheld will poison the good communi- 
 cated. 
 
 " The British minister mistakes the Irish cha- 
 racter. Had he intended to make Ireland a slave, 
 he should have kept her a beggar. There is no 
 middle policy : win her heart by the restoration of 
 her right, or cut oft' the nation's right hand; greatly 
 emancipate, or fundamentally destroy. We may 
 talk plausibly to England; but so long as she exer- 
 cises a power to bind this country, so long are the 
 nations in a state of war. The claims of the one are 
 against the liberty of the other, and the sentiments 
 of the latter go to oppose those claims to the last 
 drop of her blood. The English opposition are 
 therefore right; mere trade will not satisfy Ireland. 
 They judge of us by other great nations, by the 
 nation whose political life has been a struggle for 
 liberty: they judge of us with a true knowledge and 
 just deference for our character — that a country, 
 enlightened as Ireland, chartered as Ireland, armed 
 as Ireland, and injured as Ireland, will be satisfied 
 with nothing less than liberty." 
 
 The effect produced upon tempers and imagina- 
 tions so sanguine and lively as those of Irishmen, 
 by strains so eloquent and energetic as these, may 
 be easily conceived. Fortunately for the Patriots, 
 England had been so drained of her resources by 
 the American war, that the Irish government was 
 reduced to a state of helpless and almost hopeless 
 poverty and feebleness. France it was feared was 
 about to attack the country, but there were no 
 troops to protect the coast, nor money to raise 
 them. At this juncture the inhabitants of Belfast 
 proposed to arm a volunteer corps for the protec- 
 tion of the town ; and the government, though sensi- 
 ble of the danger of allowing the people to raise 
 and command a military force, was constrained, 
 from their inability to furnish one itself, to permit 
 the voluntary levy to proceed. A beginning once 
 made was soon extended, and in a short time the 
 Irish volunteers amounted to 40,000 well armed 
 and highly animated men. As the volunteers in- 
 creased in numbers, they rose in popular and 
 political influence, and stood forth in formidable 
 array before the arbitrary minister — a band of 
 determined patriots lawfully organised. Grattan 
 resumed the motion in February, 1782, in a speech 
 less ornamented than the one just noticed, but more 
 learned, and equally effective. He was again de- 
 feated ; but, in the month of April following, the 
 Irish Parliament re-assembled imder a new admi- 
 nistration, and it was at length conceded " that the 
 King, Lords, and Commons of Ireland only, could 
 make laws to bind Ireland in any case whatsoever." 
 
 The exultation of the Irish people over this 
 political victory was boundless, and the admiration 
 with which they looked up to Grattan intense. He 
 was reverenced like a man inspired ; and in truth. 
 
 to see a private individual — unsupported by any 
 power but that of right, and any influence but that 
 of truth — uplift his country from impoverished 
 thraldom to flourishing independence, was an oc- 
 currence so unusual, that we may perhaps excuse 
 the ebullition of feeling which would represent it 
 as something more than human. The parliament 
 fully sympathising with the people, it was pi'oposed 
 in the ardour of public gratitude that a sum of 
 100,000^. should be voted to Mr. Grattan as a proof 
 of the national approbation. His personal friends, 
 however, thought a present to such an amount 
 excessive ; and the grant, after having been re- 
 duced in consequence of their suggestions to 
 60,000^. was unanimously confirmed, and very pro- 
 perly received. With this fortune he purchased 
 an estate in the county of Wicklow, laid out a seat 
 at Tynnahinch, and thenceforward possessed an 
 ease and dignity as happily enjoyed as they were 
 brightly earned. 
 
 But nothing is more uncertain than popular 
 applause: conscious of strength, and elated by suc- 
 cess, the Irish were soon dissatisfied with the extent 
 of their recent acquisition. A party was formed 
 to urge the independence of the legislature to a 
 still greater height. According to them, the simple 
 repeal of the act which gave Great Britain the 
 power to make laws for Ireland conveyed no re- 
 nunciation of the right itself. That miglit be re- 
 sumed: — and where then, it was asked, would their 
 independence be ? Thus it was pi'oposed to demand 
 of the British Parliament, a full and explicit renun- 
 ciation of all claim to bind Ireland in future by 
 laws unconfirmed by the Irish Parliament. Mr. 
 Flood, an orator, who, notwithstanding some ter- 
 giversation, is admitted to have desei'ved well of 
 his country, headed this party, whicli Mr. Grattan 
 opposed. The main points pi-essed by him were, 
 that the repeal of a mere declaratory law must be 
 interpreted as a renunciation of the right to have 
 passed it ; and even if it were not so, and Great 
 Britain should become so unjust and impolitic as 
 to attempt to resume it, a mei'e renunciation of the 
 right would avail little to divert her from the pur- 
 pose. The only security for the Irish people, as 
 he contended, in such a predicament would be, not 
 an act of Parliament, but that patriotic energy 
 which had already obtained their emancipation. 
 Several passionate altercations ensued between 
 Flood and Grattan, in the course of which the 
 latter pronounced that philippic which has been so 
 often quoted as the severest specimen of personal 
 invective ever uttered by an accomplished orator. 
 The following passage exhibits Grattau's strength 
 in such attacks : — 
 
 " Thus defective in every relationship, wliether 
 to constitution, commerce, and toleration, I will 
 suppose this man to have added much private im- 
 probity to public crimes ; that his probity was like 
 liis patriotism, and liis honoiir on a level with his 
 oath. He loves to deliver panegyrics on liimself. 
 I will interrupt him and say, 'Sir, you ai'e mistaken 
 if you think that your talents are as great as your 
 life has been reprehensible. You began your par- 
 liamentary career with an acrimony and personality 
 which could have been justified only by a supposi- 
 tion of virtue. After a rank and clamorous oppo- 
 sition you became on a sudden silent ; you were 
 silent for seven years ; you were silent on the
 
 HENRY GRATTAN. 
 
 25,0 
 
 greatest questions, and you were silent for money ! 
 In 1773, while a negotiation was pending to sell 
 your talents and your turbulence, you absconded 
 from your duty in parliament ; you forsook your 
 law of Poynings ; you forsook the question of eco- 
 nomy, and abandoned all the old themes of your 
 former declamation. You were not at that jieriod 
 to be found in the House ; you were seen like a 
 guilty spirit haunting the lobby of the House of 
 Commons, watching the moment in which the 
 question sliould be put, that you might vanish ; 
 you were descried, with a criminal anxiety, re- 
 tiring from the scenes of your jiast glory ; or you 
 were perceived coasting the upper benches of this 
 House, like a bird of prey, with an evil aspect and 
 a sepulchral note, meditating to pounce upon its 
 quarry. These ways — they were not the ways of 
 honour — you practised pending a negotiation which 
 was to end either in your sale or your sedition ; 
 and the former taking place, you supported the 
 rankest measures that ever came before parlia- 
 ment, the embargo of 177C for instance, 'Oh, 
 fatal embargo ! that breach of law and ruin of 
 commerce !' You supported the unparalleled pro- 
 fusion and jobbing of Lord Harcourt's scandalous 
 ministry ; the address to support the American 
 war ; the other address to send 4000 men, which 
 you had yourself declared to be necessary to the 
 defence of Ireland, to fight against the liberties of 
 America, to which you had declared yourself a 
 friend. You, Sir, who delight to utter execrations 
 against the American commissioners of 177^, on 
 account of their hostility to America ; you. Sir, 
 who manufacture stage thunder against Mr. Eden 
 for his anti-Amei-ican principles ; you, Sir, whom 
 it pleases to chant a hymn to the immortal Hamp- 
 den ; you. Sir, approved of the tyranny exercised 
 against America, and you. Sir, voted 4000 Irish 
 troops to cut the throats of the Americans fighting 
 for their freedom, fighting for your freedom, fight- 
 ing for the great principle — liberty. But you found 
 at last (and this should be an eternal lesson to men 
 of your craft and cunning), that the king had only 
 dishonoured you; the court bought, but would not 
 trust you ; and having voted for the worst mea- 
 sures, you remained for seven years the creature 
 of salartj, without the confidence of Government. 
 Jlortified by the discovery, and stung with dis- 
 appointment, you betake yourself to the sad expe- 
 dients of duplicity ; you try the sorry game of a 
 trimmer in your progress to the arts of an incen- 
 diary; you give no honest support either to the 
 Government or the people ; you, at the most critical 
 part of their existence, take no part ; you sign no 
 non-consumption agreement ; you are no volunteer ; 
 you oppose no perpetual nuitiny bill, no altered 
 sugar bill ; you declare that you lament that the 
 declarati(jn of right sliould be brnught forward ; 
 and, observing with regard to prince and people, 
 the most impartial treachery and desertion, you 
 justify the susi)icion of your sovereign, by betray- 
 ing the Government as you hail sold the people ; 
 until at last, Ijy this hollow coniluct, and for some 
 otlii'r steps, the result of mortified ambition, lieing 
 dismissed and another j)erson put in your place, 
 you fly to tin; ranks of the volunti;rrs and canvass 
 for mutiny ; you amiounci; tiiat the country wiis 
 ruined by other niun during that period in which 
 she had been sold by you. Your logic is, that the 
 repeal of a declaratory law is not the repeal of a 
 
 law at all ; and the effect of that logic is, an Eng- 
 lish act affecting to emancipate Ireland, by exer- 
 cising over her the legislative authority' of the 
 British Parliament. Such has been your'conduct, 
 and at such conduct every order of' your fellow- 
 subjects has a right to exclaim. The merchant may 
 say to you — the constitutionalist may sav to vou-1 
 the American may say to you — and I, 1 now say 
 to you, and say to your beard, Sir, you are not an 
 honest man." 
 
 This wordy contest proceeding, and much public 
 dissatisfaction existing upon the subject in dispute, 
 Grattan felt his yiosition embarrassing, and for a 
 time ceased to take an active part in the ju-oceed- 
 ings of Parliament. He was roused to exertion 
 in 1785, when a commercial arrangement between 
 England and Ireland was brought forward, through 
 which an insidious blow was ainiid at the newly 
 acquired independence of his country. It was pro- 
 posed that the " Pai-liament of Ireland, in con- 
 sideratitm of being admitted to participate eipially 
 with Great Britain in all commercial advantages, 
 should, from time to time, adopt and enact all such 
 acts of the British Parliament as should relate to 
 the regulation or management of her commerce, 
 &c." To this measure Grattan oft'ei'ed a strenuous 
 and enlightened resistance : he successfully con- 
 tended that such a proposition would degrade the 
 Parliament of Ireland into a mere register to the 
 British Legislature, and the Governnicut was forced 
 to abandon it. 
 
 This fully reinstated him in the confidence of the 
 people, and taking the lead of the country ])arty in 
 the House of Commons, he also headed the Irish 
 Whigs. Proceeding on to those questions which 
 were strictly his own, we find him next engaged in 
 fruitless efforts to amend the law with respect to 
 tithes, and promote the cultivation of waste lands. 
 At the general election in 1790 ho was returned 
 for the city of Dublin, but soon lost all favour with 
 his constituents; for beginning his labours in the 
 great work of Catholic emancipation, by proposing 
 to admit the members of that religion to the elec- 
 tive franchise, an astounding outcry was raised 
 against him by every bigot and pl.aceman in the 
 island. How little a man of his sense and spirit 
 was affected by this treatment may be easily con- 
 ceived; conscious of his own integrity, and con- 
 vinced of tlu! impolicy of enforcing political disqua- 
 lifications on the mere score of religious dirt'erences, 
 he proceeded steadily with his object, and succeeded, 
 slowly it is true, and but partially, in restoring the? 
 majority of his countrymen to many violated rights. 
 Hopes were at first entertained that the whole 
 ijuestion would be granted; there was a French war, 
 conqilicatcd troubles jirevailcd not oidy in Kngland 
 but in Ireland, and tln^ Uritisli caljinct was reducc^d 
 to an extremity. Api)earances of coiu-iliation wire 
 therefore assumed; the Earl of Fitzwilliam was in- 
 vested with the vice-royalty, and it was gene- 
 rally understood, that he was instructed to apjiease 
 the discontent of the country by conceding \\w 
 Catholic claims. Hut no sooner w;is a sup])ly voted, 
 than the liberal viceroy was recalled, and with liis 
 |)resence every prospect of tranquillity vanislud. 
 Violent passions were excite<l by this |)roci'etling; 
 till' gross corru] it ion of the Irish parliament conti- 
 uiu'd unal)ate(i, and Grattan feeling it vain to oppose 
 the government, seceded from parliament, and lived
 
 2ii0 
 
 WESTMINSTER ABBEY. 
 
 again in retirement. The rebellion followed, and 
 though some membei-s of the government appear to 
 have been bnse enough to try and make it appear 
 that he favoured the movement, it is clear that 
 he was not only firndy opposed to it, but enter- 
 tained a low opinion of its authors and principal 
 abettors. 
 
 When Mr, Pitt proposed the union between 
 Ireland and England, Mr. Grattan returned to 
 the House of Connnoiis as member for Wicklow, to 
 head the able body of men wlio opposed it. That 
 opposition was vigorous, pathetic, and brilliant 
 beyond examiile, but utterly vain. In the year 
 1800, the Irish Houses of Commons and Peers 
 merged into the parliament of Great Britain, and 
 Grattan, as he himself finely observed, having 
 watched over the independence of his country in 
 the cradle, now followed it to an early grave. 
 
 At first he refused to accept a seat in the new 
 legislature; but the entreaties of the Catholics, and 
 his political associates, induced him to become a 
 member for the borough of Malton, in Yorkshire, 
 during the year 1805. A summary of his public 
 life from this date may be briefly made. Main- 
 taining his superior character and influence undi- 
 minished, he was again elected member for Dublin, 
 and continued to advocate various motions, whether 
 for retrenchment in the revenue, or reform in the 
 parliament. He concurred in the policy of our wars 
 against Napoleon, but made the Catholic question 
 the main labour and chief glory of his career. Un- 
 deterred by a relentless opposition, and not dis- 
 coux'aged by repeated defeats, he carried it with 
 gi'eater splendour to higher majorities in the House 
 of Commons than it had before received, and deli- 
 vered in its behalf some of the most powerful 
 speeches by which it was ever recommended. For 
 that question alone he seemed to live, and for it 
 he in a manner died. Early in 1820, when he had 
 advanced to his 70th year, and declining health 
 almost entirely incapacitated him from exertion, 
 he took charge of the petition of the Irish Catho- 
 lics, and crossing the Channel to Liverpool, pro- 
 ceeded up to London by the canal, with a resolu- 
 tion of again submitting the cause to the legislature. 
 But he had scarcely concluded the journey to town, 
 when his strength was exhausted: he died on the 
 14th of May. It was at first determined to convey 
 his remains back to Ireland, and deposit them 
 amongst the people whom he had so nobly served; 
 but the most distinguished members of the legisla- 
 ture prevailed upon his family to permit his inter- 
 ment in Westminster Abbey. This request was 
 conveyed to his sons in a letter, the chaste and 
 beautiful composition of the author of the " Plea- 
 sures of Memory," and signed by the most distin- 
 guished members of both houses of parliament. 
 " Filled with admiration," wi'ote that elegant poet, 
 " for the character of your father, we venture to 
 express a wish, common to us with many of those 
 who most admired and loved him, that what re- 
 
 mains of him should be allowed to continue amongst 
 us. 
 
 " It has pleased Divine Providence to deprive 
 the empire of his services, while he was here in 
 the neighbourhood of that sacred edifice, where 
 great men from all parts of the British dominions 
 have been for ages interred. We are desirous of 
 an opportunity of joining in the due honour to tried 
 virtue and genius. Mr. Grattan belongs to us also, 
 and great would be our consolation were we per- 
 mitted to follow him to the grave, and to place him 
 where he would not have been unwilling to lie, by 
 the side of his illustrious fellow labourers in the 
 cause of freedom." He was accordingly buried in 
 the south cross aisle, where a plain stone, inscribed 
 " Henry Grattan, June 14, 1820," marks the site 
 of his grave. 
 
 Mr. Grattan married early in life a lady named 
 Fitzgerald, by whom he had thirteen children. This 
 notice presents a most inadequate outline of his 
 life, but even from the statements thus pi'esented, 
 it is evident that he flourished without an equal. 
 Never courting power or ofiice, he stood superior 
 to pensions, places, and peerages, and accepted but 
 one, and that the simplest title of honour, the dis- 
 tinction of an Irish privy councillor, during the vice- 
 royalty of Lord Fitzwilliam. He established the 
 civil and commercial liberties of his coimtry, and 
 was the only man who ever carried such an achieve- 
 ment in Ireland, not by arms and bloodshed, but by 
 pure sagacity and irresistible eloquence. As there 
 was nothing temporising or dubious in his politics, 
 so his direct and clear career is neither chequered 
 nor obscured by drawback or tergiversations. Grat- 
 tan was always consistent — a special distinction, ac- 
 quired by few politicians. " The purity of his life," 
 as Sir James Mackintosh observed, " was the bright- 
 ness of his glory." In oratory his style was pecu- 
 liarly original, and may principally be distinguished 
 for concentrated argumentation and didactic energy. 
 Delighting in brevitv, he abounds in antithesis and 
 epigram; of irony and satire he had a far greater 
 command than any of his contemporaries; and pos- 
 sessing a taste highly cultivated, and a most discri- 
 minating j udgment, he rarely diverged into figurative 
 extravagance, or sacrificed elegance to jiassion. His 
 speeches have been edited; and his life, a most va- 
 luable and interesting contribution to the history 
 and literature of his counti-y, has been written by 
 his second son. In piivate life he was a warm 
 friend, and in public a bitter and determined enemy : 
 in his familiar moments he was remarkable for that 
 simplicity which not unfrequently accompanies ge- 
 nius of the highest order. " It would not be easy," 
 adds Lord Brougham, "to point out any statesman 
 or patriot, in any age of the world, whose fame 
 stands higher for his public services; nor is it jios- 
 sible to name any one, the purity of wliose reputa- 
 tion has been stained by so few faults, and the 
 lustre of whose renown is dimmed by so few imper- 
 fections."
 
 MATTHEW RATLLTE. 
 
 'iUl 
 
 MATTHEW BAILLIE. 
 
 There is a plain but pleasing bust, by Chaiitrey, 
 upon a high pedestal in the Chapel of St. Johu, to 
 the Memory of Dx-. Baillie, 
 
 Math.eo. Baillie. 
 
 Coll. Reg. Medic. Lond. Et. Edin. Socio. 
 
 In. Agro. Scotico. Laiierka\ Nato. 
 
 Glasqure. Literis. Instituto. 
 
 Oxonite. Expolito. 
 
 Prajlectori. Anatoinico. Apud. Londinum. Insignito. 
 
 Qui. Ad. Certiorem. R;iti(>nis. Normani. 
 
 Eas. Anatoniiaj. Partes. Quse. Morbos. 
 
 Spectant. Primus. Redegit. 
 
 Medico. Sunimo. 
 
 Vii'O. Probitatis. Integrse. 
 
 Animi. Perspicacis. Sinceri. 
 
 Sunplicis. Liberalis. Pii. 
 
 Hanc. Effigiem. 
 
 Coniplures. Ejusdeni. ^'Etatis. 
 
 Medici. Et. Chirurgici. 
 
 P. C. 
 
 To Matthew Baillie, 
 
 Fellow of the Royal College of Physicians of London 
 
 and Edinburgh ; 
 
 Born in Lanarkshire in Scotland, 
 
 Who began his education at Glasgow, 
 
 And finished it at Oxford; 
 
 A distinguished Lecturer on Anatomy in Loudon, 
 
 Who first applied the test of reason to. 
 
 And laid down the laws of Morbid Anatomy; 
 
 A man of consummate medical skill, 
 
 Of spotless Probity, 
 
 Of a quick, and peneti-ating intellect, 
 
 Sincere, Unaffected, Liberal, Pious, 
 
 Many of the Physicians and Surgeons of his age 
 
 Erected this Bust, 
 
 Matthew Baillie was born at Shotts, in Lanark- 
 shire, October 17, 17CL His father, the Rev. James 
 Baillie, was then minister of the Parish, and his 
 mother, Dorothea, was sister of the celebrated ana- 
 tomists, William and John Hunter. Soon after he 
 was born, his father removed to the manse or 
 Church of Hamilton, and there young Baillie was 
 sent to school, and soon ac(iuire(l a character for 
 api)licatii)n and talent. Subsequontiy the Rev. Mr. 
 Baillie became Professor of Divinity in the Univer- 
 sity of Glasgow, at which his son studied for three 
 years under Pmfessors Jardiiie and Reed, and 
 wavered as to the choice of a professinn between 
 tlie Church and the Bar. At length the advice of 
 his uncle, the most popular teacher of anatomy in 
 England, lc;(l him to prefer physic, and lie succccilrd 
 in obtaining an exhibition to Balliol College, Oxford, 
 which is in the gift of the Professors of the Univer- 
 sity of Glasgow, Nearly at the same period, ho 
 lost his father. At Oxford, where he took his 
 degree of y\.l)., he stmlied only during term time, 
 spending the intei-veiiiiig time in Loudon, where, 
 after attending the eslablishcd coiuscs of h.etiires in 
 the various dipartnieiits of .\If<lieine, he heeanie, 
 in little more than two years, demonstrator of 
 anatomy to his uncles. Towards ilu' end of anollicr 
 year, Dr. William Hunter died, bequeathing to 
 
 young Baillie the use of his splendid museum, his 
 house, and tlieatre of anatomy, in Great Wiuclniill 
 Street, and a small estate in Scotland. This last, 
 together with an animity of 100/., Baillie gave to 
 his uncle John, who had not been on good terms 
 with his brother when he died. " I leave you," said 
 Dr. William Hmiter, a little before his death, " but 
 little money, Matthew, because I do not wish to 
 deprive you of the pleasure I have myself expe- 
 rienced in making it." With this significant hint, 
 and the professional training he received from the 
 eminent man who gave it. Dr. Baillie nmst be 
 considered to have started as a practitioner with 
 no common advantages. His progress nevertheless 
 does not appear to have been i-apid : he trod in 
 the footsteps of his uncles ; like them he was inde- 
 fatigable in his attention to the various duties of 
 his situation ; a diligent student, and an incessant 
 observer of the structure and functions of the 
 human body. To the accurate knowledge of ana- 
 tomy thus acquired, he owed the extensive prac- 
 tice, and the high reputation, he subsequently at- 
 tained. Li 1 7Ji5, two years after his uncle William's 
 death, he began to lecture himself, and continued, 
 in conjunction with Mr. Cruikshank, the celebrated 
 Hunterian school. In 17B7, he was ap])ointed 
 Physician to St. George's Hospital, and in I'iii'J, he 
 was made a Fellow of the College of Physicians, 
 and married Sophia, daughter of Dr. Denman, the 
 emineiit accoucheur. This match proved happy, 
 and highly advantngeous hi a professional point of 
 view. He now started into full practice, and soon 
 after succeeded in filling up the opening occasioned 
 by the retirement of Dr. Pitcaini to the Continent, 
 in conse(|uence of ill health. 
 
 In 1795 Dr. Baillie published his Morbid Ana- 
 tomy, a work which his biogra()her, Mr. Wardrop, 
 has justly esteemed one of the most practically 
 useful and valuable acquisitions obtained by medical 
 science. It was soon translated into French, Italian, 
 and German, and in about four years after the suc- 
 cessful author began to illustrate it by the well 
 known series of engravings which bear his name, 
 and will long renuiin memorials of his y.eal, industry, 
 and talent. In 17971 a second edition of the work 
 being called for, he added to it the " Symptoms " 
 of the ditt'trent morbid lesions described in it, as 
 far as they were known. Two years after this, the 
 extent of his jn-actice induced him to discontinue 
 his lectures, anil resign his ]il:ice at .St. (George's 
 Hospital. He continui'd to reside in (ireat \\'ind- 
 miil Street, however, until the year 1805, when he 
 removed into Grosveuor Slncl. lie «as physician 
 to George 111.. and continued, with a few short inter- 
 ruptions, ill the constant exercise of his profession 
 until the year Ui'ill, when heing attacked with 
 chronic inilanniiati<in of the windpipe, he sought re- 
 lief at 'i'unbridge Wells, ami then removed to an 
 estate he had bought in (;iouc()«tershire, where he 
 died dniMug the Course of the year. 
 
 Dr. Haillie, besides the work on Morbid Ana- 
 tomy, already mentioned, was th<' author of various 
 jiapers in tli<- " Transaclions of the Royal Society," 
 and the priiiei|<al niedicai publications of hie t.iae. 
 
 T
 
 2(i2 
 
 WESTMINSTER ABDEY. 
 
 Tliese were collected ;ui<l printed, in 1825, with an 
 account of his life, by Mr. Wardrop, in 2 vols. 8v(). 
 They are strongly marked by good sense and just 
 observation. He also edited, with additions, Dr. 
 William Hunter's works oji the " Gravid Uterus." 
 The chai-acter given of him, both as a man and a 
 physician, is excellent, with one exception. He had 
 an irritable temper, and often gave vent to it when 
 much occupied. In the matter of fees, he is de- 
 scribed as being extremely generous and delicate ; 
 in his manners, he was naturally mild and imas- 
 snniing, yet decided and impressive. He was 
 
 moreover the same to all men on all occasions, and 
 never made distinctions in his mode of addressing 
 his patients, whatever theii" station. Two qualities 
 ascribed to him, evince excellence of the highest 
 order ; they were, quick and accurate penetration 
 in the diagnosis of disease, together with precise 
 knowledge of the effects and power of the medicines 
 he prescribed ; and a facility in expi-essing his 
 opinions and advice, in language so concise and 
 simple, that no difficulty could be experienced, 
 either in fully understanding, or in caiTying them 
 faithfully into practice. 
 
 JOHN PHILIP KEMBLE. 
 
 At tlio entrance of the West aisle of the North 
 transept, Ls a statue of Kemble. It is the work of 
 Hinehcliffe, and is taken from a model by Flaxnian. 
 It is a frigid, inexpressive performance, looking 
 neither dignified nor life-like, but very much as 
 if it was a cast from a dead body. The character 
 meant to be represented is that of Cato. There is 
 no epitaph. 
 
 John, the eldest son of Roger Kemble, manager 
 of a company of players at Prescot in Lancashire, 
 was born in that county in February 1757, and 
 educated at the Roman Catholic seminary of 
 Sedgeley Park, Staffordsliire ; and the Roman 
 Catholic College of Douay. It is said that his 
 father desired to make him a priest or a lawyer ; 
 but his own inclination led him to the stage, for 
 which his proficiency in elocution when a boy, 
 showed that he possessed natui'al talents of no 
 common order. Having completed his academical 
 course he returned to England, and went at once 
 upon the stage, performmg successfully at most of 
 the large provincial towns, such as Liverpool, York, 
 Edinburgh, &c. He was now in his twenty-second 
 year, and already aspired to distinction as an 
 author, producing for Younger, manager of the 
 Liverpool theatre, " Belisarius," a tragedy, in 1778, 
 and dm'ing the next year for Tate Wilkinson at 
 York, an interlude in one act, entitled " The School 
 for Scandal Scandalised." Both pieces are sup- 
 posed to have been produced for the author's 
 benefits, and are described, the tragedy as turgid 
 and absurd ; and the interlude, which was copied 
 from Moliere's " Critique de I'Ecole des Femmes," 
 as being in many passages spirited and acute. In 
 1780, he printed a volume of fugitive pieces in 
 verse, of which however he so quickly repented, 
 as to buy up all the copies the next day. In 1783, 
 he presented himself before a London audience, 
 at Drury Lane, and was received with general 
 applause. In a few years his success was so decided, 
 and his popularity so great, that he took i-ank as 
 the legitimate successor of Garrick in the series 
 of first-rate tragedians, which descending from 
 Burbage and Betterton to Garrick, was continued 
 after him by Kean, and seems about to vanish 
 with Macready. In 1787, Kemble married Mrs. 
 Brereton, widow of the actor of the same name, 
 and daughter of Hopkins the pi-ompter. When 
 King retired from the management of Drury Lane, 
 Kemble succeeded him, and continued, with the 
 exception of one short interval, to fill the office, 
 
 and introduce many judicious and effective im- 
 provements, until the year 1801, when he withdrew 
 to the continent, and spent a year in travelling with 
 his wife. During the period of Kemble's first 
 management, he flistinguished himself, not solely 
 by the earnest attention he paid to the duties of 
 his office, the system and regularity he enforced 
 behind the curtain, but also by the higher me- 
 rits of rendering the scenery and costume of 
 the stage much more appropriate than they had 
 been, and by restoring many of the good old 
 plays that had been mostly forgotten. He also 
 wrote some new pieces himself, and altered and 
 improved others. To the former class belong 
 a farce, entitled " The Projects," which had been 
 originally produced at Liverpool, in 1778, under 
 the title of " The Female Officer," and was perhaps 
 his maiden production. Notwithstanding his par- 
 tiality for it, the audience received it so coldly that 
 it was quickly withdrawal. A liaj)pier fortune at- 
 tended the production of " Lodoiska," a nuisical 
 entertalument which he founded upon a French 
 novel, and which had a long and very profitable 
 run. " Deaf and Dumb," " The Stranger," and the 
 " Siege of Belgrade," are specimens of the pieces 
 which he partly fashioned for the stage, and re- 
 touched. 
 
 In 1802, having visited Paris and Madrid, he 
 came back to London, bought a sixth share of 
 Covent Garden theatre, and becoming manager of 
 that establishment, prosecuted a highly successful 
 career without drawback or interruption, until 
 September 9. 1808; when a fire suddenly broke 
 out during the performance of Pizarro, and the 
 whole building with several adjoining houses was 
 reduced to ashes. Property to the amount of 
 100,000^ was thus destroyed, of which not more 
 than 70,000/. was covered by insurances. Never- 
 theless the proprietors proceeded with commend- 
 able spirit in the erection of a new and superior 
 edifice. On the 31st of December, 1808, the Prince 
 of Wales laid the foundation stone, and on the 18th 
 of September, 1809, a superb structure, on which 
 150,000/. had been expended, was advertised to 
 open with John Kemble as Macbeth. 
 
 The proprietors met the public animated by high 
 ho))es and confident of applause and support, for 
 the spirit and liberality with which they had raised 
 the new theatre in so short a time. But their 
 bright anticipations were strangely disappointed. 
 They attempted to raise the prices of admission.
 
 JOHN PHILIP KEMBLE. 
 
 2«3 
 
 and to introduce private boxes, and they had en- 
 gaged Madame Catalani, innovations which pro- 
 voked the resistance and resentment of the public, 
 to an extent as violent as it was unjirecedented. 
 The performances for a series of months were no- 
 thins; more than dumb show, enacted in the midst 
 of universal uproar and indescribable confusion. 
 This was the ei)ocli of the celebrated O. P., or old 
 prices, riots. In the coui-se of this pertinacious 
 and ultimately successful opposition, the public 
 indignation was directed, whether rightly or not 
 we can hardly tell, mainly against John Kemble. 
 On the first night the curtain rose to a deafening 
 storm of hisses, hootings, gi'oans, and catcalls. The 
 inimitable Mrs. Siddons appeared, but though in 
 the zenith of her popularity, not a tone of her 
 splendid voice could be heard. Kemble came for- 
 ward, and the whole house, to mark tluir sense of 
 his conduct, stood up and turned their backs upon 
 the stage. This posture was kept up during the 
 whole of the second act. The afterpiece of the 
 Quaker followed, without producing any interrup- 
 tion or abatement of the tumult, and the ])erform- 
 ances were over at ten o'clock. Even then the 
 audience did not offer to depart, for in ])laco of the 
 managers, who were expected to explain, and offer 
 terms, some Bow-street officers appeared on the 
 stage, and threatened to read the riot act. This 
 only added to the commotion, and a posse of 
 constables making a vain attempt to clear the 
 house, and being repulsed, the audience sang "God 
 save the King" in triumph, and left the place of 
 their own accord, at half-past twelve. On the 
 second night the row was kejit up with unremitting 
 noise; on the third trumpets, bugle horns, and 
 watchmen's rattles, were introduced to add to the 
 din; on the third, black Jack, as the rioters nick- 
 named Kemble, condescended to answer the reite- 
 rated calls of the audience, and presenting himself 
 at the foot lights, said, " Ladies and gentlemen, 1 
 wait to know wluit you want ?" These few words 
 were considered a piece of ridiculous and absurd 
 affectation, and the luckless manager was hooted 
 off with vociferous indignation. Loud cries of old 
 j)rices brought him back, he pleaded the insecurity 
 of the concern, but made no concession : on the 
 fifth night notice was given that Catalani's engage- 
 ment was abandoned ; on the sixth night he an- 
 nounced, that the performances would cease until a 
 committee had completed an incpiiry into the affairs 
 of the theatre, with a view of determining whether 
 the proprietors were justified in raising the pi'ices, 
 the results of which would be published. 
 
 On October 4, the theatre re-ojiened. The public 
 were not one whit apjjcased, as the report of the 
 committee dealt only in general statements, and 
 seemed, in short, totally unsatisfactory. The play 
 and farce were still in pantomime, and the disturb- 
 ances began to be more outrageous, in consefjuence 
 of the undenialile presence of hundreds of hirelings, 
 planted in the pit and boxes evidently for the pur- 
 j)ose of intimidation. The pugilists Mcndoza, Dutch 
 Sam, an<l others, wi-re publii-ly poiiitrd out in their 
 seats at various times. J''iglits, liolh in the ])it and 
 boxes, now became frefjuent, and continued every 
 ))iglit, thon'„di tin; police often were successful in 
 carrving otl' the comliatants. The Jews i-epeatedly 
 chalienged the O. I'.'h to fight, but were finally 
 driven out on the tliirteenth night. By this time the 
 audience never dispersed without a song, the King's 
 
 Anthem being the favourite; and a final dance was 
 also instituted in the (lit, which soon destroyed the 
 green cloth on the benches. Whenever the audience 
 got tired, "God Save the King" was their never- 
 failing resource to recruit their spirits, although 
 they generally sang it wretchedly out of tune. 
 
 On the eighteenth night, the " Merchant of 
 Venice " was the play ; but whether Cooke, in 
 Sliylock, was the " Jew that Shakspeare drew," or 
 any other Jew, it was im])ossible to ascertain; the 
 real performers in the house being hissers, groaii- 
 ers, catcallers, trumpeters, &c. On this night, hats 
 with the letters 0. P. stuck on them, on printed 
 cards, first made their appearance, though the 
 same letters had appeared already on the waist- 
 coats, watch-chains, and other parts of the dresses 
 of the audience. An Or]dieus in the upper boxes 
 also drew out a German Hute, and commanded an at- 
 tentive audience whilst he played the Irish air of the 
 Coolun. On the nineteenth night, the following new 
 placards appeared in the pit: — A striking likeness 
 of Mr. Kemble in acute pain, superscribed " Pity 
 my 'aitches;'" a smart allusion to Kemble's new 
 ju-onunciation of the word ''aches." " If Cai>taiu 
 Bull continues his nightly cruize, he will regain his 
 old pi'ices, and capture the ' private-tier.' " " No 
 hired Jew, or prices new !" The pit on this night 
 was the scene of several conflicts, and there was 
 always room enough to fornt a ring for their per- 
 formance. 
 
 Prom the twentieth to the thirtieth night, the 
 O. P. uproar continued with undiminished vigour; 
 while metal oi-naments, hats, waistcoats, ancl pla- 
 cards, all sported the magic letters in abuud:ince. 
 On the thirtieth night, the O. P.'s thought of the 
 new scheme of leaving the theatre in procession, 
 which they did accordingly, visiting the newspaper 
 offices before they scjiarated, and cheering those 
 which supi)orted the O. P. cause, while they groaned 
 and hooted its opponents. Generally the O. P.'s 
 were in the greatest good humour. On the thirty- 
 second night, they all joined in ex])ressing a sort 
 of mock indignation at a man who apj>eared in the 
 garb of a venerable Jewish lUibbi. The dress, 
 which was of course assumed for the occasion, 
 added variety to the confusion. He wore a large 
 black beard and slouclied hat, and suffered himself 
 to be pushed about the pit by his companions, 
 without betraying the slightest symptom of dis|ik'a- 
 sm-e. \\'hile he was the object of attack, numy 
 exclaimed, " Turn him out, a Jew, a Jew !" The 
 sham Israelite continued the deception until he was 
 (juite exhausted, when his many roaring followers 
 allowed him to sit down and recover his wind. The 
 row was then ke|)t ujt by a very athletic man, who 
 was at last overpowi-red l)y constab!(>s, and curried 
 off to Bow-street. On the thirty-fifth night, the 
 Pititcs were still more frolicsome. The row, as for 
 some time back, came to its height at the hour of 
 half-price, when the theatre usually filled to over- 
 flowing. .The O. P.'s commenced operations by 
 clearing the ci'Ulre of the ])it; and when sufficient 
 room had !»■( n thus obtiiined, they practised feats 
 of agility. One mnn actually made a slniiding leap 
 over six seats. Wiien tired of this display, thi>y 
 e\hil(it<'d si'vcral single-stick matches, in the gla- 
 dlatoi-ial style. A new dance was also performed 
 by the •' extra cm-ps do ballet," to the tune of 
 O. P. A violent stamp with the right fo<it was 
 I accompanied willi the exclamation O, while the Id,. 
 
 T 2
 
 2r,i 
 
 WESTMINSTER ABBEY. 
 
 beat tlie benches to the sound of P. Durinjj this 
 heavy fandango, the house absolutely shook. The 
 Pitites also found out the knack of reiterating O. P. 
 in unison, the effect of which upon the ears was 
 tremendous. 
 
 All this while the question was exciting as nnicli 
 agitation without the walls of the theatre as within 
 tiiem. The newspapers ranged themselves ou va- 
 rious sides, and were daily filled with letters and 
 pasquinades, on one side or other. The coffee- 
 houses were crowded with disputants on the subject, 
 and the manufacturers and shopkeepers took advan- 
 tage of the affair to vend all sorts of articles marked 
 with the cabalistic letters. The sense of the public 
 was against the theatrical people, both among the 
 upper and lower classes. Respectable })rofessional 
 men did not disdain to deck themselves with the 
 0. P. symbols, and appear in the tiieatre with them, 
 while ladies of rank and character countenanced 
 the same cause. Mr. Clifford, the barrister, ap- 
 peared with an 0. P. hat on the 31 st of October, 
 and being taken into custody, entered a suit against 
 Mr. Brandon, tlie box-keeper, for illegal imprison- 
 ment. 
 
 " On the forty-first night," says the 0. P. histo- 
 rian, " the row commenced in the third act of ' Speed 
 the Plough,' and, at half-price, increased to the 
 usual pitch. After much pushing and bustling, the 
 Pitites opened their ball with the 0. P. dance. 
 Wrestling and broad-sword play were practised in 
 the highest style. During the scene of confusion, 
 a party of constables sallied forth with the intent of 
 securing a few of the gladiators and dancers. The 
 conflict was severe, but the 0. P.'s soou cleared the 
 field." A Mr. Cowham, however, was seriously 
 injured by a baton-stroke, and was carried out 
 amid the lamentations of all. On the forty-second 
 night, as they had frequently done before, the 
 0. P.'s directed their outcries against the private 
 boxes, and, by their language, speedily caused a 
 few ladies present in them to retire. The fifty- 
 eighth night was an era in the struggle, as on that 
 day, to the indescribable gratification of the 0. P.'s, 
 Mr. Clifford gained his suit, with 51. damages, against 
 Brandon the box-keeper. New vigoiu* seemed to 
 be inspired into the 0. P.'s by this event. On the 
 fifty-ninth night, two persons in the pit ajtpeared 
 in white nightcaps, and one of them exhibited a 
 large 0. P. cut out of pasteboard. The O he put 
 round his neck, and held up the P in the most 
 comic manner. The other knight of the white cap 
 entertained himself by cracking a whip, and blow- 
 ing a whistle in the liundle. These gentlemen made 
 their appearance next night in similar style, and 
 were cheered on their entrance; an honour which 
 made them as proud as victors at the Olympic 
 games. On the sixty-third night, the Duke of 
 Gloucester appeared in the theatre, and was loudly 
 cheered. He was, besides, favoured with a sonor- 
 ous chant of "God Save the King," and with a 
 vigorous specimen of O. P. dancing. On this night, 
 a person with a tremendous false nose, exceeding 
 that described by Slawkeubergius, and a monstrous 
 counsellor's wig, excited much laughter. He occa- 
 sionally mounted a white nightcap, and heightened 
 the effect of his appeai-aiice by the cool gravity with 
 which he talked to a companion who wore a red 
 silk handkerchief round his head. A desperate but 
 ineffectual attempt was made by the police to seize 
 the gentleman with the nose. They carried off 
 
 some persons, however, to Bow-street, as indeed 
 they did almost every night. On the sixty-fourth 
 night, the expression of Jnb Thornberry, in John 
 Bull, that "he would stay till the roof fell ou him," 
 was paraj)hrased by the 0. P.'s, who roared that 
 they would stay still the roof fell for O. P. Then 
 the frolicsome mob set to work to prove the endur- 
 ance of their spirit. Sham boxing-matches, among 
 other entertainments, were got up, which usually 
 terminated in a mutual horse-laugh from the com- 
 batants, to the no small amazement of the unin- 
 itiated jiart of the comjiany. 
 
 The spirit of the O. P.'s was still unabated ; but 
 obstinate as the proprietors had been, their patience 
 was at length wtun out. On the announcement of 
 a dinner of the O. P.'s to be held at the Crown and 
 Anchor Tavern, Mr. Kemble expressed a wish to 
 the chairman, Mr. Ciifinrd, to appear with conci- 
 liatory proposals. This overture was cordially re- 
 ceived. On the sixty-sixth night, the I4th of Decem- 
 ber, a number of O. P.'s arrived at the theatre, and 
 announced to the audience that Mr. Kemble had 
 just entered into a capitulation at the Crown and 
 Anchor, on which the cries for Kemble became 
 loud and long. At length the great actor repeated 
 on the stage his proposals for peace. The pi-ivate 
 boxes were to be restored to the public, the pit to 
 return to its old price, all legal prosecutions were 
 to be stopped; but the boxes were to continue at 
 the advanced price. The majority of the audience 
 were so far satisfied, but there was a general cry 
 for the dismissal of Brandon the box-keepei'. This 
 consummation of the wishes of the house was not 
 attained till the succeeding night, when Mr. Kem- 
 ble, after an interval of sixty-five nights, re-ap- 
 peared as a performer in the comedy of the Wheel 
 of Fortune. On this sixty-seventh night of the 
 0. P. row, the house was excessively crowded. As 
 if to give solemnity to the occasion, the audience 
 called for God Save the King, and joined in it with 
 heart and spirit. Kemble was received with general 
 applause, which became universal when he an- 
 nounced, with other apologetic remarks, that Bran- 
 don had resigned. Then placards were seen waving 
 in the air, with the inscription, " We are satisfied," 
 and thus closed one of the most curious scenes of 
 excitement that has ever been witnessed in any 
 comitry or age. 
 
 As Mr. Kemble was but one of a numerous body 
 of proprietors, it was perhaps unfair in the public 
 to concentrate their indignation upon his head; yet, 
 from his infiuential position, and a known spice of 
 haughty pride in his othei'wise amiable character, 
 it seems not improbable that lie swayed the coun- 
 sels of the proprietors. From this period Kemble 
 enjoyed for a series of years uninterrupted popula- 
 rity and well merited fortune, as proprietor, ma- 
 nager, and principal actor. July 23, 1817> he took 
 leave of the stage. The event was honoured with 
 a public dinner, at which a valuable piece of plate 
 was presented to him as a public testimony of the 
 high sense entertained of his merits, by the friends 
 and admirers of the drama. Soon after he visited 
 the continent, and died at Lausanne, in Switzerland, 
 February 23, 1817- John Kemble, though univer- 
 sally regarded as a highly gifted and most accom- 
 plished actor, was not eminent for versatility. His 
 genius was limited to a particular style, but in that 
 he excelled. His favourite parts, such as Cato, 
 Coriolanus, Brutus, Hamlet, Cardinal Wolsey,
 
 WILLIAM GIFFORD. 
 
 2(io 
 
 Jacques, Penruddoek, and the Stranger, enable us 
 to judge without ditticulty of tlie general nature and 
 effect of his powers. In charactei-s that afforded 
 i*oom for the dis])Iay of measured dignity and pro- 
 found thought, he was most impressive, indeed 
 matchless. For these nature fitted him admirably in 
 
 every respect, in j.ort and voice, in tread and into- 
 nation. He was thus the very opposite to his great 
 successor Kean; the one ranUed at the head of the 
 reflective, and the other of the impressive school of 
 personation; and they were resi)ectively preferred 
 according to the different tastes of their admirers. 
 
 WILLIAM GIFFORD. 
 
 Amongst the number of those who have distin- 
 guished themselves by the pursuit of knowledge 
 under difficulties, an honourable rank is due to 
 William Gift'ord, the founder, and for many years 
 editor, of the Quarterly Review. As Mr. tiiflord 
 felt an honest pride in making the world acquainted 
 during his lifetime with his humble origin, and the 
 many ad vei'secircumstances through which he forced 
 his way to literary eminence, we liave the best gua- 
 rantee for the interest which his career naturally 
 excites. He was born at Ashburton in Devonshire 
 in 1755. His family had been respectable, and 
 even wealthy, but was then extremely poor, and 
 ill-conditioned. His father, a wild profligate, ran 
 away to sea soon after he was married, spent nine 
 years as a common sailor on board a man-of-war, 
 returned liome with 100^. prize money ; tried to 
 establish himself in business, as a glazier, but died 
 with a broken-down constitution in a few years. 
 Two sons and his widow survived him, but she 
 followed her husband to the grave in about twelve- 
 months. " I was not quite thirteen," says her son, 
 " when this happened ; my little brother was hardly 
 two ; and we had not a relation or a friend in the 
 world." 
 
 His brother was now sent to the workhouse, and 
 he was himself taken home to the house of his god- 
 father, who had seized upon whatever his mother 
 had left, under the pretence of repaying liimself 
 for money which he had advanced to her. By this 
 person, William, who had before learned reading, 
 writing, and a Httle arithmetic, was sent again to 
 school, for about three months, and then taken 
 home, with a view to employment as a ])ioughboy. 
 An injury, however, received some years before on 
 his breast, unfitted him for that species of labour, 
 and it was next resolved that he should be sent out 
 to Newfoundland, to assist in a st(irehouse. But 
 the person who had agreed to fit him out, found 
 him " too small," and this scheme also had to be 
 abandoned. " My godfather," says he, " had now 
 humbler views for me, and I had littli; heart to 
 resist any thing. He ]iroposed tosend me on board 
 one of till! Torbay fishing-boats ; I ventured, how- 
 ever, to remonstrate against this, and the matter 
 was con)promised by my consenting to go on board 
 a coaster. A coaster was sjieedily found for me at 
 Brixham, and thither I went when little more than 
 tliirteen." 
 
 In this vessel hn remained for nearly a twelve- 
 month. " It will be easily conceived," he reniarU.s, 
 "that my life was a liie <>f liard>lii|i. 1 wxh not 
 only 'a hlii|)-boy on the high and giddy mast,' but 
 also in the cabin, where every nn'Mial oflice fell to 
 my lot ; yet, if 1 was restless and discontented, I 
 can Hafely say it was not so nnicli on accoiuit of this, 
 a» of my being ]ir<cluded from all possiljdiiy of 
 
 reading ; as my master did not possess, rior do 1 
 recollect seeing during the whole time of my abode 
 with him, a single book of any description except 
 the ' Coasting Pil(jt.' " 
 
 While in this humble situation, however, and 
 seeming to himself almost an outcast from the 
 world, he was not altogether forgotten. He had 
 broken off all connection with Ashburton, where 
 his godfather lived ; but " the women of Brixham," 
 says he, " who travelled to Ashburton twice a-week 
 with fish, and who had known my parents, did not 
 see me without kind concern, running about the 
 beach in a ragged jacket and trousers." They 
 often mentioned him to their acquaintances at 
 Ashburton ; and the tale excited so much com- 
 miseration in the place, that his godfather at last 
 found himself obliged 'to send for him home. At 
 this time he wanted some months of fourteen. He 
 proceeds with his own story as follows : — 
 
 " After the holidays, I returned to my darling 
 pui'suit — arithmetic: my progress was now so rapid, 
 that in a few months 1 was at t)ie head of the 
 school, and qualified to assist my master (Jli\ E. 
 Furlong) on any extraordinary emerijency. As he 
 usually gave me a trifle on these occasions, it raised 
 a thought in mo that by engaging with him as a 
 regular assistant, and undertaking the instruction 
 of a few evening scholars, 1 might with a littU- 
 additional aid, be enabkd to sui)pMrt myself. Clod 
 knows, my ideas of support at this time were of no 
 very extravagant nature. 1 hail, besides, another 
 object in view. Mr. Hugh Smerdon (my tirst 
 master) was now grown old and infirm ; it seemed 
 unlikely that he should hold out above tliree or 
 four years ; and I fondly flattered myself, that not- 
 withstanding my youth, I niinht possibly be ap- 
 ])ointed to succeed blni. 1 was in my filti'eiuh 
 year when I built these castles ; a storm, however, 
 was collecting, which unexpectedly burst upon me, 
 and swept them all away. 
 
 " On mentioning my little ])lan to C'arlile, he treat- 
 ed it with the \ifmost contempt ; and told nu', in his 
 turn, that, as I hail learned enough, and more than 
 enough, at school, he must be considired as having 
 fairly dischai-ged bis duty (so, indeed, he had) ; he 
 added, that he had been negolialing with his cousin, 
 ashoemaker of someresjiectaliilily, who had liberally 
 agreed to take me without a lee as an ajiprentice. 
 1 was HO shocked at this intelligence, that I did not 
 remonstrate, but went in sulli'nness and silence to 
 my new master, to whom i was soon after bound, 
 till I should attain the age of tweiily-one." 
 
 I'p to this period, the only books he had pe- 
 rused, besides the Bible, with which he was well 
 acquainted, wen." "a black letter romance, called 
 I'arisnniH and I'arismenes," a lew old magazines, 
 and the'' Imitation of 'I'homas ii Kempis." " As I
 
 206 
 
 WESTMINSTER ABBEY. 
 
 hated my new profession," he continues, " with a 
 perfect hatred, I made no progress in it, and was 
 consequently little regarded in the family, of which 
 I sank by degrees into the common drudge . this 
 did not much disquiet me, for my spirits were now 
 humbled. I did not, however, quite resign my 
 hope of one day succeeding to Mr. Hugh Snierdon, 
 and therefore secretly prosecuted my favourite 
 study at every interval of leisui-e. These intervals 
 were not very frequent ; and when the use 1 made of 
 them was found out, they were rendered still less 
 so. I could not guess the motives for this at first ; 
 but at length I discovered that my master destined 
 his youngest son for the situation to which I aspired. 
 
 " I possessed at this time but one book in the 
 world : it was a treatise on algebra, given to me 
 by a young woman who had found it in a lodging- 
 house. I considered it as a treasure; but it was a 
 treasure locked up : for it supposed the reader to 
 be well acquainted with simple equations, and I 
 knew nothing of the matter. My master's son had 
 purchased Fenning's Introduction : this was pre- 
 cisely what I wanted — but he carefully concealed 
 it from me, and I was indebted to chance alone 
 for stumbling upon his hiding-place. I sat up for 
 the greatest part of several nights successively, 
 and, before he suspected that his treatise was dis- 
 covered, had completely mastered it. I could now 
 enter upon my own, and that carried me pretty far 
 into the science. This was not done without diffi- 
 culty. I had not a farthing on earth, nor a friend 
 to give me one ; pen, ink, and paper, therefore (in 
 despite of the flippant remark of Lord Orford), 
 were for the most part as completely out of my 
 reach as a crown and scepti-e. There was, indeed, 
 a resource ; but the utmost caution and secrecy 
 were necessary in applying to it. I beat out piec'es 
 of leather as smooth as possible, and wrote my pro- 
 blems on them with a blunted awl; for the rest, my 
 memory was tenacious, and I could multiply and 
 divide by it to a great extent." 
 
 Unfavourable for study as this situation was, the 
 eager applicant succeeded in triumphing over its 
 disadvantages, contriving to write and calculate 
 even without paper, pen, or ink, by the aid of a 
 piece of leather and a blunted awl. At last, how- 
 ever, liis extreme penury was somewhat mitigated. 
 He had scarcely, he tells us, known poetry even by 
 name, when some verses, composed by one of his 
 acquaintances, tempted him to try what he could 
 do in the same way. Successive little incidents 
 inspired liis humble muse, he produced several 
 compositions, till he had got together about a dozen 
 of them, and "certainly," says he, "nothing on 
 earth was ever so deplorable ;" but such as they 
 were, they caused him to be noticed, and he began 
 at last to be sometimes invited to repeat them to 
 other circles. 
 
 " The repetitions of which I speak," he continues, 
 "were always attended with applause, and some- 
 times with favours more substantial ; little collec- 
 tions were now and then made, and I have received 
 sixpence in an evening. To one who had long lived 
 in the absolute want of money, such a resource 
 seemed a Peruvian mine : I furnished myself by 
 degrees with paper, &c., and, what was of more 
 importance, w^th boolcs of geometry and of the 
 higher branches of algebra, which I cautiously 
 concealed. Poetry, even at this time, was no 
 amusement of mine : it was subservient to other 
 
 purposes ; and I only had recourse to it when I 
 wanted money for my mathematical pursuits." 
 
 But even this resource was soon taken from him. 
 His master, having heard of his verse-making, was 
 so incensed both at what he deemed the idleness 
 of the occupation, and especially at some satirical 
 allusions to himself, or his customers, upon which 
 the young poet had unwisely ventured, that he 
 seized upon and can-ied away all his books and 
 papers, and even prohibited liim in the strictest 
 manner from ever again repeating a line of his 
 compositions. This severe stroke was followed by 
 another, which reduced him to utter despair. The 
 master of the free school, to whom lie had never 
 resigned the hope of succeeding, died, and another 
 person was appointed to the situation, not much 
 older than Gifford, and who, he says, was certainly 
 not so well qualified for it as himself. " I look 
 back," he proceeds, " on that part of my life which 
 immediately followed this event with little satis- 
 faction; it was a period of gloom and savage unso- 
 ciability; by degrees I sunk into a kind of corporeal 
 torpor ; or, if roused into activity by the spirit of 
 youth, wasted the exertion in splenetic and vexa- 
 tious tricks, which alienated the few acquamtances 
 which compassion had yet left me." 
 
 He spent nearly six years in this way, before 
 a decided prospect of deliverance opened upon 
 him. " In this humble and obscure state," says 
 he, " poor beyond the common lot, yet flattering 
 my ambition with day dreams which ]ierhaps would 
 never have been realised, I was found, in the twen- 
 tieth year of my age, by Mr. William Cookesley, a 
 name never to be pronounced by me without vene- 
 ration. The lamented doggrel which I have already 
 mentioned, and which had passed from mouth to 
 mouth among people of my own degree, had by 
 some accident or other reached his ear, and given 
 him a curiosity to inquire after the author." Mr. 
 Cookesley was a surgeon, and not rich, but having 
 learnt Gifford's history from himself, he became so 
 much interested in his favour, that he determined 
 to rescue him from his misery. " The plan," 
 says Gifford, " that occun-ed to him was naturally 
 that which had so often suggested itself to me. 
 There were, indeed, several obstacles to be over- 
 come. My haiulwi'iting was bad, and my language 
 very incoi-rect ; but nothing could slacken the zeal 
 of this excellent man. He procured a few of my 
 poor attempts at rhyme, dispersed them amongst 
 his friends and acquaintance, and, when my name 
 was become somewhat familiar to them, set on foot 
 a subscription for my relief. I still preserve the 
 original paper ; its title was not very magnificent, 
 though it exceeded the most sanguine wishes of 
 my heart. It ran thus : 'A subscription for pur- 
 chasing the remainder of the time of William 
 Gifford, and for enabling him to improve himself 
 in writing and English grammar.' Few contributed 
 more than five shillings, and none went beyond ten 
 and sixpence ; enough, however, was collected to 
 free nie from my apprenticeship, and to maintain 
 me for a few months, during which I assiduously 
 attended the Rev. Thomas Smerdon." 
 
 The difficulties of the poor scholar were now 
 over, for his pati-ons wei'e so much pleased with 
 the progress he made during this short period, that, 
 upon its expiration, they renewed their bounty, 
 and maintained him at school for another year. 
 " Such liberality," he remarks, " was not lost upon
 
 SIR T. S. RAFFLES. 
 
 2G7 
 
 me ; I grew anxious to make the best return in 
 my power, and I redoubled my diligence. Now 
 that I am sunk into indolence, I look back with 
 some degree of scepticism to the exertions of that 
 period." In two years and two months from what 
 he calls the day of his emancipation, he was pro- 
 nounced by his master to be tit for the univei'sity ; 
 and the place of liible reader having been obtained 
 for him by Mr. Cookesley's exertions at Exeter 
 College, Oxford, he was entered, that gentleman 
 undertaking to provide the additional means neces- 
 sary to enable him to live till he should take his 
 degree. 
 
 While thus fortunately placed he began a trans- 
 lation of " Juvenal," but having had the misfortune 
 to lose his excellent friend j\Ir. Cookesley, the un- 
 dertaking was suspended. A fortunate incident 
 soon after introduced him to Earl Grosvenor, who, 
 struck with his history and character, took him 
 into his family, and sent him to travel upon the 
 Continent with his eldest son. Lord Belgrave. 
 Upon his return to England he obtained a pen- 
 sion from Lord Grosvenor, settled in London, and 
 devoting himself to literature, soon aequiretl re- 
 spect and reputation. In 17U1 he published " The 
 Baviad," and in 1794 "The Mjeviad," two satires, 
 the one against the prevailing state of poetry, and 
 the other against that of the drama. These works, 
 though violent in tone, and coarse in expression, 
 were nevertheless ably and powerfully written, and 
 produced a considerable sensation. In 17!)7 he 
 began to edit the Anti-Jacobin Newspaper, and 
 having a quarrel in that capacity with Dr. Wolcot, 
 published his " Epistle to Peter Pindar." His trans- 
 lation of "Juvenal," interrupted by the death of 
 Mr. Cookesley, and delayed by various other en- 
 gagements, appeared in 1802, and proved the most 
 creditable of his works. He next appeared in print 
 as the editor of the plays of Massinger, with notes 
 and a biography ; an undertaking, followed in after 
 years by similar editions of Ben Jonson, Ford, and 
 Shirley. In 1809 he projected the "Quarterly 
 Review," and being installed editor, acquired a 
 station and influence in the literature of the day 
 which had not been enjoyed by any other indivi- 
 dual since the time of Johnson. Being unmarried, 
 and ])ossessed of some profitable situations under 
 Government, such as the paymastership of the Band 
 of Gentlemen Pensioners, worth 300/. a-year, and 
 a comptroUcrship of the lottery, worth (iOlU. a-year, 
 his means were affluent, and his mode of Ufc re- 
 
 fined. The infirmities of age compelled him to 
 resign the editorship of the "Quarterly" in 1824. 
 He died December 31, 182«, and was buried in the 
 Poets' Comer, at the instance of his particular 
 friend. Dean Ireland. The roniautie circumstances 
 of his i-ise as a literary man, and his high position 
 as the dispenser of fame for a series of yeaj-s in 
 the leading and most influential pei-iodical of liis 
 own party, the severity of his satire, and the vehe- 
 mence of his political prejudices, rendered Gift"ord's 
 name formidable, and his reputation high while he 
 lived. But at present all ephemeral aids to popu- 
 larity are in his case unavailing : he is judged by 
 his works only, and an opinion seems to be grow- 
 ing up, that he was overrated both as an original 
 author and a critic. A late writer observes, fairly 
 enough, " We nmst say we think far too much 
 leniency has been shown to his virulence and 
 violence of feeling and exjtression. Whether this 
 has arisen from forliearance or terror, it may be 
 difficult to decide. Gitt'ord exercised, in his lite, 
 a very strong and undue influence in the literary 
 world ; and having acquired the character of a 
 satirist, he seemed determined to maintain it by a 
 more than usual asperity and ferocity. His situation 
 as editor of the ' Quarterly,' gave him a strong 
 position ; and one jjortion of literary men ap- 
 peared to have adhered to him from terror, whilst 
 another were persecuted into obscurity. It seems 
 to be high time that his cluiraeter and talent should 
 be duly estimated. Of his original works, none 
 seem to have a hold on the public ; at least, if we 
 may judge by a very excellent test, namely, the 
 demand there is for them. They have not been 
 reprinted for many years. Surely as a connnen- 
 tator, he has been very much overrated, and he 
 has justly been accused of sacrificing truth to the 
 maintenance of his own virulent prejutlices. He 
 had all the acerbity attributed to Dr. Johnson, but 
 there is no life in four volumes to prove him the 
 wit and the philanthropist. He struck such terror 
 into litei'ary men, that even now there seems to be 
 a hesitation in speaking of him as he deserves. 
 That he had talents, none can deny ; Imt that his 
 statements are not to be impugned, and his judg- 
 ments rever.sed, is absurd to assirt. Perluips no 
 man ever wrote so nnich with so nuieh talent, and 
 yet left so little that is worth ]>reserving. Let us 
 get rid of the bugbear of his name, and the terror 
 of his memory." 
 
 SIR T. S. RAFFLES. 
 
 A siTTiNf! figure, with a mild expression of charac- 
 ter, anil a thoughtful attitude, excellcnlly con- 
 ceived and naturally executed hy Sir F. Chantrey, 
 has been placed against tin- wall of the choir in the 
 north aisle, to the UKMUory of Sir T. S. Raflles, with 
 the following inscription: — 
 
 To the Memory of 
 Sia Thomas Stamidiik Raii i,i;s, LL.D. F.R.S. 
 
 Li<'Uteii:int-governor of Java, 
 
 And First President of iIk; Zoological Society, 
 
 iJorn 1781, Die<l I82U. 
 
 Selected at an early age to conduct the Government 
 of the British CoMi[uests in the Imlian Ocean, 
 
 By Wisdom, N'igour, and I'hilantliropy, 
 
 He raised .Java to I I;ip]iiness and l'ros[)erity, 
 
 Unknown under loriiier rulers. 
 
 After the surrender of that island tr) the Dutch, 
 
 And duiiiig his government of Suniatr.i, 
 
 lie foiuided an Empoi'imii at Singapore; 
 
 Where, establishing l'"ree(lom of Person as llu? 
 
 Ki;;iit of the Soil, 
 
 .\ud Freedom of Trade as the I!it;!if of the Port, 
 
 He secured to tile Itritiah I'la;;
 
 2G8 
 
 WESTMINSTER ABBEY. 
 
 The maritime superiority of the Eastern Seas. 
 
 Ardently attached to Science, 
 
 He laboured successfully to add to tlie knowledge, 
 
 And enrich the Museums of his native land. 
 
 In promoting the welfare of the People conmiitted 
 
 to his charge, 
 
 He sought the good of his country, and the 
 
 glory of God. 
 
 Amongst the many Englishmen who have distin- 
 guished themselves by rising from humble circum- 
 stances to the highest honours, there is scarcely 
 one who presents a career more interesting, or 
 whose character ap])ears more uniformly amiable, 
 or the example of whose success is moi-e worthy 
 of praise and imitation, tlian the subject of this 
 sketch. He was the son of Benjamin Raffles, a 
 Captain in the West India trade, and was born at 
 sea in the ship Anne, of London, off Port Morant, 
 in Jamaica, July 6, 1781. From Dr. Anderson's 
 school at Haunuersmith, where his father had 
 placed him to be educated, he was removed at the 
 age of fourteen to the India House, and there 
 became an extra clerk in the secretary's office. 
 The anecdotes preserved of him at that period are 
 inciting. His parents were poor and in difficulties, 
 and he laid all his earnings in his mother's lap. 
 He was much attached from his youth to the study 
 of natural history, and early evinced the talent for 
 acquiring languages, which afterwards assisted so 
 materially in advancing his fortunes. Happily for 
 him, his character and capabilities were noticed and 
 appreciated by his employers. He was rapidly ad- 
 vanced over the heads of several seniors, in conse- 
 quence of his superior diligence and attainments, 
 and in 1805, when only twenty-four years of age, 
 was sent out as assistant secretary to the new 
 government of Pulo Penang, now the Prince of 
 Wales's Island, in the Straits of Malacca. It 
 is mentioned as a proof of the quick and active 
 nature of his abilities, that in his passage out he 
 made himself master of the Malay language, and 
 gained an intimate knowledge of the history and 
 statistics of the British possessions in the east. 
 How creditable this prompt assiduity was to him- 
 self, and how useful to the expedition, appeared 
 as soon as the i)laee of destination was reached, 
 when it was first discovered that he only was capa- 
 ble of conducting the necessary intercourse with 
 the natives. The post of interpreter to the go- 
 vernment was therefore necessarily created for 
 him; and in the following year he rose to that of 
 chief secretary. An alarming illness, brought on 
 Ijy the insalubrity of the climate, now attacked 
 him, and he was compelled to leave the colony; 
 but his letters, full of valuable information and ori- 
 ginal conceptions of striking merit, had been shown 
 to Lord Minto, the Governor-general, by his friend 
 John Leyden, the celebrated eastern traveller. He 
 was invited to visit Calcutta, was received with at- 
 tention and encouragement, and having suggested 
 and conducted an expedition to Java, which proved 
 completely successful, he was made lieutenant-go- 
 vernor of that island and its dependencies; Lord 
 Minto honourably announcing that the appointment 
 could not be witliheld from him who had won it. 
 Of the admirable manner in which this young man, 
 so late a humble clei-k in one of the obscure offices of 
 the East India House, in Leadenhall-street, now con- 
 ducted the government of the extensive dependency 
 
 he had added to the British dominions; of the skill, 
 humanity, and wisdom he displ.ayed in effecting 
 beneficial changes, in bettering the wretched con- 
 dition of the people, in promoting education, putting 
 down slavery, in quelling insurrections, and bring- 
 ing the ample resources of the country mto profit- 
 able channels, a minute account is preserved in his 
 ]\Ieraoirs, which cannot be too attentively studied 
 by the politician and the philanthropist. One fact 
 alone proves the pros])erity of his administration 
 in a striking manner. He raised the revenue of the 
 colony from four to thirty millions sterling a-year, 
 and this was done, not by insisting upon the old 
 principles of eastern policy, not by preserving and 
 tightening monopolies and class hiterests, but by 
 inviting the industry of the whole community into 
 general action, and fairly distributing the means of 
 improvement amongst them all. It is melancholy 
 to I'eflect that these wise labours were all thrown 
 away. Java was restored to the Dutch in 181G, 
 and very soon after fell back into its former condi- 
 tion of disorder, distress, and discontent. 
 
 The governor-general, foreseeing that Raffles 
 was about to lose his appointment by the cession 
 of the island, made him Governor of Bencoolen; 
 but the death of his wife, and the infirm state of 
 his health, induced him to visit England in 1816. 
 He brought with him an extensive collection of 
 the productions and curiosities, natural and arti- 
 ficial, of the Eastern Archipelago. In 1817 lie 
 added considerably to his reputation, by publishing 
 an excellent history of Java, in 2 vols. 4to. He 
 now married a second time, and having received 
 the honour of knightho(jd from the Prince Regent, 
 set sail for Bencoolen towards the end of the same 
 year. The seat of his government was, in his own 
 words, " the most wretched place I ever beheld. I 
 cannot convey to you an adequate idea of the state 
 of ruin and dilapidation w liich surrounds me. What 
 with natural impediments, bad government, and 
 the awful visitations of Providence, which we have 
 recently experienced in repeated earthquakes, we 
 have scarcely ;i dwelling in which to lay our heads, 
 or wherewithal to satisfy the cravings of nature ! 
 The roads are impassable: the highways in the 
 town are overrun with rank grass; the govern- 
 ment-house a den of ravenous dogs and polecats." 
 In addition to this, he found the people idle, disso- 
 lute, and depraved. 
 
 Nothing deterred by all this, Raffles continued 
 unweariedly the excellent labour of reforming a 
 fallen people. His first public act was the emanci- 
 pation of the slaves. After an interval of five years, 
 the country, which at the period of his arrival was 
 a howling desert, and the inhabitants, who were so 
 ignorant that they were in the habit of praying on 
 their knees to tigers, and of making oft'erings to 
 them of rice and fruits, that they might do no in- 
 jury, were wholly changed. Sir Thomas's first step, 
 in order to overcome the people's aversion to leave 
 the precincts of Fort Marlboi'ough (the name of 
 the residency), had been to penetrate into the 
 desert, as it may be called, for twelve miles, and 
 there to build a house. At the end of five years, 
 the whole intermediate space was chequered with 
 villas, and covered with plantations. A hundred 
 thousand nutmeg-trees delighted the senses with 
 their peculiar charms of flower and odour. The cul- 
 tivation of jiejiper having been declared free, every 
 man, however pool", had his plot. The native chiefs
 
 SIR T. S. RAFFLES. 
 
 2«9 
 
 bad formerly been excluded from Eurojiean society; 
 now the governor's house was rarely without some 
 of them, and they looked up to him as a father and 
 friend. War to the knife had been declared against 
 the tigers, and the country might almost have been 
 rambled over now by a child. A press worked 
 constantly under the management of persons who 
 could print both the Roman and native characters, 
 and a system of schools had been established for 
 educating the whole population. A native college 
 also was instituted for the higher branches. In 
 short, the changes almost surpassed belief, and 
 their effect upon tlie well-being, not only of the 
 generation which witnessed them, but of their de- 
 scendants, are incalculable. 
 
 Full employment as the evolution of these im- 
 I)rovement-i may seem calculated to have given 
 liim. Sir Thomas Raffles was at the same time 
 ardently engaged ia the pursuit of other objects, 
 not less worthy of admiration. He was indefatiga- 
 ble, particularly in the cause of natural history, and 
 w;us engaged in preparing a splendid collection of 
 .specimens, both of the animal and vegetable crea- 
 tion. On this subject he thus writes: — " The lower 
 jiart of our house at this moment is more like the 
 menagerie at Exeter Change, than the residence of 
 a gentleman. Fish, flesh, and fowl, alike contribute 
 to the collection; and above stairs, the rooms are 
 variously ornamented with branches and Hower.s, 
 rendering them so many arbours. There are no 
 less than five draftsmen constantly employed, and 
 with all ourdilii;ence we can hardly keep pace with 
 the new acquisitions which are daily made." In 
 another letter he speaks of the colony : — " Popula- 
 tion and industry are increasing; the inland mer- 
 chants begin to bring down the gold and cassia 
 from the interior, and a stranger would hardly 
 know the place again. We have a delightful gar- 
 den here, and so many living pets, tame and wild, 
 monkeys, dogs, birds, &c., that we have a perfect 
 animal kingdom within our own walls." Sir Tho- 
 mas's letters at this period contain many touching 
 sketches of domestic felicity. He had four cliil- 
 (Iren, two boys and two girls, who were remarkable 
 for beauty and amiability. One passage from Lady 
 Rafiles' Memoir tells how — " Tlie consciousness of 
 being beloved is a delightful, happy feeling, and 
 Sir Stamford acknowledged with thankfulness at 
 this time that every wish of his heart was gratified. 
 Uninterrupted health had prevailed in his family, 
 his children were his ]iride and delight, and they 
 had already imbiljed from him those tastes it was 
 his pleasure to cultivate. This will not be wondered 
 at, even at their early .age, when it i.s added tiiat 
 two young tigers a!id a bear were for some time in 
 the children's apartments, under the charge of their 
 attendant, without being confined in cages; and it 
 Wius rathi-r a curious scene to sec; tin; children, the 
 bear, the tigers, a blucMiioimtain-bird, and a favon 
 rite cat, all i)layiiig together, the parrot's beak being 
 the only obji'ct of awe to the party." And yet, 
 notwithstanding all this, he S(.'(;ms to liave had a 
 melancholy ])reHentiment of the future. "Amid 
 these numerous sources of enjoyment, however, Sir 
 Thomas nevc^r forgot tiiat the; scene was too brii;ht 
 to continue uiicloud('d, and often giiitly warned the 
 editor (I-aily R.) not to expi-ct to retain all tlie 
 bli'ssiiigs (iod in his Ijoinity had heaped ujion 
 them at tliis lime, but to feel that such happiness, 
 once enj.>yed, ought to shed a bright ray over the 
 
 future, however dark and trying it misht be- 
 come. 
 
 The grasping spirit of the Dutch, after regaining 
 their colonies, had always been observed by Raffles^ 
 and the prosperity of the British commerce in the 
 Asiatic isles appearing to be every day becoming 
 more precarious, he represented to the East India 
 Company the policy of some counteracting mea- 
 sures. Lord Hastings took the same view of the 
 matter, and Governor Raffles was authorised to 
 found a new colony. The sjiot he selected for this 
 purpose was Singapore, at the mouth of the Straits 
 of i\Ialacca. How well the site was chosen, and 
 how able were the arrangements entered into, may 
 be conceived from the fact, that during the two 
 years and a half that followed its foundation, the 
 tonnage in the harbour amounted to Ifil.OOO tons, 
 and the estimated imi)ortsand exports to 2,(100,000/. 
 sterling. Sir Thomas framed for the colony a code 
 of laws, and in jierson established the settlement on 
 the firm basis of freedom and equal rights. Having 
 accomplished this, lie returned to his Jiomc at Ben- 
 coolen. There, however, he did not long remain, 
 for that possession also was surrendered to the 
 Dutch. Raffles paid his last visit to Singapore in 
 182;{, where he founded and libenilly endowed a 
 college, and revisited his family, worn out with 
 labour, and broken down in health. He found his 
 wife and family equally sinking under the pernicious 
 influence of the climate ; and heavy were the mis- 
 fortunes about to visit him. One boy, the eldest, 
 his father's ho])e, fell first a victim to the climate, 
 and while the parents struggled to bear uj) under 
 the loss, another and another perished. One child 
 only was now left to them, and bent to the very 
 earth by sickness and .affliction. Sir Thomas resolved 
 at once to embark for Engl.and. But his sufferings 
 were far from terminated. On the 4th of Feb- 
 ruai'y, ] 824, he took his passage in the ship Fame, 
 declaring that the moment of his leaving the shores 
 of Sumatra was one of his hai)))iest days. On the 
 night following, the ship took fire, and with great 
 difficulty the jiassengers reached in boats the shore 
 which tlun' had left. Every thing on board was 
 lost, though no one perislK'd. The loss to Sir 
 Thomiis was incalculable .and irremediable. All 
 his notes .and observations, his memoirs and collec- 
 tions, his bistoi'ies of Sumatra, of Borneo, and liis 
 own administrations, his maps and drawings, filling 
 altogc^ther 122 eases, were irrecoverably lost. 
 
 The manner in which Raffles bore uji against 
 this heavy blow was admirai)le. The private pro- 
 jiertv thus sw(>])t away for ever was valued at 
 .■{0,000/., but he neither lamented nor nunanured. 
 He employed the interval that took place before lie 
 again embarked, in forming a new collection of 
 till! natural prodiu-tions of the ])lace, which lie 
 aftei'wai'ds presented to the Zoological Society, and 
 leaching Mngland iu safety, retired to a small 
 estat<> at lb nley, with a constitution so shattered 
 by forei^ni toil and climate, that he died at the early 
 age of forty-five, in July, U!2(>. No second opinion 
 api)ears to have been expressed or entertained ot 
 his character and conduct. He was one of the 
 wisest and best men of his age; humane, liberal, 
 and iiMproving, lie was capalile of executing all he 
 piMjected, and realised, in evtry situation in wliieli 
 lie was placed, a greater amount of ]irac(ical good 
 than he could perha|is have anticipated himsi'll, or 
 than any other man couM have produced.
 
 WESTMINSTER ABBEY. 
 
 GEORGE CANNING. 
 
 The statue of Canning, by Cliantrey, a natural, 
 frraceful, and impressive work of art, erected by 
 his friends and admirers, stands close by his grave 
 in the North Transept. 
 
 George Canning was born April 11, 1770. His 
 father, Stratford Canning, was the eldest son of an 
 estated gentleman, residing at Garvagh, in the 
 County of Londonderry, who coming to London to 
 eat his law terms, fell in love with an actress, and 
 displeasing liis family by that impi'udent connexion, 
 abandoned his profession, and set up as a wine- 
 merchant. In this business he failed, and exactly 
 twelve months after the birth of the subject of this 
 sketch, died, oppressed with poverty and vexation. 
 From this state of obscurity and distress, the orphan 
 was rescued by the liberality of his uncle, Mr. Paul 
 Canning, who undertook to give him a suitable educa- 
 tion. At Eton, to which he was sent in due course, 
 he gave early proofs of superior talent, pi'oofs which 
 were developed with still greater copiousness and 
 force at Christ Church College, Oxford, which he 
 entered in his eighteenth year. The lively and 
 acute character of his mind, his sparkling wit, and 
 poignant sarcasm, were felt and appreciated both at 
 Eton and Oxford, where acquiring a first rate 
 reputation as an elegant but not a learned scholar, 
 an accomplished but not a profound genius, he 
 carried oft" several prizes. In 1786, before he had 
 conijileted his sixteenth j'ear, he became an author, 
 projecting, with some of his schoolfellows, the " Mi- 
 crocosm," a periodical work of some merit, to which 
 he contributed several papers, smart and lively, but, 
 as was to be expected, juvenile in their tone and 
 chai-acter. 
 
 At Oxford, Mr. Canning became acquainted with 
 Mr. Jenkinson, afterwards Lord Liverpool, in whose 
 administi'ation he sustained so conspicuous a part, 
 and whom he ultimately succeeded as premier; but 
 his more immediate friends and patrons at his first 
 start in society were Whigs. He used to spend much 
 of his time with Sheridan, and the father of the 
 present Marquess of Lansdown, who took particu- 
 lar notice of him, and prophesied, when introducing 
 him to the celebrated Jeremy Bentham, " that 
 whoever lived to see it, that young man would one 
 day be Prime Minister." Fox and Burke, in this 
 cii'cle, were his intimate friends, but notwithstanding 
 the prestige of these liberal associations, it was under 
 the auspices of Mr. Pitt that he was first returned 
 to the House of Commons, as Member for Newport 
 in the Isle of Wight, in 1793. 
 
 This was a stirring period, every way calculated 
 to bring into quick and vig(n'ous action the talents 
 with which Canning was endowed. The French 
 Convention was at the height of its fi-enzy, ancient 
 institutions were every where menaced on the Con- 
 tinent, and a strong resisting power to the progress 
 of innovation was called uj) in England, by the 
 experienced ability of Mr. Pitt. Canning's first 
 speech was delivered in suii]iort of the Premier's 
 motion for a grant of 20,000/., to enable the king 
 of Sardinia to defend his dominions ; but though 
 he spoke with a degree of eloquence and judgment 
 that fully supported the anticipatinns entertained 
 
 of his ability, he took no corresponding part in the 
 subsequent discussions of the session, being content 
 to avow, with more zeal than discretion, his deter- 
 mination to follow implicitly the opinions of minis- 
 ters. In the session of 1795 he remained equally 
 silent, he seconded the answer to the address in a 
 few words, and though ai)pointed Under Secretary 
 of State during the course of the session, he confined 
 himself to a few official explanations connected with 
 the business of his oftice. In 1797 lie bi-oke through 
 this reserve, under very interesting circumstances, 
 throwing the ardour of youth and all his energy 
 and accomplishments into the debate upon the slave 
 trade, and denouncing that most impolitic as well 
 as inhuman traffic, in a speech even then un- 
 equalled for masculine eloquence and triumphant 
 effect. During the following year, he joined his 
 friends, Messrs. Frere and Ellis, in starting the 
 " Anti-Jacobin Review," the wit and severity of 
 which soon pushed the work into a fiourishing po- 
 pularity, unknown up to that period to the jierio- 
 dical literature of the country. In 1 797- he printed, 
 without his name, " New Morality," a pungent 
 satire upon the follies and peculiar opinions of the 
 most notable characters of that period. During 
 this year he spoke at great length, and with bril- 
 liant energy, in favour of the resolutions for a legis- 
 lative union with Ireland, and married Joan, daugh- 
 ter of General Scott, one of the few men who are 
 known to have made a large fortune by gambling. 
 Thus 100,000/. fell to Canning, and as one of his 
 wife's sisters was married to the Duke of Port- 
 land, and another to Lord Down, the connexion 
 brought in its train other advantages of no light 
 value and influence. 
 
 In 1801, Pitt resigned his office, in consequence 
 of the king's refusal to allow him to keej) faith with 
 the Irish Catholics, and Canning, who had always 
 been favourable to a concession of the claims of 
 that body, retired with his patron, obtaining how- 
 ever a pension, a portion of which he very properly 
 settled on his mother. The opposition benches, so 
 favourable at all times to a display of vigour and 
 eloquence, seem to have produced their usual in- 
 spiriting effects upon Canning, who seized with 
 avidity every opportunity, in and out of Parliament, 
 to ridicule, resist, and censure, tlie Addington ad- 
 ministration. It was while in this mood that he 
 wrote the song, which though never popular amongst 
 the people, was highly prized by the party, " The 
 Pilot who weathered the Storm." 
 
 A new Parliament met in November 1803, and 
 Canning took his seat as member for Tralee. But 
 though ISIr. Pitt, who had hitherto been reserved 
 in condemning the measures of government, now 
 led the oi)position to it, there was no change until 
 1806, when decreasing majorities compelled Mr. 
 Addington to resign. In the new arrangement 
 Canning was appointed Treasurer of the navy, 
 publicly confessing at the same time that the com- 
 position of the ministry had disappointed him, 
 and did not accord witli liis wishes, but that he 
 nevertheless should not relinquish any part he was 
 called upon to act, because it might chance to be
 
 GEORGE CANNING. 
 
 271 
 
 an arduous one. Tlie death of Mr. Pitt ere long 
 dissolved this administration, and Mr. Canning in 
 resuming his seat on the other side of tlie House, 
 renewed his career as an opposition member, with 
 increased bitterness, exliibiting both in his speedies 
 in his phice, and his writings in the Anti-Jacobin, 
 a degree of violent and oven a coarse satix'e and 
 invective, that displayed a deep rooted hostility 
 both to the men and measures of the period. So 
 much did the spirit of opposition now triumph over 
 his better nature, that he gave but a cold and 
 feeble support to ilr. Fox's noble proposal for the 
 abolition of the slave trade. The death of that 
 highly gifted and generous politician, followed by 
 the unavailing efforts of his survivors to induce 
 George III. to mitigate the penal laws against the 
 Catholics, caused the formation of a new ministry 
 in I8O7, and Mr. Canning became foreign .secre- 
 tary, in what is called the Portland administra- 
 tion, though, oddly enough, the noble Duke after 
 whom it is named never appeared in Parliament as 
 its head and leader, in this office, Canning was the 
 ministerial champion in the Commons, and much 
 admired for ability and high toned eloquence, but 
 lie was more than once sharply attacked, and not 
 very effective in defending himself. His pension 
 was severely denounced, and Mr. Windham assailed 
 him with considerable force and manifest reason, 
 for having made garbled extracts from papers in 
 his possession, which tended to give a false colour- 
 ing to a question before the House, respecting the 
 Copenhagen expedition. This led to a motion for 
 the papers themselves, wliich after first refusing, 
 Canning liad the mortification of being obliged to 
 ]n'oduce. It also occasioned the im])ortant resolu- 
 tions brought under the notice of the House by 
 Mr. Adam, which established the principle, that it 
 is unconstitutional in a Secretary of State to intro- 
 duce official documents, either in whole or in ])art, 
 into a debate, unless they shall have been called for 
 bv a vote of the House, or presented by the crown. 
 These resolutions, which implied censure of Can- 
 ning's conduct, were followed up by the opposition 
 with several motions for the ju'oduction of various 
 papei-s, and especially for some relating to Russia. 
 These repeated demands implying suspicion and 
 want of confidence in him, a])pear to have been 
 keenly felt by Canning, and were only averted by 
 a threat to resign. Recovering from these attacks 
 against himself, he had next to defend the Duke of 
 \'i)rk from the accusations brought forward by 
 Col. Wardle, and his colleague Lord Castlereagli 
 from a charge of having exchanged a writership in 
 Bengal for the return of a member in Parliament, 
 l^ord Castlereagh admitted the main facts urg(Hl 
 against him, and Canning moved "that the House, 
 consiilcring the whole case, saw no necessity for 
 a criminating resolution." I'nt though he carried 
 this motion by a diM-ided majority, there was in the 
 aclmissions he made, and the form of expression 
 usi-il in the resolution, a strangeness and cold- 
 ness, wliich led to a general supposition that some 
 secret feelings of hostility existeil betwi'C'n him 
 and Lord Castlereagh. And this soon became 
 app.arent. Camiing had for some time disap- 
 proved of (li(! .Seeretary-at war's iiieasun'S, and 
 lia<l tendcri'il his I'lsigMatinn to tlie Duke of I'urt- 
 land, on the ground, that he could not c-oMsistcntly 
 act with a minister, whom he consideretl as quite 
 unfit for the o(!ice witii which lie had Imch i?i- 
 
 vested. The Premier declined to accept of Mr. 
 Canning's resignation, but engaged, along with 
 some other Members of the Administration, to 
 persuade Loi-d Castlereagh to exchange the War 
 Department for some other office more suited to 
 him. This, however, had been neglected ; the 
 Duke of Portland had even failed to aj)prise Lord 
 Castlereagh of the proceeding, as Mr. Canning ex- 
 pected. \\'hen, therefore, the secret transaction 
 reached the .Secretary-at-war's cars, he naturally 
 felt indignant that such an a])plication had been 
 made some months before, while, during that period, 
 he had been treated bv Mr. Canninfr as a colleatrue 
 and a friend. In these circiniistances, he lost no 
 time in transmitting the Foreign Secretary a letter, 
 demanding satisfaction for the injury which his 
 honour had sustaine<l. The reply of Mr. Canning 
 was a brief acceptance of the challenge, and on 
 September 21, 1809, the parties met at six o'clock 
 in the morning, on Putney Heath; Lord Castlereagh 
 accompanied by Lord Yarmouth, and Mr. Canning 
 by Mr. Ellis. After having taken their ground, 
 they fired but missed; no explanation having taken 
 place, tliey fired a second time, when Mr. Canning 
 was wounded in the thigh, on the outer side of the 
 bone. Though weak, liowever, he still maintained 
 his post, and shots would have been exchanged a 
 third time, had not the seconds interposed on per- 
 ceiving that Mr. Canning was wounded. Thus the 
 affair terminated ; but Lord Castlereagh still re- 
 tained a deep-rooted hostility to his antagonist. 
 
 The two Secretaries now resigned ; the Duke of 
 Portland, worn out with age and infirmity, retired 
 at the same time ; and tlius the Portland Adminis- 
 tration was dissolved. Lord Castlereagh retiri'd 
 from office, loaded with all the odium which arose 
 from the failure of the Walcheren expedition. And 
 Canning, though no longer connected officially with 
 the Cabinet, was still treated by the ojtposition, in 
 the inquiry that f((llowed, as also x'esponsilile fur 
 the measure. During the long and violent debates 
 that followed he observed a prudent silence, and is 
 only found taking a prominent part on one t)Ccasion 
 — that namely, on which he modified the vote of 
 censure proposed by Mr. Whitbread against Lord 
 Chatham, as one of the commanders of the late ex- 
 pedition to the Scheldt. 
 
 When the Mar<(uoss of Wellesley, who succeeded 
 liim as foreign Secretary, threw up the office in 
 1812, Mr. Canning refused, though invited, to re- 
 turn to it, asserting that he would not serve under 
 Mr. Perceval in any circumstances, but that he 
 was ready to serve with him upon the l)asis of an 
 intermcdiar}' principle, between immediate con- 
 cession and [lerpetual exclusion with rispect to the 
 Roman Catholics, and the proseeutinn <ii the war 
 with adecpiate vigour. Adluring to these ojiinious, 
 upon the assassination of Mr. Perceval, lie refused 
 to enter the Cabinet formed by Lonl Liverpool, 
 and is chiefly to l)e noticed during two sessions of 
 Parliament, by the overpowering ehxiuence witii 
 whitdi he carried more than one motion in favour 
 of the Catholic claims. He was now member for 
 Liverpool, a scat which he retaini'(l after four pro- 
 tracli<l and harassing elections. Upon the terini- 
 nation of the w;ir, he incurred much obloipiy by 
 acecjiting the embassy to Portugal, with a Imi'ljc 
 allowance liy way of outfit, and a salary of 1 1,000/. 
 a-year. 'J'his was loudly and not imreasonably 
 censured :is a rank iob. There was in illk'r lung
 
 272 
 
 WESTMINSTER ABBEY. 
 
 niir Court at LisbiJii, but Mr. Canning, who liaJ a 
 sick son, was anxious to reside there, in the liope 
 of saving his Ufe. Returning from this convenient, 
 but by no means creditable appointment, during 
 tiie course of tlie next year lie went into the 
 Cabinet, with for him the inferior situation of Pre- 
 sident of the Board of Control. His conduct ui 
 this office obtained the warm approbation of tlie 
 East India Directors, but in matters of general poli- 
 tics, few men were now more unpopular than Mr. 
 Canning. The power, the wit, and sarcastic force of 
 his speeches in favour of the suspension of the habeas 
 corpus Act in 1818 ; his misplaced and unfeeling 
 ridicule of the complaint and sufi'erings of those 
 who had been incarcerated under it ; his ingenious 
 arguments against Parliamentary reform, the main 
 grounds for which he admitted, while he most 
 strenuously resisted the measure; and his tenacious 
 and formidable advocacy of the six acts, consequent 
 upon the Manchester massacre, kept him constantly 
 before the public, and always in a light obnoxious 
 to their feelings, and equally injurious to their 
 interests and liberties. 
 
 The accession of George IV. brought on the 
 celebrated trial of Queen Caroline, a measure to 
 which Mr. Canning was opposed. He therefore 
 resigned his seat in the cabinet. Two years after- 
 wards he was offered and accepted the place of 
 Governor-general of India, but just as he was 
 about to Set sail, Loi-d Londonderry* committed 
 suicide, and the office of Secretary for Foreign 
 Affairs, thus left vacant, was immediately C(jnferred 
 upon him. From this period Mr. Canning appears 
 altogether in a new light, and as a statesman, 
 entitled himself to the highest consideration. The 
 line of foreign policy he pursued was liberal and 
 energetic, and highly advantageous to the best in- 
 teivsts of his country and mankind ; he denounced 
 the unprincipled invasion of Spain by the French ; 
 recognised the independence of the republics of 
 South America, and preserved the rising constitu- 
 tion of Portugal from the attacks of Ferdinand. 
 This high-minded course, and the elevated senti- 
 
 • Robert Stewart, Viscount Castlereagh, and second Mar- 
 quess of Londonderry, was interred in the nortli aisle, and 
 near Canning's statue. He was born June 18, 17G9, in the 
 north of Ireland, and educated at Armagh, and St. John's 
 College, Cambridge. He entered the Irish Parliament as 
 member for the county of Down, and then advocated liberal 
 measures. Very soon afterwards he obtained a seat in the 
 English House of Commons, and supported tlie ministers he 
 liad opposed in Ireland. Returning to that country he rose 
 quickly in office, being made keeper of the Irish Privy Seal 
 iu 1797, then a Lord of the Treasury, and during the follow- 
 ing year. Secretary of State. In that office he became ex- 
 tremely unpopular; all the odium consequent upon the 
 cruelties committed upon the Irish rebels, and all the dis- 
 content provoked by the union with England, were heaped 
 upon the head of Vi.scount Castlereagh. Nor was his minis- 
 terial career in England differenily esteemed by the bulk of 
 the people. The severe coercive measures adopted by the 
 ministry he led against the liberty of the press and of the 
 subject, and the close alliances he maintained, as foreign 
 minister, with the despotic powers of the Continent, caused 
 him to be generally considered an enemy upon principle to 
 popular institutions. Owing to this feeling his death, me- 
 lancholy as were the circumstances, was regarded as a 
 deliverance. His funeral, though private, was attended by 
 a long train of the carriages of the nobility and gentry; but 
 the populace followed also in numbers, and pursued his 
 cothn to its grave with groans and hisses. 
 
 ments with which, in his state papers and speeches 
 he emphatically maintained the character, and 
 spoke the sentiments proper to the minister of a 
 free-people, gave a particular tone to his adminis- 
 tration, which was hailed with generous acclama- 
 tion throughout the country. The brilliant oration 
 by which he called upon the House of Commons to 
 sanction the promptitude and decision with which 
 he had mai-ched an army to succour Portugal, pro- 
 duced an efi'ect that had not been witnessed for 
 years. And it deserved all the praise it received, 
 for it was nobly conceived and admirably expressed. 
 " As an English minister," he said, " all I have to 
 say is, may God prosper the attempt made by 
 Portugal to obtain constitutional liberty, and may 
 that nati(jn be as fit to receive and cherish it, as, 
 on other occasions, she is capable of discharging 
 Iter duties among the nations of Europe !" " I 
 dread war," he says, in an after part of the speech, 
 " not from a distrust of our powers and of our 
 resources to meet it, but because I am conscious 
 of the tremendous power which this country pos- 
 sesses, of pushing any war in which she may now 
 be engaged, to consequences, at the bare contem- 
 plation of which I shudder. I fear that the next 
 war in Europe, if it should spi-ead beyond the 
 compass of I'ortugal and Spain, will be a war of the 
 most tremendous nature, because it will be a war 
 of conflicting opinions ; and I know, that if the 
 interests and honour of this country should oblige 
 us to enter into it, although we might enter it as, 
 1 trust, we shall always do, with a firm desire to 
 mitigate rather than exasperate, to contend with 
 arms, and not with opinions ; yet I know, that this 
 country could not avoid seeing ranked under her 
 banners all the restless and all the dissatisfied, 
 whether with or without cause, of evei-y nation 
 with which she might be j)laced at variance. I say, 
 Sir, the consciousness of this fjict, the knowledge 
 that there is in the hands of this country such a 
 tremendous power, induces me to feel ag I do feel. 
 But it is one thing ' to have a giant's strength,' and 
 another thing to 'use it like a giant.' The con- 
 sciousness that we have this power, keeps us safe. 
 Our business is not to seek out opportunity for 
 displaying it, but to keep it so that it may be here- 
 after shown that we know its proper use, and to 
 shrink from converting the umpire into the op- 
 pressor. Sir, the consequence of the letting loose 
 those passions which ai'e all chained up, may be 
 such as would lead to a scene of desolation, such as 
 no one can for a moment contemplate without 
 horror, and such as I could never lie easy upon my 
 couch, if I were conscious of having by one hour 
 precipitated." 
 
 Nor were his views less enlarged upon other 
 subjects: he evidently felt that a new era had set in, 
 and advocated the enlightened measures as to manu- 
 factures and commerce, of which his eminent col- 
 league Mr. Huskisson was the author, with a 
 zealous and triumphant eloquence never surpassed 
 in Parliament. " We must deal," he said, " with 
 the affairs of men on abstract principles, modified, 
 of course, according to times and circumstances. 
 Is not tlie doctrine and spirit of those who persecute 
 my right honourable friend (Mr. Huskisson), the 
 same which, in former times, stirred up persecution 
 against the best benefactors of mankind I Is it not 
 the same doctrine and spirit which embittered the 
 life of Turgot I Is it not a doctrine and spirit such
 
 SIR HUMPHREY DAVY. 
 
 as these which consigned Gahlco to the dungeons of 
 the Inciuisition ? Is it not a doctrine and spirit 
 such as tliese, which have at all times been at work 
 to roll back the tide of civilization, — a doctrine and 
 spirit actuating little minds, who, incapable of reach- 
 ing the heights from which alone extended views of 
 human nature can be taken, console and revenge 
 themselves Ity calumniating and misrepresenting 
 those who liave toiled to those heights for the 
 advantage of mankind I Sir, I have not to learn 
 that there is a faction in the country, I mean not a 
 political faction, I should perhaps I'ather have said 
 a sect, small in number, and powerless in miglit, 
 who think that all advances towards improvement 
 are retrogradations towards Jacobinism. These 
 persons seem to imagine, that under no possible cir- 
 cumstances can an honest man endeavour to keep 
 his country upon a line with the progress of political 
 knowledge, and to adapt its course to the varying 
 circumstances of the world. Such an attempt is 
 branded as an indication of mischievous intentions, 
 as evidence of a design to sap the foundations of 
 the greatness of the country. Sir, I considered it 
 to be the duty of a British statesman, in internal as 
 well as external affairs, to hold a middle course 
 between extremes ; avoi<ling alike the extravagance 
 of despotism, or the licentiousness of unbridled free- 
 dom ; reconciling power with liberty ; not adopting 
 hasty or ill-advised experiments, or pursuing any 
 airy and unsubstantial theories ; but nut rejecting, 
 nevertheless, the application of sound and whole- 
 some knowledge to practical affairs ; and pressing, 
 with sobriety and caution, into the service of his 
 country every generous and liberal principle, \\ hose 
 excess indeed may be dangerous, but whose foimda- 
 tion is in truth." 
 
 Such was the aspect of affairs when a sudden 
 fit of illness incapacitated Lord Liverpool for office 
 in 18"27, and the place of Prime Minister was given 
 to Mr. Canning. This promotion was hailed with 
 the utmost satisfaction by the House of Commons 
 and the country. But seven of his colleagues, in- 
 cluding the Duke of Wellington, Sir R. Peel, and 
 
 the Lord Chancellor Eldon, either jealous of his 
 l)opularity, or <lispleased with the liberal tendency 
 of his measures, resigned their seats in the cabinet, 
 and entered ui)on an opposition, remarkable for the 
 resentful spirit, and harassing forms it assun)ed. 
 The excitement thus ])roduced upon a mind loaded 
 with the cares and anxieties to which he was now 
 exposed, proved more than his constitutiun could 
 bear. Disease began to break Iutu down ; and though 
 he sat out the session with undiminished spirit and 
 eloquence, he sunk under a sudden attack of inllani- 
 mation of the kidneys, August 12, 182S, aged 07. 
 He expired in the room where Fox died, in the 
 Duke of Devonshire's villa at Chiswick. 
 
 Highly accomplished as a man and a minister, 
 frank and conciliatory in his manners and address, 
 enlightened in his views, manly in his measures, at 
 once pointed, jjolished, and im])ressive as an oi-ator, 
 Mr. Canning was lamented when he died as a national 
 loss. However equivocal his early career may ap- 
 pear, and however he may not unreasonably be 
 considered to have at times sacrificed principles to 
 place, the closing acts of liis life seem to have been 
 the just exponents of his matured opinions, and to 
 have shown that his heart was set upon the sustain- 
 ment of rational liberty at home, and its legitimate 
 pnjgress abroad. In this respect it is perhaps im- 
 ])ossible to estimate too highly the good he has 
 done, for to the new paths he so skilfully opened, 
 and so s]iiritedly j)ursued, we may not unfairly 
 ascribe the series of influential ini]irovenunts, by 
 which the legislation of Great Britain has been 
 distinguished ever since the period of his death. 
 His style of oratory was ])eculiarly his own, and 
 most felicitous. It abounded with classical beauties, 
 polished wit, and a power of ridicule that was irre- 
 sistible; it was coi)ious, well ordered, nervous, and at 
 times highly passionate and exciting. It rose during 
 the latter years of his life to its noblest flights, and 
 perhaps it may be fairly observed of his oratory as 
 of his statesmanship, that if he had lived longer he 
 would have been more eminent iu both. 
 
 SIR IIUMPIIREY DAVY. 
 
 Humphrey Daw, a philosopher celebrated for the 
 variety of his attainments, and the importance of 
 his discoveries in scit^nce, was born at Penzance, 
 December 17, 177^. Even in his infancy he dis- 
 ]>layed uncommon talent, conijiosing an epic i)oem 
 in his twelfth year, and contriluiting compositions 
 in verse 10 the " Ainnial Anthology. He was edu- 
 cated at the granmiar schools of Truro and Pen- 
 zance, anil when fifteen years old was apprenticed 
 to Mr. Borhise, a surgeon and apothecary in the 
 latter town. His attention was now closely engaged 
 by natural history, and particularly mineralogy, 
 for studying which the neighbcjurliooil in which he 
 residiid afforded jxcMiliar facilities. The ardour 
 and the system with which he pursued all his in- 
 vestigations at this period evince giiiius of high 
 order. By thi; time he was eighteen he had fiirmed 
 a plan of utudy, and made himsilf thf)n)Ughly ac- 
 (piainted with the lu-evailing theories and systems 
 in Ijotany, anatomy, I'liysiology, and cln'inislry, to- 
 
 gether with mathematics and metajihysics. He 
 relied upon his own ingenuity for tlu' a]ii)aratus 
 and instruments required in his experiments, and 
 showed a degree of skill in inventing them that 
 has bien wiirndy commended. In this range of 
 study and observatiun, the researches of Mlack, 
 Priestly, Cavendish, liii-gnian, (laU'n, Selwele, and 
 Lavoisier, opened splindid views of ex]](rimental 
 pliilnMiphy to the rising innbition of the young 
 Cornlshnian, and started him with a noble impulse 
 on the career of discovery in which lu> soon became 
 fauKius. One of the first objec to which he is 
 lii'lieved to have a[ipli(d himself, was the discovery 
 of the kind of air contained in the bladders of sea 
 wei'd, and the decomposition of air liy miirino 
 plants generally. He eunnnnnicateil the result of 
 these experiments to Dr. Heddoes, of Hrislol, \\ ho 
 was so gratified by the abilities shown by theyciung 
 philosopher, that he invited him to become his as- 
 sistant in superintending the Pneumatic Institution
 
 274 
 
 "WESTMINSTER ABBEY. 
 
 at the Hot Wells, Clifton. Accepting this offer, 
 Davy formed about the same time an acquaintance 
 with Mr. Davies Gilbert, Mr. W. Clarke, and other 
 men of scientific tastes and pursuits, wliich served to 
 extend his reputation and advance his interests, in 
 many respects equally agreeable and beneficial. 
 
 In October, 1798, Davy quitted Penzance for 
 Bristol, being then in his twentieth year. During 
 his connection with Dr. Beddoes, he pursued a 
 series of the most hazardous experiments on record, 
 — those upon nitrous oxide*. He inhaled this gas, 
 literally at the risk of filling his lungs with aqua- 
 fortis. It was discovered, that it acted in the first 
 instance as a stimulus, giving rise to highly plea- 
 surable sensations, analogous to those experienced 
 in the first stage of intoxication. Muscular power 
 was increased, and an irresistible propensity to 
 action was induljred in. Amongst those who were 
 favoured with a draught of this " empyreal air," 
 were the poets Southey and Coleridge, who have 
 both described their sensations in glowing terms. 
 An almost invariable effect of inspiring this gas, 
 is a pi'opensity to loud laughter. Hence the name 
 by which it is popularly known, " the laughing gas." 
 To sucli an excess did Davy push his experiments 
 in breathing the gas in a concentrated state, that 
 aqua fortis was actually formed in his mouth ! His 
 attempts to breathe carburetted hydrogen (the gas 
 used in lighting the streets), and also carbonic 
 acid gas, were equally daring and terrific. The 
 eclat which followed these investigations, spread 
 the fame of the young philosopher over Europe. 
 He published the result in 1800, imder the title of 
 " Researches, Chemical and Philosophical, chiefly 
 regarding Nitrous Oxide and its respiration." This 
 volume was particularly noticed, amongst other 
 philosophers, by Count Rumford. At this period 
 the Royal Institution had just been formed; and 
 Davy was strongly recommended by the Count for 
 the situation of assistant professor of chemistry, and 
 director of the laboratory. He accepted the ofter; 
 and entered upon the scene of his future glory and 
 triumph, March 11, 1801. 
 
 Only a few weeks had elapsed, when he was ap- 
 pointed lecturer in chemistry, instead of assistant. 
 Upon the resignation of Dr. Young, about the same 
 period, he became sole professor of chemistry. 
 Much jealousy was excited by the forward position 
 assigned to the boy from Penzance, as he was 
 scoiiingly called, being now only in his twenty-fourth 
 year, but he triumphed over all sinister augury and 
 opposition. There was a power within him, of which 
 they who affected to decry him had no conception. 
 He was, however, not unconscious himself of its 
 intenseness and capacity. " I have," he said, in one 
 of his youthful note books, "neither riches, nor 
 power, nor birth, to recommend me; yet, I trust I 
 shall not be of less service to mankind, than if I 
 had been born with these advantages." His first 
 lecture was delivered in 1802, and from this period 
 we may date the commencement of his splendid 
 career. He at once succeeded in making a sti'ong 
 impression upon the public mind, and by a series 
 of brilliant and unrivalled discoveries he was en- 
 abled to maintain it to the hour of his death. His 
 discourses were admirably adapted to fascinate his 
 audience, which was composed, not of philosophers 
 
 * Nitrous oxide is a gaf, wliicli, wlien breathed by animals, 
 destroys life in a short time ; it is nearly the same as aqua- 
 foitis. 
 
 alone, btit the gay and fasliionable of the city, a 
 considerable proportion of whom were ladies in the 
 highest walks of life. His experiments, particularly 
 with the voltaic battery, an instrument with which 
 he was destined to work such wonders, riveted 
 imiversal attention ; philosophers admired and ap- 
 plauded, and the softer sex were involved in the 
 most agreeable terrors. His style was highly florid. 
 It partook largely of that ]ioetical inspiration which, 
 as has been already stated, he so early evinced the 
 possession of. Coleridge the poet was a constant 
 attendant on the lectures ; and has himself declared 
 that he sought them to increase the stock of his 
 metaphors. The goddess of science was divested of 
 all austerity of aspect, and .arrayed in the smiles and 
 fascinating attire of the graces. So great was Davy's 
 popularity, that duchesses vied with each other in 
 doing homage to the young Hercules of science: com- 
 pliments, invitations, and presents, were showered 
 upon him from all quarters ; and no entertainment 
 was considered complete without the presence of 
 the chemical lecturer. All this adulation had its 
 usual effect upon the mind of Davy. His devoted 
 love of science remained unabated to the day of his 
 death ; but that simplicity of manners, wliich he 
 brought with him from the country, and which so 
 endeared him to his friends, was lost to himself 
 and them for ever. 
 
 In 1803 he commenced a course of lectures be- 
 foi'e the Board of Agriculture, on the connexion 
 between agriculture and chemistry, which, after 
 having been continued for a series of years, were 
 published in 1813, under the title of " Agricultural 
 Chemistry." This was justly considered as the 
 most philosophical and valuable work on the sub- 
 ject which had ever appeared. In 1803 he was 
 elected a fellow, and in 1808 secretary, of the Royal 
 Society. From the former period until 1807 he con- 
 tinued to increase in popularity, making at intervals 
 discoveries which wouldentitle humbler investigators 
 to an honourable place in the archives of science, 
 but hardly deserving special notice in the summary 
 of such a life as his. 
 
 We have now arrived at the epoch of the sub- 
 lime discoveries which raised him in the annals of 
 ICnglish science to an equal rank with Newton. 
 We allude to his developement of the laws of 
 voltaic electricity, propounded in 1807, in his cele- 
 brated Bakerian Lectures before the Royal Society. 
 The surprise and admiration produced on the Con- 
 tinent, as well as in England, by this splendid dis- 
 covery, may be estimated by one fact ; we were 
 then at war with France, but notwithstanding 
 that, the Institute of France crowned Davy with 
 the " prize of the First Consul," founded by Na- 
 poleon, for important discoveries in electricity and 
 galvanism. 
 
 Having demonstrated the general principle of 
 voltaic electricity, he proceeded in his investigation 
 of phenomena ; and again startled the learned in 
 science by showing that the fixed alkalies have 
 metallic bases. It is well known, that amongst 
 other substances, potash and soda are, in chemical 
 language, called alkalies. The former of these sub- 
 stances was submitted to the agency of a galvanic 
 battery, and, by a variety of ingenious expedients, 
 he succeeded in decomposing it, and obtaining as 
 one of its constituents, small globules of metal re- 
 sembling quicksilver. Some of these no sooner 
 appeared than they burned with an ex[)lo8iou of
 
 SIR HUMPHREY DAVY, 
 
 '/;» 
 
 briijlit flame. TIil- ililticultv of eolleclins this new 
 and siii:;iil;ir metal was great, from the strong at- 
 traction it iias for oxvgen, one of the gases of whicli 
 air and water are composed ; but, after various 
 trials, he ultimately accomplished his object. Its 
 external character is that of a white metal, in- 
 stantly tarnishinL; by exposure to air. It received 
 from its discoverer the approjiriate name of potas- 
 sium. When thrown upon water it decomposes 
 that fluid, combining with its oxygen, and an e.x- 
 jilosion is pi-oduced, accompanied with a vehement 
 flame. If ice be substituted for water, potassium 
 burns with a bright rose-coloured flame, and a 
 deep hole is made in the ice, which is found to 
 contiiin a solution of potash. The latter substance, 
 then, is a metallic oxide. Soda, and other alkalies, 
 underwent the same rigorous investigation, and 
 with a similar result. Thus, then, the genius of 
 Davy had accomplished what had long baflled the 
 ingenuity of all the philosophers in Europe. The 
 alkalies had been tortured in every possible man- 
 ner, but in vain. The English philosophei-, like 
 his illustrious countryman, Newton, called in new 
 powers and new resources to his aid when the old 
 tailed ; and Nature, thus cross-examined, at once 
 revealed the truth. 
 
 Recovering from a fever, the consequence of in- 
 tense application, which had nearly proved fatal, 
 he next directed his attention to the earths, and 
 pursuing a mode of decomposing them recom- 
 mended by Berzolius of Stockholm, succeeded in 
 proving that they as well as the alkalies are me- 
 tallic oxides. His experiments upon this subject 
 were included in his Bakerian lectures, to which 
 persons of all ranks rushed in eager and enthu- 
 siastic crowds. As a sample of the wonders he 
 worked for his admiring spectators, we shall borrow 
 from an eye-witness, a short account of an artificial 
 volcano he constructed : — 
 
 A mountain " had been modelled in clay, and a 
 quantity of the metallic bases introduced into its 
 interior: on water being poured upon it, the metals 
 were soon thrown into violent action, successive 
 explosions followed, red hot lava was seen flowing 
 down its sides from a crater in miniature, mimic 
 lightning played around; and, in the instant of 
 dramatic illusion, tlie tumultuous a])plause and 
 continued cheering of the audience might almost 
 have been regarded as the sliouts of the alarmed 
 fugitives of Herculaneuni or Pompeii." 
 
 In I8I2, he published his " Elements of Chemical 
 Phil()S(jpliy," a work which takes its \Aacc in the 
 scale of original scientific discovery, next to the 
 " Prinei[)ia " of Newton. Soon after this he was 
 knighted, an<l married Mrs. .Vjn-eece, a widow with 
 a large fortune. Again p;ussing over labours which 
 comparatively speaking were trifling for him, we 
 come to his celebrated Safety Lamp. In I8I0, a 
 Committi;e was formed in Sumlerland to investigate 
 the causes of fire-damp in mines, for the purpose 
 of j)reventing the recurrence of the frequent ex- 
 ])losionH, so ilangerous and destructive to life and 
 property. These gi-ntlemen solicited and obtained 
 the advice and co-o])(;raiion of Sir II. Davy, who 
 with great alacrity comminced an invesli^^alion 
 into the nature of this gas, and in an ini-redibly 
 short space of time he jiatl invented no less tlian 
 lour dill'erent kinds of lamps, ail (if which might 
 b(.' used with iin]iunity in the foulest atmosi)here. 
 To explain tlie subject simply, it may be stated, 
 
 that in the course of his researches upon the sub- 
 ject, he made the following discovery— that if a 
 lamp or candle is surrounded with wire gauze or 
 metallic jilates, perforated with numerous small 
 holes, though the gas or fire-dani]) may explode 
 within, it will not inflame the surrouudint; atmo- 
 sphere without. Upon this princi|ile, acciirdinn-lv 
 the safety lamp was formed ; and it is needless to 
 say, that it has completely answered tlie pur[>oses 
 for which it was invented. Sir Humphrey also dis- 
 covered, that if a coil of platinum wire be suspended 
 over the wick of the lamp, although the latter 
 should be extinguishe<l, the former will <;low with 
 a light sutfleiently strong to guide the miner 
 through the darkness of his perilous subteri-anean, 
 and that when he reaches a purer atmos]>here, the 
 heat will be sometimes sufficient to rekindle his 
 lamp! He was led, by these researches, into some 
 imiiortant but abstruse results regarding the na- 
 ture of flame. 
 
 For this invention he generously refused to take 
 out a patent, though a fortune was sure to lie re- 
 alised by the sale of the lamps. He gave the in- 
 vention to his country, and the coal owners, at 
 whose instance he was led to effect it, marked their 
 sense of his merits by presenting him with a ser- 
 vice of plate, valued at 2000/. 
 
 In I8I7, he set out upon a Continental tour, and 
 visiting Eranee and Italy, was absent from Eng- 
 land until l(ill>. During this interval he was 
 created a Baronet. While at Naples, he exercised 
 his ever active talents, in analysing the colouring 
 matter employed upon the ancient fresco paintings 
 discovered in the ruins of Pompeii, and examined 
 the ])apyri of Herculaneuni, trying, if possiide, to 
 discover some method of separating the leaves 
 from each other. His efforts, however, failed, less 
 from want of zeal or ingenuity on his ])art, than 
 from the state in which the manuscripts were 
 found. He returned to England, and being elected 
 President of the Royal Society, took his seat in the 
 chair of Newton, on November 20, 1820. During 
 the seven years he occupied this exalted station, 
 objects too numerous to specify continued to 
 engage his mind. Perhaps the most important 
 anxingst them, was that regarding the corrosive 
 action of sea water upon co])]>er. He commenced 
 his investigations in ]i!2;{, and prosecuted them for 
 a considerable jieriod. The truth of his beautiful 
 theory was established ; but, strange to .say, the 
 remedy failed. It was confidently asserted, how- 
 ever, that, had his health continued, he would 
 ultimately have succeeded. But disease began to 
 set its seal u|)oii his frame, and distract his atten- 
 tion from grave studies. He resigned the ]>rcsi- 
 deiicy of the Royal .Society, and seeking diversion 
 in his favourite piscatory pursuits, published a 
 work upon the subject, entitled " Saliiionia," one 
 of the most agreeable works ever written, com- 
 bining profound philosophical reflection, with ani- 
 mated deseri|)tion and interesting anecdote, lii 
 U12Jt, he took liis dejiartiire for the {.Jontiuent, in 
 lio|ies that a milder <'limate wouhl have some fa- 
 v<)iirable effect upon him; but bis health was gone, 
 h(! was destined never to return. The lamp <it 
 genius, however, bullied bl'iglit to the last, as his 
 " t'onsolations in Travel, or Last Days of a I'liilo- 
 sopher," amply evince. This is tin extraordinary 
 production, notwithstanding a certain wild extni- 
 vagance of fancy, and an over ambitious style of
 
 276 
 
 WESTMINSTER ABBEY. 
 
 expression. It lias been truly said by a great i)oet, 
 that had not Davy been the first philosopher, he 
 would have been the first poet of his day. He 
 continued for some time at Home, and afterwards 
 proceeded to Geneva, where he expired, May 29, 
 1820. He died without issue, and is C(jnimeniorated 
 by a simple tablet and plain inscription in the 
 chapel of St. John. 
 
 Sir Humphrey Davy has been justly commended 
 for the variety as well as the quality of his accom- 
 plishments. " In science," writes a critic who 
 knew him well, and prized him highly, " he stood 
 nearly without a rival ; he was an eloquent and 
 observing writer, a poet of some power, and a 
 gentleman of graceful and winning manners." Of 
 ins merits as a writer of prose Sir W. Scott spoke 
 highly, when reviewing his Salmonia. " He was," 
 
 said Southey, " an extraordinary man : he would 
 have excelled in any department of art or science 
 to which he directed the powers of his mind : he 
 had all the elements of a poet, and only wanted the 
 art." He differed from most of his scientific bre- 
 thren in breadth of character, and in his easy and 
 courteous way of comnnmicating the results of his 
 experiments, and the fruits of his study. As a 
 lectui-er his earnest and enthusiastic manner, the 
 brightness of his eyes, and the poetic beauty, yet 
 scientific accuracy of his language, attracted and 
 delighted listeners of all classes. In a word, he 
 made very early in life a high reputation, and not 
 only kept but enlarged it. He died much too soon 
 — not for his reputation but for his country, and 
 must ever hold an exalted rank amongst the bene- 
 factors of mankind. 
 
 ANDREW BELL, D.D. 
 
 Andrew Belt,, D.D. LL.D. Prebendnry of West- 
 minster, Master of Sherborn Hospital, Durham, 
 and the founder of the Madras system of education, 
 was born in 1753 at St. Andrew's in Scotland, and 
 educated at the university of that town. Taking 
 priest's orders in the Episcopal church of Scotland, 
 he proceeded to the East Indies as a chaplain in 
 the Company's service, and was stationed in 1789 at 
 F'ort .St. George, where he was also appointed 
 minister of St. Mary's, Madi-as. At this station he 
 continued until the year 1796, and it was while 
 gratuitously superintending the Military Orjihan 
 Asylum there, that he formed the plan of elemen- 
 tary instruction which has since been adopted in so 
 many national schools, and been called, from the 
 place where it was first developed, the Madras sys- 
 tem. Dr. Bell took his first idea of it from the 
 Hindoo practice of teaching by drawing lines and 
 figures in the sand. The merits of this popular 
 and useful improvement were indisputable ; not so, 
 however, the mei'it of originating it. To this honour 
 a strong and well-supported claim was set up by 
 Mr. Lancaster, a philanthropic Quakei*. As usual 
 in such cases, a warm and lengthened controversy 
 ensued, and rival sets of schools were established, 
 some on the Bell plan and some on the Lancaster, 
 the difference between them being principally one 
 of description. Dr. Bell's schools are those managed 
 and maintained by the National Society, and fre- 
 quented by members of the Established Church ; 
 Lancaster's, those established and directed by the 
 British and Foreign School Society, and used prin- 
 cipally by Dissenters. Dr. Bell appears to have 
 realised a large furtune in the East, and upon his 
 return to England devoted himself with equal zeal 
 and liberality to the extension of his system. Due 
 encouragement being given to his exertions, he 
 was eminently successflil, and not more highly than 
 deservedly rewarded. The diplomas of D.D. and 
 LL.D. were conferred upon him, while the rectory 
 of Swanage, Dorsetshire, a Prebendal Stall in 
 Westminster Abbey, and the lucrative mastership 
 of Sherborn Hospital, Durham, were the prefer- 
 ments in the Church which he successively ob- 
 tained. Dr. Bell was the author of several publi- 
 cations upon the subject of his scholastic views, 
 
 amongst which were " An Experiment in Educa- 
 tion, made at the Male Asylum at Madras, 1798," 
 8vo. 1798 ; " Instructions for conducting Schools 
 on the Madras system," 12mo. 1799 ; " A Sermon 
 preached at Lambeth, June 28, 1807, on the Edu- 
 cation of the Poor, under an improved system," 
 8vo. ; " The Madras School, or Elements of Tui- 
 tion," 8vo. 1808 ; and " Elements of Education, 
 containing the History, Analysis, and Application 
 of the Madras System of Education," 8vo. 1814. 
 Dr. Bell died at Cheltenham, leaving behind a 
 large fortune, no less than 120,000/. all of which he 
 munificently bequeathed in various ways for the 
 encouragement and support of education and litera- 
 ture. 
 
 A neatly designed monument of white marble 
 has been erected to Dr. Bell's memory against the 
 wall of the choir in the south aisle. The inscrip- 
 tion records, appropriately enough, his claims to 
 notice on the score of education, and faithfully re- 
 cords his ecclesiastical appointments, but awards 
 no praise for his liberal disposition of his lai-ge 
 fortune. 
 
 Sacred to the Memorj' of 
 
 Andrew Bell, D.D. LL.D. 
 
 Prebendary of this Collegiate Church, 
 
 The eminent founder of the Madras System of 
 
 Education ; 
 
 Who discovered and reduced to successful practice 
 
 The plan of mutual instruction, 
 
 Founded upon the multiplication of power and 
 
 division of labour 
 
 In the moral and intellectual world. 
 
 Which has been adopted within the British 
 
 Empire 
 
 As the national System of Education 
 
 Of the Children of the Poor, 
 
 In the principles of the Established Chm'ch. 
 
 Dr. Bell was born in the city of St. Andrews, N.B. 
 
 27th of March, 1753 ; 
 
 Appointed Minister of St. Mary's Church, Madras, 
 
 1788; 
 
 Master of Sherborn Hospital, 1808 ; 
 
 Prebendary of Westminster, 1810. 
 
 Died 27th of January, 1832.
 
 WILLIAM WILBERFORCE. 
 
 277 
 
 WILLIAM WILBERFORCE. 
 
 The statue of Mr. Wilberforce, erected iu the north 
 aisle of the choir, and the inscrijition upon the 
 pedestal, are both infelicitous and faulty produc- 
 tions. The former, by Mr. Joseph, may perhaps 
 claim the merit of natural verisimilitude; the sub- 
 ject may have been in the habit of throwing him- 
 self cross-legged into the easy careless attitude in 
 which he is here represented; and his face in old 
 age may have been marked by all the lines and 
 wrinkles, and have worn the curious expression 
 of good-natured weakness here pourtrayed ; but 
 these are not the traits and peculiarities which 
 command love, respect, or admiration, which trans- 
 mit a name with honour to posterity, or make us 
 dwell upon an effigy with pride or satisfaction. 
 Without denying or undervaluing the talent exhi- 
 bited in the execution of the figure, it is not a 
 severe remark, under all the circumstances, to say 
 that the design is a misplaced conceit. The author 
 of the epitaph equally offends good taste by his 
 display of the common places of Evangelical jjhra- 
 seology. 
 
 To the Memory of 
 
 William Wilberforce. 
 
 (Born in Hull, August 24, 1759, 
 
 Died in London, July 29, 1833.) 
 
 For nearly half a century member of the House of 
 
 Commons, 
 
 and for six Parliaments during that period 
 
 One of the representatives for Yorkshire 
 
 In an age and country fertile in great and good 
 
 men. 
 
 He was amongst the foremost of those who fixed 
 
 the character of their times. 
 
 Because to high and various talents. 
 
 To warm benevolence and universal candour. 
 
 He added the abiding eloquence of a Christian life. 
 
 Eminent as he was in every department of public 
 
 labour. 
 
 And as a leader in every work of charity, 
 
 Whether to relieve the tom])oral or spiritual wants 
 
 of his fellow-men. 
 
 His name will ever be specially identified 
 
 With those exertions 
 
 Which by the blessing of God i-emoved from 
 
 England 
 
 The guilt of the African Slave Trade, 
 
 And prepared the way for the Abolition of Slavery 
 
 In every Colony of the Empire. 
 
 In the prosecution of these objects, 
 
 lie I'elied not in vain on Goo, 
 
 But in their progress, he was called on to endure 
 
 Gi'cat obloquy and great opposition: 
 
 He outlived, liowever, all enmity, 
 
 And ill the evening of his days 
 
 Withdrew frum [lublic life and pulilic observation 
 
 To the bosoiii of his family. 
 
 '^'et he died not unnoticed or forgotten by his 
 
 country. 
 
 The Peel's and Coiniiions of Knghind, 
 
 With the Lord Chancellor and the Speaker at tlieir 
 
 head. 
 In solemn procession from tliiir respective houses. 
 
 Can-ied him to his fitting place 
 
 amongst the mighty dead, 
 
 Here to repose 
 
 Till through the merits of Jesus Christ 
 
 His only Redeemer and Saviour, 
 
 Whom in his life and in his writings he had desired 
 
 to glorify. 
 
 He shall rise in the resurrection of the Just. 
 
 The family of Wilberforce is ancient, and was 
 originally settled at Wilberfoss near Pocklington in 
 Yorkshire, but the estate was sold in 1719. The 
 grandfather and father of the subject of this sketch 
 were merchants at Hull, and botii opulent. He was 
 first sent to the grammar-school of Pocklington, 
 and next instructed by the Rev. Josejdi Miliier, an 
 Evangelical minister at Hull. While under this 
 gentleman's tuition he resided with an aunt, who 
 was a great admirer of AN'liitfield, and kept up a 
 friendly coimexion with the early ]\lethodists. Fee- 
 ble in health, gentle in disposition, young Wilber- 
 force had so far imbibed in the household of this 
 relative, the extreme opinions of these sectarians, 
 that his mother withdrew him in alarm in his 
 thirteenth year, and took pains to eradicate what 
 .she regarded as his gloomy and perilous ojiiiiions. 
 Upon this subject Wilberforce himself afterwards 
 said in his diary — " I think I have never before 
 remarked, that my mother taking me from my 
 uncle's when about twelve or thirteen, and then 
 completely a Methodist, has probably been the 
 means of my being connected with jiolitieal men, 
 and becoming useful in life. If I had stayed with 
 my uncle, I should probably have been a bigoted, des- 
 pised Methodist: yet to come to what I am, through 
 so many years of folly as those which elajised be- 
 tween my last year and 17^5, is wonderful." 
 
 He was now ])!aced under the Rev. J. Basket, 
 and when only fourteen years old, wrote a letter 
 to one of the York newspapers, against '' the odious 
 traffic in human Hesh." At this i)('riod he was 
 noted for his quickness in composition, and his 
 fondness for learning poetry liy heart. At seven- 
 teen he entered St. .Tohn's College Canibri<lg(', a 
 " fair scholar :" spent his time gaily, but without 
 debauchery, and graduated B. A. and M. A. in 
 succession. On coming of age, he found inmself 
 possessed of a good fortune, left him l)y his uncle, 
 and (Ictaehiiig hiiiisilf from the meiraiitile firm 
 founded by his graiiill'atlur, started as a public 
 character, at tlu; general election in IJflO. He 
 canvassed and was returiie(l for Hull, at a cost of 
 between «000/. and 9000/., and upon coming up 
 to London, launched into the full tide of fashion- 
 able life; became a member of half a dozen clubs, 
 cemented tin; intimate friendship with Mr. Pitt, 
 wliicli, Ijegtiii at College, he iireservi'd while that 
 eiiiiiieiit slatesinaii lived, and escaped the snares 
 laid for his I'orluiie at the l"'aro talili' at ISrookes's. 
 He was weane<l from gambling l)y a characteristic 
 incident. " We e:in have no j)lay to night," 
 said some one of Jiis party at the elub, "for 
 Saint Antony is not here to keep the bank." 
 " Willierlorce," observed Mr. Baiiki's, who never 
 
 V
 
 278 
 
 WESTMINSTER ABBEY. 
 
 played himself, " if you will keep it, 1 will give you 
 a guinea." The jocular challenge was accepted, the 
 play ran deep, and he rose a winner of COO^. ]\Iuch 
 of this was lost by those who were only heirs to 
 a fortune, and could not therefore meet their losses 
 without inconvenience; and the pain Wilberfoi'ce 
 felt at their annoyance, cured him of an indulgence, 
 that seemed but too likely to become habitual. 
 Other anecdotes are told, mdicative of his taste for 
 the pleasures of fashionable society, and the accom- 
 plishments he possessed for shining in it. His 
 singing charmed at the Duchess of Devonshire's 
 jjarties, and his powers of mimicry proved the 
 pass]iort to the brilliant conviviality of the Prince 
 of Wales's select and lively circle. In 1783 and 
 1784, he made an excursion to France, being ac- 
 companied on the first occasion by Messrs. Pitt 
 and Eliot, and on the second by the Rev. Isaac 
 Milner alone. It is to the influence of the last 
 named friend, that Mr. Wilberforce's biographers 
 attribute the marked change in his character and 
 manner of life that now took place. He did not 
 " marry and reform :" long before his match in 
 1797, with Miss Spooner, whose father was a 
 Liverpool merchant, he had abandoned the 
 frivolities of fashion, and though to the last, per- 
 haps, not a little vain of the attention paid him 
 in high society, had become a strict observer of 
 the moral and religious principles which he so 
 worthily practised during his long and useful career. 
 Being returned at the general election of 1784 for 
 Hull and Yorkshire, he elected to sit for the latter, 
 and became the champion of the cause by which 
 he most distinguished himself, the abolition of 
 slavery. Having mentioned, in the sketch of Gran- 
 ville Sharpe's life, the names of the leading advo- 
 cates of that humane and honourable reform, and 
 the dates at which they respectively came forward 
 to advocate it, it will suffice to observe here that Mr. 
 Wilberforee appears to have been led to espouse 
 it, by the strong statements in Mr. Clarkson's 
 Essay on slaverj'. Mr. Wilberforce's sons, in writ- 
 ing the life of their father, represent that he did 
 not follow, but led Mr. Clarkson A careful ex- 
 amination of the case made out on both sides, has 
 brought most impartial judges to a different con- 
 clusion, and assigned the honour of being the first 
 great agitator to Clarkson, and not to Wilberforee. 
 The latter brought the subject before the House of 
 Commons in 1787. Illness during the next session, 
 and the pressure of other business the session after, 
 prevented a renewal of the motion. The year after 
 the first blow was struck, in the passing without a 
 division of a set of general resolutions moved by 
 him, and eloquently supported by Pitt, Fox, and 
 Burke. A powerful opposition to the further pro- 
 gress of the cause was now organised, and long 
 persisted in by mterested parties. In 1791, his 
 bill for preventing the importation of African ne- 
 groes into the British colonies, was defeated by a 
 majority of 75. In the following year, the favour- 
 able impression made by these discussions in the 
 House, and the force of public opinion abroad, 
 enabled him to carry a resolution, with only 85 
 dissentient votes, in favour of a gradual abolition ; 
 but it was not until 1807, when Mr. Fox was in 
 power, that Mr. Wilberforee had the gratification 
 of seeing the measure triumph on the motion of 
 that nobleminded and courageous statesman. 
 
 But it was not as the vigorous and conscientious 
 
 opponent of slavery alone that Mr. Wilberforee 
 acquired consideration in Parliament, and through- 
 out the country. He professed at all times to act 
 upon principle, to be the friend of peace and 
 rational liberty, and thus, though the intimate and 
 affectionate friend of Mr. Pitt, and the supporter 
 of his administration, he vindicated his consistency 
 upon several important occasions, by taking an in- 
 dependent course in politics. A fair idea of his 
 public career in the House may be obtained by 
 noticing the part he took on a few leading questions. 
 He was a supporter of Parliamentary Reform and 
 of Catholic Emancipation. In February 1783 he 
 advocated the treaty of peace with the United States 
 of America and theii* allies, forcibly observing, that 
 ti'anquillity was essentially requisite "after a mad 
 and calamitous war." On the impeachment of 
 Warren Hastings, he censured the intemperance of 
 the opposition, and warned the government against 
 the danger of producing jiapei-s which might be 
 injurious to the public service. In 1790 he agreed 
 with ministers respecting the convention with Spain, 
 and when the war with Tijjpoo Saib was discussed, he 
 contended that the aggression was on the Prince's 
 side. Supporting in like manner the war under- 
 taken against Revolutionary France, he never- 
 theless declared himself against the policy of pro- 
 tracting the contest after a settled government had 
 been established in that country. He was con- 
 ^equentlj- a supporter of the peace of Amiens. In 
 1804, he agreed with government as to the pro- 
 priety of the inquiries and preparations instituted 
 relative to the defence of the country, in the event 
 of foreign invasion ; but in the following year, took 
 a leading part against them, in making a motion for 
 the impeachment of Lord Melville. By proceedings 
 such as these, Mr. Wilberforee secured his return 
 as member for Yorkshire without ojiposition, at the 
 general elections of 1790, 179G, 1802, and 1806. 
 In I8O7 however the families of Fitzwilliam and 
 Lascelles combined to turn him out of the re- 
 presentation, but notwithstanding their united in- 
 fluence and immense property, he was placed first 
 on the poll at the end of an election, remarkable as 
 exhibiting the largest number of freeholders that 
 up to that time had ever recorded their votes at an 
 English election. The expense incurred in this 
 struggle deterred him from presenting himself to the 
 county in 1812, but he obtained a seat for Bramber, 
 which he continued to represent until 1825, when 
 he accepted the Chiltern Hundreds, and finally 
 retired from public life. 
 
 As an author, Mr. Wilberforee obtained a degree 
 of success fully commensurate with his Parlia- 
 mentary reputation. In 1797 he published two 
 works, " An apology for the Christian Sabbath," ui 
 8vo, and a " Practical View of the Prevailing Re- 
 ligious System of Professed Christians in the Higher 
 and Middle Classes of this country, contrasted with 
 Real Christianity," 8vo. In this production, which 
 went through three large editions withm a year, he 
 advocated high Calvinistic doctrines, and took his 
 place in the ranks of the severe theologians. He 
 published in 1823 " An Appeal to the Religion, 
 Justice, and Humanity of the British Empire, in 
 behalf of the Negro Slaves in the West Indies." 
 These were his principal works, but several of his 
 speeches have been printed, and he was a frequent 
 contributor to a periodical publication, entitled the 
 " Christian Observer."
 
 THOMAS TELFORD. 
 
 27!) 
 
 To review iu a critical spirit the career of a 
 man, who meant so well, and really effected so much 
 good, wunld be unirenerous. With the sects who 
 agreed with him in religions opinions, he held and 
 still retains a high character. By the public at 
 large, he was properly respected for the sincerity 
 and zeal with which he conducted himself on many 
 trying and important occasions; ami both by orators 
 and scholars he was justly admired for the purity 
 with which he wrote and spoke, and for the persua- 
 siveness of his eloquence. l'hilauthroi)y fomided 
 in religious sentiment was the jn-ominent charac- 
 teristic of his life, and for this he deserves to be 
 warmly commended. At the same time the asser- 
 
 tions of his political opponents were not altogether 
 unfounded, when they conteiid.;d that his moml and 
 religious zeiil was occasionally regulated by the 
 tune of the fashinnable drawing rooms, in which lie 
 was always proud to appear ; that he compromised 
 and clung " to the powers that be," with a more 
 acconmiodating laxity than befits tlie man, who 
 takes his stand upon i>rinciple as the moral i-crene- 
 rator of mankind, and especially' of the society to 
 which he belongs ; that his feelings not unfreiiuently 
 ran away with liis reason; and in short, that though 
 lUKiueslionably a very good man, he was far from 
 being either a jthilobopher or a statesman. 
 
 THOMAS TELFORD. 
 
 There is a colossal statue by Baillie, of this dis- 
 tinguished engineer, in the chapel of St. John. Its 
 size, and the confined >5ituatioii in which it is placed, 
 are unfavourable to the examination of its merits. 
 The epitaph is a model of the style of composition 
 to which it belongs. 
 
 Thomas Telford, 
 
 President of the Institution 
 
 of Civil Engineers. 
 
 Born at Glendinning in Eskdale, 
 
 Dumfriesshire, in mdcclxvii. 
 
 Died ill Loudon mdcccxxxiv. 
 
 The orphan son of a shei>lierd, self-educated, 
 
 lie raised himself, 
 
 By his extraordinary talents and integrity. 
 
 From the humble condition of an operative mason, 
 
 And became one of the 
 
 Most eminent Civil Engineers of the age. 
 
 Tills marble has been erected near the spot 
 
 Where his remains are deposited. 
 
 By the friends who revered his virtues. 
 
 But his noblest monuments are to be found amongst 
 
 The great public works of his Country. 
 
 If it were necessary to prove that a man of 
 practical genius will be sure to do every thing, 
 however liumble, well that he takes in hand, we 
 might refer to the neatness with which Telford, 
 while working obscurely in his native parish as a 
 stone cutter, used to form the letters of the epitaphs 
 upon tombstones, " which teach the rustic mo- 
 ralist to die." A youth thus lowly placed in a small 
 village, could obtain but a scanty portion of the ele- 
 ments of education. A natural love of books how- 
 ever, and the little employment afforded by the 
 business of the village in his trade, gave him leisure 
 for reading, which he greedily availed himself of. 
 He wrote poetry, contributed verses to " Ruddi- 
 man's Weekly Maga/.iiii'," and addressed a poetical 
 epistle to Burns, which is quoted with praise in 
 Dr. Currie's life of that i)opular bai'd. 
 
 Upon completing his a])pniitic(ship, Telford re- 
 moved to Edinburgh, and hnding good employment, 
 enlarged his views of the future, by stuilying archi- 
 tecture, and the mathematical sciences. Not only 
 at this early p<--riod, l>ut at nnich later sttiges of his 
 life, he. r<-lii'd principally upon himself, in learning 
 every thing he desired t(j know. rerha|)S there is 
 
 no second instance of a man so extensively self- 
 instructed, when he might have commanded iIk; best 
 assistance. As ho now taught himself algebra and 
 geometry, he afterwards taught himseff Latin, 
 French, and German. It is remarkable that he did 
 not ])rize mathematical knowledge, asserting that 
 it tended to lead a man to abstraction and theory, 
 whereas practical experiments were the only things 
 on which an Engineer should rely. At J-^dinburgh 
 his condition was much improved by the business 
 he obtained, and his constant attention to the im- 
 provement of his mind, and the acquisition of useful 
 knowledge. He was fortunate in obtaining the patro- 
 nage of Sir William Pultcney, whose original name 
 was Johnstone, and who, like himself, was a native 
 of the i)arish of Westerwick. By Sir William, he 
 was encouraged to remove to London in 17'f2, and 
 once settled in that great mart for talent and in- 
 dustry, he did not long remain unnoticed or unre- 
 tained. His progress now was steady, and though 
 at first by no means shining was always advancing. 
 His first ])ublic emiiloyinent appears to have been 
 in I'ortsmouth doek-yard, where he so gratified the 
 Commissicmers by his careful manner of business, 
 tliat he in a manner secured a renewal of his ser- 
 vices as occasion ottered. In 17^7) he was chosen 
 surveyor of works in Shropshire, a situation which 
 he retained till his death, and distinguished by 
 connecting with it several of the most stupendous 
 undertakings, liy which his name and his era liave 
 been made memorable: the i)rinci|)al of these, and 
 that one u]ion which his fame as a civil engineer most 
 proudly rests, was the great line of road from 1/on- 
 don, which commencing uiuKr llighgate archway, 
 and passing through Shrewsbury, proceeds by 
 Conway and Menai liridges toIlolyliea<l. The .Menai 
 bridge, one of the greatest wondersof art in I'Jngland, 
 is un<piestionably a magnificent proof of his capacity 
 for new and effective combinations on the grandest 
 scale. This briilge is constructed over the small 
 strait of the si a which intervenes betwixt the 
 mainl.ind ui' North Wales and the island of Angle- 
 sea, and carries the road which ]>roceeds onward 
 to Holyliead. J$efore its erection, the communica- 
 tion was maintained by means of ferry-boats, and 
 was therefore subject to delays and even dangers. 
 The bridge is at a ])oint near the town of Ilaiigor, 
 from ni'ar which its ajip "arance is strikingly grand. 
 It is built partly of stone and partly of iron, on tlio 
 
 v2
 
 280 
 
 WESTMINSTER ABBEY. 
 
 suspension principle, and consists of seven stone 
 arches, exceeding in magnitude every work of the 
 kind in the world. They connect the land with the 
 two main piers, which rise fifty-three feet above 
 the level of the road, over the top of which the 
 chains are suspended, each chain being 1714 feet 
 from the fastenings in the rock. The first three- 
 masted vessel passed under the bridge in 1826. 
 Her topmasts wei'e nearly as high as a frigate's; but 
 they cleared twelve feet and a half below the cen- 
 tre of the roadway. The suspending power of the 
 chains was calculated at 2016 tons; the total weight 
 of each chain, 121 tons. This stupendous under- 
 taking occasioned Telford more intense thought 
 than any other of his works : he told his friend 
 (Dr. James Cleland) that his extreme anxiety for 
 a short time previous to the opening of the bridge 
 prevented him from sleeping, and that a much 
 longer continuance of that state of mind must have 
 undei-mined his health. 
 
 The Caledonian canal is another of Telford's 
 splendid works, in consti'ucting every part of which, 
 though prodigious difficulties were to be surmount- 
 ed, he was successful. That it has nut answered 
 the commercial jiurposes for which it was designed, 
 is a subject of distinct consideration, and does not 
 affect the ability displayed in its execution. But 
 even this work does not redound so much to his 
 credit as the roads throughout the same district. 
 That fi-om Inverness to the county of Sutherland, 
 and through Caithness, made not only, so far as 
 respects iA.s construction, but its direction, under his 
 
 orders, is superior, in point of line and smoothness, 
 to any part of the road of equal continuous length 
 between London and Inverness. This is a remark- 
 able fact, which, from the great difficulties he had 
 to overcome in passing through a rugged, hilly, and 
 mountainous district, incontrovertibly establishes 
 his superior skill in the engineering department, as 
 well as in the construction of great public commu- 
 nications. 
 
 Amongst Telford's other works, those that chiefly 
 attract our notice are the St. Katherine's Docks at 
 London, the Chirk and Ponteysulte aqueducts, and 
 almost all the canals by which Shropshire is intei-- 
 sected. The inland navigation of Sweden is an- 
 other monument of his genius. He was invited to 
 undertake this work by the Swedish government in 
 1808, the object being to connect the great fresh- 
 water lakes, and to form a direct communication 
 by water between the North Sea and the Baltic. 
 For this gigantic enterprise, Telford laid out the 
 ground in person, and in due course fully accom- 
 plished it, with the assistance of experienced British 
 workmen. 
 
 For some years before his death, Telford retired 
 from business, and amused his old age by writing a 
 detailed account of the principal undertakings he 
 had planned and executed. For this work he 
 superintended the illustrations. Temperate and 
 regular habits prolonged his life to an advanced 
 stage. He died at his house in Abingdon Street, 
 Westminster, and was bui-ied in the Abbey.
 
 ABBOTS, PRIORS, AND DEANS. 
 
 281 
 
 ABBOTS, PRIORS, AND DEANS. 
 
 Orbritlius, first Abbot, ruled twelve years ; died 
 
 ck;. 
 
 Germanus, first Prior. 
 
 Aldrediis, second ditto ; died 075. 
 
 Sywardus ; died fJPi4. 
 
 Osmundns, ruled twenty-one years ; died 705. 
 
 Selredus ; died 744. 
 
 Orgarus, ruled twenty-one years; died 7G5. 
 
 Brithstanus; died 785. 
 
 Another Orbrithus. the second Abbot; ruled twelve 
 
 years, and died 797- 
 Alwyus ; died 820. 
 Alwyus II. ; died 837. 
 Algarus ; died 889. 
 E<linerus, 922. 
 Alfnodus, 939. 
 Alfricus ; died 95G. 
 
 The preceding names, though given in " Dug- 
 dale's Mona-sticon," are there represented as rest- 
 ing on no historical authority. The first Abbot 
 with whom we are made regularly acc^uaiuted is 
 
 Wulsinus, appointed 9(52 ; died 1004. 
 
 Alfwvus, or Alwyus ; died 1017. 
 
 Wuliioth ; died 1049. 
 
 Eadwine ; died 10G8. 
 
 Galfridus, or Goifridus, ruled four years, and was 
 
 deprived 1072. 
 Vitalis ; died 1082. 
 Gilbert, or Gislebei'tus Crispinus, retained the 
 
 Abbacy thirty-two years, and died 1114. 
 Ilerebert, or Herebertus, chosen 1121 ; died 1140. 
 Gervase de Blois, natural son of King Stephen, 
 
 and memorable for his dissipation of the Abbey- 
 lands ; died 1159. 
 Laurentius, or Laurence ; died 1175. 
 Walter Prior, of Winchester ; died 1190. 
 William Postard, elected 1191 ; died 1200. 
 Ralph l'ai)ilijn, or de Arunikl ; deposed 1214. 
 William de liumets, or Humez, elected 1214 ; died 
 
 1222. 
 Ricliard de Berkyng, ruled twenty-four years, and 
 
 died 1240. 
 Richard de Crokcsleyc or Crockclce ; died 1258. 
 Philip Lnwesham, was elected, and died the same 
 
 year, 1258. 
 Richard de Ware, King's Treasurer ; died 128.'*. 
 Walter <lc Wenlok ; died 1307. 
 Rieliai'd de Sudbury, or Ki'din;;ton ; (lied 1315. 
 William Ciirtlington ; died 1333. 
 Thomas Henley ; died 1344. 
 Simon de Kyrciieston ; died 1349. 
 Simon Langhain ; died 1370. 
 Nii-hdlas Litliiigton ; died 1380. 
 William dc Colchester ; died 1420. 
 
 Ricliard ITarounden, Ilaroudoii, or Harwedcn; re- 
 signed upon a pension, 1440. 
 
 Edmund Kyrton ; died 1400. 
 
 George Norwych ; died 1409. 
 
 Thomas Millyng, Bishop of Hereford in 1474; died 
 1492. 
 
 John Esteney, chosen 1474 ; died 1498. 
 
 George Fascet ; died 1500. 
 
 •John Islij) ; died 1532. 
 
 William Boston, or Ueiison, surrendered the Abbey 
 to Henry VIII. January 10, 1539 40; died 1549. 
 
 Thomas Tliirlby, Bisho]) 1540 ; Bishopric sup- 
 pressed, 1550; died 1570 
 
 Richard Cox, installed on Boston's death ; deprived 
 by Queen iMary ; died 1581. 
 
 Hugh Weston, D.D., installed on Cox's deprivation, 
 deprived by Cardinal Pole for adultery ; died 
 1558. 
 
 John Feckenham, whose right name was Howman, 
 the last mitred Abbot who sat in Parliament ; a 
 man highly praised by Camden, and all other 
 writers wlio speak of him ; but notwithstanding 
 his many virtues, repeatedly imprisoned by (iueen 
 Elizabeth, because he would not change his reli- 
 gion. Ho died a prisoner at Wisbech Castle, 
 1585. 
 
 William Bill, fii'st Dean on the new foundation of 
 Westminster Abbey as a Collegiate Church ; 
 died 1501. 
 
 Gabriel Goodman ; died 1001 
 
 Launcelot Andrews, D.i)., master of Pembroke 
 Hall, Prebend of Paneras, successively Bishop 
 of Chichester, Ely, and Winchester ; died lOJO. 
 
 Richard Neile, Neyle, or Neale, installed I(i(>5, on 
 the promotion of Dean Andrews to the See of 
 Chichester ; Bishoj) of Rochester 1(!08, and suc- 
 cessively of Lichfield and Coventry, of Lincoln, 
 of Durham, of Winchester, and finally Arch- 
 Ijishop of \'ork ; died l(i40. 
 
 George Montaigne, or Movmtain ; died 1020. 
 
 Robert Towiison, D.D., installed Uil/, ulien his 
 predecessor became Hisliop of Lincoln ; pro- 
 moted to the See of Salisbury 1020, and died the 
 year after. 
 
 John Williams, installed 1020 ; Bishop of Lim-oln 
 and Lord Keeper of the Great Seal in 1021 ; 
 deprived of tli(! latter ollice in 1025 ; fined 
 10,000/. and ordereil to be imprisoned in the 
 Tower by the Star ('handier, on a charge of cor- 
 rupting witnisses, in Ui37( and suspi iided from 
 all oilic( s and privile;;es ; iliseliai'gcd from (lie 
 Tower in KilO; translated to the Ari'libisliopric 
 of York l(i4l ; again imprisoned in the Tower; 
 released in eighteen weeks ; besieged and took 
 A berconway Castle ill 1()45; died l(i5().
 
 282 
 
 PREBENDARIES. 
 
 Dr. Richard Steward, appointed 1644; died 1651. 
 
 John Earle, D.D. installed 1C60 ; successively 
 Bishop of Worcester and Salisbury ; died 
 1665. 
 
 John Dolben, D.D., installed 1G62 on the promo- 
 tion of Dr. Earle to the See of Worcester ; 
 Bishop of Rochester 1666 ; Archbishop of York 
 1683 ; died 1686. 
 
 Thomas Sprat, D.D.; died 1713. 
 
 Francis Atterburv, D.D.; died 1731-2. 
 
 Samuel Bradford,' D.D., installed 1 723 ; Bishop of 
 Carlisle and Rochester ; died 1731. 
 
 Joseph Wilcocks, D.D., Bishop of Rochester, and 
 
 Dean of Westminster m commendam 1731 ; died 
 
 1756. 
 Zaehary Pearce, D.D., succeeded Dr. Wilcocks in 
 
 the Deanery and Bishopric ; died 1774. 
 John Thomas, D.D., Dean and Bishop of Rochester; 
 
 died 1793. 
 Samuel llorsley, LL.D., succeeded Dr. Thomas in 
 
 the Deanery and Bishopric ; died 1806. 
 William Vincent, D.D., installed 1802 upon the 
 
 translation of Bishop Horsley to the See of St. 
 
 Asaph ; died 1815. 
 John Ireland, D.D., installed 1816 ; died 1842. 
 Thomas Turton, D.D., installed 1842. 
 
 PREBENDARIES. 
 
 FIRSr STALL, 
 
 Simon Haynes, 1540. 
 Andrew Perue, 1552. 
 
 Prebendaries since last Settlement by Queen Elizabeth. 
 
 William Barlow, successively Bishop of St. Asaph, 
 St. David's, Bath and Wells, and Chichester, 
 1560. 
 
 John Browne, 1565. 
 
 Thomas Mountford, 1585. 
 
 Gabriel Moore, 1631. 
 
 SECOND STALL. 
 
 John Redman, 1540. 
 Alexander Nowell, 1551. 
 John Richards, 1554. 
 
 Since the last Settlement by Queen Elizabeth. 
 
 Humphrey Perkins, 1560. 
 John Read. 
 Richard Wood, 1587. 
 Heni-y Ca?sar, 1609. 
 Thomas Wilson, 1625. 
 
 THIRD STALL. 
 
 Edward Leighton, 1540. 
 Edward Keble, 1547. 
 John Baker, 1553. 
 
 Since the la^t settlement by Queen Elizabeth. 
 
 John Hardyman, 1560. 
 Percival Wybourne. 
 John Fox. 
 John Wilson, 1623. 
 Christopher Wren. 
 Richard Stewart, 1638. 
 
 FOURTH STALL. 
 
 Anthony Bellasis, 1540. 
 Richard Alveye, 1552. 
 John Ramridge, 1553. 
 
 Since the last Settlement by Queen Elizabeth. 
 
 Richard Cheney, 1560, Bishop of Gloucester. 
 Richard Morley, 1562. 
 William Wickham, 1570. 
 
 — Ramsden. 
 William C-haderton. 
 
 — Wagstaft'. 
 Richard Webster, 1686. 
 Richard Hackluyt ; died 1616. 
 John Holt, 1616. 
 
 Lodowick Weems, or Wemys, 1630. 
 
 FIFTH STALL. 
 
 William Britten, or Bretton, 1540. 
 Edmund Grindall, 1552. 
 John Morenian, 1554. 
 John Smith, 1554. 
 
 Since the last Settlement by Queen Elizaheth. 
 
 Richard Alvey, 1560. 
 Thomas Aldrich, 1576. 
 John Rugg, 1576. 
 Nicholas -Bond, 1582. 
 William Robinson, 1607. 
 Matthew Nicholas. 
 
 SIXTH STALL.^ 
 
 Dennis Dalyon, 1540. 
 
 Since the lust Settlement by Queen Elizabeth. 
 
 Edmund Seamier, or Scambler, 1560. 
 
 — Beaumont. 
 Matthew Hutton. 
 Walter Jones, 1568. 
 Griffith Lewis, 1577. 
 George Darrel, 160?. 
 Peter Heylin, 1631. 
 
 SEVENTH STALL. 
 
 Humphrey Perkins, 1540. 
 Francis Mallet, 1553. 
 Alphonsas de Salinas, 1554. 
 
 Since the last Settlement by Queen Elizabeth. 
 
 Alexander Nowell, 1560. 
 
 •John Hill, 1561. 
 
 John Pory, 1568. 
 
 Thomas Aldrich, or Aldridge, 1573. 
 
 Jolin Still, 1573, Bp. of Bath and Wells. 
 
 Thomas Ravis, 1502.
 
 PREBENDARIES. 
 
 2»:< 
 
 Godfrey Gnotlnuui, 1(>07. 
 TheodoVe I'rioe, 1(:23. 
 Roger Bates, \G'3\. 
 John Towers, l(i;i4. 
 Jonathan Browue, 1(J38. 
 
 EIGHTH STALL. 
 
 Thomas Essex, 1540. 
 
 Since the last Sdthnvcnt hij Queen EllzaJteth . 
 
 William Latymer, 1560. 
 
 — Buckley. 
 
 — Kaiul. 
 
 Griffith Williams, 1(;28. 
 Benjamin Laney, H!41, Bp. of Peterborough. 
 
 NINTH STALL. 
 
 Thomas Elforde, 1540. 
 
 Since the last Settlement by Queen Elizabeth. 
 
 Richard Reeve, or Ryne, 1560. 
 
 Cuthbort Bellot, 1594. 
 Robert Newell, 1613. 
 
 TENTH STALL. 
 
 John Malvern, 1540. 
 
 Since the last Settlement by Queen Elizabeth. 
 
 William Downham, 1560. 
 
 Edmund Frcke, 1564. 
 
 -John Young, 1572. 
 
 Christopher Sutton, 1605. 
 
 Lamb Osbaldeston, 1629. 
 
 Benjamin Laney, 1639, Bp. of Peterborough. 
 
 ELEVENTH STALL. 
 
 William Harvy, 1540. 
 
 Since the last Settlement by Queen Elizabeth. 
 
 William Yonge, 1560. 
 
 John WicUham. 
 
 Richard Bancroft, 1592, Bishop of London. 
 
 Launcelot Andrews, 1597. 
 
 Adrian do Saravia, UJOl. 
 
 Gabriel Grant, 16fi2. 
 
 William Hey wood, 1638. 
 
 TWELFTH STALL. 
 
 Gerard Carleton, 1540. 
 Gill's Eyre, 1549. 
 Thomas Brickett, 1551. 
 
 Since the last Settlement by Queen Elizabeth. 
 
 Gabriel Goodman, 1560 
 
 Thomas Watts, 1561. 
 
 Edward Grant, 1577- 
 
 William ]5arlow, 1601, Bp. of Lincoln. 
 
 J.,1mi King, 1613. 
 
 George Eglionby, 1638. 
 
 The Prebendaries admitted sinoe the Restoration, 
 1660, had no fixed Stalls to their Prebends, but 
 upon any vacancy, tlx: new J'n-bendary was in- 
 stalled in the lowest Stall on tli<! side where the 
 vacancy happened, and not in the Stall of him 
 who died, or was jiromoted. 
 
 Henry Killigr<:w, 1660. 
 
 JuhuDoughty, l(i6l). 
 
 Walter Jones, 1660. 
 
 Richard Busby, 1660. •^ 
 
 John Sudbury, l(i60. 
 
 James Landj, 1660. 
 
 David Mitchell, 1660, Bishop of Abei'dcen. 
 
 Francis Walsall, 1660. 
 
 Herbert Tliorndike, 1661. 
 
 Thomas (iorges, 1661. 
 
 Thomas Triplett, 1661. 
 
 .Samuel Bolton, 1662. 
 
 Charles Gibbs, 1662. / 
 
 Robert South, 1663.*^ 
 
 George Stradling, 1663. 
 
 Richard Perincheife, 1664. 
 
 Robert Boreman, 1667. 
 
 Thomas Sprat, 1668. 
 
 William Owtram, 1670. 
 
 Nicholas Only, 1672. 
 
 Simon Patrick, 1(!72. 
 
 John North, 1672. 
 
 Richard Colebrand, 1673. 
 
 Adam Littleton, 1674. 
 
 Francis Durant de Prevail, 1675. 
 
 Richard Anneslev, 1679. 
 
 William Sill, 1681. 
 
 Edward Pelling, 1683. 
 
 Samuel de Langle, 1683. 
 
 George Berkeley, 1687. 
 
 James Sartrens, or de Sartre, 1688. 
 
 Peter Birch, 1689. 
 
 Stephen Upman, 1691. 
 
 Anthony Horncck, 1693. 
 
 Thomas Dent, 1694. 
 
 William Paine, 1694. 
 
 Richard ^^'illis, 1695. 
 
 Samuel Barton, 1696. 
 
 Richard Lucas, 1696. 
 
 Thomas Lynford, I7OO. 
 
 Edward Gee, 1701. 
 
 Richard Martyn, 1702. 
 
 Michael Evans, 1702. 
 
 Thomas Knipe, 1707- 
 
 Samuel Bradford, I7O7. 
 
 Lawrence Brodriclc, I7IO. 
 
 Jonathan Kiniberley, 1711- 
 
 Thomas Sjirat, 1713. 
 
 Robert Cannon, 1715. 
 
 John Watson, 1715. 
 
 Harry Barker, I7I6. 
 
 Thomas Manningliam, 1720. 
 
 William Craig, 1720. 
 
 Joseph WilcocUs, 1720. 
 
 John Wynne, 1721. 
 
 John iMandeyille, 1722. 
 
 Jc.hn Herbert, 1723. 
 
 Edward Willes, 1724. 
 
 (jleorge Ingram, 1724. 
 
 Benjamin Ibbot, 1724. 
 
 James Hargraves, 1724. 
 
 Maurice Suckling, 1725. 
 
 Edward Aspinwall, 1729. 
 
 Scawen Kenrick, 17"-9. 
 
 Roiiert Thistlethwaite, 1730. 
 
 Robert Friend, 1731. 
 
 Ahire.l Clarke, 1731. 
 
 Richard Bundy, 1732. 
 
 William Barnard, 1732. 
 
 Thomas Hayter, 1738. 
 
 iMallliew lllltloil, 1739. 
 
 John Nicoll, 1740.
 
 284 PREBENDARIES. 
 
 Richard Bullock, 1741. 
 
 Samuel Smith, 1787. 
 
 John Hume, 1742. 
 
 Charles Fynes-Clinton, 1788. 
 
 John Heylyn, 1742. 
 
 William Cole, 1792. 
 
 Robert Hav-Drummond, 1743. 
 
 Charles Moss, 1792. 
 
 Thomas Wilson, 1743. 
 
 Thomas Hughes, 1793. 
 
 William Freind, 1 744. 
 
 George William Lukin, 1797. 
 
 John Taylor, 174G. 
 
 John Wheler, 1797. 
 
 Edward Crane, 1748. 
 
 Thomas Causton, 1 799. 
 
 Christopher Wilson, 1748. 
 
 William Vincent, 1801. 
 
 Edward Townshend, 1749. 
 
 Gerald Valerian Wellesley, 1802. 
 
 Philip Yonge, 1750. 
 
 John Ireland, 1 802. 
 
 John Thomas, 1754. 
 
 Howel Holland Edwards, 1803. 
 
 Richard Cope, 1754. 
 
 Joseph Allen, 1806. 
 
 John Oswald, 1755. 
 
 Lord Henry Fitz Roy, 1807. 
 
 Thomas Greene, 1756. 
 
 William Douglas, 1807. 
 
 Thomas Newton, 1757. 
 
 Walker King, 1808. 
 
 Reeve Ballard, 1758. 
 
 Frederick William Blomberg, 1808. 
 
 Joseph Atwell, 1759. 
 
 William Carey, 1809. 
 
 John Blair, 17C1. 
 
 William Harry Edward Bentinck, 1809. 
 
 Joseph Hnare, 17fi2. 
 
 .James Webber, 1816. 
 
 Ciiarles Burdett, 1762. 
 
 William Short, 1816. 
 
 Philip Lloyd, 1763. 
 
 William Tournay, 1818. 
 
 Robert Fowler, 1765. 
 
 Andrew Bell, 1819. 
 
 William Bell, 1705. 
 
 George Holcombe, 1822. 
 
 William Stoekwood, 17G8. 
 
 Edmund Goodenough, 182G. 
 
 Charles Wake, 1768. 
 
 T. Manners Sutton, 1827. 
 
 Benjamin Kennicot, 1770. 
 
 Henry Vincent Bayley, 1828. 
 
 James Cornwallis, 1770. 
 
 James Henry Monk, 1830. 
 
 Thomas Patrick Younfr, 177' • 
 
 Lord John Thynne, 1831. 
 
 Thomas Marriott, 1772. 
 
 Henry Ryder, 1831. 
 
 Nathan Wetherell, 1775. 
 
 Evelyn L. Sutton, 1832. 
 
 Nicholas Boscaweu, 1777- 
 
 Hon. Edward Grey, 1833. 
 
 Robert Clive, 1778. 
 
 Henry Hart Milman, 1835. 
 
 Robert Poole Finch, 1781. 
 
 John Jennings, 1837. 
 
 Thomas Jackson, 1782. 
 
 Edward Repton, 1838, 
 
 George Pretyman, 1784. 
 
 Temple Frere, 1838. 
 
 William Cleaver, 1784. 
 
 \ 
 
 THE 
 
 END. 
 
 Gilbert & Rivington, Printers, St. John's Square, London. I
 
 BIOGRAPHICAL ILLUSTRATIONS 
 
 OP 
 
 ST. PAUL'S CATHEDRAL.
 
 UNIFORM WITH THE PRESENT WORK, 
 
 BIOGRAPHICAL ILLUSTRATIONS 
 
 OF 
 
 WESTMINSTER ABBEY, 
 
 WITH THE INSCRIPTIONS, AND TRANSLATIONS OF THOSE IN LATIN, 
 A HISTORY OF THE ABBEY, &c. 
 
 WHITTAKER AND CO., AVE MARIA LANE, LONDON.
 
 BIOGRAPHICAL ILLUSTRATIONS 
 
 OF 
 
 ST. PAUL'S CATHEDRAL. 
 
 BY 
 
 GEORGE LEWIS SMYTH. 
 
 LONDON: WHITTAKER AND CO., AVE MARIA LANE. 
 
 MDCCCXLIII.
 
 TO 
 
 JOHN MAHON, JUN. ESQ. 
 
 AS SOME MEMORIAL OF A FRIENDSHIP, 
 
 WHICH BEGAN WHEN WE WERE BOVS, 
 
 AND NEVER HAS BEEN BROKEN, 
 
 THESE PAGES ARE DEDICATED, 
 
 BY 
 
 GEORGE LEWIS SMYTH.
 
 CONTENTS. 
 
 HISTORICAL SKETCH OF THE CATHEDRAL CHURCH OF ST. PAUL Page 1 
 
 BIOGRAPHICAL ILLUSTRATIONS. 
 
 PAGE 
 
 Dean Colet 6 
 
 John Donne, D.D 7 
 
 Sir Christopher Wren 10 
 
 William Boyce, Mus. Doc 12 
 
 Bishop Newton 14 
 
 Samuel Johnson, LL.D ib. 
 
 Eliott, Lord Heathfield, K.B 19 
 
 John Howard 20 
 
 Rodney, Lord Rodney, K.B 24 
 
 Sir Joshua Reynolds 27 
 
 Sir William Jones 30 
 
 Robert Falknor, R.N 32 
 
 Earl Howe, K.G 34 
 
 Sir Ralph Abercrombie, K.B 38 
 
 Admiral Lord Duncan 41 
 
 Lord Chancellor Rosslyn 44 
 
 Charles, Marquis Cornwallis, K.G 45 
 
 Horatio, Lord Viscount Nelson, K.B 49 
 
 PAGE 
 
 James Barry 58 
 
 John Opie, R.A 62 
 
 Sir John Moore, K.B 64 
 
 Cuthbert, Lord Collingwood 66 
 
 Major-General Ross 69 
 
 Major-General Gillespie 70 
 
 Sir Thomas Picton, K.B 72 
 
 The Hon. Sir William Ponsonby, K.B 75 
 
 Benjamin West, R.A 76 
 
 John Rennie 79 
 
 Bishop Middleton 82 
 
 Admiral Earl St. Vincent 83 
 
 Henry Fuseli, R.A 84 
 
 Bishop Heber 86 
 
 Sir William Hoste 87 
 
 Sir Thomas Lawrence 88 
 
 Major-General Sir J. Malcolm, G.C.B 92 
 
 Dr. Babington 93 
 
 APPENDIX. 
 
 DIGNITARIES OF ST. PAUL'S. 
 
 PAGE 
 
 Bishops of London 95 
 
 Deans 97 
 
 Precentors ib. 
 
 Treasurers 98 
 
 Chancellors ib. 
 
 PREBENDARIES:— 
 
 Prebend of Bromesbury, or Brandesbury fi9 
 
 Prebend of Brownswood ib. 
 
 Prebend of Caddington Major 100 
 
 Prebend of Caddington Minor ib. 
 
 Prebend of Chamberlain Wood 101 
 
 Prebend of Chiswick ib. 
 
 Prebend of Consumpta per Mare 102 
 
 Prebend of Ealdland lb. 
 
 Prebend of Ealdstreet 103 
 
 Prebend of Harleston ib. 
 
 Prebend of Holborn 104 
 
 Prebend of Holywell, or Finsbury ; ib. 
 
 PAGE 
 
 Prebend of Hoxton 104 
 
 Prebend of Isledon, or Islington 105 
 
 Prebend of Cantlers, or Kentish-Town ib. 
 
 Prebend of Mapesbury, alias Maplebury 106 
 
 Prebend of Mora ib. 
 
 Prebend of Neasdon, Hesdon, or Weasdon 107 
 
 Prebend of Newington 108 
 
 Prebend of Orgate ib. 
 
 Prebend of St. Pancras ib. 
 
 Prebend of Portpoole 109 
 
 Prebend of Reculverland ib. 
 
 Prebend of Rugmere 110 
 
 Prebend of Sneating ib. 
 
 Prebend of Tottenhall llj 
 
 Prebend of East Twyford ib. 
 
 Prebend of Wenlakesbarn 112 
 
 Prebend of Wildland, or Weldland..- ib. 
 
 Prebend of Wilsdon 113 
 
 Prebendaries, the names of whose Prebends are not 
 
 recorded ib.
 
 BIOGRAPHICAL ILLUSTRATIONS, 
 
 HISTORICAL SKETCH OF THE CATHEDRAL CHURCH OF ST. PAUL. 
 
 Among the many vague legends preserved respect- 
 ing the first propagation of Christianity in Gi-eat 
 Britain, there is one which attributes tliat service 
 to the apostle whose name distinguishes this cathe- 
 dral. The curious in such matters will find the 
 question discussed at some length in the tracts 
 on the British Church, which have been pul)lished 
 by Dr. Bui-gess. The writers who enforce this as 
 a fact add another equally difficult of proof — that 
 the first foundation of our great national Chiirch 
 took place in honour of this saint during the time 
 he sojourned on the island. It is scai'cely neces- 
 sary to observe that these points arc disbelieved by 
 modern authors. But though nothing certain can 
 be affirmed of them, it is clear, upon many dif- 
 ferent heads of evidence, that the church was iu ex- 
 istence during the rule of the ancient Britons, and 
 was an archiepiscopal see in the second century. 
 There is a papal bull upon record, issued by Pope 
 Gregory to Augustine, which directs that the arch- 
 bishop of London " shall be hereafter consecrated 
 of his own synod, and receive his pall of tiie holy 
 see." Bede also informs us, that the bishops of 
 London and York had e((ual rank. His words are, 
 " Between the bishops of London and York let this 
 be the difference, that he be the highest who is 
 the first ordained." The degree of faith to be 
 placed upon the many stories related of the pri- 
 mitive foundation of St. Paul's may bo inferred 
 from the fact that Sir Christopher Wren was only 
 able to cojijccture that it was first built upon the site 
 of a pr.'etorian camp, established by the Romans, 
 and reduced to ruins during the pei'secution of 
 Dioclesian, in the third century. 
 
 Ujion the ruins of that edifice another structure 
 was raised, a-s the same architect conjectures, in 
 the reign of Constantino the Great. But the re- 
 lapses into paganism were frequent, and the main- 
 tenance of the Christian Church feeble and pre- 
 carious until the reign of Seljert over tli(^ Ivistern 
 .Saxons. Confirmed by the imacliiiig of Augustine, 
 the new faith then ol)tained numi'rous believers, 
 the monarch himself being an ardent promoter of 
 its cultivation. Historically speaking, the csta- 
 blishnxnt of Christianity and St. I'anl'H (.'athedral 
 are luld to have takc^n their rise from these ])ro- 
 cfodings iu the year G04 *. Scbert gave tlio Bishop 
 
 • Diife'dalc, History of St. Pa\il's, p. 2. Kd. 1818, hpcakH 
 
 Mellitus ecclesiastical authority over all his own 
 dominions, which are supposed to have extended 
 no further than the present diocese of Loudon. 
 Ethelbert, to whom Sebcrt was viceroy, fully ap- 
 proved of the creation of this new jurisdiction, and 
 presented to the bishop of London and monastery 
 of St. Paul's the manor of Tillingham, in Essex, 
 which it still retains, and 3000 acres of marsli 
 
 of an introduction of Christianity in the year 185. Sir II. 
 Palfjrave, in his History of England (Anglo-Saxon period), 
 printed in Murray's Family Library, will be held to come 
 nearer the positive truth in the followinj? passajies: — 
 
 " Sebert, the king of the East Saxons, was the nephew of 
 Ethelbert, being the son of his sister Ricola, and the Chris- 
 tian missionaries therefore obtained an easy access into his 
 dominions. London was still noted for its opulence ; its 
 fame was diffused far and w ide ; and the city was the resort 
 of merchants from all parts of the world. I say, slill, be- 
 cause it had been equally pre-eminent in the Roman times. 
 And the great confusion conscfiuent upon the Saxon con- 
 quest had scarcely injured the prosperity of London, which 
 has continutd increasing from the time of the Romans till 
 the present day. 
 
 " Loiulon was quite unlike the great metropolis which we 
 now inhabit. Its extent was confined to what is now 
 termed ' the city,' then surrounded by a wall, built, as it is 
 supposed, about the age of Constantine, and of w hich a few- 
 fragments are existing. All around was oi)en oountrj-. 
 Towards the north-east a deep marsh — the name is yet 
 l)reserved in Moorlields— extended to tlie foot of the Roman 
 ramparts. On the western side of the city, and at the dis- 
 tance of nearly two miles, the branches of a small river 
 which fell into the 'Ihanios formed an island, so overgrown 
 with thickets and brushwood, that the Saxons called it 
 Tliurney, or the ' Isle of Thorns." The river surrounding 
 Tlujrney crept sullenly along the plashysoil; and the spot 
 was so wild and desolate, that it is described as a fearful ami 
 terrible place, which no one could approach after night-fall 
 without great d;inger. In this island there had been an 
 ancient Roman temple, consecrated to Apollo. And Sebert, 
 perhaps on account of the seclusion which Tborney all'orded, 
 resolved to build a church on the site, and he dedicated the 
 fabric to St. I'eter the Apostle. This church is iu)w West- 
 minster Abbey ; the busy city of Westminster is old Thonu'y 
 Island, that seat of desolation ; and the bones of Selurt yet 
 rest ill the structure which he founded. Another great 
 church was built by Sebert, in the city of London, upon the 
 ruins of the heathen temple of Diana. This chinch U now 
 St. I'aul's Cathedral; and Mellitus being appointed the first 
 biMhop by Ethelbert and Sebert, the succession hascoiitimicd 
 to the present day." ♦ 
 
 r.
 
 ST. PAUL'S CATHEDRAL. 
 
 land, situate north of the walls of the city, but no 
 longer possessed by the church. 
 
 With the life of Sebei't, however, the progress of 
 Christianity also stopped : the people rose against 
 the monks, expelled Mellitus, and again restored 
 the church to the celebi'ation of idolatrous rites. 
 Thirty-eight years had thus passed in apostasy, 
 wlien St. Chad conseci-ated it anew, but was un- 
 able to conciliate followers enough to support liiin 
 in retaining possession of it. After a short but 
 perilous episcopacy he was forced to retire with 
 thirty monks into Northumberland, and there 
 one only of the emigrant band escaped the mor- 
 tality of a violent pestilence which depopulated the 
 province. For some length of time after this 
 calamity it would seem that the East Saxons 
 were without any preachers ; and the next notice 
 we have of their retm-n is when Wulpher, king of 
 Mercia, compelled the district to become tributary 
 to his power, and sent missionaries to convert the 
 inhabitants. Bede relates this event, and adds, 
 that it was happily brought about : the instructors, 
 according to him, were received with comfort, and 
 the people returned to the faith with much joy. 
 The name of the fourth bisliop of London has 
 been honourably preserved. He was called Erkon- 
 wold, and rendered many effective benefits to the 
 religion he professed and the church which he 
 governed. He obtained from the pope a confirma- 
 tion of the various privileges it had formerly ac- 
 quired, and added many endowments to its reve- 
 nues. These services elevated him to a rank 
 among the saints of the English Church ; but the 
 sudden fame of the see fell away after his death, 
 which occurred in the year C86. East Saxony 
 became incorporated with Mercia, the dignity of 
 London declined, and the only particulars related 
 of St. Paul's, during two centuries, is comprised in 
 a barren list of the names of those who filled the 
 see. 
 
 Athelstan, grandson of Alfred the Great, who was 
 the first to make London the seat of government, 
 restored St. Paul's to its foi'mer state, and liberally 
 provided for its future independence. Encouraged 
 by his patronage, the monks here made the first 
 translation of the Scriptures into the Saxon tongvie, 
 and also opened the first school for the study of 
 Greek that was ever taught in the kingdom. 
 
 The next superior over the diocese was Dunstan, 
 the saint of that name, who makes so conspicuous 
 a figure in English history, both as a statesman 
 and a prelate. His administration was long and 
 vigorous : he added as well to the privileges as to 
 the possessions of the church ; and when he died, 
 in 988, the glory of St. Paul's, to use the em- 
 phatic words of the old chronicles, died with him. 
 The only honour it derived from the reign of 
 Ethelred IL was the burial of that monarch in the 
 vaults. The city which had rendered him most 
 essential aid during the vexations of life received 
 the care of his corpse in the quiet of death ; after 
 which his son Edmond was crowned over his grave. 
 It was to the pious attention of the monastery of 
 St. Paul's that the conversion of Canute, the Dane, 
 was attributed ; and the warrior monarch showed 
 his sense of the benefit by the favours he bestowed 
 upon the clergy and the grants he conferred upon 
 the cathedral. The post of dean of St. Paul's was 
 first instituted during his reign, and by him en- 
 dowed with a revenue for the support of its dig- 
 
 nity. Canute's residence was near the church, 
 and extended down to the banks of the Thames : 
 the ground now covered by Castle Baynard Ward 
 was the demesne of his palace. Edward the Con- 
 fessor is next recorded among the royal benefac- 
 tors of St. Paul's : but the celebrity of his patron- 
 age to this edifice is far eclipsed by the splendid 
 woi'ks he erected in the monastery of St. Peter, on 
 Thorney Island, wliich is now universally known 
 as Westminster Abbey. 
 
 A fire laid the city, and with it the cathedral, 
 in ruins in the year 1088. Mauritius, then bishop 
 of London, soon commenced the work of rebuild- 
 ing it upon a scale of greater extent, and in a 
 style of higher magnificence. The labour was con- 
 tinued with laudable spirit by Richard de Bei- 
 mels, the succeeding bishoji, who, besides devoting 
 the whole of his ecclesiastical revenues, after the 
 example of Mauritius, to the completion of this 
 stately project, also found means to lay the first 
 establishment of the grammar school, which has 
 existed with such prosperity down to the present 
 day. To him it was that Henry I. conceded the 
 I'oyal tower south of the church in order to increase 
 the materials for the work. Diff"erent opinions have 
 been expressed by antiquaries as to what tower or 
 palace it was that was thus presented. Some have 
 confounded it with the Palatinate Tower, near the 
 river Fleet, on the ground of which the Fleet 
 prison stood ; others have erroneously supposed it 
 to have been the Bell Tower, in Cheapside : but 
 the fact is, that the gift consisted of the ruins of 
 the palace, supposed to have been built by Athel- 
 stan, and which had been inhabited, as already 
 mentioned, by Canute, the Dane. Exclusive of 
 this donation from the sovereign, the contributions 
 from private individuals, " to God and the church 
 of St. Paul," were numerous and considerable. 
 The consequence of all this ardour on the part of 
 the bishop, and piety on the side of his flock, was 
 the production of the Gothic ffibric, which is so 
 minutely described and eminently commended in 
 the antiquarian writings of Dugdale, Hollar, and 
 others, — a fabric which not only exceeded in beau- 
 ties, but surpassed in every circumstance of riches 
 and state, any thing before known in the capital of 
 England. The space around was enlarged and 
 extended over a considerable portion of ground, 
 which has since been built upon. Its boundaries 
 were Paternoster-row and Ave-Maria-lane on the 
 one side ; Old Change, Carter-lane, and Creed-lane 
 on the other. The space thus formed was enclosed 
 with suitable residences for the various dignitai'ies 
 and dependants upon the cathedral. 
 
 From this period, St. Paul's became distinguished 
 for the charitable support it gave to the poor and the 
 sick, for the numbers educated within its studious 
 precincts, and the hospitality and learning that cha- 
 racterized its inmates. Indeed, the services formerly 
 rendered to society by the monasteries established 
 under the Benedictine order, were in most respects 
 equal, and in some other superior, to the advantages 
 which are now derived from our more popular 
 imiversities. The amazing wealth which St. Paul's 
 must then have been possessed of, may be conjec- 
 tured from the various officers attached to its mul- 
 tiplied foundations. At fii'st it was governed by a 
 bishop, fifty canons, or prebendaries, and twelve 
 minor canons. As the monastery grew in public 
 estimation, different priests were drawn off' from
 
 HISTORICAL SKETCH. 
 
 the parent fount, to preach holiness and inculcate 
 learning at other places ; fifty more canons were 
 created to supply the labours of this draft. The 
 body consisted exclusively of clerks or priests, 
 whose duties consisted in dischai'ginn; the ministe- 
 rial services of the different altars and confessionals 
 of the cathedral in rotation ; consoling the sick, 
 and distributing charity ; teaching in the grammar- 
 school, as well as instructing the poor in the cathe- 
 dral ; ti-anscribing the most ap]n-oved works upon 
 religious matters, from foreign languages ; collect- 
 insr amongst themselves the revenues of their 
 church, and superintending the distribution of 
 them. Superadded to these cares was the edu- 
 cation of the choristei's, and the young men in- 
 tended for the ministry of the Gospel. 
 
 The first creation of the office of dean has already 
 been recounted ; the change was demanded by 
 the increased duties imposed upon the attention 
 of the bishop, as his diocese iDecame populous, 
 and the affairs of the cathedral grew in num- 
 ber and importance. Next to the dean in point 
 of precedence is the precentor, or chanter ; his 
 duty originally lay in the instruction of the singers, 
 and the regulation of the choral service of the 
 cathedral. After him comes the chancellor, who 
 was formerly required to read lectures in divinity, 
 provide a grammar-master for the choristers, and 
 serve the chapter upon all occasions of public 
 business, in the capacity of secretary. This officer 
 is still retained, though his original functions have 
 long ceased to be exercised. The treasui-er is the 
 last of those who are styled the dignitaries of the 
 cathedral : the nature of his duties is clearly indi- 
 cated by his name. 
 
 The archdeaconries ai'e five in number, and take 
 their names from London, Middlesex, Essex, Col- 
 chester, and St. Alban's. For each of these, except 
 St. Alban's, there is an appropriate stall in the 
 clioir. The major canons, or prebendai'ies, are 
 still as numerous as ever ; though the duties re- 
 quii-ed from them are all reduccrl in a great degree, 
 and many wholly abolished. Formerly they were 
 obliged to reside in the church close, and led a 
 regular monastic life, according to the rules of 
 the Benedictine order. But in jjrojiortion as the 
 landed possessions conferred u])on them became 
 more extensive, a pastoral residence njjon these 
 different properties was assigned to the greater 
 part of them ; and thus by degrees they were 
 excluded from any share in the direct revenues, 
 which became confined to those only who continued 
 to perform the ministerial duties of the church. 
 For some time, the number of resident canons was 
 unfixed, and consequently variable : since the lie- 
 formation, they have been limited to four, inclu- 
 ding the dean, who take tin; ta.sk of reading the 
 service, preaching, and residing on the si)ot, in 
 monthly turns between them. The other twenty- 
 six prebendaries have nothing to do but to per- 
 forni service once ui)on their induction, and deliver 
 two sermons in the course of the year : even this 
 latter duty is often discharged by yntxy. 
 
 The minor canons, twelve in number, are said to 
 have been attached to the primitive foundation. 
 They were constituted a body coriioratc within 
 themselves, under the denf)mination of the Warden 
 and College of iMinor Canons of the (!:itliedr;il 
 Church of St. I'aul, by the unfortunate llieliard 
 II., who bestowed iqion tlieni a gift of lands, in- 
 
 ilependent of the general property of their own 
 church, and the common usage of the period. 
 Henry VI. added the rectory of St. Gregory's 
 church, near St. Paul's, to their patronage. When 
 a vacancy occurs in their college, they elect two 
 candidates themselves, one of whom the dean and 
 chapter are bound to approve of. The qualifi- 
 cations commonly required for the situation ai"e, 
 besides the understood attainments of a clerk, a 
 good voice and a knowledge of music. After the 
 minor canons are placed the vicai-s choral : con- 
 trai'y to the old custom, these are now all laymen. 
 The organist generally is one of them ; and the 
 almoner another. The latter officer assumes his 
 style from the almonry, better known in olden 
 times as St. Paul's hospital, a charitable institution 
 of infinite public service, which was founded in the 
 twelfth century, but in our days is perverted from 
 its original use, to serve as a school for the educa- 
 tion of the choral boys to the cathedral. 
 
 If what has hithei'to been related of the his- 
 tory of St. Paul's lias been i)roperly expressed 
 in the language of praise and admiration, what is 
 left to be told cannot be conveyed in too severe 
 terms of reprobation and soitow. The pillage of 
 every ecclesiastical foundation in the kingdom by 
 Henry VIII. has been often described, and is 
 sufficiently known ; it is, therefore, enough to state 
 hei'e, that St. Paul's suffered greatly in the uni- 
 versal robbery. It suft'ered greatly from the bar- 
 barous fury with which hatred of popery impelled 
 the rabble of England to mutilate their churches 
 and cathedrals in the reigns of Edward VI. 
 and Elizabeth. In the time of Cromwell it was 
 still more scandalously desecrated. Horse-soldiers 
 were then quartered in it, and the portico filled 
 with sempstresses' shops. Thus invaded, destitute 
 of all resources and every means of support, it 
 gradually declined into a state of utter ruin. What 
 the neglect of man thus hurried on to decay, an 
 accident soon precipitated into the last stage of 
 destruction. On the night of Saturday, September 
 the 2d, ICGG, a fire broke out near the spot on 
 which the monument now stands, in Fish-street, 
 and spread with irresistible rage and rapidity over 
 the devoted city. The fiames, wraiq'ing every 
 thing with fire, proceeded on in two great volumes, 
 of which the one consumed Cheapsido, and the 
 other all that stood before it between Watling- 
 street and the river. On the Monday evening, 
 this double tide of destruction joined in St. Paul'.s 
 church-yard, and having darted oVer on the roof, 
 soon reduced to ashes all that was combustible in 
 the venerable jiile. 
 
 Fire had nmre than once proved a fatal enemy 
 to old St. Paul's. One broke out on Candleiiiius 
 Eve, 1444, which did so much damage that it was 
 not entirely repaired until I4(;2. In l.'il)! the vane 
 was set on fire by lightning, and the steeple burned. 
 The u])per roof of the aisles was bo extensively 
 injure(l on this occasion, that a public subscrip- 
 tion was ojieiied to restore it. The work jiroceeded 
 .so actively, that in \:>('>V> all the timber fr.-inios 
 of the roiif (they were put together in ^'orkshire, 
 and transported to i^ondon liy sea) wi'ri- finished 
 and leaded. Put tile steeple, says Dngdale, was 
 let alone. In other respects the Imildiiig was inneh 
 neglected. At length King .James, in !(!•_'(», went 
 in soleiini procession to tlii^ cathedral, and took 
 active measures to |Mit it into a state berilliiig a 
 II 2
 
 ST. PAUL'S CATHEDRAL. 
 
 place of worship. A commission of noblemen, 
 ecclesiastics, and citizens, including amongst them 
 the celebrated Liigo Jones, was issned for the pur- 
 pose, and a public subscription set on foot, in the 
 midst of which James died. But the connnission 
 was renewed, and the subscription continued under 
 Charles I., who rebuilt, at his own charge, a por- 
 tico, magnificent and stately, say the chroniclers, 
 but certainly, though the work of Liigo Jones, not 
 in the best taste, being formed of Corinthian pil- 
 lars attached to a Gothic church. Lidependently 
 of the cost of this structure, 126,604/., being the 
 total receipts of the public subscription, were now 
 spent upon the cathedral. The outlay was con- 
 sidered to have put it in a state of finished repair, 
 with the exception of the steeple, to which nothing 
 was done, as it was intended to rebuild it. Writers 
 say that the architectural effect of the whole was 
 now much improved. This may have been the 
 case, and yet it must have been far from good : for 
 although the Gothic style was preserved through- 
 out the interior, externally two orders of architec- 
 ture were confounded together. Eastward all was 
 Gothic ; westward, and at the north and south por- 
 ticos, were Grecian pillars. In the one half were 
 the old pointed arch windows, and in the other a 
 lieavy round-headed Italian window. Such was 
 old St. Paul's. 
 
 The massy walls, the work of years, and which had 
 endured for ages, stood after the great fire, above 
 the universal wreck, awful and sublime. Much 
 doubt and consideration now ensued, in order to de- 
 teinnine what best could be done with tliis range of 
 grand ruin, which covered a space of gi'ound nearly 
 equal to three acres and a half. Several ineffectual 
 attempts to repair were made ; at last commission- 
 ers were appointed to report upon the subject, and, 
 fortunately for posterity, they agreed m recom- 
 mending a new building. The work was confided 
 to Sir Christoj)her Wren, and the present edifice 
 affords the best proof that can be oifered of the 
 excellence of the choice made upon that memorable 
 occasion. The first stone of the new cathedral 
 was laid June 21, 1675, during the reign of Charles 
 II., and the choir was opened for divine service 
 on the day of thanksgiving for the peace of Rys- 
 wick, December 2, 1697- So commendable an in- 
 stance of public spirit and personal ability cannot be 
 too often referred to as an example to other days. 
 St. Peter's at Rome, which is the only compeer in 
 the world with the metropolitan church of Great 
 Britain, occupied 145 years in building, and twelve 
 successive architects were required to complete it : 
 St. Paul's was finished in forty years, under the 
 presidency of one bishop of London, and the direc- 
 tion of one architect. The parliamentary grants for 
 this purpose were increased by a tax levied on all 
 coals imported into London, and still further en- 
 larged by the contributions of private individuals. 
 This liberality amply redeemed the promises held 
 out in the instructions given to the architect at the 
 commencement of his labours, and which enjoined 
 him to frame a design handsome and noble, suit- 
 able to all the ends of religion, to the expectations 
 of the city, and the reputation of the country at 
 large ; and to take it for granted that money would 
 be provided to accomplish the purpose. The 
 whole expense of the building, according to the 
 estimate in Sir H. Ellis's edition of Dugdale's St. 
 Paul's, amounted to 736,752/. 2s. 3hi. 
 
 The present edifice of St. Paul's is a rich and 
 tasteful specimen of Grecian architecture, and the 
 only English cathedral built in the same style. 
 According to the prevalent models of such build- 
 ings, it is in the shape of a cross, and divided, 
 according to the established plan, into aisles and a 
 nave. The extreme length is 500 feet, and the 
 greatest breadth, which is from north to south, 
 along the proper transept, 250 feet. The length 
 of tlie choir is 165 feet, and its breadth, in the 
 middle aisle, 40 feet. The length of the nave and 
 aisles is 107 feet ; and the height, from the pave- 
 ment in the street to the top of the cross, is 404 
 feet. Internally the height from the floor to the 
 dome is 356 feet. The ground plot occupies a 
 space equal to 2 acres, 16 perches, and 70 feet. 
 This area is situated in the wards of Castle Bay- 
 nard and Farringdon Within, and in the parishes 
 of St. Gregory and St. Faith. The burial-ground 
 is elevated above the street, and surrounded by a 
 stately balustrade of cast iron, with each palisade 
 5 feet 6 inches in height, fi-om the forge of Lam- 
 berhurst, in Kent. 
 
 Before the front portico, which faces tlie west, 
 stands a statue of Queen Anne, in whose reign this 
 splendid building was finished. At the base of the 
 figure are allegorical personifications of her differ- 
 ent dominions — Great Britain, Ireland, France, and 
 America. This group was the work of Francis 
 Bird, a man of considerable repute in his time. 
 For this work, no small portion of which was sup- 
 plied by the hands of a later artist, to fill up the 
 breaches of time and accident. Bird received 1180/. 
 The arcade of St. Paul's is generally preferred to 
 that of St. Peter's, as being at once simpler, nobler, 
 and more consistently effective. It is composed of 
 a double elevation of porticos * ; the first of twelve 
 pillars in the Coi'inthian, the second of eight, in the 
 Composite order, which are crowned with a trian- 
 gular pediment. Upon the entablature is worked 
 the story of St. Paul's conversion, by Bird, and on 
 the apex of the pediment rises a statue of the same 
 apostle. St. Peter is recognised by the attendant 
 cock to the right, and on the left stands St. James 
 in the habit of a pilgrim. These statues are each 
 11 feet in height. It may be as well here to 
 admit, that the only sound objections made to this 
 front condemn the form of the campanile turrets 
 which flank the sides ; and perhaps the inverted 
 segments thus distinguished are not altogether ac- 
 cordant with the more simple outlines which con- 
 stitute the charm of all classical buildings in the 
 Grecian or Roman style. 
 
 The transepts are entered by semicircular por- 
 ticos, with the royal arms supported in the hands 
 of angels, engraved upon the entablature of that 
 one to the ncn-th, and a phoenix rising from flames 
 on the entablature of the southern portico. This 
 phoenix is the work of Gabriel Cibber, the father 
 of CoUey Cibber the comic -author and actor. 
 Beneath appears the emphatical word, litsurgam — 
 " I shall arise," which is the motto of the cathe- 
 dral, as the phoenix is its crest. The choice is 
 
 * Wren's original idea was better still : in that but one 
 order of architecture is used, and a single range of pillars 
 ninety feet high There is no room to doubt the superiorily 
 of this design in chasteness and majesty. The difficulty of 
 procuring stone of a sutlicient size for such pillars is as- 
 signed as the cause of its being abandoned.
 
 HISTORICAL SKETCH, 
 
 said to have been made from the followinrr circum- 
 stance : one day as Sir Christopher Wren was 
 marking out the foundations of the t];roat dome, a 
 hibourer was desired to carry a stone from a heap 
 of adjoining inibbish, and lay it down as a mark for 
 the workmen. It happened to be the fragment of 
 an old tomb-stone, upon which one only word of 
 the epitaph remained visible, and that word lie- 
 surijam, which was populai-ly accepted as an omen 
 of the undertaking. 
 
 The dome intersects the cross, and is supported 
 in majestic simplicity by four massive piers, each 
 forty feet Sfjuare. Externally it is environed with 
 an admirable colonnade, terminated by a lantern 
 and globe, surmounted by a cross. The diameter of 
 this globe is six feet, and it is capable of contain- 
 ing six persons : the cross is in height six feet. 
 The best view of the church is obtained under the 
 cupola, which was painted by Sir James Thornhill, 
 who has been pronounced by his admirers the best 
 historical painter this country can boast. The 
 design records the principal features in the life of 
 the Apostle to whom the fabric stands dedicated. 
 His miraculous conversion near Damascus, accord- 
 ing to Acts chap, ix., is first delineated ; then, his 
 address before Sergius Paulus, and the judgment 
 of Elymas, Acts cliap. xiii. ; next, the conversion 
 of tiie jailor of Philippi, chap, xiv., which is jire- 
 ceded by the sacrifice at Lystra, in the same 
 chapter. After these he is represented preaching 
 to the Athenians, as in chap. xvii. ; the Ephesians 
 burning their magical books follows, chap. xix. ; 
 his defence before Agrippa, chap, xxiv., and his 
 shipwreck, near Melita, chap, xxvii., conclude the 
 series. 
 
 This long descripticm is the more necessary as 
 time and dust have greatly dulled the beauties of 
 this noble work : already the plaster is peeling off; 
 and unless some pains be quickly taken to pre- 
 serve it, a trace of it, ere long, will not be visible. 
 Painting in fresco seems to be gaining friends in 
 England ; a strong desire is expressed in favour of 
 its introduction in the new houses of parliament. 
 The public, perhaps, would be induced to take a 
 greater interest than it has done in the subject, if 
 more care had been taken of the few specimens 
 of the art which we happen to possess already. 
 There is an anecdote of powerful interest told of 
 Sir James Thornhill, while painting this cupola. 
 One day, while at work, a friend stood talkuig to 
 him on the scaffold, which, though broad, was not 
 railed in. He had just given the last touch to the 
 liead of one of the a|iostles, and retreating hastily, 
 as is the custom with artists, to observe the effect, 
 had actually reached backwards tlie last step of 
 I tlie scatf'olding, when the gentleman, ol)serving his 
 danger, snatched up a brush and hastily bedaubed 
 the wliole figure. " Heavens !' exclaimed the 
 astonished artist, advancing as quickly as ho liad 
 retired ; " what have you done ?" — " Saved your 
 life," replied his comiiaiiion, describing at the same 
 time the position in which ThornJiill had been 
 standing. 
 
 Amongst the works of art in the cathcdi-al, it 
 were unjiardonable to omit a notice of the lieauti- 
 ful sini])licity of the clock-work, and the fine tone 
 of the great bell. Both arc of ingenious construc- 
 tion : the dial-plate of the clock, small as it ap- 
 penrs from the street beNnv, Is fifty-seven feet in 
 circumference, and has its minute-hand eight feet 
 
 in length. The weight of the bell is 11,474 lbs. ; it 
 strikes the hours ; is heard at a distance of twenty 
 miles, and is only tolled to announce the death of 
 the king, tlie lord mayor, the bishop of London, or 
 a member of the royal family. Neither are the 
 u"on gates on entering the choir and dividing the 
 aisles to be passed by without notice ; the work- 
 manship on them will be found exquisitely fine, 
 and highly deserving of pi'aise. 
 
 Near the altar stands the episcopal throne, sur- 
 mounted by a mitre, and relieved by carved fes- 
 toons of fruit and flowei-s. It is only occupied on 
 occasions of great solemnity ; the more usual seat 
 for the bishop of the diocese may be recognised by 
 the carved pelican sucked by its young, and the 
 mitre upon it. Opposite is the lord mayor's seat, 
 marked by the city sword and mace : the dean's 
 stall is covered by a canopy UTider the choir, and 
 may be distinguished by festoons of fruit and 
 flowers. The contiguous scats arc reserved for 
 the canons residentiary ; while the other clerks, 
 choristers, and officei's, have appropriate places, 
 railed with brass, on either side of the choir. 
 
 There ai'e two meetings of singuUir intei-est and 
 benevolence licld yearly in St. Paul's Cathedral. 
 The first, which usually takes place in the month 
 of May, is for the benefit of the charitable founda- 
 tion, situated in St. John's Wood, near the Regent's 
 Park, for the relief of the widows and orphans of 
 such clergymen of the established Church as may 
 have died in distressed circumstances. \J\wn this 
 day the .service is attended by all the objects of 
 the charity, and preceded by a miscellaneous con- 
 cert of saei'ed music, selected from the composi- 
 tions of Handel, Hoycc, and others. To give 
 greater eff'eet to this performance, the three choirs 
 of St. Paul's, Westminster Abbey, and the Chajiel 
 Royal attend gratuitously. The stewards, who 
 regulate the ceremony, are generally headed by 
 the lord mayor of the year, some members of 
 the royal family, the judges, and the highest 
 civil as well as ecclesiastical dignitaries. The 
 concourse of visitors is highly respectable and 
 numerous, and the only terms requisite for ad- 
 mission are a contribution to the funds of the 
 chai-ity. The second is even more popular and 
 attractive ; it occurs generally in the month of 
 June, and is held for the purpose of collecting 
 together all the children educated in the parochial 
 schools of the metropolis, to oifer up to Heaven 
 then- grateful devotions for the blessings they re- 
 ceive on earth. Upon this day they art' all newly 
 clad ; the number assembled amounts, on most 
 occasions, to ten thousand : and the sight is one of 
 the most impi'cssivc that can be witnessed, as tlie 
 benefit is one of the most creditable that can bo 
 conferred. 
 
 Of the monuments, some of which form principal 
 featin-es of attraction in St. Paul's, it is eii(iui;li to 
 state here tliat their intniduelinn was ri'sisted for 
 a length of time by Itishop Osbaldistoii, who was 
 violently opposed to the plan. The first erected 
 was that to Howard, in 1791 ; the second to Dr. 
 Jolmson. On the former occasion a salutary rule 
 was niaili', that no monument should be erected 
 before the design had been approved by u coni- 
 niiltee of Royal Aca<leniicians. The object of this 
 ])rovision is to ensun; good liiste and kee|iiMg in 
 the stylo and characlir of the works set up. 
 Separate notices of iheni are gin'U in the lives of
 
 « 
 
 ST. PAUL'S CATHEDRAL. 
 
 the persons to whom they have been erected. 
 The greater number have been raised at the public 
 expense. The prices paid for each are particuhir- 
 ized in a parUameutary return, dated Feb. 0, 1838. 
 
 £. 
 
 1. Lord Rodney G300 
 
 2. General Lord Heathfield 2100 
 
 3. Earl Howe 6300 
 
 4. Major-General Duudas 3150 
 
 5. Captain Faulknei-, r. n 4200 
 
 6. Earl St. Vincent 2100 
 
 7. Lord Duncan 2100 
 
 8. Captain Burges, r. n 5250 
 
 9. Captain Westcott, r. n 4200 
 
 10. Captains Mosse and Riou, r.n 4200 
 
 11. Sir Ralph Abercrombie 6300 
 
 12. Lord Nelson 6300 
 
 13. Lord Collingwood 4200 
 
 1 4. Captain CooUe, r. n 1575 
 
 15. Captain Dutf, r.n 1575 
 
 16. Captain Hai'dinge, r. n 1575 
 
 17- Major- Generals Mackenzie and Lang- 
 worth 2100 
 
 18. Lieuteuant-General Sir John Moore , . 4200 
 
 19. Marquis Cornwallis 6300 
 
 20. Major-General Houghton £1575 
 
 21. Lieutenant-Colonel Sir William Myers.. 1575 
 
 22. Major-General Bowes 1 375 
 
 23. Major-General Le Marchant 1575 
 
 24. Major- Generals Crauford and Mackinuon 2100 
 
 25. Major-General Sir Isaac Brock 1575 
 
 26. Colonel Cadogan 1575 
 
 27. Major-General Hay 1575 
 
 28. Major- Generals Gore and Skerrett 2100 
 
 29. Major-General Gillespie 1575 
 
 30. Major-General Ross 1575 
 
 31. Lieutenant- General Sir Thomas Pieton. 3150 
 
 32. Major-General Sir William Ponsonby .. 3150 
 
 33. Major-Generals Pakenham and Gibbs .. 2100 
 
 Aggregate amount. ..... £100,800 
 
 Having thus given an account of the history 
 and a slight description of the cathedral, we pro- 
 ceed to sketch, according to the order of time, the 
 lives of the more eminent persons buried or com- 
 memorated within its walls. A list of deans, pre- 
 bendaries, and other officials, continued fi'om the 
 edition of Dugdale in 1818, by Sir H. Ellis, will be 
 found m the Appendix. 
 
 BIOGRAPHICAL ILLUSTRATIONS. 
 
 DEAN COLET. 
 
 In the crypt of the cathedral, amongst a few relics 
 of the old building destroyed by the great fire, is 
 a bust, which formed part of the monument of 
 John Colet, dean of St. Paul's, and founder of St. 
 Paul's school, a man who has many claims upon 
 the gi-ateful regard of the citizens of London and 
 the dignitaries of the establishment, of which he 
 was a distinguished ornament and liberal benefac- 
 tor. He was the eldest son of Sir Henry Colet, 
 who was twice lord mayor of London, and the 
 father of twenty-one children besides the subject 
 of this sketch. Singular to state, his mother sur- 
 vived the whole of this numerous progeny. Colet 
 was born in London in the year 1466, and early 
 destined for the Church. He completed his studies 
 at Magdalen college, Oxford, and then travelled in 
 France and Italy, where his theological attainments 
 are said to have been greatly respected. Settling 
 at Oxford, after his return from the Continent, he 
 read public lectures, and became intimate with 
 Erasmus, who was then residing at that university. 
 The acquaintance thus commenced was continued 
 in a correspondence with that celebrated foreigner, 
 in which much of the history of Colet's life, and 
 all the particulars that are now known of his cha- 
 racter, are to be sought. He seems to have been a 
 man of a vei'y hap])y temperament, — sanguine, high- 
 spirited, quick, sensitive, and gay, — one who could 
 relish the pleasures of life without excess in enjoy- 
 ing them, and was not insensiljle to the attractions 
 of some in which he never permitted himself to in- 
 dulge. " Virginitatis florem ad mortem usque ser- 
 vavit," says Erasmus. In 1493 he was admitted 
 prebendary of York, and in 1502 of Salisbury. 
 Three years after he was promoted, without any 
 
 solicitation upon his part, to the deanei-y of St. 
 Paul's. In this office he attained great distinction. 
 He discharged the pastoral duties connected with 
 it in an exemplary manner that commanded gene- 
 ral admiration, husbanded the property of the 
 chapter with honest care, and drew a concourse of 
 eminent divines and scholars, amongst whom was 
 Erasmus, to hear his lectures. His learning, zeal, 
 and abilities are specially commended by that emi- 
 nent scholar. 
 
 While thus actively engaged he conceived the 
 noble plan of founding a grammar-school near the 
 cathedral, and he had the satisfaction of living to 
 witness the completion of that liberal undertaking. 
 It cost him 4500/. He made the celebrated W. 
 Lilly the grammarian, first master, and vested the 
 government of the establishment in the Mercers' 
 Company, to which his father belonged. Notwith- 
 standing this generous labour, he was obnoxious to 
 the clergy. The friend of Erasmus met with per- 
 secution instead of support in his efforts to reform 
 the abuses of the Church and improve the appli- 
 cation of its revenues. Soon after his school 
 opened, his health began to decline. He suffered 
 tlu'ee attacks of a prevailing epidemic, the sweat- 
 ing sickness, which supermduced a languor and 
 feebleness that terminated in consumption. Find- 
 ing himself no longer equal to the active duties of 
 his office, he looked around for some suitable place 
 of retreat, and fixed upon the Carthusian monas- 
 tery at Sheen, as being more silent and solitary 
 than any other in England. There he lingered 
 four months, and died September 16, 1519. He 
 was buried in the cathedral, where his mother, 
 aged and decrepit, suf)erlntended his obsequies.
 
 DEAN COLET.— JOHN DONNE, D.D. 
 
 Several of Dean Colet's works have been pub- 
 lished, as the hitroduction to Lilii Ihtdhnenta Gram- 
 matkes, 8vo, Antwerp, 1535 ; Era^mi Libillusdc Octo 
 Orat'ionh Partium Construdtonc, 8vo, Antwerp, 1535 ; 
 Oratio ad Cleritm in Conrocatione, 1511; Daily Dcro- 
 tious ; a TriiBtftil Admonition to a <]ood Life ; Epistohv 
 ad Erasmum. The sermons wliic-h are said to have 
 attracted so many eminent auditors were never 
 published ; nor were any portions of them ever 
 known to exist. The dean was a man of natural 
 eloquence, and preached extemporaneously and 
 ■without notes. Tlie memory of this i-ipe scholar 
 and generous Christian seems to have been eijually 
 neglected by the city of London, the dignitaries of 
 the cathedi'al, ftie Mercei's' Company, who are the 
 trustees of the estate, and the many persons who 
 have stood indebted for a classical education to the 
 
 noble charity he founded. l$y none of these has 
 his monument, destroyed with the old cathedral, 
 been repaired ; no statue to his memory graces 
 the cathedral in which tributes to so many less 
 meritorious cliaracters apj>ear ; and his damaged 
 bust, that escaped the great tire, is placed in the 
 crypt, as if to conceal as nuich as jiossible fmni 
 observation so palpable a proof of the ingi-atitude 
 which men who devote life and fortune to the pub- 
 lic good so often meet with from those who have 
 most profited by their numiticence. One pei-son 
 only seems to have paid due honour to his bene- 
 factor, — Dr. Knight, prebendary of Ely, wlio wrote 
 a life of Dean Colet in 1724. A plate of his tomb 
 is preserved in Dugdale's St. Paul's, consisting of 
 his bust, placed over a full length skeleton, between 
 columns oi-namentcd with death's heads. 
 
 JOHN DONNE, D.D. 
 
 In the east window of the present crypt are the 
 remains of a monument in old St. Paul's to Dr. 
 Donne, who was dean of the cathedral. Of this 
 piece of statuary, which represents the dean wrap- 
 pod in his winding-sheet, and standing in an urn, 
 the merits deserve a far better fate than it has of 
 late years received ; and tlie history, appropriately 
 quaint, is this : — Some time before Donne's death, 
 his friend Dr. Fox prevailed upon him to design a 
 monument, and write an epitaph for his own grave. 
 Assenting to the proposal, he sent for a painter, 
 and directed him to paint a picture, from which 
 the existing performance was modelled. The dean, 
 we ai"e told, sat, or rather stood, for the picture, — 
 his feet in a clay urn, and his person wrapped in a 
 sheet. This was a philosophical proceeding, and 
 the manner in which the project became realized 
 wa.s appropriately singular. After the dean's death, 
 a hundred marks were anonymously forwarded to 
 his executors, with a desire that they would cause 
 a faithful model of the painting to be erected in 
 the cathedi'al. To this unconnnon instance of 
 modest generosity (his friend, Dr. Fox, was after- 
 wards known to be the donor) we arc indebted for 
 an image, which, according to the prophecy of Sir 
 Henry Wotton, posterity shall look ujion as a living 
 miracle, — an honour which might certainly be at- 
 tained, were the dean and chapter of the cathedral 
 to renovate the statue, and give it a ]j!acu among 
 the more modern ornaments of the building. Ac- 
 cording to Lord Orford, it was carved by Nicholas 
 Stone, and cost 120/. Donne's epita]ih, remarkable 
 for a characteristic play upon words, was this : — 
 
 *JoiiANNKS Donne, 
 
 Sac. Theologiie Professor, 
 
 Post variis studiis quibus ab aimis tenerrimis 
 
 Fideliter nee infcliciter incubuit ; 
 
 Instinctu ct impulsu Sp. Sancti, monitu et hortatu 
 
 ltegi.s Jacob!, Ordijies Sacros amplexus 
 
 • John Donke, 
 
 Professor of .Satred 'Dieolopry, 
 
 After various studies, to wlilcli from his tendercst years 
 
 He applied faithfully and not infelicitously, 
 
 Kinl)raciiiK lioly orders, 
 
 At tlie inspiration and iinpiilse of llie Holy Ghost, and the 
 
 advice and exhortation of King James, 
 
 Anno sui Jesus 1614, et sure {Etatis 42 ; 
 
 Decanatu hujus Ecclesiaj indutus 27 Novembris, 
 
 1C21, 
 
 Exutus morte, ultimo die Martii, 1631 ; 
 
 Hie licet in occiduo cinere aspicit Eum 
 
 Cujus nonien est Oriens. 
 
 Jolin Donne was born at London, in the year 
 1573. His father was a merchant in good trade, 
 and his mother claimed affinity with the families 
 of Sir Thomas More and Judge Rastal. The first 
 instruction he received was from a private tutor, 
 under whom his advancement was so rajiid, that 
 he was removed to Hart Hall, Oxford, in his 
 eleventh year. There he studied the sciences with 
 the same success that had before rendered his pro- 
 ficiency in th-eek, Latin, and French, consjjicuous : 
 he was already regai-ded as a literary prodigy, and 
 was adjudged fully qualified for a degree at the 
 end of three years. But his j)arents, who were 
 Catholics, entertained scrujtles about the college 
 oath, and he declined the honour. Proceeding, 
 however, to Cambridge, he contintied liis studies, 
 though excluded from all reward, until tin' year 
 15y(», when the death of his father put him in 
 possession of 3(KK)/. By his mother's advice, he 
 now proposed to i'ollow the profession of a barris- 
 ter in Lincoln's Inn. Great pains were taken to 
 secure liis attachment to the religion of his family: 
 his mother is represented to have used all tlic 
 tender arts of devotional atlVetion, in order to im- 
 j>lant in his mind a tluiruugh disreliNh of Protest- 
 antism, and a proper conviction of the glory his 
 predecessors had obtained by sutlVring persecution 
 for the Catholic faith. These jiious cares, how- 
 ever, were all fruitless : young Donne resolved to 
 judge for himself, and, in the result, renounced the 
 religion of his parents, and declared himself a 
 Protestant. 
 
 I'rged by a desire to travel, lie accom]i!inii'd the 
 Earl <if Essex on the i-xpedition against Caili/. and 
 the Azores, in 1596, and upon the issue of the 
 
 In the year of his Jesus Ifill, and of his aj^e ■12, 
 Was invested with tlie Deanery of this t'hurrh November 27, 
 
 l(i21, 
 
 But divested of it by death on the last day of March, 1631 ; 
 
 And her<', though in falling nslics, he looks up 
 
 'J'o II ill) whose name is UihinK-
 
 ST. PAUL'S CATHEDRAL. 
 
 affair spent some years in journeying through 
 Spain and Italy. Upon his return to England, he 
 became secretary to Lord Ellesmere, who subse- 
 quently rose to be chancellor, and fell in love with 
 Miss More, niece to his lordship's wife. The 
 maiden had no sooner shown a return of this par- 
 tiality, than her friends interfered to mar the 
 match ; but vows of passion too ardent to be cooled 
 by fi'owus or interdicticjns had been interchanged ; 
 the lovers maintained a secret correspondence, and 
 ultimately contracted a private marriage. This 
 was a step taken in smiles, but retraced in tears : 
 the lady's father. Sir George More, then lieutenant 
 of the Tower, was so incensed, that he forced his 
 daughter home, and had Donne cast into prison, 
 where he amused himself by scribbling doggrel on 
 the walls, beginning, " John Donne, Anne Domie, 
 undone." 
 
 Being liberated on bail, he still found himself 
 pursued by the displeasure of his father-in-law, 
 who prevailed upon Lord Ellesmere to dismiss 
 him from his secretaryship, — a misfortune in some 
 degree softened by a compliment which accom- 
 panied it, that " he was fitter to be secretai'y to a 
 king than a chancellor." By this time his own 
 fortune was exhausted, nevertheless lie recovered 
 possession of his wife by an expensive lawsuit, 
 and found his reputation as a scholar stand well 
 in lieu of a more substantial independence. Sir 
 Francis Woolley invited him to his residence at 
 Pitford, in Surrey, and there entertained him for 
 years with honourable courtesy. Upon that knight's 
 death, he removed to Croydon, and then to Miteh- 
 am, but afterwards settled in a house in Drury- 
 lane, which was pi'esented to him rent-free by Sir 
 Robert Drury. By this time the interposition of 
 mutual friends had so far conciliated Sir George 
 More's anger, that he gave his blessing to the 
 match, and after a while endeavoured to restore 
 Donne to his secretaryship under Lord Ellesmere. 
 The application, however, was unsuccessful, his 
 lordship observing, that " he was sorry for what 
 he had done, but it stood not with his credit to 
 discharge and re-admit servants at the request of 
 passionate petitioners." Sir George made some 
 amends for his former conduct, by giving Donne 
 a bond for 800^., with a condition of paying him 
 20/. quarterly, imtil the principal was discharged. 
 
 Donne was now fully established in the rank of 
 a man of letters : his ac(iuaintance was cultivated 
 by the learned of different nations, and his society 
 courted by the highest in his own country. During 
 the year ItilO, he became a master of arts in the 
 university of Oxford, and in 1612 went to Paris, 
 as an attendant upon our ambassador, his patron. 
 Sir Robert Drury. When he came home, great 
 exertions were made to induce the king to confer 
 some civil appointment upon him, but James not 
 inaptly declared, that a sound scholar must make 
 a good divine, and he therefore desired that Donne 
 should enter into holy orders. James did not hold 
 this language without good grounds ; for Donne 
 had shown his aptitude for controversial theology, 
 by drawing up, at his majesty's c<mimand, a 
 treatise upon the pending controversy between the 
 Catholics and Protestants, concerning the oath of 
 allegiance and supremacy, which was printed in 
 1710, under the title of the Pseudo-Martyr. James, 
 with his usual precipitation, would have had him 
 ordained forthwith, but Donne requested and ob- 
 
 tained three years for the study of textual divinity 
 and Hebrew. At the end of that period he was 
 made king's chaplain, and travelled in a royal 
 progress to Camljridge, where the university ho- 
 noured him with the degree of doctor in divinity. 
 During this year he had the misfortune to lose his 
 wife, a lady who had borne him twelve children, of 
 whom only seven were then living, and who had 
 rendered herself so dear to him, that he promised, 
 at her death-bed, never to subject her offspring to 
 the control of a stepmother, a pledge which he 
 faithfully observed. 
 
 His celebrity as a preacher had now grown so 
 eminent, that no less than fourteen advowsons were 
 offered to him in the country, but a partiality for 
 London induced him to accept only the lectureship 
 at Lincoln's Inn. From the duties of this situation 
 he was called away in 1G19 to accomjiany Hay, 
 Earl of Doncaster, on an embassy to the German 
 princes, in favour of James's son-in-law, the 
 ejected Palsgrave of Bohemia. Fourteen months 
 after his return, he was appomted dean of St. Paul's, 
 in the room of Dr. Cary, promoted to the bishop- 
 ric of Windsor, and was about the same time in- 
 ducted into the vicarage of St. Dunstan in the 
 West, and a minor benefice. His first act upon 
 this acquisition of fortune was to repair, at his own 
 cost, the private chapel attached to the deanery, 
 and the second to return his father-in-law the bond 
 for 800?. already mentioned, adding, " It is enough : 
 you have been kind to me and my children, and I 
 bless God I am provided for : — therefore will I 
 receive no more." 
 
 Donne was in his fiftieth year when he became 
 dean, and in four years after he was seized with a 
 spotted fever, which ended in a cough, and so 
 wasted his frame, tliat an immediate consumption 
 was apprehended. Amidst the dangers of this 
 illness, he solaced himself with the composition of 
 a book of devotional prayers upon emergent occa- 
 sions, which has been much praised for purity and 
 fervour. There is a hymn preserved, which he 
 wrote under this affiiction, and which presents so 
 easy a specimen of his versification, that it is here 
 inserted :-^ 
 
 A HYMN TO GOD THE FATHER. 
 
 " Wilt ttiou forgive that sin when I begun, 
 
 Wliich was my sin, though it were done before ? 
 Wilt though forgive that sin through which I run, 
 And do run still, though still I do deplore ? 
 When thou hast done, thou hast not done, 
 For I have more. 
 
 " Wilt thou forgive that sin which I have won 
 Others to sin, and made my sin their door? 
 Wilt thou forgive that sin which t did shun 
 A year or two, hut wallowed in a score? 
 
 WHien thou hast done, thou hast not done, 
 For I have more. 
 
 " I have a sin of fear, that when I've spun 
 
 My last thread, I shall perish on the shore ; 
 But swear by thyself, that at my death thy Son 
 Shall shine as he shines now and heretofore : 
 And having done that, thou hast done, 
 I fear no more." 
 
 Fi'om this attack, however, he recovered, and 
 lived on for five years with good health and pious 
 study : but in KiSO he was again seized by a fever, 
 while on a visit to his daughter, Mrs. Harvey, at
 
 JOHN DONNE, D.D. 
 
 Aubrey-Hatch, in Essex, fi\)m wliich ho arose in a 
 confirmed consumption. AVhilc in this reduced 
 state, he returned to Lou(h>n, and preached his 
 Lent sermon lu rotation, notwithstanding the earn- 
 est deprecation of his friends. After struggling 
 through tlie deUvery with a virtuous cnei-gy he 
 was immediately removed to his bed, where a con- 
 finement of fifteen days termuuited his existence 
 on the 3Ist of March, "lG30. There is a little dis- 
 course given hy an old biographer, which he pro- 
 nounced upon his death-bed, and it is here ex- 
 tracted, because it contains an exemplary abstract 
 of the character of his life : — " 1 am not sad," he 
 observed to an anxious friend, " but in a serious 
 contemplation of the mercies of my God to me ; 
 and now I plainly see it was his hand that pre- 
 vented me from all temporal employment. And I 
 see it was his will that I should never settle nor 
 thrive until I entered into tlie ministry, in which I 
 liave now almost lived twenty jears, I hope to his 
 glory ; and ])y which, as I most humbly thank him, 
 1 have been enabled to requite most of those 
 friends that showed me kindness when my fortunes 
 were low. And, as it hatli occasioned the ex])res- 
 sion of my gratitude, 1 thank God most of them 
 have stood in need of my requital. I have been 
 useful and comfortable to my good father-in-law, 
 Sir George More, whose patience God hath been 
 pleased to exercise by many temporal crosses. I 
 have maintained my own mother, whom it hath 
 pleased God, after a very plentiful fortune in her 
 former times, to bring to a great decay in her very 
 old age. I have quieted the consciences of many 
 that groaned under the burden of a wounded 
 spirit ; whose pi-ayers, I trust, are available for 
 me. I cannot plead uinocency of life, especially of 
 my youth ; but I am to be j udgcd by a merciful 
 God, who hath given me, even at this time, some 
 testimonies, by his Holy Spirit, that 1 am of the 
 mmiber of the elect. I am full of joy, and sliall 
 die in peace." He was buried in St. Paul's cathe- 
 dral, and his funeral was attended hy a numerous 
 and honourable train of the nobility and gentry, 
 his friends and admirers. An idea of the respect 
 in which his memory was regarded may be ga- 
 thered from the pleasant fact, that, long after his 
 death, a custom prevailed of decorating his grave 
 with curious and costly flowers. 
 
 Dr. Donne was an author equally esteemed both 
 m prose and verse ; for a time he was chiefly re- 
 membered as a poet, but latterly his prose works 
 have again come into notice. His reputation as a 
 l)uet has liecn principally preserved through the me- 
 dium of Pope's softened, but not improved, version 
 of two of his satires, in which strong sense and la- 
 boured wit are prominent. He is more particularly 
 entitled to notice as bebig the father of that school 
 of poetry which Cowley urged to its highest popu- 
 larity, and which has been somewhat speciously 
 distinguished as " the quaint," — a term by which 
 those who cultivated it understood a fancy for asso- 
 ciating w'.jrds in a collisiciu of disconlant imagery, 
 contnusting literal meanings and general idioms, 
 and presenting an idea in its most remote and 
 capricious bearings. In this antiquated style, 
 Donne exhibits much of the ingenuity and most 
 of the faults of his school -fellows : stern in thought, 
 hard of expression, and compact in imaning, he 
 lias all tin; gross robustness peculiar to priniilive 
 strength, but is somewhat less wild, tlioii-h quite 
 
 as racy, in his conceits as any one of his imi- 
 tators. 
 
 One extract must suffice for an elucidation of 
 this character. It is t:ikcn from the fourth siitire, 
 which opens with an account of his having been so 
 silly as to go to court, where he met with a tiuvcl- 
 lerj whom he thus richly describes : — 
 
 " Therefore I sufTer'd this : — Towards me did run 
 
 A thing more strange, than on Nile's slime the sun 
 
 E'er bred, or all wliich into Noah's ark e'er came : 
 
 A thing which would have posed Adam to name. 
 
 Stranger than seven antiquaries' studies, 
 
 Than Afric monsters, Guinea's rarities. 
 
 Stranger than strangers : one who, for a Dane, 
 
 In the Dane's massacre had sure been slain, 
 
 If he had lived then ; and without help dies. 
 
 When next tlie 'prentices 'gainst strangers rise; 
 
 One whom the watch at noon scarce lets go by : 
 
 One to whom the examining justice sure would cry, 
 
 'Sir, by your priesthood, tell me what ye are?' 
 
 His clothes were strange, though coarse, and black, thouyh 
 
 hare, 
 Sleeveless his jerkin was, and it had been 
 Velvet, but 'twas now (so much ground was seen) 
 Become tutf-taifety, and our children shall 
 See it plain rash awhile, then nought at all. 
 
 The thing hath travell'd, and, faith, speaks all tongues, 
 And only knoweth what to all states belongs; 
 Made of the accents, and best phrase of all these. 
 He speaks one language. If strange meats displease, 
 Art can deceive, or hunger force my taste ; 
 But pedant's motley tongue, soldier's bombast. 
 Mountebank's drug tongue, nor the terms of law. 
 Are strong enough preparatives to draw 
 Me to bear this ; yet must I be content 
 With this tongue, in his tongue called compliment ; 
 In which he can win widows, and pay scores. 
 Make men speak treason, cozen subtlest whoies, 
 Outtlatter favourites, or outlie either 
 Jovius or Surius, or both together. 
 
 He names me, and comes to me; I whisper, ' G 
 How have I sinn'd that thy wrath's furious rod. 
 This fellow chooseth me ! ' He saith, ' Sir, 
 I love your judgment;— whom do you prefer 
 For the best linguist ?' and I seelily 
 Said that I thought Calpine's Diction.iry. 
 ' Nay, but of men, sweet Sir .'' Beza, then, 
 Some Jesuits, and two reverend men 
 Of our two academies, I named. Here 
 He stopp'd me. and said, ' Nay, your apostles were 
 Good pretty linguists, so Panurgus was ; 
 Yet a poor gentleman : all these may pass 
 By travel.' Then, as if he would have sold his tongue, 
 He praised it, and such wonders told. 
 That I was fain to say, ' If you had lived. Sir, 
 Time enough to have been interpreter 
 To Babel's bricklayers, sure the tower had stood.' 
 
 He adds, ' If of court life you knew the good, 
 Vou would leave (oneness. ' I said, ' Not alone 
 My loneness is ; but Spartan's fashion 
 To teach by painting drunkards doth not last ; 
 Now, Aretine's pictures have made few chaste ; 
 No more can princes' courts (though there be few 
 Better pictures of vice) teach me virtue," &c. &c. 
 
 In Latin, Donne wrote verse with greater purity 
 
 and elegance; as a jiroof of which liis liu'tiliratiniis 
 in that language were cullccted in UiiJlJ, iiinlcr the 
 title of Fto^ciruliis I'ucmntum ft i'phiraiitinatuui M ix- 
 nl/uiiriinim. In jirose he is often spoken of for 
 his lihahtiiintos, iiii elaborate treatise of subtleties 
 upon the paradox which declares that "suicidi'is 
 not .so n;iturally a bin, but that it may be other-
 
 10 
 
 ST. PAUL'S CATHEDRAL. 
 
 wise." This performance Donne is said to have 
 been in the habit of enomicing as the resultance of 
 fourteen hundred authors, all analyzed with his 
 own hand. An edition of his essays in divinity, 
 " Sermons," to the number of six score, &c. &c. 
 was published after his death, in 3 vols, folio. He 
 is also i-eported to have kept from his youth a 
 diary, in Latin and English, of every remarkable 
 circumstance which happened during his lifetime 
 either abi-oad or at home. This compilation, how- 
 ever, has never been printed ; and the loss of it is 
 much to be regretted. One cannot imagme it to 
 have been any thing but highly quaint and ori- 
 ginal. 
 
 Dryden, who calls Donne the greatest wit, but 
 not the greatest poet of our country, was the first 
 author of celebrity who praised him distinctly and 
 highly. This was done in the dedication of his 
 Jurenal to the Earl of Dorset, where he observes, 
 with a singular admixture of sound criticism and 
 abject flattery : — " Donne alone, of all our coun- 
 trymen, had yom* talents, but was not happy 
 enough to aiTive at your versification : and were 
 he translated into English numbers, he would yet 
 be wanting in the dignity of expression. You 
 equal Donne in the variety, multiplicity, and choice 
 of thoughts : you excel him in the manner and the 
 words. I read you both with the same admii-atiou, 
 
 but not with the same delight. He affects the 
 metaphysics, not only in his satires, but in his 
 amorous verses, where nature alone should reign ; 
 and perplexes tlie minds of the fair sex with nice 
 speculations of philosophy, when he should engage 
 their hearts, and entertain them with the softness 
 of love." 
 
 That far-famed angler, Isaac Walton, wrote a 
 life of Dr. Donne, and gave the following eulogy 
 of his character : — " His fancy was inimitably high, 
 equalled only by his great wit, both being made 
 useful by a commanding judgment ; his aspect was 
 cheerful, and such as gave a silent testimony of a 
 clear knowing soul, and of a conscience at peace 
 with itself : his melting eye showed he had a soft 
 heart full of noble compassion ; of too brave a soul 
 to suffer injuries, and too much a Clu-istiau not to 
 pardon them in others." 
 
 An edition of Donne's works, by the Rev. H. 
 Alford, appeared in 1839, which, though in six 
 volumes, is imperfect. Sermons are omitted " from 
 the great difficulty of procuring them :" some poems 
 are "pruned," and others suppressed, "to avoid 
 the strange jumble of subjects in the old edition." 
 No less than five distinct prose works are enume- 
 rated in the preface as not included in this edition, 
 the title of which, notwithstanding, is. The Works 
 of Dr. Donne. 
 
 SIR CHRISTOPHER WREN. 
 
 The architect of St. Paul's lies aj)propriately in- 
 terred in the crypt of that cathedral. His epitaph 
 there, a composition distinguished by its brevity, 
 truth, simplicity, and eflf'ect, has also been inscribed 
 over the entrance to the choir, as the more con- 
 spicuous situation : — 
 
 Subdus conditur hujns Ecclesite et Urbis 
 
 Conditor, Christopiierus Wren, qui vixit 
 
 Annos ultra nouaginta, non sibi, sed 
 
 Bono jmblico. Lector, si monumentum requiris, 
 
 Ch'cumspice. 
 
 Obiit XXV. Feb. iEtatis xci 
 
 An. MDCcxxiii. 
 
 Below, built in, lies the Builder of this Church 
 
 and City, Christopher Wren, who lived 
 
 More than ninety years, not for himself, 
 
 But the public good. Readei", if you seek his 
 
 monument. 
 
 Look around. 
 
 He died on the 25th of February, in the 91st year 
 
 of his age. 
 
 And of our Lord the 1723rd. 
 
 How natural, elevated, just, and instructive are 
 the reflections we are led to make after reading 
 these lines ! There are but few persons who can 
 wish the incidents of their private lives to be re- 
 corded : a great man desires to be known by his 
 works ; and one of inferior mind and mould will 
 generally have too many reasons to fear that the 
 more we enter into details respecting him, the 
 fewer will be found his claims to remembrance and 
 reputation. This is a principal source of that bar- 
 renness for which biography has generally been so 
 remarkable. Genius will always exclaim, in the 
 
 spirit of the poet Horace — " I have carved my 
 own monument ; behold it in my deeds ! I have 
 written my own epitaph ; go read it in my works." 
 Nor is there any panegyric more easily understood 
 than a direct and practical one like this. Whether 
 inscribed by the sword of the warrior, the author's 
 pen, or the painter's pencil ; whether by the chisel 
 of the statuary, or the trowel of the architect, it 
 comes readily and agreeably home to the best feel- 
 ings of the head and the heart. Biography thus 
 strictly measured would be a stern performance : 
 a very commendable resource has therefore been 
 thrown open, by which we are allowed to trace 
 the development of the fertile mind, and illustrate 
 the dignity of human actions, by detectmg and 
 dwellmg upon those personal traits and domestic 
 passages, which chequer and relieve the intensity 
 of higher and severer pursuits. The facilities at 
 command for the compilation of the present sketch 
 are, in this latter respect, far from numerous or 
 engaging ; but an illustrious subject must ever 
 recommend itself ; and the task is thus sm'c of 
 welcome. 
 
 This great architect was born at East Knowle, 
 Wilts, in 1G32. His father, Dr. Christopher Wren, 
 w-as rector of the parish, and dean of Windsor. 
 Young Wren was educated at Westmmster school, 
 and entered of Wadham college, Oxford, m 164fj. 
 At the early age of thirteen he had given an extra- 
 ordinary specimen of proficiency and talent, by the 
 invention of an astronomical instrument, and a 
 pneumatic machine, the former of which he form- 
 ally presented to his father, with a copy of Latin 
 verses " On the rise of rivers." Such promises of 
 future eminence naturally attracted the notice of
 
 SIR CHRISTOPHER WREN. 
 
 11 
 
 tlie principal heads of his univei-sity, and Wren 
 
 continued the exercise of his ingenuity under the 
 
 most encouratjin? circumstances. In 1C47 he wrote 
 
 . . . 
 
 a Treatbe on Splwrical Tr'hjonometry, after a new 
 
 method ; in IGoO took his degree of B.A. : in the 
 year after composed an algebraical tract on the 
 Julian period, and in 16'53 took the degree of M.A. 
 upon his election to a fellowship in All Souls' col- 
 lege. The astronomical professorship of Gresham 
 college being offered to him in 1657, he signalized 
 himself so eminently in that chair by the solution 
 of various difficult problems, and the discovery of 
 many new modes of practice, that he was chosen 
 Savilian professor of astronomy at Oxford, and 
 created doctor of laws, in 1661. 
 
 Such were the distinctions to which Wren had 
 attained in one science, before he attached himself 
 to those pui-suits which have made him famous. 
 His skill in architectm'e recommended him to the 
 notice of Charles II. ; and when Sir John Denliam 
 became surveyor-general of the royal works, Wren 
 was appointed to assist him. An offer was soon 
 after made him, and upon very luci-ative terms, to 
 cross over into Africa, and superintend the fortifi- 
 cations ordered for the security of Tangiers ; but 
 he declined the journey on account of his health. 
 Notwithstanding this, his desire of emplo\Tnent at 
 home was favourably considered ; and when the 
 letters patent for repau-ing St. Paul's passed the 
 great seal in 1665, he was made a commissioner, 
 and obtained the direction of the proposed works. 
 It was also in this j'ear that, upon the constitution 
 of the Royal Society, he was chosen a fellow, and 
 made the drawings which illustrate Dr. Willis's 
 Anatomy of tJie Brain. In 1665 he took a tour on 
 the continent, for the purpose of improving himself 
 in architecture ; but, unfortunately, proceeded no 
 further than France on the route towards all that is 
 eminent in the art. His drawings for the repair of 
 old St. Paul's were still under the consideration of 
 government, when, in 1666, the great fire broke 
 out, and besides reducing fifty parochial churches, 
 and the greatest portion of the city to ruins, did 
 such serious damage to the cathedral, that nothing 
 less than a new building could be thought of. 
 
 In the following year the death of Sir John 
 Denham made room for his appointment to be 
 surveyor-general. Thenceforward he became not 
 only the first architect in the country, but indeed 
 almost the only one to whom the erection of any 
 public works was entrusted. He had the honour 
 of being required to plan a suitable design for re- 
 building the whole city, which was laid before the 
 king and parliament ; and sensible was the regret 
 felt at that jieriod, as well as ever since, that the 
 many obstacles presented by the rights of ))rivate 
 proi>crty prevented that splendid product of inven- 
 tion from being can-ied into execution. The resig- 
 nation of his Savilian jirofessorship was a necessary 
 consequence of the many public employments now 
 heaped upon him. Above these, the re-odification 
 of St. Paul's rises the most conspicuous, for which 
 the models were at last apjtrovod, after many cleri- 
 cal difficulties and alterations, and the aliaiiddniuent 
 of tin; first outline, during this year. This magni- 
 ficent pile and chief ornament of the metropolis 
 was commenced witli signal pomp and vigour, and 
 comj)leted Ijy its matchless architect within tlie term 
 of fifty-five years. I'n.-vious to the foundation of 
 the first stone in 1675, Wren was created a kniglit. 
 
 Of all existing religious monuments in the Greek 
 and Roman styles, St. Paul's, of London, is gene- 
 rally estimated second only to St. Petei-'s, at Rome, 
 while there have been some who have preferred it 
 to that most sumptuous temple of the Christian 
 Church. St. Peter's rose out of the wealth of the 
 Catholic world, occupied the time and talents of 
 twelve diflferent architects, and was 145 years in a 
 course of completion. Wren alone, and unaided, 
 finished St. Paul's in much less than a fifth pai't of 
 that period. Concerning the many critical com- 
 parisons whicli have been made of parts and the 
 whole of these two great edifices, it would require 
 a volume to treat. The more evident and sum- 
 mary distinctions between them are, that the facade 
 of St. Paul's is considered far more consistent and 
 complete than that of St. Peter's : the same ob- 
 servation extends to the domes ; ours of St. Paul's 
 is simple, graceful, and unique ; that of St. Peter's 
 is heavy, broken by wmdows, and incongruous. 
 In every variety of dimension, length, breadth, and 
 elevation, St. Peter's excels : in valuable statuai'y, 
 splendid mausoleums, and internal riches, in gems, 
 pictures, bronze, and marble, the Roman clmrcli 
 puts all comparison with the Protestant out of the 
 question. St. Peter's is the cluf-d' centre of the 
 more ancient and more gorgeous church ; St. 
 Paul's the masterpiece of the reformed and less 
 symbolical religion. 
 
 But the wondrous labours, inseparable from the 
 building of St. Paul's, were far from the only occu- 
 pations which at this memorable period were en- 
 trusted to the capacity of Sir Christopher Wren. 
 He rebuilt almost all the parochial churches of 
 London ; of which St. Stephen's, Walbrook, has 
 been the most praised, and St. Bride's is the most 
 harmonious performance. The compliment paid 
 to the former church by the celebrated Earl of 
 Burlington is tinily signal. That nobleman him- 
 self, no mean judge of architectui'e, pronounced it 
 the finest model of Wren's versatile aliility ; and 
 held it to be at least equal, if not superior, to any 
 thing extant even in classical Italy. The London 
 monument is another beautiful erection, in direct 
 memory of the event which, fortunately for the 
 architect, led to all these improvements. With 
 this no person of taste can find a fault, unless it be 
 in the shameful falsehoods which were put into the 
 inscription upon it. 
 
 Nor were the immediate precincts of the city of 
 London the only sphere of Wren's exertions : the 
 theatre at Oxford ; the library of Trinity college, 
 Cambridge ; a great part of the hosjjital at Green- 
 wich, and the whole of that at Chelsea ; and the 
 gi-eat belfry of Christ's church, Oxf(U-d, are all the 
 fruits of his industry. A just trit)ute was paid to 
 liis scientific excellence in KifJO, wlien the Royal 
 Society unanimously elected him their president. 
 His ])rofcssiunal trusts also continued to increase. 
 In I6!f;j he was appointed architect and commis- 
 sioner of Chelsea Hospital ; in 1684 lie was made 
 comptroller of Windsor Castle ; and in HJ98 was 
 chosen surv<'yor-genei'al and commissioner for the 
 repair of Westminster Abbey. But his rejiutation 
 advanced still f'ui'ther in situations of jiersonal 
 credit and i>ub]ic distinction, for he was for many 
 years a member of the Ihiuse of Commons. He 
 sat for Plym)>ton, the birthplace of Reynolds, in 
 the first parliament of James II., and for Wey- 
 mouth in the sixth of William III. The duties of
 
 12 
 
 ST. PAUL'S CATHEDRAL. 
 
 this station he performed in an unexceptionable 
 manner, until an act of the ministry, in the year 
 I7I8, disgraceful to themselves, and discreditable 
 to the country, induced him to retire from public 
 life. He was then summarily dismissed from his 
 situation of surveyor-general, upon a mere matter 
 of party, at the venerable age of 86 years. For five 
 yeai's longer life was spared to him. It was spent 
 in retirement, relieved by scientilic pursuits and the 
 study of the Scriptures ; until a cold, caught in 
 coming from Hampton Court, which he built, to 
 London, put a period to days unexampled for na- 
 tional services in the month of February, 1723. 
 Wren is said to have indulged a very pardonable act 
 of proud regard for his great work, by causing him- 
 self to be conveyed to St. Paul s once every year, 
 when he was most particular in siu'veying every 
 part of the edifice. His intei-ment, as is some- 
 times, though not always, the case with great men 
 who have been unmeritedly injured and wantonly 
 neglected, was in every respect suitable to the dig- 
 nity of his reputation. The grave was sunk in the 
 south transept of the crypt of the cathedral, where 
 a plain stone tomb covers his remains. 
 
 The spot is supposed to be that on which the 
 high altar of the old structure stood, and the stone 
 is thus inscribed : — 
 
 ^^/^ 
 
 Here lieth 
 
 Sir Christopher Wren, Knight, 
 
 The Builder of the Cathedral Church of 
 
 St. Paul, 
 
 Who died 
 
 In the year of our Lord 
 
 MDCC'XXIII. 
 
 And of his age xci. 
 
 Sir Christopher Wren was happy in the promi- 
 nent circumstances of his life. Of his rank as an 
 author in science, no other estimate need be quoted 
 than that of Sir Isaac Newton, who distincuishes 
 hmi as one of the chief princes of mathematics 
 during the age in which he lived. His moral cha- 
 racter was equal to the excellence of his mind : 
 equanimity in temper, sobriety in habit, modesty 
 in the development of his talents, and piety in liis 
 principles, made his life satisfactory to himself and 
 estimable to his contemporaries. He lived at a 
 period which afforded a scope and employment for 
 the exercise of his art, not only unprecedented in 
 the history of his country, but since his time with- 
 out a parallel ; and he proved himself highly worthy 
 of this peculiar good fortune. Sir Christopher 
 Wi-en has always been, and still is, placed at the 
 head of the list of English architects. He is one 
 of the few men of that profession in England who 
 have produced works which will bear to be com- 
 pared with the best buildings on the Continent. 
 St. Paul's is the test of his excellence. In reli- 
 gious edifices of the Grecian and Roman styles no 
 man has displayed an ability equally varied, beau- 
 tiful, and ingenious. In his towers, steeples, and 
 spires these qualities are peculiarly observable ; 
 and his judgment cannot be better evidenced than 
 by remarking the many gross and heavy anomalies 
 which disfigure the works of his successors, and 
 were so cautiously avoided in all his productions. 
 No one has effected so much, and but few indeed 
 have produced any thmg better. In Gothic and also 
 in domestic architecture he is thought to have failed. 
 A large collection of his drawings and designs was 
 purchased after his death by his college. All Souls', 
 and are honourably deposited in its library, where 
 a good bust of him has been placed as a tribute to 
 the greatness of his memory 
 
 WILLIAM BOYCE, Mus. Doc. 
 
 William Boyce, a Doctor and eminent composer 
 of Music, was born in London, April 7, 1710. His 
 father was keeper of the Joiners' Hall, in Upper 
 Thames-street) and in that house the young mu- 
 sician first saw light. The father's interest with 
 the members of his Company procured for the son 
 an education in St. Paul's school, at about the 
 same period that an excellent voice introduced 
 him to the choir of the cathedral, where he received 
 the first instructions connected with his future 
 profession from Charles King, the Bachelor in Music. 
 Losing his soprano voice at the usual age, he 
 was apprenticed to Dr. Greene, organist to the 
 cathedral, a man in every respect well worthy of 
 such a trust, although almost all the writei's of 
 Boyce's life have been careful to say, that the 
 master was extremely jealous of liis pupil's abili- 
 ties. Dr. Greene's feelings were shown at his 
 death, when he bequeathed all his manuscripts to 
 his scholar, and particularly entrusted to him the 
 scores for that fine edition of anthems which he 
 had long been preparing, and which now constitutes 
 the proudest monument of his talents. 
 
 Boyce lived with his father for many years 
 upon very happy terms, which are described as 
 combining the virtues of filial piety with the en- 
 dearing qualities of private friendship. 
 
 Before his apprenticeship expired, his hearing 
 began to fail him, and this defect was soon aggi'a- 
 vated into total deafness. An accident which 
 would liave damped the ardour of ordinary stu- 
 dents, in him only created new vigour. The priva- 
 tion of that sense by which all musical impressions 
 must be originally received, would appear fatal to 
 the attainment of excellence in the ai-t : but in his 
 case the eye was taught to act the part of the ear ; 
 and such was the powerful effect of habit, and the 
 force of genius, that he made the study purely 
 intellectual. Henceforward he obtained those ideas 
 vipon princiiile, which others derive in a great 
 measure from sound. Euler, the celebrated ma- 
 thematician, was blind, and many of the ancient 
 bards were also deprived of sight from the cradle ; 
 but there is no second instance preserved, of a 
 man who acquired a perfect mastery of an art 
 which appeals for its effects dirt^ctly to the ear.
 
 Vv'ILLIAM BOYCE, Mus. Doc. 
 
 13 
 
 while labouring under a tliorousih absence of audi- 
 tory sensation. Sueh were the circumstances 
 under which, in 1734, Boyce became one of five 
 competitors for the post of organist at St. Micliael's 
 church, Cornhill. He lost the election ; but suc- 
 ceeded during the same year in gaining a similar 
 place at the king's chapel, in Oxford, where he 
 continued to preside, until Kelway, who had been 
 preferred to liim at St. Jlichael's, removed to St. 
 Martin-in-the-tields, and he was voted into the 
 vacant seat without difficulty. This, too, was the 
 period at which he set DarhPs Lamentation over 
 Saul and Jonathan, for the Apollo Society, and was 
 appointed composer to the chapel royal. 
 
 In the year 17-13, Boyce produced his Screnata 
 of Solomon, a classical composition, remarkable for 
 original expression and polished sweetness. It 
 was long and deservedly a favourite. His next 
 publication consisted of Tiivlre Sonatas or Trios, for 
 two violins and a bass, which were caught up with 
 an avidity, and held popular to Jin extent unequal- 
 led in this country by any similar performances, 
 those of Corelli alone excepted. Although only 
 designed for chamber music, yet they were quickly 
 adopted at public concerts, were introduced into 
 the theatres, played at all the public gardens, and 
 retained in high favour for many years. His 
 popularity now caused him to be invited to com- 
 pose the music for The Chaplet, a drama by Men- 
 dez, and the Shepherd's Lottery, a di'amatic pas- 
 toral. Both pieces were held to contain some 
 of the sweetest and most characteristic melodies 
 by which the opera of the EngUsh stage had been 
 enriched. 
 
 In 17-19, the Duke of Newcastle, then prime 
 minister of England, was installed chancellor of 
 the university of Cambridge ; I\Iason wrote an ode 
 to celebrate the festivity, and Boyce set it to 
 music. His Grace, who enjoyed the reputation of 
 being Boyce's patron, upon grounds which have 
 not been well explained, rewarded the ])erformance 
 by getting the composer made a doctor in music. 
 Promotions of greater value took place as occasion 
 offered. In 1757, on the recommendation of the 
 Duke of Devonshire, he was nominated to dis- 
 charge his deceased tutor's functions as master of 
 the king's band ; during the next year, upon the 
 death of Travers, he became organist at the chapel 
 royal ; and in a short time after succeeded Weldon 
 as com])oser to his majesty. Three honourable 
 and lucrative posts, which before his time had 
 been awarded to different ni\isicians, were tlnjs 
 united in his person. The distinction only led to a 
 further multiplication of appointments. He was 
 made conductor of the annual music performed at 
 St. Paul's for the benefit of the Sons of the Clergy; 
 — an honorary situation, which Ik^ continued to fill 
 througlioiit the rcniaindir of his life with his usual 
 ability, and which lie has made nK'ni(»rable by the 
 composition of an admirable instrumental anthem. 
 
 to this year repeated upon every celebration of the 
 festivity. He was next created director of the 
 jierformances given at tlie triennial assemblage of 
 the choirs of Worcester, Hereford, and Gloucester 
 cathedrals ; and added to the interest of their 
 meetings, by producing for them many new pieces. 
 His reputation was now universal ; and he con- 
 firmed, at every opportunity, the justness of that 
 popularity which declared him a composer of su- 
 perior merit. 
 
 When Boyce married, he ceased to live with his 
 fiither, and took a residence in Chancery-lane, 
 from which, about 1752, he removed to Kensington 
 Gore. From the date of this last year, the gout, 
 to which he was constitutionally subject, repeatedly 
 attacked liini. As his years advanced, the acute- 
 ness of tlie disorder increased, and at length put a 
 period to his existence in the month of his nativity, 
 February, 1779- His body was interred with be- 
 coming solemnity in the crypt of St. Paul's, where 
 his grave may be recognised by a stone with the 
 following memorial : — 
 
 William Boyce, Mus. Doc. 
 
 Organist, Composer, 
 
 and 
 
 Master of the Band of Music, 
 
 to their Majesties 
 
 George II. and III. 
 
 Died February the 7tli, 1779, 
 
 Aged G9. 
 
 Happy in his compositions, 
 
 much happier 
 
 in a constant flow of harmony : 
 
 through every scene of life. 
 
 Relative or Domestic, 
 
 The Husband, Father, Friend 1 
 
 Dr. Boyce holds a high reputation among his 
 countrymen, and seems to have fully deserved the 
 consi<leration in which he is still held. His pieces 
 are numerous, and many of them excellent. His 
 principal work was his large publication of Church 
 Anthems, in 3 vols, folio. Next to this, in point of 
 size and merit, is his Lyra Britannica, a series of 
 miscellaneous songs, distinguished by strains of 
 pure melody and rich modulation. During liis 
 time the country was surfeited with imitations of 
 Handel. Boyce was one of the few conijiosc'rs, 
 who, conscious of their own merit, neither pirated 
 nor cojiied the great master of the day. Dr. Hur- 
 ncy observes of him, in his llistoruof M uiic, "There 
 is an original and sterling merit in his productions, 
 founded as much upon the study of our own old 
 masters, as on the best models of other countries, 
 that gives to all his works a peculiar stamji and 
 characU'r of his own, for strength, clearness, and 
 facility, without any mixture of styles or extra- 
 neous ornaments."
 
 14 
 
 ST. PAUL'S CATHEDRAL. 
 
 BISHOP NEWTON. 
 
 Close to Sir Christopher Wren's tomb is a flat 
 
 stone witli this inscription : — 
 
 In a vault 
 
 Beneath this stone 
 
 Are deposited the remains of 
 
 Thomas Newton, D.D. 
 
 Lord Bisliop of Bristol, 
 
 and 
 Dean of this Cathedral, 
 Who died Feb. 14, 17S2, 
 Aged 78. 
 The bishop thus plainly eommcmoi'ated ranked 
 high in the Church as a divine and theological 
 writer, and is also known by his works in general 
 literature. He was born at Lichfield, Jan. 1, 1704, 
 where his father was a wine and brandy mer- 
 chant. From the free school of his native town 
 he was sent, under the patronage of his fellow- 
 townsman, Bishop Smallridge, to Westminster 
 School in 1717, and thence to Trinity College, 
 Cambridge, of which he afterwards became a 
 fellow. He obtained the rectory of St. Mary-le- 
 Bow, London, in 1744, and the degree of D.D. in 
 1745. In 1749 he published an edition of Paradise 
 Lost, with Notes, and a Memoii* of Milton, and two 
 
 years afterwards edited Paradise Regained in the 
 same manner. His principal woi'k, and that which 
 most tended to give him a literary reputation and 
 church jireferment, was his Dissertations on the 
 Prophecies, which have been remarkably fulfilled, 
 and are at this time fulfilling in the world. This 
 work appeared in 1759, in 3 vols., 8vo, and has 
 gone through several editions. When it came out 
 he was a prebendary of Westminster ; he was 
 afterwards made precentor of York Minster, and 
 in I7GI raised to the see of Bristol. On this occa- 
 sion he resigned his other places in the Church, 
 taking, however, that of canon residentiary of St. 
 Paul's. The deanery of this cathedral falling 
 afterwards vacant, Dr. Newton obtained and held 
 it imtil his death. For several years before that 
 event took place he was disabled by ill health from 
 performing his duty in the pulpit, or even attend- 
 ing service in the church. During this time he 
 employed himself in revising his works for the 
 press, and writing an autobiography, which was 
 prefixed to them, in 3 vols. 4to. He left 500Z. by 
 his will for a monument in the cathedral, to which 
 the prejudices of Bishop Osbaldiston denied ad- 
 mission. 
 
 SAMUEL JOHNSON, LL.D. 
 
 Dr. Johnson's monument stands against the north- 
 east pier in St. Paul's cathedral. It is a single 
 statue, in an attitude of deep thought, chiselled with 
 strength and freedom, but no very pleasing effect. 
 The costume is Roman, and inappropriate. It was 
 erected in 1775 ; and is the work of John Bacon, 
 the sculptor, who received 1100 guineas for it. 
 Dr. PaiT wrote the Latin epitaph * : 
 
 t 
 
 Q. 
 
 Samueli Johnson, 
 
 Grammatico et Critico 
 
 Scriptorum. Anglicorum. Litterate. Perito, 
 
 Poetje. Luminibus. Sententiarum 
 
 Et. Ponderibus. Verborum. Admirabili, 
 
 Magisti'o. Virtutis. Gravissimo, 
 
 Homini. Optimo. Et. Singularis. Exempli, 
 
 Qui. Vixit. Ann. Lxxv. Mens. il. Dieb. xiiil. 
 
 * The following is a translation : 
 
 To Samuel Johnson, 
 
 A Grammarian and Critic 
 
 Learnedly read in the English authors, 
 
 A Poet admirable 
 
 For the brilliancy of his periods, and the weight of his words, 
 
 The gravest preceptor of virtue, 
 
 And a rare example of the best of men ; 
 
 Deeessit. Idib. Decembr. Ann. Christ. 
 
 cla. loc. Ixxxiiil. 
 
 Sepult. in Ah(!i. Sanct. Petr. Westmonastei-iens. 
 
 Xiil. Kal. Janvar. Ann. Christ, cla. locc. Ixxxv. 
 
 Amici. Et Sodales. Literarii 
 
 Pecunia. GonlAta 
 
 H. M. Faciend. Curaver. 
 
 Samuel Johnson was born September 7, 1709, 
 at Lichfield, in which place his father was a book- 
 seller of good character, who more than once 
 filled the duties of chief magistrate. At eight 
 years of age young Sam entered the grammar- 
 school of his native city, then taught by Mr. Hun- 
 ter, and at fifteen, after an interval spent under 
 the tuition of Cornelius Ford, a cousin and a minis- 
 ter, passed into Mr. Wentworth's academy, at 
 Stourbridge, for two years. Returning home, he 
 stopped with his father for two years, during which 
 he was so far initiated into business, that he made 
 a good-humoured boast, when an old man, of being 
 able to bind a book. It is related that the pro- 
 gress of his acquirements up to this period of his 
 
 Who lived 75 years, two months, and fourteen days, 
 
 Died on the Ides of December, in the year of Christ 17S4, 
 
 And was buried in the church of St. Peter, in Westminster, 
 
 On the 13th kalend of January, in the year of Christ 1785. 
 
 His friends and literary companions 
 
 By a pecuniary subscription 
 
 Provided the erection of this monument.
 
 SAMUEL JOHNSON, LL.D. 
 
 15 
 
 life was slow, but that his memory was retentive, 
 and his observation penoti-ating ; so that whatever 
 he undertook to aequii'e he mastered thoroujjhly. 
 
 In 1728, Mr. Corbet, a country gentleman of 
 fortune in the neighbourhood, sent the future critic 
 to Pembroke college, Oxford, as a companion for 
 his son : but an act which might have been a 
 valuable boon proved a source of deep personal 
 degradation. The fii-st discontent Johnson felt at 
 the university was p: ovoked by Mr. Jourden, the 
 tutor he was appointed to, a man of narrow mind 
 and poor information, — faults rendered still more 
 disagreeable by a bad temper. Detecting his defi- 
 ciencies, Johnson despised him as a superior, and, 
 upon being exposed to the sallies of his bile, retorted 
 with insolence. This impropitious state of things 
 was still further increased after the lapse of two years 
 by young Corbet's departure from the university, — 
 an event which subjected Johnson to much severer 
 trials, inasmuch as his pecuniary resources were 
 almost exclusively drawn from this friend, and 
 entirely ceased with his absence. There are few 
 examples of more injurious cruelty to be found in 
 life than w-here some quick impulse of ill-weighed 
 generosity excites a person of wealth to exalt a 
 youth from his natural sphere, because, at a first 
 view, it does not appear provided with those ad- 
 vantages which may be the best and most favour- 
 able for the development of his budding talents. 
 To effect any early improvement in the condition 
 of another person, without maturely considering 
 how the means are to come which will be called 
 for by the new and enlarged views, tastes, and 
 comforts he is sure to acquire, is a fatal piece of 
 irajirudence ; and when the strong appetite for 
 these things is confirmed, and a second nature 
 established, then to throw back the grieving object 
 of giddy patronage upon all the wants and vex- 
 ations of primitive poverty, rendered doubly gall- 
 ing by the transitory experience he has had of 
 better things, and the memory of brighter pro- 
 spects, is a social injury of the deepest character 
 — an act of moral assassination. Yet such was 
 the extremity to which Johnson was now reduced. 
 It was out of his father's power to make him any 
 thmg like a competent allowance for his support, 
 so that after struggling through another year, in 
 debt to his tutor, and so poor that he generally 
 lounged about with his feet worn through his shoes 
 and stockings, and his threadbare coat ripping into 
 pieces, he started from the seat of religion and 
 learning in all the recklessness of broken fortune, 
 and returned to the home from which he had been 
 so unfortunately diverted. 
 
 In 17.U his father died, and he inherited a sum 
 of 20/. In these straitened circumstances he 
 undertook the place of usher in the grannnar- 
 school at Market Bosworth, but was soon com- 
 pelled, by the insolence of the master, to throw it 
 u]) in disgust. About this juncture the invitation 
 of an old schoolfellow, Mr. Hector, who was prac- 
 tising as a surgeon at Birmingham, led him to that 
 bu.sy town, in which, for the modest reward of bL, 
 he brought forwani his first book — " A Voyage to 
 Abyssinia, by the Portuguese Jesuit Jerome Lobo," 
 translated from the Fri'nch. The effort arose out 
 of some literary contributions wliicli he casually 
 tendered to a newsf>apcr jjriiitcd by tin; (iccn|jier 
 of the house in which he lodgeil with bis t'rii'iid ; 
 but neither in that longer nor these shorter cssjiys 
 
 did there appear any thing very promising or re- 
 markable. 
 
 It was also during his stay at Birmingham that 
 Johnson became a married man. He has himself 
 described it solely as a "love-match upon both 
 sides ;" but his biographers represent it mainly as 
 a comiexion of interest, because the lady was ordi- 
 nary, double his age, and had 800/. However the 
 truth may lie between these two points, one thing 
 ought not to be forgotten : Johnson always treated 
 his wife with respect ; spoke of her with regard ; 
 and both in her epitaph and his various writings 
 has given many proofs of sincere affection. Her 
 name was Porter, and she was the widow of a 
 mercer. 
 
 With the capital thus acquired, Johnson re- 
 verted to what seems to have been with him, as 
 with many other literary men of chequered for- 
 tunes, a favourite plan, — the establishment of a 
 classical academy. For this purpose he fitted up 
 a large house at Edial, near Lichfield : but before 
 the year closed he was obliged to shut it up in 
 utter want of scholars. From this disappointment 
 he ventured to take refuge in the vast expectations 
 of a journey to London, at which place he even- 
 tually arrived in March, 1737, accompanied by one 
 of only three pupils whom he is now known to 
 have had — the celebrated Garrick. Johnson hoped 
 for wealth and I'eputation from the performance of 
 his " Irene," a tragedy, in the composition of which 
 he was already far advanced ; while Garrick, though 
 intended for the profession of the law, rapidly 
 usurped both wealth and fame where liis friend 
 and master failed to acquire them — on the stage. 
 The great grammarian's career was a very dif- 
 ferent one. Fleetwood, then manager of the the- 
 atre in Drury-lane, rejected his play, and there his 
 first hope was blasted. Alone, amidst the vast 
 multitude, and poor amidst all the superfluities of 
 London, he wandered about destitute during the 
 day, and at night, when the rain chilled, and the 
 frost bit, was forced to take refuge with the prosti- 
 tute under an archway ; or, if the weather hap- 
 pened to be milder, to stroll about the s(iuares in 
 want of a sixpence with which to pay for the shel- 
 ter of a roof. Such was the misery suffered by the 
 great Samuel Johnson, a scholar justly respected 
 as an ornament to the literature of his country. 
 If such a man had to bear a fate so hard, who may 
 murmur at the vicissitudes of life? One solace, 
 indeed, occurred to him in this abandoned state, 
 the solace of companionship — the clever but dis- 
 solute Savage was the partner of his midnight 
 rambles, and the sharer of a common adversity. 
 
 Jolmson's first emi)loyment in London was ob- 
 tained from Cave, the publisher of that great 
 parent of our jieriodicals, the " Gentleman's Maga- 
 zine," to wliicIi he soon became a constant contri- 
 l)utor. What sum he used to receive for his con- 
 tributions has never been ascertained. They com- 
 menceil in 17^8, continued until 1744, and mainly 
 com]>rised parliamentary debates and biograjiliical 
 essays. In all probability the first money paid 
 him worth mentioning was a sum of forty-nine 
 guineas for a translation of " Couraycr's History of 
 the Council of Trent " — a work which Cave was 
 (letelTc<l from ]iiiblishing ))y some projiosals wlii(di 
 were issued at tlie sanu^ time for a rival under- 
 taking ; iuul, wliat was a strange coincidence, by 
 another Sanmcl Johnson. So little was he satisfied
 
 16 
 
 ST. PAUL'S cathedral; 
 
 with his pi'ospects about this time, that he endea- 
 voured to obtain the mastership of a free scliool 
 in the country, worth only GO/, a year. But the 
 statutes of the foundation, unfortunately, limited 
 the presentation to an M.A., and he was obliged to 
 confine his aspirations to tlie precarious labours of 
 an author. He remained without any opportunity 
 of making his abilities in any degree generally 
 known until May, 1738, when, after repeated re- 
 fusals from the booksellers to purchase it at any 
 price, Dodsley had judgment enough to give him 
 ten guineas for " London," a poem, in imitation of 
 the third satire of Juvenal. That was an effort 
 which amply justified the expectations of the pub- 
 lisher, and ultimately did no small service to the 
 reputation of the author. After an interval, he fol- 
 lowed it up with " The Vanity of Human Wishes," 
 a similar paraphrase on the tenth satire of Juve- 
 nal, which appeared, with equal success, in 1749. 
 The former poem showed greater skill in adapta- 
 tion, but the latter has the praise of finer feeling. 
 It was also during the year 1738 that the favourite 
 of his early hopes, the tragedy of " Irene," came 
 before the public, and failed to please them, not- 
 withstanding all the influence and support of Gar- 
 rick, who brought it forward at the theatre in 
 Drui'y-lane, of which he was already a patentee. 
 In sentiment and diction it is moving and elevated, 
 but it wants dramatic interest and events, and on 
 that account but feebly excites the sympathies of 
 an audience. Johnson was greatly chagrined at 
 its fate. His next production, however, made ample 
 amends for his disappointment. He wrote the life 
 of Savage, his partner in the sorrows of adversity, 
 and his friend up to the dawning of bi'ighter pro- 
 spects, with a degree of pathos, truthfulness, and 
 an energy of periods, which fully developed the 
 peculiar character of his strength, and created a 
 high opinio:! of his leai'ning and great confidence 
 in his critical powers. 
 
 It was from the vicissitudes of his past life, in 
 all probability, and the great variety of subjects he 
 had been drawn to reflect upon, just as so many 
 speculations for subsistence, that Johnson was spur- 
 red to write the " Rambler," at the rate of two 
 papers a week, on the 20th of March, 1750. Thirty- 
 seven years had elapsed since the joint labours of 
 Steele and Addison had delighted and instructed 
 the town with essays of the same sort. Attempts 
 had been repeatedly made to emulate their popu- 
 larity, more particularly by the " Craftsman," 
 " Common Sense," and the " Champion." The 
 comparative failure of those imdertakings would 
 have served to damp the courage of a less resolute 
 projector. Johnson, dogmatical and courageous, 
 persisted in his plan ; but neither the " Rambler," 
 nor the " Idler," which followed it in April, 17fiO, 
 as a sort of companion, succeeded to the prosperity 
 of the celebrated papers they professed to imitate. 
 Of the two, the " Rambler" is unquestionably the 
 nobler performance, and is eminently distinguished 
 by all the energetic qualities that distinguish 
 Johnson's style. Nevertheless it cannot be ranked 
 upon an e(iuality with the " Spectator," &c. His 
 style is universally lofty and serious ; theirs is 
 always simple and agreeable ; both instruct, and 
 both improve : but the one has the gravity of a 
 master, the other the lightness of a companion: 
 he never approached wit, but he fell upon satire, 
 which he delivered well but with a frown ; whenever 
 
 thej' drew near it, they mingled it with pleasanti'y, 
 and uttered it in smiles. Perhaps it was that 
 Johnson being unfortunate, never shook off" the 
 moody spirit which neglect and suff'ering had en- 
 gendered ; while Addison was always complacent, 
 because he scarcely ever found the world rough ; 
 and Steele, by constitution, was always happy in 
 spite of adversity itself. Johnson had other pecu- 
 liarities : his morbid feelings in religious matters 
 are well known ; that divme belief which soothes 
 most hearts with hope, depressed his with gloomy 
 terrors ; religious fear in him seems stronger than 
 confidence, and makes him dwell more deeply on 
 the threats than on the promises of his Bible. 
 To this melancholy temperament must be attri- 
 buted the extreme shock he received upon the 
 death of his wife, in 1752 : his affliction was violent, 
 and the recollection of it lasted so long, that no 
 event of liis life can be conceived more formidably 
 affecting than this occurrence proved. 
 
 In May, 1754, appeared his Dictionary of the En- 
 glish Language, with a History of the Language, and an 
 English Grammar, 2 vols, folio. The project for this 
 great work, which is said to have originated with 
 Dodsley, was digested in 1746, and announced to 
 the public during the following yeai", in a pamphlet 
 entitled, " The Plan of a Dictionary of the English 
 Language, addressed to the Right Honourable 
 Philip Dormer, Earl of Chesterfield, one of his 
 Majesty's Principal Secretaries of State." To 
 every appearance, all the honours which a dedi- 
 cation of the work itself could give, were applied 
 in this address ; it was nevertheless printed with- 
 out any dedication at all, and the doctor assigned 
 his reasons for his conduct in a letter to the earl, 
 which describes his feelings so admirably, and has 
 been so generally admired, that its insertion seems 
 unavoidable : — 
 
 " My Lord, — I have been lately informed by the 
 proprietor of the World, that two papers, in which 
 my Dictionary is recommended to the public, were 
 written by your lordship. To be so distinguished 
 is an honour, which, being very little accustomed 
 to favours from the great, I know not well how to 
 receive, or in what terms to acknowledge. 
 
 " When upon some slight encouragement I first 
 visited your lordship, I was overpowered, like the 
 rest of mankind, by the enchantment of your 
 address, and could not forbear to wish that I might 
 boast myself le rainqaeur du rainqueur de la terre, 
 that I might obtam the regard for which I saw the 
 world contending ; but I found my attendance so 
 little encouraged, that neither pride nor modesty 
 would allow me to continue it. When I had once 
 addressed your lordship in public, I had exhausted 
 all the art of pleasing which a retired and mi- 
 courtly scholar can possess. I had done all that 
 I could, and no man is well pleased to have his all 
 neglected, be it ever so little. . 
 
 " Seven years, my lord, have now passed since 
 I waited in your outward rooms, or was repulsed 
 from your door ; during which time I have been 
 pushing on my work through difficulties of which 
 it is useless to comjilain, and have brought it .at 
 last to the verge of publication, without one act of 
 assistance, one word of encouragement, or one 
 smile of favour. Such treatment I did not expect, 
 for I never had a patron before. 
 
 " The shepherd, in Virgil, grew at last ac-
 
 SAMUEL JOHNSON, LL.D. 
 
 17 
 
 quainted with love, and foiuid liim a native of the 
 rocks. 
 
 " Is not a patron, my lord, one who looks with 
 uneoneem on a man strnggling for life in the water, 
 and when he has reached ground encumbei-s liim 
 with help I The notice you have been pleased to 
 take of my work, had it been early, had l:ieen kind ; 
 but it has been delayed until I am indifferent and 
 cannot enjoy it, — till I am solitary and cannot im- 
 part it, — till I am known and do not want it. I 
 hope it is no very cynical asperity not to confess 
 obligations where no benefit has been received, or 
 to be miwilling that the public should consider me 
 as owing that to a patron which Providence has 
 enabled me to do for myself. 
 
 " Having carried on my labour" thus far with so 
 little obligation to any favourer of learriiug, I shall 
 not be disappointed, though I should conclude it, if 
 less be possible, with less ; for I have not long 
 awakened from that dream of hope, in which I 
 once boasted myself with so much obligation, 
 " My lord, yours, &c. &c. 
 
 " Samuel Johnson." 
 
 Johnson's Dictionary was his greatest labour, — 
 so great, indeed, and on that account so generally 
 respected, that his biographer may well spare him- 
 self, at this period, the trouble of describing either 
 the magnitude of the task, or the acclamations with 
 which it was received. Every scholar knows that 
 ju-aises were showered upon the woi'k, and honours 
 upon the author. Reward, unfortunately, was not 
 bestowed as readily or as plentifully as it had been 
 deserved ; on the contrary, it is with feelings of 
 shame and indignation we relate, that Johnson had 
 still to struggle so much with advei-sity, that almost 
 immediately after this splendid donation to the 
 literature of his country, he was arrested for five 
 pounds and eighteen shillings. It is not to be 
 concealed, however, that his pi'ice for the Dictio- 
 nary was, altogether, 1500/., but the sum was paid 
 in small fractional parts, which were consumed as 
 they were received, and to no small extent dis- 
 bursed among clerks and amanuenses. 
 
 " Rasselas," the next of his works in order of 
 composition, produced him 125?., and w-as fanned 
 from the press by a full gale of popularity and 
 pi'aise ; for though his Dictionary may be better 
 known, Rasselas is, of all his works, that one which 
 is oftenest read. In style and feeling it is emi- 
 nently Johnsonian ; perhaps in no other case has 
 an author been so successful in transfusing into 
 his pages every sentiment, habit, and turn of 
 thought, as well as of word, for which he was indi- 
 vidually remarkable; and thus making his book an 
 imbued portraiture of his mind and feelings. Ras- 
 selas literally teems with the man. The object for 
 which it was pul)lished, and the circumstances 
 under wliich it w;is composed, deserve to be re- 
 corded. His motlier hail died, leaving some little 
 debts unpaid, and Johnson, unable either to dis- 
 charge them, or even bury lier, set himself to 
 work, and finished tliis impressive talc during the 
 evenings of a single wc^ek. 'J'he loose ])ortions were 
 sent off to the press every night, as he completed 
 the chajitrTs ; and this eloijuent treatise of mo- 
 rality, rich in imagery, and splendid in language, 
 wjis thus hun'ied Ijcfore the criticism of the world, 
 with scarcely an opportunity for revision or im- 
 provement. 
 
 In the year 17G2, government, taking a tardy 
 notice of his merits and wants, put his name on the 
 pension list for Smi. a year. Gratitude for this 
 benefit led him afterwards to write two or three 
 political pamphlets,— tasks far from irksome to his 
 feelmgs, inasmuch as no servant of the crown could 
 be more sincei'ely attached to those high princi- 
 ples in church and state which were ththi in the 
 ascendant. 
 
 Johnson's circumstances no sooner became easy, 
 than he rose rapidly in authority as a man of let- 
 ters. Ere long almost every adventurer in the 
 fertile field was glad to be ushered fi-om the press 
 with some favourable notice from his pen ; and of 
 those few who were confident enough not to seek 
 his praise, there was, pei'haps, not one who did not 
 dread his censure. But, perhaps, the event, above 
 all others, which contributed to exalt him, as it 
 were, upon a throne of .'^upei'iority, from which to 
 govern the republic of British literature, was the 
 institution of the celebrated Literary Club, over 
 Avhich, by a sort of tacit compliment, he was 
 allowed to act as president. The most eminent 
 men in politics, as well as literature and the arts, 
 composed its members ; among whom were Burke, 
 Fox, Sheridan, Sir Joshua Reynolds, Goldsmith, 
 and Gibbon. To have received the voluntary 
 homage of such a body of men was honour enough 
 for the course of any life ; but Johnson lived for 
 other distinctions. George III. took occasion to 
 seek an interview with him in the library of Buck- 
 ingham-house ; and is represented to have been as 
 much pleased with the impressive respect evinced 
 by his subject, as the subject was delighted with 
 the familiar condescension of the monarch. 
 
 There remain three other works by Dr. Johnson 
 to be noticed : the first, his edition of Shakspeare, 
 published in 1 765 ; the second, " A Journey to the 
 Western Islands of Scotland,' printed in 1774 ; 
 and the third, his " Lives of the Poets," completed 
 in 1 779- Of these performances, the first, perhaps, 
 was not as extensively patronized as it deserved to 
 be ; while the last has been commended beyond its 
 deserts. The Journey has been pronounced the 
 most elaborate specimen of his grandiloquence he 
 has published, but it was never very popular. His 
 preface to Shakspeare is a masterpiece of cojiipo- 
 sition, far su])erior to any thing of the kind that 
 had appeai'cd before. When he undertook the 
 " Lives of the Poets," he had tired of his vocation 
 as an author : the work consequently proceeded 
 slowly, was finished in hurried fits of irksomeness, 
 and is more an instance of extraordinary niejnory, 
 than just criticism or diligent investigation. Strong 
 antipathies prevented him from doing justice to 
 many of the writers presented to his notice : the 
 subject itself, moreover, was not, in .some respects, 
 well adaptid to his jiowers ; fur he was di'ficient 
 in imagination, and had no sense of the romantic. 
 
 In 17Ji.'{ Jiihnsnii siiffiivd a dangerous attack of 
 paralysis, and tliough the I'obustness of his consti- 
 tution overcame the disorder, yet a train of severe 
 afflictions resulted from it. He expressed a wish 
 to visit Italy, and Ills friends exertecl themselves 
 to |)rocure an addition to liis ])ension, that lu? 
 might travel with ease. Hut tlu'y wen; unsuc- 
 cessful : lie struggled on with complicatc-d dis- 
 orders until, after several violent struggles, they 
 triMiMplicd over his life, at th(! ])eriod ain.ady men- 
 tioned in his epitaph. His dc^atli was greatly la- 
 
 c
 
 18 
 
 ST. PAUL'S CATHEDRAL. 
 
 mented ; and his body followed to a grave, under 
 the statue of Shakspeare, in Westminster Abbey, 
 by a numerous train of mourners composed of tlie 
 most eminent men in London. 
 
 Johnson was a tall man, with large bony limbs, 
 a strength more than common, and in early life an 
 activity far superior to the promise of such a form. 
 His face, though naturally well proportioned, was 
 disfigured by scrofula, or king's evil, through 
 which he also lost the sight of one of his eyes in 
 infancy, and was ever after subjected to an affec- 
 tion similar to St. Vitus's dance. A personal ap- 
 pearance thus strongly marked was rendered still 
 less prepossessing by his general manners. He 
 was grave in his deportment, rude in his adcb'ess, 
 and possessed a loud voice, delivered his words with 
 dogmatical emphasis and overbearing impetuosity. 
 Vehemently addicted to argumentation, he was 
 impatient of contradiction, and unmerciful in vic- 
 tory. In Lord Chesterfield's Letters to his Son, 
 we find him delineated in these terms : — " Thei'e is 
 a man whose moral character, deep learning, and 
 superior parts, I acknowledge and resjiect, but 
 whom it is so impossible for me to love, that I am 
 almost in a fever when I am in his company. His 
 figure, without being deformed, seems made to 
 disgrace or ridicule the common structure of tlie 
 human body : his legs and arms are never in the 
 position which, according to the situation of his 
 body, they ought to be in, but constantly employed 
 in committing acts of hostility upon the Graces. 
 He thi'ows any where but down his throat 
 whatever he means to drink, and only mangles 
 what he means to carve. Inattentive to all the 
 regards of social life, he mistimes or misplaces 
 every thing. He disputes with heat, and indiscri- 
 minately, mindless of the rank, character, and situ- 
 ation of those with whom he disputes. Absolutely 
 ignorant of the several gradations of familiarity or 
 respect, he is exactly the same to his superiors, his 
 equals, and his inferioi-s ; and therefore, by a 
 necessary consequence, absurd to two of the three. 
 Is it possible to love such a man 2 No: the utmost 
 I can do for him is to consider him a respectable 
 Hottentot." 
 
 This passage, meant for a portrait, amounts 
 almost to a caricature ; it is a retort, and therefore 
 to be credited with caution. Johnson publicly de- 
 clared that he had expected to find Chesterfield a 
 lord amongst wits, but discovered he was only a 
 wit amongst lords. This sarcasm, and the defiance 
 breathed in his letter conceniiug the Dictionary, 
 must naturally be supposed to have engendered 
 some of the venom which commonly embitters reta- 
 liation. After all, pei'haps Goldsmith's opinion 
 came nearest to the truth ; — " he had nothing of 
 the bear about him but his skin " [and growl). 
 The persons who knew him, and observed his 
 private conduct, concur in stating that his heart 
 was tenderly susceptible of chai'ity, gratitude, and 
 every kind emotion. His purse was ever open to 
 almsgiving; and his house, as far as its convenience 
 permitted, was an asylum for the unhappy, on 
 whom he is reported to have at times expended 
 his income with a greater liberality than the dic- 
 tates of prudence could have wairanted. Early in 
 life, when his circumstances were very narrow, he 
 received into his household Miss Williams, a lady, 
 blind, destitute, but fall of talent, and nnich at- 
 tached to his wife, and ever after afforded her that 
 
 pi'otection which enabled her to support life. The 
 savings of his industry, amouuting to 1500/., as he 
 left no relatives, he bequeathed to a black servant, 
 Francis Barber, for whom he had always expressed 
 great consideration, and whom he, in general, 
 treated with the familiarity of an luunble friend. 
 
 To describe the literary reputation of Dr. John- 
 son can hardly be necessary, for where is the En- 
 glish reader who does not know that he was super- 
 eminent ? As a biographer, a critic, a moralist, a 
 pliilologist, and a novelist, he ranked in the first 
 class of the writers of his day ; and in those other 
 branches of literature upon which he adventured, 
 though not with equal distmction, such as poems, 
 tragedy, and political tracts, his merits were uni- 
 formly respectable. His " Journey to the Western 
 Isles of Scotland " is considered to afford the most 
 finished specimen of that grandiloquent style for 
 which he is famous : his " Lives of the Poets" are 
 still universally read, though often dispraised by 
 modern critics ; but the little novel of " Rasselas " 
 seems to have enjoyed and deserved the gi'eatest 
 popularity : it is at once masterly and pleasing. His 
 Dictionary obtained for him the style of the Colos- 
 sus of our Literature, and the Preface to his edi- 
 tion of Shakspeare is admitted upon all hands to 
 constitute an example of critical composition un- 
 equalled in his age. The formal honours with 
 which these various labours were crowned, con- 
 sisted of a degree of M.A., procured from the 
 University of Oxford through the interest of Mr. 
 Warton, to grace the first appearance of his 
 Dictionary ; a degree of Doctor of Laws, awarded 
 by a diploma from the University of Dublin, in 
 1765, oh egrcpam scrijjtorum elcgantiam et utilitatem, 
 and a similar degree recouferi-ed by the University 
 of Oxford in 1774. 
 
 There is no writer in our language whose style 
 has been more generally imitated, and at the same 
 time violently censured, than the style of Dr. 
 Johnson. For many years few writers aspiring to 
 distinction ventured to use any other. It is now 
 exploded, but it would be unjust to deny it the 
 merit of being vigorous, yet pi'ecise, dignified, and 
 yet subtle, and attractive by the measured falls of 
 musical rotundity. The heaviest charges against 
 it are, that it innovated largely upon the pm-e 
 idiom of the language by an excessive adaptation 
 of sounding Latinisms ; that it is rich to satiety, 
 and melodious to sameness. To discuss these points 
 would require an essay of no brief extent ; and, 
 after all, the better way, perhaps, will be to turn 
 to his works, and determine the degree of his 
 merit by the eff"ect which they produce upon the 
 reader. 
 
 Besides his genius and writings, which are the 
 foundation of Johnson's present I'eputation, he had 
 amongst his contemporaries another powerful source 
 of distinction. This was his personal character 
 and conversational ability: no man at all approached 
 to an equality with him as a talker. His memory 
 was singularly retentive, his observation keen, his 
 judgment strong and decided ; and though he read 
 with more rapi(iity than system, he had a most 
 extraordinary facility of extemporaneously me- 
 thodizing his thoughts and information, however 
 diifuse or incongruous. From his earliest years 
 he had accustomed himself to such accuracy in 
 the manner in which he expressed himself even 
 upon the commonest occasions, that he at all times
 
 ELIOTT, LORD HEATHFIELD, K.B. 
 
 1!) 
 
 delivered himself with a forec and clejjanee that 
 defied rivalry. The confidence derived from 
 habitual success, and the didactic manner he was 
 ju'oud of, impressed his ordinary conversation with 
 the ornate and measured style so remarkable in 
 
 his writings, and gave such an ett'cct to nil he 
 uttered, that Goldsmith dceiared it was ini)iossil)le 
 to argue with him ; for if liis jiistol missed fire, 
 like the man in Cibljcr's play, lie knocked you down 
 with the butt-end of it. 
 
 ELIOTT, LORD HEATHFIELD, K.B. 
 
 A STATUE of Sir George Eliott, Baron Gibraltar 
 and Viscount Ileathfield, was erected in the south 
 transept of St. Paul's cathedral in 1H25. It is 
 modelled of a larger size than life, in the regi- 
 mentals of a genei'al officer, and was executed by 
 C. Rossi, R.A. The pedestal is wi'ought ia alto- 
 relievo, representing Victory descending from a 
 castellated rock to crown a wai'rior on the sea- 
 shore with laurel. The style of this statue, both 
 in the attitude of the figure, and the exjn-ession of 
 the countenance, is creditable; but the alto-relievo 
 upon the pedestal is singularly bad. There is no 
 inscription. 
 
 George Augustus, the son of Sir Gilbert Eliott, 
 W.1S born at Stobbs, in Roxburghshire, during the 
 year 1718, and educated at the university of Ley- 
 den. His earliest passion was for a military life. 
 He first entered the army as a volunteer in the 
 service of the King of Prussia, and upon his return 
 to Scotland attached himself as a volunteer to the 
 23rd regiment of foot. In 173G he obtained a 
 commission in the corps of engineers, and paid 
 considerable attention to the studies whicli .ire 
 necessary for success in that department of the 
 service. Six years afterwards liis uncle, General 
 Eliott, procured him the adjutancy of the 2nd 
 troop of hoi'se grenadiers, a regiment in which he 
 passed through the various gradations of rank until 
 he became a lieutenant-colonel, and was made 
 aid-de-camp to George II. It was with this regi- 
 ment that he first disthiguished himself in Ger- 
 many, and was wounded at the battle of Dettingen. 
 In 1759 he was nominated by the king to raise 
 and discipline the first regiment of light horse, 
 which he commanded with so much success on the 
 Continent that his majesty allowed them to be 
 surnamed Eliott's, and be honoured with the a])]iel- 
 lation of Royals, lie was gazetted a lieutenant- 
 general in January, 17^1, and ujion the termina- 
 tion of the war aceom])anied his regiment to the 
 Ilavannah. Early in 1775 he received the post 
 of commander-in-chief of Ireland, but was re- 
 moved, before the year closed, to be governor of 
 Gibraltar. With this connnaml he was raised to 
 the rank of general in Ajjril, 177", and acquired in 
 it great and W(>ll-inerited renown. 
 
 Tlic siege of Giljraitai', by the united forces of 
 Spain and France, is an hist<n'ical event ho signal, 
 glorious, and proverbially well-known, that it can 
 hardly be necessary to relate hero the cireum- 
 stancos from which it arose, or the many gallant 
 stages in wlii(;h it proceeded. The plac(; was in- 
 vested almost at the very begiiniiiig of the war, 
 and defendi'd under every emci'geney l)y Mliott 
 with invincible skill and liravery. In 17II2 the 
 State of the garrison excited an interest the most 
 
 intense throughout all Europe. The Spaniards had 
 just reduced Minorca, and came to m'ge on the 
 siege, excited by the spoils of victory, the encou- 
 raging promises of their sovereign, and the aid of 
 brave and ex]ierienced allies. Their ]>reparations 
 were vast and extensive beyond exam|)le. No less 
 than 1200 pieces of ordnance, and 0;j,000 barrels 
 of gunpowder, were provided for the attack. The 
 combined fleets of France and Spain, amounting 
 to fifty ships of the line, hovered around the bay to 
 cover every movement ; 12,000 chosen Frenchmen 
 led the o])erations, and the Count D'Artois and 
 Due de ]3ourbon, the one brother, and the other 
 cousin to the king of France, descended upon the 
 fortifications for the express purpose of adding 
 enthusiasm to the cause and dignity to the scene. 
 
 The condition in which General Eliott was thus 
 placed was imminent in the extreme. Such was 
 the scarcity of provisions in the garrison that every 
 article was put up to ])ublic auction in the market- 
 place ; and the officers, the men, the inhabitants, 
 and even the governor himself, bade for every 
 thing in common, and made their purchases upon 
 terms of ])erfect equality. But what princijjally 
 aggravated this distress was a total ignorance of 
 the particular designs or precise nature of the 
 attack meditated by the besiegers. Day after day 
 the Mediterranean thickened witli vessels, whik; 
 fresh labours continually blockadecl the land: loose 
 reports of extraordinary inan(euvres, and vague 
 declai'ations of newly-invented ordnance of irre- 
 sistible powers, were incessantly wafted to the 
 rock ; but no positive or definite information could 
 lie attained of their plans. Such was the embar- 
 rassment amidst which Kliott resolved to try the 
 fortune of a cannonade upon some distant works, 
 which to all a])pearances were nearly iinished. 
 He opened a discharg<! of red-hot balls, carcases, 
 and shells, at daybreak on the Jith of September ; 
 an<l though the efi'ect was for a while doubtful, yet 
 so regular was the fire, and so admirably directed, 
 that by ten o'clock the great fort Mahon was in 
 flames, and before the evening closed totally con- 
 sumed, 'i'he following was a day of retaliation. 
 A new Ijattery of sixty-foui' heavy gmis and about 
 sixty mortars began to |>lay tipon the garrison with 
 the first light, while a squadron of nine sliijis, 
 taking advantage of a favourable gale, dro))]ied 
 down the bay, and, as they made a circuit of 
 tlie bastions, kept uj) repeated volleys. The dis- 
 charge by land was even more intense, but on 
 ni iilier side did the garrison betray weakness : 
 shot was returned for shot, and the day con<'lnili(l 
 without advantage to the enemy. 
 
 'J'heseeflorts were daily persisted in with a syste- 
 matic vigour, of which some notion may be formed 
 c2
 
 20 
 
 ST. PAUL'S CATHEDRAL. 
 
 when it is stated, that the combined army on shore 
 threw 6500 cannon shot and 1080 sliells against the 
 rock in every twenty-four hours. Every operation 
 by land or by sea, which experience could suggest 
 or ingenuity devise, was resorted to, and it was 
 prophesied aloud that the British must forthwith 
 surrender confounded or fall overwhelmed. The 
 boast was bold, and not ill-founded, and yet the 
 perseverance and intrepidity of the besieged ren- 
 dered it utterly vain. Nor can that resistance be 
 prouomiced less than prodigious, which diverted 
 from complete success assaults so constant, a weight 
 of fire so astonishing, and manoeuvres the most 
 destructive. 
 
 Formidable as were the exertions hitherto made, 
 they were far eclipsed by those which toolc place 
 on the 13th of September, a day, in truth, of fiery 
 destruction. At seven o'clock in the morning a 
 general cannonade was opened against the rock 
 from every quarter of the works, both from the 
 sea and from the shore. An adequate description 
 of the scenie that ensued is not to be given in 
 words. It is easy to state that there was neither 
 pause nor relaxation on either side ; that the guns 
 flashed, and the balls flew without cessation : but 
 to place before the eye the might of three great 
 nations in action, to paint the dead and the d\'ing, 
 give the outcry of the double battle, the crash of 
 ruined forts and dismantled ships, the roar on the 
 ocean, the thunder on the land, and, above all, the 
 unnatural glare of flashing lights, now redder than 
 the sun, and now obscured by volumes of smoke 
 blacker and more horrid than the dense clouds of 
 a storm, all this is impossible. It has been admit- 
 ted on all hands that the evolutions of the enemy 
 were masterly and valiant in the extreme, and 
 it raised the astonishment of Europe to see Gene- 
 ral Eliott, straitened within the narrow fortifica- 
 tions of a rock, and even cm'tailed in the ordinary 
 resources of defence, (for the garrison had not been 
 for some time provided with stores,) nevertheless 
 
 triumphantly withstand a siege unparalleled in the 
 annals of modern warfare. His defence was in 
 every respect the most complete. The assault 
 raged on with unabated fury during the day, and 
 was continued with more terrible effect during 
 the night. It was at that extreme stage that the 
 battering-ships were set on fire — some were burnt 
 to the edge of the water, others were raked in the 
 holds until they sunk, and the rest completely 
 beaten. In the morning only two Spanish feluccas 
 were to be seen in the bay, and they fell mto our 
 hands the easiest of captures. 
 
 From this period the enemy looked only to the 
 starvation of the garrison for success, and accord- 
 ingly disposed tlieir fleets to prevent Lord Howe 
 from throwing in provisions for its relief. In that 
 hope they were also disappointed, for, after eluding 
 their superior forces by a series of successful 
 manoeuvres, his lordship landed all the stores con- 
 signed to his trust on the 12th of October. Some 
 attacks of mmor interest were afterwards made, 
 but the vigour of the siege declined as the expecta- 
 tions of the besiegers were frustrated, and it was 
 gradually abandoned. As soon as peace was re- 
 stored, General Eliott returned to England, and 
 was made a knight of the garter ; but a more ade- 
 quate acknowledgment of his services was awarded 
 in 1787, when he was raised to the peerage by the 
 titles of Baron Gibraltar, Viscount Heathfield. He 
 enjoyed an interval of repose from the cares of 
 command until 1790. In that year he proposed to 
 resume his government, but had proceeded no fur- 
 ther on his way to it than Aix-la-Chapelle when 
 he was seized with pai'alysis, which put a period to 
 his life, July 6, at the age of 73. His body was 
 conveyed to England, alid deposited in a vault con- 
 structed for its reception near his seat at Heath- 
 field, in Sussex. He had one son, Francis Augus- 
 tus, who succeeded to his title and estates, and a 
 daughter, the lady of Troughtou Fuller, Esq., to 
 whom he gave 20,000?. 
 
 JOHN HOWARD. 
 
 The first monument placed m St. Paul's cathedral 
 was raised to the memory of John Howard, in 
 1795, and opened to public inspection during the 
 foilowin'g year. It stands near the great iron gate 
 leading into the south aisle, and is the work of 
 John Bacon, R.A., and well executed. There is 
 an expressive earnestness and energy in the action 
 of the figure, but it is hard to discover the pro- 
 priety of the idea that represents a man of Ho- 
 ward's modest and benevolent character attired as 
 an ancient Roman, trampling on fetters, and bear- 
 ing in his right hand a key, and in his left a roll, 
 on which are inscribed the words, " Plan for the 
 Improvement op Prisons and Hospitals." The 
 front of the pedestal is filled with a piece of basso- 
 relievo, in which a prison scene is introduced, with 
 a figure distributing food and raiment. The epi- 
 taph was written by Howard's relation, the late 
 Samuel Whitbread, M.P., and is engraved on the 
 south side of the pedestal : — 
 
 This extraordinary man had tlie fortime to be 
 
 honoured while living in the manner 
 
 which his virtues deserved : 
 
 He received the thanks 
 
 of both Houses of the British and Irish Parliaments, 
 
 for his eminent services rendered to his Country 
 
 and to Mankind. 
 
 Our national Prisons and Hospitals, 
 
 improved upon the suggestion of his wisdom, 
 
 bear testimony to the solidity of his judgment, 
 
 and to the estimation in which he was held. 
 
 In every part of the civilized world, 
 
 which he traversed to reduce the sum of human 
 
 misery, 
 
 from the throne to the dungeon, his name was 
 
 mentioned 
 
 with I'espect, gratitude, and admiration. 
 
 His modesty alone 
 
 defeated various efforts which were made during 
 
 his life,
 
 JOHN HOWARD. 
 
 21 
 
 to erect this statue, 
 
 which the public has now couseerateJ to his 
 
 memory. 
 
 He was born at Hackney, in the couuty of 
 
 Middlesex, Sept. '2nd, 
 
 172G. 
 
 The early part of his life he spent in retirement, 
 
 rcsidhig principally upon his paternal estate 
 
 at Cardington, in Bedfordshire ; 
 
 for which county he served the office of Sheriff 
 
 in the year 1773. 
 
 He expired at Chcrson, in Russian Tartary, on 
 
 the 20th Jan. 1 790, 
 
 a victim to the perilous and benevolent attemjit 
 
 to ascertain the cause of, and find an efficacious 
 
 remedy 
 
 for the plague. 
 
 He trod au open and unfrequented path to 
 
 immortality, 
 
 in the ardent and unremitted exercise of Christian 
 
 charity. 
 
 May this tribute to his fame 
 
 excite an emulation of his truly glorious 
 
 achievements. 
 
 As the time and place of Howard's birth are 
 specified in this epitajih, it only remains to speak 
 of his pai'entage. His father was a reputable 
 warehouseman for carpeting and upholstery in 
 Long-lane, Sinithtield, who died while his son was 
 yet a boy, but left him, and an only sistei', provided 
 with easy fortunes. Notwithstanding the suffi- 
 ciency of his means, however, young Howard re- 
 ceived no better instructions than were then ordina- 
 rily given to the child of a tradesman : his guardians 
 ^^•ere men of business, and seem not to have enter- 
 tiiuied a higher destination for him, than that of 
 being as good a man as his father had been, and 
 after the same way. With these views they ap- 
 prenticed him to a wholesale grocer, but various 
 cii'cuinstances foi'tunately prevented him from 
 completing the service. His health, natui-ally de- 
 licate, was much affected by the confinement im- 
 posed upon him ; the dull routine of his occupa- 
 tions, lightened by no variety, and cheered by no 
 information, disgusted the activity of his mind, 
 and after some remonstrances he bought up bis 
 indentures, and, setting out for the continent, made 
 a tour of France and Italy. 
 
 Returning to England, with health improved, 
 but by no means confirmed, he fixed his abode at 
 Stoke Newington, in the house of Mrs. Lardeau. 
 Tliis laily, wiio had been an invalid for some years, 
 made Mr. Howard's residence with her agreeable 
 liy many delicate assiduities and attentions ; so 
 much so that, thougli much reduced by intirniitics, 
 and double his age, she captivated the heart of the 
 young friend to the cause of humanity. He ten- 
 iii:red her his hand ; and after some little remon- 
 strance and hesitation, very natural when it is 
 considered that the bride was .').') and tiie lu'ide- 
 groom 2.J, tiicy were marri(<l during the year 1752. 
 She had a small fortune, wliieh he good-naturedly 
 bestowed upon her sister. 
 
 Of those early dis])lay.s of character, from which, 
 in some instances, future greatness has been anti- 
 cipated, there is notiiing known in the case of Mr. 
 Howard. However strongly the propi;nsitie» of 
 his mind may have Jx.'imi indicated, tlni-i! was no 
 one to take an interest in tracing tiieir develop- 
 
 ment, and thus the story of his growing philan- 
 tliro]iy is lost to the world : noi'" is there nmcii ' 
 preserved tliat is distinctive of his habits in tlie 
 first stage of manhood. We are only told tliat he 
 was an attentive reader, and used to mount bis ])ony 
 with a book in his hand, and diverge into a com- 
 mon, where the animal was suftered to graze about 
 at its leisure, until he finished the volume. Moral 
 and scientific subjects chiefly occupied his mind : 
 his attainments, if not profound, were various and 
 respectable. The taste led him to join the Royal 
 Society in 1755. 
 
 Three years after he was married he lost his 
 wife, and devoted a year to privacy and regret. 
 His mind had no sooner recovered its tone, than 
 he projected an excursion, admirably distinctive of 
 the vii'tues which characterized his subsequent 
 career. Lisbon had just been overwhelmed by 
 the great earthquake ; and Howard resolved to 
 visit the scene of devastation, investigate its phe- 
 nomena, and ascertain its effects. His friends em- 
 ployed all their influence to dissuade him from an 
 undertaking full of perils ; amongst which the 
 liability of being taken by privateers, for we were 
 then at war witli France, was not the least immi- 
 nent. But Howard was at all times remarkable 
 for the firmness with which he adhered to his 
 resolutions ; in the present case he turned an in- 
 different ear to remonstrance, and set personal 
 convenience at defiance. He set sail in 175(5, and, 
 as had been foreboded, was almost immediately 
 captured. Being thrown into prison, he had to 
 bear some of those hardships, and to witness most 
 of those distresses, which it occupied so great a 
 portion of his life to correct and alleviate. His 
 cajitors used him with great cruelty : after having 
 been left for forty-eight hours without food or 
 water, he was carried into Brest, and there, with 
 the crew and other passengers, was cast into a filthy 
 dungeon, and again kept a considerable time with- 
 out nourishment. At length, a joint of mutton was 
 thrown in, which, wanting knives, they were obliged 
 to tear to pieces and gnaw like dogs. In this place, 
 Howard and the other ])risoners lay for six nights 
 upon the floor, with nothing but straw for a bed. 
 He was afterwards removed to Morlaix, and tlience 
 to Carpaix, where he obtained his parole for two 
 months. At this ]»lace he obtained evidence of 
 the inhuman barbarity with which English pri- 
 soners in France were treated, and, uj)on regaining 
 his liberty, exerted his utmost influence to urge tho 
 English government to obtain relief for them. 
 
 The inq)ressions produced uj^in Mr. Howard's 
 mind by this advi'Uture seem to have decided the 
 benevolent tenor of his life. His own words ui>ou 
 the point an;, " Perhaps what 1 sufl'ered on this 
 occasion increased, if it did not call forth, my 
 sympathy with the unhappy people whose cause is 
 the suljject of this work." It is at least certain, 
 that his efforts in their favour were begun imme- 
 diately after his liberation, by laying an account of 
 tin; misfortunes lie became aecpiainted with before 
 tlu! commissioners of sick and wounded. That 
 any good resulted IVom this interference, it is im- 
 possible to affirm : the rci)resi'ntation, as we are 
 told, was acknowledged with thanks, which seems 
 to be the extent of the attention a man in ottiee 
 generally Iiolds himself bound to bestow upon dis- 
 iMtcT('Sted suggestions for the ])ublie good. 
 
 Mr. Howard now settled at Urokenhurst, near
 
 ST. PAUL'S CATHEDRAL. 
 
 L_ymington,a retired but picturesque situation, and 
 led the life of a studious country gentleman until 
 the year 1758, when ho married Harriet, the only 
 daughter of Edward Leeds, Esq., a sergeant-at- 
 law, who resided at Croxton, in Cambridgeshire. 
 Several years of domestic enjoyment succeeded, 
 but in 17(i5 Mrs. Howard died in childbed*, and 
 from this period the widower became constantly 
 devoted to works of public beneficence. Changing 
 his abode again, he Ijought an estate at Cardiugton, 
 near Bedford, and determined to fix himself in 
 that neighbourhood for the future. His new pur- 
 chase, of coui-se, now oecuj>ied much of his time ; 
 the patronage of a landlord gave fuller scope and 
 better opportunities for the exercise of his vii-tues, 
 and he was soon looked up to with feelings of 
 extraordinary regard. He gave employment to a 
 number of the poor ; he builc houses, and appor- 
 tioned strips of land, to provide a refuge and a 
 support for the old, the infirm, or the destitute ; 
 he always distinguished the industrious, and sys- 
 tematically preferred the sober ; and by degrees 
 became the moral censor of his estate. 
 
 In the year 1773, he was pricked high sheriff 
 for the county, an office which, to borrow his own 
 words, " brought the distress of prisoners more 
 immediately under his notice." Numberless hard- 
 ships in their condition, and abuses in the economy 
 of the jail, impeded and distressed him in the 
 discharge of his duties. Feeling the necessity 
 of impi'overaent, without being able to see his 
 way to it, he wisely undertook to explore the evil 
 in all its ramifications. He visited all the county 
 jails of England in one journey, and retuniing 
 home condensed his information. In a second 
 journey he inspected all the town prisons through- 
 out the country, returned, and again arranged his 
 matter with a diligence so active as to be able to 
 lay before the House of Commons, during the ses- 
 sion of \7T4, a body of facts and information, such 
 as had never before been presented to it. He was 
 examined in support of his views, and, after receiv- 
 ing a vote of thanks for his exemplary exertions, 
 had the greater satisfaction of seeing them triumpli 
 in two bills, the one " for the relief of prisoners in 
 matters of fees," and the other " for preserving 
 the health of prisoners." These he printed at his 
 own expense ; and, the better to insure attention 
 to their provisions, circulated gratuitous copies of 
 them amongst all the jailors in the kingdom. 
 
 It was also during this year that he joined ]\Ir. 
 Whitbread, his friend, relative, and neighbour in 
 the county, as a candidate for the representation 
 of the borough of Bedford iu jiarlianient. Bred 
 amongst the dissenters, and always conforming to 
 their conmiunion, he was upon this occasion put 
 forward mamly upon their interest. After a sharp 
 contest, Messrs. Whitbread and Howard were 
 ejected ; they petitioned against the x-eturn, and 
 obtained a scrutiny, by the effect of which Mr. 
 Whitbread alone was declared duly elected. 
 
 Mr. Howard now extended his mvestigations 
 abroad, and explored the receptacles of crime and 
 
 * The child, a son, lived to embitter his father's peace of 
 mind. Having been sent to the University of Edinburgh, 
 and placed under the care of the venerable Dr. Blacklock, 
 lie there contracted habits of dissipation and extravagance, 
 which were his own ruin, and well nigh broke the heart of 
 the philanthropist. 
 
 wretchedness on the continent. The result of 
 these inquiries was his " State of the Prisons in 
 England and Wales, with preliminary observa- 
 tions ; and an Account of Some Foreign Pi-isons." 
 This work was first published in 1777) and it pro- 
 duced all the astonishment which a volume so full 
 of startling details was calculated to awaken. The 
 misery of prisonei-s, the insensibility of jailors, the 
 negligence of magistrates, all the arts of petty 
 tyrants, and the cruelties of brief authority, were 
 here set forth with a real strength, and coito- 
 borated by an aggregate of facts, such as had 
 never before been adduced to move the pity or 
 excite the abhorrence of mankind. Practices 
 were shown to be of every day occurrence from 
 which humanity recoiled ; they were proved to 
 have prevailed for years, while no man dreamed of 
 their existence. The effect thus produced upon 
 the public mind was extraordmary, nor can it 
 even now be regarded as exti'avagant. Here was 
 an unprecedented mass of the most important 
 information *, accumulated by a private individual, 
 gathered in a pilgrimage of prodigious labours, 
 and attamed always at the risk of infection, and 
 frequently of liberty and life. As the motives 
 which actuated him were voluntary, so were the 
 ends lie proposed gratuitous : he did not seek, he 
 did not, he could not, expect title or remuneration 
 for his trouble or expenditure ; and the immediate 
 objects of his charity could do no more than bless 
 him for the good he sought to bestow upon them. 
 
 Public services of this descrij)tion were new to 
 the people of England, but they were not thrown 
 away upon them. Mr. Howard's zeal was again 
 seconded by parliament ; and a bill was passed for 
 the institution of houses of correction according to 
 the plans he suggested. Gathering fresh ardour 
 from this success, he set forth again to examine 
 the hospitals and bridewells, as well on the conti- 
 nent as throughout the United Kingdom. He 
 took notes of the regulations, and obtained draw- 
 ings of every establishment which presented the 
 marks of utility ; and was thus enabled to publish 
 a valuable appendix to his great work during the 
 year 1 780. About the same period he became one 
 of three supervisors for the foundation of peni- 
 tentiaries : unfortunately some diffei'cnces of opi- 
 nion occurred respecting the plan of the very fii'st 
 building that was determined upon, and he I'esigned 
 the office befoi'e a year had expired. 
 
 This circumstance occasioned no relaxation of 
 his personal efforts in the cause of humanity ; 
 indeed, he appears to have been a man incapable 
 of repose while his mind suggested an end which 
 could serve the great objects he had in view. The 
 investigations to which he latterly devoted his 
 time, had induced him to remark the nature and 
 progress of contagious disorders in hospitals and 
 prisons, and he now applied himself to discover a 
 
 • Some of the scenes noticed were truly deplorable. At 
 Salisbury, just without the prison-gate, was a chain passed 
 through a round staple fixed in the wall, at each end of 
 which a debtor, padlocked by the leg, stood offering to the 
 passer-by, nets, laces, purses, &c., made in the prison. At 
 Winchester, Mr. Howard saw a destructive dungeon for 
 felons, eleven steps under ground, dark, damp, and close. 
 In it tlie surgeon of the jail informed him that twenty pri- 
 soners had died of the jail fever in one year. In all the bride- 
 well of Surrey, at Guildford, he found neither bedding, 
 straw, nor work.
 
 JOHN HOWARD. 
 
 23 
 
 preventive treatment for the plague. Such was the 
 intrepid design with whicli he resolved to examine, 
 in person, all the lazarettos of Europe. Unwilling 
 to involve a second life in the dangers of this pil- 
 grimage, he travelled alone through the sea-ports 
 of France, Italy, Zaute, Smyrna, and Constanti- 
 nople. Hearing that a new infection had broken 
 out in SmjTna soou after he had left it, he re- 
 paired there a second time ; and, after observing 
 the ravages of the disorder, proceeded to Venice 
 with a " foul bill," that he might become personally 
 conversant with the treatment to which patients 
 were subjected in the lazarettos of that celebrated 
 city. 
 
 This inexhaustible spirit of benevolent enter- 
 prise, a moral heroism so intense and indefatiga- 
 ble, roused the most vivid feelings of admu-ation 
 throughout all Europe. At home subscriptions for 
 a public monument to perpetuate his name were 
 proposed, and liberally tendered, but the entreaties 
 of his own modesty intercepted the fulfilment of 
 the honour. " Have I not one friend in England," 
 he asked with simple eloquence, " who would save 
 me from the pain of such a proceeding V The 
 design was therefore abandoned out of deference 
 to his feelings, but the money collected was placed 
 at his own disposal for charitable purposes. 
 
 Upon his return to England after this perilous 
 excui"sion he devoted two more years to ascertain 
 the extent of improvement which had taken place 
 in the various prisons, bridewells, hospitals, and 
 hulks throughout the kingdom under the recent 
 acts of parliament. The first part of the year 
 1789 he spent in methodizing and printing his 
 " Account of the Pi-incipal Lazarettos in Europe, 
 with various papers relative to the plague, and 
 further observations on prisons and hospitals." In 
 this volume he expressed an intention of again 
 leaving his country for the purpose of revisiting 
 Russia and Turkey ; and, as soou as the work was 
 published, he set out. As this was his last voyage, 
 the view which he took of it himself may not 
 prove uninteresting to the reader. " I am not 
 insensible," he observed, " of the dangers that 
 must attend such a journey. Trusting, however, 
 in the protection of that kind Providence which 
 has hitherto preserved me, 1 calmly and cheerfully 
 commit myself to the dis])osal of unerring wisdom. 
 Should it please God to cut off my life in the pro- 
 secution of this design, let not my conduct be 
 uncandidly imputed to rashness or enthusiasm, but 
 to a serious and deliberate conviction that 1 am 
 [)ursning the path of duty, and to a sincere desire 
 of being made an instrument of more extensive 
 usefulness to my fellow-creatures than could be 
 expected in the narrow circle of retired life." 
 
 The solenmity of this jtassagc almost justifies the 
 assertion that a presentiment of the future was 
 impressed upon the author's mind when he wrote 
 it. Tile event he had contemplated with so much 
 feeling took ])lac<\ Prompted by that benevolence 
 which always urged him into the most hazardous 
 extremes, he pem-trated as far as Cherson, a new 
 settlement in liassia, which had proved fatal to 
 thousands. At this remote spot he engaged, with 
 the activity of youth, in a serious of experiments 
 to cmmteract tiie insalubrity which alllicted the 
 inhabitants ; and, amongst others, was induced to 
 visit a young lady who lay ill of an epidemic finer. 
 In his endeavours to recover her he caught the 
 
 distemper himself ; and after having exposed him- 
 self to contagion for years, without having been 
 once infected, he at last became its martyr. Prince 
 Potemkin, the favourite minister of the great Cathe- 
 rine, no sooner heard of his indisposition than he 
 despatched his private physician to his relief. All 
 attentions, however, proved vain ; his virtuous la- 
 bom-s were numbered ; and he expired on the 
 twelfth day of his confinement. His body was 
 interred in the garden of a French gentleman in 
 the neighbourhood, and the grateful admiration of 
 the Russian empire has since honoured the spot 
 with a haudsiime tomb. In England the event was 
 announced in the Gazette, a compliment which had 
 never before been conferred on a private indi- 
 vidual ; and all ranks concurred in sincere expres- 
 sions of regret and regard for a man who, in the 
 highest and purest sense of the words, claims the 
 jiraise of having been an ornament to human 
 natui'e. 
 
 Mr. Howard was unquestionably one of the best 
 and most virtuous characters to be found in his- 
 tory. His philanthropy was of the most unosten- 
 tatious and penetrating order. He travelled thrice 
 through France, four times through Germany, five 
 times through Holland, twice through Italy, once 
 through Spain and Portugal, and paid diffei-ent 
 visits to Denmark, Sweden, Russia, Poland, and 
 Turkey. The cause of suffering humanity has sel- 
 dom been served with more zeal, intrepidity, per- 
 severance, and effect. He was admirably fitted 
 for his labours ; never indulging in the use of spi- 
 rituous liquors, sparingly conversant with social 
 pleasures, and constant to a system of rigorous 
 temperance, he lived in the poorest countries with 
 content, and passed through emergencies of ex- 
 treme necessity without pain or complaint. With 
 him the mind appears to have ever been absolute 
 master of the body, and thus he submitted to all 
 hardships with alacrity, and mulerwent every mor- 
 tification without the smallest reluctance. Calm 
 in temper, judicious and most resolute of purpose, 
 he was parsimonious in his personal exjienditure, 
 but unbounded in his generosity to others*. To 
 him money seems to have been only valuable in 
 proportion to the good it enabled him to render his 
 fellow-creatm'es. His talents were of a most useful. 
 
 • In travelling, Mr. Howard lived in the plainest manner, 
 generally carrying along with his luggage a tea-kettle and 
 cither utensils, as well as the materials for making tea, of 
 which he was fond, for its simple exhilarating qualities. At 
 the inns, however, he generally ordered the best victuals and 
 wines, so that there might he no complaint as to his stingi- 
 ness ; but these luxuries he seldom tasted. When he con- 
 sidered himself ill-treated by postilions, he punished them 
 by withholding extra fees; but to show that he did not do 
 so for thepurimse of saving money, he sent his servant to 
 gather the poor of the place, and, in the presence of the 
 postilion, distributed among them the sum he would have 
 paid. These traits of character becoming widely dill'used, 
 he, in time, was well known and carefully attended to 
 wherever he travelled. On one occasion, he happened to 
 visit a monastery at Prague, where he found the inmates 
 feasting on a day which ought to have lieen devoted to absti- 
 nence. He was so nnich displeased with this breach ofdisci- 
 ))line, that lie threatened to proceed to Home to inform the 
 pope; and it was only after the monks had made the most 
 humiliating apology, and expressed their contrition, that lie 
 promised to be silent on the subject to the head of their 
 church.
 
 24 
 
 ST. PAUL'S CATHEDRAL. 
 
 but not a shining order : he wrote with much good 
 sense, and but little elegance : his education had 
 been defective, and his acquirements in every 
 respect attained by the force of inherent power 
 and constitutional perseverance. In his principles 
 there was nothing speculative. His opinions were 
 founded upon accurate observation, and all his 
 statements wei'e the evidence of facts. His eager- 
 ness to ameliorate the wretchedness of the prisoner 
 never made him the less anxious to correct vice 
 and deter from crime. He reformed while he 
 punished, and blended order with atonement. Dis- 
 cipline — strict, invariable, but gentle discipline — 
 softened by every comfort which is compatible 
 with the circumstances of the sufferer, was uni- 
 formly the doctrine he desii'ed to inculcate. Wher- 
 ever he went his reputation was the highest : at 
 home and abroad stiite jjrisons and public hospitals 
 were thrown open to his touch with grateful ala- 
 crity : the most exalted offered liim theu* respect, 
 the lowest their veneration. He sought no power 
 but that of serving his suffering fellow-creatures, 
 and was indifferent to every title but that of bemg 
 their benefactor. 
 
 Burlve pronounced a splendid panegyric upon 
 the motives and incidents of his life. It was intro- 
 duced into a speech delivered at the election of 
 Bristol for 1780, and ran thus : — " 1 camiot name 
 
 this gentleman without remarking that his labours 
 and writings have done much to open the eyes and 
 hearts of mankind. He has visited all Europe — 
 not to survey the sumptuousness of palaces, or the 
 stateliness of temjjles ; not to make accui-ate mea- 
 surements of the remains of ancient grandeur, or 
 to fomi a scale of the curiosities of modern art ; 
 not to collect medals, or collate manuscripts ; but 
 to dive into the depths of dungeons, to plunge uito 
 the infection of hospitals, to survey the mansions 
 of sorrow and pain, to take the gauge and dimen- 
 sions of misery, depression, and contempt ; to re- 
 member the forgotten, to attend the neglected, to 
 visit the forsaken ; to collate and compai-e the dis- 
 tresses of all men, in all countries, and edit the 
 misfortunes of the human race. His plan is ori- 
 ginal, and it is as lull of genius as it is of humanity. 
 It was a voyage of discovery ; a circumnavigation 
 of charity. Already the benefit of his exertions is 
 felt more or less in every country. I hope he 
 will anticipate his reward by seeing all its effects 
 realized in his own. He will receive, not by retail, 
 but in gross, the reward of those who visit the 
 prisoner ; as he has so forestalled and monopolized 
 this branch of charity, that there will be, I trust, 
 little room to mex'it by such acts of benevolence 
 hereafter." 
 
 RODNEY, LORD RODNEY, K.B. 
 
 The design of this monument, wliich stands in the 
 x'ecess under the western window of the north 
 transept in St. Paul's Cathedral, is thus explained. 
 The seated figure is a personification of History : 
 she is listening to Fame expatiating upon the 
 merits of Rodney, whose statue is elevated upon 
 the pedestal in the centre. For this group the 
 artist Rossi received six thousand guineas ; and 
 yet the performance, though highly profitable, does 
 the sculptor no honour. Something of a character of 
 keen old age and piercing intelligence is conveyed 
 in the admiral's face ; but, as a wliole, the monu- 
 ment, like most of those amongst which it stands, 
 is a failure. The inscription runs as follows : — 
 
 Erected at the public expense 
 
 to the memory of 
 
 George Bridges Rodney, K.B. 
 
 Lord Rodney, Vice-Admii-al of England, 
 
 As a testimony of the gallant and important 
 
 services which he rendered to his country 
 
 in many memorable engagements. 
 
 And especially in that of 12 April, 1782, 
 
 When a bi'iliiant and decisive victory was obtained 
 
 over the French fleet ; 
 
 And an effectual protection was afforded 
 
 to the West Indian Islands, 
 
 And to the commercial interests of this kingdom 
 
 in the very crisis of the American war. 
 
 Lord Rodney was born in 1718. 
 
 Died 24th of May, 1792. 
 
 Walton-upon-Thames was the birth-place of 
 
 Rodney. His father, Henry Rodney, was a cap- 
 tain in the navy, and commander of the yacht in 
 which George I. used to visit his German do- 
 minions. This circumstance pi'ocured the subject 
 of this sketch, who was a second son, the honour 
 of having his Majesty and the Duke of Cumber- 
 land for sponsors at his christening, and at the 
 same time led to a promise, that if educated in the 
 profession of his father, such promotion as any 
 merit he might display, and the interests of the 
 service would permit, should be his. Under 
 these high auspices young Rodney entered the 
 navy at an early age, and after passing through 
 the probationary stages of the service became, in 
 1742, one of the lieutenants employed under Ad- 
 miral Mathews in the Mediterranean. During the 
 course of the same year he was promoted to be 
 captain of the Plymouth, a sixty-gun ship. Re- 
 turning soon after to England he was shifted on 
 board of the Sheerness frigate, of twenty guns, 
 from which he was again as speedily removed into 
 the Windsor Castle, of forty-four guns. In 17-1<> 
 he was employed to cruise along the Irish coast in 
 the Eagle, a new ship carrying sixty-one guns, and 
 on that station captured two privateers : the one 
 S])anish, with sixteen guns and 120 men ; and the 
 other French, with twenty-two guns and 2C0 men. 
 During the following year he was attached to the 
 sijuadron under Commodore Fox, which was com- 
 missioned to intercept a fleet of merchantmen on 
 their return from Domingo, and enjoyed his full 
 share of an easy but profitable victory. For the 
 French were no sooner discovered in the Bay of
 
 RODNEY, LORD RODNEY. 
 
 25 
 
 Biscay than they crowded all sail and fled. The 
 British gamiug upon them in the chase, the men- 
 of-war abandoned the merchantmen to their fate, 
 and forty-eij^ht vessels thus fell into our hands, of 
 which si.x. were captured by Rodney. 
 
 It was at the defeat of Letenduer's fleet by 
 Admiral Hawke, that Captain Rodney laid the 
 foundation of that hij;h character to which he ulti- 
 mately rose. Upon that occasion he commanded 
 the Eagle, and ran her through a tremendous fire 
 from the rear to the van of the enemy, and main- 
 tained a vigorous engagement with two opponents 
 until his braces, bowlines, and wheel were all shot 
 away, and his ship for a while was totiilly unma- 
 nageable. Effecting a partial repair of these in- 
 juries, he joined two other captams in an attempt 
 to seize upon the French admiral and his second. 
 A short and fierce though unsuccessful combat 
 ensued, which did credit to the intrepidity of the 
 officers who undertook it, and drove the enemy to 
 fly under cover of a dark night. Peace was de- 
 clared in October, \'Ji3, and Rodney remained 
 unemployed for an interval. During the course of 
 a year, however, he was appointed to the Rainbow, 
 a fourth-rate ship, and was soon after nominated 
 governor and commander-in-chief of Newfound- 
 land. Proceeding to this station, at the head of 
 the squadron usually sent for the protection of our 
 fisheries along the coast, he made a voyage of dis- 
 covery for a small island which had recently been 
 reported to lie about 50^ N. 1., and 330 leagues 
 westward from Scilly ; but after a diligent cruise 
 he could find no laud. He relinquished his com- 
 mand at the usual period, and in Febiniary, 1733, 
 married Jane, the daughter of Charles Compton, 
 Esq., and sister of Spencer, Earl of Northampton. 
 From the Kent, of seventy guns, in which he 
 remained until 1755, he was appointed to the Dub- 
 lin, of seventy-four guns, in 1757, and sailed under 
 Sir Edward Hawke on the expedition against 
 Rochfort. Being attached durmg the following 
 year to Admiral Boscawen's fleet before Louis- 
 boin-g, he captured the Mount Martin, a French 
 Indianian of great value, while on his passage out. 
 This was his last enterprise in a subordinate rank ; 
 for in June, 1759, he was raised to the flag of 
 rear-admiral of the blue, and commanded to de- 
 stroy, with a squadron of war and bomb ships, a 
 French flotilla, equii)ped at Havre dc Grace for 
 the purpose of invading Great Britain. His dis- 
 positions for carrying his orders into execution, 
 and the manner in which he accomplished them, 
 were judicious and successful. Maintaining an un- 
 intennittccl bombardment for two-and-fitty hours, 
 he fired the town repeatedly in ditt'erent (jnarters, 
 consumed the great magazuie of flat boats, overset 
 and sunk many others, and so much damaged the 
 remainder, that they were rendered unfit for sub- 
 sequent service. The consequences were highly 
 important: the designs of the; French were entirely 
 frustrated, their hostile; |irei)arations all destroyeil, 
 and the port itself left almost without the capabili- 
 ties for one foririidable uiiih'rtakiiig doriiig the 
 contiiuiancc of tlie war. Rodney remained on this 
 station for nearly two years longer with undimi- 
 nished re[)utation for zeal and efficiency. 
 
 In 17'Jl lie was chosen member of parliament 
 for Penryn, in Cornwall, and rluriiig the course of 
 the same year received the comTiiaiid of an expe- 
 dition against the itjland of Martinique. Setting 
 
 sail from Si)ithead, in the Marlborough, of seventy- 
 four guns, on October Ui, ho arrived, with all the 
 forces destined for the attack, ott' the bay of Cas 
 Navire on January 7, 1702. Many difficulties op- 
 posed themselves to our troops on this occasion, 
 such as the fortifications thrown up by the enemy, 
 and the irregular nature of the country. Courage, 
 sagacity, and perseverance, however, overcame 
 every obstacle ; the attack succeeded in various 
 quarters, and the whole island surrendered Febru- 
 ary 12. Grenada, St. Lucia, and St. Vincent were 
 then reduced in rapid succession, and all the 
 French possessions in the Cai'ibbees were brought 
 under the dominion of Great Britaui. Rodney 
 came home to England, and remained for some 
 years unemployed, in consequence of the peace of 
 1763. His services were rewarded with a baro- 
 netcy in January, 1704, and he was made governor 
 of Greenwich Hospital during the course of the 
 ensuing year. In 17C8 he entered upon a con- 
 tested election for the borough of Northampton ; 
 but though I'eturned by a decided majority, the 
 money he was tempted to lay out in the struggle, 
 and a habit of life generally expensive, so crippled 
 his means that he was unable to enjoy the triumph. 
 Pressed by pecuniary embarrassments, he resigned 
 his post at Greenwich, and accepted of the com- 
 mand of the Jamaica station, with his flag on board 
 the Princess Amelia, of seventy-four guns, in 177L 
 The governor of that island was then in a pre- 
 carious state of health, and Rodney hoped to re- 
 trieve his affairs by succeeding to this lucrative 
 seat of power in case of a vacancy. In this, how- 
 ever, he was disappointed ; the governor lived on, 
 and he was obliged to revisit England when the 
 usual term of his commission expired. He was 
 now compelled to avoid the persecution of his cre- 
 ditors by retiring into France, where he .spent 
 some years in obscurity and great distress. The 
 government of that country availed itself of his 
 misfortunes to try and draw him from the service 
 of his country by offers of a large sum of money 
 and the first rank in the French navy. Tlie blunt 
 sailor layected the proposal not only without hesi- 
 tation, but in a manner that showed he considered 
 it an insult. He was soon after cTiabled to regain 
 his native country, and obtained a command with- 
 out scdicitation. The means by which lie discharged 
 the incumbrances upon his income were disinter- 
 estedly lent to him, it is said, by the Due de Biron, 
 who had the magnanimity to reward the virtue he 
 could not seduce, by restoring it to its natural 
 sphere of action. 
 
 Whether this statement is true or not, it is cer- 
 tain that towards the close of the year 177" Kod- 
 ney was made admiral of the white, and a]ipointed 
 to the Leeward Island station. He sailed from 
 Spithead in Decenibei", on board the Sandwich, of 
 ninety guns, and discoveivnl a fleet of merchant- 
 men and men-of-war off C'ape Finisterre, at day- 
 break, January !!, 171iO. Making signals for a 
 general chase, lie soon gained sufficiently on tlie 
 strangers to ]iereeive the Spanish colours, and liy 
 manoeuvres of superior dexterity succeeded in cap- 
 turing the whole b(jdy before one o'clock, p.m. 
 One man-of-war, four frigates, two corvettes, a 
 large sail of merchant-vessels, all belonging to the 
 (."ai'acca Company, tlius fell into his liaiids, and 
 pro\ed Aery vjiinalile jiiM/.es. 
 
 Having lurni.slied the garrison of Gibrallar with
 
 26 
 
 ST. PAUL'S CATHEDRAL. 
 
 stores out of the proceeds of this victory, Rodney 
 proceeded to cruise aloug the coast of Portugal, 
 and fell in, January 16, with a second Spanish 
 squadron, consisting of fourteen ships of the hue, 
 commanded hy Don Juan du Langara. The weather 
 being hazy, and the English fleet much extended, 
 the enemy failed to perceive the whole force op- 
 posed to them, and at first took no pains to avoid 
 an encounter. But as the British approached 
 nearer, the Spaniards prepared to escape, and Rod- 
 ney was obliged to press every sail ui order to 
 frustrate their designs. The ships engaged as they 
 came up, and the resistance of the enemy was brisk 
 at the beginning. About four o'clock the action 
 was general ; at five, one of the Spanish ships blew 
 up with a tremendous explosion ; two others sur- 
 rendered soon after : but the contest endured until 
 two in the morning, when the Monarca struck to 
 the Sandwich. The fruits of this victory were the 
 Phcenix, of eighty guns, bearing the flag of Ad- 
 miral Langara, the Monarca, Princessa, and Dili- 
 gente, each of seventy guns, captured ; the St. 
 Domingo, also of seventy guns, blown up ; and the 
 San Julian and San Eugenie, of seventy guns, sur- 
 rendered. The gratification excited by this suc- 
 cess was enhanced by the trifling loss with which 
 it was acquired, for the British had only thirty-two 
 men killed and 120 wounded. Both houses of par- 
 liament voted Rodney thanks for his conduct upon 
 the occasion ; the freedom of the city of London 
 was presented him in a gold box valued at 100 
 guineas ; the inhabitants of Westminster chose him 
 one of their representatives in parliament at the 
 general election which took place during the month 
 of September in the same year, though he was 
 absent from England at the time, and had not 
 solicited their suffrages ; and, in November, the 
 king nominated him a supernumerary knight of 
 the Bath, there being no stall vacant at the time iu 
 Henry the Seventh's Chapel. 
 
 Rodney was now ordered to the West Indies, 
 where he assumed the command of twenty sail of 
 the line, and spent the year in endeavouring to 
 destroy the French fleet under Admiral Guichen. 
 No decisive action, however, occun-ed ; though 
 several running fights and manoeuvres of consider- 
 able skill took place : the French behaved with a 
 prudence which baffled every effort to bring on an 
 encounter ; and in this way left the English no 
 greater honours to gain than the maintenance of their 
 national superiority on the station. Early in 1781 
 a war with the Dutch was announced ; and Rodney, 
 receiving a reinforcement of seven sail of the line 
 from England, was instructed to commence hosti- 
 lities against the settlements of that power in the 
 west. An attack upon the island of St. Eustatia 
 was accordingly determined on ; and a sufficient 
 force appearing before the place, Februaiy 3, it 
 surrendered without a blow : the booty thus seized 
 was valued at three millions sterling, but much of 
 the public satisfaction was alloyed by the rapacity 
 with which the property of the imfortunate island- 
 ers was confiscated. As the autumn approached, 
 Rodney passed over to England to recruit his 
 health, and was made vice-admh-al of Great Bri- 
 tain, in the room of Lord Hawke. 
 
 Before the year closed he resumed his station. 
 The ship in which he now carried his flag was the 
 Formidable, of ninety-eight guns ; the force under 
 his command amounted to thii-ty-six sail of the 
 
 line ; and that of the French, under the Count de 
 Grasse, consisted of thirty ships of the line, ten 
 frigates, seven armed brigs, two fire-ships, and a 
 cutter. Between these fleets two brilliant battles 
 were fought ; the first on the 9th, and the second 
 on the 12th of April, 1782. Signals for the former 
 battle were made early in the morning, while the 
 French lay in a line of battle to windward, and 
 were standing over to Guadaloupe, and while the 
 English were in a degree becalmed under the high 
 lands of Dominica. Some time therefore elapsed 
 before the ships reached their stations ; but a for- 
 tunate breeze sprung up ; the British, led by Sir 
 Samuel Hood, closed with the enemy's centre, and 
 by nine o'clock a cannonade was opened. In this 
 du-ection the conflict had been hotly maintained 
 for upwards of an hour before the British centre 
 caught the wind, and were enabled to render 
 assistance. Some ships, however, bore up about 
 eleven, and took a part in the action, which raged 
 heavily, until the rear of the British began to get 
 under weigh ; and then the Count de Grasse, 
 having the advantage of the wind, betook himself 
 to flight. On this day Captain Bayne of the Alfred 
 fell. 
 
 The British lay to for the pirrpose of repairing 
 their damages during the night, and gave chase to 
 the still retreatmg enemy for two successive days. 
 On the morning of the 12th, a French man-of-war, 
 disabled in the recent fight, and towed by a frigate, 
 fell to leeward, and a general engagement was 
 hazarded by De Grasse, in order to prevent her 
 capture. The firing began at half-past seven, and 
 was kept up with much sharpness until noon, when 
 the wind shifted, and Captain (afterwards Lord) 
 Gambler made a bold but ineffectual attempt to force 
 the French line. Rodney, however, soon after un- 
 dertook the same movement with success. He may 
 thus claim the honour of having been the first 
 seaman who introduced the system of tactics which 
 Nelson afterwards made the means of so many 
 splendid victories. Being quickly followed by 
 other ships, he wore without delay, and doubled 
 upon the enemy with a destructive fire. General 
 confusion soon ensued ; the French van bore away, 
 and endeavoured to form to leeward, but were 
 baffled in the design by the perseverance of tlie 
 British, who now hailed the division under Sir 
 Samuel Hood, which had been becalmed all the 
 forenoon. At length the enemy, after a resistance 
 of marked bravery, began to yield ; one of their 
 seventy-fours was sunk ; and their admiral, on 
 board the Ville de Paris, being surromided on all 
 sides, struck his flag with the setting sun. Signals 
 to bring to and collect the prizes were then hung 
 out, the night set in, and the enemy were com- 
 pletely dispersed. The Ville de Paris, of 1 10 guns, 
 carrying the French Admiral, and a considerable 
 sum of money ; the Glorieux, Csesar, and Hector, 
 of 74 guns each ; and the Ardent, of 64 gims, 
 were captured ; and another ship of 74 guns was 
 sunk. Intelligence of this victory was received in 
 England with the usual demonstrations of enthu- 
 siastic joy. The admiral, his officers, and men, 
 were honoured with votes of thanks from both 
 houses of Parliament. Rodney received a peerage, 
 and a pension of 2000?. a year. All these honoui-s, 
 however, were suddenly crossed by unexpected 
 mortification. Just before the news of the victory 
 reached England, tlie ministry, dissatisfied tliat no
 
 SIR JOSHUA REYNOLDS. 
 
 27 
 
 decisive action had taken ])laeo, desi)atclied Admiral 
 Pigot to the West Indies, witli a cdnnuission super- 
 sediug Rodney. I'igot reached I'ort Royal, and, 
 piu'suant to his orders, actually displaced the hero 
 froiu his cunimaud iu the hey-day of victory. 
 
 Rodney was so hurt by this unmerited disjjraco, 
 that he vowed, when striking his Hag, ne\ er again 
 to hoist it. He kept liis resulntiou, and, after 
 leading a retired life, died ten years after in Lou- 
 don, aged 74. 
 
 SIR JOSHUA REYNOLDS. 
 
 The monument erected to the fir.st president of 
 the Royal Academy is placed under the great 
 dome of St. Paul's, and supported by the massive 
 pier to the north-west. It is a single statue, and 
 represents the artist in the gown of a Doctor of 
 Laws, holding his celebrated lectures in his right 
 hand, and resting his left upon an elevated pedestal, 
 to which is affixed a bust of Michael Angelo. The 
 work is by Flaxman, R.A. ; and appears to be a 
 plain performance, with little that is imposing iu 
 the attitude, and something weak in the delineation 
 of tlio head. The inscription is iu Latin : — 
 
 J0SHU.E Reynolds, 
 
 Pictonim sui seculi facile principi, 
 
 et splendore et commissuris colorum 
 
 alternis vicibus lumiuis et umbric 
 
 sese mutuo excitantium 
 
 vix uili veterum secundo ; 
 
 Qui, cum summa artis gloria uteretur, 
 
 et morum suavitate et vita) elegantia 
 
 perinde commendaretur, 
 
 Artem etiam ipsam jier orbem terraruni 
 
 languentem et prope intermortuani, 
 
 Excmplis egregie vcnustis suscitavit, 
 
 Priecoptis exipiisite conscriptis illustravit 
 
 atque emendatiorem et expolitioreni 
 
 posteris exercendam tradidit ; 
 
 Laudum ejus fautores et amici 
 
 banc statuam posueruut 
 
 A. S. MDCCCXIII. 
 
 Natus die xv. Mcnsis Julii, mdccxxiii. 
 Mortem obiit die xxiii Pebruarii, muccxcii.* 
 
 Painting in England is a modern art: the con- 
 tinental schools, which maintained its influence, 
 and added, one after another, variety to its many 
 
 * The following is a translation : — . 
 
 To JosnuA Reynolds, 
 
 Pre-eminently the first painter of his age, 
 
 And in the brightness and harmony of liis roloiiring, 
 
 Mutually exciting the varieties of light and shade, 
 
 Second to none of the ancient masters; 
 
 Who, possessing the highest honours of his profession, 
 
 Became still further estiniahic 
 
 by the suavity of his manners, and the elegance of his life; 
 
 Raised art itself hy works of ex(iuisite luauty, 
 
 When over all the world it languished anil was nearly dead, 
 
 Illustrated it by choice rules and precejjts, 
 
 And bequeathed it to the cultivation of posterity, 
 
 Corrected and improved : — 
 
 nils statue w;is placed, 
 
 By tho friends and fosterers of his fame, 
 
 In tlie year of Salvation 1813. 
 
 Horn July i:., 172.3. 
 
 He died February 2.'), 1792. 
 
 beauties, had each of them completed its list of 
 great masters, and admiration appeared satiated 
 with deliglit, befoi'e an Englishman took up the 
 easel and made a well-sustamed effort to excite 
 emotion or attract applause. It is to the subject 
 of this sketch tliat we owe the establislinicnt of an 
 English scliool of painting, and it is, perhaps, his 
 highest praise, that he still ranks at the head of 
 the numerous body whom the example of his suc- 
 cess has called into existence. 
 
 Joshua Reynolds was born at Plymjiton, in 
 Devonshire, July 15, 1723. He was the youngest 
 in a family of ten children, belonging to the Rev. 
 Samuel Reynolds, curate, and master of the gram- 
 mar school in that borough ; a pious and learned 
 man, who supported his numerous offspring with a 
 character of unblemished respectability, upon a 
 very slender income. The circumstances of his 
 birth secured Joshua one benefit — a classical edu- 
 cation, of which he availed himself with an ease 
 and proficiency that strewed the path of his future 
 fame with many graces and facilities. 
 
 Few men have risen to excellence in the pro- 
 vinces of taste and ingenuity, respecting whose 
 early years some striking anecdotes of pi-emature 
 genius and self-determined talent have not been 
 recorded. That the youtli of such an artist a-s 
 Reynolds should be destitute of similar traits of 
 interest is not to be expected, and we find our- 
 selves accordingly informed, that his taste for 
 drawing was developed even in liis boyhood. His 
 first manifestation of it was iu copying the ])or- 
 traits to an old edition of Plutarch's Lives upon 
 the blaidc leaves at the end of tiie book. These 
 specimens of a natural predilection for the art 
 were long prized l)y the partiality of his relations, 
 and have since l)een admitted into the cabinets of 
 the curious. While yet a boy, " Richardson's 
 Treatise u])on Painting " happened to fall into his 
 hands, and by that work, as he used himself 
 afterwards to relate, was his ambition quickly 
 directed to the art. Soon after this he met 
 wiih a similar book, the " Jesuit's Perspective," 
 and eagerly possessed himself of its contents. 
 Tiie biiis tiius evinced, attracted tho favourable 
 eyes of his father, wlui liad the good sense to 
 encourage tlie boy in a i)ursuit which he had 
 chosen for himself upon the impulse of natural 
 aliiiity. 
 
 In conseipienec of this sensible resolution, young 
 Reynolds had llie lia]ipiness to find bim.self, at the 
 age of seventeen, bound an ai)]irentice to Hudson, 
 wlio, at that time, li'd the ]iortniit-iiainters in 
 Lon<lou. With Hudson Reynolds resided foi-some 
 fivi! years or so, during wiiieii he ap[>lie(l his atten- 
 tion, in a great measure, to the fund:iment:d and 
 meclianical rules of the profession. To wiiat ex-
 
 28 
 
 ST. PAUL'S CATHEDRAL. 
 
 tent he improved himself under his master, it is 
 not easy to determine ; in all probability he made 
 no extraordinary progress. Hudson, though much 
 praised and com'ted, had no very high merit to 
 boast of ; lie caught a likeness well, but was a 
 poor colourer, and had nothing creative in him. 
 Perhaps it was a conviction of his own deficiencies 
 that impelled him to recommend his pupil to copy 
 from Guercino — a task which the latter executed 
 with so much ability, that several of the copies he 
 then made, from the master just mentioned, have 
 since acquired no inconsiderable reputation and 
 value. His studies received a temporary cheek 
 from some disagreement between him and Hud- 
 son, which terminated abruptly in a separation, 
 upon which Reynolds returned into Devonshire. 
 There, for three successive years, he followed the 
 bent of his own mind, and produced a succession 
 of works, which, notwithstanding the unfavom-able 
 circumstances of his situation, spread his unfledged 
 reputation far around his native home, and added 
 fresh assurances of success to the earnest he had 
 previously afforded during his residence in London. 
 
 Such were the prospects under which, in 1749, 
 he accepted the invitation of Captain (afterwards 
 Admiral Lord) Keppel, to pay a visit to the Medi- 
 terranean, on which station that officer's ship was 
 ordered. At the close of the same year, Reynolds 
 landed in Italy, and visited in succession, Leghorn, 
 Rome, and the other cities of that celebrated 
 country, which have been so long and deservedly 
 commended for their invaluable treasures in every 
 branch of the fine arts. Reynolds seems to have 
 been instantly impressed with a just sense of the 
 excellence now set before him, and the manner in 
 which improvement was to be derived from it. 
 Unlike others, he drew no copies ; on the conti"ary, 
 he devoted his mind to a deep study of the great 
 masters in their works : he compared their styles, 
 sought to estimate their characters, and, after a 
 diligent examination of each, adapted to his own 
 powers a system compounded from them all. This 
 mode of study has been highly praised, and with 
 much reason ; it showed great judgment, which is 
 generally better than talent, and may be called 
 intuition, as distinguished from mere imitation. 
 
 Three years passed on in this enviable state of 
 classical improvement, when Reynolds came back 
 to his native land in 1752, and exhibited a full- 
 length portrait of his friend Captain Keppel, which 
 at once raised him to the head of liis profession. 
 Taking a house m Newport-street, Leicester-square, 
 he had the rare happiness of finding that there 
 were no degi-ees in his fortune. He started at once 
 into the first rank of English artists, and what 
 must have been still more flattering to his pride, 
 after outstripping competition he became the 
 means of assisting his profession. In 1769, 
 George III. instituted the Royal Academy of 
 Painting, Sculpture, and Architecture ; and Rey- 
 nolds, being unanimously elected president, was 
 knighted by the king. From the dignified position 
 he now occupied, much was expected by his coun- 
 try, and much was certainly obtained. Sir Joshua 
 displayed his talents in the president's chair in a 
 manner eminently creditable to himself and highly 
 advantageous to the fine arts. The discourses 
 which he delivered from it appeared originally in 
 1778, and have since been printed in so many 
 forms, and praised in so many ways, that there is 
 
 little more left for a modem critic to observe, than 
 that they were the first lectures upon the princi- 
 ples and practice of the fine arts addressed to an 
 audience in this country ; and, that though others 
 have since been delivered, still none have equalled 
 them. Sir Joshua Reynolds is the first lecturer 
 on painting we have amongst us, both in point of 
 time and of merit. 
 
 While thus enjoying fame and fortune in the 
 metropolis, he was not forgotten in the place of his 
 nativity ; the corporation of Pljinpton unanimously 
 elected him in rotation, freeman, alderman, and 
 mayor, of their borough. This last compliment 
 flattei'ed him so much, that in the warmth of his 
 gi'atitude he avowed, that he regarded it as the 
 greatest distinction conferi'ed upon his professional 
 career. As an acknowledgment for the obligation, 
 he presented the corporation with his portrait, in 
 the robes peculiar to their chief magistrate. This 
 picture was hung up in the town hall, engraved, and 
 universally admired. The attitude chosen, though 
 difficult to paint well, is here decidedly eff'ective : 
 he holds one hand modestly before his eyes, as it 
 has been the fashion with painters wlien they 
 represent themselves. His mayoralty, and the 
 subsequent presentation of this picture, gave rise 
 to two complimentary verses, in Latin, which the 
 burgesses were anxious to see subscribed to the 
 work ; but the painter's modesty declined the 
 adaptation of such flattering praise. The lines 
 
 Laudat Romanus Raphaelem, Graecus Apellem, 
 Plympton Reynoldum jactat utrique parem. 
 
 Let Rome her Raphael, Greece Apelles praise, 
 While Plympton Reynolds crowns with equal bays. 
 
 Other dignities were conferred upon Sir Joshua 
 at different periods, which, though minor in them- 
 selves, deserve to be enumerated as so many proofs 
 of the general esteem in which he was held. Thus 
 we find him chosen a fellow of the Royal and Anti- 
 quarian Societies ; and in 1784 presented with the 
 freedom of the city of London. Again, when Lord 
 North was made chancellor of the university of 
 Oxford, RevTiolds shared the honours of the occa- 
 sion with the degree of Doctor of Laws, an aca- 
 demical distinction to which his talents as a writer 
 not unjustly entitled him. For, independent of 
 the lectures already favourably mentioned. Sir 
 Joshua was a contributor to the "Idler" as early 
 as the year 1759. These, his fii-st literary pro- 
 ductions, are numbered 76, 79, and 82, and, 
 being all upon the appropriate subject of painting, 
 claim attention for a pleasantness of observation 
 and strength of diction which make them fit com- 
 panions to the essays of the mighty Doctor, who 
 was not more partial to than proud of his friend 
 the president. Johnson often declared, and with 
 evident satisfaction, that he coiisidered Repiolds 
 as one of the first pupils he had raised in his own 
 school of «Titing. As an author he is further 
 known by the notes he contributed to Mason's 
 translation of Dufresnoy's Art of Painting, and by 
 his notes of two tours made in Flanders and Hol- 
 land during the years 1781 and 1783. 
 
 Being appointed, in 1784, upon the death of 
 Ramsay, portrait-painter to the king, Reynolds 
 contuuied to practise his profession, enjoying, at 
 the same time, general favour in society and large
 
 SIR JOSHUA REYNOLDS. 
 
 2!) 
 
 profits. His agreoiiLle manners and pleasant con- 
 versation procured him a crowd of friends, amongst 
 whom are to be particularly mentioned the mem- 
 bers of the celebi-ated Literary Club : with that 
 rare body he was intimately associated. He lived 
 well, saw the best company in London at his table, 
 and was distinguished by his hospitality. In the 
 decline of his life he suffered some abatement of 
 this unbroken state of enjojinent fi-om a diseased 
 liver, the attacks of wliicli were aggravated by 
 a fit of paralysis, m 1789, through which he lost the 
 sight of ]iis left eye. Notwithstanding the pains 
 he suffered, he preserved to liis last moment the 
 placid and congi-atulatory habits which had all 
 along characterized his life. He died unmarried, 
 and greatly lamented, February 23, 1799, at his 
 house iu Leicester-square. His property, which 
 was considerable, devolved to a niece married to 
 the Earl of Inchiquin ; and his remains, after 
 being laid out in state in the apartments of the 
 Royal Academy in Somerset House, were mterred 
 with public honours in the crypt of St. Paul's 
 cathedral. 
 
 The lord mayor, sheriffs, and public function- 
 aries of the city of London met the procession at 
 the confines of their jurisdiction, and supported 
 the mourners to the cathedral. It was remarked 
 as an unusual homage, that among a body of ten 
 men who carried the pall of his cofiin, all were 
 noblemen of the first rank and greatest name. 
 The last melancholy ceremony performed, the as- 
 semblage slowly returned to Somerset House, where 
 i\Ir. Burke, who had long been the intimate friend 
 of Sir Joshua, came forward to thank them, in the 
 name of the family, for the respectful tribute they 
 had paid to the memory of the deceased ; but for 
 once grief was superior to eloquence, and the 
 orator stood mute in tears before the assembly. 
 
 Thus concludes all that is perishable of an En- 
 glishman, who, by his woi-ks in art, as well as by 
 his writings, and even more by the goodness of his 
 heart, will ever continue an ornament in the his- 
 tory of his country. Beyond all comparison. Sir 
 Joshua Reynolds was not only the best painter of 
 liis age, but is in his department the best of all we 
 as yet possess. He was the first amongst us who, 
 in any great or decided degree, added the higher 
 beauties of his art to the painting of the British 
 scliool. He was principally, though not wliolly, a 
 portrait-painter. To enumerate liis works would 
 be to give a catalogue of all the great men of his 
 age. They are increasing in value. Tlie celebrated 
 ])ortrait of Mrs. Siddons, in the character of the 
 Tragic Muse, ha.s been purchased since his death 
 for 3500 guineas. His Ugolino, and Death of 
 Cardinal Ijeaufort, have b(>cn j)ronounced, for 
 grandeur of conception and force of expression, 
 two of the best pieces that English art has pro- 
 duced. He possessed the theory as well as the 
 practice of his art ; in liis historical painting there 
 was a grace, and in all he performed a facility that 
 stam|)ed a character of superiority ; his ]iortraits, 
 for fancy, ease, variety, and, above ail, for charac- 
 ter, are far more exquisite )>roducti(ins than those 
 of any otluT iCnglisli painter, lie exjiired with 
 tlie full jironiise, and his mcniiory may already be 
 regarded as secured in the reputation, of having 
 been the father of tlie British school of painting. 
 
 A modem reviewer has ably drawn his character" 
 as a painter in the following passage : — " As u 
 
 painter, we cannot think, with his greatest admirers 
 among the present members of the Royal Academy, 
 that, ill illustration of his own theory, he uniti-d all 
 the excellences of tlie best masters ; but we do 
 conader tJiat he possessed great excellence. He 
 was deficient in invention ; for his composition, 
 thougli generally fine, is mostly borrowed from va- 
 rious quarters (in illustration of his theory) ; and 
 in character and expression he contuuially fell 
 short, not so much in accordance with his crotchet 
 about a ' central fin-m,' and a generalized idea of 
 beauty, as because it was not his forte. He could 
 not hiveut or conceive a striking original beauty, 
 (unless indeed in the style of his portraits and 
 their admirable back-grounds,) and therefore 
 worked incessantly — often with great dissatisfaction 
 at the natural result — to compound it from all 
 quarters, in order to produce an excellence in 
 which all identities should be merged. The con- 
 sequences of this are beautifully expressed by a 
 poet, in describing the restless and erroneous 
 craving after ' perfection' among his fraternity : 
 
 ' Beauty through all Being 
 Sheds her soul divine ; 
 But our spirits, fleeing 
 StiU from shrine to shrine 
 To kneel to her delights, far in the midst repine.' 
 
 Wade's Mundi el Cordis. 
 
 " Instead, therefore, of accomplishing an original 
 and ideal, Sii- Joshua only produces a nobly vague 
 generality, the substantive materials of wliich are 
 but too often plainly traceable to their sources. 
 But although his breadth wants mental purpose, 
 and liis outline precision, owing both to a mistaken 
 theory of a central or middle form, whereat we 
 'far in the midst repine,' and also to his being an 
 indifferent draughtsman ; still lie always aims at 
 elevation and refinement. There is never anything 
 vulgar or mean in his pictures. His design is 
 generally selected with consummate judgment ; 
 there is a peculiar grace and mastery in his touch, 
 and he is admirable in composition as a colourist. 
 In one sense Sir Joshua Reynolds may be con- 
 sidered as the father of British Art. He uplifted 
 and redeemed it from the mawkisli de])ravity into 
 which it had fallen during the reign of Charles 1 1., 
 by the preposterous arti/.anship of Verrio, (the 
 'worthy' who inti'oduced himself and Sir (iodl'rey 
 Kneller, in flowing periwigs, as courteous and ap- 
 proving spectators of ' Christ healing the Sick,') 
 and the jiencils of other foreign charlatans ; by 
 the foul ])atronago confeiTed u])oii Lely, who was 
 capable of far better things, and upon Kneller, 
 who was not ; and sweeping away tlie bai'c-faced 
 dominion of bare-breasted doll-like courtesans and 
 ladies of the court, established a nobleness of style 
 in design and colouring which entitles him to the 
 admiration and gratitiule of all British Artists." 
 
 Ilazlitt's estimate of Reynolds as a writer u])on 
 art is eipially good : 
 
 " The reasoning of the Discourses is, I think then, 
 deficient ill the following particulars : 
 
 " i. It seems to im]ply, that geiu^ral elleet iu a 
 ])icturc is jmxluced by leaving out the details ; 
 whereiis the largest masses and the grandest out- 
 line are consistent with the utmost delicacy of 
 finishing in the ))arts. 
 
 "2. It makes no distinction between beauty and
 
 30 
 
 ST. PAUL'S CATHEDRAL. 
 
 {Trandeur, but refers both to an ideal or middle 
 form, as the centre of the various forms of the 
 species, and yet inconsistently attributes the gran- 
 deur of Michael Angclo's style to the superhuman 
 appearance of his pro]jhets and ajiostles. 
 
 " 3. It does not at any time make mention of 
 power or nias;nitude in an object as a distinct 
 source of the sublime, (though this is acknowledged 
 unintentionally ui the case of Michael Angelo, &c.) 
 nor of softness or symmetry of form as a distinct 
 source of beauty, independently of, though still in 
 connexion with another source arising from what 
 
 we are accustomed to expect from each individual 
 species. 
 
 " 4. Sir Joshua's theory does not leave room for 
 character, but rejects it as an anomaly. 
 
 "5. It does not point out the source of expres- 
 sion, but considers it as hostile to beauty ; and yet, 
 lastly, he allows that the middle form, carried to 
 the utmost theoretical extent, neither defined by 
 cliaracter, nor impregnated by passion, would pro- 
 duce nothing but vague, insipid, unmeaning gene- 
 rality." 
 
 SIR WILLIAM JONES. 
 
 Sir William Jones's monument, a neat and some- 
 what affected statue, by Bacon, R. A., stands against 
 the south-west great pier of the dome. He is re- 
 presented in an attitude of composition, a pen in 
 one hand, a scroll in the other, and his right arm 
 supported by some volumes, which are meant to be 
 the Institutes of Menu. The pedestal is wrought 
 on one side with an insipid allegory of Study and 
 Genius, opening out Oriental Knowledge, and on 
 another with this plain inscription : — 
 
 To the Memory 
 
 of Sir William Jones, Knight, 
 
 one of the Judges 
 
 of the Supreme Court of Judicature 
 
 at Fort William, in Bengal, 
 
 This Statue was erected 
 
 by the Honourable East India Company, 
 
 In testimony 
 
 of their grateful sense of his public services. 
 
 Their admiration of his genius and learning, 
 
 And their respect for his character 
 
 and virtues. 
 
 He died in Bengal, on the 24th April, 179-1, 
 
 Aged 47. 
 
 William Jones, for whom some Cambrian genea- 
 logists have traced a descent fi'om Welsh kings, 
 was born m London on Michaelmas Eve, 174G. 
 When only three years old, his father died, in the 
 possession of a moderate property and some repu- 
 tation as a mathematician. His education thus 
 devolved upon his mother, a lady well qualified 
 for the task. She was the daughter of a cabinet- 
 maker, named Nix, and is commended by her son's 
 biographers for good sense, a strong understand- 
 ing, and a proficiency in such unfeminine branches 
 of science as algebra, trigonometry, and the theory 
 of navigation. 
 
 Two serious accidents had nearly deprived her 
 of the honour of rearing her clever son. Being 
 one day left alone in a room, he amused himself by 
 scraping the soot from the chimney, and fell into 
 the fire, from which he was only saved, after a 
 severe burning, by a servant, whom his cries had 
 alarmed and brought to his assistance. Soon after 
 this escape he quarrelled with the maid who was 
 dressing him, and in his peevish struggles fastened 
 one of the hooks of his coat in his eye. A danger- 
 
 ous wound was thus inflicted, Avhich, though healed 
 by the skill of Doctor Mead, left the sight ever 
 after imperfect. 
 
 Being placed at Harrow school in his seventh 
 year he became remarkable for quickness and ap- 
 plication, until he had the misfortune to break his 
 thigh-bone in a scholastic scramljle. He had been 
 three years at Harrow when this accident occur- 
 red. It was so severe as to occasion a suspension 
 of his studies for a twelvemonth : but so favour- 
 able was the opinion entertained of his ability, that 
 upon his return to school he was placed in the 
 class to which he would have risen had he conti- 
 nued in it without interruption. Naturally enough 
 he was then far behind his school-fellows ; but the 
 deficiency was soon supplied ; for his master, Dr. 
 Thackery, flogged him up to par with a severe 
 earnestness, which Jones never ceased to con- 
 demn. In his twelfth year he was promoted to a 
 form in the upper-school ; and from that period 
 the vivid industry which distinguished him through 
 life, and an extraordinary talent for grappling with 
 a variety of subjects at one and the same time, 
 were strongly manifested. Various anecdotes are 
 told to prove the powerful comprehensibility of his 
 mind ; but it must here suffice to relate, that he 
 now translated, of his own accord, the Epistles of 
 Ovid, the Pastorals of Virgil, wrote a dramatic 
 piece on the story of Meleager, which was acted 
 by his companions, and that before liis fifteenth 
 year, in which he left the school : he had acquired, 
 by private assiduity, a knowledge of French, Italian, 
 Hebrew, and Arabic ; had composed a Greek play 
 entitled Mormon, and a volume of poetry under 
 the designation of Prolusions. Such were lucu- 
 brations, precocious and elaborate in the extreme, 
 by which he grew to be the pride of Harrow, and 
 was styled the great scholar. 
 
 During the spring of the year 1764 he matri- 
 culated at University College, Oxford, and, in the 
 course of a few months, was unanimously elected a 
 scholar on one of the four foundations established 
 by Su- Simon Bennet. To his knowledge of lan- 
 guages he next added an acquamtanee with the 
 Spanish, Portuguese, and Persian authors, and ren- 
 dered into Arabic the Tales of Galland. In his 
 nineteenth year he became tutor to Lord Althorpe, 
 the eldest son of Earl Spencer, and in l^(jG ob- 
 tained a fellowship at his college. He seems to
 
 SIR WILLIAM JONES. 
 
 31 
 
 have been aiiimatod by a passion to be distin- 
 guished in every tliinu; : not content with the re- 
 putation he had acquired as a scliolar, he aspired 
 to excel in all the accomplishments to which a 
 gentleman can aspire. He took lessons from the 
 most fashionable dancing and fencing masters in 
 London, and even hired an old pensioner from 
 Chelsea College to teach him the exercise of the 
 broad sword. During a hasty visit of tlu'ee weeks 
 which he made to Spa, in the Netherlands, he con- 
 sumed part of his time in going over to Aix-la- 
 Chapelle to learn new graces from a dancing-mas- 
 ter there. 
 
 After refusing the place of interpreter of the 
 Eastern languages, which was tendered to him by 
 Lord North, he translated into French, for the 
 king of Denmark, a Persian manuscript, entitled 
 the *' History of Nadir Shah." This pei-formance, 
 after the style had been corrected by a native, he 
 published in 1770) in 2 vols. 4to, with a prefatory 
 " Treatise on Eastern Poetry." It has been justly 
 considered a work of uncommon ability for so 
 young a man. From the Persian language and 
 poetry he flew to anatomy, and attended a course 
 of Hunter's lectures, diverting himself at the same 
 time with the study of music and Newton's Prin- 
 cipia. Continuing his attendance on Lord Al- 
 thorpe, he conducted him through Harrow school, 
 and had the advantage of accompanying the family 
 in a journey through France, Switzerland, and the 
 south of Italy in the years 17(59 and IT]0. At the 
 close of this year he renounced the office of pre- 
 ceptor, and became a stndent-at-law in the Temple. 
 
 By this time we are assured that Jones's re- 
 putation had introduced him to an extensive cor- 
 respondence with the litei'ary men of his own 
 country and foreign nations ; but notwithstanding 
 this accumulation of labour, he read and wrote on 
 with undiminished ardour and facility. Taking up 
 liis degrees of Bachelor and Master of Arts, in due 
 course, he was admitted a Fellow of the Royal 
 Society, and entertained his friends with projects 
 of works and aspii-ations of dignities, which, like 
 many others, he never had the perseverance to 
 execute, or the fortune to seize. In 1772 he pro- 
 duced a volume of poems. In 177-1 he was called 
 to the bar, and pul)lished his " Commentaries on 
 Asiatic Poetry," (De Poesi Asiatic^,) a work on 
 tile ct)rrection of which he had spent eight yeai's, 
 and which was reviewed with high praise by seve- 
 ral eminent scholai's. Choosing the Oxford circuit 
 for practice, he began his cai'eer as a barrister in 
 the following year, and having dedicated to Lord 
 Bathurst a translation of the Orations of Isams on 
 the law of succession to jiroperty at Athens, was 
 made a commissioner of bankrupts, an office which 
 he rather pettishly des<'riljed as one of great im- 
 ])ortance but little emolument. 
 
 Finding Ills business now increase with rapidity, 
 he made an unsuccessful dash at politics, and sig- 
 nalized his objections to the American war in an 
 Alcaic Ode to Libei-ty, of which it is enough to 
 observe, that it is a crude imitation of Horace, 
 and a close copy of Collins. He start(^d as a 
 candidate for tin- uiiivfrHity of Oxford at the gene- 
 ral ('lection in 17'i", but was ol)ligc(l to I'esigii th(! 
 contest tlirou;^li want of suiliciiMit sujijiort. l'"of 
 the loss of this distinction he consoled himself by 
 forthwith issuing from the ]ireHs, in rapid succes- 
 HJon, a treatise "On the Maritime Jurisprudence 
 
 of the Athenians, illustrated by five speeches of 
 Demosthenes on Commercial Causes ;"' " A Dis- 
 sertation on the ]\Ianners of the Arabians before 
 the time of Mahomet, illustrated by a translation 
 of the Seven Arabian Poets ;" and " An Eiii|uirv 
 into the Legal Mode of Suppressing lliots, with a 
 Constitutional Plan of future Defence." These 
 productions were soon followed by an " Essay on 
 the Law of Bailment," and a translation of an 
 Arabic poem " On the Mahometan Law of Suc- 
 cession to the Property of Intestates." Connected 
 with this epoch of his life are further to be men- 
 tioned his enrolment into the Society for Consti- 
 tutional Information, his advocacy of the principle 
 of universal suffrage, and his " Dialogue between a 
 Fai'mer and a Country Gentleman on the Princi- 
 ples of Government," a party production, wliicli, 
 when published after his promotion to the bench in 
 India, by Dr. Shipley, the dean of St. Asaph, was 
 the subject of a government prosecution. 
 
 From these diversified avocations Jones was 
 finally removed, by an apjiointmcnt which he had 
 long sought, and in the result proved most suitable to 
 his tastes and serviceable to his rejuitation. This 
 was his elevation by Lord Shelburne's ministry to a 
 seat on the judicial bench of Fort William at Bengal, 
 in 17S3, whither he repaired with the honour of 
 knighthood during the course of the same year. 
 Previous to his departure he married Anna Maria, 
 the daughter of the Dean of St. Asaph, a lady to 
 whom he had for some years paid court, and in 
 whom he found an amiable and hai>py wife. 
 Scarcely had he settled himself at Calcutta, than, 
 associating with the most experienced scholars in 
 the Eastern tongues, he began to study Sanscrit, 
 and projected the plan of a society, which was 
 speedily incorporated, for the avowed purposes of 
 exploring the literature and antiquities of Asia. 
 Of this body the Presidentship was tendered to 
 Warren Hastings, then Governor-Gcnei-al of India, 
 but by him politely renounced in favour of tin; 
 founder. No man was better qualified, nor could 
 any have more eagerly bent their exertions to the 
 prosecution of its objects. The society commen<'ed 
 its sittings in \Tli4, and has since contiiuied to 
 labour with signal credit to the members, and 
 benefit to the niotlur coimtry. The first volume 
 of its Researches, edited by the president, ajipeared 
 in 1787 ; he superintended the j)ublication of two 
 others, and a fourth was ready tor the press when 
 he died. But one ]iursult alone was insufficient 
 for the busy mind of Sir William Jones : before a 
 twelvemonth had clai)sed ho made an excursion 
 into the interior, though suffering under severe ill- 
 ness ; and u|ion his rctiu'u to the presidency, set 
 on foot a periodical jiidjlication, entitled " The 
 Asiatic Misci'llany," to which, for two years, he 
 was a libei'al contril)utor of j)oems and essays con- 
 nected with Indian tiqiics. 
 
 Thus, sedulously diversifying his time between 
 the duties of his otHce and tlu' avocations of lite- 
 rature, lie seized every o])portunity of adding to 
 his information, and sii|)poried his health by 
 shoi't journeys from Calcutta. But the climate 
 had fixed its influence upon his constitution, ami 
 the ]M-ogress of dissolnlion was gradual but sure. 
 He was insensilile, however, of the injury bis 
 health was snfl'ering, and looked forward with \:m\ 
 conlid('nce to a happy return to l-jiglaud. Mean- 
 while he ap]ilied himself to two undertakings com-
 
 32 
 
 ST. PAUL'S CATHEDRAL. 
 
 mensui'ate in difficulty and importance. These 
 were a translation of the " Ordinances of Menu," 
 compi'ising a system of civil and religious duties, 
 and a " Digest of the Hindoo Code of Laws." The 
 first appeared in 1793, and the second was un- 
 finished when he died. Nor was he now less 
 prone than of old to poetical indulgence; for in I788 
 he translated, from Hafiti, the " Loves of Laili and 
 Majnoon," and published the versification at his 
 own expense, givuig the profits of the sale to the 
 insolvent debtors in the jail of Calcutta. During 
 the following year he also j)resented the world with 
 " Sacontala, or, the Fatal Ring," a translation from 
 an ancient Indian drama, which in England was 
 by some considered spurious, but which, as Sir 
 William Jones lustily maintained, was an original 
 composition. 
 
 The delicacy of Lady Jones's health compelled 
 her to revisit Europe in December, 1793. Sir 
 William intended to follow her in a season or two, 
 but his life was spared only a few months after 
 her departure. On the evening of the 20th of 
 April, 1794, he prolonged his walk to an unusually 
 late hour, and in consequence of this partial irre- 
 gularity, was seized with an inflammation of the 
 
 liver, which, in seven days more, put an end to his 
 career without any symptoms of particular suffer- 
 ing. 
 
 Of Sir William Jones's works, which were 
 printed by his lady, in six volumes, quarto, little is 
 now read but his poetry, and that not often. An 
 anecdote preserved of his habit of study in early 
 life, will serve to indicate its prevailing character. 
 He used to read, we are told, with a pen in his 
 hand, and mark every striking passage for subse- 
 quent imitation. The influence of this habit per- 
 vades all his compositions. He is never original, 
 and will be found a copyist or plagiarist through- 
 out. 
 
 He enjoyed, nevertheless, a high reputation as a 
 general scholar ; and unquestionably was a good 
 and accomplished man, — a sort of admirable Crich- 
 ton, clever at everything, great in nothing, still 
 always quick, animated, and intelligent : apt for 
 all subjects, however difficult or dissimilar, and 
 displaying the same degree of talent on each, he 
 dazzles without enlightening, and aff'ords an ex- 
 ample which it seems more prudent to admire than 
 to imitate. 
 
 ROBERT FALKNOR, R.N. 
 
 Robert Falknor, captain of the Blanche frigate, 
 has a monument, executed by Charles Rossi, R.A., 
 in the south transept of St. Paul's Cathedi-al. 
 The design represents Neptune seated on a rock in 
 the centre, and tm-ning eagerly rovmd to the right, 
 to catch into his arms the dying sailor, who is 
 introduced, naked, with a shield on one arm, and 
 a broken sword in the other hand. To the left 
 Victory advances with a wreath of laurel. These 
 figures all exceed the size of life : as to any merit 
 displayed on them, it will be enough to observe, 
 that the style in which they are executed is as 
 plain and unattractive as the fable in which they 
 are introduced is common-place and unnatural. 
 The inscription is engi'aved in this order : — 
 
 This monument was erected 
 
 by the British Parliament, 
 
 To commemorate the gallant conduct 
 
 Of Captain Robert Falknor, 
 
 Who, on the 5th of January, 1795, 
 
 In the thirty-second year of liis age, 
 
 And in the moment of victory. 
 
 Was killed on board the Blanche frigate. 
 
 While engaging La Pique, a French £i-igate 
 
 of very superior force. 
 
 The circumstances of determined bravery that 
 
 distinguished this action. 
 
 Which lasted five hours, deserve to be recorded. 
 
 Captain Falknor, having observed the great 
 
 superiority of the enemy. 
 
 And having lost most of his masts and rigging, 
 
 Watched an opportunity of the bowsprit of La Pique 
 
 coming athwart the Blanche, 
 And with his own hands lashed it to the capstern. 
 And thus converted the whole stern of the Blanche 
 
 into one battery ; 
 
 But, unfortunately, soon after this bold and daring 
 
 manoeuvre 
 
 He was shot through the heart *. 
 
 • Facing this is the monument of Richard Rundell 
 Burgess, another captain in the Royal Navy. It was exe- 
 cuted by Banks, R.A., and introduces tlie deceased in the 
 act of receiving a sword from the hand of Victory, Tvho 
 stands separated from him by a cannon. So far the design 
 resembles almost all the performances of our modern 
 sculptors, who appear to be chiefly depressed by a penurious 
 imagination. Banks, however, was decidedly a master in 
 the art; and probably addicted himself to fabulous personi- 
 (ications, because he found them possessed of a certain 
 degree of classical regulation. There remains, nevertheless, 
 a broad distinction to be drawn, in this respect, between the 
 ancients and the moderns. With those mythology was a 
 religion, and allegory therefore sublime ; but to these, as 
 Christians, the former creed is a falsehood, and any exem- 
 pllcations of it consequently repugnant and nonsensical. 
 One inconsistency of the present work strikes the eye at a 
 glance — the mortal is naked, but the goddess clothed. Over- 
 looking this, however, the statue of Burgess cannot fail to 
 command praise; the attitude is fine, and the air brave. 
 The pedestal, too, projects boldly, and is profusely erriched 
 with prows of ships and allegorical representations of Defeat 
 and Captivity, in relievo. The inscription is as follows : — 
 
 Sacred to the memory 
 
 Of Richard Rundell Burgess, Esquire, 
 
 Commander of his majesty's ship Ardent, 
 
 Who fell in the xmird year of his age, 
 
 While bravely supporting the honour 
 
 of the British flag. 
 
 In a daring and successful attempt to break the enemy's line 
 
 near 
 
 Camperdown,
 
 ROBERT FALKNOR, R.N. 
 
 33 
 
 The officer thus eomnicniorated was the eldest 
 son of Robert, a post-captain, and nepliew of Jona- 
 than Falknor, an admiral in the Royal Navy. 
 These were not the only members of his family 
 who figured with distinction in the same profession; 
 for it appears by the records of the Admiralty, that 
 during the last two hundred years some one of his 
 predecessore or another of the family has been 
 always honourably employed in the service. Robert, 
 the immediate subject of this sketch, was born at 
 Northampton in IIGO, and lost his father when 
 only three years old. After spending some time 
 at the grammar school of his native town, he 
 became the fii-st scholar admitted upon the esta- 
 blishment of the Royal Academy at Portsmouth : 
 iiivourable mention has been made of his success 
 in study. The com-se of education in the Portsmouth 
 Academy is completed in three years ; at the ex- 
 piration of that term young Falknor was appointed 
 to the Isis of fifty guns, then commanded by the 
 Hon. Captain Cornwallis, and attached to Lord 
 Howe's fleet in North America, his commission 
 bearing date March 9, 1777- He was present 
 at that attack of Ford Island, in the river Dela- 
 ware, in November following, for which the crew 
 of the Isis were praised by the commander-in- 
 chief. Upon this station he passed into the Chat- 
 ham, and almost immediately after into the Bedford 
 of fifty guns, in which Captain Cornwallis described 
 him as one perfectly good, and bidding fair to be 
 as great a credit to the service as his father had 
 been. 
 
 During the next twelvemonth he is found on 
 board of the Ruby, the Jledea, and the Lion, which 
 formed part of a sqvuidron convoying our autunmal 
 trade to the West Indies. December 28, 1780, 
 he was made a lieutenant, and nominated to the 
 Princess Royal, of ninety-eight guns, Rear- Admiral 
 
 On the nth of October, 1797. 
 
 His skill, coolness, and intrepidity 
 
 Eminently contributed to a victory 
 
 Equally advantageous and glorious to his country. 
 
 That grateful country, 
 
 By the unanimous act of her legislature, 
 
 Enrols his name 
 
 high in the list of those heroes 
 
 who, under the blessinf; of Providence, 
 
 Have established and maintained her naval superiority 
 
 and her exalted rank among nations. 
 
 Of this officer but a few particulars have been preserved. 
 He was a native of Port Glasgow, in Scotland, and originally 
 belonged to the merchant service of that neighbourhood. 
 His first commanders in the Royal Navy were Admirals 
 Rowley and Harrington, to whose notice he is said to liave 
 recommended himself by a strong thirst for scientific 
 investigations. In these pursuits he distinguished himself 
 by several valuable improvements in naval tactics — amongst 
 which, a method of warping .•ships, when becalmed out of moor- 
 ings, has proved essentially beneficial. He was woimded in 
 the London, during the American war ; and, according to 
 all accounts, seems to have well deserved the ])raise he- 
 stowed on him in the preceding epita])h, for his conduct 
 iluring the battle off Camperdown. The Ardent, carrying 
 sixty-four guns, was nominated one of tlic seconds lo 
 Duncan; and such was the forwardness with which Burgess 
 launched lier into action, that the ship was almost imme- 
 diately environed by no less than live opponents. Never- 
 theless she proved superior !o all odds, hut her captain fill 
 before she had fully decided her share of the victory. 
 
 Rowley, Captain J. Duckworth. Auffiist 22, in 
 the following year, he came home with a letter 
 from Sir Peter Parker to his mother, in which she 
 was assured that her son more than answered the 
 hopes entertained of him. 
 
 April 7, 1782, he sailed in the Britamiia with 
 the squadron under Admiral Barrington, that in- 
 tercepted a French convoy to the East within the 
 very same month. He was afterwards des]iatchcd 
 to strengthen Lord Howe in the relief of Gibraltar. 
 On the ])eace of 1783 he was reduced to half- pa v, 
 but in the same year was again employed on board 
 of the Merlin sloop, from which, at ditt'eront dates, 
 he passed into the Daphne, of twenty guns, the 
 Impregnable, the Hero, and Carnatic, all of seventy- 
 four guns. Early in 1790 he was a while on half- 
 pay, but was, during the same year, appointed to 
 the Royal George, of one hundred guns, Admiral 
 Harrington, in which he continued until November, 
 when he was gazetted a commander. He had the 
 Pluto, a fire-sloop of fourteen guns, in A]i)m], 1791 ; 
 the Zebra sloop, of sixteen guns, in 1793. The 
 Earl of Chatham cho.se the scene of operations in 
 which Falknor was now engaged ; and Sir John 
 Jervis, the admiral in connnand, placed marked 
 confidence in him. The island of Martini(|ue was 
 the first place assailed by the fleet, and within a 
 short period the only points unconquered in it 
 were the Forts Bourbon and Royal. Falknor had 
 the honour of reducing the latter. After sustain- 
 ing a severe discharge of musqueti-y atid grape 
 shot, without any prospect of being able to retmni 
 it effectively, he took the gallant resolution of doing 
 the duty of the Asia, which had failed in closing 
 upon the fort through the ignorance of a French- 
 man who steered her in. He ran his sloop directly 
 on shore, leaped overboard at the head of his little 
 crew, and carried the place by escalade before the 
 boats destined for his su]>port could reach the .spot. 
 Mounted on the walls, he perceived the enemy in 
 a panic, and mercifully forbade his men to strike 
 another blow. This intrepidity was honoured with 
 three cheers from the fleet, which Sir John Jervis 
 was the first to begin ; and when the; /tbra re- 
 turned with the colours of the fort and the govern- 
 or's sword, the same admiral publicly embraced her 
 captain on his quarter-deck. 
 
 In this encounter Falknor was wounded ; a grape- 
 shot grazed his arm, and shattered a cartouche- 
 belt that hung round his waist, just at the moment 
 he jum])ed ashore. To the fortunate resistance of 
 that cartouche-belt he ascribed the j)reservation of 
 a life which was still doomed to be the ]iricc of 
 victory. An extraordinary incident took place on 
 his next voyage. While the Zebra was ajiproaching 
 the walls of Port Royal, Falknor thought he ob- 
 served evident marks of confusion in the counte- 
 nance of liis ])ilot. In order to satisfy him,self of 
 this, lie apiiroMclu'd tin; man, and putting some 
 iinlifl'crent (picstions to him, discovi'reil the agita- 
 tion midcr which he laboured to be so intense as to 
 render him incapable of uttering a rational answer. 
 A moment or two of rtllection ensued on the part 
 of the captain, when the man added, in a low 
 voice, and without raising his eyes, " I see your 
 honour knows how I am ; I am unfit to guide her ; 
 I (hin't know \\hat is come over me. I dreamt 
 last night 1 slnniid be killed, and am so afraid I 
 dnii't know what I'm about. I've been twenty- 
 four years in tho service, and never felt afraid
 
 34 
 
 ST. PAUL'S CATHEDRAL. 
 
 before." " Then give me the lielm," replied Falk- 
 nor, " and go and hide your head in whatever you 
 fancy to be the safest corner of the ship ! But, 
 mark me, fears are catching. If I liear that you 
 speak to one of the crew, your life shall answer for 
 it to-morrow." The pilot slunk away with shame, 
 and sat down upon the arm chest, with his head 
 resting on his hand. Falknor laid the ship close 
 to the shore ; but before he had time to leap on 
 land, a grape-shot struck the arm chest and blew 
 the prophetic pilot to atoms. 
 
 Among the prizes taken at Martinique was the 
 Bienvenue, a French frigate mounting twenty- 
 eight guns, to the deck of which Falknor was im- 
 mediately promoted, with the rank of post-captain, 
 by Sir John Jervis, who renamed the vessel the 
 Undaunted, out of compliment to her new com- 
 mander. The seizure of St. Lucie followed with- 
 out much difficulty, but the conquest of Guadaloupe 
 w.as more arduous. At the storming of Fleur de 
 L'Epe'e, the pi'incipal fort on the island, Falknor 
 commanded a body of sailors, who were directed to 
 clamber up the side of an almost perpendicular 
 mountain, while the grenadiers and light infantry 
 approached by the open road. Upon gaining the 
 ramparts the detachment was to a man so ex- 
 hausted as to be obliged to halt for breath. Pre- 
 cisely at this juncture, and while the sailors were 
 still scattered about, a sally took place. Two 
 French officers made a simultaneous attack upon 
 Falknor, of whom the one thrust a bayonet thi'ough 
 the sleeve of his coat, but without grazing the 
 flesh ; while the othei", after an exchange of pai-ried 
 blows, sprung upon his neck. Falknor still stood 
 alone ; and the latter Frenchman, fixing his teeth 
 in his shirt, tripped up his heels, and, as they fell 
 together, wrendied the sword from his hands. At 
 this moment, and while a dagger was uplifted 
 against his breast, two seamen sprung to the relief 
 of their captain, and struck his antagonist to the 
 ground. The storm proceeded a while with con- 
 siderable vigour and loss, but the enemy soon 
 broke into a flight, which, once commenced, admit- 
 ted neither of stop nor rally, and the English 
 marched over the island without further opposi- 
 tion. 
 
 Falknor next passed into the Rose frigate, but 
 was almost immediately transferred to the Blanche, 
 on board of which he conveyed the Duke of Kent 
 to the government of Canada in May, 1 794. Re- 
 
 maining upon the same station he chased a national 
 corvette into the Bay of Deseada towards the close 
 of the same year ; and, although exposed to a 
 powei-ful battery, followed the enemy to the shore, 
 and quickly towed her out again a prize. A move- 
 ment so daring cannot be sujjposed to have taken 
 place without loss. The Blanche suffered in her 
 hull, masts, and rigging, and lost a midshipman 
 and some sailors ; but the damage done to the 
 enemy was stated to have been far more severe. 
 On the following morning he got sight of, and gave 
 chase to, an armed schooner laden with powder, 
 which took refuge from him under Fort Louis. 
 He ran in upon her, and soon sent her oif as a 
 prize to St. John's, at Antigua. 
 
 These occurrences happened in December, 1794, 
 and in the following month he lost his life in an 
 action with the French frigate La Pique. The 
 Blanche carried only two-and-thirty guns, but the 
 La Pique mounted eight-and-thirty, besides a num- 
 ber of brass swivels on deck. The ships fought 
 for five hours, and the victory was as decisive as 
 could possibly be gained. Twice did the Blanche 
 lasli her bowsprit to the capstern of her opponent ; 
 and when the main and mizen masts fell, she payed 
 off before the wind, and took the other in tow. 
 Then only was it discovered that the stem ports 
 were too small ; but the crew blew the upper tran- 
 som beam away, ran the guns out, and poured 
 volley after volley for three successive hours into 
 the enemy's bows. Resistance only ceased on 
 board of the La Pique when every means to con- 
 tinue it were exhausted. 
 
 Falknor was killed towards the close of the 
 second hour of fighting : a rifleman, from the bow- 
 sprit of the La Pique, shot him in the breast : the 
 bullet entered his heart, and he expired instan- 
 taneously. He had but just lashed the bowsprit of 
 the enemy to the capstern with his own hands 
 when the fatal shot was fired. The impression 
 made upon the public mind by the death of an 
 individual is no indifferent testimony of the value 
 set upon his character. It may, therefore, be not 
 inappropriate to mention, that the fall of Captain 
 Falknor was made the subject of an historical 
 picture by West, and of a dramatic interlude at 
 Covent-garden Theatre. The former work was 
 executed in a style worthy so popular a master ; 
 and the representation of the latter was success- 
 fully attended by interested audiences. 
 
 EARL HOWE, K.G. 
 
 The monument erected by his country to perpe- 
 tuate the reputation of this successful admiral, 
 stands under the east window of the south transept 
 in St. Paul's cathedral. In front is placed a 
 statue of his lordship, leaning on a telescope, and 
 guarded by a lion couched, the emblem of British 
 strength and security. Above, on a rostrated 
 column, sits Britannia with her trident, and to her 
 right below. History appears in the act of recording 
 the more prominent of his lordship's actions, while 
 Victory, leaning forward over the shoulders of 
 History, deposits a branch of palm in the lap of 
 
 Britannia. Flaxman, the academician, was the 
 statuary of the group, and the style in which it is 
 executed may be safely said to uphold the cha- 
 racter of the artist. Earl Howe's statue is im- 
 posing in attitude, and striking in feature ; there 
 are also some neat traces of merit to be dis- 
 tinguished in other parts of the work ; but our 
 praise of the whole cannot go very far ; there 
 is a heaviness about it, and the design is made 
 up of cold and unuiteresting allegory. The epi- 
 taph is expressed with no elegance, and runs 
 thus : —
 
 EARL HOWE, K.G. 
 
 35 
 
 Erected at the jniblie expense to the memory of 
 Apmikal Earl Howe, 
 In testimony of the general sense of his great and 
 
 meritorious services, 
 
 In the course of a long and distinguished life, and 
 
 in particular 
 
 for the benefit 
 
 Derived to his country by the brilliant victory 
 
 which he 
 
 obtained 
 
 Over the French fleet, oflf Ushant, 1st Jime, 1794. 
 
 He was born l!)th March,17'2n,and died 5th August, 
 
 1799, in his 7-1 th year. 
 
 Richard Earl Howe, tlie second son of Sir Ema- 
 nuel Scrope, Viscount Howe, in the kingdom of 
 Ireland, was educated at Eton school, and entered 
 the navy in his fourteenth year. He made his first 
 voyage under Lord Anson, when that memorable 
 commander explored the South Seas. Accident 
 prevented young Howe from receiving his full 
 share of the honours which redounded upon those 
 who were concerned in this expedition ; for a storm 
 scattered the fleet in the Straits of Lemaire, 
 and his ship, the Severn, was so disabled by it, 
 that the captain was obliged to put into Rio de 
 Janeiro for repaii's, and then return to England. 
 Four years after, Howe, in the Burford, was 
 placed under Admiral Sir Charles Ogle, along the 
 shores of Cura9oa and the Caraccas. February 23, 
 1745, the Burford came into action, during which 
 the damage done was so severe, that her destmc- 
 tion became unavoidable. At the court martial 
 which ensued after this loss, the evidence of young 
 Howe was heard with interest ; he detailed the 
 circumstances of the engagement with a perspi- 
 cuity and modest proof of' knowledge, and described 
 the death of his captain, who had both liis thighs 
 shot off", with an overflow of honourable grief, 
 which fully deserved the compliments that were 
 paid to him upon the occasion. While attached 
 to the same sr^uadron, he gave a proof of judgment 
 and intrepidity which deserves to be recorded. 
 Sailing before the Dutch settlement of Eustatia, 
 with the rank of acting lieutenant on Ijoard a sloop 
 of war, he volunteered his services to claim an 
 English merchantman, which had been captured 
 and can'ied into port by a French frigate. Dis- 
 appointed of success in his eft'orts at negociation, 
 he devised a scheme for cutting the merchantman 
 out of the harbour, and solicited leave to execute 
 the j»lan himself. The captain strongly rej)resentod 
 the dangers of .such an attLini)t ; but his ardour 
 was not to be subdued, and he was at length ])er- 
 mitted to execute his project. The event justified 
 his boldness ; he was comiiletely successful, and 
 had tlie honour of restoring the captured vessel to 
 her owners without loss or damage. 
 
 In the momentous events of the year 1745, he 
 rose alike in rank ;ind merit. A]i])ointcd to tli<' 
 command of the Baltimore sloop of war, wliich was 
 one of the vessels serving under Admiral Smith on 
 the coast of Scotland, he had the fortune, in com- 
 pany with another sloop, of falling in with two 
 French frigates, which were loaded with arms and 
 ammunition for the J'retender. No sooner were 
 the hostile colours recogiii/.ed, than he ra)i his 
 vessel between the Frenchmen, and at a first tack 
 was almost close enough to board. A desperate; 
 C(jn(lict arose : not content with commanding, the 
 
 young captain fought most courageously, until a 
 nuisi|uet-ball struck his bi-ow, and he was carried 
 from the deck a])parcntly lifeless. Animation, 
 however, soon returned, and while the sm-geons 
 were performing the painful opei-aiion of probing 
 and closing the wound, the first use he made of his 
 returning strength was to hail on his men above 
 with cheers : no remonstrance could jn-evail upon 
 him to control his excitement ; his head was no 
 sooner bound, than he rushed upon deck amidst 
 the shouts of his crew, and su]>ported the action 
 with redoubled im])etuosity and detci-mination. 
 The effect of this gallantry soon became apparent : 
 the French sheered off disabled, but the Baltimore 
 was so shattered that a pursuit was impossible. 
 The Admiralty fully appreciated the conduct of 
 the victor ; and his promotion to a post-captaincy, 
 and the command of the Triton frigate, serving on 
 the same station, followed the public account of 
 the action withcmt delay. 
 
 In March, 1750, we find him again as actively 
 and as successfully employed on board La Gloirc, 
 of forty-four guns, with the connnand of his 
 majesty's ships along the coast of Africa. Upon 
 liis arrival, he was met with loud coni]ilaints from 
 the settlers along Cape Coast, of ill treatment 
 from the Dutch governor of an adjoining fort. 
 After trying in vain to obtain satisfaction by 
 inoffensive means, he disposed himself so as to 
 dictate the terms of accommodation, and soon 
 adjusted every difficulty before him. From this 
 quarter he is to be traced in the connnand of 
 several ships of the lino, and through a varied 
 succession of difficult services in the Mediter- 
 ranean, until the year 1758, when he obtained 
 the Dunkirk, a new ship of sixty guns, and was 
 dispatched under Admiral Boscawen to cope with 
 the French fleet, which at the same period set sail 
 for North America. Arrived on the coast of New- 
 foundland, it was there determined to prevent the 
 enemy from entering the gulf of St. Lawrence ; and 
 though the execution of the plan was nnich im- 
 peded by a succession of fogs, under which the 
 English fleet were scattered, and the French con- 
 cealed, still the first clear day that came showed 
 two frigates in sight, — the one the Alcide, of sixty- 
 four, and the otlier the Lys, of twenty-two guns. 
 For these Howe immediately made sail, and, first 
 coming up with the Alcide, ordered lier to the 
 stern of the British Admiral. The Frenchman 
 asked whether this was for peace or war, and was 
 answered that the orders to fire were expected 
 every moment ; upon whicii he coolly answered, 
 " The lOnglish may begin when they i)lease." To 
 this Howe replied with equal inditt'erence, that he 
 would yield the advantage of beginning ; and, in 
 consequence, both ships came into action almost at 
 the satne time. Tlity fought on for an hour, 
 when, though sujierior in tonnage, guns, and men, 
 the Frenchman struck, with a capital of J!(»,()(l(»/., 
 and nine lunidred land f'orc(;s on board. A night 
 or two after this, Howe was roused from sleeji by 
 the lieutenant of the watch, with notice that the 
 magazine was on fire. If such be the case, ob- 
 served the captain, we shall soon have convincing 
 assurance of it, and jiroce(;ded very deliberntely to 
 dress himself, while the lii'utenant lliw b:ick to his 
 post in evident agitation. Ixetnruing :ig:iin in a 
 few monu n(s, he found Howe still going mi coe'ly 
 with his toilet, and told him that he need not bo 
 d2
 
 36 
 
 ST. PAUL'S CATHEDRAL. 
 
 afraid, for the tiames were extinguished. " Afraid, 
 sir ! " retorted the captain, looking him full in tlie 
 face; " pray how does a man feel when he is afraid, 
 for I need not ask how he looks 1 " 
 
 In September, 1757, he served in the expedi- 
 tion against tlie Isle of Aix, and led the van on 
 board the Magnanime, of 74 guns. Though the 
 fort began to fire on him as soon as he came 
 within reach of their guns, still he continued his 
 course without discharging a single shot, until lie 
 liad dropped his ship under the very walls. His 
 anchor ihei'e thrown out, he commenced so brisk a 
 cannonade that the colours of the enemj' were 
 drawn down in less than an hour. The year 1758 
 now drew on, and Howe removed into the Essex, 
 of G4 guns, ill which vessel he w'as nominated com- 
 modore of the squadron which was destined to 
 cover the debarkation of an ofiensive body of 
 troops on the French coast. On the first of June 
 he weighed his anchor, and, on the morrow, found 
 himself before Cape La Hogue. Hence, passing 
 by St. Maloes, he stood into the bay of Cancalle, 
 and destroyed above a hundred sail of shipping, 
 together with several magazines ; but, though it 
 was intended to effect a landing, the idea was 
 abandoned, and Howe proceeded to reconnoitre for 
 a less dangerous spot. With this view he arrived 
 before Cherbourg; but the weather became so un- 
 favourable, that his operations were interrupted, 
 and he was soon after compelled to return home 
 for want of provisions. 
 
 A second expedition was immediately fitted out, 
 and Howe sailed with the command of it fi'om 
 St. Helens, on the first of August, in the same 
 year. On the evening of the sixth, he once more 
 came to anchor in the bay of Cherbourg, and 
 upon the next day brought the fleet up into the 
 harbour of Maris, about two leagues from the 
 town. There the troops were safely landed, and 
 the fortifications carried with comparative ease. 
 Twenty pieces of brass cannon were i-emoved on 
 board the fleet ; upwards of two hundred iron 
 bombs and mortar pieces wei-e effectually de- 
 stroyed; twenty-seven sail of shipjiing found in the 
 harbour were shattered or sunk, and, after levying 
 a small contribution upon the town, the soldiers 
 re-embarked, and the fleet weighed anchor. The 
 month had not passed before Howe returned again 
 a victor to his native shores, and was, without 
 delay, ordered back to sea, and directed to keep 
 the French coast in a continued state of alarm by 
 making descents wherever and whenever place and 
 time favoui'ed his views. St. Maloes immediately 
 became the main object of his attack ; and accord- 
 ingly the squadron anchored two leagues westward 
 of the town, in the bay of St. Lunaire, where the 
 troops were landed. A council, which ought to 
 have taken place before, was then held by the 
 military commanders, as to the practicability of an 
 assault, which was almost immediately decided to 
 be hopeless. To add to this misfortune, it w-as 
 found that the troops could not regain the ships 
 without considerable difficulty as well as danger ; 
 they had to march overland to the bay of St. 
 Cas, whither Lord Howe repaired with the squa- 
 di'on. The preparations for gaining the fleet no 
 sooner began, than a desperate fire was opened 
 upon the defenceless boats as they advanced to the 
 shore, while a violent attack was made upon the 
 soldiei's, then only intent upon escaping. The 
 
 carnage was dreadful, and the greatest resolution 
 was necessary to support the sailors in their at- 
 tempts to reach the laud and preserve the troops 
 in order upon it. In the midst of this scene Howe 
 ordered his own barge, in which he stood erect, to 
 be rowed through the thickest of the cannonade, 
 and, thus conspicuous, exhorted the men by his 
 voice and attitude. Time after time his barge was 
 seen to touch the land at the greatest peril and 
 risk, and receive as many as could possibly be con- 
 tained in it, while the havoc continued with a 
 power so fatal, that of the little crews, twenty in 
 number, appointed to man each boat, no less than 
 ten, twelve, and in some cases sixteen, fell dead, at 
 a venture, from their oars. In this undertaking 
 the fleet suffered most. The militai'y were con- 
 veyed on board with a loss comparatively trifling, 
 after which the season of the year compelled a 
 return to England. 
 
 The gallant death of his brother, to whom a 
 monument has been erected in Westminster Abbey, 
 left the subject of this sketch heir to the family 
 title of Lord Viscount Howe, with which he was 
 appointed colonel of the Chatham division of ma- 
 rines in 1760. We find him a lord of the admiralty 
 in August, 1763, and, two years after, treasurer to 
 the navy. His promotion to the rear-admiralship 
 of the blue, in 1770, compelled him to resign this 
 situation, as well as his colonelcy of marines, after 
 which he sailed into the Mediterranean with the 
 rank of commander-in-chief of that station. The 
 peaceful circumstances of the time made this ser- 
 vice uncelebrated. Returning to England in 1775 
 lie was advanced to the rank of rear-admiral of the 
 white, and elected member of parliament for Dart- 
 mouth, and, before the year closed, appointed vice- 
 admiral of the blue. 
 
 Soon after this promotion Lord Howe was ap- 
 pointed to a service more critical and important 
 than any he had hitherto filled. This was the 
 command of the American station, when the war 
 on that continent broke out in 177G. Arrived at 
 Halifax, with his flag on board the Eagle, of sixty- 
 four guns, the naval operations became subordinate 
 to the military, and consequently uiiintei-esting. 
 New York, Rhode Island, Philadelphia, &c. were 
 reduced : but in the year 1778 France became a 
 party to the hostilities, and dispatched the Count 
 d'Estaing, with a considerable force of battle-ships, 
 admirably equipped, and most povserfully manned, 
 to assist the hostile opei'ations of our insurgent 
 colonies. Howe was but ill prepared to contend 
 with such an enemy : his vessels had been long at 
 sea, and were much shattered by service : his men 
 were greatly reduced in numbers and strength, as 
 well by the mischances as the toils of their pro- 
 fession ; and, above all, no one ship under his flag 
 was equal in tonnage or size to those of his ad- 
 versai'y. Yet such was the irresolution of the 
 Frenchman, such his consciousness of the celebrity 
 which Howe possessed, or so great his terror of 
 the British navy in general, that, notwithstanding 
 advantages palpably superior, he remained for 
 several days inactive, and when he did begin to 
 act was foiled by the defensive arrangements of his 
 opponent. No engagement took place between the 
 fleets, and Lord Howe thenceforward sought to 
 baffle the designs of the French admiral, — a task 
 which, considering the vexatious obstacles under 
 which he laboured, he must be admitted to have 
 
 I
 
 EARL HOWE, K.G. 
 
 37 
 
 effected with judgment and credit. As the season 
 drew towards a close, Admiral BjTon arrived with 
 reinforcements ; and Lord Howe, resigning to him 
 the chief command, retui'ncd to England. 
 
 Political movements now cut off this able com- 
 mander from the service of his country, and he 
 lived in retirement until the spring of 17'!-, when 
 he was made an English peer, with the title of 
 Viscount Howe, of Laugor, in the county of Not- 
 tingham. Immediately after this he was appointed 
 to the channel fleet, which was destined to relieve 
 Gibraltar from the sufferings of its celebrated 
 siege. Unfurling his flag on board the Victory, he 
 entered the Mediterranean with thirty-four sail of 
 the line on the 1 1th of October. This force, though 
 formidable, was yet inferior to the combined arma- 
 ments of France and Spain, which amounted to 
 forty-six sail of the line, and lay before the British 
 to dispute their entrance into the bay. Howe lost 
 no time in hastening the completion of an object 
 upon the issue of which the interests of his country 
 were so imminently at stake, and therefore, on the 
 very day of his arrival, made an effectual disposi- 
 tion of his fleet. He directed one small squadron 
 to run the store-ships directly under the guns of 
 the fortress, while with the remaining force he 
 diverted the strength of the enemy by a series of 
 bold manoeuvres. Never was an object accom- 
 plished with a more masterly facility. The French 
 were baffled at evei'y point, and dared in vain to 
 battle. In January, \^i]l^, Lord Howe was ap- 
 pointed a lord of the admiralty, an honour which 
 he resigned to Lord Keppel in the April ensuing, 
 but agaui resumed in the December of the same 
 year. In 17^7 he was made admiral of the white, 
 and in the year after quitted his station at the 
 admiralty for the last time. He was then created 
 an earl of Great Britain, with which title he lived 
 in domestic quiet until hostilities broke out against 
 the French Republic in 1793. At this important 
 conjuncture he received the command of the chan- 
 nel fleet, with powei-s more ample than it had been 
 usual to bestow. Sailing off Torbay in May, 1794, 
 he received intelligence that the Republican fleet 
 had put to sea, and immediately commencing a 
 pui'suit, he discovered them on the 2){th of that 
 month lying to the windward, at some distance 
 off Ushant. As soon as the British were per- 
 ceived, the enemy bore down upon them, and began 
 to form in order of battle, and accordingly Howe 
 hoisted the signal for a general engagement. Day, 
 however, had nearly closed before Admiral Pasley, 
 in the Bellerophon, came in contact with a three- 
 decker of the enemy, and commenced a resolute 
 attack, which was returned so vigorously that he 
 was soon obliged to fall to the leeward disabled. 
 The Audacious, liowcver, sailed up at the moment, 
 and contiimed the fight, until the enemy's mi/.en- 
 mast fell overboard, and her lower yai'ds and top- 
 sails were sliot away, when, putting before the 
 wind, she was enabled to escape without opposi- 
 tion in consequence of the injury the Audacious 
 had received. 
 
 The moniing of the 29th dawned, lunl Ibiwe 
 made a signal to p;iss through the French line. 
 This notice, however, did not appear to b(! jier- 
 fectly understood by his foremost ships, and im- 
 patient to close lie dcitermined to break through 
 the Fr(;nch himself. Next to his own ship, vvhich 
 was the Q,uccn Charlotte, the Bellcroiilion tacked. 
 
 and, after some fruitless endeavours to follow the 
 example, at last nobly penetrated through, sweep- 
 ing down the topmasts and lower yards of her 
 opponent's ship with a broadside on one side, while 
 at the same moment she also raked another to the 
 leeward. Similar movements were uns\iccessfully 
 attempted by the Leviathan and other ships, when 
 a fog set in, which lasted until the 31st instant, and 
 prevented all further engagement during that in- 
 terval. 
 
 At five o'clock on the morning of June 1 both 
 fleets appeared drawn up in battle-array ; the 
 signals to bear down were given at half-past seven, 
 and in a short time the action became general. 
 The French awaited the attack with resolution, 
 and one tremendous cannonade raged from van to 
 rear. Every ship was fiercely engaged with an 
 opponent, Earl Howe fighting the French Ad- 
 miral Viliaret Joyeuse, who sailed on board the 
 Montague, of 120 guns. The contest endured for 
 two hours, when the French admiral bore away, 
 and was followed, in great confusion, by every ves- 
 sel in his fleet which could make sail. Those that 
 were disabled by the fire of this short but decisive 
 battle were abaiuloned. The British captured 
 seven vessels of the line, and, as soon as the smoke 
 cleared away, saw another sink. The force of the 
 French consisted of twenty-six, while that of the 
 English amounted to twenty -five sail of the line ; 
 and the loss of the latter was 281 killed and 781 
 wounded, while the damage on board the s(^v(>n 
 ships captured alone reached to 690 killed and 790 
 wounded. 
 
 On the morning of the 13th instant Earl Howe 
 was seen with his pi'izes in the offing near Ports- 
 mouth. He landed during the day, and received 
 the applauses of a crowded populace and the mili- 
 tary honours of the fort and garrison. In the 
 course of the same month the king, queen, and 
 royal family proceeded in their state barges to pay 
 him a visit on board the Queen Charlotte, where 
 his majesty held a naval levee, and, in testimony 
 of his congratulatory approbation, presented the 
 conquering admiral with a sword studded to the 
 hilt with diamonds, and valued at the sum of three 
 thousand guineas. In aclaiowledging the gracious- 
 ness of his sovereign upon this occasion, Howe gave 
 another striking proof of the generous modesty of 
 the British sailor, by turning towards his crew 
 when he had to return thanks, and nobly exclaim- 
 ing, "'Twas not 1, but these brave fellows, that 
 gained the victory." Arrived in London, his lord- 
 ship next enjoyed the satisfaction of receiving the 
 thanks of both houses of parliament, and the com- 
 mon council of London, who presented him with 
 the freedom of the city in a gold snufl'box. 
 
 He continu<'d to command the channel fleet 
 until -May, 1795, when the feeble state of his 
 health compelled him to strike his flag. He re- 
 sunu'd active duty, however, during the following 
 year, and sailed at the head of the western squa- 
 dron, but no oi)])ortunities of action presented 
 themselves. At home, however, the length and 
 merit of his services were rewarded by his a])p<)iut- 
 nient to be genei-al of the marines, admiral of the 
 fleet, and a knight of the garter. Audtliir oppur- 
 tunity occin-r<'d in which his old age was to lie 
 ])owerfnlly em]iloyed in the servi<-e of his coimlry. 
 In 1797 a desperate mutiny broke out on board 
 the fleet ; every officer was thrown into chains, the
 
 38 
 
 ST. PAUL'S CATHEDRAL. 
 
 crews threatened the most awful measures, and 
 the greatest alarm spread over the nation. In 
 this emergency Earl Howe was called upon by 
 the govei-nment : nothing could be more consist- 
 ent than to invite that great man to compose 
 internal dissensions, who had so often and so suc- 
 cessfully overcome foreign hostility. Beloved by 
 the sailors, he had no fear from their exasperation, 
 and, consequently, proceeded calmly on board of 
 the revolted vessels at the very moment that they 
 were preparing to hang their admiral and captains 
 up by the yard-arm. He weiit amongst them un- 
 armed, and the intrejiidity of the action roused every 
 
 feeling which 
 
 distinguishes the British 
 
 sailor : he was received with shouts of congra- 
 tulation. His experience liad already suggested to 
 the ministry the most prudent measures to be 
 adopted for the purposes of mutual conciliation, 
 and his personal address here succeeded in soften- 
 ing down the general discontent. In short, the 
 fleet he had so repeatedly conducted to glory on 
 the sea he now led back in loyalty to the land. 
 The popularity of this exemplary conduct he lived 
 not long to enjoy ; a mortal illness seized upon his 
 debilitated frame in the month of September, 1799, 
 and he ex])ired full of glory, and fondly surnamed 
 the Father of the Fleet, leaving two daughters to 
 deplore his loss. 
 
 SIR RALPH ABERCROMBIE, K.B, 
 
 The national monument erected to the fame of this 
 brave general stands under the western window of 
 the south transept in St. Paul's Cathedral, and is 
 ihe work of Westraacott, the Royal Academician. 
 It is not only the best performance by the same artist 
 in the cathedral, but is entitled to additional praise, 
 because the design is appropriate, and the action 
 natural. The subject represents the death of the 
 general. His horse appears careering over the pro- 
 strate foe, while the rider, faintmg from the loss of 
 blood, is caught in the arms of a Highland soldier. 
 Expressive of the victory he obtained, the dying 
 figure of the enemy is seen vainly grasping at the 
 standard which has been wrested from his corps. 
 The locality is indicated by a sphinx, which 
 is the crest of Egypt, placed on either side of 
 the tomb. The imagery of these figures has been 
 ridiculed by the poet Moore in one of his light 
 newspaper effu.=ions ; and it must be admitted, that, 
 when closely examined, they will be found ob- 
 noxious to severe criticism. When contrasted, 
 however, with the stale imitations of heathen anti- 
 quity which our cathedrals are overloaded with, 
 there will be room found to ])i\aise this perform- 
 ance, notwithstanding some faults justly imputed to 
 it. Upon the pedestal is the following inscription 
 of facts : — 
 
 Erected at the public expense to the memory of 
 
 Lieut.-Gen. Sir Ralph Abercuombie, K.B. 
 
 Commander-in-chief of an expedition directed 
 
 against the French in Egypt : 
 
 Who having surmounted with consummate ability 
 
 and valour 
 
 the obstacles opposed to his landing 
 
 by local difficulties and a powerful and well-prepared 
 
 enemy. 
 
 And having successfully established and maintauied 
 
 the successive positions 
 
 necessary for conducting his further operations ; 
 
 Resisted with signal advantage a desperate attack 
 
 of chosen and veteran troops 
 
 on the 21st of March, 1801, 
 
 When he received in the engagement a mortal 
 
 wound ; but i-emained in the field, 
 
 guiding by his direction, and animating by his 
 
 presence, the brave troops mider his counaand. 
 
 Until they had acliieved the brilliant and important 
 
 victory obtained on that memorable day. 
 
 The former actions of a life spent in the service of 
 
 his country, 
 
 And thus gloriously terminated. 
 
 Were distinguished by the same military skill, and 
 
 by equal zeal for the public service ; — 
 Particularly during the campaigns in the Nether- 
 lands in 1703 and 94; 
 In the West Indies in 1 790 and 97 ; and in Holland 
 
 in 1799 : 
 In the last of which the distinguished gallantry 
 
 and ability 
 
 with which he effected his landing on the Dutch 
 
 coast, and established his position 
 
 in the face of a powerful enemy, 
 
 And secured the command of the principal fort 
 
 and arsenal of the Dutch republic, 
 Were acknowledged and honoured by the thanks 
 
 of both Houses of Parliament. 
 
 Sir Ralph Abercrombie expired on hoard the 
 
 Foudroyant, the 28th of March, 1801, 
 
 in his 66th year. 
 
 During the desperate wars which followed tlie 
 French Revolution, two British soldiers, by a 
 career brief but brilliant almost without example, 
 advanced themselves to the highest points of fame. 
 Of these the one was Sir John Moore, and the other 
 the gallant subject of this sketch. Scotland justly 
 boasts the birth of both ; and to both the field of 
 vieti^rious battle was likewise the scene of honour- 
 able death. Nor was the eminence to which they 
 so deservedly rose, obtained by professional merits 
 alone ; the admiration with which they were re- 
 garded while they lived, and remembered after 
 death, does not appear to have been fr)unded on 
 their talents for successful warfare, or personal 
 bravery solely, and a determined thirst for military 
 renown: the abilities they showed when employed in 
 civil service, and their personal virtues, made them 
 as estimable in private, as they were valuable in 
 public life. Their despatches are of themselves suffi- 
 cient to prove that they possessed minds of no ordi- 
 nary capacity, and powers of no common variety; the 
 rectitude of their principles was always maidy .and 
 uncompromising ; they suffer under no imputation
 
 SIR RALPH ABERCROMBIE, K.B. 
 
 39 
 
 of political or party debasement, and enjoy repnta- 
 tions as universal as they are unsullied. When to 
 these unusual qualities it is supei'added, that they 
 were both ever as ready to throw themselves into 
 the ranks, and iiish foremost on the dangers of 
 victory, as they were prompt to design the plans, 
 and happy in couuteractmg the obstacles to con- 
 quest ; their career may be safely emulated as the 
 miiTor of a soldier's honour. Ralph was one of 
 tlie hve sons of George Aberci'ombie, Esq., of 
 Tiliibodie in Clackmannanshire, and was born in 
 year 1738. His education was in part private, 
 and in part derived from a neighl)ourmg school ; 
 after wliieh he entered the army as a cornet in the 
 third regiment of Dragoon Guards, in 1756. His 
 militai'y school was more conspicuous than his civil 
 one ; for he served in the seven years' war in 
 Flanders, and during our still more eventful con- 
 test with America, where his conduct was always 
 marked by intrepidity, skill, and humanity. His 
 promotion was consequently rapid, and his reputa- 
 tion considerable. His first colonelcy was obtained 
 in 1781, when he was appointed to the 103rd, or 
 King's Irish Infontry, from which, in 1783, he was 
 removed to the 7th Dragoons : in 1787 he received 
 the rank of major-general. 
 
 A busier theatre of hostilities soon opened to his 
 ambition. The French Revolution roused the at- 
 tention of every nation in Europe to the prospect 
 of war, and ere long the horrore of domestic con- 
 tention were followed by the shock of foreign strife. 
 
 ^Vmongst the first steps taken by the English 
 government to oppose the views of external do- 
 minion in which the new government of France 
 indulged, one was the assistance lent to the states 
 of Holland, when invaded in 1792. In the action 
 at the heights of Cateau, he led the advanced 
 guard, and displayed, both there and at the subse- 
 quent coniiict at Nimeguen, where he was wounded, 
 a dexterity and coui-age which were among the 
 consolmg characteristics of an expedition soon 
 destined to prove unfortunate. Abercrombie had 
 to withdraw the army back from Deventer to 
 Oldensaal ; a mortifying duty, surrounded with 
 difficulties : but as military talent is seldom less 
 appropriately shown than in the skill with which 
 that is shunned without loss which cannot be met 
 with success ; so a retreat well effected is as 
 honourable, because often as arduous, as a battle 
 well gained. This march was impeded by great 
 hardships ; numl)ers were cut off by a conquering 
 enemy, and numbers fell still more pitcously for 
 want of food ; but Abercrombie rose superior to 
 Ijoth evils, and ho was no less caressed upon iiis 
 return for the dexterity with which ho lightenccl the 
 asperities of the retreat, than for the humanity with 
 which he .strove to relieve the distress it indicted. 
 It was now the depth of winter ; the weather was 
 marked by unusual mclemency ; and, as the roads 
 were almost imjiassaljle, the fatigue of the trooi)S 
 was excessive, yet the march was conducted with a 
 fortune and a rapidity which saved the flower of 
 tiie British forces from destruction. Abercrombie 
 readied his destination in .January, 1793 and was 
 immediately made a Knight of the Bath, as a wtdl- 
 merited token of the signal benefit he had rendered 
 to the anny and liis country. 
 
 Fresh efforts iiiinii'diat(;ly became necessary to 
 counteract the conHe<|U(;nccs of this disaster, and 
 check the tide of other conquests. Already it was 
 
 known that the French meditated a descent upon 
 the West Indies, and an expedition in that quarter 
 was resolved upon, as well for the purposes of 
 defence as of reprisal. The military command 
 upon this occasion was conferred upon Abercimibie. 
 Owing to some delay in the sailing of the squadron, 
 the French had already commenced operations be- 
 fore our troops arrived. This partial advantage, 
 however, was soon counteracted ; and in succession 
 the islands of Grenada, St. Lucia, St. Vincent, and 
 Trinidad, with the settlements of Demerara and 
 Essequibo, were reduced and possessed by our 
 troops. One attack only was repulsed, and that 
 was upon Porto Rico ; so that Abercrombie re- 
 turned to England with the satisfaction of having 
 eminently deserved the popular acclamation with 
 which he was received. 
 
 The Irish troubles of 1798 induced the govern- 
 ment to make Sir Ralph Abercrombie commander- 
 in-chief in that country. Mr. Mooi-e, in his Life 
 of Lord Edward Fitzgerald, charges Abercrombie 
 with having authorized military executions in a 
 proclamation. Certain it is, nevertheless, that 
 the cruelties practised upon the people of Ireland 
 were strongly and sincerely condemned by him. It 
 has been repeatedly stated to his credit, that he 
 earnestly recommended to the government a system 
 of lenity and justice to the people, as the most 
 effective means of restoring tranquillity. He la- 
 mented, in another proclamation, the excesses that 
 occurred, and not only strongly forbad any repetition 
 of them, but directed their legal punishment in a 
 manner which proved the earnestness of his desire 
 to be just to all parties. He complained to the 
 government that the excesses of the yeom.anry sent 
 to assist him were corrupting the discipline of the 
 regular troops : his I'epresentations were slighted, 
 and he was allowed to change the rank of com- 
 mander-in-chief in Ireland, for that of commander- 
 in-chief in his native country, Scotland. 
 
 Of the second expedition wiiich was undertaken 
 for the relief of Holland in 1799, it is only neces- 
 sary to speak, in oi-der to record the appointment 
 of Abercrombie to the sole connnand upon the first 
 landing of the troops ; when both he and they dis- 
 tinguislied themselves with steady success. The 
 arrival of the Duke of York, however, to supersede 
 him, led to reverses as uni>romising in their uatui'e 
 as those already described, and the troops were 
 mainly saved from a more fatal result, by a -similar 
 display of ability upon the part of the general, 
 second in connnancl, to that exerted by him in 
 tlie same country, in 1795. Upon this latter occa- 
 sion, he was saved from the shame of a precipitate 
 retreat by the form of a convention, in which the 
 Dutcii declined our assistance, and the troops were 
 in consequence guarantied an unmolested embai'k- 
 ation. 
 
 The spirit of ambitious enterprise which charac- 
 terized the rise of the French republic had now 
 become essential to its c<jntiiniance, and fresh 
 schemes of conquest were forced upon its cliicf's, 
 as well to divc-rt the minds of the pi'oplc from a 
 contemplation of the state of the country, as to 
 prevent tlii' military men, whose genius the late 
 cami)aigns iia<l fostered, from working changes in 
 the administration at home, in order to advance 
 the measure of their personal fortunes. In this 
 state of alfaii's, the memorable descent upon Egypt 
 was planned.
 
 40 
 
 ST. PAUL'S CATHEDRAL. 
 
 The preparations on the part of France for this 
 undertakin;^ were made upon a scale commensurate 
 with the importance of the object aimed at, and 
 the character of the national power ; lier troops 
 landed in safety upon the shores of Africa, for a 
 labour of conquest which astonished the world. 
 The efforts made by Great Britain to counteract 
 its success, were, in a corresponding degree, vigor- 
 ous and spirited. A naval and military force, of 
 unusual strength, assembled at Malta, in Decem- 
 bei', 1800, under the command, the foi-mer of Ad- 
 miral Keith, and the latter of Sir Ralph Aber- 
 crombie ; whence, after reducing Malta, they pro- 
 ceeded direct to Marmora bay. Here they delayed 
 for some time, in hopes of forming a junction with 
 the Turks ; the troops were daily exercised in 
 such movements as would facilitate the attack of 
 an hostile shore, and tlie sick and infirm were 
 gently reciiiited in strength. The reinforcements, 
 however, were slow in arriving, and scanty in the 
 extreme, so that the means of expelling the in- 
 vaders were left to the arms of England alone. 
 Again, therefore, the fleet, consisting of 15 sail of 
 the line, set sail, and on the 1st of March, 1801, 
 cast anchor in the bay of Aboukir. 
 
 For some days after, the wind blew so violently 
 from the shore, as to render all attempts at landing 
 desperate ; and the French availed themselves of 
 the accident to render the difficulty still more 
 formidable, by throwing up intrenchments along 
 the range of sand-hills, which gave the beach a 
 sort of natural fortification. On the eighth morn- 
 ing, however, the wind subsided, and our boats 
 assembled to land the troops. At nine every pre- 
 paration was complete, and the signal was given to 
 make for shore. The first ripple of advancing 
 oars was scarcely perceptible upon the waves, 
 when a tremendous fire was opened from the can- 
 non placed on the heights directly in front, and all 
 the artillery of the castle of Aboukii*. As the 
 British drew nearer, they found the ground lined 
 with infantry, and were assailed by a powerful dis- 
 charge of musquetry ; but, undismayed by the 
 havoc thus created, they rushed on the beach, 
 gallantly headed by Sir John Moore, formed their 
 lines with unbroken resolution, and, without firing 
 a single shot, charged bayonet up the hills, and 
 repulsed the French. The spirit, skill, determina- 
 tion, and intrepidity of that attack had been enough 
 to immortalize a name which was afterwards 
 snatched from life in a scene equally arduous, and 
 under equal circumstances of renown. The re- 
 maining troops were rowed in with rapidity in 
 consequence of this first success ; new efforts were 
 made to repel them, and as fast as the infantry 
 landed, fresh bodies of French cavalry dashed in 
 upon them, — but in vain ; no force could over- 
 power the compact valour of that day : the whole 
 army landed in quick succession, and the enemy 
 retreated, after an obstinate conflict, leaving three 
 pieces of cannon in our possession. 
 
 The movements undertaken in consequence of 
 this decided advantage were equally vigorous and 
 triumphant. On the same evening Abercrombie 
 encamped unopposed, with his I'iglit wing flanked 
 by the sea, and his left protected by lake Mandin ; 
 and on the following morning one detachment was 
 sent forward to obtain a supply of water, and 
 another marched to blockade Aboukir. On the 
 13th he advanced at the head of 6000 men to 
 
 seize on the heights of Alexandria, which were 
 held by a strong body of French, and a conflict 
 ensued unsurpassed in the bravery of the assault 
 and the desperation of the resistance. Sailors and 
 soldiei-s, officers and men, mingled together indis- 
 criminately in battle, and more combatants fought 
 with the sword than the musquet. Many were 
 the names commemorated for the valorous feats of 
 that day ; but the general was still the most con- 
 spicuous for heroism, though, upon this occasion, 
 generously emulated in his glory by Sir Sidney 
 Smith. The French were utterly beaten from 
 their station, and a splendid effort was made to 
 pursue the victory and break their lines. Nature 
 and art, however, united too strongly in the pro- 
 tection of their position, and one thousand men fell 
 in the brief manoeuvre which was vainly made to 
 force their position. 
 
 But the advantage so difficult, when thus sought 
 for, was soon put into the hands of the British by 
 the impatience of the enemy. On the 20th the 
 French were perceived to be in motion in con- 
 siderable bodies, and almost immediately after- 
 wai'ds information was obtained of their intention 
 to surprise the British camp on the following morn- 
 ing. This advice was received with some incre- 
 dulity when the peculiar strength of their situation 
 was remembered ; but every precaution which 
 knowledge and vigilance could resort to were, 
 nevertheless, adopted, and by three o'clock our 
 troops stood marshalled in battle-array. The 
 gloominess of the hour was deepened by the dark 
 and stormy character of the weather, and after 
 some time spent in grave expectation, the troops 
 were about to be marched back to their tents, when 
 the discharge of a solitary musquet in the distance 
 to the left put an end to the suspense of our army. 
 Soon after, the joint report of cannon and mus- 
 quetry was heard in the same quarter. The faint- 
 ness with which it was repeated led to a fortunate 
 conjecture that the right wing was intended to be 
 the principal scene of contention. By degrees the 
 shouts of the enemy grew louder and louder as 
 they approached in fight, until at last they swelled 
 into a general roar, timed in its periods by a peal 
 of guns, and echoed back by our troops : the 
 action set in vtith universal tumult. The attack 
 was prosecuted with singular impetuosity ; the 
 infantry led the advanced movement, supported by 
 charges of cavalry, and were opposed with the 
 bravest obstinacy. Twice were they obliged to 
 retreat before us ; and as often they opened out 
 their columns, and let the cavalry dash forward 
 upon us, but the diversification was nobly resisted. 
 A third encounter ensued, and the French were 
 again driven back. A fresh body of reserve then 
 made a desperate assault upon our centre, but 
 even that was constrained to retreat with loss, and 
 the fortune of the day was decided. A complete 
 rout would have followed, but the poverty of our 
 force in cavalry made it impossible to continue the 
 pursuit, either with that sufficiency or effect which 
 the state of the field invited. 
 
 But the pride of victory was damped by the fate 
 of the gallant Abercrombie. Upon the first shout 
 of attack he fled to the right wing, and pressed 
 with ardour into the thickest of the fight : there, 
 while exposed to every danger, and exhorting 
 every charge, a musquet-ball lodged in his thigh. 
 The wound was mortal, and he v\as unhorsed :
 
 ADMIRAL LORD DUNCAN. 
 
 41 
 
 still he continued active in directions and bold in 
 conflict, until a French officer pierced his breast. 
 Tims doubly wounded, he closed upon this anta- 
 gonist and disai'med him. He had onlv strength 
 to put the sword wrested from the Frenchman 
 into the hands of Sir Sidney Smith, when he sunk, 
 exhausted with the loss of blood, into the amis of 
 a soldier. From the field of battle, already red 
 with victory, he was conveyed on board the flag- 
 ship of Admiral Keith, where he lingered in great 
 agony for a week. Every effort to extract the 
 ball proved vam ; mortification ensued, and on 
 the evening of the 28th he expu-ed uuiversally 
 lamented. 
 
 It has already been mentioned that tlie French, 
 on their way to Africa, had seized upon Malta, 
 and that Abei'crombie had also recaptured the 
 island in his progi'ess to repel the invasion. Thither 
 his remains were escorted by his aid-de-camps, 
 and interred, with the highest military honours, 
 beneath the castle of St. Elmo. At home his 
 loss was strongly felt, and his memory crowned 
 with the highest honoui's. Besides the public 
 tribute of a monument in St. Paul's, his wife was 
 created a baroness, with remainder to his issue 
 male ; and a pension of 2000/. a year was voted 
 by parliament to support the dignity. Through- 
 out his career, brave and honourable as any upon 
 record, and in the circumstances of a death not to 
 be exceeded in glory, the memory of Sir Ralph 
 Abercrombie is enrolled in the annals of his coun- 
 try and held sacred by her soldiei-s. 
 
 An interesting account is given in " Chambers' 
 Edinburgh Journal " of the fate of the horse which 
 bore Sir Ralph Abercrombie at his last field in 
 Egypt. " This animal, an Arabian of great beauty, 
 came into the hands of an officer of high rank, 
 
 who, for many yeai-s, cherished him with great 
 care. At length, when he had become old and 
 infirm, it was judged proper that he should retire 
 from active service, and he was transferred to a 
 gentleman who conducts an extensive business as 
 an army-agent in London, by whom he was sent 
 down to Scotland in August, 1822, \mder the care 
 of one of the attendants of George 1 V., then visit- 
 ing his northern kingdom. In Edinburgh our 
 Arabian was taken in charge by the father of the 
 gentleman above mentioned, who conducted him 
 to a country residence which he then occupied in 
 the county of Ayr. He survived for several years, 
 and was now and then ridden by his kind and 
 benevolent keeper ; but at length accident put an 
 end to his days, and under somewhat extraordinary 
 circumstances. One fine frosty morning, as he was 
 parading the park at Craigingillan house, a sound 
 as of distant nmsquetry struck upon his ear, and 
 threw him into an attitude expressive of gi'eat 
 excitement. The noise in reality proceeded from 
 a ' curling rink ' at some distance, the stones em- 
 ployed in that cheerful winter game often striking 
 upon each other with such force as to seem like 
 the report of fire-arms. Evidently fancying that 
 he heard anew the battle sounds of his early days, 
 the poor creature started oft' m a frantic state 
 towai'ds the spot from which the noise pi'oceeded. 
 He leapt at the pai'k-gate, but, alas ! his former 
 sti'ength was gone, and he tore himself dreadfully 
 by the pikes which surmounted the uppermost Ijar. 
 Nevertheless, he made his way to the ice, where 
 he reeled and fell. He was biMUght back to the 
 park, and treated with the greatest c;u'e ; but the 
 injury he had received was irreparable at his 
 advanced age, and he soon after died." 
 
 ADMIRAL LORD DUNCAN. 
 
 Against one of the great piers, opposite the north 
 door of St. Paul's, is placed the momnnent voted 
 bv parliament, and executed by Sir R. W'cstmacott, 
 to Admii-al Lord Duncan, who is represented 
 standing sword in hand, with his boat-cloak 
 thrown about him. It is a manly, natural, and ex- 
 pressive stiitue, and highly creditable to the artist. 
 The inscription is brief and unostentatious : — 
 
 Erected at the public expense 
 
 to the memory of 
 
 Adam Lord Viscou.nt Duncan, 
 
 as a testimony of his distinguished eminence 
 
 in the naval s(;rvicc of his country ; 
 
 and as a particular memorial of the glorious 
 
 and important victory which he gained 
 
 over the Dutch fleet, on the Uth of Octol)cr, 171)7- 
 
 He died on the 4th of August, 1H(»4. 
 
 Adam, son of Alexander Duncan, Es(|., of 
 \.nniU'-, in ForfarKliire, was born July I, 17-H, at 
 Dundee, in wliicli town he also received the first 
 rudimeuta of his education. It is related of him, 
 
 that even in his earliest infancy he developed in a 
 remarkable degree that mildness of manner, and 
 suavity of tcm])er, which so happily distinguished 
 him through all the dilKcult stages of his eminent 
 life. When sixteen years old, he set out from 
 home in the carrier's cart, and entered the navy 
 under ('aiitain Robert lialdene, on boiu'd the 
 Shoreham frigate, in which ho served for three 
 yeai-s. When hostilities had ceased with France, 
 he passed still as a midshipman to the Centurion, 
 of fifty guns, carrying the broad pendant of Com- 
 modore Kepi)el, then connnander-in-chief of the 
 Mediterranean station. Remaining under this ad- 
 miral during the customary period of three years, 
 he so attracted his nolici', liy his cheerful atten- 
 tion to disci]iiine, that an atlaehnuut was formed 
 between tiiem, which husted witluiut abatement 
 while Kei)])el lived. 
 
 I n .January, 1 7''».'», the British government having 
 resolved to despatch (leneral Uradock, at tlie head 
 of a strong military force, to resist the eneroacli- 
 mcMits of the l''rench u|)on our North American 
 territories, Keppi'l was chosiii to convoy the
 
 42 
 
 ST. PAUL'S CATHEDRAL. 
 
 transports, and it was to him that Duncan more 
 diz'ectly owed his employment on this service, and 
 his promotion to the rank of lieutenant. Before 
 long, an urgent representation to the Admiralty 
 from the same quarter led to his being nominated 
 to the Norwich, a fourth-rate. After the arrival 
 of the armament on the shores of Virginia, two of 
 the lieutenants on board of the commodore's ship 
 were made captains, and Duncan got into the Cen- 
 turion, by which he secured a near prospect of 
 promotion, and enjoyed the society and counsel of 
 his patron. In this ship he served until Keppel 
 shifted his flag into the Torbay, when he also was 
 drafted into the latter vessel, with the rank of 
 second-lieutenant. Three years passed away, 
 during which he was uninterestingly engaged on 
 the home station. At last he obtained active 
 service, by being attached to the expedition against 
 the French settlement of Goree, on the coast of 
 Africa. At the engagement which took place upon 
 attacking the fort thei-e, he distinguished himself 
 by his bravery, and was slightly wounded. While 
 on this enterprise he was made first-lieutenant of 
 the Torbay, in which he returned to England. 
 
 Becoming a commander in 1759, he svicceeded 
 to the Violent, of seventy-four guns, with the flag 
 of post-captain, in I7CI. Tn this ship he was again 
 associated with his original friend and patron, 
 whose broad pendant he carried in the expedition 
 against Belleisle. A more formidable armament 
 was soon after sent out against the Havannah, 
 where Captain Duncan, again in the same ship 
 with Keppel, was appointed to cover the disem- 
 barkation of the troops, and enjoyed several oppor- 
 tunities of displaying his activity and courage. 
 When the town surrendered, he had the honourable 
 duty of taking possession of the Spanish ships, 
 which became the prizes of victory. 
 
 The object of the expedition being thus accom- 
 plished, Keppel was rewarded with the command 
 of the Jamaica station, and Duncan still accom- 
 panied him. The conclusion of the war recalled 
 both officers to England, where Duncan remained 
 inactive until hostilities recommenced arainst 
 
 o 
 
 France in 1778. He was then gazetted to the 
 connnand of the Suffolk, of seventy-four guns ; but 
 was soon after re- appointed to the Monarch, a 
 ship of the same rate. The courts-martial which 
 were soon after held upon Admiral Keppel and 
 Sir Hugh Palliser were as much politieal as naval 
 incidents, and need not be here described : it is 
 suftieient to observe, that Duncan sat upon them 
 both, and being neither biassed by nor interested 
 in those party feelings from which they took their 
 origin, he was enabled to di-scharge his duty with 
 satisfaction to his own principles, and with impar- 
 tiality to the officers concerned. 
 
 During the summer of the year 1779, the Mon- 
 arch was uninterruptedly employed with the main 
 channel fleet, commanded by Admiral Sir Charles 
 j Hardy, which, it may be i-emembered, never once 
 came into contact with the enemy, in consequence 
 of the paramount superioi'ity of their combined 
 fleets. At the conclusion of the year, the Monarch 
 was one of the vessels appointed to aid Sir George 
 Rodney in the relief of Gibraltar ; and Duncan 
 greatly distinguished himself in the action with 
 Don Juan de Langara, off" Cape St. Vincent. On 
 that occasion the Monarch was destitute of an ad- 
 vantage (that of being sheeted with copper) pos- 
 
 sessed by many of the other ships in our fleet ; 
 but notwithstanding this, and her evident foulness 
 and heaviness, Duncan had the honour of bcins; 
 the first to begin the action in her. While thus 
 dashing hastily on before all the coppered ships, 
 he was warned of the danger he ran, but re- 
 plied with the utmost coolness, " I fear notJiiiKj, 
 and wish to be among them." It is pleasant to 
 have to add, that his inti'epidity was fully gratified : 
 he began the fight with a Spanish ship, much 
 weightier and longer than his own, and, about a 
 moment after, two others of equal magnitude ap- 
 proached within musquet-shot on his leeward side ; 
 but he maintained his situation with so much 
 steadiness and gallantry, that the latter vessels 
 soon after sheered off". His first opponent pro- 
 longed the fight for no great length of time, and 
 then struck her colours. She proved to be the 
 St. Augustin, of seventy-four guns ; but the Mon- 
 arch was so disabled in her rigging, that Duncan 
 was obliged to resign the satisfaction of taking 
 possession to a ship astern. Nevertheless he re- 
 mained in action, and encountered several other 
 vessels, until the victory was complete throughout 
 the lines. In one material sense he lost the legiti- 
 mate reward of his exertions ; for the wind blew 
 so strong, and the sea ran so high, that the 
 St. Augustin was abandoned, and her crew suc- 
 ceeded in towing her into Cadiz. 
 
 Returning with the squadron to England, he 
 soon quitted the Monarch, and was left without 
 employment until the year 1782, when he was 
 nominated to the Blenheim, of ninety guns, which 
 was fresh from the dock. In this ship he re- 
 mained constantly attached to the main channel 
 fleet until the conclusion of the war. He proceeded 
 to Gibraltar with Lord Howe in September, and 
 was prominently engaged in the encounter which 
 took place oft' the mouth of the Straits, hi which 
 he led the larboard division of tho centre or com- 
 mander-in-chief's squadron. 
 
 Hostilities ceased in 1783, and about the same 
 time Duncan went on board the Edgar, a seventy- 
 four gun ship, stationed at Portsmouth, where, 
 according to the usual custom, he commanded for 
 three years. On the 14tli of September, 1787, he 
 was made rear-admiral of the blue, and on the 
 22nd of the same month, in the year 1790, ad- 
 vanced to the same honour in the white squadron. 
 He was raised to vice-admiral of the blue in Fe- 
 bruary, 1793 ; and on the 12th of April, in the 
 following year, was gazetted vice-admiral of the 
 white. Again, on the 1st of June, 1795, he be- 
 came admiral of the blue ; and, lastly, was made 
 admiral of the white on the 14th of February, 
 1799. During the periods intervening between 
 these promotions, remarkable as it may appear, 
 his merits were overlooked, or, perhaps, were 
 purposely neglected ; for although he frequently 
 solicited, he never once succeeded in obtaining 
 a command. The effect of such marked dis- 
 regard, if any credit is to be allowed to current 
 assertion, was a determination upon his part to 
 retire from a profession in which he seemed only 
 destined to mortification, and accept of a civil 
 appointment ; but, fortunately for himself and his 
 country, he found difficulties in the way when lie 
 endeavoured to negociate the change. At length, 
 in February, 1795, he was constituted commander- 
 in-chief over the North Seas, — the limits of his
 
 ADMIRAL LORD DUNCAN. 
 
 43 
 
 authority extending from tlio North Foreland to 
 Uhima Thule, or as far as the operations of the 
 enemy or the facilities of nature could caiTy him. 
 
 He hoisted his flag on board the Prince George, 
 of ninety-eight guns, but removed into the Venera- 
 ble, of seventy-four guns, as a more fitting vessel, 
 and sailed forthwith from Chatham. Nothing par- 
 ticular occiuTed to him in this command until the 
 summer of 1 797, when the mutiny which broke out 
 at first and more quietly in the channel fleet, and 
 afterwards more violently hi that of the Nore, ex- 
 tended its insubordination to the North Seas. On 
 this occasion the conduct of Admu\il Duncan was 
 marked by peculiar forbearance and resolution. 
 Visitiug every ship in person, his exertions for a 
 short time allayed the discontent of the sailors : 
 but tlie disorder was checked, not suppressed, and 
 soon burst out again. The fleet now lay in Yai'- 
 mouth Roads preparatory to a voyage, and the 
 proper signal was made for the Trent frigate to 
 get under weigh. It was not obeyed; and Duncan, 
 upon inquiring, was told that the crew perempto- 
 rily refused to obey their officei-s. The excuse 
 otiered f(jr this conduct was, that the regulations 
 recently mtroduced for the weight and measure of 
 provisions in the navy had not been carried into 
 execution ; and this, it would appear, was in point 
 of fact true. On the other hand, the cause of this 
 ajiparent neglect was, that the ordinance had been 
 so recently passed that it was found imjjossible to 
 introduce it either simultaneously or expeditiously 
 tlu'oughout so bulky an establishment. Be this as 
 it may, it is worthy of remark, that the insubordi- 
 nation was not without its provocation. Unfor- 
 tunately the explanation produced no effect upon 
 the mutineei's, who continued refractory, and re- 
 iterated their determination not to sail. At this 
 crisis Duncan called his own crew to the quarter- 
 deck of the Venerable, and told them that he meant 
 to proceed in his boat in the morning to the Trent, 
 and compel the ci'ew to return to their duty ; and 
 asked his men if there were any of them who, 
 upon such an occasion, would forsake him. One 
 and all seemed eager to assure him of support. 
 This intre]iidity produced the desired effect. He 
 went on board the Trent ; the crew submitted, 
 were pardoned, and the ship proceeded on her 
 voyage without any further delay. 
 
 The whole fleet now stationed itself at tlie back 
 of the sands in expectation of reinforcements ; but 
 here again the bad spirit so recently allayed rose 
 a<;ain, and disjilayed a still stronger influence. 
 The men of the Nassau and Montague were the 
 first to declare their disaft'ection, and ultimately 
 made oft' to the nmtineers at the Nore. The Vene- 
 rable and Adamant alone remained true to their 
 ofticers, and with them Admiral Duncan was foi'ced 
 to gain the Texel, and resort to stratagem, in a 
 most critical conjuncture, as the only means of 
 conii>ensating for disatt'eclion of so large a portion 
 of Ills fleet. He kept making a number of signals 
 as if to slii]is in the offing, and is said to havo thus 
 deceived the Dutch admiral into a supposition that 
 a supi'rior force lay in the distance. At this very 
 niomcnt tliei-e is reason to believe that Hymi)tonis 
 of a nuitiny made its appearance even in liis own 
 sliij). A jiiot was discovered, and tlie admiral, as 
 was usual with him, ordered all liands imuKiliately 
 on dcfk. Addre.-'sing liiniMilf in the firniist but 
 coolest terms to six men, who had been denounced 
 
 as ringleaders : " My lads," said he, " I am not 
 in the snuillest degree afraid of any violence you 
 may have in contemplation ; and though I assure 
 you I would much rather gain your love than your 
 resentment, I will with my own hand put to death 
 the first person who pei-severes in disi)la\ing the 
 slightest symptom of rebellious conduct." Then 
 turning round to one of them, he asked, " Do you, 
 sir, want to take the command of this shi]) out of 
 my hands I" "I do, sir," sturdily i-epjied the 
 sailor. Duncan raised his arm, and would have 
 plunged his sword into the man's In-east, but the 
 chaplain restrained the blow. Summary ]>unish- 
 ment having been thus intercepted, he did not otter 
 to repeat it, but exclaimed, with some agitation, 
 " Let all who will stand by me and my officers 
 pass over immediately to the starboard, that we 
 may see who are our friends and our opponents." 
 In an instant evei-y man, save the six alluded to, 
 ran over to the spot he had pointed out. The 
 culprits were immediately seized ami thrown into 
 irons ; but after having been confined to the gun- 
 room, they were liberated one by one upon evincing 
 such signs of contrition as satisfied their humane 
 commander. 
 
 From this instance of forbearance, such as many 
 disciplinarians have condemned, and but few could 
 have the strength of mind to ])raetise, we pass to 
 the event which immortnlizcd the name of Duncan 
 — this was the battle with the Dutch fleet ott' Cani- 
 perdown. The enemy had for some time been in 
 a complete state of equipment : their force com- 
 prised fifteen ships of the Ime, six frigates, and 
 three sloops of war : the wind was all along favour- 
 able to their weighing anchor, and nothing but the 
 skill of the British admiral had hitherto kept them 
 m port. At length, with a view of greater annoy- 
 ance, the Venerable and Adamant were laid with 
 springs to their cables close by the mouth of the 
 Texel, which was so narrow as to permit the egress 
 of only one ship at a time. For three days and 
 nights the crews stood at their quarters in nu)- 
 mentary expectation of an attack, but a sudden 
 change of the wind made any movement upon the 
 part of the British impracticable : the Dutch, 
 meantime, remained stationary. A reinforcement 
 of two shii)s, the Russel and Sans I'areil, came up 
 to Duncan at this opi)ortune conjuncture, and a 
 further accession of strength being obtained im- 
 mediately after, all fears of danger from disparity 
 of numbers were allayed. 
 
 Much against his inclination the connnander-in- 
 chief was now obliged to return to port, and there 
 re-victual. As soon as he disajiinared, the Dutch 
 adniii-ai, urged by the reju-esentatious of liis go- 
 vernnunt, ventured to put to sea, and, though little 
 emboldened by a hope of success, sailed into the 
 Channel. Duncan's activity, however, was ecjual 
 to the occasion. Orders liad preceded him to Yar- 
 mouth for the jirep.aration of every necessary he 
 desired. Transports were ready to siq)]ily him 
 u]ion his arrival, and in eight days he was again 
 ujion the oc> an. His ship was the Veiieralile. At 
 seven o'clock on the morning of October II, 17l'7, 
 the headmost ships made signal of having disco- 
 vered the enemy, and after a pursuit of three hoin's 
 the Knglish succeeded in the bold manieuvre of 
 breaking their lines. Thus c\it oft" from their own 
 hhoi'cs, a glorious condiat ensueil, w liich was the 
 more memorable from the irri';;ukirity with which
 
 44 
 
 ST. PAUL'S CATHEDRAL. 
 
 the English were obliged to come into action. The 
 battle began with the Monarch, Vice-Admiral On- 
 slow, who was followed in the space of five minutes 
 by the Venerable. The latter ship was intercepted 
 in lier design of coming in contact with the Dutch 
 admiral by the States General, of seventy-four 
 guns, which shot up close upon her. Running, 
 therefore, his helm to port, Duncan came under 
 the stern of his opponent, engaged him close, and 
 soon forced him to break away from the line. The 
 Venerable then drew alongside of the Dutch ad- 
 miral, De Winter, in the Vryheid, who was power- 
 fully manned, and for some time kept up a heavy 
 fire. At one o'clock the action was general. In 
 about half an hour after, the Hercules, a Dutch 
 ship, of sixty-four guns, caught fire a-head of the 
 Venerable, and drove very near a-head. The bat- 
 tle continued without abatement until three o'clock, 
 when the starboard broadside of the Venerable was 
 fired, and all her opponent's masts came imme- 
 diately by the board. In half an hour more the 
 Dutchman struck his colours, and the victory was 
 complete. Nine stout ships of the line and two 
 large frigates struck, two more were burnt, and 
 one sunk ; and the loss of the enemy in killed and 
 wounded doubled that sustained by the British. 
 
 In reward for the skill and gallantry displayed 
 on this day, the English admiral was raised to the 
 peerage by the title of Baron Camperdown, Viscount 
 Duncan ; and was honoured with the thanks of 
 both houses of parliament, who settled 2000?. a 
 year upon him. The freedom of the city of London, 
 and a sword, valued at 200 guineas, were also pre- 
 sented to him. 
 
 The Venerable, having been so much damaged 
 during the engagement as to require a thorough 
 repair, was dismantled in dock, and Lord Duncan, 
 shifting his flag into the Kent, a new ship, of 
 seventy-four guns, forthwith resumed his com- 
 mand. He continued in it until the year 1800, 
 when every appeai-ance of a refitment upon the 
 part of the enemy being removed, his lordship 
 
 retreated to the enjoyments of domestic life. In 
 this state he remained until the year 1804, when 
 he came up to London with a laudable view of 
 devoting the residue of an active life to the service 
 of his country. His health, however, was unequal 
 to the effort : apoplexy seized him at the Ad- 
 mu-alty, and he was obliged to hurry down to his 
 friends in Scotland. A second attack overtook him 
 on the journey, and he died almost immediately 
 after his return at Kelso, in Roxburghshire. 
 
 Lord Duncan married a daughter of Mr. Dun- 
 das, Lord President of the Court of Session m 
 Scotland, and had a numerous family. William 
 IV. made his eldest son Earl of Camperdown, a 
 name still dear to English sailors, who accord to 
 Admiral Duncan great merit for this action. It 
 stands distmguished from every otlier battle fought 
 during the war bj' the bold expedient of running 
 the fleet between the enemy and a lee shore with a 
 strong wind blowing on the land, a mode of attack 
 which none of his predecessors had ever hazarded. 
 The admiral also evinced great judgment in the 
 latter part of the contest, and in extricating his 
 fleet and prizes from a situation so perilous and 
 difiicult, while the Dutch sustained all the charac- 
 ter of their best days. The battle of Camperdown, 
 indeed, whether we view it as exhibiting the skill 
 and courage of its victor, the bravery of British 
 seamen, or as an event of great political import- 
 ance, will ever stand conspicuous among the many 
 naval victories that adorn our annals. One of his 
 countrymen says of Duncan, with equal truth and 
 force, " It would perhaps be difficult to find in 
 modern history another man in whom, with so 
 much meekness, modesty, and unaffected dignity of 
 mind, were united so much genuine spirit, so much 
 of the skill and fire of professional genius ; such 
 vigorous and active wisdom ; such alacrity and 
 ability for gi-eat achievements, with such indif- 
 ference for their success, except so far as they 
 might contribute to the good of his country." 
 
 LORD CHANCELLOR ROSSLYN. 
 
 A SLAB in the crypt of St. Paul's, under the middle 
 aisle, marks the gi-ave of Lord Chancellor Rosslyu, 
 with this plain epitaph :^ 
 
 Alexander Wedderburne, 
 
 Earl of Rosslyn, 
 
 Baron Loughborough, 
 
 Born 13th February, 1733, 
 
 Died 2nd January, 1805. 
 
 Scotland was the birth-place of this eminent 
 lawyei", who was the eldest son of Peter Wedder- 
 burne, of Chester Hall, one of the senators of the 
 College of Justice. He was educated at the Uni- 
 versity of Edinburgh, and called to the Scotch bar 
 in 1754. According to the Scottish Biographical 
 Dictionar'y, " He was rapidly gaining ground as a 
 junior counsel, when an accident put a sudden stop 
 to his practice in his native courts. He had 
 gained the cause of a client in opposition to the 
 
 celebrated Lockhart, when the defeated veteran, 
 unable to conceal his chagi'in, took occasion from 
 something in the manner of Mr. Wedderburne to 
 call him ' a presumptuous boy.' The sarcastic 
 severity of the young barrister's reply drew upon 
 him so illiberal a rebuke from one of the judges, 
 that he immediately unrobed, and, bowing to the 
 covu't, declared that he would never more plead 
 where he was subjected to insult, but would seek 
 a wider field for his professioual exei'tions. He 
 accordingly removed to London, and enrolled him- 
 self a member of the Inner Temple." He was 
 called to the English bar in 1757) and rapidly 
 acquired reputation imder the patronage of his 
 countrymen. Earls Bute and Mansfield. He first 
 entered the House of Commons as member for 
 Richmond in Yorkshii'e, and was made solicitor- 
 general in 1771- It was in that office, while 
 arguing a case before the Privy Council on Ame- 
 rican affairs, that he gave the celebrated Franklin
 
 LORD CHANCELLOR ROSSLYN.— MARQUIS CORNWALLIS. 
 
 45 
 
 an offence which the philosopher never forgave or 
 forgot. In 1777 lie was appointed attorney-general, 
 ami in 17^0, chief -justice of the Connnon Pleas, 
 with the title of Lord Loughborough. When 
 Mr. Pitt came to power, Lord Loughborough 
 voted with Mr. Fox's jiarty, but left it with 
 IJurke and others under the excitement pi'oduced 
 by the French Revolution. His adhesion to the 
 minister was rewarded with the high post of lord 
 chancellor upon the retirement of Lord Thurlow 
 in 1793. Upon this occasion his title was raised 
 to an earldom. 
 
 As a lawyer, the Earl of Rosslyn was considered 
 able and clever, but plausible ; ho spoke well, and 
 in general made his cause out effectively. In politics 
 he distinguished himself by no enlarged views, 
 but was esteemed a very serviceable i)arty man. 
 Though mild in his office of attorney-general, he 
 was considered fond of ca]>ital punishment ; as a 
 common-law judge, Churchill the poet satirized 
 him as 
 
 " A pert, prim prater of the northern race ; 
 Guilt in lii3 heart, and famine in his face." 
 
 He was named, one amongst a host, as the wTiter 
 of Jmiius's Letters, but is only known as an 
 author by a pamphlet, which he jiroduced in ll'X\, 
 " On the State of the Prisons in England, and the 
 Means of Improving them." According to some 
 accounts, he it was who advised George III. to 
 suppress the London riots, in 17fiO, by calling out 
 the military. If the anecdote be true. Lord Ross- 
 lyn must have been a man of no connnon judgment 
 and force of character. 
 
 He was married, but left no issue. Mrs. Opie, 
 the novelist, has described his appearance, sitting 
 at Nisi Prius, as being so singular, yet so distin- 
 guished, that lie would have attracted and fixed 
 attention, had nothing of his previous character 
 been known. 
 
 " I never," she adds, " saw a human face so 
 much resembling a parrot as his was. The nose 
 appeared to me like a beak, and the nostril was 
 cut up like the beak of a parrot. The ball of the 
 eye was very large and prominent, but the eyes 
 tiiemselves were so dark, bright, expressive, and 
 intellectual, that I soon ceased to remember or 
 notice any other of the i'eatui-es." 
 
 CHARLES, MARQUIS CORNWALLIS, K.G. 
 
 Against the great pier on the left entering the 
 choir of St. Paul's cathedi'al, stands a massive 
 monument, by Charles Rossi, to the memory of 
 this eminent soldier and statesman. The Marquis, 
 robed as a Knight of the Garter, appears standing 
 upon a truncated column, before which are per- 
 sonifications of the British Emjiire, in Europe and 
 in Asia : the figures to the right represent the 
 Begareth and Ganges, rivers in tlie East. Of these 
 statues, that of the Marquis resembles life, and is 
 so far good ; that of Britannia is decidedly awk- 
 ward and mean ; and those of the other deities are 
 striking : but the design of all together is unnatural 
 and inexpressive. The inscription is the follow- 
 ijig:— 
 
 To the memory of 
 
 Charles, Mariiuis Cornwallis, 
 
 Governor-General of Bengal, 
 
 Who died 5th October, 1805, aged (Hi, at Ghazee- 
 
 pore, in the province of Benares, 
 
 111 his progress to assume the command of the 
 
 army in the field ; 
 
 This moimnient 
 
 is erected at the public expense. 
 
 In testimony of his high and distinguislu'd public 
 
 character ; 
 His long and eminent services, both as a S(jldier 
 
 and a statesman ; 
 
 And the unwearied zeal with wliicli his exertions 
 
 were employe<l. 
 
 In the last nionuiit of his life, 
 
 To promote the iuterest and honour of his country. 
 
 Charles Cornwallis, Viscount Browne, descended 
 from a family w hich traces its lineagi; U> a sheriff of 
 the city of Londijn, in the fourtet'iilh century, and 
 obtained a peerage for loyalty to Cliarli-s II. in his 
 exile, was horn Decemlicr 'M, ]TM\. Afti^r having 
 been successively a member of Klmi school, and 
 
 St. John's college, Cambridge, he received a stand 
 of colours in his eighteenth year. In 175!! he was 
 made captain, and in 17(iO accompanied the Marquis 
 of Granby, in the capacity of aid-de-camp, to the 
 German war, during which he became lieutenant- 
 colonel of the 12th Foot. This was in 17fil, and it 
 was during the same year that he sat in the first 
 parliament of George III. as member for Eye, in 
 Suffolk, a borousrh which had been habitiiallv re- 
 presented by his family for nearly three centuries. 
 In 1762, the death of his father left him the iidie- 
 ritance of the family titles and estates, and he 
 accordingly took his seat in the Upper House as 
 Earl Cornwallis. Three years after, he was nomi- 
 nated a lord of the bedchamber ; in 17(i(> he 
 received his first regiment, the 33d Foot : and in 
 1705 married Jeminui, the daughter of John 
 Jones, Esq. 
 
 When the English ministry took the fatal reso- 
 lution of deciding l)y force of arms their pretensions 
 to tax America, the '.VM Foot formed a portion of 
 the troops ordered upon foreign service, and Lord 
 Cornwallis prepared to ])lace himself at the head 
 of his regiment. The circumstances under which 
 he dei)arted reflected particular lustre u|ion liis 
 public character : the C'oiiiitess, who was much 
 attached to him, deprecated the step with jias- 
 sionate tenderness, and, when she found her en- 
 treaties unavailing, prevailed u]ion his uncle, the 
 Archbishop of Canterbury, to obtain an audience 
 with the king, and solicit for him an exemption from 
 the perils of command. Tlu; boon was conceded 
 by till' inoiiarcli, but not accejited by the sutiject : 
 the Earl embarki'd witli his regiiuciit, uiKler a 
 coimiieiiilable sense of his own honour and a sol- 
 dier's duty ; and imniediately upon his lainliiig, 
 gathered his full share of the distinctions which 
 were gained at the battle of White Plains. Far 
 dideri'iit was it with his lady at home : in sorrow 
 for his absence, and fears for his safety, she fell
 
 4G 
 
 ST. PAUL'S CATHEDRAL. 
 
 into a consumption, wliicli put a period to her 
 anxiety February 14, 1779- ^ut of several chil- 
 dren, she left behind her only a son and daughter 
 living. Her husband remamed ever after a 
 widower. 
 
 Some notice of the political principles, upon 
 which his lordship had hitherto acted, seems to be 
 here desirable, with a view to a just estimate of 
 liis character and public services. From the 
 very beginning he was ojjposed to the policy of 
 coercive measures with America. He was one of 
 the four ministerial lords who sided with Earl 
 Camden in resisting the bill which extended the 
 parliamentary power of Great Britain over her 
 legislative colonies ; and he also took a decided part 
 in opposing the arbitrary proceedings by which 
 Wilkes was excluded from the House of Commons. 
 He was therefore an independent and rather 
 liberal-minded peer, not distinguished by frequent 
 or eloquent speeches, but remarkable for the judg- 
 ment with which he preserved his duties as a 
 senator and a soldier from admixture. 
 
 Being appointed by General Howe to command 
 an expedition against the Jerseys, November 18, 
 1776, Cornwallis advanced at the head of a force, 
 comprising his own regiment, some battalions of 
 grenadiers and light infantry covered by a squa- 
 dron of cavalry, and drew within a short distance of 
 Foi-t Lee, which is the key of the Jerseys. Such 
 was the secrecy and expedition with which this 
 march was effected, that, but for the escape of a 
 desertei', who apprised the enemy of his approach, 
 he had certainly made the gai-rison, to a man, 
 prisoners of war. The movement, however, was 
 not without its advantages ; the Americans re- 
 treated in confusion, and he came into possession 
 of all their military stores and provisions. The Jer- 
 sej'S immediately after fell into his hands, and he 
 was only restrained from the pursuit, and, in all pro- 
 bability, the complete overthrow of the Americans, 
 by engaging thcra before they could liave suc- 
 ceeded in crossing the river Delaware, in conse- 
 quence of an order from his commander-in-chief, 
 which was severely criticized in England as a 
 capital error. 
 
 Thus was the tide of success preserved in these 
 quarters, up to the moment when General Howe 
 determined upon his expedition against Philadel- 
 phia. As soon as the army eflected a landing in 
 Chesapeake bay, Lord Cornwallis was despatched 
 at the head of a column to Brandywine river, on 
 which General Washington was posted, in order to 
 protect Philadelphia. His lordship's purpose was 
 to turn the enemy's rear, and get between them 
 and the city ; he succeeded promptly in this, by de- 
 feating the force sent to oppose him under General 
 Sullivan : his public entry into Philadelphia con- 
 sequently took place September 24, 1777- Up to 
 the close of this, and during the com-se of the next 
 campaign, though the plan of the war left no great 
 opportunities for exertion, the conduct of Earl 
 Cornwallis, as second in command, continued to 
 attract considerable attention. Several expeditions 
 were set on fofit after the destruction of Charles- 
 town, of which the chief was entrusted to his skill. 
 This was the expulsion out of the province of a 
 body of continental troops, under General Burford, 
 who, though they had arrived too late to succour 
 the besieged, yet, by being joined to the cavalry 
 who had escaped the last defeat, had kept the 
 
 neighbourhood in a state of active hostilities. This 
 body Lord Cornwallis completely routed, June 1, 
 1778, and thus stood undisputed in the government 
 of South Carolina. 
 
 A j)eaceful interval succeeded, during which he 
 first developed that ability in civil affairs for which 
 he subsequently became conspicuous. A board 
 of police was established by him to administer jus- 
 tice, until the regular forms of ancient adminis- 
 tration could be re-organized with safety ; several 
 arrangements were made to promote commerce, 
 and facilitate, as far as was prudent, the exports of 
 the province ; an effective militia was enrolled, and 
 unremitting preparations were made to forward 
 the attack on the northern provinces. From these 
 more gentle employments he was soon detached by 
 the Americans, who rapidly advanced, to the num- 
 ber of six thousand, under General Gates. Lord 
 Cornwallis resolved to meet this movement, and 
 thus the two armies came in sight on the evening 
 of August 16, 1779- At the dawn of the next day, 
 the final dispositions for engaging were made. 
 Coniwallis's troops, though inferior in point of 
 strength, wei-e admirably posted : a swamp which 
 covered his flank narrowed itself in front of the 
 army, so as to secure his wings, and render the 
 numbers of the enemy less effective in the attack. 
 Of his advanced Ime, the right division was com- 
 manded by Colonel Webster, and- the left by Lord 
 Rawdon, afterwards Marquis of Hastings. The ar- 
 tillery was placed between them, to support either, 
 as circumstances might require ; and in the rear, 
 covered by the cavalry, was a corps of reserve. 
 The enemy were disposed in a manner somewhat 
 similar ; and the attack, commenced by the British, 
 was maintained with such impetuosity, that the 
 Americans soon gave way. They rallied, however, 
 with great gallantry, but were again shaken, and, 
 upon the advance of our second line, finally dis- 
 persed. The cavalry completed the defeat, in a 
 pursuit of twenty miles. One thousand of the 
 enemy fell, and anotlier thousand were taken pri- 
 soners ; and seven pieces of cannon, with a full 
 ti'ain of ordnance and transport waggons, added 
 consequence to the achievement. 
 
 To render this decisive victory of still greater 
 service. Lord Cornwallis despatched Colonel Tarle- 
 ton upon the same evening against a body of troojis 
 under General Souter, who had been extremely 
 troublesome m cutting off detached parties and 
 mtercepting our convoys. This corps had beaten 
 a retreat as soon as the fate of General Gates 
 became known, and had only halted in great fa- 
 tigue for the first time on the 18th of August, 
 when Tarloton presented himself before them, and, 
 at a single manoeuvre, succeeded in separating 
 them from their arms. Submission and abrupt 
 flight were then the only alternatives. Thus the pro- 
 vincial force in the South was utterly crushed, and 
 Lord Cornwallis only waited for supplies to pro- 
 secute his triumph in North Carolina. The interval 
 was employed in carrying rigorous measures into 
 execution. Of the many who had sworn allegiance to 
 Great Britain, not a few, animated by the presence 
 of General Gates and his army, had thrown them- 
 selves into the ranks of the native troops. Their 
 estates were now forfeited. Instant death was 
 denounced against all those, who, having once 
 avowed their submission to Great Britain, should 
 be afterwards found m arms against her ; and a
 
 CHARLES, MARQUIS CORNWALLIS, K.G. 
 
 47 
 
 firm re-union between the colony and mother coun- 
 try was confidently expected. 
 
 On the 8ch of September Lord Comwallis began 
 his m:irch to North Carolina, but the ardour of his 
 progress was cheeked even at the onset by the 
 loss of a considerable detachment under JIajor 
 Ferguson, which was sui'prised by a party of the 
 enemy from the Alleghany Mountains, and, almost 
 to a man, either captm-ed or slain. This misfor- 
 tune, and the unexpected hardships which crowded 
 on him as he advanced, gradually compelled him 
 to turn his steps back on South Carolina, and there 
 reluctantly wait for fresh remforcements. This 
 march was altogether one of exemplary fortitude 
 and pi'ivation ; the provisions were so nearly 
 exhausted, that every soldier was limited to a 
 sparing allowance of corn daily, and once a week a 
 small ration of meat, for the cooking of which 
 there was scarcely any convenience. The country 
 was overflowed by incessant falls of heavy rain ; 
 the men had no tents, and could but seldom find a 
 di"y spot of ground on which to kindle a lire. Rank 
 and file, officers and generals, all suff'ered alike : 
 amongst others Lord Cornwallis fell ill, but he 
 recovered in October, and arrived with his army 
 safe at Wynnesborough. 
 
 The operations of the next campaign were de- 
 signed upon an extensive and vigorous plan ; but 
 the success of the war was hopeless. General 
 Arnold, who had revolted from the cause of in- 
 dependence, now undertook to produce a powerful 
 effect in the Chesapeak ; and Lord Cornwallis, 
 after scouring the interjacent provinces, was di- 
 rected to form a junction with him, and then give 
 battle to the Marquis of Fayette, who was at the 
 head of a considerable force. Meanwhile, Sir 
 Henry Clinton placed himself in opposition to 
 General Washington in the north. After an obsti- 
 nate fight at Guilford, in which he proved victo- 
 rious, and a partial retreat to Wilmington, in the 
 vain hope of receiving fresh supplies. Lord Corn- 
 wallis hazarded the completion of his orders, and 
 reached Petersburgh as early as May. He had 
 still to struggle against a much superior force, but 
 he surmounted every obstacle, and made a rapid 
 progress in Virginia. Such was the conjuncture 
 at which Washington devised a scheme which 
 effectually put a period to the career of Cornwal- 
 lis. He managed that a packet of letters should 
 fall into the hands of General Clinton, in which 
 the republican leaders were assured that the only 
 possible means of saving Virginia from liecoming 
 the prize of an officer, so fertile in expedients and 
 vigorous in expedition, as experience had ])rovcd 
 Lord Cornwallis, was to turn all their strength 
 against New York, and thus prevent the English 
 commandi'r there from forwarding any sui)plies to 
 his brother genei'als. No sooner was it discovered 
 that Clinton wa.s thus drawn into feare for his own 
 safety, than Washington marched directly against 
 York Town, where Lord Cornwallis, in obedience 
 to the connnands of his superior officer, was await- 
 ing the long- promised reinforcements. The jjjace 
 was invested without delay, and the works j)ro- 
 ceeded rapidly with the additional forces under the 
 Jlarquis de la Fayette and General Rochambeau. 
 Admiral Graves attempted to relieve the besiegctfi, 
 but was obliged to leave tlie French fleet in 
 possession of Clx-sapeak IJay. Tims was the I?ri- 
 tish general hemmed in on every aide, without a 
 
 prospect of succour, or any sufficient means of 
 resistance. To attempt to jienetratc thro\igh such 
 an army, with his reduced numbers, would, as he 
 conceived, be an unavailable sacrifice of human 
 blood : in this predicament nothing remained but 
 a caiiitulation, which was of necessity soon brought 
 about ; and after an absence of five years, Lord 
 Cornwallis returned to England upon parole. A 
 pamphlet controversy immediately took place be- 
 tween him and Clinton : the latter condemning 
 Lord Cornwallis's scheme, and the manner in 
 which it was conducted ; and his lordship assert- 
 ing that the blame of his defeat lay with his supe- 
 rior officer, who had failed to give him the succour 
 he expected. At home Lord Cornwallis was de- 
 prived of his place of Governor of the Tower, but 
 re-appointed in 1784. 
 
 In 1790 a fresh opportunity presented itself for 
 the employment of his services : the affairs of the 
 East India Company were at that period reduced 
 to a low ebb. Though possessing more subjects 
 than the king of Great Britain, they w-ere, never- 
 theless, enervated by complicated ditticulti(>s ; and 
 while menaced, on the one hand, by a combination 
 of the native princes, they were, on the other, suf- 
 fering extreme losses from the peculation and 
 tjTanny of tlieu" servants. To compose this troubled 
 state of things, — to carry on that most arduous of 
 warfares against corruption and civil insubordina- 
 tion, to equip a neglected army, and train it to 
 discipline and victory, the Earl of Cornwallis was 
 sent out to the East, invested w-ith the order of 
 the Garter, and appointed governor-general of the 
 presidency of Madras. The celebrated Tippoo 
 Saib had already begun to develope the extent of 
 that ambitious policy which he inherited from his 
 adventurous father, and which was soon destined 
 to shake the supremacy of Great Britain in the 
 East. A peace had suspended, but not altered 
 his designs ; and he employed the interval in re- 
 cruiting and disciplining his army, — an important 
 labour, in which he was materially assisted by the 
 experience of several French officers. The first 
 act by which he gave fresh evidence of liis restless 
 views, was his invasion of the territories of the 
 Nizam of Travancm-e, although a special treaty 
 guarantied by Great 15ritain had stipulated, that 
 the monarch alluded to should enjoy his sovereignty 
 without molestation. 
 
 Hostilities once commenced, the management of 
 affairs was entrusted to the government of Madras ; 
 and no sooner did they assume a serious aspect, 
 than the governor took the field in ])ei-son. Having 
 concentrated his forces, and established a confe- 
 deracy among the native powers, he pi'oniptly 
 determined to carry the war into the enemy's 
 country. Early in 1791, his march brought him 
 before Bangalore, a considerable city on the con- 
 fines next to Arcot : Tippoo, though evidently 
 taken by surprise, appeared on the o])posite 
 heights. The British connnander lost no time in 
 investing the town ; he reduced if, and in a few 
 days after captured the fort. To this success but 
 little resistance was offered, as 'l'i]ipoo was still 
 partial to tlu' mode of warfare by which lie and 
 iiis father had so often triumphed, — that, namely, 
 which pr<;vented tlic means of great victories by 
 surprising detachments, intercepting convoys, and 
 wasting the force of his enemies, without en- 
 countering their strength.
 
 48 
 
 ST. PAUL'S CATHEDRAL. 
 
 Seringapatam, the capital of the Mysore, beiug 
 too strongly fortified to be attacked with the troops 
 at that moment under muster, and the rainy season 
 coming on, Lord Cornwallis was obliged to fix his 
 winter-quarters in Bangalore, and there await the 
 arrival of reinforcements. Early iu 1792 he was 
 again in the field, and after a day's halt attacked 
 the encampments before Seringapatam. On the 
 side where he commanded himself, victory was 
 complete ; but on the other, although a rout also 
 took place, yet some strange misapprehension of 
 the orders, which should have led to a storm, 
 occurred ; and the advantages of the day were so 
 far forfeited. Had not this circumstance occurred, 
 the capital of the Mysore, and the power of Tippoo 
 Saib, might have then fallen with the sublimity 
 that soon after signalized their ruin. The siege 
 prospered notwithstanding, and overtures of sub- 
 mission were ottered. To these Lord Cornwallis 
 consented to listen, upon the express undei'standing 
 that he was to dictate the conditions of peace him- 
 self. After some discussion it was agreed, March 
 19, 1792, that Tippoo should pay three crores and 
 thirty lacks of rupees, or about 4,125,000^. : a part 
 immediately, and the rest at stated pei'iods ; that 
 he should forfeit one half of his dominions, and 
 cede two of his sons as hostages for the fulfilment 
 of the treaty. 
 
 The termination of this war was highly service- 
 able to the interests of Britain, and most creditable 
 to the honour of her arms. Independent of the 
 military talents displayed in thus repressmg the 
 most formidable potentate that had ever endan- 
 gered possessions so productive to us of private 
 riches and public wealth. Lord Cornwallis showed 
 that he was possessed of even higher virtues. Un- 
 like former generals, he accepted of no presents 
 from the prince he had conquered, and passed over 
 to the government the immense treasure surren- 
 dered to him, without touchin<; a single shillinj;. 
 
 We have now to speak of Lord Coruwallis's admi- 
 nistration of civil affairs, which constituted a new 
 era in the government of that dependency. The 
 reforms he introduced, both of a financial and 
 judicial character, were highly important, and dis- 
 tinguished by the prevailing characteristics of his 
 mind. They were conscientious, well-intentioned, 
 steadily and sensibly prosecuted, but not conceived 
 on a high or comprehensive scale. Thus his ad- 
 ministrative abilities were decidedly superior to 
 his legislative. His was an attempt at an improve- 
 ment, not an improvement itself, — of which we 
 shall only further observe, that two more cum- 
 brous and complicated, or un-English things, never 
 existed, than the financial and judicial systems of 
 India at this period. 
 
 Cornwallis now enjoyed a short period of relax- 
 ation : he returned home, was made a marquis, 
 and soon after master-general of the ordnance. 
 The exigencies of the times, howevei', soon called 
 him again into active employment, and in a capa- 
 city which, even more than the former, required 
 considerable civil as well as militai-y talents. The 
 discontents of Ireland, which, though over and 
 over again silenced by the sword, had never been 
 extinguished, caught the spirit of successful re- 
 sistance from the French revolution, and once 
 moi'e burst out uito open rebellion. To suppress 
 this danger, and give an earnest of better govern- 
 ment. Marquis Cornwallis was appointed viceroy in 
 
 1798 ; and, perhaps, no previous lord-lieutenant 
 had a more arduous part to perform. He was 
 required to punish with the one hand, and to 
 soothe with the other; to reconcile a whole country 
 to the loss of that distinction and independence 
 which the possession of a separate parliament 
 secui-ed ; and to encourage the unhappy Catholics 
 to peace and confidence, upon the assurance that 
 the government was /'&(/</«/ to put them upon an 
 equality with their fellow- subjects. It must be 
 admitted, indeed it has been confessed on all 
 hands, that the marquis acquitted himself of this 
 new office with singular adroitness, sincerity, and 
 merit. He was popular with all men ; with the 
 Catholics because he was almost the first lord- 
 lieutenant under whom they had received, not only 
 any share of favour and distinction, but even the 
 common birth-right of the subject — an impartial 
 administration of justice ; and with the Protestants, 
 because he showered fortunes and titles among 
 them in return for their exertions in seconding 
 the legislative enactments of the union — an im- 
 portant measure, now strenuously urged into exe- 
 cution. There were, however, acts done and 
 crimes perpetrated during this period which few 
 men will excuse, and ail must deplore ; but it has 
 been denied that they were the works of the chief 
 governor ; and they certainly appeared irrecon- 
 cileable with his counsels and policies. Let it be 
 admitted, then, that they were horrid germs of 
 that ancient misrule which has at last been ex- 
 ploded. 
 
 While he was thus honourably engaged in the 
 work of general conciliation, a body of French 
 troops, under the command of General Humbert, 
 effected a landing at Killala bay, in the county 
 of Mayo. Leaving a gaVrison behind on the shore, 
 they advanced ujion Castlebar, defeated some 
 military, who had been there hastily collected to- 
 gether, and penetrated to Tuam. This partial 
 success gave rise to the utmost consternation, but 
 it was speedily counteracted. The lord-lieutenant 
 hastened into Connaught by forced marches, and 
 at BivUinarauck compelled the enemy to surrender. 
 Meantime the union was ratified, and with that 
 event all the bright prospects and golden promises 
 which were held forth for its completion, vanished 
 into nothingness. The Marquis Cornwallis, unable 
 to redeem the pledges of his administration, was 
 superseded ; but as a mark of the satisfaction with 
 which the government reviewed his conduct, was 
 appointed plenipotentiary for signing the peace of 
 Amiens. 
 
 Cornwallis had now reached his sixty-third 
 year, and it might be reasonably suj^posed that the 
 decline of his life would pass in quiet and retii-e- 
 ment. Important events, however, still super- 
 vened ; and in 1805 he was prevailed upon to 
 repair a second time to the East Indies, and settle 
 the embarrassments of the company, with the 
 rank of governor-general, and cotomander-in-chief. 
 After having made a variety of improvements in 
 the civil departments, he placed himself at the 
 head of the army, and resolved to conduct the war 
 in person. But his constitution was unequal to 
 the labour, and he was obliged to perform his 
 journeys by slow and short stages. By degrees, 
 his digestive powers began to fail, and before he 
 could reach head-quarters, he expired, on October 
 5, 1805, at Ghazeepoor, in Benares. His funeral
 
 HORATIO, LORD VISCOUNT NELSON, K.B. 
 
 49 
 
 was performed with great pomp, and his memory 
 distinguislied by every testimouy of regard. A 
 mausoleum was voted to him at Madras, a statue 
 at Bombay, and at home the House of Commons 
 erected that monument of which a description in- 
 troduces this article. 
 
 A summary of the character of the Marquis Corn- 
 wallis is briefly made. He was not a man of bril- 
 Hant talents, much less of genius ; but he was 
 a nobleman of good patient sense, considerable 
 application to business, and enviable equanimity. 
 With these qualities, and, above all, a rectitude of 
 principle which no temptation perverted, he served 
 
 his country in a manner which always secured 
 respect. His lifetime comprised a "memorable 
 portion of an era the most eventful and extra- 
 ordinary in the history of nations : the various 
 situations into which he was introduced were criti- 
 cal and important, and the manner in which lie 
 sustained himself in them was highly creditable, 
 humane, just, and conciliating. He combined the 
 abilities, seldom united, of a general and a states- 
 man, to an extent such as few English noblemen 
 had previously attained, and all may safely emu- 
 late. 
 
 HORATIO, LORD VISCOUNT NELSON, K.B. 
 
 Between the dome and the choir of St. Paul's 
 Cathedral stands a national monmiient * to tliis 
 
 • 111 the panel above is a monument by Bacon, to Captain 
 Duff, who fell in the battle of Trafalgar. On the one side 
 Britannia is represented bearing laurel to a sarcophagus, 
 which is decorated with a medallion of the deceased, and 
 on the other, a sailor appears in grief, with the British Flag. 
 The inscription is cut as follows : — 
 
 Erected at the public expense 
 to the meniorj' of 
 Captain George Duff, 
 Wio was killed on the xxi of October, 
 
 MDCCCV. 
 
 Commanding the Mars, 
 
 In the battle of Trafalgar, 
 
 In the forty-second year of his age, 
 
 And the twenty-ninth of his service. 
 
 Of this officer the following facts have been recorded. 
 He was the son of James Duff, Esq. of Banff, in Aberdeen- 
 shire, and was born in 17C4. A domestic tutor superin- 
 tended his education until he was nine years old, at which 
 period he ran away from home, and entered on board a 
 merchant-ship trading between the neighbouring ports. But 
 the captain no sooner discovered his rank, than he sent him 
 back to bis father, who, deeming it perverseness to oppose a 
 disposition thus strongly evinced, directed liis attention to 
 the study of nautical science for two years, and in 1777 pro- 
 cured him a midshipman's commission on board the 
 Panther, which then lay before Gibraltar, under the com- 
 mand of a relation. Commodore Robert Duff. Before he 
 passed his sixteenth year, he had been in thirteen engage- 
 ments, and was rewarded with a lieutenancy. From the 
 Mediterranean, where he was stationed in 1780, lie went 
 to the West Indies, under Lord Rodney ; was present in all 
 the engagements with tlie Count de Grasse, and was severely 
 wounded before St. Lucie, by the falling of a mast, on board 
 the Montague. In 1790 he was made a captain, and ap- 
 pointed to the Martin sloop of war. Soon after this he 
 married Sophia, the second daufjhter of Alexander Dixon, 
 Esq., of Muiresk, and established his residence in Edin- 
 burgh. Being made a post-captain in 179.'i, be was attached 
 to the Mediterranean fleet, l)ut was soon removed to the West 
 Indies, with the command of the Duke, of ninety guns. 
 This ship being shivered by lightning in the Kubscquent 
 attack on Martinique, lie returned to England; but having 
 the fortune to be again employed, he served at different 
 intervals on the coast of Ireland, and in the North Seas, 
 until a fleet mustered before Cadi/, to encounter the naval 
 strength of France and Spain united. In the great battle 
 which ensued, the Mars was directed to lead the lee divi- 
 sion, but was outrun at the onset by the superior sailing of 
 the Royal Sovereign, which carried Lord Collingwood, and 
 
 most popular of British admu-als. It is executed 
 by Flaxman, R. A., and presents a good statue of 
 his lordship, ui the costume of his rank, resting 
 his left liand on a cable anchor : the want of the 
 right arm is concealed by a cloak thrown over the 
 shoulder, which, as the guides assert, is intended 
 to be a fur pelisse, the gift of the Grand Signior 
 during the time of Nelson's service in the ]\ledi- 
 tcrranean. The pedestal, a structure of noble 
 dimensions, wrought with sea-gods in relievo, is 
 flanked on one side by a lion, couched, and on 
 the other by a figure of Britannia, directing tlie 
 eyes of two naval scholars to his lordship. This 
 allegory is miserably poor ; and there is nothing 
 in the style with which it is e.xecutcd to I'edeem 
 the fault of its introduction. On the cornice of 
 the pedestal are the words — 
 
 Copenhagen. Nile. Trafalgar. 
 
 and on the pedestal itself is this poor epitaph : — 
 
 Erected at the public expense 
 to the memory of 
 Vice-Admiral Horatio Vistoiy.NT Nki.so.n, K.B., 
 To record his splendid and unparalleled achieve- 
 ments 
 During a life spent in the service of his country, 
 
 the Bellerophon. No sooner, however, did she come into 
 action than a most desjierate conflict took place. A French 
 ship bore on her from either side ; a lirst-rate Spanish vessel 
 was on her bow, and a fourth was within shot. Under 
 these overwhelming odds, the larboard opponent, the 
 Fougucux, soon showed signs of being disabled, but the 
 smoke was so thick that it was impossible to determine her 
 state precisely. Dull', therefore, gave orders to rake her, 
 and stejiped to the end of the quartir-deck to look over the 
 sides, when a cannon-ball swept his head from his shoulders, 
 and killed two sailors who stood behind him. 
 
 Captain Duff was a man of comiiianding appearance, hut 
 modest address : he was more than six feet high, strongly 
 made, well proportioned, and agreeably featured. His crew 
 were so warmly attaohed to him, that report said there was 
 not a dry eye on board the ship when his death was an- 
 nounced. This attarhnient had been strongly proved on a 
 former occasion; for during the period of the mutiny in 
 171)7, the ringleaders conlessed on their trial, at I'ort.snioiitb, 
 that it was impossible to move DiilFs crew, in consequence 
 of the allectioii with which they regarded him. By his wife 
 he had live children, of whom, however, only three, a hoy 
 and two girls, burvivod to join their mother in her adliction.
 
 50 
 
 ST. PAUL'S CATHEDRAL. 
 
 Aud terminated in tlie momeut of a glorious 
 
 victory by a glorious death, 
 
 In the memorable action off Cape Trafalgar, 
 
 On the xxi of October, mdcccv. 
 
 Lord Nelson was born on xxix of September, 
 
 MDCCLYIII. 
 
 The battle of the Nile was fought on the 1st August, 
 
 MDCCXCVIII. 
 
 The battle of Copenhagen on the 11th of April, 
 
 MDCCCI. 
 
 Lord Nelson's birth-place was the parsonage- 
 house of Buniham Thorpe, iu the county of Nor- 
 folk, a parish of which his fatlier, the Reverend 
 Edmund Nelson, was rector. His mother was 
 Catherme, the second daughter of the Reverend 
 Maurice Suckling, D.D., a prebendary of West- 
 minster ; and Horatio was their fourth son. He 
 was seut to the High School of Norwich, aud after- 
 wards to North Walsham ; but could not have 
 acquired much learning, for when only twelve years 
 old, he entered as a midshipman on board the 
 Raisonable, of sixty-four guns, then commanded by 
 his maternal uncle. Captain Maurice Suckling. 
 This ship was put into commission iu consequence 
 of a dispute with Spain respecting the Falkland 
 Islands ; but the ditterence being adjusted without 
 arms, the Raisonable was paid off before young 
 Nelson had completed his outfit. For this dis- 
 appointment, however, his parents consoled them- 
 selves by adopting the advice of Captain Suckling, 
 and sending him on a voyage to the West Indies 
 in a merchant-ship. It has been stated, that when 
 the life of a sailor was first proposed to young 
 Nelson, he by no means relished the prospects it 
 held out to him ; and it is moreover added, that 
 upon his return from this first voyage, he was 
 highly disgusted with the discipline and privations 
 of the service. But his father, who had a large 
 family, saw no other way of i)roviding for him, and 
 he was therefore prevailed upon, witli some diffi- 
 culty, once more to join his uncle, who was now 
 stationed on board the Triumph, a guard-ship of 
 seventy-four gims at Chatham. The pains which 
 this officer took to subdue his prejudices, and the 
 zeal with which he fostered the inherent spirit of 
 his character, have been noticed by all the bio- 
 graphers, as the circumstances which secured the 
 glory of his subsequent cai'eer to the service of his 
 country. When the expedition to discover a pas- 
 sage into the South Seas, through the North Pole, 
 was undertaken by Captain Phipps, of the Race- 
 horse, in 1773, young Nelson volunteered to en- 
 counter the dangers of the voyage. Here, however, 
 his designs were again thwarted for a time : he 
 had not yet completed his fifteenth year, aud an 
 order was issued by the Admiralty, ^\■hich forbad 
 all boys to be received on board. To overcome 
 this obstacle, he offered to become coxswain of the 
 captain's barge, and was ultimately admitted to 
 that humble post by Captain Lutwidge, who accom- 
 panied Captain Phipps, as second in command, on 
 board of the Cai'cass sloop of war. 
 
 The history of this expedition is briefly told : 
 the ships sailed from the Nore, June 4, and made 
 land at Spitsbergen on the 28th of the same month. 
 Proceeding slowly forward through the frozen seas, 
 they found themselves, July 3, impenetrably blocked 
 up by the ice at 81 degrees north latitude. In 
 
 this state the officers not only abandoned all hopes 
 of advancing further, but began to entertain serious 
 doubts of the practicability of returning. For five 
 succeeding dajs the ships were bound immoveably; 
 destiiiction seemed to be the inevitable lot of the 
 adventurers ; when Nelson afforded an early in- 
 stance of that intrepidity, and utter recklessness 
 of danger, which so greatly distinguished his future 
 career. One night he was missed from the ships, 
 and considerable apprehensions were felt for his 
 safety. In the morning, however, he appeared on 
 board with a broken musket, and a huge bear, 
 which the intense cold of the night had not pre- 
 vented him from hunting, and which, having broken 
 the lock of his gun in the chase, he had finally 
 mastered by beating its head with the butt-end. 
 The captain took him to task in rather harsh terms 
 for his absence, but he pointed to his victim, and 
 observed, that he merely wished to obtain the skin 
 for his father. 
 
 To return to the expedition, however, a for- 
 tunate change of weather took place on the lOtli of 
 August ; a strong wind parted the blockading ice ; 
 the ships got clear of all impediment, and returned 
 to England. They were paid off at the Nore, in 
 September; but Nelson, now fully seized with naval 
 ardour, petitioned for employment, and was ap- 
 jiointed to the Sea-horse frigate, commanded by 
 Captain Farmer. Under this officer he visited the 
 Bay of Bengal, Bussora, and the Gulf of Persia. 
 But this sudden transition from an extremely cold 
 to an intensely warm climate affected his health. 
 He fell so ill, that his Commodore seut him home 
 to England. The injury his constitution suffered 
 on this occasion was thought to have caused the 
 delicate state of health from which he ever after 
 suffered. 
 
 April 8, 1777) after passing the usual examination 
 before the Board at the Admiralty, Nelson received 
 a lieutenant's commission, and was appointed to 
 serve in the Lowestofte, as the second officer of his 
 rank. From this vessel, in which he cruised 
 against the Americans, he was removed during the 
 following year, to be first-lieutenant of the Bristol, 
 and then captain of the Badger. June 11, 1779, he 
 was made post-captain of the Hinchinbroke, and 
 was stationed in the West Indies. A favourable 
 oi)portunity for displaying his talents as a com- 
 mander now presented itself ; for an attack upon 
 Fort San Juan, in the Gulf of Mexico, being de- 
 termined upon, the Hinchinbroke was required to 
 carry the troops ordered to take the place. The 
 enterprise succeeded ; and a sentence extracted 
 from the despatch, in which the news was commu- 
 nicated, will serve to convey an idea of Nelson's 
 conduct : — " There was scarcely a gun fired," states 
 the despatch, " but what was pointed by the cap- 
 tain of the Hinchinbroke, or the chief engineer." 
 
 After this little conquest, the Hinchinbroke was 
 paid off, and her late captain paid a visit to his 
 family. He did not, however, remain long inactive ; 
 for being put in the command of the Boreas, he 
 sailed to the Leewai'd Islands with liis Royal 
 Highness the Duke of Clarence, then captain of 
 the Pegasus, under his authority. It was upon 
 this station that he manned Frances, tlie widow of 
 Dr. Nisbet, and daughter of William Woodward, 
 senior judge of the Island of Nevis. The ceremony 
 was performed March 11, 1787, and soon after the 
 young couple returned from the Indies, and esta-
 
 HORATIO, LORD VISCOUNT NELSON, K.B. 
 
 51 
 
 blished themselves quietly at the parsonage of 
 Burnham Thorpe. 
 
 The English ministry had no sooner determined 
 to interfere with the domestic aftalrs of France, 
 tlian Nelson hastened up to London, and tendered 
 his services at the Admiralty. They were ac- 
 cepted ; and he was forthwith appointed to the 
 Agamemnon, of sixty-four guns, and attached to 
 the squadron under Lord Hood, in the ]\Iediter- 
 I'anean. Tiie achievements which he now either 
 in jiai-t aided, or solely effected, were of the most 
 diversified and gallant character. After being 
 present at the occupation of Toulon, he led a body 
 of men at the siege of Bastia, and then lost an eye 
 at Calvi. He next manned the boats of three 
 ships which were placed under his command, cut 
 out four large store-ships from Laona, and soon 
 after captured several vessels laden with cannon 
 and stores near Oneglia. For these successive 
 services, his name was mentioned with particular 
 approbation by the admiral, and was circulated 
 with no mean respect amongst the enemy. 
 
 Passing over the action between Lord Hotham 
 and the Fi-ench fleet, March 15, 1795, in which 
 the intrepidity of Nelson was twice checked by 
 signals fi'om the admiral, and merely recording the 
 ease with which he subsequently took possession of 
 the Island of Elba, we find him hoisting a com- 
 modore's broad pendant on board La Minerve 
 frigate, and capturing La Sabina, a forty-gun ship, 
 in December, 1796. Early in the following year 
 he was the first to descry the enemy's fleet, and 
 report their force and state to Admiral Sir John 
 Jervis. The English had only fifteen, the Spaniards 
 seven-and-twenty sail of the line ; but, notwith- 
 standing this inequality of numbers, the blockade of 
 Cadiz was abandoned, and a general engagement 
 took place on February 14th, 1797- Upon this 
 occasion Nelson carried his pendant on board of 
 the Captain, of seventy-fjur guns, commanded by 
 Captain Miller, and performed feats of desperate 
 valour. The scheme of battle fixed upon by Sir 
 John Jervis was to break through the enemy, and 
 this was carried completely into effect before the 
 Spanish admiral had time to form his lines. While 
 the disorder created by the movement was at its 
 height, the signal for close fight was given, and 
 Nelson encountered the Santissima Trinidada, a 
 ship reputed the largest in the world, for she 
 carried I'Mi guns, and mounted f(jur decks. Tiic 
 intrepidity of his conduct soon brought assistance 
 to the enemy, and lie found himself rccjuiriHl to 
 engage a three decker, which acted as the .Santis- 
 sima's second, lie therefore abandoned liis first 
 choice, and fought closely with the latter, until 
 she lost her mizen-mast, and fell aboard a two 
 decker, which had come up to her sujjport. The 
 third vessel now became Nelson's opponent, at a 
 conjuncture whi-n he had nearly expeiuhd all his 
 ammunition, and received so mucii damage tliat 
 his ship was almost unmanageable. In this ex- 
 treme, liis only safety seemed to be in boarding, 
 and, hazardous as was the attempt, he lost no time 
 in making it. The word of command ha<l scarcely 
 been given, when it was triumphantly obeyed ; 
 Nelson liad barely time to jiass fnjni the fore- 
 chains of his own shi]) to tlie (juarter-gallery of llic 
 enemy, and th<.'nci; to her (piarter-deek, lici'ore her 
 captain, wlio was mortally wounded, delivered up 
 his sword, and tlie San Nichola.s, of eighty guns, 
 
 surrendered. A fresh difficulty arose out of this 
 advantage : the three decker, which had lately 
 opposed him, being now placed directly amid-ships 
 of the prize, poured a sharp Aolley from her poop 
 and galleries upon the conquerors. Thus, to aban- 
 don the San Nicholas, or board again, were the 
 cour'ses between which he iiad to choose. The 
 latter was speedily preferred, and after ordering 
 a fresh body from the Captain to retain possession 
 of the San Nicholas, he once more rushed forward 
 at the head of his men, crying out aloud, " Victory ! 
 or M'estminster Abbey."' Fortune still favoured 
 his intrepidity, or rather his ardour struck a panic 
 into the enemy ; for the moment the British apjieared 
 on the quarter-deck of the second ship, her com- 
 mander advanced, and, dropjiing on his knee, gave 
 up his sword. His ship proved to be the San 
 Josef, of 112 guns. The victory was now com- 
 plete ; and it is scarcely requisite to observe, that 
 a princiiial share of its glory had been earned by 
 Commodore Nelson. 
 
 The enthusiasm with which the news of this 
 battle was received in England corresjionded with 
 the spirit by which it was achieved. The officers 
 were addressed in a vote of thanks by the two 
 houses of parliament ; Sir John Jervis was made 
 an earl ; and Nelson was rewarded with the Order 
 of the Bath, and a valuable gold chain and nu dal. 
 In April, 1797, a general promotion took place in 
 the navy, through which, becoming renr-admiral 
 of the blue, he relieved the garrison of I'orto Fc- 
 i-ajo. In the following month he shifted his Hag 
 into the Theseus, and assumed the command of 
 the inner squadron, which at that moment was 
 blockading Cadiz. Upon this station he distin- 
 guished himself by conducting, with his usual 
 courage and resolution, two bombarding parties 
 against the city on the nights of July li and 5. 
 These attacks were nobly resisted by the Spaniards, 
 but enforced with a determination which compelled 
 the enemy to retire so discomfited on both occa- 
 sions, that Lord St. Vincent declared it inqiossible 
 to do justice to Nelson's merits. 
 
 The next exploit to which we find him directed 
 was the unsuccessful expedition against Teneriffe, 
 of which he had the connnand. Upon the first 
 assault. Nelson had his right arm shattered by a 
 cannon-ball, and was left senseless on the ground, 
 while the storming party carried the town. But, 
 though victorious in their first movcnunt, tlie 
 British found it impossible to seize the fort, and 
 were therefore constrainid to negociilte for a 
 retreat to the fleet, on board of which Nelson had 
 already been conveycnl by his son-in-law. Lieute- 
 nant Nisbit. His condition being eminently dan- 
 gerous, he was speedily conveyed to England ; the 
 arm was anqjutated, but some months elapsed 
 before tlu^ ]>liysieians were enabled to speak favour- 
 ably of his liealth. 
 
 As soon as lie had recovered, it was proposed to 
 settle a ]iinsion of a thousand a-year iqmn him, .iiul 
 by that gr;ituity in some measure to eoiupen^iite lor 
 the bodily injuries he had received, and nwiii'd tlie 
 indomitable spirit with which he liad so eminently 
 served his country. Before the grant could be 
 m.ade, the forms of the Admiralty re(|iiired that a 
 distinct account of the claims u])on which the 
 liounty was sought should lie ]iresenteil to the l<ing. 
 Nelson therefore' drew u]i a jilain stiileniinl, wliifli 
 is inserltMl lure as the licst possible evidence of
 
 ST. PAUL'S CATHEDRAL. 
 
 his professional reputation and personal cha- 
 racter : — 
 
 " TO THE king's MOST EXCELLENT MAJESTY. 
 
 " The Memorial of Sir Horatio Nelson, K. B. and 
 Rear-Admiral in yuur 3Iajestifs Fleet, 
 
 " Showeth — That during the present war your me- 
 morialist has been in four actions with the fleets of the 
 enemy : viz. on the 13th and 14th of March, 1795, 
 on the 13th of July, 1795, and on the 14th of Feb- 
 ruary, 1797 ; in three actions with frigates ; in six 
 engagements against batteries ; in ten actions in 
 boats employed in cutting out of harbours, in de- 
 stroying vessels, and in taking three towns. Your 
 memorialist has also served on shore with the 
 army four montlis, and commanded the batteries at 
 the sieges of Bastia and Calvi. 
 
 " That during the war he has assisted at the 
 capture of seven sail of the line, six frigates, four 
 corvettes, and eleven privateers, of different sizes ; 
 and taken and destroyed near fifty sail of mer- 
 chantmen ; and your memorialist has actually been 
 engaged against the enemy iqnrards of one hundred 
 and twenty times. 
 
 " In which service your memorialist has lost 
 his right eye and arm, and been severely wounded 
 and bruised in his body. All of which services 
 and wounds your memorialist most humbly sub- 
 mits to your Majesty's most gracious consideration. 
 
 " Horatio Nelson. 
 
 " October, 1797." 
 
 Had such a desire ever influenced him, it was 
 now in Nelson's power to retire with credit from 
 scenes of danger, and enjoy a life of ease and 
 honour, unchequered by the onerous vicissitudes 
 of professional employment. He had a good in- 
 come, great honours, and unbounded popularity ; 
 and, considering the disabled state of his person, 
 might have given up the fatigues and risks of 
 the seiwice with decent propriety. But he seems 
 to have been unalterably devoted to the navy, and 
 quite unable to rest satisfied with the past, while 
 the future presented a likelihood of augmenting 
 the measure of his utility. Accordingly, he again 
 joined the Earl of St. Vincent in the Mediter- 
 ranean, and. May 7, 1798, sailed to pursue the 
 French fleet with which Buonaparte invaded Egypt. 
 The destination of that extraordinary general being 
 at first unknown, Nelson had to seek alter him at 
 Naples, at Malta, at Sicily, at Alexandria, and at 
 Syracuse. At length the enemy were discovered, 
 August 1, moored in a compact line of battle, in 
 the Bay of Aboukir. Their force consisted of 
 thirteen men-of-war, each mounting from 74 to 
 80 and 120 guns, and carrying from 7OO to 1000 
 men, with four frigates, varying in the power of 
 their ordnance from 3G to 48 guns, and in the 
 number of their men from 250 to 300. On an 
 island, in their van, was a formidable battery of 
 cannon and mortars, and at either side they were 
 supported by a sti'ong force of gun-boats. Nelson 
 bore up with a fleet nearly equal in the number of 
 ships, but much inferior in the number of guns, as 
 well as of men, which it carried. The wind was 
 high, and the day had far set in before he came 
 close to his opponents ; but he, nevertheless, re- 
 solved to proceed to battle on the instant. One 
 alter the oUier the ships rode in upon the enemy 
 
 at anchor, who discharged a tremendous fire from 
 their van and the fortifications on shore. But this 
 opposition availed little : the English captains laid 
 themselves each alongside of an adversary, and the 
 conflict soon became general. The day had passed, 
 and only twilight remained, when, after a short but 
 hot contest, Le Guerrier was dismasted ; soon after 
 Le Conquerant and La Spartiate wei'e reduced to 
 a similar state ; ere long L'A(£uilon, Le Souverain 
 Peuple, and Le Franklin surrendered ; and, to 
 close all, L'Orient, a noble ship with 120 guns, 
 1010 men, and the French admiral, commander- 
 in-chief, on board, took fire, and blew up with an 
 awful explosion. Upon the following morning 
 every ship had struck its colours, Le Guillaume 
 Tell and Le General alone excepted ; these, con- 
 scious of their danger, immediately cut their 
 cables, and made sail : two frigates followed their 
 example ; and thus four out of seventeen vessels 
 escaped from the hands of the victors*. 
 
 The glory of this engagement, confirmed by the 
 victories of Abercrombie on land, produced sen- 
 sations the most vivid, and a result the most signal 
 throughout all Europe. The emperor of Ger- 
 
 * Amongst the killed in this hattle was Captain George 
 Blagdon Westcott, who is commemorated in the north tran- 
 sept of St. Paul's Cathedral, by a monument from the chisel 
 of Banks. The design, though somewhat simple, is inapt, 
 representing upon a large pedestal an almost naked figure 
 of the deceased sinking into the arms of a clothed statue of 
 Victory. Ui)on the pedestal appears a scene in liasso-relievo, 
 from the battle of Aboukir — the explosion of the French 
 ship L'Orient. The recumbent figure in front is copied 
 from an ancient personification of the river Nile. This is 
 the inscription : — 
 
 Erected at the public expense 
 
 to the memory of 
 
 George Blagdon Westcott, 
 
 Captain of the Majestic, 
 
 ■Wtio, after 33 years of meritorious service, 
 
 Fell gloriously 
 
 in the victoiy obtained over the French fleet, off Aboukir, 
 
 The first day of August, in the year mdccxcviii. 
 
 In the forty-sixth year of his age. 
 
 Westcott was the son of a baker at Honiton, in Devon- 
 shire, and is said to have been induced to become a seaman 
 by the following simple circumstance: — On one occasion, 
 being sent to the mill by his father, a rope happened to 
 break in the machinery, and neither tlie miller nor his men 
 could manage to repair the damage. In this dilemma 
 young Westcott off"ered his services to splice the rope, and 
 completed the job, though attended with some danger as 
 well as difficulty, so nicely, that the gratified miller ex- 
 claimed—" By the Lord, lad, if you can splice so well, you 
 must be only fit for a sailor ; and if ever you feel an inclina- 
 tion to go to sea, why, I'll try to get you a berth." Young 
 Westcott soon did feel that inclination; and the miller 
 proving as good as his word, he entered the naval service of 
 his country in the humble capacity of a cabin-boy. Here 
 were no great provocatives to the vent of innate talent: 
 nevertheless, he contrived to put himself forward with so 
 much address, that he was in a comparatively short time 
 introduced amongst the midshipmen. Study, perseverance, 
 skill, and bravery, united, soon enabled him to appear with 
 distinction ; and he passed smoothly on through the inter- 
 mediate grades of his profession, until he reached the com- 
 mand in which he lost his life. Had he survived this 
 battle, he would have been entitled, by seniority, to the flag 
 of an admiral— but his memory has received a more signal 
 honour.
 
 HORATIO, LORD VISCOUNT NELSON, K.B. 
 
 63 
 
 many broke off a treaty for peace ; the Ottoman 
 Porte declared war against the Frencli, and trans- 
 mitted a diamond phnue of triumph and a pehsse 
 of rare value to Nelson ; the king of Naples 
 marched an army to Rcimo, and soon after con- 
 ferred upon Imn'the dukedom of Bronte and an 
 estate ; while at home the highest exultation was 
 indulged in, and the dignity of a baron of Great 
 Britain, under the title of Lord Nelson of the Nile, 
 was awarded to the conqueror. 
 
 Nelson proceeded to compose Sicily, and then 
 Naples, — places which were at that moment dis- 
 tracted by armed parties, who were considered 
 highly offensive to the interests of the British 
 govei-nment. The people, discontented with their 
 king, had lately driven him from his throne, and, 
 emboldened by the influence of the French, had 
 proclaimed a republic. After some encounters, 
 however, they were compelled to surrender ; and 
 a treaty, guarantied by the English, Russian, and 
 Turkish authorities, was signed by the Cardinal 
 Rutfo, on the part of the king, by the con- 
 ditions of which they who laid down their arms 
 were freely pardoned. But no sooner did the 
 king resume possession of his capital, and see Lord 
 Nelson at hand to protect him, than he pub- 
 licly disavowed the authority upon which Cardinal 
 Ril'ffo.had appeased the insurgents, and issued an 
 edict, by which martial law was left to take its 
 course with the offenders. In this perfidious con- 
 duct Lord Nelson was induced to concur ; and so 
 violently did he enforce its enactments, that even 
 the British fleet was made a scene of execution 
 under circumstances of great cruelty. It has been 
 said that Lord Nelson, who nuist be admitted to 
 have stained his otherwise bright and generous 
 character upon this occasion, was led away by the 
 passion he now began to feel for the wife of the 
 British ambassador at Naples, a lady of fascinating 
 beauty, with w^honi he publicly cohabited dm-ing 
 the lifetime of Lady Nelson. 
 
 In 1799 Lord Nelson arrived in England, after 
 an absence of three yeai's, and was hailed with the 
 most flattering marks of distinction and regard. 
 But amidst these gratulatory scenes of quiet he 
 was not long permitted to repose. In 1800 the 
 Northern Confederacy was cemented by the ani- 
 mosity of France, and the trade of Great Britain 
 was menaced with exclusion from the Baltic. To 
 counteract the injurious const'quences of this com- 
 bination, a fleet of fifty-four shi|is was cquijiped by 
 the English ministry, which sailed from ^'armouth 
 Roads March 12, 1801, with Admiral Sir Hyde 
 Parker as the chief, and Lord Nelson as the- second 
 commander. The admirals reached tiie Cattegat 
 on the 29th of the same month, and immediately 
 addressed a letter to the governor of Cronberg 
 Castle, in which, after alluding to the hostile dis- 
 ])osition evinced by Denmark, it was d<'man<led 
 whether a free passage would be allowed by the 
 fortress. The answer stated that tlie Itrilish could 
 not be allowed to apj^roach the guns of the castle, 
 and Sir Hyde Parker impetuously declared tiiat he 
 regarded the notice as a declaration of war. Ar- 
 rangem(;ntH were innnediately mailt! to act in the 
 spirit of this language ; and, aecorilinnly, the pass- 
 age- of the Sound was forced on the liOlli, notwith- 
 standing a resolute fire from tile Danes. Alter 
 reconnoitring the nature of the dciVnci^s, which 
 were very strong, an attack upon Copeiihagiii was 
 
 entrusted to the care of Lord Nelson. April 2 
 was chosen for the enterprise, and at ten o'clock 
 on the morning of that day the firing commenced. 
 The Danes ottered a spirited resistance, and the 
 battle raged fiercely for four uninterrupted hours*. 
 
 • Two captains, Jlosse and Riou, fell in this attack, and 
 have been together honoured with a monument, which is 
 placed in a recess under the east window of the north tran- 
 sept in St. Paul's Cathedral. It was executed by C. Rossi, 
 R A., and consists of a double sarcophagus, to which are 
 attached medallions of the deceased, supported by two 
 statires, which are insignificant enough to all appearances, 
 but are styled Victory and Fame by the guides. The 
 inscriptions are neatly expressed in the following order : 
 
 The services and death 
 
 of two valiant and distinguished officers, 
 
 James Robert Mossk, Captain of the Monarch, 
 
 And Edward Riov, of the Amazon, 
 
 Who fell in the attack upon Copenhagen, 
 
 Conciucted by Lord Nelson, 2nd April, 1801, 
 
 Are commemorated by this monument, 
 
 Erected at the national expense. 
 
 James Robert Mosse 
 
 was born in 17-16 ; 
 
 He served as Lieutenant 
 
 several years under Lord Howe, 
 
 And was promoted 
 
 to the rank of Post-Captain in 1790. 
 
 To Edward Riou, 
 
 Who was born in 1762: 
 
 An extraordinary occasion was presented 
 
 in the early part of his service 
 
 to signalize his intrepidity 
 
 and presence of mind, 
 
 Which were combined with the most anxious 
 
 solicitiule for the lives of those under his connnand, 
 
 And a magnanimous disregard of his own. 
 
 When his ship, the Guardian, struck upon 
 
 an island of ire, in Dec, 1789, and afforded no i>rospect 
 
 but that of immediate destruction to those on board, 
 
 Lieut. Riou encouraged all who desired to take their cluince 
 
 of preserving theni.sevcs in the boats, to consult their safety; 
 
 But judging it contrary to his own duty 
 
 to desert the vessel, 
 
 He neither gave himself up to despair, 
 
 Nor relaxed his exertions ; 
 
 Whereby, after ten weeks of the most perilous navigation. 
 
 He succeeded in luinging his disabled ship into port : 
 
 Receiving this high reward 
 
 of fortitude and perseverance 
 
 from the Divine Providence 
 
 on whose protection he relied. 
 
 To this epitaph a short illustration seems desirable : the 
 voyage in which Riou evinced such brave resignation, was 
 one in which l.e was commissioned to convey stores from 
 the Cape of (!ood Hope to our infant colony at Uotany Hay. 
 The gtcater part of the crew deserted liini in his extremity, 
 but he never once entertained a thought of any other course 
 but that of steering the shii) safely into harboiu-. This he 
 at last accomplished, and upcni hi.-, return to England was 
 promoted to a cajitaincy. In 1791 he was made a ))ost- 
 captain, and a))i)ointud to the Heaiilicu, in which he sailed 
 to the West Iiulies. About this period the deliia<y of his 
 healtli incapacitated liim from active service, and he was 
 soon after honoured with the easy command of llie Princess 
 Augusta yacht. Recovering his strength, however, lie 
 ])ctilioncd for more active service, and in 1799 received the 
 Amazon, a new frigate of thirty-four guns. In this com- 
 mission ho seems to have met with no opportunities of
 
 54 
 
 ST. PAUL'S CATHEDRAL. 
 
 During this time the EngHsh boasted that seven- 
 teen sail of the defensive fleet were either sunlc, 
 burnt, or taken : but their principal batteries and 
 all the ships in the inner harbour were still un- 
 touched ; while the injury done to the besiegers 
 was unexpectedly severe. It was, therefore, deemed 
 prudent to try the effect of negociation, and a flag 
 of truce was sent by Lord Nelson to the Prince 
 Royal of Denmark, which, after some compliment- 
 ai'y letters and conferences, brought about an armi- 
 stice between the contending parties, and, ulti- 
 mately, a negociation with Sweden, by the terms of 
 which that power and Denmark united hi re- 
 moving all restrictions from the British trade in 
 the Baltic. 
 
 Before these difficulties were composed, Sir 
 Hyde Parker was recalled, and Lord Nelson suc- 
 ceeded to the chief command of the northern fleet. 
 But little, however, was now left for him to ex- 
 ecute on this station, for the death of the Emperor 
 Paul of Russia extinguished the northern confede- 
 racy. The fatigues of the service also impaired 
 his own health, and he received permission from 
 the Admiralty to resign. Arrived in England, his 
 presence was again hailed by the applause of his 
 countrymen ; both houses of parliament presented 
 him with a vote of thanks, and the king advanced 
 him to the dignity of a viscount. 
 
 July ,30, however, he again hoisted his flag on 
 board the Leyden, but after the lapse of a few 
 days shifted it to the Medusa, and set sail for the 
 coast of France with an armament of forty sail, 
 consisting of two men-of-war, fifteen frigates, gun- 
 brigs, fire-ships, &c. &c. His object being the de- 
 struction of a French flotilla moored off Boulogne, 
 he stood in for the harbour of that town August 
 4, and made a vigorous but unsuccessful attack 
 upon the shipping. On the following morning he 
 passed over to Margate, but returned on the 15th, 
 and gave orders for a more foi-midable assault, 
 which took place at midnight, but failed, like the 
 former one, to effect all that was hoped from the 
 bravery of the men and the spirit of their com- 
 mander. At the peace of Amiens he struck his 
 flag, repaired to an estate which he had purchased 
 at Merton, in Surrey, and spent the interval of 
 national quiet in a state of retirement. 
 
 In 1803 hostilities were renewed, and Lord Nel- 
 son's services were engaged to command the squa- 
 dron in the Mediterranean. His ship was the 
 Victory, of 100 guns, and he reached the rock of 
 Gibraltar on the 12th of May. Some time passed 
 before any movements of general interest were 
 made ; but by degrees the French assembled a 
 fleet at Toulon, the Spaniards mustered their 
 strength m the harbour of Cadiz, and it became 
 au object of importance to the British to prevent 
 a junction between these two forces. A severe 
 blockade was therefore enforced, yet in this in- 
 stance the enemy obtained a decided advant.age. 
 The French escaped out of Toulon, and, uniting 
 with the Spaniards at Cadiz, made sail for the 
 
 distinction. At the battle off Copenhagen his fate was 
 extremely hard : no less than three vessels, the Agamem- 
 non, Beliona, and Kussell, failed to take up the stations 
 assigned to them ; and in consequence of their absence, Riou 
 was exposed to an overwheiming fire, which covered the 
 deck of his ship with carcases, and at last deprived him of 
 life. 
 
 West Indies in March, 1805. Nelson immediately 
 pursued them, and traversed the space of ocean 
 between the continents of Europe and America 
 with incredible rapidity : but he was alert to no 
 purpose, for the allied fleets returned in secrecy, 
 and again took up a station before Cadiz, without 
 meeting with a single obstacle. 
 
 The disappointment inflicted by these move- 
 ments filled Nelson with deep chagrin. Positive 
 intelligence, however, was soon after received in 
 London that the French and Spanish squadrons 
 were equipping themselves for another excursion ; 
 and he left England for the last time, September 
 15, 1805, animated with a spirit of the most despe- 
 rate resolution, and carrying his flag on board the 
 Victory, of 100 guns. Apprehending that the 
 enemy might be deterred from putting their de- 
 sign into execution, if the amount of the force 
 under his command became known to them, he 
 stationed the main body of his fleet behind Cape 
 St. Mary, and only posted a smaller detachment in 
 sight of Cadiz. Several manoeuvres were subse- 
 quently resorted to for the express purpose of 
 deception, and on the 19th of October the enemy 
 sailed from Cadiz, to every appearance confident 
 that only an inferior force was opposed to their 
 passage. 
 
 On Monday, the 21st instant, the two fleets came 
 in sight at a distance of about six leagues from 
 Cape Trafalgar, and that memorable battle en- 
 sued* which put a period to the career of Lord 
 
 * One captain, whose life was forfeited in the battle of 
 Trafalgar, has been already noticed, and another is here to 
 be mentioned, who, like his comrade, has a monument in 
 St. Paul's Cathedral, which is fixed to the panel above the 
 national memorial to the Marquis Cornwallis. By conse- 
 quence, the monuments of Captains Dutf and Cooke face 
 each other. The latter is an alto-relievo by Westmacott, R.A., 
 representing a pitiful figure of Britannia attended by one 
 child, bearing a trident, and another holding a helmet. It 
 Is thus inscribed : — 
 
 Erected at the public expense 
 
 to the memory of 
 
 Captain John Cooke, who was killed 
 
 commanding the Bellerophon in 
 
 the battle of Trafalgar, 
 
 In the forty-fourth year of his age, 
 
 And the thirtieth of his service. 
 
 John, the second son of Francis Cooke, Esq., a cashier in 
 the navy, became a sailor on board the Greyhound cutter, 
 at the early age of eleven years. After one short voyage, 
 however, he was sent to Braken's naval academy at Green- 
 wich, and there gained a friend for his future life in Hood, 
 Lord Bridport. At the age of thirteen he accompanied Lord 
 Howe to America, in the Eagle, and elicited the approbation 
 of that kind commander by his conduct at the siege of 
 Rhode Island. He passed his examination for a lieu- 
 tenancy soon after the return of the Eagle to England, and 
 was next appointed to the Worcester, in which he sailed to 
 the East Indies under Sir Edward Hughes. The services 
 which he was called on to render at the sieges of Trincomalee 
 and Scringajiatam, threw him into so precarious a state of 
 health, that he was obliged to return to England, and by this 
 step forfeit his turn of promotion. Three years afterwards 
 he was recalled ttom France, where he had fixed his re- 
 sidence, for the benefit of a mild climate, and joined the fleet 
 stationed in the West Indies, under Admiral (afterwards Lord) 
 Gambler. But an accident again deprived him of the ad- 
 vantages contingent upon meritorious employment; for by a 
 severe fall on board the Euxopa, he was confined for some
 
 HORATIO, LORD VISCOUNT NELSON, K.B. 
 
 00 
 
 Nelson. Tlie British had twenty-seven, the French 
 eighteen, and the Spaniards fifteen sliips. In order 
 to save the delav of forniinji a resuhir hne. Nelson 
 ordered his fleet to bear up in two columns, of 
 which he led the weather side in pei'son, and ap- 
 pointed Admiral CoUingwood, in the Royal Sove- 
 reign, to head the lee. The combined armament 
 drew themselves closely up into the figure of a 
 crescent, and awaited the attack with marked com- 
 posure. The action became general at twelve 
 o'clock, when almost every ship throughout the 
 lines was engaged muzzle to muzzle. The enemy 
 displayed an honourable vigour, and the conflict 
 raged for some time with equal severity, but the 
 fury of the assault was irresistible. By three 
 o'clock their colours began to strike in numbers, 
 the order of their array was completely broken, 
 and several det;iched squadrons tried to tack and 
 stand aloof to the wind. In the result, one ship of 
 sixty-four guns blew up, and nineteen were left in 
 our possession, amongst which were three first-rate 
 ships with the following fiag-officers on board : — 
 Admii'al Villeneuve, commander-in-chief ; Don Ig- 
 natio Maria D'Aliva, vice-admiral ; and Reai'- 
 Admiral Don Baltazor Hidalgo Cisneros. 
 
 The fate of Nelson is now to be recorded. About 
 the middle of the battle the Victory fell aboard 
 the Redoubtable, and a slaughtering struggle took 
 place. But the superiority of the English ship 
 was evident ; the crew of her adversary were 
 swept away from their decks ; she was at the last 
 extremity of resistance, when the death-scene took 
 jdace, of which we extract a vivid account from 
 the life of his chaplain, the Rev. Dr. Scott, recently 
 published : — 
 
 " The carnage on the deck of the Victory became 
 terrific. Dr. Scott's duties confined him entirely 
 
 time to his hammock, and at last sent home invalided by 
 the surgeons, after an absence of three years. A twelve- 
 month, however, recruited his constitution ; and he then 
 married Miss Hardy, the daughter of the British consul at 
 Cadiz, and soon after joined Lord Bridport, in the London. 
 The first ship which he commanded was the Incendiary 
 fire-sloop, from which he was sliifted by Lord Bridport into 
 the Monarcli, and made a post captain, without ever sailing 
 as a commander. Notliing worth recording seems to have 
 occurred to him until the mutiny at Plymouth, where he 
 arrived just before its troubles began, with two French 
 frigates captured by him in La Nymphe frigate, accom- 
 l)anied by Sir H. B. Neale, in the San Fiorenzo. By the 
 insurgent crews he was particularly marked out foraceusatiou, 
 and subjected to treatment liighly offensive to the feelings 
 of an officer. No violence, however, was offered to him ; he 
 was sent on shore, invited back, and again sent on shore 
 with disgust. Previous to his appointment under Lord 
 Nelson, in 1805, he held several commands, but they were 
 all unimportant. In the battle of Trafalgar the sufferings of 
 liis ship were great, and his conduct the most exemplary. 
 Mistaken for a fiag-sbip, she was surrounded by three of the 
 enemy, and subjected to tremendous injuries. The men fell 
 so fast, that he rei)eate(lly ordered them below decks ; and 
 when an attempt was made to board, he repulsed several of 
 the enemy with his own hand, and ran an officer through, 
 who had the temerity to leap upon the ship. Being at last 
 left with only a lieutenant on his deck, and advised to 
 remove his epaulettes, he exclaimed—" No! I .ice my situa- 
 tion, but will die like a man." A few moments passed, and 
 two balls pierced his breast. He fell, desired to be left 
 still a moment, enjoined the lieutenant never to strike, and 
 then quietly expired. 
 
 to the cockpit, which was soon crowded with 
 wounded and dying men ; and such was the horror 
 tliat filled his mintl at this scene of sutt'ering, that 
 it haunted him like a sliocking dream for yeiu's 
 afterwards. He never talked of it. Indeed the 
 only record of a remark on the subject was one 
 extorted from him by the inquiries of a friend soon 
 after his return home : the expression that escaped 
 him at the moment was, ' it was like a butcher's 
 shambles.' 
 
 " His natural tenderness of feeling, very much 
 heightened by the shock on his nervous system, 
 quite discjualified him for being a calm spectator 
 of death and pain, as there exhibited in their most 
 appalling shapes. But he suppressed his aversion 
 as well as he could, and had been for some time 
 engaged in helping and consoling those who were 
 suffering around him, when a fine young lieutenant 
 was brought down desperately womided : this officer 
 was not aware of the extent of his injury until the 
 sui'geon's examination, but on discovering it he 
 tore off with his own hand the ligatures that were 
 being applied, and bled to death. Almost frenzied 
 by the sight of thi.s, Scott hurried wildly to the 
 deck for relief, perfectly regardless of his own 
 safety. He rushed up the com])anion-ladder, now 
 slippery with gore : the scene above was all noise, 
 confusion, and smoke ; but he hail hardly time to 
 breathe there, when Lord Nelson himself fell, and 
 this event at once sobered his disordered mind. 
 He followed his chief to the cockpit : the scene 
 there has been painfully portrayed by those who 
 have written the life of Nelson ; his chaplain's 
 biographer has little to add, but that the confusion 
 of the scene, the pain endured by the hero, and the 
 necessity of alleviating his sutl'erings by giving 
 lemonade to quench his thirst, and by rubbing his 
 body, of course precluded the reading of prayers 
 to him in the regular form, which otherwise would 
 have been done ; but often, during the three hours 
 and a half of Nelson's mortal agony, they ejacu- 
 lated short prayers together, and Nelson frequently 
 said, ' Pray for me. Doctor.' Every interval, in- 
 deed, allowed by the intense pain, and not taken 
 up by the conduct of the action, or in the mention 
 of his private affairs, was thus cm])loyed in low 
 .and earnest supplications for Divine mercy. The 
 last words which Dr. Scott heard murnuired on 
 his lii)s were ' God and my coimtry ;' and he passed 
 so quietly out of life, that Scott, who bad been 
 occupied ever since he was brought below in all 
 the offices of the most tender nurse, was still 
 rubbing his stomach when the surgeon perceived 
 that all was over. We sulijoin part of a letter 
 from Dr. Scott to Mr. Rose, in re|ily to sonu' 
 incjuiries from that gentleman as to Lord Nelson's 
 mention of himself on his death-bed. It must be 
 understood that this letter docs not pretend to be 
 a full descri])tion of what ])assed, but it will con- 
 firm accounts already given, and cannot fail to be 
 highly interesting. 
 
 " ' In answer to your note of the lOlh instant, 
 which, forwarileil by way of Chatham, I reeeiveil 
 this morning, it is my intention to relate every 
 tiling Lord Nelson said, in which your name was 
 any way coimected. He liveil ;ibout three hours 
 after receiving his woinid ; was perfectly sciisililr 
 tlie whole linu; ; but conipelli'il to speak in ln'oki n 
 sentences, which pain and sullei'ing ])reventcil him 
 always from connecting. When I first saw him, he
 
 56 
 
 ST. PAUL'S CATHEDRAL. 
 
 was apprehensive he should not live many minutes, 
 and told me so ; adding, in a hurried, agitated 
 manner, though with pauses, ' Remember me to 
 Lady Hamilton ! remember me to Horatia ! re- 
 member me to all my friends ! Doctor, remember 
 me to Mr. Rose ; tell him 1 have made a will and 
 left Lady Hamilton and Horatia to my country.' 
 He repeated his remembrances to Lady Hamilton 
 and Horatia, and told me to mind what he said, 
 several times. Gradually he became less agitated, 
 and at last calm enough to ask questions about 
 what was going on : this led his mind to Captain 
 Hardy ; for whom he sent and inquired with great 
 anxiety, exclaiming aloud, he would not believe he 
 was alive unless he saw him. He grew agitated 
 at the captain's not coming, lamented his being 
 unable to go on deck, and do what was to be done, 
 and doubted every assurance given him of the cap- 
 tain being safe on the quarter-deck. At last the 
 captain came ; and he instantly grew more com- 
 posed, listened to his report about the state of the 
 fleet, directed him to anchor, and told him he 
 should die, but observed he should live half an 
 hour longer. 
 
 " ' I shall die, Hardy,' said the admiral. 
 
 " ' Is your pain great, sir ? ' 
 
 " ' Yes, but I shall live half an hour yet : 
 Hardy, kiss me.' The captain knelt down by his 
 side and kissed him. Upon the captain leaving 
 him to return to the deck. Lord Nelson exclaimed 
 very earnestly, more than once, ' Hardy, if I live, 
 I'll bring the fleet to an anchoi" — if I live, I'll 
 anchor — if I live, I'll anchor ;' and this was earn- 
 estly repeated even when the captain was out of 
 hearing. I do not mean to tell you every thing he 
 said. After this interview, the admiral was per- 
 fectly tranquil, looking at me in his accustomed 
 manner when alluding to any prior discourse. ' I 
 have not been a great sinner, Doctor,' said he. 
 ' Doctor, I was right, I told you so : George Rose 
 has not yet got my letter ; tell him,' — he was inter- 
 rupted here by pain ; after an interval he said, 
 '3ir. Rose icUl remember- — don't forget. Doctor, mind 
 what I sa}'.' There were frequent pauses in his 
 conversation. Our dearly beloved admiral other- 
 wise mentioned your name, indeed, very kindly ; 
 and I will tell you his words when I see you ; but 
 it was only in the two above instances he desired 
 you should be told." 
 
 Of no man was the loss ever more deeply de- 
 plored by a country, or the memory more enthusi- 
 astically honoured, than of Lord Nelson. There 
 was no way in which grief could be demonsti-ated 
 that was not followed upon this melancholy occa- 
 sion ; and there was no circumstance of pomp, and 
 no outlay of money, by which his remains could 
 be distinguished, that was not lavished upon his 
 obsequies. From Gibraltar, whither it was con- 
 veyed on the 5th of November, his body was ship- 
 ped to Greenwich, and there lay in state during 
 the course of December. On the 8th of January it 
 was brought up the river to Whitehall, with the 
 most formal honours, and again solemnly exposed 
 in the Admiralty. His public funei-al, defrayed by 
 the nation, magnificent beyond all former exam- 
 ples, and attended by the princes of the blood, the 
 various public authorities of the metropolis, the 
 flower of the nobility, and the pride of the gentry, 
 was celebrated on the morning of the 9th. The 
 coffin was finally deposited under the dome of St. 
 
 Paul's, where a fine sarcophagus of black marble, 
 which was designed by Cardinal Wolsey for his 
 own interment in St. George's Chapel, Windsor, 
 has since been erected to honour the spot. 
 
 There is scarcely a term in the language of 
 panegyric that has not been applied to Lord 
 Nelson ; and it now seems to be the fixed sense of 
 the nation, that no commander can be instanced, 
 in ancient or modern times, whose great talents 
 and good qualities equalled those possessed by the 
 victor of the Nile, Copenhagen, and Trafalgar. To 
 luidaunted courage he united an insatiable passion 
 for enterprise and glory, and with a most zealous 
 love of his country, evinced a pleasing spirit of 
 religious devotion. The modesty of his feelings, 
 the brightness of his actions, his piety to Heaven, 
 and his humanity to man, have supplied equally 
 the priest, the poet, and the statesman, with themes 
 for the exercise of their different talents ; and by 
 each of them have his virtues been inculcated, and 
 his fame rehearsed with the happiest effect. He 
 has been pronounced the friend and father of all 
 who were fortunate enough to serve under his com- 
 mand : he succeeded to a line of heroes, eminent 
 for every trait of merit and achievement of glory, 
 and surpassed them all. Of a man so idolized by 
 the members of his own profession and the public, 
 numerous lives have been written, and anecdotes 
 recorded. Dr. Southey's Life of Nelson is one of 
 the most popular biographies in the language. We 
 select some passages of interest from the more 
 recent work already quoted, entitled " Recollections 
 of the Life of the Rev. J. A. Scott, Lord Nelson's 
 Chaplain :" — 
 
 " Nelson's Reading. — Besides the graver em- 
 ployments above spoken of. Dr. Scott was in the 
 habit of reading to his chief all the French, Italian, 
 Spanish, and other foreign newspapers, which were 
 sent regularly to the fleet ; and these were ran- 
 sacked as well for the amusement as the informa- 
 tion they contained. Dr. Scott had also to wade 
 through numberless ephemeral foreign pamphlets, 
 which a mind less investigating than Lord Nelson's 
 would have discarded as totally unworthy of notice ; 
 but he entertained a persuasion that no man ever 
 put his hand to paper without having some inform- 
 ation or theory to deliver, which he fancied was 
 not generally known, and that this was worth look- 
 ing alter through all the encumbering rubbish. 
 His own quickness in detecting the drift of an 
 author was perfectly marvellous. Two or three 
 pages of a pamphlet were generally sufficient to 
 put him in complete possession of the writer's ob- 
 ject ; and nothing was too trivial for the attention 
 of this great man's mind, when there existed a 
 possibility of its being the means of obtaining in- 
 formation. 
 
 " Day after day might be seen the admiral in 
 his cabin, closely employed with his secretary over 
 their interminable papers. They occupied two 
 black leathern ai-m-chairs ; into the roomy pockets 
 of which, Scott, weary of translating, would occa- 
 sionally stuff" away a score or two of unopened 
 private letters, found in prize-ships, although the 
 untiring activity of Nelson grudged leaving one 
 such document unexamined. These chaii's, with 
 an ottoman that belongs to them, (now treasured 
 heir-looms in Dr. Scott's family,) formed, when 
 lashed together, a couch, on which the hero often
 
 HORATIO, LORD VISCOUNT NELSON, K.B. 
 
 57 
 
 slept those brief slumbers for which he was re- 
 markable." 
 
 " Persoxal Habits. — Loi'd Nelson was con- 
 stantly studying the characters of those whom he 
 had about him, and would load them into discus- 
 sions, in which he afterwards took no part, for the 
 mere purpose of drawing out their thoughts and 
 opinions ; and even for debating the most import- 
 ant naval business, he preferred a turn on the 
 quarter-deck with his captains, whom he led by his 
 own frankness to express themselves freely, to all 
 the stiffness and formality of a council of war. 
 
 " In accordance with this habit, he was very 
 fond of conversing with Dr. Scott ; being interested 
 by the originality of his thoughts, and the warm 
 and enthusiastic manner in which he delivered 
 them, as well as by the store of information with 
 which his indefatitrable habit of reading furnished 
 him. We are assured by an eye-witness, that often 
 after dinner Lord Nelson would amuse himself by 
 leading the Doctor into arguments on literature, 
 polities, Spanish, and even naval affairs, and would 
 occasionally provoke from him a lecture on naviga- 
 tion itself, to the great entertammeut of Admiral 
 Murray, Captain Hardy, and other officers pre- 
 sent." 
 
 " Playful Decision. — Lord Nelson's manner, 
 apart from duty, was universally kind and even 
 })layful to all around him ; an annising instance of 
 which, as well as of his extreme quickness, occurred 
 during this cruise in the Mediterranean. 
 
 " One bright morning, when the ship was moving 
 about four knots an hour tlirough a very smooth 
 sea, every thing on board being orderly and quiet, 
 there was a sudden cry of ' A man overboard ! ' A 
 midshipman named Flinn, a good draughtsman, 
 who had been sitting on deck comfortably sketch- 
 ing, started at the cry, and looking over the side of 
 the ship, saw his own servant, who was no swim- 
 mer, floundering in the sea. Before Flinn's jacket 
 could be off, the Captain of Marines had thrown 
 the man a chair through the port-hole in the wai'd- 
 room, to keep him floating, and in the next instant 
 Flinn had Hung himself overboard and was swim- 
 ming to the rescue. The admiral having witiiesscd 
 the whole affair from the quarter-Jeck, was highly 
 delighted with the scene ; and when the party, 
 chair and all, had been hauled upon deck, he called 
 Mr. Flinn, praised his conduct, and made him lieu- 
 tenant on the spot. A loud huzza from the mid- 
 shipmen, whom the incident had collected on deck, 
 and who were throwing up their hats in honour of 
 Flinn's good fortune, arrested Lord Nelson's atti'u- 
 tion. There was something significant in the tone 
 of their cheer which he immediately recognized ; 
 and, putting up his hand for silence, and leaning 
 over to the crowd of middies, he said, with a good- 
 natured smile on liis face, 'Stop, young gentlemen ! 
 
 Mr. Flinn has done a gallant thing to-day — and he 
 has done many gallant things before— for which 
 he has got his reward ; but mind ! I'll have no 
 more making lieutenants for serviiuts fallimr over- 
 board.' " 
 
 " Religion and Divinity.— Some remark on the 
 private feelings of Lord Nelson will probably be 
 looked for in the life of his chaplain. To a ques- 
 tion put to Dr. Scott as to Lord Nelson's religious 
 sentiments, his answer was, ' He was a thorough 
 clergynian's son ; I should think he never went to 
 bed or got up without kneeling down to sav his 
 prayers.' Dr. Scott also said of him, that he" had 
 frequently expressed to him his attachment to the 
 Established Church, in which he had been edu- 
 cated ; Jind he proved the sincerity of this by the 
 regularity and respect with which he always had 
 divine service performed on board the Victory 
 \\henever the weather permitted. After the ser- 
 vice, he had generally a few words with the chnp- 
 lain on the subject of the sermon, either thanking 
 him for its being a good one, or remarking that it 
 was not so well adapted as usual to the crew ; tlie 
 admiral being always anxious that the discourse 
 should be sufficiently plain for the men, and his 
 chaplain, with the liability of a scholar, being some- 
 times tempted into a too learned disquisition : more 
 than once on such occasions has Lord Nelson taken 
 down a volume of sermons in his own cabin, with 
 the page already marked, at some discourse which 
 he thought well suited to such a congregation, and 
 requested Dr. Scott to preach it on the following 
 Sunday." 
 
 " Lady Hamilton and Horatia Nelson. — With 
 regard to his unfortunate admiration of Lady 
 Hamilton, we may safely say, that neither Dr. 
 Scott, nor his other most intimate friends, believed 
 in its criminality. Lord St. Vincent used to call 
 them ' a pair of sentimental fools,' and it is a ftict 
 that Lady Hamilton never was a mother. Cer- 
 tainly, therefore, she had no connexion with Lord 
 Nelson's adopted daughter ; as to whose parentage 
 Dr. Scott never gave any clue, whatever he may 
 have known on the subject. But it has been 
 thought by some who witnessed Nelson's intimacy 
 with royalty at Najjles, and wei'e aware that he 
 had been warned of even the danger of assassina- 
 tion in consequence of it, that Horatia Nelson might 
 lay claim to a far more illustrious origin than has 
 been sujjposed. This solution, if a true one, accounts 
 eciually as well for the miserable state of mind 
 wiiich Lord Nelson's letters written from Naples 
 beti'ay, and which his biographers have attributed 
 to his infatuated attachment to Lady Hamilton. It 
 may be feared that this misery was the consequence 
 of guilt ; but if so, such uneasiiicss was the con- 
 scientious compunction of an habitually upright 
 mind."
 
 58 
 
 ST. PAUL'S CATHEDRAL. 
 
 JAMES BARUY. 
 
 There is in the crypt a marble tablet with a bust, 
 marked "Coade, London, 1818 ;" — the bust a very 
 ugly and bad one, and the tablet thus inscribed : 
 
 Sacred to the memory 
 
 of James Barry, 
 
 Who 
 
 to strong native powers of mind 
 
 added the intellectual riches 
 
 (the only riches he ever needed or possessed) 
 
 which spring from 
 
 Learning, Philosophy, and Religion. 
 
 Hence, both as a Painter and a Writer, 
 
 A lofty conception, 
 
 A moral tendency, and a Grecian taste 
 
 ennobled, sanctified, and adorned 
 
 all his works. 
 
 Born at Cork, 174L 
 
 Died in London, 1801. 
 
 James Barry, a passionate votary of the fine 
 arts, and very eccentric character, was the son of 
 a shipmaster. After receiving a classical educa- 
 tion, it was proposed that he should join his father 
 in a mercantile life. He demurred, from disin- 
 clination : — the vocation of a catholic priest was, 
 according to some writers, then suggested as 
 somewhat more congenial : a more natural bias 
 repressed the choice, and James Barry became a 
 painter. As far as we are told, the first instruc- 
 tions he received in this art were from a master 
 named West, who taught in Dublin ; and such 
 was his proficiency, that when only nineteen he 
 designed and finished a painting which attracted 
 considerable applause. The subject was the first 
 conversion of an Irish monarch to Christianity, 
 upon the mission of St. Patrick ; and the incident 
 this : — The bishop's crosier, it would seem, was in 
 in those days a weapon of defence as well as 
 instrument of peace, and, as such, always termi- 
 nated in a sharp spear, which struck conveniently 
 into the ground, whenever the hand was requu'ed 
 for other oflices. Upon this occasion, when the 
 apostle, preparatory to freeing his arms for the 
 baptismal blessing, pierced the earth with his 
 staff", he accidentally penetrated the monarch's foot 
 with the blow. The royal penitent, nevertheless, 
 stirred not a limb under the pain of the wound, 
 nor permitted a word to drop which could be con- 
 strued into a mental distraction from the holy 
 ceremony ; while the sainted priest, equally un- 
 conscious of hai"m, proceeded with the sacrament 
 in the most unctuous and impressive manner. This 
 was the action painted : the astonishment of the 
 by-standers is at its highest ; a guard, incensed at 
 the indignity offered to his sovereign, swings his 
 battle-axe round in the air to strike the pre- 
 sumptuous bishop to the earth, — but is restrained 
 by a companion in arms, who points to the un- 
 blenched check and unaltered equanimity of the 
 suff'erer, and apparently infers that the act is one 
 he would not desire to see avenged. 
 
 Tlie last touches wei'e given to the canvass, upon 
 which this legend was depicted, upon the night 
 
 preceding an exhibition which had been advertised 
 in Dublin, for the encouragement of the fine arts 
 in Ireland. Without any introduction but his 
 picture, Barry proceeded to the place, and re- 
 quested admission for a maiden performance. He 
 obtained it ; and upon the following morning again 
 repairing to the spot, beheld the general gaze of 
 admiration concentrated upon one object, and that 
 his own production. He moved about among the 
 crowd, drinking in praises with ecstasy, and hear- 
 ing repeated inquu-ies after his name, which most 
 persons appeared anxious to learn, and many 
 seemed mortified at being unable to fm-nish. At 
 last, Barry advanced and avowed himself the 
 artist, — and, strange to say, the information was 
 received with a shout of incredulous laughter. His 
 youth, rough features, and unsoftened manners, 
 produced impressions so discordant from the beau 
 ideal of a painter, that after bemg first ridiculed, 
 and then insulted, he rushed from the apartment 
 in tears and anger. 
 
 Tills distress, however, was fleeting ; his preten- 
 sions were easily established before the public, and 
 he enjoyed a full recompense for the merit he had 
 displayed. The society holding the exhibition pre- 
 sented him with 20/., although no prize had been 
 advertised ; — and some gentlemen of the Irish 
 parliament bought the picture and presented it to 
 the House of Commons, where it was honourably 
 fixed, a monument of native talent produced under 
 circumstances of imusual interest. Few are the 
 instances upon record of so successful and well- 
 rewarded a first performance. Fortune, however, 
 is ever inconstant. The Irish House of Commons 
 a few years after took fire, and was burnt to the 
 ground; the Conversion shared the flames : and the 
 fate of the painting has by some been referred to 
 as a type of the artist's career. 
 
 Some days after the exhibition of this picture, 
 Barry had the good fortune to make an acquaint- 
 ance, which proved highly advantageous to his 
 professional advancement. This was with the 
 celebrated Edmund Burke, who travelling up from 
 Cork, just as Barry's reputation was winning its 
 first praises, came loaded with letters of congratu- 
 lation and introduction for him, and was himself so 
 pleased with the enthusiasm of the rising genius, 
 that he formed a friendship for him, which mutual 
 respect and admii-ation preserved sacred for years. 
 It may be here mentioned, as a proof of the judg- 
 ment with which Barry pui-sued his studies, and 
 the constitutional ardour with which he seized 
 every means of improvement, that meeting with 
 a copy of Burke's Treatise on the Sublime and 
 Beautiful, while the work was as yet anonymous, 
 and he was unconscious that his friend was the 
 author, he had the penetration to discover its 
 merits, and, in order to possess himself thoroughly 
 of its precepts, copied the contents out into manu- 
 script with his own hand. This task led (he autlK>r 
 to avow his name ; for, disputing with Bai-ry uj)on 
 some subject of taste, the manuscript was pro- 
 duced as an authority, and Burke made a first 
 confession of having written the book. With what
 
 JAMES BARRY. 
 
 59 
 
 grateful feelings two such men, upon such an occa- 
 sion, must have looked back upon their lucubra- 
 tions ! 
 
 This intimacy once cemented, Barry continued 
 to dei-ive essential service from the superior coun- 
 sel of ]3urke. By the latter he was strongly con- 
 firmed in the idea he had formed of visiting Lon- 
 don, and afterwards Rome ; and it is probable 
 that, but for the importunity and exertions of 
 Burke, both these journeys would have been inde- 
 finitely postponed. Stern in pi-inciple, and impa- 
 tient of dependence, Barry only thought of travel- 
 ling when the reward bestowed upon talent should 
 have furnished the means and smoothed the way 
 before him ; while Bm-ke, too seriously convinced 
 of the importance of prompt and timely move- 
 ments, struggled hard and repeatedly with the 
 stubboi-nness of his friend, and at last succeeded. 
 Barry consented to pass over into England with 
 Mr. Richard Burke, whose mercantile connexion 
 l)romised many advantages to the stranger in Lon- 
 don. The principal introduction now obtained by 
 the ai'tist was to Sir Joshua Reynolds, who, cap- 
 tivated by the strong originality of mind and man- 
 ner in the young Irishman, extended to him with 
 liberal feelings every benefit which hospitality and 
 his recommendation could bestow. Other favour- 
 able opportunities of forming a connexion pre- 
 sented themselves ; and by degrees Barry became 
 the associate of such men as Johnson, Goldsmith, 
 and Garrick, while the profits of his profession 
 enabled him to live with comfort and respecta- 
 bility. This, without comparison, was the happiest 
 period of Bari'y's existence. Invigorated by suc- 
 cess, and excited by the intellect he came in con- 
 tact with, he was free to let loose his imagination 
 ill that search after perfection, which it afterwards 
 proved the great misfoi'tune of his life, that he could 
 so ardently pursue without reaching. Burke, his 
 friend and patron, now a student at the Temple, 
 was x-estored to his society : months and even yeai's 
 glided away pleasantly, and the schools of classical 
 Italy seemed forgotten. 
 
 Burke, however, was constant in his exhorta- 
 tions upon this point, and in the year 17'jt; pro- 
 jiiiscd a jilan for enabling Barry to travel and com- 
 ]>lete the education of an artist, to which the co- 
 operation of Reynolds gave full effect. Of this 
 arrangement, so highly honourable to all the par- 
 ties concerned in it, the chief merit was due to 
 Burke ; and it should never be forgotten tliat he 
 often, during Barry's absence, pinched his own 
 limited income in order to supply his friend witii 
 means. After sj)ending four yeai's in visiting tlie 
 principal seats of art abroad, and being made a 
 iVUow of the Clementini Academy at Bologna, 
 Barry returned to England, and at the exhibition 
 of the Royal Academy for 177*M"''"''"''-''^ '"•'' Adam 
 anil Eve. This was succeeded, during tli(; next 
 yiai', l)y his Venus Anadyonierie, or rtsliKj frinii (he 
 seit, a picture; wliicii has lung, Ijy general consent, 
 ranked at tiic head of his niiscellaneouH iKrform- 
 ancos. In 1775 lie gave to the world " An Impiiry 
 into the real and imaginary obstructions to the 
 aci|uisition of the arts in Englaml ;" a work to tiic 
 ci)m|)OHilion of wliicli lie w;is prompti;d, during iiis 
 sojouni on the Continent, l)y tbe aspcrHJons of dif- 
 ferent foreign authors M]ic)n the mental jiowers of 
 ills fiJIow-ciiuntrvMiin. Mont<'Hriuien and (be AIiIji' 
 Du Boa had already undertaken to assign limits to 
 
 the capacity of Englishmen, and the Abbe Winck- 
 elman now presumed to establish a natural defi- 
 ciency in their genius, owing to the unfavourable 
 temperature of the climate in which they hved. It 
 is easy to suppose that to succeed m this task was 
 no great matter of difficulty to a man who, like 
 Ban-y, presented a living example of the absurdity 
 of a doctrine which would have forced him by 
 argument to admit that his character, which prac- 
 tically was as fiery as it possibly could be, was 
 physically dull ; and that his fancy, which made 
 him miserable by the vividness of its aspirations, 
 was, in truth, a clouded faculty of stinted powers. 
 Bai'ry's address was manly, and his reasoning 
 clear ; and he reaped an easy harvest of praise by 
 correcting the erroi-s of men whose reputation was 
 more extensive than his own. 
 
 It was about this time that Barry joined in the 
 memorable proposition of Sir Joshua Reynolds, 
 to decorate St. Paul's cathedral with a set of 
 sacred paintings, and upon the discouragement of 
 the jilan, conceived the work which now forms the 
 principal monument of his reputation. This was 
 his voluntary offer to the Society of Arts to paint 
 for them gratuitously a set of pictures, describing 
 allegorically the rise and progress of civilization 
 among mankind. This elaborate performance, con- 
 sisting of six divisions, was accomplislied in seven 
 years, and while the artist was enduring no light 
 anxiety from the narrowness of his income. The 
 two largest of the subjects represent the Victors at 
 the Olympic Games, and Elysium ; and are each 
 forty-two feet in length. The other designs com- 
 prise, — Afan in his saixtgeness, — A Grecian J/arrest- 
 Home, — Navhjation, — and the Socuiy of Arts. In 
 point of disinterestedness and love of art we have 
 nothing to compare with this work of Barry. The 
 public, amazed at the novelty and greatness of the 
 performance, thought its faults trivial, and lost in 
 the brightness of many beauties. It is not to be 
 doubted that, considering the state of the arts in 
 England then, the whole is stamped with a character 
 of genius which will long distinguish the name of 
 Barry amongst British painters. He afterwards 
 published a book, to illustrate these compositions, 
 which he inscribed to the Society ; and still later 
 began a set of engravings from them, which he did 
 not live to complete. The Society elected liim a 
 l)erpetual member of their body, and voted him 
 their gold medal, inscribed Eminent Merit, and a 
 donation of two hundred guineas. At the same 
 time they threw their gi-eat room open as an exhi- 
 bition for the benefit of the artist, frnm which he 
 ultimately derived altout 7<K»/., a iiuulerate reward. 
 
 This, the i)rominent event of B.irry's life, may 
 be dated at about tlio year 177<>- Bm-ing the 
 course of the next spring he was ailniitted a royal 
 academician ; and in the year 17't(i obtained the 
 chair of ])rofessor of painting. This appninlment, 
 comljining dislincticm and inKilumeiit, ju'odiiced 
 nothing but ditlicultiis and mislortune. Ori^'inai, 
 and therefore singular in his opinions, Bari'v w;is 
 an innovator, and i)r<)posed things in the acaiKiny, 
 for wiiich he could find but little relish or support 
 amiiiig his associates. His favom-ite plan was to 
 derive' a fund out of the recei))ts from the amnial 
 exhibition, with tlic view of forming a gallery "f 
 tile ancient masti-rs for the instruction <>f the 
 pn|iiis. This ci'rtainly was a lauil.ihlc ehji rl, ami 
 would have l)eeu decidedly an imprnveiniiit, but
 
 60 
 
 ST. PAUL'S CATHEDRAL. 
 
 it found no favour with the other artists. It was 
 not in the nature of a temper, ardent and impatient 
 like his, to endure tliis course of things without a 
 murmur. He began by reproaching the apathy, 
 and I'eproving the want of taste and hberality m 
 his brother artists ; and at last, as the opposition 
 grew more pertinacious, broke out into strong and 
 emphatic hostility, lie now became obnoxious ; 
 and as he was not reserved in characterizing the 
 conduct of the academy, so were the members of 
 it, ere long, by no means considerate in their de- 
 cisions against him. In March, 1799, a body of 
 charges was preferred to the council agamst the 
 professor of painting : they were received, and 
 directed to be laid before a special committee. The 
 last meeting upon the question was on the 15th of 
 the followmg April, when the academy assembled 
 to receive a report from this committee. Upon 
 that occasion Barry rose, and desii'ed to see a copy 
 of the report. The request being denied, he pro- 
 tested with great earnestness, and certainly with 
 apparent reason, against the whole proceeding. 
 Towards the close of his address he bluntly de- 
 clared, that if they acted in this manner, they com- 
 bined with his enemies ; and that if they refused 
 to give him an opportunity of refutuig the charges 
 brought against him, he should be ashamed to 
 belong to their body. This sally decided the fate 
 of the day, and the hint with which it concluded 
 was forthwith acted upon. Two resolutions were 
 immediately passed, by which he was first voted 
 out of the professor's chair, and then expelled the 
 academy. One form remained before this strange 
 declaration could be ratified. It was necessary to 
 lay the proceedings before the king ; an empty 
 form, as his majesty approved of the business as a 
 matter of course. On this transaction it seems 
 unnecessary to dilate, the pith of it all is briefly 
 stated. Barry was intempei-ate in words, and the 
 academy in deeds ; he erred, and they sinned ; for 
 what in an individual was the ebullition of an 
 over-sanguine iniellect, was in a deliberative asso- 
 ciation the tyranny of superior power but inferior 
 capacity. 
 
 From this period Barry's life passed on without 
 interest or variety ; he thought much, and did 
 little. He appeared to live in a state of cynical 
 retirement, proudly abstracted in the consciousness 
 of unmerited adversity, but with a spirit unbroken 
 by the violence of its strokes. He dwelt alone in 
 a house in Castle-street, Oxford-street, and in all 
 probability such another residence was not to be 
 found in the metropolis. Having detected two 
 servant-women in the act of purloining some of 
 his engraved plates, he forswore the assistance of 
 domestics, and performed his household offices 
 with his own hands. By degrees his habits be- 
 came noticed : he was supposed to be an old Jew, 
 and pursued with all the obloquy which popular 
 rancour prides itself in heaping on a race ah'eady 
 pi-esumed by Christians to have been for ages 
 marked by the penal hand of Heaven. The door 
 of his house was covered with mud, the wmdows 
 were broken, the walls defaced, the area filled 
 with refuse, and the entrance continually crowded 
 by mischievous groups of noisy urchins. To these 
 the approach of the wayward artist was always the 
 signal of abuse and petty riot. When he failed to 
 appear in the street, a glimpse of his person from 
 a window was sufficient to provoke their vocifera- 
 
 tion. This incessant persecution he submitted to 
 with a strange admixture of discontent and pa- 
 tience, but in time it compelled him to forsake the 
 apartments in front of the house. The back-i'oom 
 upon the first floor he therefore used as a work- 
 shop : it was heaped up with books, busts, tools, 
 and engravings, in all the glorious confusion of 
 talent and negligence. The chamber immediately 
 above this served for his sleeping-room ; it was 
 furnished with a common truck bedstead, a miser- 
 able pallet, and a couple of kitchen chairs : the 
 rest of the mansion was given up to dust and the 
 rats. Yet here, in a great loose threadbare coat, 
 a pair of old black breeches, worsted stockings, and 
 huge strong shoes, but with a shirt of the finest 
 texture and cleanest dress, did this extraordinary 
 man put the finishing touches to his celebrated 
 Jupiter and Juno, and paint his own favourite per- 
 formance, the Pandora. It was also hei'e that he 
 composed the volume descriptive of his paintings 
 at the Society of Arts, and executed all the en- 
 gravings that are known of his works. 
 
 In this state of solitude and discomfort the circle 
 of Barry's acquaintances became sadly thinned. 
 Still there remained some friends who delighted 
 to fan the lingering rays of genius through all the 
 disguises of altered fortune. From these it was 
 not to be concealed, that though his habits were 
 thrifty, and his mode of life the most abstemious, 
 yet that many a privation was forced upon him by 
 the gradual exhaustion of his little property, and 
 that in the course of such things his last moments 
 must certainly be embittered by utter destitution. 
 To obviate such an extreme of distress, some zeal- 
 ous members of the Society of Arts, headed by the 
 Earls of Radnor and Buchan, commenced a sub- 
 scription, which soon amounted to 1000^. For 
 this sum Sir Robert Peel, at a meeting of the sub- 
 scribers, agreed to secure Barry an annuity of 
 120^. This income he did not long enjoy. The 
 subscription began at the close of the year 1805, 
 and in the ensuing February he was seized with a 
 paralysis in the street, and removed in a state of 
 insensibility to the house of his friend Bononi, the 
 artist, in Great Tichfield-street, where, soothed by 
 those attentions from which his own neglected 
 domicile must have long estranged him, he expired 
 on the 22iid day of the same month. 
 
 Sir Robert Peel presented the Society of Arts 
 with 200/. out of the 1000/., now become his own, 
 for the expense of a public interment in St. Paul's. 
 In order to give greater effect to the ceremony, it 
 was unanimously resolved, as the last tribute that 
 could be paid to an illustrious artist, by whose 
 labours they had been so nobly benefited, to place 
 his body in state in the great room of their house 
 in the Adeiphi on the night previous to its inter- 
 ment. Thursday, April 13, this resolution was put 
 into effect, and few scenes could have inspii'ed a 
 more awful impression. The melancholy reverses 
 and distractions of the artist's life, the noble record 
 of his genius displayed on the walls within which 
 his corpse now lay — the palpable man present — the 
 spirit vanished — its worth honoured, its fruits pre- 
 served, and its loss deplored by an assembly noble, 
 highly-gifted, and wealthy in the highest degree ; 
 all conspired to give a solemn character to the act, 
 such as few had seen before, and none can desire 
 to witness again. On the following day, at one 
 o'clock, the funeral procession to St. Paul's took
 
 JAMES BARRY. 
 
 61 
 
 place. Tlie service was read in tlie chapel near 
 the western door ; thence the body was borne to 
 the south-east corner of the crypt, and there finally 
 deposited between the remains of Sir Christopher 
 Wren and Sir Joshua Reynolds. A phiin stone, 
 modestly inscribed, thus briefly indicates the spot: — 
 
 A 
 
 ■t 
 
 Q. 
 
 The great historical Painter, 
 James Barry, 
 Died 22d February, 1806, 
 Aged 64. 
 
 Barn's works were published in 2 vols. 4to, in 
 1809. His Lectui'es now form one of the prizes at 
 the Royal Academy. His letter to the Dilettanti 
 Society, upon the best method of preserving pic- 
 tures, is generally inserted in Pilkington's Lives. 
 A critic, already quoted, says of iiini : — 
 
 " Equally superior to his paintings are the Lec- 
 tures and general \NTitings of Barry. He mistook 
 colossal proportions for artistical power, and pre- 
 ternatural fancies for ideal excellence. When we 
 call to mind his gigantic school-girls made into 
 archangels ; his modern heroes and worthies of 
 philosophy and science in full dress, with bag- 
 wigs and knee-breeches walking in Elysium ; and 
 liis angelico-nautical band singing Odaic hymns, 
 accompanied by themselves on fiddles and violon- 
 cellos, while seated on the backs of dolphins or 
 porpiiises ; we cannot but regard such productions 
 with that deep regret which we must always feel 
 at the aberration or misdirection of the powers of 
 genius. But perhaps we ought rather to say he 
 mistook his true mission when he aimed at being a 
 great painter. His real genius is in his writings, 
 and it is of an order that commands our respect, 
 and excites our admiration, enthusiasm, and re- 
 gard. 
 
 " The feeling which BaiTy manifests, with re- 
 spect to genius and invention, as well as philoso- 
 phical observation, is similar to that of Opie : 
 
 " ' I liave omitted to speak of invention, because 
 it can hardly be considered as an acquirable qua- 
 lity, since the vigour, spirit, and felicity of inven- 
 tion are the peculiar emanations of that genius 
 which shall be in vain sought for where Heaven 
 has not bestowed it. 
 
 " ' It is in the design, and in that only, that men 
 can recognize those operations of imagination and 
 judgment which constitute the ideal of art, and 
 show its high lineage as the offspring of philosophy 
 and sister of jioetry.' " — Bdrri/, Li'c.t. 11. 
 
 Barry hius been compared in eccentricity to 
 Rousseau, and there are certainly traits of simi- 
 larity between the two men. In Ijoth we discover 
 the same morose love of independence and impa- 
 tience of favour ; the same wild jealousy of rivals, 
 and perverse estrangement from the worlil ; the 
 samit morbid aH'ectioiis and lofty aspirations. Hut 
 there was a nobility in the amliiiion of Harry, and 
 a purity in liis actions, to wiiich the I^'reiielinian 
 cannot jirctend. liari'y really possessed a great 
 mind, and s])urned at disingenuousness ; Rousseau, 
 as a man, was not without his meaiinesH. It is 
 also to be rememberi'd, that liowever fre((uently 
 the inip(!tiiosity of his lcm[)er roused Harry to 
 
 anger, and involved him in (luarrils, yet liis heart 
 never forgot, and his spirit never failed to acknow- 
 ledge, the generosity of his friends. Burke he 
 always called his first benefactor, »nd latterlv 
 never mentioned his name without ejaculating a 
 blessing upon his grave. Of Sir Joshua Reynolds, 
 too, he spoke gratefully upon every occasion. In 
 short, thei-e was a pious tenderness inherent in his 
 nature, which the roughness of his manner con- 
 cealed from many ; yet was it constantly over- 
 flowing, and no excess of passion could exhaust his 
 deep but sullen sym]iathies. Of him it may be 
 truly said, that his faults sprung from the finest 
 sources of virtue : they were, consequent!}-, always 
 expiated by superior merits. For these his name 
 must ever continue cherished ; for those, may his 
 memory be never revived ! 
 
 An only brother, surnamed Richmond, survived 
 this great painter ; and of him a feeling of com- 
 passion suggests a short notice, for he was the last 
 of the family, and his life presents a kindred series 
 of vicissitudes, and his death a counterpart of even 
 more abject misery. Richmond Barry, then, was 
 bred to the sea, on which he distinguished himself 
 in various battles, and received many wounds. He 
 succeeded to his father's property, and at one 
 period of his life moved in a liigldy respectable 
 rank of society, but what with a sjieculative mind 
 and adventurous habits he gradually lost the one 
 and fill from the other. About the year 1814, 
 when his means were all nearly exhausted, he was 
 struck blind by lightning in the West Indies ; and 
 in this deplorable state soon after journeyed to 
 London, with an aged wife, in the hope of flnding 
 some resources of help cither in the reputation or 
 amongst the friends of his late brother. Tins step, 
 however, was far from leading to any better for- 
 tune. The few personal friends the historical 
 painter retained at the period of his dissolution 
 iiad either followed him to the tomb, or were then 
 scattered a\\ay from London ; so that after labour- 
 ing through all the privations of poverty, the old 
 gentleman was obliged to resort to street charity 
 for a scanty means of livelihood. The station more 
 generally taken by him for this distressing jiuritose 
 was obscurely chosen near the Catholic chapel, in 
 Sutton- street, Solio. In this mournful state of 
 degradation he continued to linger until a severe 
 fit of illness confined him to his bed, when, as a 
 last preservative from starvation, he adilressed a 
 petition to the Society of Arts. A subscription, 
 amounting to 40/., was speedily raised for him 
 among the members, and was nearly as soon ex- 
 pended in the payment of old debts and the neces- 
 sary sui)|)lies fur subsistiMice, so that ere long he 
 found himself as wretched as ever. At this jieriod, 
 for a sixpence a night, he inhabited a garret in 
 Maynard-street, where the infirmities of age forci'tl 
 hini entirely to abandon his suiqilicatory |)erand)u- 
 lations, and' lie eked out his misery on a shilling a 
 day, wliieh his wile contrived to earn at an army- 
 clo'lhier's. This pittance couhl not long jtreserve 
 him from delit, and in June, 1824, he owed his 
 landlord some few shillings for eleven nights' rent. 
 Such was the stage of destitution in which this 
 fellow's imi)ortunitieH roused poor Barry from his 
 bed. He returned to the street, and succeeded in 
 obtaining two shillings in charity, but was so ex- 
 hausted by the exertion that his wife was obliged 
 to pay away tlie greater portion of the sum ill
 
 62 
 
 ST. PAUL'S CATHEDRAL. 
 
 victuals for him. Tliis no soouer reached the ears 
 of the merciless landlord, than, exasperated at the 
 loss of his money, he drove the poor old gentleman 
 from the house. He expired in the removal. The 
 
 corpse was buried at the charge of the parish ; and 
 thus was extinguished the family of James Barry 
 the painter. 
 
 JOHN OPIE, R.A. 
 
 In painting, more perhaps than in any other art, 
 genius may be often observed starting almost at a 
 first effort to the full exercise of its powers. This 
 observation is sti-ongly exemplified iu the life of 
 John Opie, who was born in 17C1, at the obscure 
 village of St. Agnes, Cornwall, and lies buried in 
 the crypt of St. Paul's. He was apprenticed to his 
 father, a carj)enter, and worked at that trade for 
 some years. His boyhood was strongly marked 
 with a character of original thought and hardy 
 action ; so much so, that he had an evening school 
 in his native place at the premature age of twelve, 
 in which he taught reading, writing, and arithmetic 
 to scholars, some of whom wei'e twice as old as 
 himself. 
 
 His first attempts at drawing had the same pi'e- 
 cocity : he began, by tracing with a burnt stick the 
 heads of his family, in sooty outline, on the white- 
 washed walls of the paternal cottage, and he per- 
 sisted in this work of disfiguration, despite his mo- 
 ther's anger and some heavy blows from his father. 
 The next grade he advanced to was prompted by 
 the acquisition of a lump of ochre and a piece of 
 cartridge paper, on which the broad coarse linea- 
 ments of the old and tlie ugly regularly secured a 
 preference. 
 
 Fortune soon favoured the child of Nature. Dr. 
 Walcot, afterwards celebrated in the republic of 
 letters for his comic poetry under the cognomen of 
 Peter Pindar, was at this time a practising phy- 
 sician at Truro. In the house of an elderly lady, 
 whom he visited at St. Agnes, it happened to be 
 mentioned as a matter of village wonder, that a 
 carpenter's lad in the neighbourhood was never 
 tired of taking copies from the prmt of a farm-yard 
 which hung over the chimney-piece. The doctor, 
 himself an amateur painter, immediately inquired 
 the lad's address, and proceeded to see him. He 
 found the boy at work with his father in a saw-pit, 
 and upon asking him what he could paint, was 
 answered with emphatical simplicity, "Oh! blazing 
 stars — King, and Queen, and the Devil." As a 
 specimen, he produced a sketch of his Satanic 
 Majesty, equipped, in awful conformity with the 
 feai's of the vulgar, with a huge pair of doubly- 
 curved horns, long asses' ears, and immense goggle 
 eyes. Laughably as the portrait was executed, it 
 nevertheless ended in an mvitation to the rustic 
 artist to go and see the doctor's paintings at Truro. 
 There, supplied with paint and brushes, and guided 
 by the instructions of Walcot, the earnest of Opie's 
 talents soon became so decisive, that the ductile 
 physician resolved to take the boy to live with him, 
 and cultivate his budding genius. 
 
 Next to instructions in the art itself. Dr. Walcot 
 taught Opie French, and afterwards imparted some 
 imperfect knowledge of the classics. But the most 
 difficult part of the preceptorship was to make his 
 person keep some pace with the refinement of his 
 mind : many a lesson in politeness was given in 
 
 vain, and many a fine maxim from Lord Chester- 
 field attentively heard, and but faintly heeded ; the 
 clownish roughness of Opie's origin was never 
 reduced to a polished exterior. More important 
 improvements, however, were more readily at- 
 tained ; and after considerable hesitation upon the 
 part of the doctor, as to the branch of the art for 
 which the talents of his pupil were best adapted, 
 he determined to prefer that one which promised 
 the readiest rewards in the event of success. Tlius 
 Opie wasiu'ged to direct all his powers to portraits, 
 which he first began to paint for half-a-crown. This 
 fee, always under the doctor's advice, he gradually 
 raised to five shillings, then to three half-crowns, 
 and at last to half-a-guinea. He now grew a man 
 of consequence, and his patron had not long to wait 
 before he counselled him to demand a guinea a 
 portrait. Opie hesitated, but Peter Pindar was 
 resolute ; and a guinea was fixed upon, not without 
 some melancholy protestations from the conscien- 
 tious artist, that he would soon, accordmg to his 
 own words, ruin the country. 
 
 One lecture Dr. Walcot repeated to his pupil 
 with earnest frequency : it was, to aim at nothing 
 short of gaining the head of his profession ; and to 
 make it the highest fruit of his ambition, to relieve 
 his sister from servitude, and preserve his father 
 and mother in decent ease. The progress of these 
 remarks will detail how well the pupil realized the 
 fii'st part of this golden advice ; and the reader 
 may, perhaps, be as well pleased to learn here, as 
 elsewhere, what it were almost sinful to suppress, 
 that Opie's filial duty fulfilled all the conditions 
 thus imjiosed upon his prospective fame. 
 
 After a removal to Exeter, where his reception 
 was progressively favourable, the doctor and his 
 pupil arrived at London, the great centre for talents 
 of every description, in 1780. In this adventure 
 they agreed to form a joint-stock purse, into which 
 botli their earnings were to be deposited — a plan 
 of life which they continued to observe for some 
 time, until Opie's employments became so lucra- 
 tive, that he was prompted to dissolve this com- 
 munity of tilings. He intimated his intention by 
 letter ; which Walcot resented greatly, and broke 
 off the acquaintance. He was subsequently induced 
 to renew it, but he never forgot an act, which it 
 appears that he never heartily forgave. 
 
 Opie's popularity in Loudon was much enhanced 
 by an interview which he was fortunate enough to 
 obtain with George the Third, through the interest 
 of the Hon. Mr. Boscawen and the President West. 
 After that distinction he took a house in Great 
 Queen-street, Lincoln's Inn Fields, then removed 
 to a more fashionable establishment in Berners- 
 street, Oxford-street, and soon had the satisfaction 
 of seeing his door crowded with the carriages of 
 the noble and the wealthy. But the ladies were far 
 from constant to him, for his portraits were too 
 faithful to please ; principally because he enter-
 
 JOHN OPIE, R.A. 
 
 G3 
 
 tained a rooted opinion, that wliat gcnei-ally passes 
 foi- gi-ace amongst the female sex is merely atlecta- 
 tion. Nothing was too minute, nothing too particu- 
 lar for his pencil : he represented his subjects as 
 he found them ; every little wen, and every light 
 mole, every wound, and every blemish of the ori- 
 ginal, were rigidly transplanted to his canvass. 
 Scrupulous cares of this kind arc any thing but 
 what the majority of those who arc used to sit 
 for their portraits desire to see put in requisition 
 against them. However the question of grace and 
 delicacy, for a marked want of which Opio was 
 blamed, may be properly determined, it cannot be 
 doubted that he had great strength in depicting 
 the strong lines of manly character ; — the decision 
 of the waii'ior, the fierceness of the assassin, the 
 liard coiTusions of poverty, and the bare desolation 
 of decrepitude, in these he delighted, and in these 
 he triumphed. 
 
 The walls of the Exhibition Room, in Somerset 
 House, were hung with the works of Opie, for the 
 first time, in 178G ; after which he rose gradually 
 to all the honours of the Royal Academy, in which 
 he was chosen professor of painting, when Fuseli 
 was appointed keeper. His lectures, although since 
 collected together in print, neither pleased his 
 audience nor himself. His principal defects were, 
 a want of fluency in his periods, and impressive- 
 ness in his manner of delivery : these are faults 
 which must ever keep a man, of even superior 
 powers to his, far removed from success in lec- 
 turing. That a mind forcible in its perceptions, 
 powerful in its views, and tenacious of its acquii'e- 
 ments, as Opie's certainly was in a vigorous degree, 
 must have been calculated to instruct and improve, 
 cannot be denied : and that he m a manner failed 
 in the application of this great capacity, must be 
 attributed entirely to the mode of reducing it to 
 advantage which was here required from him. His 
 lectures, however, read well, and arc distinguished 
 by a manly tone of criticism, a healthy energy of 
 opinion combined with sound practical structure, 
 and a strong s}mpathy with the higher branches 
 of the art. As a specimen, we take this extract 
 from his second lecture : — 
 
 " Of all the parts of painting, practical or intel- 
 lectual, the first in importance by the universal 
 acknowledgment of all ages and nations ; the quality 
 of all others the most rare, the most beneficial, and 
 that which beai-s the most unequivocal marks of its 
 divine origin ; is undoubtedly invention. Its pos- 
 sessors are therefore justly considered as aspiring 
 to the highest honours of genius, and entitled to be 
 regarded as the Newtons, the Columbuses, and the 
 Alexandei-s of painting, who have discovered new 
 principles, increased the possessions, and extended 
 the dominions of art. 
 
 " I'nfortunately, this most inestimable quality, 
 in which genius is thought more; jiarticularly to 
 consist, is, of all human facuitii'S, tiic least suliject 
 to rcitson or rule; being derived from Heaven aloiu,' 
 according to some, attriliuted by otiiers to organiza- 
 tion, by a tliird class to industry, by a fourth to cir- 
 cumstances, by a fifth to the iiiHuence of tin; stars, 
 and, in the general o|)inion, the gift of Nature oidy. 
 Hut, thongii few teach us how to improve it, and 
 Btill fewer how to obtain it, all agree that nothing 
 can be done without it. Destitute; of invention, a 
 poet is i)ut a jilagiary, and a jjainter but a. copier 
 of others." — Lecture II, 
 
 " But, however true it may be, that invention 
 cannot be reduced to rule and taught liy regular 
 process, it must necessarily, like every otlier effect, 
 have an adeejuate cause. It cannot be by chance, 
 that excellence is produced with certainty and 
 constancy ; and, however remote and obscure its 
 origin, thus much is certain, that observation nnist 
 precede invention, and a mass of materials must be 
 collected before we can combine them. 
 
 " It is moreover absolutely ref(uisite, that wan, 
 tJie epitome of all his (the painter's) principal sub- 
 jects and his judge, should become a particular 
 subject of his investigation : he nuist be acquainted 
 with all that is ch.iracteristic and beautiful, both 
 in regard to his mental and bodily endowments ; 
 must study tlieir analogies, and learn how far moral 
 and physical excellence are connected and depend- 
 ent one on the other. He must, furtncr, observe 
 the power of the passions in all their combinations, 
 and trace their changes, as modified by constitution, 
 or by the accidental infiuenees of climate or custom, 
 from the sprightliness of infancy to the despondence 
 of decrepitude : he must be familiar with all the 
 masses of life, and, above all, endeavour to dis- 
 criminate the essential from the accidental, to 
 divest himself of the prejudices of his own age and 
 country, and, disregarding temporary fashions and 
 local taste, leai'n to see nature and beauty in the 
 abstract, and rise to general and transcendental 
 ti-uth, which will always be the same." — Lec- 
 ture II. 
 
 Opie was twice married : of his first wife little is 
 known ; she abused his honour, and was divorced. 
 His second wife, the only child of Dr. Alderson, an 
 eminent physician at Norwich, brought him more 
 happiness and greater distinction. She has since 
 been well known in the literary world, by her tales 
 and novels, of which the " Father and Daughter," 
 " Tales of the Heart," and " Essays on Lying," 
 &c., were in their day extremely popular. It has 
 also been mentioned in her praise, that what the 
 urgent remonstrances of Dr. Walcot could never 
 effect, her gentle tuition instilled, — namely, a de- 
 cided sense of the advantages to be derived from 
 attention to that grace in female portraits, which 
 Opie has already been represented to have neg- 
 lected even to a pitch of contem])t. It is in this 
 way that a manifest improvement in the air of 
 many of his latter paintings has been ex])lained. 
 For the ac<iuisition of other improvements, Opie 
 was not allowed to live : a cold, caught in the 
 spring of 1«07, battled the aid of the first medical 
 skill, and put a jierind to his career, Apiil !(, in the 
 same year. He was interred, close by thi' renuiins 
 of Sir Joshua Reynolds, in St. Paul's, with all tlie 
 demonstrations of regret, which a display of public 
 honour, and a demonstration of private I'cgard, 
 could bestow. 
 
 Few artists have been more variously estimated 
 than Opie: by soine he has been exalted far above, 
 and by others ili])ressed greatly bilow, the connnon 
 level of jjiglish ]iainters. l'"roni these conflicting 
 judgments, the following is a moderate summary of 
 the character of his talents and his jjcrformances. 
 In the conception of his subject, a sfi-ong oi-iginalily 
 of mind was always displayed ; the arran^iement 
 of that sid)jeet was generally ideal : where n.itni'e 
 was to l)(," represented, she was painted with ad- 
 mirable truth and simplicity ; but where a more 
 invi^ntivc relief was required, his pencil was K's.s
 
 64 
 
 ST. PAUL'S CATHEDRAL. 
 
 masterly. Thus his pieces were ratlier good in 
 detail than harmoniously just ; the parts were 
 better than the whole. The works by which he 
 acquired the greatest credit are, first, " The Death 
 of David Rizzio," which is thought his master- 
 piece ; " Jephtha's Vow," and the " Presentation in 
 the Temple," both painted for Macklin's Bible, and 
 conspicuous for bold fancy and effective colour ; 
 " Juliet in the Garden," a scene elegantly con- 
 ceived ; " Musidora," " The Escape of Gil Bias," 
 and an admirable portrait of a " beggar." The 
 profits of these and other productions enabled him 
 to leave behind him 80002. In private life he was 
 
 remarkable for much kind feeling, which those 
 who only marked the bluntness of his manners 
 upon public occasions could have little supposed him 
 possessed of ; he disliked the refinement of society, 
 because he was unequal to its restralnts,aud despised 
 the polish which he was unable to raise. Thus he 
 rather had friends than patrons, men by whom the 
 blemishes of the person were overlooked in the 
 vii'tues of the heart ; and he was valued for 
 proving the reality of those possessions, for which 
 the generality of mankind afford only the pre- 
 sumption of appearances. 
 
 SIR JOHN MOORE, K.B. 
 
 Lieutenant-General Sir John Moore's monu- 
 ment stands in the south transept, and is the work 
 of Bacon, junior. If to be large were always to be 
 gi'eat, this would be a work of superior merit, for 
 its size is considerable. In other respects the idea 
 and the execution are flat and common-place. 
 The subject to be illustrated is the death of a 
 great and good soldier, occurring under circum- 
 stances as romantic and inspiring as the poet or the 
 artist could desii-e to employ his talents upon ; and 
 this statuary has abandoned himself to the dull 
 representation of the wretched conception which 
 introduces two figures of Valour and Victory 
 lowering the body of the deceased to the tomb, 
 while the Genius of Spain plants a standard above 
 it. 
 
 The inscription nius as follows : — 
 
 Sacred to the memory of 
 
 Lieutenant-General Sir John Moore, K. B. 
 
 Who was born at Glasgow in the year 1761. 
 
 He fought for his country 
 
 in America, in Corsica, in the West Indies, 
 
 In Holland, Egypt, and Spain ; 
 
 And on the IGth of January, 1809, 
 
 Was slain by a cannon-ball. 
 
 At Corunna. 
 
 General Sir John Moore was the first-born of 
 five sons and a daughter, who composed the family 
 of Dr. John Moore, a man better known to the 
 world as an author than a physician. The future 
 hero was born in Glasgow, November 19, 1760, 
 and was there educated under the eye of his father 
 until he attained the age of eighteen, when Dr. 
 Moore becoming travelling tutor to the young 
 Duke of Hamilton, his son was at the same time 
 enabled to make the tour of Europe. This, by 
 polishing his manners, and enlarging his views, 
 proved eminently serviceable to him during the 
 rapid rise by which his fortune was soon after 
 advanced. 
 
 Destined for the army from his earliest years, 
 he obtained an ensigncy in the 51st Foot, through 
 the interest of the Duke of Argyle, and joined his 
 regiment at Minorca in 1777- About two years 
 after he had entered the army, he was appointed 
 lieutenant, and paymaster in a regiment raised by 
 his early friend the Duke of Hamilton, with which 
 he embarked for Halifax in Nova Scotia, in 1779- 
 
 In all the military operations in which he took 
 
 part in this quarter of the world, Moore gave 
 proofs of that firmness of character, that intrepidity 
 in the field, and that sagacity in counsel, which 
 subsequently acquu'ed for him the reputation of 
 the first soldier of his day. Two mstances amongst 
 many others, one of liis courage, and the other of 
 his humanity, durmg this war with the Americans, 
 may be here noticed : — On one occasion, when 
 his men had given way, and were confusedly i-e- 
 tiring before the heavy fire of a superior force of 
 the enemy, Lieutenant Moore advanced to the 
 front, and called upon them to stand their ground, 
 and " to behave like soldiers." The men obeyed, 
 re-commenced firing, and kept the enemy at bay 
 till the face of affairs assumed a more fa- 
 vourable aspect. The instance of his humanity, 
 or rather, perhaps, high sense of honour and 
 chivalrous feeling, is still more remarkable. Ob- 
 serving the commanding officer of the enemy at a 
 short distance from him flourishing his sword and 
 encouraging his men. Lieutenant Moore levelled 
 his fusil — subalterns then carrying this description 
 of arms — and might have easily killed him ; but, 
 suddenly struck with the impression that it would 
 be unfair to avail himself of the advantage he pos- 
 sessed, he replaced the fusil on his shoulder without 
 firing it. 
 
 Before the termuiation of the war, Moore was 
 made a captain, a rank to which he was promoted for 
 his. intrepid and judicious conduct, and returned 
 to England, when his regiment was disbanded, and 
 he was reduced to half-pay. About this time he 
 took his seat in the House of Commons as member 
 for the Scots borough of Lanerk. 
 
 Few wars presented brighter scenes for military 
 distinction than those wliich agitated Eui'ope from 
 its deepest centre to the extremities of the globe, 
 in consequence of the French Revolution. As 
 soon as England was involved in active opposition 
 to its principles. Sir John Moore became distin- 
 guished for his zeal and intrepidity in the ]\Iedi- 
 terranean. Our troops being forced to evacuate 
 Toulon, the occupation of another stronghold 
 in that quarter became necessary, and it was 
 proposed to annex Corsica to the British 
 Crown. Lord Hood, who then commanded in the 
 Mediterranean, selected Moore as a proper person 
 to visit the island, and ascertain how far General 
 Paoli's power over his countrymen, and the re- 
 som-ces at his command, would justify an attack. The 
 mtelligence thus obtamed determined the admiral
 
 SIR JOHN MOORE, K.B. 
 
 65 
 
 to anticipate the designs of the French, who had 
 already put to sea for the purpose of re-inforcini!; 
 the island : a landing of British troops was hap- 
 pily effected in 1795. While the siege of Martello 
 occupied one body of troops, Moore (now a colonel) 
 was detached with two i-egiments and a few field- 
 pieces to seize on Fomelli. After dragging some 
 cannon over a mountainous country, ho was obliged, 
 in consequence of the strength of the place, to 
 wait the arrival of the heavy ordnance ; which no 
 sooner came up, than he opened a fire on the 
 town, and, assaihng the troojis posted before it, 
 carried all before him with gallant despatch. 
 
 The French immediately evacuated Mollinchesco, 
 and Calvi alone remained in their possession on the 
 ishmd. To wrest this from them became an object 
 of consequence to the British, and to Moore was the 
 seizure of it entrusted. The resistance was great, 
 and the assault, owing to the nature of its position, 
 difficult ; but once begun, it was prosecuted with 
 visom", and crowned with success after a spirited 
 contest. Moore hmiself received a severe wound 
 on the head from the bursting of a bomb ; but, 
 though flowing with blood, bravely led the way 
 into the place, at the head of his grenadiers. As 
 he entered the town he was received by the com- 
 manding officer. General Stewart, who had wit- 
 nessed the affair from an adjoining eminence, and 
 embraced the victor amidst the acclamations of the 
 assembled troops. 
 
 It was towards the conclusion of this struggle 
 that Sir Gilbert Elliot, upon being appointed vice- 
 roy of the island, conceived that Colonel Moore, 
 whose influence with the people was great, had 
 infused into them a spirit of opposition to his 
 government. Representations to this effect were 
 made to the Secretary of State, who ordered him 
 home to answer for his conduct. He lost no time in 
 embarking for England, and on his arrival hastened 
 to London, where he waited upon several leading 
 men in the Cabinet, and not only succeeded in 
 convincing them of the unjustness of the accusation 
 which had been brought against him, but obtained, 
 as a proof of their continued conlidonce in his 
 honour and abilities, the appointment of brigadier- 
 general in the West Indies. 
 
 When Sir Ilali)h Abererombic was appointed to 
 connnand the expedition against the West Indies in 
 1793, ho selected Moore to act under him. As soon 
 as the troops reached their <lostiiiation, Demerara, 
 Isse.juibo, and lierbice fell into our han(ls without 
 difficulty. At the reduction of St. Liu;ie, Moore, 
 landing without much oi)])osition, ailvanced upon 
 the village of Choe Bay, while the encnny retired 
 to Morne Chabot, a post so strong that it became 
 necessary to occupy it Ijefore any further under- 
 Ukings could be safely altem])ted. General Mof)rc 
 was ordered to advance at the head of 23 com- 
 panies, by a circuitous pass, while General Hoi)e 
 marched forward with 50 conii)anies in a nearer 
 and a more direct line. The attack was made by 
 midnight, and the guides, either through ignorance 
 or design, led Moore straiglit in front of a strong 
 I)iqu(t, i)y which his progress was retarded and 
 thr: plan of attack anticipated. In this dilennna 
 his rtniy resource was to push on bravely without 
 waiting for co-operation. He did so,, and, over- 
 coming the disadvantage, carried tli(! post. 
 
 On the following day ho seized ui)om Mnrne 
 Fortune ; but mischances again impeded his pro- 
 
 gress ; for, in consetpience of a want of heavy artil- 
 lery, the batteries were not taken until two davs 
 had elapsed. 'I'hese successes led to the surrender 
 of the island May 25, 17<J(j, and Moore, returning 
 to England, was raised to the rank of Major-Genu- 
 ral. 
 
 The little of interest to be gathered from our 
 unsuccessful expedition to the Helder, when the 
 Duke of York was iicrmitted to retire so unfavour- 
 ably from the Continent, is more pi'operlv alhuled 
 to in the life of Abercrombie, undm- whom Moore 
 also served during the Irish troubles of 17!»8, ami 
 next proceeded to the Egyptian campaign of lUOl. 
 Arrived in Aboukir Bay, so glorious from the pre- 
 ceding victory of the Nile, a rocket was discharged 
 at three o'clock in the morning of the 9th of 
 March, and the first division of the army, amount- 
 ing to six thousand men, took their seats in the 
 boats, and made straight for that i)art of the beach 
 where the French apjieared most formiilalile. The 
 position of the latter w;us highly favourable : from 
 a sandy hill, recc ding towards the centre like an 
 amphitheatre, they poured a terrible discharge of 
 shot, shell, and grape, which furrowed up the boil- 
 ing waves around the advancing flotilla with the 
 fury of a tempest. Nothing daunted by this dan- 
 ger, Moore leajjed ashore at the head (tf the 23rd 
 and 40th infantry, and charged up the hill with 
 fixed bayonet. This gallant movement succeeded 
 as it deserved ; the other troops effected a safer 
 landing ; the enemy retreated on Alexandria ; and 
 the invaders encamped, with their I'ight on the sea 
 and their left on Lake Mandin. 
 
 At the battle of Aboukir Moore was again 
 wounded while leading the reserve with his usual 
 intrepidity. Notwithstanding this accident he took 
 an active share in the siege of Cairo, and com- 
 manded the escort which led the surrendered 
 enemy to a place of embarkation. The rajiid 
 series of victories which soon forced the French 
 to abandon all designs upon Egypt left him little 
 that is mem(n'able to ])erform. He returnee! to 
 England, was constantly employed on the staff' on 
 account of his eminent ability as a disci|)linarian, 
 and in 1801 was made a Knight of the Hath, in 
 
 1807 he superseded General Fox in Sicily ; and in 
 
 1808 was sent to reinforce the king of Sweden with 
 10,000 men. But the Swedish monarch not only 
 refused to acknowledge his instructions, but vented 
 his indignation at the terms in which they were 
 coucIkmI with a vioK'nce which made tlie security 
 of Moore's ])erson dnulitful. Hi- therifore with- 
 drew from Stockholm privately, and safely landed 
 his troo))s in England. 
 
 It now oidy remains for us to speak of the last 
 military conunand for which Sir John Moore was 
 spared to his country, nnd say a few wcirds of the 
 melancholy victory of Corunna. The invasion of 
 Spain liy Ihionaparte had proceeded with all the 
 rapid success for which that great connnandir wa.s 
 celeln-ated. Madrid was in his hands, and the 
 ISritish troojis already on the CoiuItu nt had re- 
 treated l)efore Marshal Soult, when Moore arrived 
 in Gallicia with tlie 10,000 men he had taken to 
 .Sweden. No sooner had he effected a junction 
 with his countrymen, than Ihionaparte, flushed with 
 recent victory, jtressed forward at the head nf 
 Biqierior ninnliers, and cimiiielled the IJrilish to 
 taliir slieller, al'lc>r a ]iainl'Ml and dislie:irleiiiiig i-e- 
 I treat, conducted with marvellous skill, williiu the 
 
 F
 
 GO 
 
 ST. PAUL'S CATHEDRAL. 
 
 walls of Coruiina. But even that place they were 
 soon unable to hold, and then their sole refuge was 
 in their ships. Accordingly every precaution was 
 taken for an embarkation that experience could 
 supply, or promptitude suggest, when, on the morn- 
 ing of the 16th of January, symptoms of a rapid 
 and determined attack became visible along the 
 lines of the enemy. To resist this, or perish, was 
 the only alternative. An obstinate contest ensued, 
 which lasted from noon until evenuig, during whicli 
 the movements of the two armies were various, 
 well contested, and all signalized by superior cou- 
 rage on both sides. The two British generals 
 highest in command were borne helpless from the 
 field : our loss in wounded and killed was, more- 
 over, considerable, but the enemy was beaten back, 
 and ultimately the troops were embarked after a 
 difficult victory. The French did ample justice to 
 the skill, determination, and bravery of Sir John 
 Moore. Intercepted in his progress by a piece of 
 water, he set the example to his men, as was usual 
 with him, plunged into the ford breast-high, and 
 continued to lead in the field until a cannon-ball 
 struck him mortally, and made it impossible for 
 him to remain in action. Being carried in a blan- 
 ket within the town, his inquiries after the fate of 
 the day and the personal safety of his aid-de-camps 
 were constant. When General Hope, on whom 
 the command devolved after Sir David Baird lost 
 his arm, arrived by his bedside, he expressed him- 
 self earnestly, but in broken sentences, " Hope, 
 Hope, I have much to say, but cannot get it out : 
 I feel so strong, I fear I shall be long dying : I 
 am in great pain. I hope the people of England 
 will be satisfied — I hope my country will do me 
 justice. You will see my friends as soon as you 
 can — tell them everything — tell my mother;" — but 
 here his voice failed him, and for a wliile he was 
 silent. After an interval he again asked if the 
 
 enemy were defeated, and being re-assured of the 
 fact, added—" It is a great satisfaction to me to 
 have beaten the French. You know I have always 
 wished to die this way. Is Colonel Graham and 
 are all my aid-de- camps well ? I have made my 
 will, and remembered my servants." He then 
 thanked the doctors for their attention, asked once 
 more for his aid-de-camps, and expired without a 
 struggle. At an early hour on the following morn- 
 ing a grave, only three feet deep, was hastily pre- 
 pared for his remains in the bastion of Corunna, 
 and there, while the enemy were still firing upon 
 the little party who performed the obsequies, was 
 his corpse deposited without a coffin ! The scene 
 was well fitted for the burial of a hero. 
 
 One of the best proofs which can be given of the 
 merit of this great man is to be found in the ex- 
 pression of that deep sorrow by which his country 
 marked its sense of his death, even without a 
 dissentient voice, and the universally concurring 
 approbation of all the officers who knew him. In 
 military judgment and knowledge he was clear, 
 comprehensive, and profound : though his vigilance 
 was unremitting, and his discipline exact, he was 
 beloved by the army. He executed all the duties 
 of his elevated situation in a felicitous style that 
 has by common consent ranked him as the model 
 of his profession. Wounded early in the action at 
 Abouku', under Sir Ralph Abercrombie, he refused 
 to leave the field, and continued to exhibit an 
 intense fortitude almost incredible to many when 
 the severity of the wound was ascertained. In 
 Holland he was also three times wounded before 
 he could be led from the action. Many were the 
 days the fate of which mainly depended upon Sir 
 John Moore. In every quarter his example was 
 the finest conceivable ; in every country he ex- 
 alted the character of his native land ; and in 
 death he emulated General Wolfe ! 
 
 CUTHBERT, LORD COLLINGWOOD. 
 
 A NATIONAL monument to this celebrated admiral 
 stands in the south transept of St. Paul's Cathe- 
 dral : — it is the work of Westmacott, R. A., and 
 represents the landing of his lordship's remains in 
 England. The deceased is introduced laid out on 
 the deck of a man-of-war, with his body shrouded 
 in colours he has won from the enemy, and with 
 his hands clasping a sword upon his breast ; a 
 figure of Fame is kneeling forward from the prow ; 
 and a personification of the Thames, attended by 
 the Genii of his confluent streams, appears earnestly 
 contemplating the goddess. On the gunwale there 
 is an alto-relievo illustration of the progress of 
 navigation in three stages : — the first shows the 
 genius of man forsaking his landmarks, and ex- 
 ploring the ocean, with the stars for his guides ; 
 the second presents him directed in his course by 
 the magnet ; and the third exhibits him forging the 
 instruments of war. Of this design, which is un- 
 interestmg because it is emblematical, the execu- 
 tion will be found in many respects inelegant, 
 though not without some points of merit, which 
 excite a regret that a higher sense of the natural 
 does not preponderate in the work. The inscription 
 is methodical : — 
 
 Erected at the public expense to the memory of 
 
 CuTHBERT Lord Collingwood, 
 
 Who died in the command of the fleet in the 
 
 Mediterranean, 
 
 On board the Ville de Paris, 
 
 vii. March, m.dcccx. in Ixi. year of his age. 
 
 Wherever he served, he was distinguished 
 
 for conduct, skill, and courage, ])articularly 
 
 in the action with the French fleet, June i. 
 
 MDCCXCIV. 
 
 as Captain of tlie Barfleur, 
 
 In the action with the Spanish Fleet, 
 
 xiv. February, m.dcc.xcvii. 
 
 As Captain of the Excellent ; 
 
 But most conspicuously in the decisive victory off" 
 
 Cape Trafalgar, 
 
 Obtained over 
 
 the combined fleets of France and Spain, 
 
 To which he eminently contributed, as 
 
 Vice- Admiral of the Blue, 
 
 Commanding the Larboard Division, 
 
 October xxi. mdcccv. 
 
 The most striking passages in the life of Lord 
 Collingwood are deeply interwoven with the achieve-
 
 CUTHBERT, LORD COLLINGWOOD. 
 
 «7 
 
 mcuts.of liis friend Lord Nelson. He was born in 
 1750 at Newcastle-upoii-T\iic, where he received 
 his education, diu'ing a course of six years, under 
 the Rev. H. Aloises, M.A., in company with Lord 
 Stowell, and his younj^cr brother, the Lord Chan- 
 cellor Eldon. His family was anciently distin- 
 guished in arras, and the name is frequently men- 
 tioned in the rude ballads which commemorate the 
 Border battles of the fourteenth century. With 
 tlie spirit of these legends we are informed the 
 mind of young Collingwood became enthusiastically 
 possessed, and in consequence of the ardour thus 
 fostered he entered into the naval service of his 
 country at the e.arly age of eleven. 
 
 The first officer with whom he "as placed was 
 Captain (afterwards Admiral) Bi-aithwaite, a ma- 
 ternal uncle, who then commiuided the Shannon. 
 Under him Collingwood remained during several 
 years, and it was from his experience that he 
 learned that skill in tactics and proficiency in 
 nautical science which contributed so much to the 
 prosperity of his career. In I7CC he was mid- 
 shipman in the Gibraltar, and from the years 17(»7 
 to 1772 served as master's mate in the Liverpool, 
 from which he was soon after removed to the 
 Lenox, Captain Roddani, with whom he contracted 
 a friendship which extended his acquaintance with 
 officers of rank and influence. 
 
 Fourteen years of service, however, elapsed be- 
 fore he rose to the rank of lieutenant, hi 1776 lie 
 was ordered to Jamaica in the Hornet sloop, and 
 upon that station acquired his first knowledge of 
 Nelson, then second-lieutenant of the Lowestoffe. 
 Between minds congenially bold and aspiring an 
 intimacy was formed, which grew closer at every 
 meeting, and endured with life ; and it is interest- 
 ing to remark, that henceforward, accordingly as 
 the one friend obtained advancement, the other 
 rose also. Thus, when Nelson was taken into the 
 Bristol, Collingwood was sent in his stead to the 
 Lowestoffe. In 177?' Nelson obtained the Badger 
 brig, and Collingwood was appointed to the Bris- 
 tol ; in 1779 Nelson became post-captain of the 
 Hinchinbroke, and Collingwood got the Badger ; 
 jvnd again, when the former was put into the com- 
 mand of the Janus frigate, he was, as usual, suc- 
 ceeded by the latter. This last change took place 
 in I78O, upon the occasion of our destructive ex- 
 ])cdition against St. Juan, in the Spanish main, of 
 which it is sufficient to observe, that out of 1800 
 men emjiloyed upon the service, not more than '.WO 
 according to the medical returns ever came iionie : 
 a melancholy number of the suH'erers were literally 
 consumed alive by birds of prey. It was Nelson's 
 fortune to be recalled fi-om the station befoi-e this 
 work of destruction began to set in ; but it was a 
 far greater blessing to Collingwood that his health 
 was sound enough to withstand the ravages of the 
 climate. When he sailed from lOngland the crew 
 on board his ship amounted to 200 men, but \n1ii'u 
 hf! returned, before the year expircil, he ma<lc one 
 of only forty survivors. 
 
 In less than three months he received the com- 
 mand of the Pelican, of twenty-four guns, anil 
 sailed to the West Indies, where he was again 
 destined to encounter adversity. On the Ist of 
 August a dn^adful Inirricane camo on, in which 
 the Pelican was totally wn^ekcd on Morant Ki ys : 
 the crew were only |)reservc(l with exti'i ino dif- 
 ficulty. No considerable interval elapsed, how- 
 
 ever, before he again appeared in active command 
 on board the Sanijjson, of sixty-four guns, in which 
 he continued until the peace of 17}i:i. Upon that 
 event the Sanqison was paid off, but he was imme- 
 diately appointed to the Mediator, and ordered to 
 the West Indies, \Nhere he had an opportunity of 
 frequently meeting Nelson, who was upon the sanu' 
 station in the Boreas. Being recalled home in 
 1786 the ship was paid off, and after an almost 
 uninterrupted service of five-and-twentv years lie 
 was enabled to pay a visit to his family, and renew 
 his acquaintance with the friends of his youth. 
 
 Collingwood remained in retirement until the 
 year 1790, when a rujiture was expected with Spain, 
 and he was emjiloyed, under Admiral Cornish, in 
 the Mermaid, mounting thirty-two guns. But the 
 disagreements were adjusted without hostilities, 
 and as there ajqieared no prospect of immediate 
 operations he returned to Northumberland. During 
 the same year lie married Sarah, the eldest daugh- 
 ter of Alderman lilacket, of Newcastle, by wluuii 
 he had two daughters. 
 
 In the year I7f)3 began the first of our wai-s 
 with revolutionary France, and among the first of 
 the many who were then hastily summoned from 
 domestic repose was Cajitain Collingwood. His 
 shii) was the Prince, bearing the flag of Admii-al 
 Bowyer, under whom he soon after shifted into the 
 Bai'tleur, and took a conspicuous share in Lord 
 Howe's victory of June I, 1794. Upon this occa- 
 sion Collingwood was subjected to great mortifi- 
 cation : liis conduct had been unquestionably meri- 
 torious, yet no notice was taken of his name in 
 the Gazette ; and before the king came down to 
 Spithead to distribute the gold chains hung with 
 medals, which had been voted by parliament to 
 the commanders in the action, he was removed 
 from the Barfleur, and received no meed of ho- 
 nour. That this neglect was intentional does not 
 appear, but that it was censurable cannot be 
 doubted. When it was complained of. Lord Howe 
 expressed his sorrow, and a medal was subse- 
 quently tendered, but Collingwood refused with 
 high spirit to accept as a favour what ought to 
 have been awarded as a right. 
 
 Soon after this circumstance he was nominated 
 to command the Excellent, in which he sailed, with 
 Lord Hood, to Toulon. Removing from this sta- 
 tion, he joined the fleet under Admiral Jervis, and 
 with his old friend, now Commodore Nelson, con- 
 tributed to accomplish one of tlu> most signal vic- 
 tories ever ol)tained by the British navy. This 
 was at the action with th(> Spanish Hi'et oil' Cai)e 
 St. Vincent, during which Collingwood displayed 
 singular valour ami judgment in the most perilous 
 moments of the engagement. Two ships, the 
 Salvador del Mundo, mounting 112, and the San 
 Isidor, carrying 7-1 g">"*> l'i"l struck to his flag ; 
 but, instead of delaying to take formal possession 
 of the prizes, he pushed on, with every sail .set, 
 to rendt'r further aid to tin" other commanders 
 inaction. It is painful to add that this conduct 
 received neither praise nor reward ; — the name of 
 Collingwood was not introduced, even for a viTbal 
 coinplinu'nt, into l\w (ia/.ette. 
 
 It was the earnest dt^airc of Collingwood to pro- 
 ceed with liis friencl Nelson to fresh victories at 
 the Nile, but a more irksome duty "as assigned 
 him, and he remained until 1799 in the charge of 
 blockading the enemy's ports. At the closi-of thai 
 I' 2
 
 G8 
 
 ST. PAUL'S CATHEDRAL. 
 
 year he was made rear-admiral of the white, a 
 rank which, in 1801, was advanced to that of rear- 
 admiral of the red. In 1802 peace was proclaimed ; 
 his ship was paid off at Spithead, and a short term 
 of ease was allowed him, which he spent in the 
 arms of his family. 
 
 But the war was soon resumed. In April, 1804, 
 CoUingwood was in active command with the flag 
 of vice-admii-al of the blue, and a commission to 
 blockade Brest, m conjunction with Admiral Corn- 
 wallis. There is a heavy anxiety in the duties 
 of a blockade, an incessant apprehension that the 
 enemy may escape, and an inglorious assurance 
 that no battle will be hazarded, which those only 
 who have undergone can thoroughly feel. In this 
 situation CoUingwood remained, not without cha- 
 grin, until 1805, when he was ordered to perform 
 a similar service before the harbour of Cadiz. 
 This was an arduous task ; the enemy's fleet 
 amounted to thirty- four sail of the luie, and he 
 had only four ships with which to keep them at 
 bay ; but he had the art to succeed in his object. 
 He kept two of the vessels lying in towards the 
 land, the two others out at sea, and by repeating a 
 series of well-concerted signals inculcated a belief 
 that a superior force was collected in the distance. 
 
 At length Nelson arrived with re-inforcements, 
 and the glorious but melancholy battle of Trafalgar 
 ensued. The particulars of this engagement have 
 already been detailed. CoUingwood led the van in 
 the Royal Sovereign, and it is an interesting co- 
 incidence to remark, that while Nelson was contem- 
 plating his attack, and remarking to his officers, 
 " Look at that noble fellow ! observe the style in 
 which he carries his ship into action!'' CoUing- 
 wood was enthusiastically exclaiming, "What would 
 Nelson give to be in our place !" When Nelson 
 received his mortal wound, CoUingwood succeeded 
 to the command of the fleet, and acquitted himself 
 of the duty with exemplary promptitude and hu- 
 manity. The official despatch, in which he ac- 
 quainted the Admiralty with the death of his 
 friend and the victor'y of the day, was read with 
 general admiration, and by the king pronounced a 
 composition of equal merit and feeling — an opinion 
 eclioed by the country. These praises were con- 
 siderably enhanced by the generosity with which 
 he behaved when the battle was over. A tremen- 
 dous storm arose, which the shattered state of the 
 captured vessels was wholly unable to withstand ; 
 the sufferings of their wounded were extreme, and 
 numbers perished for the mere want of medicine 
 and attendance. With a view of rescuing so many 
 fellow-creatures from this lamentable condition, 
 CoUingwood sent a flag to the governor of Cadiz, 
 and proposed to forward all the sick prisoners to 
 the hospitals. The offer was gratefully accepted ; 
 and so great was the enthusiasm excited among 
 the inhabitants by an act of such unusual charity, 
 that they flocked to the shoi-e in hundreds, and 
 sent off presents of wine, fruit, and flour in abund- 
 ance to their honourable enemies. 
 
 Colliugvvood's services, though tardily, wei'e now 
 nobly recompensed : he was raised to the rank of 
 admiral of the red, and created Baron CoUingwood, 
 of Coldburn and Hethpole, in Northumberland. 
 An annuity of 2000/. a year was voted to him, and, 
 in case of his demise, of 1000/. to his lady, and 
 
 5000/. to each of his daughters : but no relaxation 
 of his services was allowed. Without even visit- 
 ing land he was continued in the post of com- 
 mander-in-chief of the fleet in the Mediterranean 
 for Ave years, and by his piiidence and efficiency 
 gave the enemy no possible means of either refit- 
 ting that force, which upon so many occasions he 
 had helped to destroy, or replacing it by another. 
 As he lived, so he died : he drew his last breath at 
 sea on board his flag-ship, the Ville de Paris, 
 March 7, 1810. His body was conveyed to Sheer- 
 ness, on board the Nereus frigate, and was brought 
 up the river to Greenwich in the governor's yacht. 
 There it lay for some days, with the customai-y 
 state, in the Painted Chamber ; after which it was 
 removed to St. Paul's, with the pomp of a public 
 funeral, and deposited in the crypt close by the 
 coffin of Lord Nelson. Thus the friends who had 
 been always united in life remain also undivided in 
 death. 
 
 Having no son. Lord CoUingwood's title became 
 extinct. His life, written by his son-in-law, is one 
 of the most interesting biographies we possess. It 
 is full of letters, which display in every line a man 
 of superior excellence in pomt of heart and sound 
 understanding. He was naturally diffident and 
 unassuming, and was on that account often 
 underrated by supei-ficial judges. He despised 
 ostentation, and preserved, on every occasion, a 
 peculiar simplicity in his manners. His worth, 
 however, was sterling, and his bravery and skill 
 fully equal to the long line of heroes whom he suc- 
 ceeded ; and it is certain, that while the glories of 
 naval warfare shall continue to engage the ad- 
 miration of nations, his name will be preserved 
 «ith respect. Few officers ever served their coun- 
 try for a longer run of years, and not one more 
 efficiently. During the last seventeen years of his 
 life he was only spared one visit to his family, and 
 that did not continue for a clear twelvemonth. 
 He used to observe that he was scarcely known to 
 his own children ; but he never complained ; on 
 the contrary, he used frequently to declare, that 
 while health and strength to serve his country 
 remained, they were his country's due : adding, 
 upon every occasion, that if he could but serve it 
 as successfully for the future as for the past he had 
 faithfully, his wife and children could never want 
 friends. 
 
 Lord CoUingwood was of the middle stature, but 
 extremely thin : his general habits were remark- 
 ably regular and temperate : he ate with an appe- 
 tite, drank moderately at dinner, but upon no other 
 occasion indulged either in wine or spirits. He 
 made it a rule in tempestuous weather, or when 
 upon any hostile emergency, to sleep upon a sofa, 
 with a flannel dressing-gown on instead of his uni- 
 form coat. Bodily exposure, cold, rain, or illness 
 were things he never heeded, and consequently 
 seldom suffered from. He would appear on deck 
 without a hat, his thin grey hair floating in the 
 wind, while heavy torrents poured down through 
 the shrouds, and thus take his observations and 
 issue his commands with perfect composure. To 
 this contempt of personal comfort, however, it 
 must be added with regret, that his country owed 
 her loss of a life which not his age, but his severe 
 and uninteniipted services, cut short.
 
 MAJOR-GENERAL ROSS. 
 
 C9 
 
 MAJOR-GENERAL ROSS. 
 
 The dooi* leadin^r to the crypt from tlie south-cast 
 ambulatory is surmounted by a talmlur moimmeut, 
 by J. Keiulrick, to the memory of Major-General 
 Ross. The design is in the dull, old-fashioned 
 allegorical style. A figure, nieiuit to represent 
 Valour, places the Amei-ican tiag upon a tomb, 
 over which Britannia bends in teal's, while Fame 
 descends to crown a bust with laurel. The in- 
 scription, a worthy adjunct to so trite and spirit- 
 less a work of ai't, is this : — 
 
 Erected at the public expense to the memory of 
 
 ]\Iajor-General Robert Ross, 
 
 Who, having undertaken and executed 
 
 an enterprise against the city of 
 
 Washington, 
 
 Capital of the United States of America, 
 
 Which was crowned with complete success. 
 
 Was killed shortly afterwards, while directing a 
 
 successful attack upon a superior force, near 
 
 the city of Baltimore, 
 
 On the 12th day of September, 1814. 
 
 Robert Ross was born at llosstrevor, near 
 Newry, in the county of Down, where his family 
 have long possessed a good property and a seat 
 celebrated for its picturesque beauties. After 
 studying at Trinity College, Dublin, he entered the 
 army at an early age, and advanced at a fair 
 rate of promotion through the different ranks of 
 Ins profession. The first battle in which his bio- 
 graphers find him distinguishing himself is that of 
 Maida, where the British, with 5000 men, defeated 
 a French force of 7000, after a well-contested 
 action, the issue of which was for some time 
 doubtful. The enemy, with a view of deciding the 
 fortune of the day, had charged with their cavalry 
 against the British left. " At this moment," wrote 
 Sir J. Stewart in his dispatch, " Lieut. -Col. Ross, 
 who that morning landed fi'ora Messina with the 
 2ud regiment, and was coming up to the army 
 during the action, having observed the movement, 
 threw his regiment ()pi)ortuncly into a small cover 
 upon their tiank, and by a heavy and well-directed 
 fire entirely disconcerted their attempt. This was 
 the last struggle of the enemy, who, astonished and 
 discouraged, now precipitately retreated from the 
 field, which was covered with carnage." 
 
 Colonel Ross's merits ujion this occasion were 
 rewarded with the appointment of aiil-de-camp to 
 the Prince Regent. After sharing in the disas- 
 trous campaign of Cornnna he joined the army in 
 Portugal, and appeared at the head of a brigade at 
 the battles of Vittoria, the Pyrenees, an<l (Jrlhez. 
 It was his brigade of the fourth division that 
 repulsed so signally the most desperate charges of 
 Soult's army in tiie battle of the Pyrenees, to 
 which Lord Wellington adverted in tli(^ following 
 ])assage : — " In thiM-ourse of this contest the gal- 
 lant fourth <livision, wliicli has been so frec|ui,iitly 
 distinguished in the army, surpassed their former 
 good conduct. Every regiment charged with the 
 Icwonet. The'ir (ilHcers set them the example ; 
 .•iiiil Major-General Ross had two horseKHhot undi'r 
 hiio." At Orthc/. again Lord Wellington recorded 
 
 " his warm approbation of the exertions of the gal- 
 lant general (Ross), whose services 1 was unfor- 
 tunately deprived of early in the battle." 
 
 This was occasioned by a wound, to which, aud 
 the battle, the major-general alludes chai'acteristi- 
 cally m the following letter : — 
 
 "St. Jean (k Lutz, March 12, 1814. 
 
 " My dear Ned, — You will be happy to hear that 
 the hit I got in the chops is likely to prove a mere 
 temporary inconvenience. I am doing remarkably 
 well, and trust in two or three weeks to be cijual 
 to the fight. My letter to Eliza (his wife), which 
 she sent to you, will have reached you, I hope, in 
 time to quiet your appreliensions respecting me. 
 She is now at my elbow, having, on the receipt of 
 mine, mounted her nmle, and, in the midst of hail, 
 rain, wind, and all the et-ceteras of bad weather, 
 set oft' from Bilboa for this place, which she 
 reached early the fifth day, a distance between 
 eighty and ninety miles, over snowy mountains and 
 bad roads. Her anxiety and s|)irit carried her 
 through, enabling her to bear the fatigue without 
 suffering from cold or bad weather. Our little 
 boy is left at Bilboa with his nurse. He is an 
 uncommon fine fellow, and would hold hard fight 
 with the king of Rome. He and his establishment 
 are to join us as soon as the weather admits of 
 movement by water. 
 
 " I was wounded early in the affair of the 27th, 
 so that personally I could be but little acquainted 
 with the proceedings of the day, which were highly 
 advantageous to us. The Gazette has, ere this, 
 supplied you with every mformation." 
 
 Before Major-General Rosa had perfectly reco- 
 vered from this wound, he was selected by Lord 
 Wellington to lead the army sent to invade the 
 United States in 1814. The capture of Washing- 
 ton, the victory of Itladensburg, and the attack on 
 Baltimore, were the exploits by which Ross greatly 
 distinguished himself in this command. Of the 
 first of these successes, his own oHicial account is 
 about the clearest. " On the night of the 24th," 
 he writes to Lord Bathurst, " after defeating the 
 army of the United States on that day, the troo]is 
 under my connnand entered and took possession of 
 the city of Washington. On the opposite bank of 
 the river the enemy w;is discovered strongly posted 
 on very commanding heights, formed in two lines ; 
 his ailvance occupying a fortified house, wiiieli with 
 artillery covered the bridge over the eastern 
 
 branch, across which the British ti ps had to 
 
 pass. A liroad and straight road, leadnig tVoni 
 the bridge to Washington, ran through the ene- 
 my's position, which was carefully del'i'uded by 
 artillery and riHemen. His first line giving way 
 was driven on the seconil, which, yielding to the 
 irresistible attack of the bayonet and a well- 
 (lirecteil charge of rockets, got into confusion and 
 tied, leaving the British inastci>i of the field. 
 Having halted for a short tinu', 1 deterniiued to 
 march upon Washington, and reached that cily at 
 eight o'clock at nigiit." 
 
 Ross hail the iilcasiu'e of supping that uiglil in
 
 70 
 
 ST, PAUL'S CATHEDRAL. 
 
 the president's house at a table laid with forty 
 covers, by Mr. Madison, for the entertainment of 
 his own general, whose success, and not his defeat, 
 had been confidently expected. Following up this 
 advantage, Ross moved on Baltimore in about a 
 fortnight, and made the necessary preparations for 
 cari-jing the town. December 12 was fixed for 
 the attack ; and on that day, while reconnoitring 
 the enemy's position, the general was picked out by 
 a rifleman and shot. The movement he had plan- 
 ned was comj)letely successful. In less than an 
 hour the Americans were routed, and put to flight 
 with considerable loss in men and guns. But 
 Ross's death seemed to operate as a spell upon the 
 expedition. While he lived, hope, confidence, and 
 victory attended the army : when he fell, the for- 
 tune of the war was entirely changed. 
 
 Of Major-General Ross it was remarked that he 
 had but one fault — excessive bi'avery. He be- 
 longed to the class of generals of which Wolfe and 
 Moore were the ornaments. He was more fortunate 
 than IMoore, dying as he did in a career of victory 
 unchecked while he led it; but he was less fortunate 
 than Wolfe, because the expedition he commanded 
 failed in its object. In personal accomplishment, 
 military skill, gentle manners, goodness of heart, 
 and, above all, in courage, he was the worthy 
 equal of those great commanders. 
 
 General Ross's death was followed by serious 
 disasters. A popular writer, "the Subaltern," who 
 fought and was dangerously wounded in the cam- 
 paign, relates, that " Sir Edward Pakenham and 
 Gener'al Gibbs jomed the forces acting against the 
 
 United States immediately after the death of Ma- 
 jor-General Ross. Sir Edward at once took upon 
 liimself the command of the division, and altered 
 the distribution of the forces made by General 
 Kean. The attack on New Orleans followed. Here 
 it was Pakenhara's intention to surprise the enemy 
 by a sudden attack before daylight, but almost all 
 his plans failed. Our troops did not arrive within 
 musquet-shot of the works until the dawn had 
 broken, and the Americans saw us advancing, and 
 opened a murderous fire of musquetry, grape, 
 round shot, and canister. General Gibbs, who led 
 the main attack, was canned oft" the field mortally 
 wounded ; General Kean, who commanded on the 
 left, was disabled ; and Sir Edward Pakenham, the 
 geueral-in-chief, was killed." 
 
 A public monument near the south door of 
 St. Paul's commemorates the services of the tvvo 
 generals who fell on this occasion. They are in- 
 troduced in their uniform, one leaning on the 
 other. It is the work of Westmacott, and some- 
 thing after the manner of Chantrey, but tame and 
 unmspu'ing. A very plain inscription is added : — 
 
 Erected at the public expense 
 
 to the memory of 
 
 Major-General the Hon. 
 
 Sir Edward Pakenham, K. B. 
 
 and of 
 
 Major-General Samuel Gibbs, 
 
 who fell gloriously on the 8th of January, 1815, 
 
 while leadmg the troops to an attack 
 of the enemy's works in front of New Orleans. 
 
 MAJOR-GENERAL GILLESPIE. 
 
 Adjoining the south-transept door of St. Paul's is 
 a good statue — every inch the commander — of this 
 office!', who, in point of daring courage, excelled 
 the bravest of his comi-ades. It is by Sir F. Chan- 
 trey, and affords a favourable specimen of his style. 
 The inscription is remarkably plain : 
 
 Erected at the public expense 
 
 to the memory of 
 
 Major-General Robert Rollo Gillespie, 
 
 Who fell gloriously, 
 
 on the 31st of October, 1814, 
 
 While leading the troops to an assault 
 
 in the fortress of Kalunga, 
 
 In the kingdom of Nepaul. 
 
 Robert Gillespie was born at Comber, in the 
 county of Down, January 21, 17G6. The family is 
 Scotch by descent, and of considerable antiquity. 
 Their settlement in Ireland was a prudent conse- 
 quence of the troubles of 1715, during which the 
 grandfather of the subject of this sketch, his 
 brother-in-law Lord Rollo, and his relative Lord 
 Balfour of Burleigh, were all concerned for the 
 Pretender. Being intended for the bar, young 
 Robert was sent to school, and liberally educated, 
 m England. A strong natural preference for a 
 military life, however, led to his obtaining a cor- 
 netcy in the 3rd Dragoons, or Carbineers, in his 
 eighteenth year. Thp regiment was then quar- 
 tered at Maryborough in the Queen's Ct)unty, 
 
 where a painful event took place, in which he was 
 a principal actor. It is noticeable here as an 
 early instance of that prompt and desperate 
 courage which was the main characteristic of his 
 subsequent career. A brother officer happening 
 to quarrel with Mr. Barrington, brother of the 
 well-known but unscrupulous humourist Sir Jonah 
 Barrington, judge of the Admiralty Court in Dub- 
 lin, chose Gillespie for his second. The affair 
 was arranged upon the ground without fighting ; 
 but, as the parties were i-etiring, ]\lr. Barrington 
 dropped a remark, imputing want of courage to 
 the officers of the regiment generally. At this, 
 young Gillespie took offence, and, challenging Mr. 
 Barrington upon the spot, it was agreed that the 
 courage of the parties should be tested by firing 
 from either end of a pocket-handkerchief. They 
 took their places accordingly : in the left hand tlie 
 handkerchief was held, in the right the pistol ; 
 and, as if preparation enough for certain death 
 was not thus made, a second pistol was laid at the 
 foot of each combatant. They fired — the cock of 
 Gillespie's pistol caught his adversary's ball, 
 whence, glancing off, it hit a button on his coat, 
 and slightly wounded his breast. His own shot 
 took fatal effect — Mr. Barrington fell dead upon 
 the spot. For a time the survivor fled from jus- 
 tice, but surrendered when the assizes came on, and 
 was acquitted by the jury. 
 
 Obtaining a lieutenancy in the 20th Light Dra- 
 goons in 1791, he proceeded with his regiment to
 
 MAJOR-GENERAL GILLESPIE. 
 
 71 
 
 Jamaica in 17^2, was there attacked by tlie yellow 
 fever, and obliged to return to Ireland for the 
 benefit i>f his health. In I7!):5 lie was engaged in 
 the I'eduction of St. Domingo, where after much 
 harassing service, during which he received several 
 wounds, he was promoted to a troop, but again 
 obliged to recruit his constitution by another voy- 
 age home. At the close of 1795 we find him again 
 on duty, and in 179C promoted to a majority. At 
 this period he joined in defending Port an Prince 
 against the l>lacks under the celebrated Toussauit 
 L'Ouverture, and signalized himself by the extra- 
 ordinary success with which, under fearful odds, 
 lie defended his life against a band of assassins. A 
 truce had been entered into for the protection of 
 the pei-sons and properties of the inhabitants, and 
 the evacuation of the island by the British. The 
 necessary arrangements for carrying these mea- 
 sures into effect had been entrusted to Major Gil- 
 lespie, who resided in a small house outside the 
 town. At midnight eight armed assassins broke in, 
 to seek his life. Aroused from sleep by the cries 
 of his servant, Gillespie rushed down stairs in his 
 shirt, armed only with a sword. The eight men 
 set upon him dii-ectly ; but nothing daunted by 
 surprise, or their numbei-s, he defended Iiimself 
 heroically, and after a long and violent conflict 
 succeeded in killing no less than six of them. The 
 two others sunk desj)erately wounded, as did the 
 major himself, who was found by the j)atrol on its 
 next round exhausted and senseless from the loss of 
 blood. Upon recovering from the injuries he re- 
 ceived on this occasion, he returned to Jamaica, 
 and succeeded to the lieutenant-colonelcy of his 
 regiment. When he left the island, the thanks of 
 the inhabitants, and a sword valued at 100/., were 
 publicly voted to him. 
 
 Exchanging into the I9th Dragoons, he set out 
 for India in 1805, and gathered high honours at 
 the insurrection of Vellore. A conspiracy, formed 
 by some native chiefs and the guardians of Tippoo 
 Saib's children, aimed at the independence of India 
 and the extermination of the Biitish. The move- 
 m(Mit began by a sudden attack on the barracks of 
 Vellore, where the whole garrison, consisting of 
 the 23rd regiment and four companies <jf tiw (JOtli, 
 was massacred, with the exception of two officers, 
 who escaped, and a small but heroic body under 
 Sei'geant Brodie, who succeeded in reaching the 
 fortress-gate, and contrived to hold it out against 
 their assailants with the guard of the <J9tli. Lieute- 
 nant-Colonel Gillespie was at this time twenty miles 
 off, at Arcot, where tidings of the insurrection 
 reached him at six o'clock in the morning, as he 
 was about to take a ride. Putting himself at the 
 head of a troop of the 19th Dragoons, he ordered 
 two pieces of artillery to follow, and galloped off 
 to Vellore. In his anxiety to reach tlie scene of 
 danger he outstripped his men, and rode up to the 
 fortress-gate alone, when; he was enthusiastii-ally 
 hailed by the main-guard, who still maintained 
 their position. Brodii; was the first to observe 
 him. The sergeant had not seen him f(jr some 
 years, but he recognisi-d him at once, exclaiming, 
 " If Major Gillespie is alive, here he comes, and 
 we are safe." The gallant fellow was not mistaken 
 in liis anticipations. Gillespie no sooner reacheil 
 the gate than he plunged into the fosse, and swim- 
 ming across, with liis swonl in his mouth, was 
 drawn up, in the face of u tremendous volley, on 
 
 the opposite side by a ro]ie made of soldiers' belts* 
 to the top of the gateway. There he took the 
 conunand of the brave band of survivoi*s, and as 
 soon as the reinforcement from Arcot came up 
 ordered the artillery to blow open the gates ; upon 
 which he dashed through at the head of the troops, 
 and, after a brief but brave attack, disjiei-sed the 
 enemy, and quelled the insurrection. There are 
 few achievements in the military annals of Great 
 Britain which ecli|)se in glory this chivalrous ex- 
 ploit. The Governor-(!eneral, in forwarding ;ui 
 account of it home, described it not inaptly as a 
 " military wonder." 
 
 In l>i(>7, the 20th being ordei'cd to Europe, the 
 lieutenant-colonel exchanged into the {Uh, or Royal 
 Irish Light Dragoons, and soon after commanded 
 the cavalry in Bengal. In 1809 he was appointed 
 to the 25th, with the rank of colonel by brevet, 
 and a command at Bangalore. Upon the exjjc- 
 dition against the island of Java, in 1811, he sailed 
 from Madras roads, with the first division of the 
 army, under Sir S. Auchmuty. The enemy were 
 strongly entrenched on the road to the princi])al 
 town, and were defended in front by four gims. 
 Gillespie, at the head of his dragoons, turned their 
 flank, and charging them with the bayonet, ])ut 
 them to a complete rout, and drove them under 
 the batteries of Cornells. He led in person the 
 principal attack upon this fortress on the 2()th of 
 August, having stormed the redoubts successively 
 in the face of a ti'emeudous fire, and, being ably 
 assisted by Colonel Gibbs, obtained possession of 
 the place after a sanguinary conllict, in which he 
 killed a colonel with his own hand, and took two 
 generals prisoners. Sir S. Anchnnity, describing 
 the con(iuest of Java, wrote to Lord Minto: — "I 
 nnist not oTuit mentioning to your lordshi]) the 
 very particular nu'rit of Colonel Gilles]iie, to whosi' 
 assistance in planning the attack, and to whose 
 gallantry, talent, and judgment in executing it, 
 success is mainly to be attributed." The expe- 
 dition to Palimbang, in the island of Sumatra, fol- 
 lowed, with the .sole command of which Colonel 
 Gillespie w:is entrusted, and, by his gallantry and 
 decision, proved himself, in every way, worthy of 
 the service. Here he performed, ])erlia]is, one of 
 the most daring feats of his whole career in his 
 attack on the Sultan, who had wantonly massacred 
 all the Dutch settlers in his dominions. Wlun the 
 British armament reached the river, the mouth of 
 which was strongly fortified by batteries, intelli- 
 gence arrived that the Sultan, after committing 
 horrible carnage, had deserted his capital, leaving 
 strict orders that every Chinese and other foreign 
 settler should be slaughtered. 'J'lie colont'l, anxious 
 to prevent the wanton destruction of Immau life, 
 ))ushed on in a small canoe, with about a dozen 
 soldiers. In the middle of a dark and stormy 
 night he reached Palimbang, where vast ci'owds of 
 ferocious natives <)])i)oseil his landing. .'^i>ringing 
 boldly on shore, he pushed his way to the .Sulian's 
 palace, which was already swinniiing with blood. 
 ( )n his entrance a Malay came up w itii his dagger, or 
 " erish," concealed in his sleeve. He was secretly 
 j)reparing to stab the colonel, when a Hash of light- 
 ning exposed the weapon and tlio a-ssassin to the 
 vengeance of the soldiers. The colonel, with his 
 handful of men, kejit possession of the |ial:u'e, in 
 th<,' midst of this hostile iMipulation, until the rest 
 of the expedition .'ii-i-ivi cl : llie Ipintlur of the
 
 72 
 
 ST. PAUL'S CATHEDRAL. 
 
 fugitive Sultan was then placed on the throne. 
 During these operations in Sumatra, the island of 
 Java was again thrown into a state of insurrection 
 by the native chiefs, headed by the Sultan of Ma- 
 taran, who had concentrated his foi-ce, and fortified 
 it with ninety-nine pieces of cannon. Colonel Gil- 
 lespie obtained a complete victory and the surrender 
 of the Sultan. The commander-in-chief, speaking 
 of this service, for which the colonel was promoted 
 to the rank of major-general, says, " That he must 
 ever consider the storming of the crattan, at Djoe- 
 jocarta, as among the foremost of those military 
 achievements which adorn the annals of our coun- 
 try ;" and he desires to offer " the tribute of his 
 warmest thanks and applause to General Gillespie 
 for the energy, skill, and valour evinced by him in 
 the conduct of the arduous service in question, the 
 successful termination of which has superadded to 
 all the splendour of heroism the substantial ad- 
 vantage of establishing the British supremacy over 
 Java, and the tranquillity of the island, on the firm 
 foundations of justice and power." 
 
 In Oct. 1813, Gen. Gillespie returned to Bengal, 
 and shortly after took the command at Meerat, 
 when another instance of his com-age and presence 
 of mind is thus related by Colonel Smith : — 
 " Sir Robert Rollo Gillespie, being present on the 
 race- course of Calcutta, during one of the great 
 Hindoo festivals, when several hundred thousand 
 people are assembled to witness all kmds of 
 shows, was suddenly alarmed by the shrieks of the 
 crowd, and was informed, that a tiger had escaped 
 from his keepers ; the general immediately called 
 for his horse, and grasping a boar-spear, which 
 was in the hands of one among the crowd, rode to 
 attack this formidable enemy ; tlie tiger, probably, 
 was amazed at finding himself in the middle of 
 such a number of shrieking beings, flying from 
 him in all directions ; but the moment he per- 
 ceived Sir Robert, he crouched with the attitude 
 of preparing to spring at him, and that instant the 
 gallant soldier passed his horse, in a leap, over 
 the tiger's back, and struck the spear thi'ough his 
 spine." The horse, a small gray, was alterwai'ds 
 sent home by him from Meerat, as a pi'esent to 
 the Prince Regent. 
 
 The depredations of the Ghoortkalees had caused 
 an army, in two divisions, to be sent to their country, 
 one commanded by General Gillespie, and the other 
 by Colonel Ochterloney ; on the foi-mer devolved the 
 dangerous task of forcing a passage through the 
 moimtaius, guarded, at mtervals, by the liill-forts 
 peculiar to India. In Octobei", 1814, Gillespie's 
 division advanced into* the valley of the Dhoon, 
 and from thence proceeded to cai-ry the strong 
 fortress of Kalunga, situated on a steep mountain, 
 surrounded with an almost impenetrable jungle, 
 
 and well commanded and stockaded at every point 
 of approach. Arrangements were, therefore, made 
 to carry the place by surprise ; but this plan, 
 under the direction of Colonel Mawby, havmg 
 failed, provision was made for an immediate as- 
 sault. Two columns, under the command of Major 
 Kelly and Captain East, were to make a detour, 
 for the purpose of assailing the fortress, on dif- 
 ferent points, simultaneously with the attack in 
 front ; unfortunately, they did not hear the signal, 
 and the principal attempt being made without the 
 intended diversion in its favour, failed, notwith- 
 standing the devoted courage of the assailants, and 
 the bravery of the 8th Royal Irish, who took the 
 lead with that gallantry for which they have always 
 been remarkable. A withering fii-e swept away 
 the advancing ranks like stubble ; the defences 
 were found more foi'midable than had been at first 
 supposed ; the storming party began to waver ; 
 at this critical moment. General Gillespie, with 
 that chivalrous gallantry which had ever made 
 death or victory the watchwords of his career, 
 placed himself at theii" head, and led them on in 
 person to the assault. It hailed grape and mus- 
 quetry ; but he was resolved to take the place, or 
 perish in the attempt : his gallant daring availed 
 him nothing. Within a few paces of the thicket, 
 whilst in the act of waving his hat, and cheering 
 on his men, he was shot through the heart, and 
 fell into the arms of Mr. Maudesley, the late 
 quarter-master, by whom he was carried off the 
 field. Thus perished, in the prime of life, while 
 his laurels were yet green, a soldier whose early 
 career gave promise of the most brilliant future — 
 whose skill in arms 
 the theme of universal admiration 
 
 and chivalrous coui'age were 
 
 " His fate was destined to a foreign land, 
 A petty fortress and an unknown hand." 
 
 An mteresting anecdote is told of a favourite 
 black charger, which carried Sir Robert Gillespie 
 in most of his battles. It was purchased, as a 
 memorial of their commander, by the privates of 
 the 8th Dragoons, who paid 100?. for him. He 
 was always led at the head of the regiment, while 
 on march, and regularly took up his position at the 
 colour-stand on reviews. When the regiment 
 returned home, their funds being low, he was 
 bought by Colonel Smith, who provided a paddock 
 for him, to end his days in peace ; but, when the 
 troops marched, and he heard the bugles sound no 
 longer, his condition declined, he refused to eat, 
 and, on the first opportunity, galloped off from 
 his groom, and went to his old station, on the 
 parade, where, after neighing aloud, the poor 
 animal dropped down and died. 
 
 SIR THOMAS PICTON, K.B. 
 
 It would be a waste of criticism to comment upon 
 the very ugly monument raised by Parliament to 
 the memory of Sir T. Picton : it adjoins the door 
 in the north transept of St. Paul's, and altogether 
 is a labour of the dullest fiction most inartificially 
 
 displayed. Genius, personified hi the statue of a 
 winged youth, leaiis on the shoulder of an ancient 
 warrior, who is designed to represent Valour, in 
 the act of receiving a wreath of laurel from the 
 hands of Victory. Behind this group is placed a
 
 SIR THOMAS PICTON, K.B. 
 
 pillar, surmounted with a bust of the deceased. 
 The inscription is as dispirited as the sculpture : — 
 
 Erected at the public expense 
 
 to Lieut. -Gen. Sir Thomas Pictox, K.Q.C.B. 
 
 who, after distinguishing himself in the victories of 
 
 Buzaco, Fuentes de Onor, Ciudad Rodrigo, 
 
 Badajos, Vittoria, the Pyrenees, Orthes, 
 
 and Toulouse, 
 
 terminated his long and glorious militaiy service 
 
 in the ever memorable battle of Waterloo, 
 
 to the splendid success of which 
 
 his genius and valour eminently contributed, 
 
 ou the xviii of June, mdcccxv. 
 
 Picton was a native of Wales, where his family 
 held ancient possessions : he entered the army as 
 an ensign, in the I2th regiment of foot, during 
 the year 1771. In 1773 he was quartered at 
 Gibraltar, under Eliot, Lord Heathticld, where he 
 obtained a lieutenancy in 177^, and remained 
 actively occupied until the year 1778. He ob- 
 tained his first company in the 75th foot, in which 
 he remained a captain for sixteen years, that is, 
 from 1778 to 1794. In 17«;i, his head-quarters 
 being at Bristol, a mutiny broke out in his regi- 
 ment, in eonse(juence of w liieh, the men were dis- 
 banded, and the ofticers put upon half-i)ay, but 
 not before Picton was honoured with the thanks of 
 the commander-in-chief for his conduct on the 
 emergency. 
 
 Year after year passed and found him still 
 unemployed : from the onset of his career he was 
 remarkable for professional ardour, but now led 
 an anxious life of economy and retii'ement, peti- 
 tioning in vain for a commission. At last, worn 
 out by the disappointments he met at home, he 
 set sail for the VVest Indies, in 17!)4, and, landing 
 at Jamaica, was fortunate enough to obtain a 
 majority m the G8th foot, from Sir John Vaughan, 
 who at the same time nominated him an aid-de- 
 camp, and soon after made him deputy quarter- 
 master-general of the island, a preferment which 
 gave the local rank of lieutenant-colonel. Two 
 years after, a vacancy occurred at the head of hi;, 
 department, which he sought to fill ; but another 
 officer was put above him, and he was on the point 
 of returning to England, when Sir Ral[)h Aber- 
 crombie, who had just reached that station at the 
 head of an offensive army, engaged his assistance 
 in the approaching hostilities. The offer being 
 promjitly accepted, he took an active j)art in the 
 reducti(m of Lucie, where the opinion entertained 
 of his abilities may be estimatinl by tin; tenor of 
 a jjroclamation which required, that all orders 
 coming from Lieutenant-Colonel Picton should l)e 
 considered as orders coming from the connnander- 
 in-chief. He next received the lieutenant-colonelcy 
 of the (>Hlh foot, with which he fought at the 
 storming of St. Vincent's, tlii'U repaired to Mar- 
 tiniqui; with Ab(;rcroml)ic, anil, afti'r a short inter- 
 val, returned to England in the same coni])any. 
 
 During the course; of th(; sann- year, Abercrombie 
 resumed his coiinnaml in the West I Tidies, and was 
 again :issisted by Picton. Trinidad being reduced, 
 i'icton's services were rewarde'd with the ajipoint- 
 nient of governor of tlie island. I'"i'<)m this period, 
 the y(;ar 17'i'i, until 1(102, wlun tin; adiiiiriisiration 
 of the place was put midri- the coiilrr)! of conniiis- 
 sioiiers, he continued to discharge the duties of his 
 
 office with a zeal which secured to him acknow- 
 ledgments from the various connnanders-in-chief 
 upon the stxition, and the thanks of the ministry 
 at home. Nevertheless, the circumstances under 
 which he resigned his authority were attended 
 with so loud a popular clamour, that a court- 
 martial was held, fronj which, however, he was 
 honourably acijuitted. One fact, in particular, 
 was then established against him, wliioh operated 
 greatly to dis])arage his character : — it was swoni 
 that a female slave had been subjected, under his 
 authority, to the tortm-e of a ffogging, for the pur- 
 pose of extorting from her a confession of some 
 theft she was accused of having committed. On 
 the other hand, it appcai-ed that he wiis all along 
 opposed to the punishment, and w'as only induced 
 to sanction it at the instance of the legal advisers 
 for the prosecution, who showed that the Spanish 
 law, by which the island was then governed, gave 
 them an undoubted right to connnit the act. 
 
 So well satisfied was the War Oftice with the 
 result of this hivestigation, that Picton was made 
 a colonel, January 1, 180;j. April 25, 1808, he 
 was promoted to be a major-general ; and when 
 the injudicious expedition to Waleheren was pro- 
 jected, during the following year, he was put at 
 the head of a brigade, w Inch assisted at the siege of 
 Flushing, a town of which he subsequently became 
 governor. Consideralile praise was bestowed upon 
 Picton for the solicitude with which he tended the 
 suffering troops, and the kindness with which he 
 assisted the destitute inhabitants u])on that dis- 
 astrous occasion ; but he was oldiged to bend, in 
 his turn, to the pernicious inffuence of the climate, 
 and retui-ned to England, greatly reduced iu health 
 by fever and ague. 
 
 Scarcely was he recovered from the effects of 
 these enervating disorders, when he was attached 
 to the staff of the peninsular anny in Portugal, 
 and entrusted with the connnand of the 3d divi- 
 sion. When Lord Wellington, having passed the 
 valley of Mondego, collected all his forces on the 
 Sierra do Busaco, and was there attacked on the 
 25th, 2(;th, and 27th of September, 1810, by Ney 
 and Regnier, Picton, on the right wing, jier- 
 formed a cons]iicuous part, and was victorious 
 wherever he fought. His name was re])eatedly 
 mentioned with praise in the Gazette, and he was 
 gratified with the colonelcy of the 77th foot, early 
 in the following year. 
 
 After being present at Massena's attack near 
 Fuentes de Onor, he mannuvred his divisidu at 
 the siege of Ciudad Rodrig<i, January 1!», 1812, with 
 a precision and effect which would hiiw been more 
 famous, had he not been so gallantly ennilated by 
 the other commanding ofticers. In less than half 
 an hour after the attack commenced, the British 
 succeeded in forming their lines on the ramparts 
 (if the town, and this furniidalile siege was quickly 
 concluded. 
 
 At the succeeding storming of Badajos*, which 
 
 * Two olllcers, Generals Craufurd and Mnckinnon, who 
 fell on lliis occasion, are connnenioialed in a talilet wlilcli 
 occupies the jianel ahove the nionuinciU to Captain Weitt- 
 cott, in the north transept of St. Taul'H. It is the work of 
 llacon, Jini., and not reniarkalile for merit. Upoi\ a donhle 
 tonih leaMH, at one end, a soldier, said to represent a llixh- 
 laniler, and at the other is sealed rather an awkwiird li^ure 
 of Victory, crowning a stand of colours, which oci-npics the 
 centre, with laurel. The exireniitics ar<' worked ull with a
 
 74 
 
 ST. PAUL'S CATHEDRAL. 
 
 submitted after a siege of eighteen days, Picton 
 wrested higher honours. Upon this occasion the 
 obstacles opposed to the British, the exertions they 
 had to make, and the losses they sustained, were 
 arduously great. Their advance was broken by 
 innumerable palisades and clumps of stakes, to 
 which dirk-blades and bayoiaets were lashed in a 
 slanting position ; the French were drawn up eight 
 deep, with one rank firing while the other loaded ; 
 and no less than two ditches and a most ingenious 
 chevaux-de-frise protected their immediate fi'ont. 
 The assault was undertaken by escalade, and the 
 fire opened at ten o'clock at night. By eleven 
 Picton had adroitly converted a feint into a real 
 attack, had carried all before him, and established 
 his men in the castle, whence a violent effort was 
 made to dislodge him. But he repulsed every 
 charge, and secured his possession, full an hour 
 before the other detachments were able to over- 
 come the obstacles opposed to their progress. The 
 conquest, however, was rapidly completed at every 
 jioint, and of 5000 men wlao formed the garrison, 
 1200 were slaughtered, and the residue taken pri- 
 soners. 
 
 The Earl of Liverpool, in moving the thanlcs of 
 the House of Lords to Lord Wellington and his 
 army for this gallant action, introduced a particular 
 compliment to the subject of this sketch. " The 
 conduct of Major-General Picton," he observed, 
 " could not fail to excite the most lively feelings of 
 admiration ; for it had inspired the army with con- 
 fidence, and exhibited an example of science and 
 bravery which had been surpassed by no other 
 officer." 
 
 This blow delivered Portugal from the French. 
 After blowing up the fortifications at Burgos, they 
 made a stand at Vittoria*, under Joseph Buona- 
 
 Lion pawing a fallen Eagle, a gun and shield carved with 
 the arms of Spain, &c. 
 The epitaph is succinct : — 
 
 Erected by the nation 
 
 to Major-General Robert Craufurd, 
 
 and Major-General Henry Mackinnon, 
 
 Who fell at Ciudad Rodrigo, Jan. IS, 1S12. 
 
 General Craufurd had seen a good deal of service, and 
 held a command in almost all the previous battles on the 
 Peninsula. His comrade's death is thus described in the 
 United Service Journal : — 
 
 " I saw General Mackinnon lying dead. He was on his 
 back just under the rampart on the inside, that is, the 
 town side. He had, I think, rushed forward and fallen 
 down the perpendicular wall, probably at the moment of 
 receiving his mortal wound. He was stripped of every thing 
 except his shirt and pantaloons : even his boots were taken 
 off. He was a tall, thin man. , There were no others dead 
 near him, and he was not on the French side of the travirs 
 neither. It is said he was blown up. I should say, de- 
 cidedly not. There was no appearance indicating that such 
 had been his fate: neither his skin, nor the posture in 
 which he was lying, led me to think it. When a man is 
 blown up, his hands and face, I should think, could not 
 escape : I never saw any one whose face was not scorched. 
 Mackinnon's was pale, and free from the marks of fire. How 
 strange! but with the exception, I did not see a man of the 
 3d division who had been stripped." 
 
 • The battle of Vittoria cost the life of Colonel Cadogan, 
 an officer, who has received a national memorial in St. Paul's 
 Cathedral. It is a panel in the south-east ambulatory, and 
 may be referred to as a model of monumental sculpture. 
 Sir F. Chantrey is the artist. When the Colonel was dis- 
 
 parte and Marshal Jourdan, and endeavoured to 
 protect a large train of artillery and baggage con- 
 centrated m that place. Here Picton, now pro- 
 moted to the rank of a lieutenant-general, and 
 decorated with the grand cross of a Knight Com- 
 mander of the Bath, again conducted the third 
 division of the British army, and earned his full 
 share of the honours which crowned the easy vic- 
 tory *. 
 
 After co-operating, with his usual good fortune, 
 in the actions at Orthez and the heights of the 
 Pyrenees, he signalized himself at the battle of 
 Toulouse by one of those daring movements which 
 so strongly marked his military character. Drivmg 
 the enemy before him with extraordinary rapidity, 
 he compelled them to retire behind a fortified 
 bridge, which afforded a passage over a canal run- 
 ning into the Garonne. Even this position he 
 attempted to carry, but failed, and suffered a heavy 
 slaughter of his division. 
 
 The battle of Waterloo brought the fame of 
 Picton to its climax. Upon that momentous occa- 
 sion he commanded the fifth division of the allied 
 army, and was stationed at that hottest point of 
 action, the memorable farm-house of Quatre-Bras. 
 Once established in his post, nothing could dislodge 
 him from it : repeated assaults were made upon 
 his lines by large bodies of infantry and cavalry, 
 supported by an immense power of artillery ; fresh 
 remforcements continually poured in ; but Picton 
 repulsed them all with the steadiest courage. At 
 last the French cavah-y formed themselves in con- 
 
 abled from remaining in the battle, he desired his men to 
 convey him to an adjoining eminence from which he could 
 witness the issue of the contest. This is the natural 
 circumstance judiciously seized upon by the sculptor for 
 the commemoration of his subject ; and he has executed 
 it with marked feeling and perspicuous ability. Here we 
 enjoy a representation of the dying officer, home along by 
 his men, with his face still turned towards the enemy. 
 One standard-bearer with his eagle appears trodden under 
 foot, while another is turning to fly, and to these two epi- 
 sodes is the allegory confined, which implies the defeat and 
 rout of the French. Art is thus ingeniously made sub- 
 servient to historical truth, and the performance demands 
 undivided approbation. 
 
 • Concurrent with these enterprises was the siege of 
 Bayonne, at which Major-General Hay was shot by a ran- 
 dom ball during the night. The House of Commons de- 
 creed a monument to his memory, which was finished by 
 H. Hopper, and stands on one side of the north door, enter- 
 ing into St. Paul's Cathedral. The deceased, habited in his 
 regimentals, appears sinking into the arms of an athletic 
 attendant ; a sentinel stands by in an attitude of grief, and in 
 the background a guard is seen marching his rounds. So 
 far the design claims the praise of an historical event 
 naturally worked out, but it is far from being a good piece 
 of sculpture. The man upon whom Hay falls is naked, 
 and seems to be placed as he is, merely for the sake of a 
 display : there is not a trace of expression about him. As 
 to the sentinel on the other side, he is indeed a mere tixture. 
 
 The inscription is simple : — 
 
 Erected at the public expense 
 
 to the memory of 
 
 Major-General Andrew Hat. 
 
 He was bom in the county of Banff, in Scotland, 
 
 And fell on the 14th April, 1814, 
 
 Before the fortress of Bayonne, in France, 
 
 In the 52nd year of his age, and the 34th of his services. 
 
 Closing a military life, marked by 
 
 zeal, prompt decision, and signal intrepidity.
 
 THE HON. SIR WILLIAM PONSONBY, K.15. 
 
 75 
 
 siilcrable force, and dasheil forward aj^ainst his 
 infantry with a terrible shock. Pieton drew his 
 men into compact order, antl took the desperate 
 resohition of charn;ini:; bayonets against the ad- 
 vauciiifj cavah'v. This unparalleled movement he 
 gallautly led in person, and struck a panic amongst 
 the enemy, wliich completed their overthrow ; but 
 in tliis moment of uncommon success he was killed. 
 When his body was examined, it was discovered 
 that he had been wounded i)y a ball on the 16th, 
 but had modestly concealed the fact, and remained 
 on duty, though the injnry was severe. His re- 
 mains were landed at Deal, during the course of 
 the month, with st^te honours ; and after being 
 escorted with military honours from Canterbury to 
 London, were deposited in the burial-ground, on 
 the Uxbridge road, belonging to the parish of St. 
 George, Hanover-square, on the 25th of July. The 
 inscription on the cottin fixed his age at 57. 
 
 Of the many celebrated officers who fought under 
 the Duke of Wellington in the Peninsular war, no 
 one acquired a higher reputation than Lieutenant- 
 General Sir Thomas Pieton. Amongst liis military 
 associates he was recognized as the pupil of Aber- 
 crombie, and Wellington's rhiht-hand : liis, too, w;is 
 commonly called the fijht'uhj division, in his pro- 
 fessional capacity he was remarkable for confident 
 ability, severe discipline, imperturbable coolness 
 and resolution, and accurate tactics. In these 
 qualities it has lieen affirmed, by competent judges, 
 that he may have been equalled, but was never 
 
 excelled. There w.is a stern priiicijile of valour 
 instinctive in his character, which made the most 
 familiar actions of his life imitosing. His moi-:il 
 character was original. Inilexible in his opinions, 
 and consistent in his actions, he never conde- 
 scended to flatter ; and neither concealed a truth, 
 nor glossed over an error, for the sake of interest 
 or promotion. He has been jn-oiiounced the ])ure 
 pattern of a soldier's honour ; and on these ac- 
 counts it seems to have been observed, not without 
 reason, that, though his services were never under- 
 rated, they were never adequately rewarded. Of 
 the exemplary maimer in which he discharged the 
 duties of social life, of his kindness, benevolence, 
 and generosity, the most interesting anecdotes are 
 told. The profits realized by his emi)loynu'nts in 
 the West Indies he laid out on an estate in Trini- 
 dad. Soon after, the death of a rich uncle enabled 
 him to purchase another projicrty in Wales : but 
 he distributed the greater portion of his income 
 amongst his relations, and subsisted himsi'lf upon 
 little more than his pay. ^^'hen the inipiiry was 
 first instituted into his Trinidad governorship, the 
 inhabitiints of the island held a meeting, and sub- 
 scribed a sum of 5000/., which they resolved to 
 present to him in testimony of their gratitnde for 
 the benefits they enjoyed under his administration. 
 At first he showed great repny;nance to receive the 
 money ; but soon after, a fire breaking out on the 
 island, he paid liack the whole snm into a fund 
 which was oi)encd for the relief of the sutt'erers. 
 
 THE HON. SIR WILLIAM PONSONBY, K.B. 
 
 The Hon. Sir W. Ponsonby, K.B., one of Picton's 
 bravest comrades, has a monument voted by par- 
 liament, which adjoins the northern entrance into 
 tlie cathedral. There is great ambition iu the 
 design, which is by R. Theed, R.A., and great 
 defects in the ex(!Cution of it by E. H. Bailey, li.A. 
 Ponsonby's death was occasioned by the weakness 
 of his horse, which broke down under him. The 
 animal is introduced in the act of sinking, while 
 the rider, a naked fi<)ure,\s placed in the foreground 
 in a strained, kneeling attitude, to receive a wreath 
 of laurel from the hands of a statue of Victory. 
 Nature and art, truth and fiction, have seldom 
 been combined with less taste or a poorer effect. 
 The pedestal has no inscri])tion. 
 
 Sir William Ponsonby, son of tlie Earl of Bes- 
 borough, was a native of Ireland. He enti-red tli(' 
 army as a comet in an inde])endent com|)any, 
 removed into the 8:ird T'oot with the rank of lieute- 
 nant, and became a major in the Irish Fenciblis 
 on the 5th of December, 1794. Exchanging into 
 the 5lh dragoon guards, in 179'{, he oldained a 
 licutinant-colonelcy in the army dui-ing the year 
 UiOO, anil rose to )k; lieutenant-colonel of his regi- 
 ment in 1!!0:{. On the 5th of July, DUO, he was 
 promoted to a colonelcy in the army, and honoured 
 with the order of the Bath ; and on the 4th of 
 June, lf!l.'{, was gazetted a major-gc^nerai. Ho 
 served in almost all the wars of his time ; but, 
 being jireelud<"d Ijy the nature of bis service from 
 the honour of cidinnamling a division, ha<l his 
 ciianci'S of distinction eiinlimd to the disjilay of 
 personal bravery. I"or this quality he wa.s emi- 
 
 nently distinguished, and repeatedly praised. At 
 tlie battle of Waterloo he lost his life by an excess 
 of intrejiidity ; for, advancing before his men in 
 the lieat of a charge, he leaped into a jilouglu-d 
 field, attended only by a single aid-de-eainp, wluri- 
 his horse fiiundered in the soft mould, and he was 
 jirecipitated to the ground just as the enemy were 
 advancing at a riqiid pace. Troop after troop rode 
 over his body, which, at the close of the day, was 
 found transfixed by seven lances. Several of his 
 and Picton's comrad(!s, who fell iu the Peninsula, 
 are now to be mentioned. 
 
 Major-General Mackenzie and Brigadier-Gene- 
 ral Langworth, two otficers who fell at Talavera, 
 are distinguished by a taliular monuiiHUt, which 
 was erected through a i>arliameiilary grant, and 
 fills the panel aliove the l)ust of iMajor-Geiieral 
 Dundas, in tlie north transept of St. Paul's latlie- 
 dral. It is composed of a tomb wrought with two 
 wreaths, near which is a mournful personification 
 of Victory, and two boys, tlie one crowned with 
 oaken boughs, and the other wearing a helmet, 
 and exhibiting in his band a broken l-'rench eagle. 
 The object of the work is thus indicated : — 
 Naiionai, Mom'mi;nt 
 to .Major-tieneral 
 J. K. MACiiKNzii:, 
 And I5rigadier-(ieneral 
 11. Lanijwokth, 
 who fi'll at 
 Talaveni, 
 July '2«i, 
 
 Mli(<CIX.
 
 76 
 
 ST. PAUL'S CATHEDRAL. 
 
 The victory of Albuei'a is also commemorated in 
 St. Paul's Cathedral by a monument to two officers 
 who were killed in the slaughter it occasioned. 
 The one is tabular, executed by Chantrey, and 
 placed in the western ambulatory of the north 
 transept. Like the other works of the same judi- 
 cious artist, the design is properly founded upon 
 the actual circumstances which led to the per- 
 formance. Major-General Houghton was mortally 
 wounded during a spirited attack, and is here re- 
 presented rising from the ground after he had 
 received the ball which killed him, but still ani- 
 mated with the ardor of battle, directing his men, 
 wlio are introduced charging of bayonets. In the 
 background is a figure of Victory, which, by-the- 
 by, mars the beauty of a neatly-wrought scene. 
 She holds the British colours m one hand, and with 
 the other extends a wreath to crown the fallen 
 soldier. The epitaph is short : — 
 
 Erected at the public expense to the memory of 
 
 Majoi'-General Daniel Houghton, 
 who fell gloriously, l(Jth May, 1811, at Albuera. 
 
 The opposite panel is devoted to Sir William 
 Myers, who has a mommient by Kendrick, which 
 affords a capital specimen of the ridiculous ex- 
 tremes to which allegory may be carried. Her- 
 cules and Minerva, or, as they are explained in the 
 guide-books. Wisdom and Valour, meet before a 
 tomb, which is surmounted by a bust, and for- 
 mally shake hands. The inscription is somewhat 
 curiously particular, stating rather what the sub- 
 ject was not, than what he was. This is the order 
 in which it runs : — 
 
 Erected at the public expense to the memory of 
 
 Lieutenant-Colonel Sir William Myers, Bart., 
 
 Who fell gloriously in the battle of Albuera, 
 
 May ICth, 1811, 
 
 Aged 27 years. 
 
 His illustrious Commander the Duke of Wellington 
 
 bore this 
 
 honourable testimony to his services and abilities. 
 
 In a letter to Lady Mvers, written from Elvas, 
 
 May 20, 1811. 
 
 " It will be some consolation to you to know that 
 
 your son fell in the action, in which, if possible, 
 
 The British troops surpassed all their former deeds, 
 
 and at 
 
 the head of the Fusileer Brigade, to which a great 
 
 part of the 
 
 final success of the day was to be attributed. 
 
 As an officer, he had already been 
 
 highly distinguished. 
 
 And, if Providence had prolonged his life, he 
 
 promised 
 
 to become one of the brightest ornaments to his 
 
 profession. 
 
 And an honour to his country." 
 
 There are yet two monuments more in St. Paul's 
 Cathedral, which were occasioned by the capture of 
 Salamanca. The one is in the panel above the 
 parliamentary tribute to Sir Thomas Picton : it 
 commemorates Major-General Le Marchant, and 
 was designed by James Smith, and executed after 
 his decease by Rossi. A pei-sonification of Spain 
 places trophies on a tomb, near which Britannia, 
 seated, points out the act to a boy, who is described 
 to represent a military cadet. The first idea is as 
 old as the art itself, and as stupid as possible ; 
 but the second, though scarcely valuable enough 
 to constitute a larceny, is stolen from Flaxman's 
 naval students at the tomb of Nelson. Its object 
 is thus specified : — 
 
 Erected 
 
 at the public expense 
 
 to the memory of 
 
 Major-General 
 
 Gaspard Le Marchant, 
 
 Who gloriously fell 
 
 in the battle of 
 
 Salamanca. 
 
 Le Marchant's death has been described by a 
 brother officer : — " The fourth division, breathless, 
 amidst showers of grape, musquetry, and round 
 shot, had succeeded in planting their standards on 
 the crest of the enemy's position ; but at that 
 moment a French division in close column, and at 
 a run with fixed bayonets, forced them down the 
 hill, whilst others advanced on their left flank, 
 which was exposed, and carried the centre of the 
 battle again into the valley ; but our heavy cavalry 
 on the right centre were bearing down all oppo- 
 sition, driving the left of the enemy before them, 
 and putting them into the greatest confusion. Ma- 
 jor-General Le Marchant was killed heading this 
 charge." 
 
 The last tribute to which attention is here to be 
 directed is decidedly one of the best pieces of 
 sculpture, both as to composition and execution, in 
 the whole cathedral — a tabular monument by Chan- 
 trey, to the memory of Major-General Bowes, 
 which is rather unfavourably fixed high up in one 
 of the panels of the ambulatory leading into the 
 choir. It is a scene admirably chiselled from life. 
 Bowes was slain m the breach at the storming of 
 Salamanca, and the actual circumstances of his 
 death are here excellently portrayed. The shat- 
 tered wall, the beaten enemy tumbling headlong 
 with his colours, the chai'ging British, and the 
 victorious General falling on the fore-gi'ound into 
 the arms of a comrade, are all faithfully preserved 
 and vividly exhibited, without any violence of fic- 
 tion, or obtrusion of allegory to disfigure the ani- 
 mation of truth, or confuse the moral of an histo- 
 rical episode. One only circumstance is likely to 
 excite a regret — the monument has no inscription. 
 
 BENJAMIN WEST, R.A. 
 
 Benjamin West, second President of the Royal 
 Academy, was born near Springfield, in Ches- 
 ter county, in the state of Pennsylvania, Octo- 
 ber 10, 1738; and was the youngest son in a family 
 
 of ten children. His parents were Quakers, who 
 had emigrated from this country when the rigour 
 of religious persecution laid the fortune, liberty, 
 and even life itself of every subject at the mercy
 
 BENJAMIN WEST, R.A. 
 
 77 
 
 of the church government of the day. The family 
 was well descended, and respectably connected in 
 this country ; but in America yomig West was bred 
 under circumstances the most adverse to the de- 
 velopment of his talents. Civilization at that period 
 was but rudely cultivated in America ; in society 
 there were but scanty means of improvement, in 
 education only the rudiments of knowledge could 
 be obtained : these were great disadvantages — 
 gi'eater still was the fact that his father's ])rinciples 
 prohibited the smallest indulgence in those tastes, 
 which the character of a mind so constituted was 
 sure to incline to. 
 
 Such was the infancy of West — enviable per- 
 haps for its placid uniformity, but destitute of high 
 impulse and invigorating associations. The first 
 indication of his natural talents is lionourably re- 
 corded : — in June, 1745, a married sister came to 
 spend some time under the paternal roof. Slie 
 had an infant daughter, which was one day en- 
 trusted to the care of yomig Benjamin, as she lay 
 asleep in her cradle, while the mother and grand- 
 motlier took a walk to gather flowers in the garden. 
 Few objects are more captivating than the sleep of 
 infancy. Struck with the babe's unconscious 
 smiles, little West seized a pen and ink on the 
 table, and essayed a inide portrait. At this task 
 he was surprised by his mother, who insisted upon 
 knowinsi what he had been doina;. The kiss with 
 which she rewarded the surprising attempt, em- 
 boldened him to say that, if she pleased, he would 
 make pictures of the flowers she held in her hand. 
 He did so ; and from that moment the force of 
 natural talent was as active as sti'ong within liim ; 
 he felt that he could give a form to the images in 
 his mind, and was ever busy in developing them. 
 
 Being sent to school soon after this incident, he 
 was permitted to amuse himself during the hours of 
 relaxation by drawing with a pen and ink. During 
 the next summer a party of Indians came traflick- 
 ing to Springfield ; and the barbarians, pleased 
 with the little sketches of birds and beasts which 
 Benjamin showed them, instructed him how to 
 mix the red and yellow colours, with whicii they 
 painted themselves. To these his mother added a 
 piece of indigo, and thus was the infant artist put 
 in possession of the three primary colours. Few 
 anecdotes can supply a more pleasing sul)jcct for 
 contemplation than this romantic fact — the wild 
 Indian from the woods taught West to prepare the 
 prismatic colours. 
 
 The want of pencils soon became a matter of 
 thoughtful regret — he was told they were small 
 brushes of camel's hair, inserted in quills — but 
 then there were no camels in America ; tlify could 
 not be caught or killed in tlie forest, and he hail 
 never seen them sold. This was a serious di- 
 lemma, from which the Ijushy tail of a large black 
 cat, which was an especial favourite with his 
 fatlier, ere long relieved him. Armed with his 
 inrtther's scissars, he made liis first jx'ncil from 
 the fur of Tom's tail, liut tlie tail only furnished 
 one pencil, ami that was soon worn out ; so that 
 he was next obliged to have recourse to the back, 
 wliich he soon clipped so bare, that his father 
 observing how his favourite was reduced in sleek- 
 ness and rotundity, bi'came so uneasy with his 
 fears for Tom's decay, that tin; aspiring artist 
 cr)uld not avoiil confessing the true cause : forgive- 
 ness rewarded his iiigemuju-sncKH. 
 
 In the course of a year the family sitting-room 
 was hung in a maimer ver}- tnnisual for the severe 
 plainness of a Quaker's residence — with drawings 
 of birds, beasts, and flowers, &:c. fn.in the cat's- 
 hair jtencil of little Henjaniin. About this time a 
 relation from riiiladelphia, surprised to see such 
 performances by a boy only eight yeju's old, under- 
 took to remedy the badness of his materials, by 
 sending him a box of paints and pencils from the 
 city. The arrival of tliis present, with several 
 l>ieces of canvass, prc]>ared for the easel, along 
 with it, and six engravings, formed an epoch in the 
 life of the young artist. His every want was now 
 supplied beyond the most sanguine extent of his 
 hopes ; oils, paints, ivories, and pencils, were here 
 in plenty ; but the engravings, no sjiechnens of 
 which he had ever seen before, filled his mind with 
 the highest satisfaction, and rendered him the most 
 important service. He took his box with him to 
 bed, and held it in uneasy slumbers, until the day 
 broke, when he ascended to the garnt, forgot his 
 school-hours, and laboured indefatigably for days 
 together until he finished his first i)ainting on can- 
 vass. It is still preserved, and will always be 
 admired. But the greatest benefit thus done the 
 artist, was the conversion of his mother's prejudices 
 against the pursuit, into an unreserved approbation 
 oifit. 
 
 A short visit to Philadelphia produced him his 
 first introduction to a brother artist, whose name 
 was Williams. From him he received the works 
 of Fresnoy and Richardson on painting, besides 
 the advantages of seeing a tolerably good collection 
 of prints and drawings in his possession. Return- 
 ing home, he gained an acquaintance with the most 
 respectable gentry in the neighbourhood, and from 
 them derived liis first earnest of fortune in the 
 ]irofcssion, by presents of a crown-jiiece for each 
 of several drawings he made on ]>nlished wood with 
 chalk and charcoal. Immediately after these essays 
 he became a portrait-)>ainter by invitation. Amongst 
 the number of his new friends and ]>atrons was a 
 Mr. Henry, a very ingenious medianic, who con- 
 ceived that tJie death of Socrates would be a favour- 
 able subject for the iicneil of young Benjamin, and 
 warmly exliorted him to atteini>t it. Hut the artist 
 was forced to confess that he knew nothing of the 
 philoso])her ; the only biograjihy he Iiail read wju^ 
 the scriptural life of Adam, his first father, and of 
 Moses. To remedy this deficiency, Henry lent him 
 a translation of I'lutarcli ; but another ditticulty 
 arose. West very projx'rly felt that the slave ]ire- 
 seiiting the jioison shoidd be a naked figuri" ; and 
 he did not know how to do justice to it. Without 
 answering the objection at the moment, Henry 
 sent for a young slave of his, and liade bin) kneel 
 down — then pointing to West lie exclaimed, "Tiieiv 
 is your model :" the lesson from nature was con- 
 vincing, and West finished tiie i)iece with alacrity. 
 Amongst otliers to whom it wjus shown was Dr. 
 Suiitli, I'rovost of the College at riiiladel|ihia, who 
 was so iiHieh delighted with tlie ]ieri'orniaMee, that 
 ho otl'ered to educate the boy — an act of generosity 
 which his ]iarents gratefully accepted. 
 
 When Iteiijamin attained his sixteenth year, the 
 more rigid among his fatluT's n'ligions associates 
 took alarm at the prol)a))ility of the young (Quaker 
 becoming a painter. 'I'hey thought the profession 
 vain in its purposes, and useless in its ends ; and 
 at liust it became a conscientious doulil with the old
 
 78 
 
 ST. PAUL'S CATHEDRAL. 
 
 gentleman, whether or not the predilection of his 
 sou should be further encouraged. In order to 
 satisfy his mind, he convoked an assembly of the 
 Society of Friends, and submitted himself to their 
 judgment. Much diversity of argument prevailed 
 upon the subject, and the result was extremely 
 critical, when one John Williams, an able preacher 
 amongst them, who deserves honoui-able record for 
 the effects of his speech on this interesting occasion, 
 addressed the doubtful meeting. After a general 
 opening, he pointed to old Mr. West and his wife, 
 and forcibly expatiated upon the blameless tenour 
 of their lives. "They have had," he then con- 
 tinued, " ten children, whom they have carefully 
 bred up in the fear of God and in the Christian 
 religion ; and the youth, whose lot in life we are 
 now convened to c<msider, is Benjamin, their 
 youngest child. It is known to you all, that God 
 is pleased, from time to time, to bestow upon some 
 men extraordinary gifts of mind, and you need not 
 be told by how wonderful an inspiration their son 
 has been led to cultivate the art of painting. It is 
 true, that our tenets deny the utility of that art to 
 mankind : but God has bestowed upon the youth a 
 genius for that art ; and can we believe that 
 Omniscience bestows his gifts but for great pur- 
 poses I What God has given, who shall dare to 
 throw away ? Let us not estimate Almighty wis- 
 dom by our notions ; let us not presume to arraign 
 his judgment by our ignorance ; but in the evident 
 propensity of the young man be assured, that we 
 see an impulse of the divine hand operating towards 
 a liigh and beneficent end." This view of the case 
 was irresistible, and the sect was moved to libe- 
 rality : the incident is in perfect harmony with the 
 unusual character of West's early years. 
 
 Soon after, the American war broke out, and 
 West served as a volunteer companion in arms 
 with young Wayne, who subsequently shared so 
 much of the glory which Washington obtained in 
 the liberation of his country. The pei-iod of West's 
 soldiership does not ajjpear to have been of any 
 duration ; for he is found ere long at Philadelphia, 
 and afterwards at New York, making progress in 
 the art of historical painting, under the most flat- 
 tering circumstances. So general was the convic- 
 tion of his genius, that his mercantile friends 
 voluntarily defrayed the expenses of a visit to 
 Italy. At Rome it became a matter of fashion to 
 pay attention to the young Quaker. Large parties 
 were made to accompany him on his visits to the 
 remains of antiquity, and the most celebrated 
 monuments of later ages ; and the greatest eager- 
 ness was manifested to learn the effects which the 
 exhibitions would produce upon his ingenuous mind. 
 His comparison of the Apollo to a young Mohawk 
 warrior, was natural, but unacceptable to the cJas 
 sical vanity of the Italians ; and the coolness with 
 which he surveyed the paintings of Raphael, in the 
 Vatican, neither answered his own expectations, 
 nor the admiration of his curious companions. 
 West afterwards confessed that he was at first 
 unequal to the task of appreciating such exalted 
 beauties: Michael Angelo pleased him still less, 
 and never shared much of his regard. But the 
 far-famed horses on the Monte Carvallo, ascribed 
 to Phidias, more th.an realized all his anticipations, 
 and drew forth unqualified admiration and praise. 
 Completing the tour of the Italian cities, he was 
 elected a member of the Academies of Florence, 
 
 Bologna, and Parma ; and then proceeded to Paris. 
 There he was more noticed as an object of curiosity 
 than civility ; but had the consolation of being 
 assured by his friends, that his observations upon 
 the state of his art in France, as well in every 
 theoretical as every practical view, were eminently 
 judicious. 
 
 In 1763 West came to London : here, as in 
 other places, his reputation had preceded him, and 
 he had no sooner arrived, than lie was courted 
 by every rank of society. Such a reception 
 quickly determined him to make England his 
 place of residence. With this view he married a 
 countrywoman from Philadelphia, and, in 17C4, 
 opened an exhibition-room in Spring Gardens. In 
 17C5, when the incorpor'ation of the artists took 
 place, he was associated a member, and appointed 
 a Director of the Institution. — And hei-e it may 
 not be amiss to say a few words upon the state of 
 historical painting in this country, up to the period 
 of West's arrival among us ; for by stating what 
 had been done before him, it will be the more easy 
 to estimate the value of his performances. 
 
 For a long series of years our English monarchs 
 had been in the habit of lamenting the want of 
 talent in their subjects for the art of painting, 
 without making any vigoi'ous exertions to create 
 or stimulate a talent they so much admired. To 
 be without an artist of distinction was inconsistent 
 with courtly pomp ; but by a lamentable perversion 
 of judgment and good taste they preferred inviting 
 foreign painters to enjoy their liberality, than en- 
 couraging our own counti'jTnen to deserve it. Thus 
 the first advance towards any thing allied with 
 excellence in historical painting was not made until 
 the time of Sir James Thornhill, who died in the 
 reign of Queen Anne. The most creditable works 
 of his pencil were the Dome of St. Paul's, and the 
 Hall of Greenwich Hospital. He was a man of 
 undoubted talent, but his taste was not equal to 
 his conception, and his knowledge was even inferior 
 to his taste. To Sir John Thornhiir succeeded 
 Hogarth, a man who would have done honour to 
 any age or country. His attempts at what are 
 strictly called historical paintings were of little 
 value in comparison with his satirical composi- 
 tions : but perhaps it will be a pardonable excess 
 in the application of the term, if we venture to 
 include some of the moi'e serious of his delineations 
 in this latter department within the limits of the 
 higher branch of the art. It would be difficult to 
 adduce irrefutable arguments for excluding from 
 that rank eftbrts which, like his, trace the story 
 and represent the action of human passions and 
 the vicissitudes of life in a style eminently bene- 
 ficial to the cause of virtue, however unworthy the 
 character of some of the individuals represented 
 may be of the dignity of history Itself. One only 
 man intervened between Hogarth and West — 
 Hayman, and he barely deserved the name of a 
 painter. 
 
 West was no sooner settled in a situation suited 
 to the scope of his talents, than he rajiidly pro- 
 duced a series of subjects, which obtained for him 
 throughout Europe the pre-eminent surname of 
 the Reviver of Historical Painting. Of these one 
 of the most successful was his " Death of General 
 Wolfe," the composition of which immediately pre- 
 ceded his elevation to the president's chair of the 
 Royal Society, in the year I79I5 upon the demise
 
 JOHN RENNIE. 
 
 79 
 
 of Sir Joshua Reynolds. In tliis situation his ex- 
 ertions answered the most favourable anticipations 
 of success : he enjoyed the respect of the Aca- 
 demy, the approbation of the public, and the pa- 
 tronage of George III., who, to secure his talents 
 from the lower avocation of portrait-painting, al- 
 lowed him a pension of 1000/. a year. Incited by 
 tiiis muniticence, West produced a series of histo- 
 rical pieces upon a large scale, and devised the 
 plan of the Royal Institution, which was meant to 
 take up the young artist after he left the Academy, 
 and save his early labours from the slavery of 
 mean employment, in order to obtain a mainte- 
 nance, and constitute a special school of encou- 
 ragement and reward for historical jiainting. The 
 design was meritorious, and at first honourably 
 supported ; but as it did not succeed, a more par- 
 ticular account of its little history may be spared. 
 Having held the place of Historical Painter to 
 his Majesty since 1772, and enjoyed, as Surveyor 
 of Royal Pictures, the salary of 1000/. a year since 
 1791, the latter years of West's life were passed in 
 calm dihgence and increasing fame. His more 
 
 recent works indicated almost an increased vigour 
 in his powei-s, and higher conceptions of' the 
 sublime than tliose of his early age ; and it is not 
 uiconsistent with the character of his mind to 
 suppose, that wlien he began to devote it exclu- 
 sively to scriptural subjects, he was animated by 
 higher feelings than jxipularity. He liad passed 
 the ordinary limits of life; and at a period when 
 almost all of his generation were laid in the grave, 
 or only surviving j)owerless and exhausted, he, in 
 his seventieth year, formed the grand design of 
 illustrating the Four Ages of the Revelations. He 
 intended to devote a picture on the largest scale to 
 the I'atriarchal era ; one to the Jewish, one to the 
 Christian, and one to the mighty consunnnation of 
 the Apocalypse. Of these, however, he only lived 
 to finish the two latter. He died at his house, 14, 
 Newman-sti'eet, Oxford-street, Friday, ]\Iarch 10, 
 1820, aged eighty-one years and five months. The 
 body lay in state at the Royal Academy, and was 
 honoured with a public funeral in St. Paul's, where 
 a plain stone informs the visitoi' of the spot it 
 occupies in the vaults. 
 
 JOHN RENNIE. 
 
 The profession of a civil engineer is one which, in 
 Great Britain, has only risen to marked celebrity 
 or wealth of late years. Amongst the individuals 
 who have in this profession lately elevated the fame 
 of their country, not only into equality with, l)ut 
 to supeiiority over the contemporary nations of the 
 world, in every art and every science, John Rennie 
 must long continue proudly remembered ; for the 
 monuments of his ability cannot but endure to the 
 remotest ages of our history, and be distinctly 
 honoured while there is a record of our national 
 greatness in existence. 
 
 He was born June 7, Ufilj at Phantassie, in the 
 county of Haddington, in Scotland, and received 
 those essential rudiments of education, for which 
 his moral country is celebi'ated, at the ])arish school 
 of Prestonkirk. He lost his father, who was a 
 farmer, when only five years old, and early evinced 
 a preference for mechanical employment and in- 
 genious pursuits. The first object of the kind 
 which attracted his attention, and stimulated exei'- 
 tion, was the erection of a new mill upon the farm 
 of Andrew iMcickle, a neighbour, now well-known 
 to agi-iculturists as the inventor of the thrashing- 
 machine. It was young Rennie's fortune to wit- 
 ness the progress of Mr. Mcickle's labours in the 
 construction of this valua))le piece of mechanism, 
 and he watched the work with an ivssiduity, which, 
 far from retarding the advancement of his studies, 
 actually increased the rapidity with wliich lie ])ro- 
 sccuted them : tliey impelled him to kcej) his know- 
 ledge of the princij)les of science coccpial with lln' 
 practice to which h<' saw them reduced in the 
 workshop adjoining his father's farm. 
 
 At twelve years of age Renni(! left the parish 
 school, and entered into Mr. Mcickle's employ- 
 ment, in which lie remained for two years. He 
 spent two years at Dunbar, which were principally 
 dev(jted to general education. His master was so 
 well satisfied with iiis proficiency, that upon obl;iiii- 
 ing himself a more lucrative appoinlmcnl, ln' 
 
 strongly recommended Rennie as his successor. 
 The latter, however, jtreferred to return to Mr. 
 Mcickle's workshop, wliere he made himself a per- 
 fect millwright. At the age of eighteen he spent 
 a winter at Edinburgh, and attended the lectures 
 of Professors Robison and Black. Upon their 
 recommendation he went to England witli a letter 
 of introduction to Messrs. llolton and Watt, the 
 memorable inventors of the steam-engine. By those 
 gentlemen he was emjiloyed as engineer to their 
 factories, near Birmingham, at a guinea a week. 
 Soon after the period of this engagement, an erec- 
 tion of fresh works was re(iuired for the multiidied 
 business of the firm, and it was dt'termined to 
 construct the Albion-Mills, Blackfriars. Rennie 
 drew the plans of this establishment, and to his 
 care was the execution of the machinery i)rinci]ially 
 entrusted ; a confidence which, tijion the comple- 
 tion of the undertaking, was amply justified by the 
 excellence of the work, which was univei-sally 
 estimated to be without a parallel. 
 
 Besides the rejiutation thus acijuired, Rennie's 
 abilities became otherwise generally known through 
 the skill with wliich he raised several other mills ; 
 so that in 17!*1, he felt himself lia]i])ily justifii'd in 
 entering into business upon his own account. Of 
 his labours about this ])eriod, two in particular 
 deserve mention — the (.'rinan and Lancaster Canals, 
 of wliich the former is memorable for the ingenious 
 labour renuired, and mnnerous ditlicultics sur- 
 moimted in the course of its execulion ; and the 
 latter is ci'lelirated for the aipUMluct that carrii's it 
 over the I'iver Lime. To detail the characteristic 
 merits anil |)rominciit sticci ss of these, or of ilie 
 other works we shall have occa.siiin to eniiiiierate, 
 would demand great length of space, and perlia|iH, 
 after all, jirove somewliat dry and iiiiintercsliiig to 
 any but a strictly scientific reader. — It shall not, 
 therifore, be our oiiject to describe, one after llio 
 othir, all the em|iloynients on which licnnie's tiino 
 and ca]iacity wero so re|)iilal)ly exercised, but
 
 80 
 
 ST. PAUL'S CATHEDRAL. 
 
 limit our notice to a brief account of such of his 
 works as are conspicuous for the highest deserts. 
 The metropoHs is the principal theatre of his fame : 
 the London Docks, the East and West India Docks, 
 were all planned and finished by him in a style 
 which commands the wonder of strangers, and the 
 continued approbation even of those who are the 
 best and have been the longest acquainted with the 
 various uses to which they are so admirably ad- 
 apted. They are not to be reviewed with a general 
 glance of commendation, simply as artificial har- 
 bours for the largest commercial navies in the 
 world ; the unexampled economy of labour for which 
 they provide, and the different works ingeniously 
 combined within the same space ; the disposition 
 of the stores and magazines, and the arrangement 
 of the moveable bridges, exhibit a noble system of 
 facilities equally deserving of praise on the score 
 of architectural and mechanical genius. While 
 upon that division of his labours, by which the 
 dangers of the sea have been reduced, and the land 
 made more accessible, it may be most apposite to 
 speak of the Breakwater at Plymouth, a monument 
 of genius which would of itself have sufficed to 
 immortalize the man, who, by raising such a bul- 
 wark, may be said to have actually overcome the 
 ocean, and defied the tempest. It is distinguished by 
 those properties of massive and essential greatness 
 which characterize the works of this engineer— 
 the fomis are devised with a judgment, the dimen- 
 sions measured with a prudence, and the solidity 
 of the whole secured by an invincible force, which 
 cannot even be regarded without feeluigs of the 
 deepest awe. 
 
 This Breakwater is an effort of art, interesting 
 enough to admit of a few more descriptive words. 
 The risks to which ships were exposed, when 
 obliged by stress of weather, or want of time, to 
 make directly for Plymouth Harbour, having been 
 long felt and loudly complained of, the government 
 expressed a determination to do all that was pos- 
 sible for the correction of an evil, from which their 
 own navy suffered oftener, and more severely, than 
 any other vessels. Designs were advertised for, 
 and many sent in : Rennie's w.ns preferred ; a line 
 of works was run across the Sound, from east to 
 west, for the length of 1700 yards, which left an 
 enti'ance open, and free at either end. The extre- 
 mities incline to the north in an angle of 104° from 
 the centre, and are each a curve of 550 yards ; 
 but where the sweep ceases, a straight line of 1000 
 yards connects them together. The breadth of the 
 extreme base is 400 feet, at a depth of thirty feet 
 under low water-mark ; this gradually diminishes 
 at every rise of ten feet, until, at some height above 
 high water-mark, it is only forty-eight feet wide. 
 From one end to the other, there is a smooth 
 walking path along this causeway, full six feet wide, 
 and well-protected ; the sides are accommodated 
 with jetties, so that boats may land at all tides and 
 in every weather. Besides the Breakwater, — most 
 of the stones, or rather masses, of which are of a 
 greater weight than ten tons each, Rennie at the 
 same time cleared away from the fine pool, thus 
 formed, many rocks which roughly jutted up from 
 the bottom, and had often done considerable damage 
 to vessels floating about from their moorings. For 
 this purpose diving-bells were used with singular 
 dexterity and success ; they were each six feet 
 wide, and seven high ; and were furnished with 
 
 shelves for the tools of the workmen, who descend- 
 ing two at a time, picked out the solid rocks with 
 their axes, and deposited the fragments thus knocked 
 off" into canvass-bags provided for the purjjose. 
 After toiling for two hours, one party was relieved 
 Ijy another. The additional pay for working in this 
 manner under water, was Is. 6d. for each descent. 
 Amongst all his works Rennie is most celebrated 
 for his bridges, of which those of Waterloo, South- 
 wark, and London Bridges are the most famous ; 
 the two first were raised under his own superin- 
 tendence, and the last is taken from the designs 
 which he left behind him for the purpose. South- 
 wark Bridge was the first built, in order of time ; 
 and was also the first erection in this or any other 
 country, in which the bold idea of using solid 
 masses of cast iron, and of a size far exceeding the 
 largest stones that are adopted for similar ends, 
 was introduced. The design of the ai'ches is, to 
 the eye, as simple in beauty as their strength is 
 daily proved to be great in effect. It is impossible 
 to consider the extent to which they spread, the 
 elevation to which they rise, and the huge forms 
 in which they are wrought, without admitting that 
 metallurgy has in this country been carried to the 
 highest pitch of perfection ; and that the powers of 
 modern man are elevated in an unparalleled degree 
 above the triumphs of his predecessors in ancient 
 times. Waterloo Bridge is, perhaps, that monu- 
 ment of Rennie's glory which is oftenest praised 
 by the traveller and most enjoyed by the native ; 
 and there are many circumstances to be mentioned, 
 which seem to justify the pi-eference. Indepen- 
 dently of the beauty of the design, so simple and 
 solid, and the neatness of its execution, the merit 
 of the level roadway, and the prodigious labour of 
 smoothing the apjiroaches ; the fact that it is con- 
 fessedly the finest bridge in the world, raised at a 
 cost of a million and a half of money, and finished 
 within the moderate space of six years, tends to 
 create impressions which justify the warmth of 
 national pride m its favour. 
 
 Besides these splendid structures, a long list of 
 magnificent public works remains to be adduced as 
 evidence of Rennie's claims to be considered the 
 first engineer of his day. With every undertaking 
 of magnitude in the country — canals, bridges, har- 
 bours, docks, or lighthouses — he was connected 
 through a quarter of a century. Among his 
 bi'idges, those of Kelso, Leeds, Musselburgh, New- 
 ton-Stewart, Boston, and New Galloway, are to be 
 specially commended. The first of these, which 
 consists of a level roadway, resting upon five ellip- 
 tical arches, has always been greatly admired, not 
 only for architectural strength and beauty, but for 
 a peculiar harmony in the design with the charac- 
 ter of the surrounding scenery. The Aberdeen 
 canal, the Great Western, the Kennet and Avon, 
 the Portsmouth, the Birmingham, and the Worces- 
 ter canals, are the most important of the works of 
 this nature which he executed. He also erected 
 the docks of Hull, Leith, Gi'eenock, Liverpool, and 
 Dublin ; the modern harbours of Berwick, Kings- 
 town, Howth, Newhaven, and Queensferry. He 
 was instrumental also in effecting great improve- 
 ments m the national dockyards at Portsmouth, 
 Chatham, and other places ; the new naval arsenal 
 at Pembroke was eoiLstructed from liis designs ; 
 and he likewise furnished the plan of the Bell- 
 rock lighthouse, executed by Mr. Stevenson.
 
 JOHN RENNIE. 
 
 81 
 
 Besides these, his <;randcr labours, Ronnie en- 
 gaged at different periods in other buildings, which 
 proved how various were liis powei-s, and perfect 
 his taste in each. To describe, or even to specify 
 all these, would induce too much of detail ; but it 
 may be mentioned that the Auction iMart, in Bar- 
 tholomew-laue, and the London Institution, in 
 Moorfields, have always been instanced as very 
 favourable specimens of his skill in architecture. 
 There were also many learned and scientific asso- 
 ciations, the proceedings of which he attended, and 
 took a rird-wc<; part in. Of these, the Royal So- 
 cieties of London, Dublin, and Edinburgh, the 
 Astronomical and Geological Societies, are those 
 best known to the public, and most identified with 
 his name. 
 
 In private life the virtues of Mr. Rennie are 
 described by his friends to have been as estimable 
 as his talents were proved valuable. For the 
 greater period of his life his liealth was excellent, 
 and his strength uncommon. There was every 
 prospect that both would long endure ; but as his 
 years approached to number threescore, illness 
 suddenly attacked, and for some time lingered in 
 his fi'ame, imtil Thursday, the 4th of October, 1821, 
 on which day he expired. His funeral, being pub- 
 lic, was attended by the most distinguished men in 
 the metropolis. His grave is in the crypt of the 
 cathedral, where it is marked by an altar tomb of 
 polished granite, with this becoming inscription : — 
 
 Here lie the mortal remains of 
 
 John Rennie, 
 
 F.R.S., F.A.S. 
 
 Born at Phantassie, in East Lothian, 
 
 7th July, 1761. 
 Deceased in London, 4th Oct. 1821. 
 
 This stone 
 
 is dedicated to his private virtues, 
 
 and I'eeords 
 
 the affection and the respect of 
 
 his family and his friends. 
 
 But the many sjjlcndid and useful works 
 
 by which, 
 
 under his superintending genius, 
 
 England, Scotland, and Ireland, 
 
 liave been adorned and improved, 
 
 are the trno monuments of 
 
 his jmblic merit. 
 
 Waterloo and .Southwark Bridges, 
 
 Plymouth Breakwater, 
 
 Sheemess Docks, &c. &c. 
 
 To sum up the general merits of this eminent 
 
 engineer is no ungrateful task : — lie lived admired, 
 
 and died lamented. Ho cultivated his profession 
 
 with enthusiasm ; aii<l was as rcniarUahle for the 
 
 profundity with which hi; studied all the ihcoi-ies 
 
 I appertaining to it, as for the efhciincy with wliicli 
 
 I he executed every jjractice flcilucibU; from tlicm. 
 
 I His bodily exertions were indefatigable. He ukkIc 
 
 it a point t<> see and examine every work which 
 
 ;t.ssiinilated in its nature or purposes with any of 
 
 his own projects or undertakings. His reading 
 \yas considerable, and the selection of books in his 
 library evinced great judgment. The integrity 
 with which ho discharged the many public trusts 
 he was appointed to w;us also exemplary. I'pwards 
 of fifty millions of money were expended under his 
 hands with an economy that left him, at his death, 
 far less wealthy than the magnitude and cost of his 
 occupations would have led his friends to believe. 
 There was never a subterfuge or evasion to be 
 traced in the noble outlines of strength and dura- 
 bility for which his labours are so remarkable. He 
 inspected every material himself, and never per- 
 mitted a contractor to speculate upon a chance 
 through which to elude the terms of his agree- 
 ment. On these grounds it may be said, as proudly 
 as justly, that he lived and laboured for futurity. 
 His reputation was based as much upon the honesty 
 of his deeds as the greatness of his plans, and liis 
 enjoyment reposed iu the perfect success of his 
 undertakings. 
 
 " The great merit," says the Scottish Biographi- 
 cal Dictionary, "of iMr. Ucnnie as an engineer is 
 allowed to have been his almost intuitive i)erce])- 
 tion of what was necessary for certjiin assigned 
 purposes. With little theoretical knowledge, he 
 had so closely studied the actual forms of tiie works 
 of his predecessors, that he could at length trust in 
 a great measure to a kind of tact which he pos- 
 sessed in his own mind, and which could scarcely 
 have been communicated. He had the art of 
 applying to every situation where lie was called 
 to act professionally the precise form of remedy 
 required for the existing evil — whether it was to 
 stop the violence of the most boisterous sea — to 
 make now harbours, or to render those safe which 
 were before dangerous and inaccessible — to redeem 
 districts of fruitful land from the encroachments of 
 the ocean, or to deliver them from the iiestilence 
 of stagnant marsh — to level hills, or to tie tlioni 
 together by aqueducts or arches, or, by embank- 
 ment, to raise the valley between them — to make 
 bridges that for beauty surpass all others, and for 
 strength seem destined to last to the latest jioste- 
 rity : in all these tasks Rennie had no rival. 
 Though he carried the desire of durability almost 
 to a fault, and thus occa-sioned more expense j)er- 
 haps than other engineers would have considered 
 strictly nocessary, he was admired as much for his 
 conscientiousness in the fiilfilmeiit of liis lalionrs as 
 for his genius in their contrivance. He would suf- 
 fer no subterfuge for real slreiiglh to be rt'sorted 
 to by the contractors who undertook to executt" his 
 l>lans. Elevated by his genius above mean and 
 immediate considerations, lie felt in all his pro- 
 ceedings JUS if he were in the court of iiostority : 
 hi? sought not only to satisfy his employei's, but all 
 future gonerations." Though th<' practical wa.s 
 Mr. lleimio's glorious forte, he was ni'vcrllieless 
 partial to those mixed in\ I'stigatioiis where expe- 
 riment and theory are combineii. Itut his iiii|iiirieN 
 of this iiatun.' were never given to the world ; he 
 never contributed to a periodical publication, pro- 
 bably for want of sullicient leisure.
 
 82 
 
 ST, PAUL'S CATHEDRAL. 
 
 BISHOP MIDDLETON. 
 
 A MONUMENT, by Lougli, in the north-west aisle of 
 St. Paul's, to the memory of Dr. Middleton, Bishop 
 of Calcutta, has this merit — and it is a conspi- 
 cuous one, if we consider the unintellectual manner 
 in which works of this kind have for the most part 
 been executed by our artists — that it tells its own 
 story. As you look at it, you see without difficulty 
 the object commemorated. Dr. Middleton was the 
 first protestant bishop of India, and he is here 
 appropriately introduced, in the dress of his office, 
 conferring baptism upon two Hindoos. The work- 
 manship moreover is worthy of the design, being 
 at once neat and effective. The inscription is with- 
 out point or elegance, and the last Ime in bad 
 taste. 
 
 Thomas Fanshaw Middleton, D.D. 
 
 First Protestant Bishop in Lidia. 
 
 Consecrated to the see of Calcutta, May 8th, 1814. 
 
 Died July 8th, 1822. 
 
 This monument was erected by the 
 
 joint contribution of the members of the 
 
 Society for Promoting Christian Knowledge 
 
 and the Society for the Propagation of the Gospel. 
 
 This monument is the performance of Lough. 
 
 Thomas Fanshaw Middleton was born at Kedle- 
 ston, a village in Derbyshire, of which his father 
 was rector, January 26, 17(>9. He was an only 
 son, and received the rudiments of education from 
 his fatlier, who, obtaining an admission for him 
 into Christ's Hospital, in London, where Coleridge 
 the poet was his contemporary and friend, after- 
 wards entered him of Pembroke Hall, Cambridge. 
 In that college he took a degree of B.A. in 1792, 
 and being ordained in the month of May following, 
 became cui'ate of Gainsborough, in Lincolnshire, 
 and there conducted for a few months a small 
 periodical, called the " Country Spectator." This 
 humble work caught the eye of Archdeacon Pre- 
 tyman, who appointed him tutor to his sons — an 
 offer which led to his removal to Lincohi, and 
 afterwards to Norwich, where his eloquence as a 
 preacher was much commended. In 1795 Arch- 
 deacon Pretyraan presented him to the rectory of 
 Tansor, in Northamptonshire, to which, in 1802, 
 was added, by the same patron, the consolidated 
 rectory of Little and Castle Bytham, which he held 
 by dispensation with his former preferment. Mar- 
 rying, in 1797, Elisabeth, daughter of John Madi- 
 son, Esq., of Alvington, in Lincolnshire, he was 
 fortunate enough to find in his wife an amanuensis 
 sufficiently intelligent and industrious to assist him 
 in the studies he now devoted himself to, and 
 which produced his principal work, " The Doctrine 
 of the Greek Article applied to the Criticism and 
 Illustration of the New Testament." This work 
 appeai-ed in 1808, and was highly esteemed by 
 scholars and churchmen. During the same year, 
 his patron's sons no longer requiring his aid, he 
 took his degree of D.D., and fixed his residence at 
 Tansor. In the following year Bishop Pretyman, 
 brother of the archdeacon, collated him to a stall 
 
 in the cathedral of Lincoln. In 1810 he resigned 
 his country living upon obtaining the vicai'age of 
 St. Pancras, Middlesex, and the rectory of Putten- 
 ham, Herts. In the same year he was collated to 
 the archdeaconry of Huntington. His removal to the 
 metropolis increased his activity, and added to his 
 reputation amongst his clerical bi-ethren. He pro- 
 posed to erect a new church for his parishioners, but 
 failed in obtaining the authority of parliament for 
 the purpose. His critical assistance was employed 
 upon a Family Bible, published by the Society for 
 Promoting Christian Knowledge. A new series of 
 the British Critic was projected under his editor- 
 ship, which, however, ceased with the first number. 
 
 The renewal of the East India Company's char- 
 ter having been made the opportunity for intro- 
 ducing the Protestant Established Chiu'ch into 
 India, under the auspices of the Company and the 
 British Government, Calcutta was erected into a 
 bishop's see by Act of Parliament, and Archdeacon 
 Middleton selected to fill it in May, 1814. On 
 Christmas Day, in the same year, he delivered his 
 first sermon in the cathedral of Calcutta. He ap- 
 pears to have shown judgment as well as ability in 
 this new office, which excited great interest in 
 England, and no light sensation amongst the Indian 
 sects. He preached constantly, and travelled a 
 good deal in the interior. His attention to the 
 schools for the education of youth, and the founda- 
 tion of the Bishop's College near Calcutta, have 
 been deservedly commended. The climate, his 
 duties, and the anxiety created in his mmd by 
 the arduous task of introducing the ecclesiastical 
 powers of the Church of England, its courts and 
 civil pre-eminence, into a new and not congenial 
 soil, gradually afi'ected his health, which ultimately 
 yielded to a fever at Calcutta, July 8, 1822. He 
 was buried in the Bishop's College. He destroyed 
 before his death several manuscripts which he had 
 been preparing for the press, and is now therefore 
 only known as an author by the work on the Greek 
 Article already spoken of in this sketch, and an 
 octavo volume of Sermons and Charges, published 
 with an account of his life, in 1824, by Archdeacon 
 Bonney. On his passage out to India he laid down a 
 set of rules for his guidance, which have since become 
 popular as the maxims of Bishop Middleton : — 
 
 " Persevere against discouragements. Keep your 
 temper. Employ leisure in study, and always have 
 some work in hand. Be punctual and methodical 
 in business, and never procrastinate. Never be in 
 a hurry. Preserve self-possession, and do not be 
 talked out of a conviction. Rise early, and be an 
 economist of time. Maintain dignity without the 
 appeai'ance of pride ; manner is something with 
 every body, and every thing with some. Be guarded 
 in discourse, attentive, and slow to speak. Be of no 
 party. Be popular if possible, but at any rate be 
 respected. Never acquiesce in immoral or perni- 
 cious opinions. Be not forward to assign reasons to 
 those who have no right to ask. Think nothing in 
 conduct unimportantand indifferent. Rather set than 
 follow examples. Practise strict temperance ; and, 
 m all your transactions, remember the final account"
 
 ADMIRAL EARL ST. VINCENT. 
 
 83 
 
 ADMIRAL EARL ST. VINCENT. 
 
 There is not much to admire in the public mouu- 
 ment, of which Bailey is the sculptor, erected in the 
 north transept to the memory of Earl St. Vincent. 
 His lordship, a very plain and rather a simple- 
 looking old gentleman, appears resting on some- 
 thing not unlike a sword, but said to be his tele- 
 scope : underneath, History inscribes liis name 
 upon a pjTamid, while Victory laments his loss. 
 In the statue there is neither dignity nor cha- 
 racter, and in the whole performance nothing 
 heroic or ]ioetical. The inscription is clerklike, in 
 these words : — 
 
 Erected at the public expense 
 
 to the memory of 
 
 John, Eari, of St. Vincent, 
 
 as a testimony of his distinguished eminence 
 
 in the naval service of his country, 
 
 and as a particular memorial of the glorious and 
 
 important victory \vhich he gained over the 
 
 Spanish fleet off Cape St. Vincent, 
 
 on the 14th of February, 1797- 
 
 He died on the 13th of March, 1823. 
 
 John, son of S. Jervis, Esq., was born at his 
 father's residence Meaford, in Staffordshire, Jan. 
 9, 1734, and, after receiving some schooling at 
 Burton-upon-Trent, ran away to sea when only 
 ten years old. His father, it should be mentioned, 
 was solicitor to the Admiralty, and treasurer to 
 Greenwich Hospital. These places, in all proba- 
 bility, enabled him to push his son on, who was a 
 midshipman on board the Gloucester of fifty guns 
 on the Jamaica station, in 1749 ; and in February, 
 1755, was pi'omoted to a lieutenantcy, and served 
 on board the Hag-ship of Admiral Saunders, 
 by whom he was patronized. On the expedition 
 to Quebec, commanded by General Wolfe, he 
 commanded the Porcupine sloop ; and when hos- 
 tilities ceased in that quarter, repaired to the 
 Mediterranean, where Admiral Saunders made him 
 captain of the Experiment of twenty guns, during 
 the illness of Sir John Strachan who commanded 
 her. While Jervis held this temporary aj)i)oint- 
 ment, he was attacked by a large Moorish Xebec, 
 with acrew thrcetimos more numerous than his own, 
 whom he fought and forced to fly. In 17t>0 he was 
 posted, and receiving the command of the Gosport of 
 forty guns was ordered to Halifax, and from that 
 place joined the squadron under Lordt-ulville, who 
 blocked up the harbour of St. John's, of which M. cle 
 Ternay ineffectually attempted to reUiiii ijossession. 
 
 Returning to England with a convoy from Vir- 
 ginia, Capt. Jervis coiUinucd in tlie Gosport on 
 the home station until the war terminated, and his 
 ship wiis paid off. In 17'59 he obtained the Alarm 
 of thirty-two guns, aii<l served in lur in the Medi- 
 terranean until he got the Foudroyaiit, one of the 
 finest vessels in the navy, and l)ut lately tjiken from 
 the French, after caiituriiig the I'allas frigate of 
 thirty-two gunn ami 220 men. Jirvis fought this 
 shii) in K(i)i>crs action of .Inly 23, which led to 
 80 nuieh parliamentary discnssion, anil tile cnurtM- 
 martial upon both the adinirala in command. The 
 
 Foudroyant was one of the ships i)articularly re- 
 ferred to in the subsequent inquiries. She was 
 Keppel's second, was closely engaged, had five men 
 killed, and eighteen womuled ; and was altogether 
 so crippled and disabled as to be obliged to keep 
 her station next the Victory, instead of giving 
 cluise. " I was covetous of wind," said Jervis, 
 " because, disabled as I then was, 1 conceived that 
 only the advantage of the wmd could carry nie 
 again into action." 
 
 One of the most splendid actions which occurred 
 during the war now took place. In Ajiril, 1782, 
 Admiral Barrington sailed for the Bay of Biscay 
 with twelve sail of the line ; and within a short 
 distance of Ushant, discovered an enemy's fleet. 
 A general chase ensued ; and Cajitain Jervis, in 
 the Foudroyant, so far outstripped the rest of the 
 squadron, that he lost sight of them entirely, but 
 still pursued the French fleet consisting of eighteen 
 sail, laden with ju-ovisions and amnumition, and a 
 great number of troops for the East Indies. They 
 ^vere escorted by the Trotccteur and Pcgase, of 
 seventy -four guns each, L'xVctionaire, a two-decker, 
 and a frigate. The Foudroyant gained so fast upon 
 the chase, that they could not escape without an 
 engagement ; the convoy therefore dispei-sed, and 
 the two seventy-fours determined, that as the 
 Protecteur had a largo sum of money on board, 
 she should ]U-oceed, while the Pegase abided the 
 result. A little before one a.m. the Foudroyant 
 came u]), and engaged with the Pegase, in an action 
 which was extremely fierce whilst it lasted, but 
 within an hour from its commencement the Frencli 
 sliij) was compelled to strike, after having eighty 
 men killed and wounded : she sustained incredible 
 damage for the short time she was engaged. The 
 Foudroyant received but little injury ; not a nuiii 
 was killed, but Jervis was seriously wonnded. At 
 this time the sea was so rough, that great difficulty 
 was experienced in ])utting an officer and eighty 
 men on board the prize, wiiich after all was lost 
 sight of by the Fou<lroyant, but subsequently 
 secured by another vessel. 
 
 Having been made a Knight of the Bath for this 
 achievement, Sir John Jervis entered the House 
 of Connu(jns, and sat snccessivi'ly for Launeeston, 
 Yarmouth, and {'hiii|)itig Wycombi'. While mem- 
 ber for V'armouth, in 1787, he wiis made vice- 
 admiral of the white, and with that raidi resigned 
 liis seat in the House of Commons ujjou the com- 
 mencement of the war with the l''rench republic, 
 when he wiiit out in tlu' Boyne of ninety-eight 
 guns, to connnand the squadron co-operating 
 with .Sir (i. (irey in the nduction of the West 
 Inilia Islands. In 1794, .Martinique, St. I.ueia.and 
 (iuadalonpe were gallantly taken ; Iml nnt'orlnnalely 
 the yellow fever broke out, the troops and sailors 
 were unable to sustain their conquests, and Jer- 
 vis's health was so much injurecl by (hsease, that iu' 
 was obligi'<l to n'tiini home, when his shiii took 
 fire, and after burning t(t the water's edge Miw u|>. 
 As soon as his strength rallied, he w as made admiral 
 of the lilni', and a|)|iointe<l to succeed Aduiiral 
 liotham in the counnand of the Mediterniueaii 
 
 (I 2
 
 84 
 
 ST. PAUL'S CATHEDRAL. 
 
 fleet. His force for some time was mucli inferior 
 to that of the enemy, but in February, 17D7i lie 
 was joined by Rear- Admiral Parker and five men 
 of war ; and on the 14th of that month came in 
 sight of the grand fleet of Spain, lying south of 
 Cape St. Vincent. They had twenty-seven sail of 
 the line, Jervis fifteen. The strength of this arma- 
 ment, it is generally considered, would have justified 
 the latter in declining an engagement, but he I'e- 
 solved to hazard an attack, and obtained, as he 
 deserved, brilliant success. Nelson, Collingwood, 
 and Ti'oubridge were captains on this occasion. 
 
 The weather in the morning being hazy, it was 
 half-past ten before the enemy's fleet became visi- 
 ble to the whole squadron. They appeared in two 
 divisions and in no regular order. The British, 
 on the contrary, sailed in two compact close co- 
 lumns, and, carrying a press of sail, pushed boldly 
 in between the Spaniard's two divisions, before he 
 had time to form his line of battle. They then at- 
 tacked promptly, and detached the Santissima Tri- 
 nidada, of 136 guns, and one-third of the Spanish 
 force off from the main body of the fleet. This 
 gallant evolution, and, above all, the style in which 
 it was effected, proved an earnest of the fortune of 
 the day. After a long and arduous contest, in 
 which skill, ardour, and fortitude overcame the 
 vast superiority of the Spaniards in ships, men, 
 and guns, the Salvador del Mundo, of 112 guns, 
 hauled down her colours ; the San Isidro, of 74 
 guns, surrendered about the same time ; the San 
 Nicolas was boarded by Nelson ; and the Santis- 
 sima Trinidada escaped with difficulty. The battle 
 being won, another duty, in no inconsiderable de- 
 gree arduous, was imposed upon the victor — the 
 duty, namely, of securing with his small and now 
 disabled force the ships that had fallen into his 
 
 power. The promptitude, skill, and knowledge of 
 nautical movements displayed in effecting this im- 
 portant object have been pronounced by competent 
 judges to have been as full of merit of the highest 
 order as were the qualities by which, in the first 
 instance, the engagement was adventured upon and 
 achieved. 
 
 This splendid victory was highly applauded and 
 rewarded. The admiral received the thanks of 
 both houses of parliament, a pension of 3000^. a 
 year, and the title of Earl St. Vincent. He con- 
 tinued afloat until 1798, when severe ill health com- 
 pelled him to resign his command. In 1800 he 
 was sufficiently recovered to resume it. In 1801 
 he became first lord of the Admiralty, and sig- 
 nalized himself by the vigour of his administration 
 of our naval affairs, by many useful reforms, and a 
 commendable attention to the discipline and equip- 
 ment of all ships put into commission. After hold- 
 ing this office for about three years he was super- 
 seded by Lord Melville, and in 1806 once more 
 took charge of the channel fleet. He lived to the 
 extreme age of ninety. We have not adverted to 
 his character as a member of parliament and legis- 
 lator, which was unique. He often spoke both in 
 the House of Commons and the House of Lords, 
 and always in a blunt, sailor-like fashion, saying 
 many strong, and not a few strange things. His 
 principles are not to be easily described : he op- 
 posed the abolition of slavery, and supported cath- 
 olic emancipation. His life, by Captain Brenton, 
 is full of salient illusti'ations of character, and 
 clearly shows, that although highly favoured 
 throughout his career by the timely aid of mflu- 
 ential friends, his personal merits were in no re- 
 spect inferior to his good fortune. 
 
 HENRY FUSELI, R.A. 
 
 Were the English people wholly destitute of 
 native talent for the fine arts, they might take no 
 mean credit to themselves for the generosity with 
 which they have fostered and eni-iched foreign 
 painters, sculptors, and musicians. Vandyke, 
 Rubens, Sheemakers, Roubilliac, Lutherbourg, and 
 Handel, are names memorable amidst a host of 
 others who added to their fame, and principally 
 established their fortunes in England. West di-ew 
 his first breath and received his earliest impres- 
 sions in another land, and Henry Fuseli was born 
 at Zurich. The date by some has been made so 
 distant as 1741, and by himself so recent as 1745 : 
 the former, however, seems to be generally pre- 
 ferred. His father, John Caspar Fuessli, for such 
 was the family name, was a good landscape and 
 portrait painter ; and Henry showed early sym- 
 ptoms of partiality for the pursuit in which he sub- 
 sequently became distinguished : it was neverthe- 
 less proposed to educate him for the Church. He 
 was entered at the Humanity College of Zui-ich with 
 a view to holy orders,and thei'e exhibited an original 
 spirit and decided ability. There too the well-known 
 Lavater was his fellow-student, and the following 
 was the first occasion upon which the two friends 
 distinguished themselves. A leading magistrate 
 of Zurich, who had misconducted himself in 
 
 a judicial case, tried to liush the matter up by the 
 influence of his wealth and connexions. It came, 
 however, to be much canvassed in conversation, 
 and Fuseli and Lavater had the courage to write 
 a pamphlet conjomtly, which compelled the supe- 
 rior authorities to take cognizance of it. The 
 offender fled from investigation, but an enmity was 
 excited against the zealous students, which so 
 annoyed them, that they left the University with 
 a degree of A. M., and proceeded first to Vienna, 
 and then to Berlin, where they studied awhile 
 under Pi'ofessor Sulzer, and learned to si)eak 
 English. 
 
 At this period the reputation enjoyed by Klop- 
 stock, Wieland, and others, is said to have inspired 
 the vivid Fuseli with a spirit of emulation, the 
 fruits of which, though fondly cultivated to a late 
 period of his life, are but little known, as they 
 were confined to the numbers of his native tongue. 
 When eighteen, he made a tour through the 
 German states with Lavater, whose discernment 
 was exercised in a remarkable manner upon liis 
 schoolfellow. When the moment of their separa- 
 tion arrived, he put a slip of paper, beautifully 
 framed and glazed, into Fuseli's hand, and warmly 
 pressing it, exclaimed, " Hang that up in your 
 bedroom, my dear friend, and 1 know what will be
 
 HENRY FUSELI, R.A. 
 
 85 
 
 the result." The inscription was — " Do but the 
 third part of what you can do." 
 
 Before he was of age, and while still vnidecided as 
 to a pui-suit, Fuseli was fortunate enough to obtain 
 an introduction to Sir Robert Smith, then British 
 ambassador at the Court of Berlin. That gentle- 
 man noticed the talents of the doubtful student, 
 and recommended him to est:iblish himself in 
 London, as a literary agent between Germany and 
 England. Encouraged by the prospect, he came over 
 to this country in 1762, and after acting as tutor 
 to a nobleman's son, secured an intimacy with 
 many of the most distinguished men in arts and 
 literature. Amongst this number was Sir Joshua 
 Reynolds, who soon penetrated the bent of his 
 inherent vigour, and, in all probability, fixed it 
 firmly in the mould : for, on one occasion, when, 
 as he used to tell the story himself, Fuseli was 
 still speculating upon the great question of a liveli- 
 hood, he took some drawings to Sir Joshua, and 
 candidly asked him whether he thought the hand 
 that sketched them had any chance of success as 
 an artist. The president, it seems, was much 
 struck with the conception and power they dis- 
 played, for he emphatically rejilicd, " Young 
 man, were I the author of these drawings, and 
 offered ten thousand a year not to practise as an 
 artist, I would reject the temptation with con- 
 tempt." It is to be observed that Fuseli had pre- 
 viously attracted notice as an author, by publishing 
 " Reflexions on the Painting and Sculpture of the 
 Greeks," and a defence of Rousseau against the 
 attack of Yoltaire. 
 
 He now resolved to devote himself to painting, 
 as a profession, and offered to the public his first 
 jiicture, " Joseph interpreting the Dreams of the 
 chief Butler and Baker." The better to qualify 
 himself for success, he set out on a journey to 
 Italy, in 1770j v-hh Dr. Armstrong, the poet, with 
 whom he had been intimate for some time. They 
 were driven ashore by the fury of a tempest at 
 Genoa, and proceeded directly to Rome, where 
 Fuseli commenced that acquaintance with the 
 great works of Michael Angelo, which at a first 
 view and ever after filled his mind with the deep- 
 est and most enthusiastic admiration. The con- 
 trast between this preference and that of his con- 
 temporary West is peculiarly distinctive of the 
 genius of the two men. West at first was dis- 
 a]>|Kiint<d with Ra]ihael, and, though lie soon re- 
 verted to a proper estimate of that master's supe- 
 riority, always undervalued his rival. Fuseii's 
 ])erfonnances soon began to rise into repute. He 
 remained at Rome seven or eight years ; gained 
 Lord Rivers for a patron there; had t'anova for 
 his associate ; was chosen a member of the aca- 
 ilemy of St. Luke ; and amongst other works sent 
 his " fEdipus," " Death of Cardinal Beaiif(;rt," and 
 " a Scene from Macbeth," over to this country for 
 exhibition. 
 
 In 177'' he returned to England with tlie rcjui- 
 tation of being tlie first connoisseur in tlie art in 
 the country, and wiih no rival in his own province, 
 historical jiainting, but West. The first picture he 
 exhibited on his return was the " Niglitniai'e," 
 which attracted general a|>|ilause. He laboured 
 enci'getically to maintain this ]ire-cminence. be- 
 tween 171*0 and 1 )!()(), when he became a royal 
 aca<lemician, Konie say he Miggested to Alderman 
 Boydell the Shakespeare Gallery, for wliicli he 
 
 painted eight pieces. In 1800 he produced his 
 Milton Gallery, a series of forty-seven paintings 
 from Paradise Lost. They were exhibited col- 
 lectively, and proved highly po|)ular. Critics, pix)- 
 fessional men, and the public at large concurred 
 in admiring them, rightly observing, at the same 
 time, that as a whole they were unequal, and that 
 some of the subjects were ovei'done. One jMoce 
 the artist thought so well of, that he never could 
 be i)revaile(l ui>on to part with it. This was the 
 " Lazar House," which was kept by him until he 
 died. Pi-ofessional jealousy, at the same time, was 
 not slow in exjiosing his faults, the principal of 
 which were, being extravagant, overstrained, and 
 too prone to anatomical display. 
 
 In 17t)fi Barry threw up the professorship of 
 l)aintiiig at Somerset House, and Opie waved his 
 pretensions to succeed to the vacant chair in favour 
 of Fuseli, who, in 1804, was made keeper of the 
 Academy, Opie then obtaining the former ofKce. 
 Upon the demise of the latter, in 180!), the two 
 were jointly entrusted to Fuseli, notwithstanding 
 an existing rule that no person should be allowed 
 to enjoy more than one ap]iointment at a time. 
 Fuseii's Course of Lectures on Painting was begun 
 in 1801, and a volume of them published during 
 the same year. They were not so well written, 
 nor so full of working observations and practical 
 suggestions as those of Sir Joshua Reynolds ; 
 neither had they the natural strength and truth- 
 fulness for which Opie was conspicuous. But tlu-y 
 were distinguished by enlarged views, by a broad 
 and bold style of criticism, and a fearless exposure 
 of the prevailing faults of the period. I'useli is 
 also known by his translation of the German of 
 Winckchnann's " Essay on Grace in the Works of 
 Art." To this he added, in 1805, a corrected edi- 
 tion of Pilldngton's Lives of the Painters, to which 
 he made considerable and very \ aluable additions. 
 
 Fuseli was always indefatigable, and always en- 
 joyed excellent health, a blessing which probably 
 resulted from a life of systematic tenqierance and 
 regularity. He was an early riser ; and, whether 
 in town or in country, during sunnner or winter, 
 was seldom in bed at five o'clock in the umrning. 
 He married, but left no child, and beciueatlied all 
 he possessed to his wife, with whom he shared 
 great domestic felicity. Such were the ha]>i>y cir- 
 cumstances which contriliuted to the great age to 
 which lie survived. He jiainted almost down to 
 the day of his death, which took jilaee while on a 
 visit at the house of the Countess of tiuilford, at 
 Putney Hill, on the Kith of May, 1825. His Ix.dy 
 lay in state in the gallery of the Royal Academy, 
 and was interred close by Sir Joshua Reynolds. 
 The jjresident, council, and members of the Royal 
 Academy, of which he was for iqiwards of twenty 
 years so emimnt an oflicir, headed a train of 
 mounu rs to his grave, which was swelled by a 
 number of the nobility, who were his patrons, and 
 the most distinguished public characters, who 
 ranked either as his adniirers or his friends. 
 
 Fuseli was in many resjx'cts a very renuirkabic 
 man. His jiei-sonal character, the bent of his 
 mind, llu' st}le of his paintings, and slill more of 
 liis writings, were all of a high and Hlrougly-uiarkcd 
 cast. He is now esteemed less as a goi.il painter 
 than as an authority to tell what good painting is. 
 He had great powei-s, gre.-it force, great enthusiasm, 
 prciit ijitellect, and great ambition— great powciit
 
 86 
 
 ST. PAUL'S CATHEDRAL. 
 
 of conception, but dot equal powers of execution, 
 or of pleasing. He is not popular amongst paint- 
 ers, which is but natural : he had little in common 
 with them, worshipping the old masters as he did, 
 and denouncing modern failures with unsparing 
 severity. " His domain," as has been forcibly ob- 
 served, " was air and hell, — the clouds and the 
 grave. It was he who made real and visible the 
 vague and unsubstantial phantoms which haunt, 
 like dim dreams, the oppressed imagination. The 
 Ghost of Hamlet revisiting ' the glimpses of the 
 moon ;' the Witches of Macbeth chaunting over 
 their ghastly cauldron ; Satan shouting to his Le- 
 gions ; the Contest between Death and Sin, (in 
 which that gaunt and terrible enemy, 'which shape 
 had none,' is given with frightful power and ef- 
 fect,) — these things, and things like these, were 
 the subjects over which he ruled, and amongst 
 which he revelled ; and it must be owned, that 
 often as the attempt has been made, they have as 
 yet owned the sway of no other master." 
 
 Michael Angelo was his great idol, and he la- 
 vished upon him praise and admiration in every 
 instance with the most zealous enthusiasm. With 
 the view of givmg a specimen of his criticism, and 
 his manner of extolling Michael Angelo, we quote 
 from one of his lectures : — 
 
 " Sublimity of conception, grandeur of form, and 
 breadth of manner, are the elements of Michael 
 Angelo's style. By these principles he selected or 
 
 rejected the objects of imitation. As painter, as 
 sculptor, as architect he attempted, and above any 
 other man succeeded, to unite magnificence of plan 
 and endless variety of subordinate parts with the 
 utmost simplicity and breadth. His line is uni- 
 formly grand : character and beauty were admit- 
 ted only as far as they could be made subservient 
 to grandeur. The child, the female, meanness, 
 deformity, were by him indiscriminately stamped 
 with grandeur. A beggar rose from his hand the 
 patriarch of poverty ; the hump of the dwarf is 
 impressed with dignity ; his women are moulds of 
 generation ; his infants teem with the man ; his 
 men are a race of giants. This is the ' terribil via' 
 hinted at by Agostino Caracci, though perhaps as 
 little understood by the Bolognese as by the blind- 
 est of his Tuscan adorers, with Vasari at theu- 
 head. To give the appearance of perfect ease to 
 the most perplexing difficulty was the exclusive 
 power of Michael Angelo. He is the inventor of 
 epic painting in that sublime circle of the Sistine 
 chapel which exhibits the origin, the progress, and 
 the final dispensations of theocracy. He has per- 
 sonified motion in the groups of the Cartoon of 
 Pisa ; embodied sentiment on the monuments of 
 Saint Lorenzo ; the features of meditation in the 
 Prophets and Sibyls of the Sistine chapel ; and in 
 the Last Judgment, with every attitude that varies 
 the human body, traced the master trait of every 
 passion that sways the human heart." 
 
 BISHOP HEBER. 
 
 Chantrey's monument of Bishop Heber stands by 
 itself in the south-east aisle. It is a single statue, 
 representing the bishop kneeling in the act of bene- 
 diction. A design thus natural and agreeably 
 executed, constitutes a work that bears examina- 
 tion, and suggests thought. 
 
 Bishop Heber was one of those fortunate men 
 who become celebrated by a certain prestige of 
 society, and who impress their contemporaries with 
 the highest degree of consideration and regard for 
 their character and abilities, without leaving behind 
 them memorials sufficiently strong to justify posterity 
 in following in the wake of admiration. There was, 
 perhaps, no person, having access in his day to the 
 best circles of London society, who was habitually 
 spoken of m higher terms as a scholar and a poet, 
 than Reginald Heber : it is unnecessary to add, 
 that there are many whose works place them im- 
 measurably above him. The truth is, that his un- 
 affected piety threw a charm over every thing 
 connected with his name : the love felt for his 
 character as a Christian priest invested all his 
 productions and actions with an interest, and led 
 to praises more partial than just, in almost every 
 respect but one — as a minister of the Gospel he 
 cannot be too highly commended. 
 
 He was born April 21, 1783, at Malpas, in Che- 
 shire. His father was a clergyman of the Church 
 of England at Marton, in Yorkshire. From his 
 earliest years we are told, young Heber was re- 
 markable for religious feelings and observances — for 
 the mastery he acquired over passions naturally 
 ardent, and the study of the Scriptures. After 
 being initiated m the classics at the grammar 
 school of Whitchurch, Shropshire, he entered 
 
 Brazenose College, Oxford, in 1800, and carried 
 through and sustained on all occasions the reputa- 
 tion for primitive piety, for which he had already 
 become conspicuous. His studies were prosecuted 
 with corresponding zeal, and, as might be expected, 
 poetrynext to religion filled his mind, and wai-med its 
 powers. In 1803 he recited from the rostrum of the 
 college tlieatre his popular poem ' Palestine.' His 
 appearance on this occasion is said to have been in 
 the highest degree interestmg and impressive. His 
 old father was among the crowded audience ; and 
 we are told that the sudden thunder of applause 
 which then arose so shook his frame, weak and 
 wasted by long illness, that he never recovered it, 
 and may be said to have died of the joy. In 1804, 
 being elected a fellow of All Souls' College, Heber's 
 academical career terminated. In 1805 he accom- 
 panied a friend, Mr. John Thornton, on a tour 
 through the north of Europe, proceeding through 
 Sweden and Norway to St. Petersburg. After 
 learning the German language, the travellers next 
 visited Moscow, which dazzled Heber with its 
 gorgeous splendour. They proceeded south- 
 ward through the Ukrame, the counti'y of the 
 Cossacks, ti'aversed the Crimea, Russian Poland, 
 Hungary, Austria, and Northern .Germany ; and 
 in October, 1806, both arrived in England. 
 Heber now joined the family circle at Hodnet, in 
 Shropshire, after a long and toilsome journey. 
 In the year 1807 he took orders, and obtained 
 the living of Hodnet, which was in his brother's 
 gift : he then returned to Oxford, graduated 
 M.A., and assuming the habit of a Christian 
 minister, brought back to that holy calling much 
 of the apostolical character so seldom found asso-
 
 BISHOP HEBER. 
 
 87 
 
 ciated with it in these degenerate days. Gifted with 
 considerable talents and attainments, with enlarged 
 knowledge of mankind, with almost bomidlcss cha- 
 rity and benevolence, he was yet far from being 
 an ascetic. Like all men of high imaginative 
 powere, who have never snffered vice to brush 
 away the down from the nobler feelings, he had a 
 bold faith in tiie enduring nature of human attec- 
 tion, and he acted as he felt. In April, 1809, he 
 married Amelia, youngest daughter of Dr. Shipley, 
 Dean of St. Asapli, and undertook an excursion in 
 Wales, the beauties of which, notwithstanding the 
 variety of scenes he had beheld, he seemed to con- 
 sider equal to those of any country in the world. 
 
 His widow has given a pleasing account of his 
 mode of life at his rectory, where he employed 
 himself earnestly in diffusing among his parishioners 
 a proper sense of religion, and habits of piety and 
 virtue. " He became, indeed, their earthly guide, 
 their pastor and friend. His ear was never shut 
 to their complaints, nor his hands closed to their 
 wants. Instead of hiding his face from the ]ioor, 
 lie sought out distress ; he made it a rule, from 
 which no circumstances induced him to swerve, to 
 ' give to all who asked,' however trifling the sum ; 
 and whenever he had an opportunity, he never 
 failed to inquire into, and more effectually to re- 
 lieve, their distress. He could not pass a sick per- 
 son, or a child crying, withoiit endeavouring to 
 soothe and help them ; and the kindness of his 
 manner always rendered his gifts doubl}- valuable." 
 These exemplary duties did not withdraw him from 
 literary labours. He liad published in 1801> a 
 second English poem, entitled Europe, Linus on the 
 Present War ; and being an early riser, after per- 
 formincf his devotions and official duties, he used to 
 apply himself sedulously to study during the re- 
 mainder of the day. He was thus enabled to be a 
 frequent contributor to the Quarterly Review, and 
 to compose many articles for the Dictionary of the 
 Bible. In 1812 lie published a collected edition of 
 his poems. In 1815 he was appointed Bampton 
 lecturer ; in 1817 promoted to a stall in the Cathe- 
 dral of St. Asaph. In 1822 ajipeared his Life of 
 Jeremy Taylor, and about the same time he was 
 chosen preacher of Lincoln's Iini. In the following 
 year he was ap])ointcd Bislioj) of Calcutta, by his 
 friend the Right Hon. Watkins Wynne, then 
 President of the Board of C(jntrol. As soon as his 
 intention to leave England became known, he re- 
 ceived from every quarter those warm voluntary 
 testimonies of affection and regret which nothing but 
 virtue, distuiguished, persevering, and exalted, can 
 command. His own parishioners, as was natural, 
 were the foremost in their demonstratiinia of their 
 esteem. Rich, poor, old, and young — all joined in 
 presenting their earnest pastor with a mai-k of the 
 
 venei-ation m which his character was held among 
 
 them. 
 
 '• On the 22nd of Aj.ril, 1823," says Mrs. Heber, 
 " Dr. Heber finally took leave of Shropshire. Prom 
 a range of high grounds near Newport, ho turned 
 back to catch a last view of his beloved llodnet ; 
 and here the feelings which he had hitherto sup- 
 pressed in tenderness to others burst forth unre- 
 strained, and he uttered the words wliieh have proved 
 prophetic, that he ' should return to it no more !'" 
 High expectations were formed of Bishop lleber's 
 success in his new career— his eminent character, 
 the ardour of his temperament, the simplicity of 
 his life, the unaffected natui'e of his ])iety — "and 
 above all, the peculiar field opened to his labours 
 justified the hope of great results. But, unfortu- 
 nately, they were not obtained. He reached the 
 Ganges in October, 1823, and upon arriving at 
 Calcutta, found himself oppressed with a much 
 heavier load of business than he had anticipated. 
 In seven months his energy and a])i>lication sufficed 
 to place the religious affairs of Calcutta in order, 
 and he set out upon a journey into the Upper 
 Provinces, with a view of making himself person- 
 ally accjuainted with the country and the people 
 amongst whom he had been sent. The accounts 
 given in his letters and life, of his long and fatiguing 
 travels during the years 1824 and 1825, are full of 
 interest. He examined and studied the language, 
 history, institutions, moral and religious habits of 
 the numerous districts he visited. A iirinci|)al 
 object with him was the foundation of schools. 
 Prom Bombay he sailed to Ceylon ; and after 
 visiting the greater jiortion of it, returned to Cal- 
 cutta in January, 182(5 : shortly after recovci'ing 
 from a fever, he again quitted his family for the pur- 
 pose of visithig Madras and the Southern Provin- 
 ces. He proceeded through Cuddalore, Tanjore, 
 and Triehinopojy, where his pious career was closed 
 April 3, 182(J. " It were a useless," saya Mrs. 
 Heber, " and a dei-ply )iaii)ful task, to enter into 
 any detail of the api»areiit cause of his death : it is 
 sufficient to say tluit disease had, unsusjiected, been 
 existing for some time ; and that it was the o|iinion 
 of all the medical men in attendance that, under 
 no circumstances, could his invaluable life have 
 been very long preserved, though the event was 
 undoubtedly hastened by the effects of climate, by 
 intense nu'Utal a]>i)lication to those duties whicli 
 increased in interest with every step he took, and 
 was finally caused by the effects of cold on a frame 
 exhausted by heat and fatigue. His mortal remains 
 were attended to the grave with the highest honours, 
 and followed by the tears of the inhabitant.s of 
 Trichinopoly. They rest on the north side of the 
 altar in St. John's Chui-eh."' 
 
 SIR WILLIAM IIOSTE. 
 
 There is a statue of Sir W. Hostc near the south 
 door. The (Juide Book informs us that it is tin; 
 work of Mr. Thomas Canqibell, and represents the 
 baronet in full naval unifonn : liehaslhe cloak of one 
 of his orders on, and is leaning against the cai)Ktan 
 of his ship, with a trumpet in his liand. To this 
 explanation we shall only ad<l that it is as lieuvy 
 and unmeaning a jpiece of spoiled marble jus ever 
 
 came out of a sculptor's study, 
 plain: — 
 
 The inscription is 
 
 Sir Wii.i.iAM HosTi:, Bart., K.C.B., K.M.T., 
 
 Captain ill the Royal Navy. 
 
 Erected by liis Brother Utlicei-s 
 
 and 
 
 the Admirci-H of Ids Services.
 
 88 
 
 ST. PAUL'S CATHEDRAL. 
 
 This commander, the son of the Rev. Dixon 
 Hoste, of Godwicke, Norfolk, began his naval 
 career under Lord Nelson, with wliom he served 
 in the Agamemnon and other ships, until the year 
 1797, when the admiral lost his arm attacking 
 Teneriffe, and Hoste passed to the Theseus of 74 
 guns, Captain R. Miller. Four years after he 
 obtained the command of a ship, being appointed 
 to La Mutine, in which he remained until the 
 peace of Amiens. In 1802 he was made post- 
 captain. His next vessels were the Eurydice, of 
 24 guns, and the Amphion frigate. In 1809 he 
 was the senior officer on the Adriatic station, where 
 he distinguished himself on many occasions, par- 
 ticularly in boat-actions, and was commended by 
 Lord Collingwood in his public dispatches, for 
 " zeal, bravery, and the nice concert of measures 
 necessary to success." 
 
 The battle of Lysa was fought by Captain Hoste, 
 March 13, 1811, against the combined French and 
 Italian squadrons, of much superior force. The 
 British force consisted of the Amphion, Active, 
 Cerbei'us, and Volage, Captains Hoste, Gordon, 
 Whitby, and Hornby, mounting 15G guns, with 
 879 men. The enemy had six ships, the Favourite, 
 Flora, Danae, Corona, Bellona, and Carolina, mount- 
 ing 284 guns, with 2655 men. The battle raged 
 for six hours. The French admiral was driven 
 ashore on the rocks ; the Favourite blew up ; the 
 Flora struck, but afterwards escaped ; the Bellona 
 was taken ; the others fled. The total loss on the 
 British side was 50 killed, 150 wounded. 
 
 On board the Bacchante, a new thirty-eight-gun 
 frigate, to which Captain Hoste was now appointed, 
 he effected several captures on the coasts of Istria 
 and Apulia ; served at the capture of Fiume, 
 July 3, 1813, under Rear- Admiral Fremantle, and 
 blew up the forts deserted by the enemy. In 
 the next month he made a descent upon Rovigno, 
 at the head of a detachment of seamen and ma- 
 rines, and defeating the French troops in the 
 town, captured a lai-ge convoy in the harbour. It 
 was during this year that the important fortresses 
 of Cattoro and Ragusa were conquei-ed, by which 
 Dalmatia, Croatia, Istria, the Trioul, and the islands 
 in the Gulf of Venice fell into the power of the 
 allies. Captain Hoste commanded the naval forces 
 in the operations which led to these results, and 
 rendered himself throughout famous for gallantry 
 and judgment. He returned to England in ill 
 health in 1814 ; which seems to have prevented 
 him from resuming active service. His reputa- 
 tion, both amongst naval men and with the public, 
 was deservedly high. The number of engage- 
 ments he was in, the dashing style in which lie 
 always carried his objects, the number of prizes 
 he took — all these things made the country literally 
 resound with his name. He was created a baronet 
 in 1814, and nominated K.C.B. in 1815. He 
 afterwards commanded the Albion guard-ship at 
 Portsmouth, and the Royal George yacht. He 
 died Dec. 6, 1829, leaving by his wife, a daughter 
 of Lord Orford, six children. 
 
 SIR THOMAS LAWRENCE. 
 
 Sir Thomas Lawrence, the third President in suc- 
 cession of the Royal Academy, was honoured with 
 a public funeral in St. Paul's, and lies buried in 
 the crypt. As yet no monument, public or private, 
 has been erected to his memory. If we consider 
 the great number of pei'sons, royal, noble, eminent, 
 and wealthy, in whose favour he exercised his art 
 — how many a name will, through that medium 
 be transmitted to the commendations of another 
 age, which would otherwise have sunk into oblivion ; 
 and how many others who, though their memories 
 might have been preserved, would not have been 
 distinctly known in their persons, but for the charms 
 of his pencil ; and if, lastly, we bear in mind, that 
 the art of portrait painting in England was declining 
 when he came before the public, and that he re- 
 vived and carried it to a higher pitch of popularity 
 than it had previously enjoyed ; this apparent 
 neglect will seem strange, and particularly so, if it 
 is contrasted with the promptitude and munificence 
 displayed in raising tombs, and statues, in honour 
 of so many other artists, certainly not his superiors. 
 Lawrence was born at Bristol, in 17C9, and was 
 the youngest of six children. His father is spoken 
 of as having been a very careless sort of person, 
 and the little that has been preserved, or is worth 
 knowing of his history, fully bears out the descrip- 
 tion. He was bred, and for a time practised as an 
 attorney ; he then became an excise officer ; lastly 
 an inn-keeper ; and was equally unsuccessful in 
 these different pursuits. In 1772 he kept the 
 Black Bear in Devizes, where, we are told, he was 
 
 much fonder of spouting poetry to his guests, than 
 attending to their orders. In this house the 
 talents of young Lawrence were precociously dis- 
 played. At the early age of five years, catching 
 the poetic infection from his father, he not only 
 read and recited with a surprising felicity of ges- 
 ture and emphasis, but handled his pencil with 
 great accuracy and delicacy of effect. That there 
 has been no exaggeration in what is stated of his 
 talent for recitation, may be fairly inferred from 
 another circumstance mentioned by his biographer, 
 which is, that Garrick used to stop at the Black 
 Bear, and t^ike the child into a summer-house in 
 the garden to spout to him. A striking anecdote 
 of his appearance and ability at this period has 
 been preserved : — Lord and Lady Kenyon happen- 
 ing to stop for a day at the Black Bear, on their 
 way to Bath, Lawrence, the landlord, entered their 
 a])artment, and began to expatiate on the genius of 
 his boy, who, " although only in his fifth year, could 
 recite them poetry, or speeches, or take their like- 
 nesses, whichever they chose." Lady Kenyon was, 
 at first, somewhat annoyed by the interruption ; 
 but thei-e presently capered into the room, strad- 
 dling upon a stick, the most lovely and spirited child 
 she had ever beheld. His beautiful face was flushed 
 with exercise, and neither she nor her husband felt 
 inclined to stop his gambols. As soon as the boy 
 could be induced to stand still. Lady Kenyon took 
 him into her arms, and asked him if he could take 
 the likeness of that gentleman, pointing to the future 
 Lord Chief Justice. The child, looking with an
 
 SIR THOMAS LAWRENCE. 
 
 89 
 
 impatient earnestness at Li)rd Kenyon, exclaimed, 
 " Yes, that I can, and very like too." Wliilst 
 materials were sent for, the rliild resumed his play; 
 but when all was prepared, throwing his little kijs 
 from over his stick, he was lifted on the table, and 
 seated in an arm-chair, from which height he took 
 Lord Kenyon's likeness, with a rapidity, a spirit, 
 and a correctness truly astonishing. That done, 
 he was impatient to be gone ; but his lordship, 
 coaxing him, asked if he could take the likeness of 
 the lady. The boy exclaimed, " Yes, that I can, if 
 she will only turn her side to me, for her face is 
 not straight."' This produced a burst of laughter ; 
 for Lady Kenyon, by an accident, had a slight cur- 
 vature of the nose. The child took the profile. 
 Twenty-five years after, an old friend of Lady Ken- 
 yon saw this portrait, and could distmctly trace a 
 resemblance to what her ladyship had been at the 
 period when it was taken. 
 
 Bernard the act<jr has given a pleasant account 
 of Lawrence's boyhood in his " Retrospections of 
 the Stage." 
 
 " There was something about little Lawrence, 
 however, which excited the surprise of the most 
 casual observer. He was a perfect man in minia- 
 ture. His confidence and self-possession smacked 
 of one-and-twenty. Lawrence frequently brought 
 his boy to the green-room, and we would set him 
 on a table, and make him recite Hamlet's di- 
 rections to the players. On one of these occasions, 
 Henderson was present, and expressed much gra- 
 tification. The little fellow, in return for our 
 civilities and Hatteries, was desirous to take our 
 likenesses, the first time we came to Devizes ; and 
 Edwin and myself afforded him an opportunity 
 soon after, on one of our non-play-day's exciu'sions. 
 After dinner, Lawrence proposed giving us a read- 
 ing as usual, but Tom reminded liim of our pro- 
 mise. The young artist collected his materials 
 very quickly, and essayed my visage the first. In 
 about ten minutes, he produced a faithful deline- 
 ation in crayon, which for many years I kept as 
 a curiosity. He next attempted Edwin's, who, 
 startled at the boy's ability, resolved (in his usual 
 way) to perplex him. 
 
 " No man had a more flexible countenance than 
 Edwin. It was not only well featured, but well 
 muscled, if I may l)e allowed the expression, which 
 enabled him to throw over its siu-face, as on a 
 moi'al prism, all the colours of expression, minutely 
 blending or powerfully contra-sting them. He ac- 
 cordingly commenced his sitting, by settling his 
 face into a sober ami i-ather serious as|)cct, and when 
 the young artist had taken its outline and come to 
 the eyes, he began gradually, but ini]perce])til)]y, to 
 extend and change it, raising his l)niw!^ compress- 
 ing liis lips, an<l widening iiis mouth, till his face 
 wore the expression of brightness and gaiety. 
 Tom no sooner perceived the change, than he 
 started ui supreme wonder, attributing it to a 
 defect in his own vision. Tiie first outline was 
 accordingly at)andoneil, and a secotid commenced. 
 Tom was now nion- jiarlicular, and watched hini 
 narrowly, but Edwin, feature by feature, and 
 nmscle by nniscle, so com|)letely ran what miglit 
 have been called the ganmt of his countenaucr, (a.s 
 the various conipoiient-s of its harmony,) tliat the 
 boy drew and rubbed <Mit, till his hanil fell by Ills 
 sidi-, and lie stood silently looking in Ivlwin's face, 
 to discover, if possiljle, its true expression. Ivhviti 
 
 could not long maintain his composure at Ins 
 scrutiny, and revealed the hoax with a bui-st of 
 merriment and mimic thunder. 
 
 " Little Tom could not take up Shakspeai-e or 
 ;\lilton and read at random. He had been in- 
 structed in particular speeches, and to those lie 
 referred. There was one in Milton (Satan's Ad- 
 dress to the Sun) he had long wished to le:u-n, but 
 his father, from an ajiprehension that his mind 
 was yet unequal to this grasp, had passed it over. 
 Tom had listened, nevertheless, whenever the 
 former had read it to a friend, and surprised his 
 father not slightly with the news tliat he could 
 imitate him. A family in Devizes, who were well 
 known to Lawrence, giving a party one evening, 
 requested the favour of his soil's company for his 
 i-eadings : LawTence consented, but on condition 
 that Tom was not requested to select other than 
 his own passages. He then cautioned his boy 
 against attempting any thing in which he was not 
 perfect, and jiarticularly the Address of Sat;in. 
 In the evening, Tom walked to the house, witli 
 Milton and Sliakspearc under his arm, and wa.s 
 shown in to the company with the utmost atten- 
 tion. 
 
 '• When the complimenting was over, he was 
 asked what recitation he i)referred in Milton. He 
 replied, ' Satan's Address to the Sun ;' but that 
 his father would not ]iermit him to give it. For 
 that reason, they were particularly eager to liear 
 it, as they w-ished to discover whether Tom was a 
 mere parrot, or a prodigy. His dutiful scnqiles, 
 however, were not to be overcome, till they had 
 promised to obtain his father's forgiveness. He 
 then turned to the forbidden page, and a written 
 slip of paper dropped from it ; a gentleman picki'd 
 it n|), and read it aloud, ' Tom, mind you don't 
 touch .Satan.' 
 
 " My reader must conceive the effi>ct which the 
 wording of this caution produced on the hearei-s. 
 Tom, however, did have dealings with Satan, and 
 handled him, as 1 was informed, with great dis- 
 ci'ction." 
 
 WIkmi only seven years old, he had attracted so 
 much notice that Sherwin engraved his jiortrait. 
 \\'hen ten, he was taken from school, where he hail 
 not been more than two years : this, with some 
 lessons in French an<l Latin, wliicli Ik- afterwards 
 took from a dissenting cK'i-gynian, was the extent 
 of his schooling. At ten he maile his first essay 
 in historical painting, and finished three scripluRil 
 pieces ; one of which, " I'eter denying Christ," is 
 liighly praised by Dailies Harrington in his " Mis- 
 cellanies." 
 
 I'ortiinately, perhaps, for the young ]>ainter, his 
 father faileil at lb.- HIaek Hear, at Devi/es, as lie 
 had liefcire failed at the Itrislel inii,:ind removed with 
 his family to lialli. There young Lawrence beg;in 
 to paint portraits for half-a-guinea ami a guinea 
 each, and received at tlu' same time leasons in 
 drawing from Mr. Hoaro, a crayon-painter, re- 
 markable for good ta.ste and graceful touch. 
 
 W'iiile at Hath, and only tliirteeii yeai-s of age, 
 he ma<Ie a cirawingof the Transrigiiralioii, wiiicli, 
 being sent to tin- exhibition of the Society of 
 Arts, was rewarded by thein wiili their pri/e 
 of tlie great silver |):ilelte, and live guineas, in 
 a]iprol)atinn of his abilities. During his residence 
 at this i>laci! of fashionable resort, he \m\» taken by 
 liis father on excursions to Oxford, Sulisbury, and
 
 90 
 
 ST. PAUL'S CATHEDRAL. 
 
 other towns, where he obtauied considerable occu- 
 pation for his pencil. At Salisbui-y he remained 
 for some time, patronized by Dr. Hancock, who 
 strongly advised him to proceed to London. It is said 
 he generally received four sitters every day, giving to 
 each half an hour, and half an hour longer from me- 
 mory. When about sixteen years of age, he was 
 strongly inclined to make the stage his profession, 
 and he actually performed at the Bath theatre ; 
 but from this line of life he was happily diverted, 
 and turned to better pursuits. He remained at 
 Bath about six years ; and during the whole of 
 this period, young as he was, he was the sole sup- 
 port of his father and the other members of the 
 family. At length, his father, either thinking that 
 his labours might be made still more profitable in 
 a wider field, or perhaps prevailed upon by the 
 importunities of his son, I'emoved to the metro- 
 polis. 
 
 What Lawrence thought of his proficiency at 
 this critical juncture, and how he was received in 
 London by Sir Joshua Reynolds, we learn from 
 himself. In a letter to his mother, a person, by- 
 the-bye, of a very different character and habits 
 from his father, being both sensible and respect- 
 able, and distinguished by her domestic virtues, 
 dated September, 1786, he observes, " I shall now 
 say what does not proceed from vanity, nor is it 
 an impulse of the moment, but what from my 
 judgment I can warrant. Though Mr. P. Hoare's 
 studies have been greater than any paintings I 
 have seen from his pencil, mine is better. To any 
 but my own family I certainly should not say this, 
 but, excepting Sir Joshua for the painting of a 
 head, I would risk my reputation with any painter 
 in London." 
 
 His first visit to Sir Joshua is thus described : 
 " He took with him an oil portrait of himself as a 
 specimen of his abilities, and presented it just as 
 another juvenile aspirant, who had evidently called 
 upon the same errand, was being dismissed with 
 the negative encouragement, ' Well, well ; go on, 
 go on.' He then turned to Lawrence's portrait, 
 which he scrutinized for a long time in a manner 
 which young Lawrence thought an alarming con- 
 trast to the more hasty glance with which he had 
 dismissed the other. At last, turning to the boy 
 with an air of seriousness, he addressed him, 
 ' Stop, young man ; I must have some talk with 
 you. Well, I suppose now you think this is very 
 fine, and this colouring very natui-al ; hey ! hey !' 
 He then placed the pamting before the astonished 
 and trembling youth, and began to analyze it, and 
 to point out its numerous imperfections. Presently 
 he took it out with him from the gallery to his own 
 painting-room, and young Lawrence knew not how 
 to interpret this ; but Sir Joshua, soon returning, 
 addressed him kindly, and concluded by saying, 
 ' It is clear you have been looking at the old mas- 
 ters, but my advice to you is to study Nature — 
 apply your talents to Nature.' He then dismissed 
 him with marked kindness, assuring him that he 
 should be welcome whenever he chose to call." 
 
 The period at which Lawrence began to paint in 
 London was most aupicious to such a beginner. 
 His art sustained a succession of great losses for 
 several years after he devoted himself to it. Gains- 
 borough died in 1787, Reynolds in 1789, Romney 
 in 1802, Opie in 1807. These occun-ences left the 
 field occupied by only one artist of note, Hoppner, 
 
 and he, though a formidable rival to the last, was 
 carried oft" in 1810. Thus favoured by talent and 
 fortune, Lawrence's career is to be briefly described 
 as a glittering course of honours and successes from 
 the year 1787 until 1818, when he may be con- 
 sidered to have attained the acme of his popularity. 
 One of his earliest patrons was Lord de Tabley, of 
 whose lady he painted a portrait in the character 
 of Hope, which has been esteemed one of his best 
 performances. His prices at the beginning were 
 three guineas a head, but they rose rapidly. He 
 soon demanded 600 and 700 for full-length portraits, 
 and found his time fully occupied. For one pic- 
 ture, the Countess of Gower and child, he re- 
 ceived 1500 guineas. The public demand may 
 thus be said to have in a manner fixed him to 
 portrait-painting ; but he, notwithstanding, exhi- 
 bited from time to time some specimens of his- 
 torical painting, which displayed considerable merit 
 in drawing and colouring. Amongst these, Satan 
 summoning his Legions, Homer reading his Poems, 
 and his effective paintings of John Kemble, are to 
 be particularly mentioned. 
 
 George III. had been an early patron of Law- 
 rence, and obtained his admission to the Royal 
 Academy, as an associate, in 1790. Upon the 
 death of Rejuolds, Lawrence became Painter to 
 his Majesty and the Dilettanti Society. By George 
 IV. he was still more highly noticed, and liberally 
 employed. From him, in 1815, he received the 
 honour of knighthood ; by him, in 1818, was sent 
 to Aix la Chapelle to paint the assembled sove- 
 reigns and their ministers at the General Congress. 
 After remaining there for some time, he proceeded 
 to Vienna and Rome. During the whole of this 
 journey he appears to have been every where re- 
 ceived with great respect and distinction. He was 
 entertained in the palaces of kings and their prime 
 ministers, feted and feasted in public, and in pri- 
 vate treated as their friend. It is pleasing to have to 
 add, that he is considered to have done honour to 
 his country no less by his merits as an artist, than 
 by the favourable impression his manners conveyed 
 of the propriety and politeness of an English gen- 
 tleman. His letters give many pleasant accounts 
 of the potentates and statesmen he met and mixed 
 with on this occasion. In one, speaking of Prince 
 Metternich, so long the celebrated prime minister 
 of Austria, he says : — 
 
 " I have sustained very positive loss in the de- 
 parture of my Vienna fi'iends. I dined with Prince 
 Metternich whenever an engagement at the tables 
 of the cardinals, the Duchess and Duke of Devon- 
 shire, or Duke of Torlonia, would permit. With 
 him, his daughter, and their suite, on eight dif- 
 ferent evenings, I visited the beautiful villas and 
 places of intei'est round Rome. He was always on 
 my arm when we arrived at them, and often took 
 me in his chariot, with his daughter, (who con- 
 stantly travels with him,) the only person here 
 admitted to that honour — her husband, Comte Es- 
 terhazy, and Prince Kaunitz, the ambassador, fol- 
 lowing in other carriages. The last evening of 
 their stay, I went with him in his barouche, in 
 company with his daughter and Prince Kaunitz, 
 to take a last look at St. Peter's, and afterwards to 
 view the sun setting on Rome from the Monte 
 Mario. His daughter, though never in England, 
 speaks English remarkably well, and is to him, in 
 intellect and nature, and in their mutual afi"ection,
 
 SIR THOMAS LAWRENCE. 
 
 9\ 
 
 what Portia was to Cicero. [A sad slip this !] I do 
 not compare a modern statesman to that father of 
 Roman eloquence, (sanctified hy all honours of his- 
 tory and time,) except in heii^ht of political iai- 
 portiiiice, and iu the certain existence of this sweet 
 domestic feeling. That you may know part of the 
 link that binds me to him, besides his kindness, 
 and the circumstances of fortune, see him with me 
 at Tivoli, before the low-er, tremendous cascade, 
 which is out of view of the town, though, if you 
 look up, you just catch the Sibyl's temple. We 
 were standing alone and silent before it, just so far 
 distant as not to be stunned by the noise — ' And 
 here,' he said, ' it flows on — always majestic, always 
 great ; not caring whether it has audience or not ; 
 with no feelings of rivalry for power ! Here is no 
 envy, no exertion for an eflect. Content with its 
 own grandeur, no vanity, no amour propre are 
 here.' If you were to tell this to our diplomacy or 
 politicians, of the dexterous, ambitious, politic Met- 
 ternich — of him who dared that audience of a day 
 with Buonaparte, at Dresden, and is reproached by 
 Lord Grey with having so entirely deceived him — 
 of Prince Metteruich in society — the gay, the quiz- 
 zing Metternich — they would never believe, or 
 would sagely ridicule the tale ; but it is this Met- 
 teruich that I love, who, when dressed for the 
 ambassador's party, his equipage and attendants 
 waiting, at half-past ten at night, on my sole call, 
 at my suggestion could change his dress, take me 
 to his daughter's room, where she was at her little 
 supper, at her husband's bedside, who was ill with 
 slight fever, persuade his 'Marie' to put on her 
 bonnet and cloak, and come with us to see the 
 Colosseum by the moonlight that was then shining 
 iu purest lustre, where we stayed till, on our stop- 
 ping at the French ambassador's, he found it was 
 twelve o'clock. He had then to make a slight 
 change of dress, but I had none with me, and de- 
 clined enteruig, and was therefore getting out of 
 the carriage to return in my own, which had fol- 
 lowed me with Edward. Prince Metteruich, how- 
 ever, would not permit it, but desired nie to remain 
 with his daughter, and conduct her home, which 1 
 then did." 
 
 Lawrence returned to England in lfi20. Before 
 he arrived, the death of West left vacant the pre- 
 sidency of the Royal Academy, and he was chosen 
 to till it without opposition. He held the office 
 until his death, which took placi; suddenly, Jan. 7, 
 1!{I5(), ])roduced by ossification of the heart, a dis- 
 ease which has prematurely cut off many men of 
 genius. 
 
 Sir T. Lawrence was a mirror of good fortune. 
 No Englishman is to be mentioned who rose so 
 rapidly to fame, or retained so uninterruptedly to 
 the last the eminent position he first attained. In 
 point of fact there Ls neither pause nor blank in 
 ills career. In his case we have no stages of merit 
 struggling with difficulties, and succeeding after 
 a hard battle. He shot up starlike, and moved 
 brightly on in a s|ilierc which was never once 
 dimmed or crossed by rain or clouds. The most 
 distinguished characters, not of his own country, 
 but of the age in wliich he lived, — kings, iieroes, 
 statesmen, orators, anrl poets, — their wives, daugh- 
 ters, favourites, and children, vied with each other 
 in becoming the subjects of his pencil and the friends 
 
 of his leisure liours. His employment wajs inces- 
 sant up to the day of his death, and liis prices 
 always high, and yet he was not rich : on the con- 
 trary, he was fre(|uently iu a state of jiccuniary 
 embarrassment, though in the reeeijit of an income 
 estimated at between 10,(100/. and 15,000/. a year. 
 This proved a great drawback to his happiness. 
 In accounting for it, we must not conceal, on the 
 one hand, that in money mattei-s at least lie was 
 the careless son of a careless father ; and, on the 
 other, that that father and his family, both when 
 he began life and long afterwards, caused heavy 
 drafts upon his purse — a bui'den never to be ad- 
 verted to without this addition, that, heavy as it 
 proved, Lawrence never was heard to murnmr at 
 or complain of it. He also spent a good deal of 
 money on his gallery : his collection of paintings 
 and drawings was valued at 50,000/. It was more 
 than once hinted, when his difficulties became 
 known and talked of, that he gambleti ; liut this 
 was not the case, — he was merely improvident. 
 His own account of the matter, in a letter to his 
 friend, Miss Lee, is intelligible enough : — 
 
 " I liave neither been extravagant nor profligate 
 in the use of money ; neither gaming, hoi-ses, cur- 
 ricle, expensive entertainments, nor secret sources 
 of ruin, from vulgar licentiousness, have swept it 
 from me. I am in every thing, but the effds of 
 utter carelessness about money, the same being I was 
 at Bath. The same delight in pure and simple 
 pleasures, the same disdain of low enjoyments, the 
 same relish for whatever is grand, however above 
 me, the same admiration of what is beautiful in 
 character, the same enthusiasm for what is ex- 
 quisite in the productions, or generous in the pas- 
 sions of the mind. I have met with duplicity, 
 which I never jjractised, (for this is far removed 
 from inconstancy of purpose,) and it has not 
 changed my confidence in human nature, or my 
 firm belief, that the good of it hifinitely overba- 
 lances the bad. In moments of irritation I may 
 have lield other language ; but it has been the 
 errata of the heart, and this is the perfect book 
 whicli I could offer, were my being now to end.'' 
 
 In considering Lawrence as a painter, the firet 
 thin"' we are strongly impressed by is the poor 
 education he received, and the gnat merit he, not- 
 withstanding, displayed. He appears to have been 
 almost self-taught,— attended no lectures, made no 
 voyage to Italy, spent no yeai-s in copying the old 
 masters, but smarted, brush in hand, when only n 
 boy, and painted on, without stoi>ping, iis Ui.ste and 
 tact directed, until death snatched him away. His 
 natural talent must, therefore, have been great. 
 Much of his extraordinary t-ueeess is, doul)lless, to 
 be attributi'd to the prevailing characteristics of 
 Ills style, which are seen at a glance, ami always 
 captivate. Tliey are, graceful drawing, great deli- 
 cacy of touch, and u sweet tone of colouring. Ik- 
 was the artist of modern society, and painted to 
 ])le;ise. If lie seldom moves the mind deeply, lie 
 almost always gratilies goo.I UihU-, leaving behind 
 the imi)reMsiou of being one who dipicted in a high 
 and happy maimer the natural and aeeoniplisluMi 
 trails which, wli.n iniited together, may, p.rliaps, 
 b<! said to distingiiihli all lliat is most pnl'icl iu 
 the best society of modern timcB.
 
 92 
 
 ST. PAUL'S CATHEDRAL. 
 
 MAJOR-GENERAL SIR J. MALCOLM, G.C.B. 
 
 Sir J. Malcolm's statue by Bailey, in the north 
 ti'ansept of the cathedral, is a very good one ; mili- 
 tary-looking, and with a placid intelligence on the 
 face, that is characteristic and pleasant to contem- 
 plate. It bears no inscription. Equally eminent 
 as a soldier, a diplomatist, and a man of letters, 
 Sti" J. Malcolm was born May 2, 17G9,at Burnfoot, 
 near Langholm, in Scotland, where his family had 
 for many years held a farm at a low rent, under 
 the Earl of Dalkeith. He was one of seventeen 
 children, three of whom rose to high rank in the 
 service of their country ; namely, John, the subject 
 of this sketch ; Sir Pulteney, the vice-admiral ; and 
 Sir James, a lieut.-colonel of Marines. John was 
 sent to Lidia at the early age of thirteen, and 
 obtained a cadetship and ensigncy on the Madras 
 establishment in 1781. To his early residence in 
 the East, he probably stood indebted for that know- 
 ledge of its languages, and the character of its in- 
 habitants and their institutions, by which his ad- 
 vancement in life was so materially promoted and 
 distinguished. Having been favourably noticed by 
 Lord Cornwallis at the siege of Seringapatam, in 
 1792, he was made Persian interpreter to a body 
 of British troops serving under one of the native 
 princes. In 1794, and when only a lieutenant, the 
 injury inflicted upon his health by the climate com- 
 pelled him to revisit his native country, but he re- 
 turned to India the next year ; and sailing in the 
 same ship with Sir Alured Clarke, commander- 
 in-chief of Fort St. George, he was entrusted by 
 that officer with the command of a secret expedi- 
 tion against the Cape of Good Hope, which was 
 detached on the way out. For his services in this 
 affair, and the success with which he recniited a 
 body of 400 men from amongst the prisoners taken 
 at the Cape, he received the thanks of the field- 
 marshal and the Madras government. He vvas 
 appointed secretary to the commander-in-chief in 
 January, 1796, and town -major in January, 1798. 
 During the course of the same year he became 
 assistant-resident at Hyderabad, and accompanied 
 the governor-general, Lord Mornington, afterwards 
 Marquis of Wellesley, on a journey from Calcutta 
 to Madras. Early in 1799 we find him commanding 
 the infantry of the Nizam's contingent force with 
 the rank of captain, and acting with excellent effect 
 in various civil as well as military capacities during 
 the campaign, which temiinated in the surrender 
 of Seringapatam, and the death of Tippoo Saib. 
 He and Captain (afterwards Sir Thomas) Monro 
 were now appointed joint-secretaries to the com- 
 mission for adjusting the affairs of the Mysore, and 
 investing the Rajah with the government, more 
 nominal than real, of that country. 
 
 A more important service next devolved upon 
 him : — this was the mission to the court of Persia 
 in 1800, when he concluded two treaties with the 
 Shah, one political, and the other commercial, which 
 were highly thought of. Upon his return to Cal- 
 cutta he was made private secretary to the gover- 
 nor-general, and promoted to the rank of major. 
 The death of the Persian envoy, who was shot by 
 accident at Bombay, in 1802, led to a second mis- 
 
 sion to Persia, of which he acquitted himself with 
 his usual tact. From this, or rather from an 
 earlier period, his name is connected with almost 
 every military undertaking and every negotiation 
 of moment carried on by the government, whose 
 active and confidential servant he continued for a 
 long series of years. Whenever he was not em- 
 ploj-ed, he was consulted. In the wars against the 
 Mahrattas and Pendarrees he particularly signa- 
 lized himself. Lord Clive, the Duke of Wellington 
 (then Major-Gen. Wellesley), Lord Lake, and the 
 Marquis of Hastings, all acknowledged themselves 
 on various occasions indebted to his zeal, judgment, 
 and efficiency, and bore the highest testimony to 
 his merits. Lord Hastings, for instance, speaking 
 of his conduct at the battle of Mehidpoor, in 1813, 
 when, having by that time attained the i-ank of 
 brigadier-general, he was second in command, said 
 — " The chivalrous conduct of Major-Gen. Malcolm, 
 and the admirable tact manifested by him on the 
 subsequent occasions, advanced the public interests 
 no less than they distinguished the individual." 
 Mr. Canning, proposing the thanks of the House of 
 Commons for the same victory, described him as 
 " second in command, but second to none in valnur 
 and renown." There appeare but one instance in 
 which complete success did not attend him, and 
 that was in 1808, when he went to Persia for the 
 thu'd time, for the purpose of opposing the intrigues 
 of the French at that court — an object in which he 
 failed. Thus active and efficient, and constantly 
 employed in putting down insurrectionary move- 
 ments and establishing friendly relations with 
 disaffected rulers, it was not until 1821 that he 
 desired to return to England, and left India, holding 
 the highest rank and reputation amongst all the 
 officers m the Company's service. His departure 
 from the country was attended with marked de- 
 monstrations of respect and consideration. The 
 event was publicly notified in general orders, issued 
 both by the govenior-general and the government 
 of Madras : in these documents it was announced 
 that his career was unexampled ; that no other 
 servant of the company had ever been so constantly 
 employed during so long a period in the conduct 
 of such various and important military and politi- 
 cal duties ; and that the exercise of his great 
 talents in different situations had connected him 
 with every presidency, and rendered him less the 
 servant of any one than of the Indian empire at 
 large. 
 
 Substantial rewards accompanied these praises. 
 The East India Company, whohad given him 50,000 
 lacs of rupees on account of his expenses from 
 1812 to 1818, now settled a- pension of 1000/. 
 a-year upon him, while the officers and gentlemen 
 who had acted with him in the Mahratta war sub- 
 scribed 1570/., which was laid out on a silver vase 
 presented to him soon after his return to England. 
 
 In 1827, being nominated Governor of Bombay, 
 he repaired again to the East, and acquired the 
 general esteem of the native' population and his 
 fellow-countrj-men by the manner in which he 
 administered the affairs of the presidency. Upon
 
 MAJOR.-GEN. SIR J. MALCOLM— DR. BABINGTON. 
 
 03 
 
 taking his final leave of the British empire in the 
 East in 1831, he was requested to sit to Chantrey 
 the sculptor for his statue, which has since been 
 erected at Bombay. Upon liis return to England, 
 be entered the House of Commons as member for 
 Launceston, and made himself conspicuous by the 
 opposition he ottered to the Reform Bill. But 
 tliough his character was highly rositected, and 
 the matter of his speeches good, he did not shine 
 as an orator. Not the least of his defects as a 
 public speaker was his Scotch accent, which, not- 
 withstanding his eai'ly removal from his native 
 countrv and long residence abroad, continued strong 
 to the' last. He put up for Dundee, and also for 
 Carlisle, at the general election in 1832 ; but being 
 successively defeated at both places, retired to a 
 seat near Windsor, and occupied himself princi- 
 pally in writing until his death, which took place 
 April 30, 1833. 
 
 We have now to speak of Sir John Malcolm as 
 an author. His principal works are, a History of 
 Pei-sia, in 2 vols. 4to ; a Sketch of the Sikhs, in 
 8vo ; Sketches of Persia, in 2 vols. 8vo ; and a 
 Memoir of Central India. .\t the time of his 
 death he was occupied with a Life of Lord ('live, 
 which has since been tinished by another band. 
 Of these performances, it is but moderate praise to 
 rejiort that they are highly tluiughtof,aud extremely 
 valuable. His History of I'ersia stands by itself 
 in our language. His Sketch of the Sikhs made 
 the English nation intimately and thoroughly ac- 
 quainted with a new ])eoiile, whose habits aiul cus- 
 toms are peculiarly strange and interesting ; and 
 his Memoir of Central India displays the Uilents 
 of an exjierii'iu^ed statesman and accomplished 
 scholar. Besides the statue in St. Paul's, he h;i.s 
 also a monument in Westminster Abbey — a double 
 honour enjoyed by no other of our public men. 
 
 DR. BABINGTON. 
 
 A STATL'E of Dr. Babington, by W. Behnes, has 
 been erected in the south-west transept. The sub- 
 ject is introduced life-like, in his doctor's robes. 
 Old age and acute suffering are painfully expressed 
 in the countenance. On the whole, the monument 
 is a well-finished but not a pleasing work of art. 
 It is inscribed as follows : — 
 
 William Babington, M.D. F.R.S. 
 
 Fellow of the Royal College of Physicians. 
 
 Born. May 21st, 1756. Died April 29th, 1833. 
 
 Eminently distinguished for science, 
 
 beloved for the simplicity of his raannei"s 
 
 and the benevolence of his heart, 
 
 respected for his inflexible integrity, and his pure 
 
 and unaffected piety. 
 
 In all relations of his professional life 
 
 he was sagacious, candid, diligent, and humane. 
 
 Fii'm in purpose, gentle in execution ; 
 
 justly confident in his own judgment, 
 
 yet generously open to the opinion of others ; 
 
 liberal and indulgent to his brethren, 
 
 but ever mindful of his duty to tlie public. 
 
 To record the admiration of 
 
 so rare a union of intellectual excellence and moral 
 
 wortl), and to extend to future generations 
 
 the salutary influence which his living example 
 
 can no longer difl'usc, 
 
 this monument has been erected 
 
 the public subscription of his contemporaries, 
 
 A. n. 1837. 
 
 High as is the praise conveyed by this nuMuorial, 
 it is not exaggerated : few men ever united pro- 
 fessional and personal worth in a higher orhai)pier 
 manner, than William Babington, .M.I) , who was 
 born at I'ortglcnon, on the banks of the river Ban, 
 near Coleraine, in In.land. His father, a clergy- 
 man, having a large family of sons, distriliuted 
 them amongst the various profeHsions, and mad<' 
 choice of that of medicine for William, who was 
 apijrcnticod at an early age to a practitioner in 
 Londonderry. Having conq.leted bis articles, he 
 repaired to London, and became dresser to Mr. 
 
 Frank, the Surgeon to Guy's Hospital. After he 
 had spent some time at llaslar and Winchester 
 hospitals, the apothecary at Guy's resigned, and he 
 was induced to try how far the impression pro- 
 duced by his talents and steadiness while a student 
 in that establishment, would avail to obtain the 
 vacant place. His youth was a great objection to 
 his success, but the sense entertained of liis merits 
 being strong, he applied for and obtained the 
 situation. We next find him assisting Dr. Saun- 
 ders in his lectures on chemistry, and distinguisli- 
 ing himself by his attainments in that science. He 
 purchased, newly-arrauged, and disjiosed of in 
 lots, the Earl of Bute's celebrated collection of 
 minerals, ami published in 17!''» his " Systematic 
 Arrangement oi Minerals, foimded on the joint con- 
 sideration of their chemical, physical, and external 
 characters." In 17!)!) he produced an extension of 
 this work, under the title of a " New System of 
 Mineralogy." Two years after this, having obtained 
 the degree of Doctor of Medicine, he gave up his 
 sitiuition at Guy's, and began to jiractice as a phy- 
 sician in Freeman's Court, Cornhill. Being elected 
 one of the ]ihysicians to tiuy's, he lectin-ed on 
 chemistry in that hospital, and brought out in 
 1802 hisChemical Lectin-es. His jiractice increas- 
 ing, he removed into Basinghall-street, and I're 
 loug into a large house in Alilermanbury. Here 
 he associated himself with various persons distin- 
 guished by their love of mineralogy, and set on 
 foot a s\ibscrii)tion to eiuible Count Bournon to 
 imblisli his elaborate monograph of the Carbonate 
 of Linu'. Tiiese meetings, w liich were well attended, 
 led to the institution of the Geological Society, of 
 which Babington was an early and iilways a /ealoiis 
 ])romoter, making nuiny presents to its nmseuni, 
 anil contributing various pajters to its printed 
 Transactions. He iilled the office of vice-])resideMt 
 of Ibis Society three times, and that of president in 
 1822. Ill this exemplary manner prosecuting his 
 pi'ofessioii with diligence, ability, and success, and 
 devoting his leisiu-e to study, and (he society of 
 iearni'd and accomplished men, and on every occa- 
 sion turning the inlUuiice he possessed in society
 
 94 
 
 ST. PAUL'S CATHEDRAL, 
 
 to the service of the useful sciences, he continued 
 to enjoy uninterrupted health and universal con- 
 sideration until the year 1831, when tlie fatigue of 
 his various occupations induced him to move west- 
 ward, with a view of securing some relief from the 
 pressure of his extensive practice. His patients, 
 however, followed him to Devonshire-street, Port- 
 land-place ; and the calls upon his time continued 
 as heavy as ever. During the prevalence of the 
 influenza in 1833, his zeal made him more than 
 usually active in attending the afflicted. Exposure 
 to the evening air after leaving a large meeting 
 gave him a cold, which brought on the distemper, 
 and put a period to his life at the honourable age 
 
 of seventy-seven. Perhaps few men ever came 
 before the public, who deserved the pi'aise of being 
 useful and benevolent in a more eminent or de- 
 cided manner than Dr. Babington. He possessed 
 universally the esteem and affection of his patients, 
 and, above all, of his professional brethren. A con- 
 temporary paid him a proud but just compliment, 
 when he observed, that " Babington never rose by 
 depressing another." To those who desire to 
 possess further evidence of his virtues, we refer to 
 the tribute paid him by Dr. Gooch, in the Dedica- 
 tion of his work on the Diseases of Women, pub- 
 lished in i828.
 
 BISHOPS OF LONDON. 
 
 »5 
 
 APPENDIX. 
 
 DIGNITARIES OF 8T. PAUL'S, 
 
 CONTINUED FRO.M THE LISTS IN DUGDALe's HISTORY OF THE C.VTUEDRAL TO THE PRESENT TIME. 
 
 BISHOPS OF LONDON. 
 
 1. Mellitus, consecrated by Augustine, Archbishop 
 
 of Canterbury, 604 ; afterwards ex]>elled by 
 the sons of Sebert ; succeeded to the metro- 
 poHtau see, 619 ; died, 624. 
 
 2. Cedda, 654 : died, 664. 
 
 3. Wine, driven from his see of Winchester ; ob- 
 
 tained the see of London, 666 ; died, 671. 
 
 4. Erkenwald, or Erkenwold, son of Otfa, king of 
 
 the East Angles, consecrated 675 ; died about 
 685. 
 
 5. Waldher, or Walther, after 685. 
 
 6. Ingwald, about 704 ; died about T-ii or 5. 
 
 7. Eegwlf, Egulf, Engulfe, Egwolfe, or Egnald. 
 
 8. Wighed, Wighet, Wigeth, Wigherus, Wihflrus, 
 
 Wigetus, Sighah, or Sibbeh, 754. 
 
 9. Eadbright, Filbrith, Eadbricht, Eadbert, or 
 
 Edbertus, 761. 
 
 10. Eadgar, or Edgar, 789. 
 
 11. Kenewalchus, Cenwalh, Kenwald, Coenwal- 
 
 chus, Kenwalk, or Kenewalkh, 77^. 
 
 12. Eadbaldus, 784. 
 
 13. Heatliobi'ight, Hecbert, Ileathoberht, yEatho- 
 
 berlit, Hei'ebert, Hadobricht, or Eadbert, 
 795 ; died, 802. 
 
 1 4. Osmund, Osemmid, or Oswyn, 802 ; died be- 
 
 fore 816. 
 
 15. .(Ethelnoth, Eathehiot, or Ethelmoth, 816. 
 
 16. Ceolbryht, Ceolbriclitus, Celbertus, Cc>oibcrtus, 
 
 Celebertus, or Ceret)ertus, before U'M). 
 
 17. Deorwlf, Cerulphus, Ccmulph, Dernulfus, Re- 
 
 hulfus, Ceorulfus, or Cerolf, 841. 
 
 18. Swithuif, or Swytholf, 851. 
 
 19. Ilealistanus, Eadstanus, Etstanus, yElfstan, 
 
 Eallistan, or Eastan, 860 or 898-900. 
 
 20. Wulfsius, Wulfsige, Wulsius, or Wultius, 900. 
 
 21. Ethelwardus, or Edelwardus. 
 
 22. Healhstanus H'candas, EtsUm, Ealstan, or EI- 
 
 stan, after 926. 
 
 23. TheodrednH, Theodoricus, or Tiieodore the 
 
 good, 938 and 947. 
 
 24. Wulfstanus I., WIstanus, or Loofustan, 922. 
 
 25. liritlieinms, IJriclithehn, IJyrlitiieline, or IW-i- 
 
 themuH, 958. 
 
 26. Dunstan, 958, Archbishop of Canterbury, 959 ; 
 
 died, 98!!. 
 
 27. Ealbstaiius 1 II ., yElfstanus, Estanus, Ealfstan, 
 
 AthelHtan,or EifnUin, succeeded Diuistan, and 
 was bisiiop more than 30 years. 
 
 28. 
 29. 
 
 30. 
 
 31. 
 
 32. 
 
 33. 
 34. 
 
 35. 
 36. 
 
 37. 
 38. 
 39. 
 40. 
 41. 
 
 42. 
 
 43. 
 
 44. 
 
 45. 
 46. 
 
 47. 
 48. 
 
 49. 
 50. 
 
 51. 
 .52. 
 53. 
 
 Wulfstenus II. or WIstan, 990. 
 
 yElfhunus, Alhunus, Ehvinus, or Alphunus, 
 
 1012. 
 yElfwius, Alwinus, Alwius, or Ahvy, after 
 
 1015 ; died before 1035. 
 yElfwordus, iVilfward, or .\ilword, also called 
 
 ElHinord, Ell'unord, Elfward, and Alword, 
 
 kinsman of King Canute, before lO.'Jo ; died 
 
 1044. 
 Robert, 1044 ; translated to Canterbury, 1051 ; 
 
 driven from England, witli other Norman 
 
 bishops, 1052 ; died at Gemetiea, in Nor- 
 
 mandv, IO7O. 
 William, 1051. 
 Huuh de Orivalle, or Orwell ; died of leprosy, 
 
 1084. 
 Maurice, 1085 ; died, 1107. 
 Richard de Rehneis I., or de Reaumes, called 
 
 also Reame, Reamor, and Bearvis, 1108; 
 
 died, 1127. 
 Gilbert Universalis, 1128 ; died, 1134. 
 Rob.Tt de Sigillo, 1141 ; died, 1151, or 52. 
 Richard de Melmeis II. ;dieil, 11<;2. 
 Gilbert Foliot, 1163; died, II87. 
 Richard de Ely, Fit/.neal, or Nigell, son to Ni- 
 
 gellus, Bisliop of Ely, 1189 ; die<l, 1198. 
 William de Sancta .Maria, 1198 ; rtsi:;ni-d his 
 
 see, 1221 ; di.d, 1224. 
 Eustace de Faueonbcrge, 1221, one of the 
 
 King's Justices ; died, 1228. 
 Roger, surnamed Niger, called also Roger le 
 
 Mcvr, de Byleie, and de Rileye, 122!>; tlied, 
 
 1241. 
 Folk Masset, 1211 ; died, 1259. 
 Henry de Weiigtiam, chosen 1259 ; consecrated 
 
 12(iO ; died, 1262. 
 llenrv de Sandwich, 1263 ; died. 
 
 Jolm de Chisluil, 1273 
 
 1273. 
 die.!, 1280. lie was 
 
 Treasurer of l-jigland, and had bi'en Dean. 
 Richard (b' (Jravesend, 1280 ; di.d, i:»03. 
 Ral|>h de lialdock, or llaudake, elected l:(04 ; 
 
 consecrated, l.'lUfi ; died, 1313. lie was Lord 
 
 Chancellor. 
 Gilbert <le .Segrave, 1313 ; di.'d, V.WJ. 
 Richard d.- N.'wport, 1317 ; died, l.'tHI. 
 St<'|iiiin di' Gravesend, nephew to Uicbaril do 
 
 (iravesend ; elected, 1318 ; enthroiicil, i:il9 ; 
 
 died, 1.338.
 
 96 
 
 BISHOPS OF LONDON. 
 
 54. Richard de Beutworth, or Wentworth, 1338 ; 
 
 died, 1339. 
 
 55. Ralph de Stratford, 1340 ; died 1354— ou his 
 
 death, 
 
 56. Michael de Northburg, LL.D. ; died, 1361. 
 
 57. Simon de Sudbury, otherwise Tybold, or Ti- 
 
 bald ; appointed, 1.3G1 ; consecrated, 13G2 ; 
 translated to Canterbury, 1375 ; murdered by 
 the rebels, 1381. 
 
 58. William de Courtney, son of Hugh, Earl of 
 
 Devonshire ; translated from Hereford, 1375 ; 
 Lord Chancellor, 1381 ; Archbishop of Can- 
 terbury, 1382. 
 
 59. Robert de Bravbroke, 1381 ; Lord Chancellor, 
 
 1382 ; died, 1404. 
 
 60. Roger de Walden, 1404. He had been Lord 
 
 Treasurer of England, 1395 ; and Arch- 
 bishop of Canterbury on the deposition of 
 Archbishop Ainmdel in 1398. He died in 
 1406. 
 
 61. Nicholas Bubbewich, or Bubwich, Master of 
 
 the Rolls and Keeper of the Privy Seal, 
 1402 ; Bishop of London, 1406 ; translated 
 to Salisbury, ) 407, ami afterwards to Bath 
 and Wells; died, 1424. 
 
 62. Richard Clifford, translated from Worcester, 
 
 1407 ; died, 1421. 
 
 63. John Kemp, translated from Chichester, 1420 ; 
 
 Lord Chancellor and Archbishop of York in 
 1426 ; twenty-eight years after, removed to 
 Canterbury in extreme old age ; died, 1453-4. 
 
 64. William Gray, 1426 ; translated from Lincoln, 
 
 1431. 
 
 65. Robert Fitzhugh, 1431 ; died Bishop of Ely 
 
 elect, 1436. 
 
 66. Robert Gilbert, 1436 ; died, 1448. 
 
 67. Thomas Kemp, 1448 ; died, 1489. 
 
 68. Richard Hill, B.D., 1489. 
 
 69. Thomas Savage, translated from Rochester, 
 
 1496 ; translated to York, 1501 ; died, 
 1508. 
 
 70. William Wai-ham, 1502. He was Master of 
 
 the Rolls in 1494 ; Keeper of the Great 
 Seal, 1502 ; Lord Chancellor and Arch- 
 bishop of Canterbury, 1503 ; died, 1532. 
 
 71. William Barons, or Barnes, succeeded War- 
 
 ham as Master of the Rolls and Bishop of 
 London ; died, 1505. 
 
 72. Richard Fitzjames, 1506. He had been 
 
 Bishop of Rochester in 1496, and had been 
 translated to Chichester in 1502 ; died, 
 1531-2. 
 
 73. Cuthbert Tunstall, 1522 ; Keeper of the Privy 
 
 Seal, 1523 ; translated to Durham, 1530. He 
 was ejected by Edward VI., restored by 
 Queen Mary, and again ejected by Queen 
 Elizabeth. Died in tlie custody of the Arch- 
 bishop of Canterbury, 1559. 
 
 74. John Stokesley, D.D.,'l530 ; died, 1539. 
 
 75. Edmond Bonner, 1539 ; ejected by Edward 
 
 VI., 1549 ; restored, 1553 ; again displaced 
 by Parliament, 1559 ; committed to the 
 Marshalsea, where he died, 15C9. 
 
 76. Nicholas Ridley, translated from Rochester, 
 
 1550 ; deprived by Queen Mary, and exe- 
 cuted for heresy, 1555. 
 
 77. Edmund Grindal, 1559 ; translated to York, 
 
 1570, and to Canterbury, 1575 ; died, 
 1583. 
 
 78. Edwyn Sandys, D.D., translated from Wor- 
 
 cester, 1570, and to York, 1575 ; died, 
 1588. 
 
 79. John Aelmer, Elmer, or Aylmer, 1576 ; died, 
 
 1594. 
 
 80. Richard Fletcher, D.D., as Dean of Peter- 
 
 borough attended the execution of Mary, 
 Queen of Scots ; Bishop of Bristol, 1589 ; of 
 Worcester, 1593 ; of London, 1594 ; died, 
 1596. 
 
 81. Richard Bancroft, D.D., 1597 ; translated to 
 
 Canterbury, 1604 ; died, 1610. 
 
 82. Richard Vaughan, D.D., Bishop of Bangor, 
 
 1595 ; of Chester, 1597 ; of London, 1604 ; 
 died, I6O7. 
 
 83. Thomas Ravis, D.D., translated from Glouces- 
 
 ter, 1607 ; died, 1609. 
 
 84. George Abbot, D.D., Bishop of Lichfield, 
 
 1609 ; two months afterwards of London ; 
 and in a year translated to Canterbury ; 
 died, 1633. 
 
 85. John King, D.D., 1611 ; died, 1G21. 
 
 86. George Monteine, or Mountaigne, D.D., trans- 
 
 lated from Lincoln, 1621 ; to Durham in 
 1627, and in a few months afterwards to 
 York ; died in 1628. 
 
 87. William Laud, D.D., translated from Bath and 
 
 Wells, 1628, having been Bishop of St. Da- 
 vid's in 1621 ; translated to Canterbury, 
 1633 ; beheaded, 1645. 
 
 88. William Juxon, LL.D., succeeded Laud in the 
 
 sees of London and Canterbury ; attended 
 Charles I. on the scaffold ; died, 1663. 
 
 89. Gilbert Sheldon, D.D., 1660 ; translated to 
 
 Canterbury, 1663 ; died, 1677. 
 
 90. Humphrey Henchman, D.D., translated from 
 
 Salisbury in 1663 ; died, 1675. 
 
 91. Henry Compton, D.D., translated from Oxford, 
 
 1675 ; died, 1713. 
 
 92. John Robinson, D.D., translated from Bristol, 
 
 1713 ; died, 1723. 
 
 93. Edmund Gibson, D.D., translated from Lin- 
 
 coln, 1723; died, 1748. 
 
 94. Thomas Sherlock, D.D., translated, in 1748, 
 
 from Salisbury, having previously had Ban- 
 gor ; died, I76I. 
 
 95. Thomas Havter, D.D., translated from Nor- 
 
 wich, 1761*; died, 1762. 
 
 96. Richard Osbaldeston, D.D., translated from 
 
 Carlisle, 1762. 
 
 97. Richard Terrick, D.D., translated from Peter- 
 
 borough, 1764. 
 
 98. Robert Lowth, D.D., was translated from Ox- 
 
 ford in 1777) having previously had St. Da- 
 vid's ; died, 1787. 
 
 99. Beilbv Porteus, D.D., translated from Chester, 
 
 1787 ; died, 1808. 
 
 100. John Randolph, in 1808, translated from 
 
 Bangor, having had Oxford in 1799 ; died, 
 1813. 
 
 101. William Howley, D.D., 1813 ; Archbishop of 
 
 Canterbury, 1828. 
 
 102. Charles James Blomfield, D.D., 1828,
 
 DEANS OF ST. PAUL'S. 
 
 97 
 
 DEANS. 
 
 Leovegarus. 
 
 Godwinus. 
 
 Syredus, 
 
 Guilerraus. 
 
 Elfwinus. 
 
 Luiredus. 
 
 Ulstan, Ulstanus, or Wlmannus, first Dean after 
 
 the Norman Conquest. 
 William, nei)he\v to Richard de Belmeis, Bishop of 
 
 London, Dean in 1111 ; died, 1138. 
 Ralph de Langford, also neidiew to Richard do 
 
 Belmeis, Dean in and after 1150. 
 Tauriuus de Stamford, between 1154 and 1162, 
 
 according to Wharton. 
 Hugh de ilariuis, or de IMarnv, from 11(!0 to 
 
 1181. 
 Ralph de Diceto, author of " Imagines Ilistdri- 
 
 arum," succeeded in 1181, and was living in 
 
 1210. 
 Alardus de Burnham, died August 14, 121(). 
 Gervase de Hobrugg — was deposed. 
 Robert de Watford, also called Dowtford, 1218. 
 Martin de Pateshull, 1228 ; died, 1229. 
 Walter de Langford. 
 Geoffry de Lucv, 1231 ; died, 1240. 
 William de S. Maria, 1241 ; died, 1243. 
 Henry de Cornhill, 1244 ; died, 1254. 
 Walter de Salerne, otherwise de London, elected 
 
 about Easter, 1254 ; Archbishop of Tuam, 125fi ; 
 
 died in London, 1258. 
 Robert de Barthon, or Barton, 1256. 
 Peter de Newport. 
 Richard Talbot, 1260 ; also Bishop. 
 Geoffrey de Feringes, 1263. 
 John de ChisuU, 1268 ; also Bishop. 
 Herveius de Borham, 1274 ; died, 1276. He was 
 
 Justice of the King's Bench in 1265. 
 Thomas de Inglethorp, or Ingaldestliorp, 1276 ; 
 
 Bishop of Rochester, 1283 ; died, 1201. 
 Roger de la Leye, or Lee, 1283. He was Remem- 
 brancer and a Baron of the Exchequer, and 
 
 afterwards King's Treasurer. 
 William de Mundfort, or Montford, 1285 ; died, 
 
 1294. 
 Ralph deBaldock, or Bandake, 1294 ; also Bishop. 
 Raymond de la Goth, 1306 ; died, 1346. 
 Arnaldus Frangerius de Cantilupo, 1307. 
 John de SandaJe ; Lord Chancellor, 1315 ; Bishop 
 
 of Winchester, 1316 ; died, 1319. 
 Richard de Newport, 1314. 
 Vitalis de Testa, 1316. 
 John de Everdon ; died, 1336. 
 Gilbert de Bnicra. 
 
 Richard de Kilnivngt(jn, 1.353 or 1354 ; died, 1361. 
 Walter de Ald.rbury, 1362. 
 Thomas Trilleck, 1363 ; Bi.shop of Rochester, 
 
 1364 ; died, 1372 
 John de Appb'by, 1364. 
 Thomas de Eure, or Evorc, 1.1,. I)., 13)!:); .lied, 
 
 1400. 
 Thomas Stow, LL.D., 1400. 
 Thomas Moor, 1406 ; died, 1421. 
 Reginald Kentwodf, 1421 ; <li'<l, 1441. 
 Thomas Lisieux, 1441. 
 
 Lawrence Bathe, or Both, 1456 ; liisliop of Dur- 
 ham, 1457 ; Archbishop of V'orU, 1477. 
 
 William Sayd, D.D.. 1457 : died. 1468. 
 
 Roger Ra.lclyff. LL.D., 1468 ; di. d, 1471. 
 
 Thomas Wynterburne, 1,L.1>.. 1471 ; died, 1478. 
 
 William Worseley, LL 1)., 1479 ; di. d, 1499. 
 
 Robert Sherbon, or Sherburne, 1499 ; Bishop of 
 St. David's, 1505 ; of Chichester, 1508 ; died 
 1536. 
 
 John Colet, D.D., 1505 ; died, 1519. 
 
 Richard Pace, 1519 ; died, 1532. 
 
 Richard Sampson, LI..1)., 1536; translated from 
 Cliieliester to Lichtield, 1543 ; died, 1554. 
 
 John lucent, LL.D., 1540 ; died, 1545. 
 
 A\'illiain May, LL.D., 1545 ; removed by Queen 
 Mnrv, re-instated by Queen Elizabeth ; died, 
 1560. 
 
 John Feckenham, whose right name is said to have 
 been Howman, 1553 ; Abbot of Westminster, 
 1556 ; died, 1585. 
 
 Henry Cole, LL.D., 1556 ; removed by Queen 
 Eli'zal)eth ; died, 1579. 
 
 Alexander Nowell, 1560 ; died, 1602. 
 
 John Overall, D.D., 1602 ; succi'ssively Bishop of 
 Coventry, Lichfield, and Norwieli ; died, 1618. 
 
 Valentine Carev, D.D., 1614 ; Bishop of Exeter, 
 1621 ; died, 1626. 
 
 John Donne, D.D., 1621 ; died, 1631. 
 
 Thomas Wiuniff, D.D., 1(!31 ; Bishop of Lincoln, 
 1641. 
 
 Matthew Nicholas, LL.D., 1660 ; died. 1661. 
 
 John Barwick, D.D., 1661 ; died, 1664. 
 
 William Sancroft, D.D., 1664 ; Archbishop of Can- 
 terbury, 1677 ; died, 1693. 
 
 Edward Stilliugtleet, D.D., 1677 ; Bishop of Wor- 
 cester, 1689 ; died, 1699. 
 
 John Tillotson, D.D., 1689 ; Archbishop of Can- 
 terbury, 1691 ; died, 16!)4. 
 
 William Sherlock, D.D., 16!ll ; died, I707. 
 
 Henry (Jodolphin, l).l)., 17<>7 ; resigned, 1726 ; 
 died, 1733. 
 
 Francis Hare, D.D., 1726 ; Bisliop of St. Asaj-li, 
 1727: of Chichester, 1731 ; died, 1740. 
 
 Joseph Butler, D.D., 1740 ; Bish<ip of Chichester, 
 1738 ; of Durham, 1750 ; died, 1752. 
 
 Thomas Seeker, D.D., 1750 ; successively Bishop 
 of Bristol, of Oxford, and Archbishop of Can- 
 terbury, 1758 ; died, 1768. 
 
 John Hume, D.D., 1758 ; successively Bishop of 
 Bristol, Peterborough, and of Salisbury ; died, 
 1782. 
 
 Frederick Cornwallis, D.D., 1766 ; Bisliop of 
 Lichfield and Coventry, and Archbishop of Can- 
 terbury, 1768 ; died, 1783. 
 
 Thomas Newton, D.D., 1768; Bishop of Hristol ; 
 died, 1782. 
 
 Thomas Thurlow, D.D.. 1782; Bisliop of Lincoln, 
 1779 ; of Durham, 178/ ; died, I79I. 
 
 George Pretynian Tomlinc, D.D., Bishop of Lin- 
 coln, 1787. 
 
 William Van Mildert, D.D., UIJO ; afterwards 
 Bishop of Llaiidatf and Diirliani. 
 
 Charles Ricliard Simmer, D.D., 1826; lli>hop of 
 Winchehter, 1827. 
 
 Edward Copleston, D.D., 1827 ; Bishop of Llnndutf, 
 1827. 
 
 PRECENTORS. 
 
 Radul[.hus, 118.1. 
 Walter Fii/.walier.
 
 98 
 
 PRECENTORS, TREASURERS, AND CHANCELLORS OF ST. PAUL'S. 
 
 Benedict de Sansetun ; Bishop of Rochester, 
 1215 ; died, 1226. 
 
 Gervase de Hobrugge, 1216. 
 
 William de Rising, 1226. 
 
 Peter, 1227 and 1233. 
 
 John de Norton, 1239. 
 
 Thomas de Storteford, abont 1240. 
 
 Roger de Horset, Dorsett, and de De Horseth, 1241. 
 
 Robert de Barthon, or de Barton, 1246. 
 
 R , 1259. 
 
 John de Wengham, 12G2 and 1281. 
 
 Gilbert de Segrave, 1310 ; Bishop of London, 
 1313. 
 
 John de Kynbanton. 
 
 Hugh de Statherne, 1328. 
 
 William de Worston, 1333. 
 
 William de Plumstock, 1341. 
 
 William de Borston, 1341. 
 
 John de Wynchcombe. 
 
 Philip Melreth, 1370. 
 
 Thomas Horton. 
 
 John Edenham, or Ethenham, 1394. 
 
 John Wyke, 1394. 
 
 John Drewery, or Drury, 1397. 
 
 Nicholas Sturgeon, 1442. 
 
 Thomas Graunt, B.D., 1454. 
 
 William Wylde, 1474. 
 
 Gundesalvus Ferdinand ; died, 1513. 
 
 Thomas Wolsey, 1513 ; Bishop of Lincoln, Car- 
 dinal, &c. 
 
 William Horsey, D.D., 1514. 
 
 George Windham, or Wymondham, 1531. 
 
 John Shery, 1543. 
 
 Edmond Griudall, B.D., 1551 ; afterwards Bisnop 
 of London. 
 
 Henry Hervy, LL.D., 1554 ; died, 1585. 
 
 John Duport, M.A., 1585. On his death — 
 
 Thomas Goad, D.D., 1617 ; died, 1638. 
 
 Thomas Wykes, D.D., 1638 ; died, 1660. 
 
 Joseph Crowther, D.D., 1660 ; died, 1689. 
 
 Thomas Turner, D.D., 1689. 
 
 Leonel Gatford, D.D., 1714. 
 
 Thomas Dibben, 1714. 
 
 Edmond Gibson, M.A., 1741. 
 
 Anthony Hamilton, D D. 
 
 Herbert Randolph, 1812. 
 
 Charles Almeric Belli, 1819. 
 
 TREASURERS. 
 
 Godfrey, about 1160. 
 
 Henry Banaster, 1162 and 1192. 
 
 Peter de Sancta Maria, 1213. 
 
 William de Fauconberg. 
 
 Alexander de Swerford, 1231 ; died, 1246. 
 
 Richard Talboth, or Talbot, 1259 and 1260. 
 
 Robert le Moyn, about 1265. 
 
 Richard de Gravesend, afterwards Bishop of Lon- 
 don ; about 1277- 
 
 Robert de Drayton, 1278. 
 
 S. Thesaurarius, 1298. 
 
 Richard de Gravesend, Archdeacon of London, 
 1310. 
 
 Robert de Reddewell, or Redeswell, 1329 ; died, 
 1337. 
 
 Thomas de Asteley, 1333. 
 
 Richard de Wagham, 1344. 
 
 John Cok, about 1350. 
 
 Thomas Street, 1361. 
 
 Henry de Wakefield, 1368 ; successively Bishop 
 
 of Ely and Worcester, and Treasurer of Eng- 
 land ; died, 1395. 
 
 William Storteford, 1387. 
 
 Robert Albryghton, 1393. 
 
 Guy Mone, or Mohuu, 1394 ; afterwai-ds Bishop 
 of St. David's, and Treasurer of England. 
 
 John Doneys, 1397- 
 
 Walter Cooke, resigned 1400. 
 
 Walter Medeford, 1400. 
 
 John Chandeler, 1409. 
 
 John Symonsburg, 1420. 
 
 Alexander Sparma, 1423. 
 
 Thomas Mordon, LL.B., 1437. 
 
 John Drewall, LL.D., 1458. 
 
 William Wyld, 1467. 
 
 Robert Ballard, 1474 ; held Kentishtown. 
 
 Walter Knightly, M.A., 1477- 
 
 Thomas Danett, D.D., 1487. 
 
 Richard Fitzjames, 1483 ; afterwards Bishop of 
 Rochester and London, 1487. 
 
 Christopher Bainbrigg, LL.D., 1497 ; afterwards 
 Archbishop of York. 
 
 Edward Vaghan, LL.D., 1503 
 
 John Edenham, D.D., 1509 ; on his death — 
 
 Thomas Hede, LL.D., 1516 ; on his death- 
 Thomas Benett, LL.D., 1520 ; on his death- 
 Robert Cosen, M.A., 1558. 
 
 William Saxey. 
 
 Herbert Westphaling, D.D., 1567 ; Bishop of Here- 
 ford, 1585. 
 
 Richard Bancroft, D.D., afterwards Bishop of Lon- 
 don, 1585. 
 
 Giles Fletcher, LL.D., 1597- 
 
 Lodowick, or Louis, Bayly, M.A., 1610. 
 
 Patrick Young, better known as Patricius, Li- 
 brarian to James I. 
 
 Mark Frank, B.D., 1660. 
 
 Richard Henchman, M.A., 1664. 
 
 Thomas Cook, 1671, on his death — 
 
 William Jane, M.A., 1679. 
 
 Charles Alston, D.D., 1706. 
 
 Lionel Gatford, D.D., 1714. 
 
 Francis Astrey, D.D. 
 
 William Bell, M.A., 1766. 
 
 Hugh Chambres Jones, M.A., 1816. 
 
 CHANCELLORS.* 
 
 Hugh, temp. Henry I. 
 
 Henry, 1150. 
 
 Ralph de Alta Ripa, in the time of Bishop Gilbert 
 Foliot. 
 
 Richard de Stortford, 1184, died in or before 1215. 
 
 John de Cantuar, 1205. 
 
 Gervase de Hobrugge, 1214. 
 
 Henry de CornhuU, 1217- 
 
 William de Sanctne Marise Ecclesia, 1241. 
 
 John Mansell, 1243 ; died, 1264. 
 
 Henry, 1259. 
 
 Ralpli de Ivinghoe, 1278 and 1298. 
 
 Robert de Clothal, 1309 and 1319. 
 
 William de Kenham, or Reynham, 1331. 
 
 Thomas Durant, D.D., 1333. 
 
 Thomas de Bradwardin, 1337 ; Archbishop of Can- 
 terbury, 1348. 
 
 * The Chancellor was anciently master of the Schools. 
 Before the time of John de Cantuar, the term Chancellor was 
 not in use.
 
 PREBENDARIES OF ST. PAUL'S. 
 
 William de Askebv. 
 
 Tliomas Young, 1363. 
 
 Roger Holme ; also held Kentishtown. 
 
 Nicholas Hei'efoi-d, 1395. 
 
 John Godmeston, 1396. 
 
 Thomas Lentwardm, 1401. 
 
 William Booth. 
 
 Thomas Thate, 1423. 
 
 Henry Seber, D.D., 144!) ; died, 14/1. 
 
 Thomas Smith, D.D., 1471. 
 
 Walter Knightley, M.B., 1488. 
 
 Gundesalvus Ferdinand. 
 
 William Lichfield, LL.D., 1504. 
 
 John Edmunds, D.D., 1517. 
 
 Thomas Bage, alias Williams, B.D., 1529 ; on his 
 death — 
 
 John Watson, 1557 ; Dean, 1572 ; Bishop of Win- 
 chester, 1583. 
 
 William Whitaker, D.D., 1580 ; died, 1595. 
 
 William Dav, D.D., 1587 ', Bishop of Winchester, 
 1595. 
 
 William Wilson. 
 
 John Bowman, or Boweman, B.D., 1615. 
 
 Thomas Turner, B.D., 1629 ; died, 1672. 
 
 Anthony Saunders, B.D., 1672 ; on his death — 
 
 Edward Jone.s. 1719. 
 
 Peniston Booth, D.D., 1733. 
 
 Robert Gibson, 1761. 
 
 East Apthorp, D.D., 1791. 
 
 Ricbai'd Richardson, M.A., 1792. 
 
 PREBEND OF BRO^IESBURYjOR BRANDES- 
 BURY. 
 
 Parish of Wilsdon, Middlesex — rated in the kuig's 
 books i;i4. 6. 8. 
 
 PREBENDARIES. 
 
 AilwardusRuffus, 1104. 
 
 Archoidus, tiepos Ej/tscopi Gilbertl, 1132. 
 
 Roger Brun, 1 1 42. 
 
 Laurence Belesmeius, or Belmeis. 
 
 Roger of Worcester, de Wyresccstria, or Wigor- 
 nia, 1192. 
 
 Walter de Brackele, or Brachele, 1 229. 
 
 Robert de Bonewell. 
 
 Ralph de August. 
 
 Roger de Menelent. 
 
 William Blundcll. 
 
 William de Middleton, 1273. 
 
 Philip Wylewby, or Wyleby, before 1275 ; lifl'l 
 Consumjita per Mare. 
 
 Geoffrey Aspall, 1278. 
 
 Reginald de Sancto Albano, 1309. 
 
 Gerard de Cantelans, or Cantelanta ; held Browns- 
 wood. 
 
 Richard de Brenchcslec, or Brenckeslce, l.'V27. 
 
 Peter de Wotton, 1348. 
 
 Edmund La Zouch, 1351 ; exchanged Broines- 
 hury. 
 
 William de Shrovesbtiry. 
 
 Jolin de CharWton, or (Jarleton. 
 
 William Borstal!, 1385. 
 
 William .N'ewhold. i)\\ his death — 
 
 John Sudbury, 1418. 
 
 RolK.-rt Wyott, M.A.. 1444. 
 
 Thomiw Bonyfauni,!).!). 
 
 William W.stburv, 1 168. 
 
 William Wyld, 1477- 
 
 William Vaughan, LL.D., Bishop of St. David's ; 
 
 held other Prebends, and was Treasurer. 
 Jolni Edtnhani, D.D., 1509 ; held Bromesbury, and 
 
 was Treasurer. 
 John Edmunds, D.D., 150!l-10 ; was Chancellor. 
 Hugh Saunders, D.D., 1517. 
 Roger Croham, alias Peters )n, B.D., 1537. 
 Thomas Moreton, LL.B., 1555. 
 Thomas CoUyer, 1558. 
 Thomas Byam, 1562. 
 Matthew llutton, B.D., 15(i2; Bishop of Durham, 
 
 1589 ; afterwards Archbishop of York ; died, 
 
 1605. 
 Richard Bancroft, D.D., 1589 ; Bishop of London. 
 Thomas Singleton, B.D., 15!)7. 
 William Brabourne. M.A., 1660. 
 John Scott, \l.\., 1684. 
 George Walls, D.D., 1694. 
 Stephen Unvvin, 1727- 
 Richard Hind, D.D., 1772. 
 East Apthorpe, D.D., 1790. 
 Nicholas Rigbye Baldwin, 1702. 
 Johu James Watson, D.D., 1825. 
 
 PREBEND OF BROWNSWOOD. 
 
 Parish of Wilsdon, Middlesex — rated iii the king's 
 books £13. 13. 4. 
 
 PREBE.NDARIES. 
 
 Airicus. 
 
 Richard de Aurivall. 
 
 Roger de Lang, or Langford, 1132. 
 
 William de Costance, Costentim, or Constantim. 
 
 David Brand, termed Regis Clericus. 
 
 Robert de Sandon. 
 
 Laurentius Ronianus. 
 
 Richard de Sandfurd. 
 
 John de Chaham, or Cheham. 
 
 Henry de Newerk. 
 
 Adam dc Writtele, 1295. 
 
 Roger de la Legh, Leyo, or Lee ; also Dean. 
 
 John dc Leicester. 
 
 Henry Brancko, or Brande. 
 
 Saraceni de Urbe. 
 
 Walter dc London. 
 
 Robert de Donusbrugg, 1325. 
 
 Geffrey de Eyton. 
 
 Gerard de Cantelanta, or Cantelans, 1327. 
 
 Ivo de Glynton, 1344. 
 
 Michael de Northburg, 1363. 
 
 \\illiam de Wenlock. 
 
 Rc-inal<l Braybroko. 13!)2. 
 
 Hugh Colingliaui, 1394. 
 
 Robert MaulVM, 1409. 
 
 Tliomas de la Pole, 1419. 
 
 John Uunl.t, 1433. 
 
 Robert Kvrkliaui, 1418. 
 
 JohnAlcock, LL.D., 1468; successively Bishop of 
 Rochester, Worcester, and Ely; Lonl Chancrllor 
 of England ; founder of Je.su.s College, Canibridgo; 
 
 die.l, l.SOO. 
 
 William Diidl.y, 1472 ; nisli.ipdf Durhaui. I 176. 
 
 J..hu Davison, 1473 ; <li>(l. 1485. 
 
 Riciiard Fox, LL.B., 1485 ; succ. ssivrly Mi^liop 
 of Exeter, Bath and Wills, Durliani, imd Win- 
 chester ; Lord Privy Seal; foundir of Corpus 
 ChriMli Coll.gc, Oxford ; ilied, 1528. 
 
 Thom:i« Jan, D.D., 148? ; BlMJiopof Norwirli, 1 199. 
 
 John I'.rolt, iJ.I)., 1499.
 
 100 
 
 PREBENDARIES OF ST. PAUL'S. 
 
 Thomas HuLse. 
 
 William Warham, 1515. 
 
 William Halsey. 
 
 Thomas Whitehead, B.D., 1530. 
 
 Gilbert Bourne, B.D., 1548 ; Bishop of Bath and 
 
 Wells, 1554 ; held Weldland. 
 Henry Wotton, M.A., 1554. 
 Robert Harrington, 1560. 
 John Barcham, B.D., 1610 ; died, 1642. 
 Thomas Suigleton. 
 Isaac Singleton, 1614. 
 Robert Barkham. 
 Joseph Crowther, B.D., 1042. 
 Thomas Turner, D.D., 1689. 
 George Carter, 1714. 
 Samuel Baker, M.A., 1727- 
 Robert Tvrwhit, D.D., 1728. 
 Thomas Cartwright, B.D., 1733. 
 Sherlock Willis, M. A., 1749. 
 John Sturges, LL.D., 1783. 
 George Seeker, 1807. 
 
 PREBEND OF CADDINGTON MAJOR. 
 
 Parish of Caddington, hundred of Manshead, dean- 
 ery of Dunstable, Bedfordshire — rated in the 
 king's books £11. 6. 8. 
 
 PREBENDARIES. 
 
 Askyllus, 1103. 
 
 Roger the Archdeacon, son of Robert the Arch- 
 deacon. 
 
 Richard, nepos Episcopi, f rater Bicardi. 
 
 Alexander de Saccavill, 1162. 
 
 Ralph de Alta Ripa. 
 
 Alard the Archdeacon, supposed to be Alard de 
 Burnhara, afterwards Dean. 
 
 Robert de Sanctse Marife Ecclesia. 
 
 Simon de Welles, Bishop of Chichester, 1198; 
 died, 1207. 
 
 Richai'd de Hegham. 
 
 Theobald, elsewhere Theobald de Valen. 
 
 Philip de Fauconbergh, 1222. 
 
 Ralph Brito, or le Bretun. 
 
 Thomas de Anesty, 1250. 
 
 Philipp Lovell ; held Islington and Wildland. 
 
 Alexander de Ferrenton. 
 
 Fulk Lovell ; held Islington ; died, 1285. 
 
 Ralph de Hengham. 
 
 John de Manso. 
 
 Raymond Pelegrim, 1337- 
 
 Adam Daraport. 
 
 William de Hermesthorp, 1381. 
 
 Richard Clifford, 1385 ; afterwards Bishop of Lon- 
 don. 
 
 John Rouley, 1386. 
 
 Guy Mone, 1386 ; afterwards Treasurer, and Bishop 
 of St. David's. 
 
 John Colle, 1389. 
 
 John Breche, 1406. 
 
 Robert Felton. 
 
 Tliomas Wodeford, clerk, 1438. 
 
 Fulk Bermingham, 1441. 
 
 Masculinus Cosyn. 
 
 Henry Sharpe, LL.D., 1466. 
 
 Thomas Chaundeler, D.D., 14?!; held Wildland. 
 
 John Davison, 1472. 
 
 John Pemberton, 1472 ; died, 1499. 
 
 John Peese, LL.D., 1475. 
 
 John Smith, LL.B., 1487- 
 
 John Salvage, or Savage. 
 
 Christopher Plummer, 1515. 
 
 John Salvago. 
 
 John Pennand, D.D., 1524 ; died, 1529. 
 
 William Bolevn, 1529. 
 
 Jolui Pate, 1530. 
 
 Peter Vanne. 
 
 John Young, D.D., 1564. 
 
 John Flower, M.A., 1579. 
 
 Peter Lillye, B.D., 1599. 
 
 George Downham, D.D. ; Bishop of Londonderry. 
 
 Thomas Some, M.A., 1616. 
 
 Thomas Westfield, D.D. ; Bishop of Bristol, 1641 ; 
 
 died, 1644. 
 Matthew Nicholas, LL.D., 1660 ; also Dean. 
 John Dolben, D.D., 1661 ; Bishop of Rochester, 
 
 1606 ; Archbishop of York, 1083 ; died, 1686. 
 William Masters, 1666. 
 William Stanley, B.D., 1084. 
 Joseph Steadman, D.D., 1731. 
 Thomas Jackson, M.A., 1732. 
 Samuel Nicholls, LL.D., 1749. 
 Pulter Forrester, M.A., 1750. 
 John Sturges, M.A., 1778. 
 Benjamin Wheeler, D.D., 1783. 
 Samuel Horsley, D.D., 1783 ; successively Bishop 
 
 of St. David's, Rochester, and St. Asaph ; died, 
 
 1800. 
 Thomas Winstanley, M.A., 1794. 
 Thomas Gaisford, D.D., 1823. 
 
 PREBEND OF CADDINGTON MINOR. 
 
 Parish of Caddington, Bedfordshu-e — rated hi the 
 king's books £6. 
 
 PREBENDARIES. 
 
 Theobaldus, or Tethbald, 1103 ; and again, 1117. 
 
 Odo, 1132. 
 
 Parisius nepos Robert! Pulli, 1183. 
 
 William de Hely, or Ely. 
 
 Hugh de London. 
 
 William de Sanctas Mai-ise Ecclesia ; also Dean. 
 
 Robert de Passelew ; died, 1252. 
 
 John de Vuhm. 
 
 Ralph de Ivinghoe ; also Chancellor. 
 
 Roger de Waltham, 1310. 
 
 Thomas de Bradwardyn, 1337 ; also Chancellor ; 
 
 Archbishop of Canterbury, 1348. 
 Richard Michel. 
 William de Nanesby, 1362. 
 Laurence de AUesthorp. 
 Simon Bache. 
 William Barton, 1414. 
 Walter Medford, 1418. 
 John Stopingdon, 1424. 
 Thomas Chichely, 1429. 
 Thomas Seintjust, ISIus. D., 1400. - 
 Richard Lichfield, LL.D., 1467 ; held Newington 
 
 and Wenlakesborn. 
 William Duddely, or Dudley, 1468 ; Bishop of 
 
 Durham, 1476'. 
 John Peese, LL.D., 1471. 
 Richard Freston, 1475. 
 Ralph Shaw, or Shaa, B.D., 1476. 
 Edii.und Chaterton, or Chadderton, 1484. On hi.s 
 
 de;th— 
 John Treguran, M.A., 1499.
 
 PREBENDARIES OF ST. PAUL'S. 
 
 101 
 
 Thomas Hynd, LL.B., 1532. 
 
 John Somer, or Somers. 
 
 George Wall, or Walls, M.A., 1573. 
 
 Godfrey Goldborough, B.D., 1581 ; Bishop of Glou- 
 cester, 1598 ; died, U;04. 
 
 George Downani, B.D., 15!)8. 
 
 Thomas Soame. On his death — 
 
 Christopher Newsted, B.D., l(j(JO. 
 
 Robert Bretton, D.D., lfi«2. 
 
 William Lloyd, D.D,, 1672 ; successively Bishop of 
 St. Asaph, Lichfield and Coventry, and Wor- 
 cester. 
 
 Joshua Hodgkins, M.A., 1675. 
 
 Edward Cobden, 1726. 
 
 Nathaniel Hume, M.A., 1764. 
 
 William Wood, B.D., 1810. 
 
 PREBEND OF CHAMBERLAIN WOOD. 
 
 Parish of Wilsdon, Middlesex — stands in the king's 
 books at £8. 6. 8. ; demesne lands, according to 
 Lysons, 42 acres, as surveyed for Parliament in 
 1649 ; reserved rent, £?. 0. 0. 
 
 PREBENDARIES. 
 
 Robert de Lj-meses ; Bishop of Chester, 1088 ; 
 
 died, 1116. 
 Ralph Gundram, 1104. 
 Rahere, or Ragirius. 
 Geoffrey Cnnstabularius, 1145. 
 Richard de Humframvill. 
 Richard de Camera, 1215. 
 Philip de Hadham. 
 Richard Foliot. 
 John de ChisuU ; afterwards Dean, and Bishop of 
 
 London. 
 Warnius, or Warinus de Dyre. 
 Hugh de Colinhani, or Colingham, 1285. 
 ■Solomon de Roff, or Roffa. 
 Stephen de Gravesend. 
 Thomas de Nortflete ; held Wildland. 
 John de Middletone, 1326. 
 William de Hoo. 
 John de Barnet, successively Bishop of Worcester, 
 
 Wells, and Ely ; died, 1373. 
 John de Stretllee. 
 John de Ajjpleby ; also Dean. 
 John de Edington, 1366. 
 John de Cokenhache. 
 Thomas de Middleton, 1391. 
 Reginald Kentwode, LL.B., 1396 ; also Dean. 
 John Skyfteling, 1400. 
 
 John Malverne, D.U., 14(t5 ; held Ilarlstone. 
 James Cole, 1422 ; held Harleston. 
 Fulk Bcrmingliain, 143(;. 
 Gerard llesil, 1441. 
 
 William Both, or Bothe, 1443 ; Bishop of Lich- 
 field and Coventry, 1447 ; Archbishop of York, 
 
 1452 ; died, 1464. 
 William Wythaiii, LL.D., 1447. 
 F>Iiiiond Both, 1454. 
 William Sauiider, 1456. 
 John Isaak, 1472. 
 Williiiin Liehf.-id, LL.D., 1485. 
 William Knight, LL.D.. 151? ; Uishoiiof lialli.ind 
 
 Wells, 1541 ; died, 1547- 
 Andrew Tracey, 1542. 
 William Meye, LL.D., 1545 ; also Dean. 
 Cuthhert .Scott, D.D., 1.'.54 ; aft.rwar.ls Bish.ip of 
 
 Chester. 
 
 John Fuller, LL.D.. 15.58. 
 John Weale, B.D., 1558. Upon his death- 
 Thomas Drante, B.D., 1569. 
 John Wynter, .M..\., 1570. 
 Ithell Grittilh, K.'dC. 
 Nicholas Felton, D.D.. 1616; Bishop of Bristol, 
 
 1617; of Elv, 1618; died, 1626. 
 Titus Dates, D.D., 1618. 
 Thomas Ravment, D.D. 
 Milliam lleywoud, 1631. 
 William Masters, M.A., 1663. 
 John Wilkins, D.D., 1667 ; Bishop of Chester, 
 
 1668 ; died, 1672. 
 Henry llibert, D.D., 1668. 
 William Jane, 1679. 
 Thomas Houghton, 1706. 
 Robert Tomlinson, D.D., I719. 
 Robert Gibson, M..\., 1748. 
 William Gibson, 1781. 
 
 PREBEND OF CHISWICK. 
 
 Parish of Middlesex — valued in the king's books at 
 £17- 19. 2. ; reserved rent, according to Lysons, 
 £39. 2. 6., exclusive of prebcndal manor, valued, 
 hi 1649, at £178. 0. 8. 
 
 I'REBE.NDARIES. 
 
 Edmund, 1103. 1 
 
 William, nephew to Richard de Belmeis ; also Dean. 
 
 Nigell, nephew to Roger, Bisho]) of .Salisbury ; 
 afterwards Bishop of Ely ; died, 116.9. 
 
 Richard de Anianvilla, or Amavilla. 
 
 Richard the Treasurer. 
 
 William Coroner. 
 
 Ralph Hela. 
 
 Alan, Chaplain to Pope Innocent III. 
 
 John Belenieus, or Belmeis, 1125. 
 
 William de Bathonia. 
 
 Edniond de Bathonia. 
 
 Richard de Gravesend. 
 
 William de Scotho. 
 
 Philil) Weston, L338. 
 
 William (le VViMih iiluir!,rlilv, 1377- 
 
 William Bryan, 131)5. 
 
 Richard ClyflMnl, 13!l7 ; afterwards Bishop. 
 
 Richard Clyfl'ord, 1398 ; held I'ancras and Isling- 
 ton. 
 
 John Notingham. 
 
 Thomas P.>olc, 1418. 
 
 Richard Clyfford, 1419. 
 
 William Clcvc. 
 
 John Colvile, 1469. 
 
 Henry Sharpe, LL.D., 1471. 
 
 Robert Newbald. LL.B.. 1472. 
 
 John .Morton, LL.D., 1473 ; Bishop of Ely, 1479 : 
 Archbishop of Canterburv, 1486 ; 11 Cardinal, 
 1494 ; died, 1500. 
 
 Robert Moreton, 1478. 
 
 Christojiher Urswick, 1486, Recorder of I.onilon. 
 
 Richard Sampson, LL.D. 
 
 Ri.'har.l Sparehford, .M..\., 1534. 
 
 LilninMil Banner, afterwards Bishop of London, 
 
 I'^vanl Mowie, or .Movie, 1539. 
 
 <ial)riel ( ioodnian. 
 
 William Barlow, D.D.. I.'>97 ; Bishop of RocIicHtcr, 
 1605 ; of Lincoln, 1608 ; di.d, 1613. 
 
 Valentine Carey, 1608 ; afterwards Dean. 
 
 Hiehard Bavlev, B.D., 1631 On hisd.ath— 
 
 Richaril r.rinlhiefe, D.D., I667. 
 
 J
 
 
 "1 
 
 102 PREBENDARIES OF ST. PAUL'S. 
 
 Charles Smith, 1673. 
 
 Henry Wayland, B.D., 1598. 
 
 William Beveridge, 1674 ; afterwards Bishop of St. 
 
 Alexander Strange, B.D., 1636 ; died, 1650. 
 
 Asaph. 
 
 Thomas Gale, D.D., 1670. 
 
 William Hall, M.A., 1708. 
 
 Thomas Cooke, M.A., 1702. 
 
 William Crowe, 1726. 
 
 John Thomas, 1731. 
 
 White Kennet, M.A., 1727- 
 
 James Johnson, D.D., 1748. 
 
 Edmund Gibson, M.A., 1740. 
 
 Philip Yonge, D.D., 1754. 
 
 Edmund Tyrwhit, M.A., 1756. 
 
 Shute Barrington, LL.D., 1768; Bishop of Llan- 
 
 John Wright, B.A., 1788. 
 
 daff, 1769; of Salisbury, 1782; of Durham, 
 
 George Gregory, clerk, 1793. 
 
 1791. 
 
 Thomas Parkinson, 1798. 
 
 John Douglas, D.D., 1776 ; Bishop of Cai-lisle and 
 
 John Smith, B.D., 1830. 
 
 of Salisbury ; died, 1807- 
 
 
 Richard Farmer, D.D., 1788. 
 
 
 Charles Moss, D.D., 1797 ; Bishop of O.xford, 1 807 ; 
 
 
 died, 1811. 
 
 PREBEND OF CONSUMPTA PER MARE. 
 
 Thomas Hughes, M.A., 1807. 
 
 
 James Tate, M.A., 1823. 
 
 Parish of Walton, or Walton le Soken, Essex — 
 
 ? 7 
 
 rated in the king's books at £6. 0. 0. per ami. 
 
 
 PREBENDARIES. 
 
 PREBEND OF EALDLAND. 
 
 Robert, Bishop of Hereford, 1079. 
 
 Parish of Tillingham, near Dengy, Essex — valued 
 
 William Gitiard, Bishop of Winchester, 1 107 ; died. 
 
 in the king's books at £5. 0. 0. 
 
 1128. 
 
 
 Osbern, or Osbert, 1142. 
 
 PREBENDARIES. 
 
 Tui'stin, or Thurstan, afterwards Archbishop of 
 
 Quintilian, the Archdeacon, 1 1 03. 
 
 York. 
 
 Cyprian, the son of Quintilian. 
 
 Ranulf, or Ralph Patin. 
 
 Geoffrey, the Archdeacon. 
 
 Richard, afterwards Archbishoi) of Canterbury ; 
 
 Ailward, the Archdeacon. 
 
 died, 1183. 
 
 Hugh de London ; died, 1238. 
 
 Ailebert, or Gilbert Banaster, 1192. 
 
 Laurence nepos Ccelestini Papce III., 1192. 
 
 Alexander, Arclideaeou of Shrewsbury. 
 
 John de Loudon. 
 
 Sylvester, Archidiaconus Arcestriw. 
 
 Roger Niger, afterwards Bishop of London. 
 
 William la Faite, or La Affaite, 1252 to 1262 ; held 
 
 Richard Phisicus. 
 
 Narlestone. 
 
 John de Gatesdone. 
 
 William de Kinkenny, Kilkenny, or Kirkenny ; af- 
 
 Fulk de Sandford. 
 
 terwards Bishop of Ely. 
 
 Robert de Eschall, 1262. 
 
 Philip de Eya. 
 
 John de Selvestoue, J298. 
 
 William Passemer. 
 
 Robert de Scardebe, or Scardebourgh. 
 
 Thomas Eswy, or Ashewy, 1257. 
 
 Philip de Barton. 
 
 John Renger. 
 
 Icherius, or John de Concorato. 
 
 Philip de Wyleweby. 
 
 John de St. Paul, Archbishop of Dublin, 1349. 
 
 Gilbert de Sti-attone. 
 
 David Wollore, 1349 ; died, 1370. 
 
 John de Berewick. 
 
 John de Freton, 1370. 
 
 Simon de Strambregg, 1278 to 1285. 
 
 John Dysseford. 
 
 Richard de Brenches. 
 
 John Botesham, 1412. 
 
 William Evers, de Evers, or de Everdone. 
 
 John Bathe. 
 
 Peter de Tylley. 
 
 Stephen Wilton, or Wyltou, 1433. 
 
 Richard de Brencheslee, 1326. 
 
 Alexander Altham, 1450. 
 
 William de Gidon, 1336. 
 
 Roger Radclyffe, 1458 ; also Deau. 
 
 John Payton. 
 
 Richard Martyn, B.D., 1471. 
 
 Robert Sutton, 1389. 
 
 Benedict Burd, or Burgh, 1472. 
 
 John Elvet, 1395. 
 
 William Morland, 1476. 
 
 John Yardeburg, 1395. 
 
 Adrian Castellen, or de Castello, 1492. He was 
 
 Robert de Northwell, 1400. 
 
 Pope's Nuncio, and successively Bishop of 
 
 William Burton, 
 
 Hereford, Bath, and Wells. 
 
 William Both. — See him in Chamberlain Wood. 
 
 Peter Carmelianus. 
 
 William Sprever, LL.D., 1443. 
 
 William Bennet, LL.D., 1526. 
 
 Henry Sharpe, LL.D., 1459. 
 
 Hugh Baker, M.A., 1533. 
 
 Thomas Morton, 1464. 
 
 John Keale, 1536. 
 
 William Bolton, 1481. 
 
 John Tendring, LL.B., 1538. 
 
 Henry Sutton, M.D., 1488. 
 
 William Ibrye, 1548. 
 
 John'Pykering, 1494. 
 
 John Standish, D.D., 1557. He was deprived — 
 
 Richard Dudley, 1504. 
 
 probably restored — and died, 1570. 
 
 Thomas Thornham, M.A., 1536. 
 
 Robert Willaton, or Willanton, 1558 ; deprived 
 
 John Leyff, LL.D., 1547. On his death- 
 
 by Queen Mary. 
 
 William Messenger, 1557- 
 
 John Morren, or Morwen, B.D., 1558 ; deprived 
 
 John Atherton, M.A. 
 
 by Queen Elizabeth. 
 
 Robert Temple, B.D., 1592. 
 
 John Wylloeke, B.D., 1570. 
 
 David Dee, M.A., 1598. 
 
 William Chatborn, 1585.
 
 PREBENDARIES OF ST. PAUUa 
 
 103 
 
 Giles Bury, B.D., 1C27. 
 
 John Cooke, M.A., 1601. 
 
 Roger Wilford, D.D., Kilio. 
 
 John Tilliitson, D.D., 1(J75 ; afterwards Dean and 
 
 Archbishop of Cauterliury. 
 Samuel Masters, M.A., lfi78. 
 John Younc;er, D.D., lfi!)3 ; on his death — 
 Samuel Baker, D.D., 1728. 
 Riehard Terrick, D.D., 1749. 
 John Tavlor, D.D., 1757 ; died, 17G6. 
 Robert Lowth, M.A., 17«!). 
 John H. Randolph, .ALA., 1822. 
 
 PREBEND OF EALDSTREET. 
 
 Pai'ish of St. Leonard, Shoreditch, London — rated 
 in the king's books at £5. 15. 10. 
 
 PREBENDARIES. 
 
 Anseliitinus. 
 
 Fulcherus the Bishop. 
 
 Hamo de Reins, or Remes. 
 
 Theodorick the younger. 
 
 Geoffry de Luci, afterwards Dean. 
 
 Peter de Walmer. 
 
 William de Sanctis Marise Ecclesia ; also Dean. 
 
 Alan de Hortiland, or Heruland. 
 
 Hugh, Archdeacon of Wells. 
 
 Bartholomew, Archdeacon of Winchester. 
 
 Hugh de St. Edmund, Archdeacon of Colchester. 
 
 Alniaric de Montefort. 
 
 William de Sardena. 
 
 Thomas de Cobham — Bishop of Worcester, 1317 ; 
 died, 1327. 
 
 Richard de Ellesfield, 131?. 
 
 Roger de Halis, or Hales, 1327. 
 
 Henry de Shorna. 
 
 John de Eggeshale. 
 
 John Bramore. 
 
 John de Ixworth, LL.D., 1418. 
 
 Peter de Hendewyck, 1419 ; on his death — 
 
 John Piquet, 142(5. 
 
 Alan Kvrketon, D.D., 1432. 
 
 Philip ap Rice, D.D., 1433. 
 
 William Byconyll, LL.D., 1445. 
 
 Roger Keys. 
 
 Richard Lanstrother, 1448. 
 
 Walter Hert, M.A., 14C7. 
 
 John Smith, LL.B., 1484. 
 
 Richard Teryndon, LL.B., 1487. 
 
 John Wyppyll, M.A., 1488. 
 
 Thomas Norliury. 
 
 Hugh Saunders, D.D., 1508. 
 
 Thomas Bennet, LL.D., 1517 ; he was also Trea- 
 surer. 
 
 John Ashwell, D.D., 1521. 
 
 Robert Higdcn. B.D., 1541, 
 
 John Crook, LL.D., 1544. 
 
 John Warner, M.l)., 154?. 
 
 Richard Rogers, B.I)., \rMi. 
 
 John Spencer, D.D., I(;i2 ; on his death— 
 
 Tliomas Westford, B.l>., HJ14. 
 
 William Wilson, D.D. ; also Chancellor. On his 
 df.-atli — 
 
 John Whiting, D.D., 1C15. 
 
 Tavlor, D.D., UM5 ; on his death- 
 William" Walwyn, H.D., IMH). 
 Henry llalsted, .\LA., K!?! ; on his death- 
 
 William Butler, LL.B., 1728-9. 
 
 Richard Biscoe, M.A., 173ti. 
 
 Joseph Sims, M.A., 1748. 
 
 Samuel Carr, M.A., 1776 ; on his death — 
 
 Matthew Fielde, M.A., 1794 ; died, 1796. 
 
 Robert Watts, M.A., 1797. 
 
 PREBEND OF HARLESTON. 
 
 Parish of Wilsdon — belonging to it are several 
 houses in St. Paul's Church Yard. According to 
 Lysons, the reserved rent from Ilai'leston is 
 £2. 
 
 PREBENDARIES. 
 
 Robert the Archdeacon, ] 103. 
 
 Hugh de Bokland. 
 
 Hugo Trcs Fratres, or Hugo Secmidus. 
 
 Hugo, or Hugo Tertius Frater. 
 
 Nicholas the Scribe. 
 
 Geoffrey the Treasurer, about 1160. 
 
 Richard de Storteford — Chancellor also. 
 
 Ailbert, or Gilbert de Plesseto, 1215. 
 
 William, previously Archdeacon, 1218. 
 
 John de Bolemer, 1244. 
 
 William de Faite, or La Affaite ; also had Con- 
 
 sum]>ta per Mare. 
 Henry Lovell. 
 
 Hugh de Kendale, before 1295. 
 Ralph de Mailing. 
 Walter de Torp, or Thorpe. 
 William de Gordon. 
 Thomas Duraniid, 1336. 
 Adam Merinunh, or Murimoutli. 
 •John de Aunbesberi. 
 Richard Getington. 
 Walter Mallett, 1398. 
 
 Cook, 1421. 
 
 James Cole, after 1422. 
 
 Jolin Prentys, 1439. 
 
 Henry Sebere, or Sever, D.D., 1445. 
 
 John Tapton, M.A., 1471. 
 
 Walter Ondeby, D.D., 1485. 
 
 John Perot, 1498; held Browiiswood. 
 
 Edward Vaglian, or Vaughan, LL.D., 1499 — also 
 
 Treasurer. 
 John Smith, M.D., 150.3. 
 John Crayford, D.D., 1539 ; on his de:ith— 
 John Hodgekynne, D.D., 1548. He wa.s deprived in 
 
 1554, but was afterwar<ls restored. 
 Nicholas Hari)estleld, 1554. 
 Humjihrcy Alcockson, M.A., 1560. 
 David Kempe, 156L 
 Antonio Corano, de Coito, or Corranus, 1582 ; on 
 
 his death — 
 George Dickins, M.A., l.'.lM. 
 Robert Temple, B.D., 15!)3. 
 Thomas Mountfort, D.D., I5!»6 ; on his deiidi — 
 Edward Lavtiild, ^\.^., l(i32 ; on liis deatli — 
 John Wells, D.D., 16!t0. 
 Beniamiii Calamy, D.D., 1665. 
 Z.ieiieus Isham, H.D., 16f!5 ; held Totteidinm. 
 Tluimas Price, M.A., l/H?. 
 (Icoru"' ll<ll, M.A., 171 1. 
 Hugh Wvatt, M.A., 17.11. 
 John .lortin, D.D., 1762. 
 Peter Sl.plieii (;oddard, D.D., 1770. 
 .Joseph Wurton, D.D., 17»2. 
 ThoniUH Kcnn.ll, D.I)., 111(12.
 
 104 
 
 PREBENDARIES OF ST. PAUL'S. 
 
 PREBEND OF HOLBORN. 
 
 Parish of Holborn, London — rated in the king's 
 books at £8. 5. 5. 
 
 PREBENDARIES. 
 
 Walter the Archdeacon, about 1103. 
 
 Richard, vepos Arcliid. 
 
 Richard, styled Junior, 1183. 
 
 Robert Meldens. 
 
 William Brunus. 
 
 Alardus. 
 
 Eustatius de Fauconberg — also Bishop. 
 
 Peter de Colle Medio Romano. 
 
 Alexander de Hales. 
 
 William de Welleburn, 1239 to 1250. 
 
 John Francigena, or le Francoys, 1251. 
 
 Robert Burnel ; Bishop of Bath and Wells, 1274 ; 
 Treasurer and Lord Chancellor ; died, 1292. 
 
 Ralph de Baldock, or Baudake — also Bishop. 
 
 Nicholas de Luvetot, or Lovelot. 
 
 Walter de Langeton ; Bishop of Coventry and Lich- 
 field ; died, 1321. 
 
 William de Greenfeld. 
 
 Thomas de South wark. 
 
 John de Middleton, 132C to 1329. 
 
 Henry de Ides. 
 
 Richard de Chaddes'. 
 
 William de Stow. 
 
 Walter de Alilbury. 
 
 William de Chuseldon. 1374. 
 
 Thomas Brightwell, 1380. 
 
 William Degliere, 1390. 
 
 Walter Cooke, 1421. 
 
 David Price, 1423. 
 
 Thomas Bekington, LL.D., 1438 ; Bishop of Wells, 
 1443; died, 1464. 
 
 John Ket, 1444. 
 
 John Halse, B.D., 1455 ; Bishop of Lichfield, 
 1459; died, 1490. 
 
 Thomas Manning, 1459. 
 
 John Sudbury, or Crall, 14C3 ; upon his death — 
 
 Thomas Brent, LL.D., 1 479. 
 
 John Young, LL.D., 1511 ; held Newington ; died, 
 1516. 
 
 John Adams, D.D., 1511. 
 
 John Bulgvn, M.A., 1520. 
 
 William Greene, D.D.. 1534. 
 
 Henry Cole, LL.D., 1540 -also Dean. 
 
 William Buckmaster, D.D., 1541. 
 
 Robert Cousynne, M.A., 1545. 
 
 John Harpesfield, 1544 ; died, 1578. 
 
 James Grindal, 1560. 
 
 Edward Laytield, M.A., 1574. 
 
 Richard Vaughan, M.A., 1583 — also Bishop. 
 
 Thomas Worrall, D.D., 162? ; on his death- 
 John Hansley, M.A., 1639. 
 
 John Lake, D.D., 1667 ; afterwards Bishop of 
 Chichester, but suspended at the Revolution. 
 
 Robert Cory, D.D., 1682. 
 
 Samuel Edgley, 1705. 
 
 John Wilcox, D.D., 1732. 
 
 William Parker, D.D., 1762. 
 
 LukeHeslop, B.D., 1776- 
 
 Henry Handley Norris, M.A., 1825. 
 
 PREBEND OF HOLYWELL, or FINSBURY. 
 
 Manor of Finsbury ; Parishes of St. Giles, Cripple- 
 gate, and St. Leonard, Shoreditch, London. 
 
 PREBENDARIES. 
 
 Levegarus Cantor. 
 
 Robert, the son of Generam. 
 
 Ralph, or Radulphus — also Precentor. 
 
 Walter succeeded Ralph in both offices. 
 
 John de Cantuar ; also Chancellor. 
 
 Simon de Langeton. 
 
 Philip Fortis lirachiae. 
 
 Henry de Cornhull — also Dean. 
 
 Richard Talebot, or Talboth — also Bishop. 
 
 Walter de Merton, 1272 ; held Kentishtowu. 
 
 William de Ewell, 12/9 to 1312. 
 
 Robert de Baldock, 1312. 
 
 Thomas de Asteley, 1329. 
 
 Recens ap Howell, 1326. 
 
 Richard de Aston, 1359. 
 
 William de Fulboui'ne. 
 
 Roger Albryghton, 1391 — also Treasui-er. 
 
 John Burton, 1393. 
 
 Reginald Braybrooke, 1394 — had Brownswood also. 
 
 John Malvern. 
 
 Nicholas Herbury. 
 
 Richard Cawdry, 1424. 
 
 James Stanley, 1458 ; Bishop of Ely, 1506. 
 
 Ralph Langlev, 1481. 
 
 John Hill, 1493. 
 
 Robert Sherborne, 1493. 
 
 Galfred Symeon, D.D., 1494. 
 
 William Horsey, D.D. — also Precentor. 
 
 James Fitzjames, 1513. 
 
 Richard Pace, 1519 — also Dean. 
 
 Richard Wolleman, D.D., 1527. 
 
 John Spendlove, or Spendlowe, 1537 5 deprived by 
 Queen Mary, restored by Queen Elizabeth ; 
 died, 1581. 
 
 Edward Mowle, or Moyle, 1554 — had Chiswick 
 also. 
 
 Thomas Collier, M.A., 1558. 
 
 Samuel Aelmer, or Aylmer, 1581. 
 
 Theophilus Aelmer, 1583 ; died, 1625. 
 
 Thomas Weeks, 1036. 
 
 William Collingwood, M.A., 1660. 
 
 William Johnson, D.D., 1666. 
 
 John Hall, B.D., 1686. 
 
 William Whitfield, M.A., 1707. 
 
 Henry Lambe, LL.D., 171 7. 
 
 Thomas Stamper, 1729. 
 
 Lanceleot Jaekson, M.A., 1733. 
 
 Christopher Wilson, M.A., 1745 ; Bishop of Bris- 
 tol, 1783 ; died, 1792. 
 
 East Apthorp, D.D., 1792 ; died, 1816. 
 
 Hon. Hugh Percy, M.A., 1816 — now Bishop of 
 Carlisle. 
 
 PREBEND OF HOXTON. 
 
 Parish of St. Leonard, Shoreditch — rated La the 
 king's books at £10. 5. 0. 
 
 PREBENDARIES. 
 
 Osbernus Masculus, 1142. 
 Geoffrey, son of Osbern Masculus.
 
 PREBENDARIES OF ST. PAUL'S. 
 
 105 
 
 Hugh the Archdeacou. 
 
 Henry, son of Hui;h. 
 
 John Cumin, or Comyn. 
 
 Robert de Camera. 
 
 Peter Blesensis, or of Blois. 
 
 Waher, Archdeacon of Lundnn. 
 
 Gervase de Hobrugg ; also Dean. 
 
 Thomas de Urso. 
 
 Peter Cantor. 
 
 John de Wengham ; also Precentor. 
 
 John Maunsell, or Mansell ; also Chancellor. 
 
 Edmund Trasscll. 
 
 Ricliard Vaghan. 
 
 William Bradele, 1351. 
 
 Richard de Ravensere, 13C1. 
 
 John de Ludham, 1363. 
 
 Thomas Croccr. 
 
 Thomas Fereby, 1411. 
 
 Peter de Alto Bosco, 1420, 
 
 Richard Moresby, LL.B., 1427- 
 
 John Derby, LL.D., 1443. 
 
 John Gunthorp, M.A., 14(i8. 
 
 Richard Martyn. 
 
 John Giglis, LL.D., 1482 ; Bishop of Worcester, 
 
 1497. 
 John Forster, 1490. 
 Thomas Scwel, D.D., 1512. 
 Thomas Bele, D.D., 1521. 
 John Brereton, 1530. 
 Nicholas Wilson, D.D., 1542. 
 William Clyff, LL.D., 1548. On his death- 
 Hugh Evans, 1558. 
 John Duffield, B.D., 1579. 
 Henry Hamoud, ISI.A., 1583. 
 George Dickins, JLA., 1585 ; had Harlston also. 
 William Hutchinson, B.D., 1591. 
 John Simpson, M.A., 1C05. 
 
 Robert Cottesford, M.A., 1C33. On his death- 
 Thomas Holbcch, D.D., WCO. 
 Thomas Beaumont, M.A., 1G80. 
 John Gohier, M.A., 1710. 
 Christopher Baynes, 1713. 
 Francis Astry, 1718. 
 James Waller, 1771. 
 Edward Copleston, B.D., 1812. See Deans. 
 
 PREBEND OF ISLEDON, or ISLINGTON. 
 
 Parish of Islington, Middlesex— rated in the king's 
 books at £11. 10. 10. 
 
 PUEBENDAUIES. 
 
 Algar, the son of Dereman. 
 
 Ulfran, the Bishop's Chaplain, 1104. 
 
 Richard, filius Cancellarii. 
 
 Henry, nephew of Bishop Gilbert. 
 
 Joceline, Bishop of Salisbury ; suspended, 1170, in 
 
 the matter of Thomas a Beeket ; died, 1 184. 
 Rf)bert Warelwast, Bisliop of Exct.-r, 1 150. 
 John de Greenford, Bishop of Cliester, 1174 ; died, 
 
 1180. 
 RicheruR, or Ricliar' de Andele. 
 Robert lianaster. 
 Robert, the Treasurer. 
 Peter, the Treiisurer. 
 Ralpli Fiiniis. 
 
 (ieoffry d<; Lucy ; afterwards Dean. 
 William de llaverliulle. 
 Fulk Lovell. 
 
 Philip Lovell. 
 Hugh de Dodingh. 
 Peter de Aurivall. 
 Rali>h Dungon or Dungeon. 
 William de Moiiford, or Montfort ; also Dean. 
 John de Luco, or de Luk ; had Wikiland, 12!il. 
 William de Sardene ; had Kaldstreet also. 
 Richard de Newport. See Bishops of Loudon, 1317. 
 Gerald de Ingolisme. 
 Thomas de Charlton. 
 Ralph de Baldock ; afterwards Dean. 
 'i'lidinas Asteley ; also Ti'easurer. 
 UoluTt lie Retleswell. 
 
 Henry de Iddeswortli ; also had Kentishtown. 
 Humphrev de Hastang, 1343. 
 William de RoihwiU. 
 William de Lothbury. 
 John de Suynlo, or Sweinlelgh. 
 William de'Hyndelee, I'MHi. 
 Adam Holme ; also Cliancellor. 
 William de Storteford, 1399. On his death- 
 Richard Bruton, 14 Hi. 
 Richard Clifford, 1417. 
 John Ryder, 1419. 
 William Briggcford, 1442. 
 William Say, B.D., 1447 ; afterwards Dean. 
 Henry Ewen, il.A., 1451. 
 James Goldwell, LL.D., 1459 ; Bishop of Norwich, 
 
 1473. 
 John Moreton, LL.D., 1472; afterwards .Vrch- 
 
 bisliDp of Canterbury, and a Cardinal. 
 William Kemiio, 1473 ; liad Kentisliidwii, 147 ". 
 Ralph Bved, 1478 ; had I'ancras, 1470. 
 George Wandysford, B.D., 1482. 
 William Harrvndon, LL.D., 1497. 
 Geoffrev Wharton, D.D., 1523. 
 llobcrt'Rydeley, D.D., 1529 ; had .Mora. 1524. 
 John Spendlove, 153(!. 
 Elizeus Ambrose, 1537. 
 
 Richard Fletcher, .M.A.. 1572. See Bishops. 
 Thomas Marten, M.A., 1589. 
 Simon Rogers, M.A., 1(;(»3. 
 William Rogerson, B.D.. I(i04. 
 Grenado Chester, B.D.. I(i38. 
 William Hall, M.A., \rm. 
 Mark Frank, D.D., l(iU2 ; also Treasurer. 
 John Hall, .M.A., 1(104. 
 Ivlward Stilliiigllect. D.D., lOCC. 
 William Holder, D.D., I(i72. 
 Edmund Kidby, .M..\., I(i98. 
 I'tolemv James, 1713. 
 Robert'Drew, 1729. 
 Joseph Butler, 1745. 
 Rolxrt Nares, M.A., 1798. 
 William Hale Hale, M.A., 1829. 
 
 PREBEND or C.\NTLKRS, ou KKNTISH- 
 TO W.N. 
 
 Parish of St. Pancra.s, Middlesex — rated in the 
 king's b.ioks at CM. 8. 9. 
 
 I'KKIIKNnAUII.S. 
 
 Scgarus. 
 
 AngeniH, fiithcr of Tiii-stin, the Arehbihhop, 1 10 1. 
 
 Au(ioMeu«, brother to the Arclibisjnip. 
 
 Hubirl Vaccn. 
 
 Henry d<' N'orllinmpton. 
 
 Ricliurii de Illy. See iJihliopH.
 
 106 
 
 PREBENDARIES OF ST. PAUL'S. 
 
 Peter the Treasurer — de Saneta Maria. 
 
 William de Fauconberg j also Treasurer. 
 
 William de Ralegh. 
 
 Roger de Cantilupo. 
 
 Walter de Merton ; also had Holywell. 
 
 Antony de Camille, or Camilla. 
 
 Henry the Almoner. 
 
 William Heyremin, or Ei-myne, supposed to be 
 
 Ayreminne, Bishop of Norwicli in 1326. 
 Ingelard de Wareley, Baron of the Exchequer, 1316. 
 John Rusell, 1316. 
 Hugh de Ingel, or Ingolisma. 
 Roger Isarmy. 
 Richard de Bint worth. 
 
 Henry de Ides, or de Idesworth ; had Islington also. 
 Roger Holme, or Home. 
 William Waltham, LL.B., 1395. 
 Thomas Southam, 1397. 
 Thomas Horston. 
 Nicholas Herbm-y, B.D., 1410 ; afterwards had 
 
 Holywell. 
 Robert Clerk. 
 William Gray, 1430. 
 Clement Denston, B.D., 1446. 
 Nicholas Sturgeon, 1452 ; also Precentor. 
 John Waynflete, 1454. 
 Robert Ballard, 1464 ; Treasurer, 1474. 
 William Kemp, or Kempe, 1478 ; had Islmgton. 
 Richard Layton, LL.B., 1523. 
 William Layton, 1544. 
 John Bradford, ALA., 1551; burat in Smithfield, 
 
 1555. 
 John Feckeham, 1553. See the Deans. 
 George Lilly, 1556 ; died, 1559. 
 John Mullens, M.A., 1559. 
 Edward Stanhop, LL.D., 1691 ; died, 1608. 
 Robert Tinley, D.D., 1608. Ou his death- 
 John King, ALA., 1616. 
 John Tolsen, or Tolson, D.D., 1638 ; had Reculver- 
 
 land ; died, 1644. 
 Walter Jones, D.D., 1660. 
 Thomas Henchman, D.D., 1672. 
 William Wiggan, M.A., 1674. 
 Jonas Warley, 1700. 
 Edward Oliver, 1722. 
 Robert Tyrwhit, D.D., 1732. 
 William Gibson, M.A., 1742. 
 Edmund Gibson, M.A., 1746. 
 Anthony Hamilton, M.A., 177 L 
 Thomas Randolph, M.A., 1812. 
 
 PREBEND OF MAPESBURY, alias MAPLE- 
 BURY. 
 
 In the parish of Wilsdon, Middlesex — stands in the 
 king's books at £12. 0. 0. The demesne lands 
 of the manor are 310 acres ; reserved rent, £20 ; 
 manor-house at Kilburn. 
 
 PREBENDARIES. 
 
 Albert Lotaringus. 
 
 Hugh, the son of Albert. 
 
 Baldwin, 1147. 
 
 Geoffrey, natural son of Henry II. ; held the see of 
 
 Lincoln eleven years without being consecrated ; 
 
 afterwards Archbishop of York. 
 Walter Map, or Mape, 1150. 
 Richard the Chaplain. 
 Thomas de Stortford, about 1220 ; Precentor in 1 240. 
 
 Peter de Burdegal. 
 
 William de Ebor, 1241. 
 
 Stephen de Sandwic ; had Wedland, 
 
 Robert Parvus. 
 
 John Sandon, 1273 to 1275. 
 
 Giles Filol, or de Fylol. 
 
 Peter de Dene. 
 
 John de Bedeford. 
 
 Robert de Cantuar, 1332. 
 
 Michael de Northburg. See Bishops. 
 
 Richard de Norwich. 
 
 John de Buckingham, 1361. 
 
 Roger de Scrop, 1375. 
 
 John de Claydone. 
 
 William Packington. 
 
 Thomas Stow, LL.D., 1390. See Deans, 
 
 Richard Kingston, 1405. 
 
 Robert Rothbury, 1418. 
 
 John Birmingham, 1424. 
 
 Lawrence Both, 1453. See Deans. 
 
 John Arundell, M.D., 1456 ; afterwards Bishop of 
 
 Chichester. 
 Richard Ewyn, 1450. 
 John Both, 'l463 ; Bishop of Exeter, 1466 ; died, 
 
 1478. 
 John Wodde, B.D., 1464 ; held Weldland, 
 John Bourehier, 1495. 
 John Hill, LL.B., 1495. 
 John Wythers. 
 John Spendlove, 1534. 
 William Wellyfed, Oct. 14, 1534. 
 Thomas Bedvll, Dec. 17, 1534. 
 William Weflyfed, Dee. 22, 1534. 
 Gabriel Dunne, M.A., 1540. 
 
 John Harpesfeld, or Harpsfield, D.D., 1558 ; de- 
 prived by Queen Elizabeth ; died, 1578. 
 John Pilkington, M.A., 1559. 
 
 John Ebden, 1562. Upon his resignation, another 
 John Ebden, 1596. 
 
 Leonard Chambers, B.D., 1597- Upon his death — 
 Samuel Harsnet, M.A., 1598 ; Bishop of Chichester, 
 
 1609 ; of Norwich, 1619 ; Archbishop of York, 
 
 1628. 
 John Bancroft, B.D., 1609 ; Bishop of Oxford, 
 
 1632 ; died, 1641. 
 William Bray, B.D., 1632. 
 Francis Hall, B.D., 1660. 
 Thomas Turner, D.D., 1682. 
 Edward Norton, D.D., 1689. 
 George Jacson, or Jackson, 1712. 
 Edmund Chishull, 1719. On his death- 
 Edmund Simpson, M.A., 1733. 
 Edmund Gibson, ALA., 1743. 
 Thomas Church, ALA., 1743-4. 
 Walter Walker Ward, D.D., I747. 
 Nicholas Webb, ALA., 1755. 
 Richard Beadon, B.D., 1755 ; successively Bishop 
 
 of Gloucester, and Bath and Wells. 
 Joseph Eyre, ALA., 1802. 
 Sir Herbert Oakeley, Bart., 1816. 
 Jon. Tyers Barrett, D.D., 1825. . 
 
 PREBEND OF AIORA, 
 
 In the parish of St. Giles, Cripplegate, Loudon — 
 rated in the king's books at £19. 17. 6. 
 
 PREBENDARIES. 
 
 Nigellus the Physician. 
 
 Ebrardus, nephew of the Bishop Nigellus.
 
 PREBENDARIES OF ST. PAUL'S. 
 
 107 
 
 William de Calme. 
 
 Henry, son of Bishop Robert. 
 
 Alan, the Chaplain. 
 
 Peter de Saiicta Jlaria, Treasurer. 
 
 William of Anjou, 1220. 
 
 Philip de Fauconberg. 
 
 Thomas, Archdeacon of Essex. 
 
 Richard Talebot, or Taleboth. See Deans. 
 
 Walter Chasehuse, or Chaucehus, 1253. 
 
 Philip de Eva. 
 
 John de ChishuU. 
 
 William de Meleford. 
 
 Robert de Stratford, 1333 ; died, 1362. 
 
 Richard de Byntworth, 1337. See Bishops. 
 
 William de Belesby. 
 
 Paul de ^lonteflorum. 
 
 Simon Islvp, 1347 ; Archbishop of Canterbury, 
 
 1349. 
 Nicholas de Heth, 135G. 
 William Wyvell, 13G2. 
 Henry de Snayth, 13(>4. 
 Thomas de Horton, 1382. 
 Thomas de Evere, or Ewre. See Deans. 
 John Ethenham, 1400. See Precentors. 
 Edmond Tobbot, 1437. 
 Walter Shyvyngton, 1440. 
 John Kyrkeby, 1448. 
 Thomas Parbior, 1451. 
 
 Thomas Wynterborne, LL.D., 1469. See Deans. 
 Thomas Graunt, 1473 ; also Precentor. 
 John Russel, D.D., 1474 ; Bishop of Rochester, 
 
 147G ; of Lincoln, 1480 ; Chancellor of England 
 
 under Richard III. 
 Edmund Audeley, jM.A., 1476 ; succeeded Russell 
 
 in the see of Rochester. 
 Lionel Windevel, or Woodville,D.D , 1480; Bishop 
 
 of Salisbury, 1482. 
 John Forstar, or Forster, M.A., 1480. 
 John de Giglis, LL.D., 1490 ; Bishop of Worcester, 
 
 1497. 
 
 Robert Shirbourne, M.A. 1496. See Deans. 
 John Colet, D.D., 1505. See Deans. 
 Thomas Hedde, LL.D., 1519. 
 John Adams, D.D., 1520. 
 John Rydoley, D.D., 1523. 
 John Tunstafl, 1527. 
 Thomas Barrett, LL.D., 1534. 
 William Darbyshire, 1544. 
 Edmund West, M.A., 1551. 
 
 Robert Cousyn, M.A., 1554. On his deprivation- 
 John Veron, 1559. 
 
 Robert Crowlev, 1563 ; deprived, 1565 ; died, 1588. 
 William Palmer, M.A., 1565. 
 John Wa.ker, D.I).. 1574. 
 Thomas White, D.D., 1588. 
 Thomas Wvnnitt'e, D.D. See Deans. 
 John llacket, 1642; I'.islu.p of Lichfield and Co- 
 
 ventrv, 1661 ; died, 1670. 
 Jolni Pritchett, M.A., 1661 ; Bishop of Gloucester, 
 
 1672. 
 Charles Alston, M.A.. 1681. 
 John Wvvill, M.A., 17M. 
 George Ik-Il, M.A., 1714. 
 Launcelot Smiih. B.D.. 1717- 
 Fifield Allen, D.D., 1/37. 
 Richard Grey, D.D., 17':'.. __ 
 Anthony Hamilton, .M.A., 1771- 
 James Waller, .M.A., 1771- 
 Thomas Stinton, D.D., 1795. 
 
 Robert Porteus, M.A,, 1797. 
 Henry Wintour, 1803. 
 William llen-inghani, B.D., 1804. 
 Samuel Gauntlett, D.D., 1819. 
 Joseph llolden Pott, M.A., 1822. 
 
 PREBEND OF NEASDON, llESDON, ou 
 WEASDON, 
 
 In the parish of Wilsdon, Middlesex — rated iu the 
 king's books at £7- 13. 4. : no demesnes. 
 
 PREBENDARIES. 
 
 RejTicr, the Archdeacon. 
 
 Wynunul, Dean of Lincoln. 
 
 Roger de Clvtonia. 
 
 William de Ver, 1162 ; Bishop of Hereford, II06 ; 
 died, 1199. 
 
 William do Norhall ; Bishop of Worcester, 11(16. 
 
 Ralph Foliot. 
 
 Benedict. 
 
 William de Purle, 1218 ; died, 1238. 
 
 Richard de Wendover, 1250 ; died, 1252. 
 
 Hugh de Pateshulle ; Bishop of Lichlield and Co- 
 ventry, 1234. 
 
 Conrad. 
 
 Robert de Pas.selcw, 1242. 
 
 William de Luda ; Bishop of Ely, 1290. 
 
 Hugh de Kersington. 
 
 John de Swinefeld. 
 
 Robert Burliast, or Burghass. 
 
 Adam Jlerimouth, or Murimuth, 1327 ; afterwards 
 had Harleston. 
 
 Richard Plessi, or de Pleysis. 
 
 John de Colchester, 1346. 
 
 Bartholomew Sidey, B.D., 1370. 
 
 Simon Stainton. 
 
 Nicholas Bravbroke, 1395. 
 
 John Drewery, 1399 ; Precentor, 1.397. 
 
 William Brewster, 1441. 
 
 John Walters, LL.B., 1465. 
 
 Richard Luke, M.A., 1467. 
 
 John Alevn, or Kerver, LL.B., 1484. 
 
 Edward Underwood, D.D., 1492. 
 
 William Matlieni, 1504. 
 
 Rolland, or Rowland, Phillips, 1517. 
 
 Brian Higden. 
 
 William Ermested, 1539. 
 
 Richard Marshall. 
 
 Nicholas Flemings, 1561. 
 
 .lohn Fox, B.D., l.V.)l. 
 
 Thomas Wilson, B.D. 
 
 Mathew Day, M.A., HilH). 
 
 Richanl H.'nchman, M.A.. 1663; Treasurer. 
 
 Sanuiil Wilkinson, D.D.. 1668. 
 
 Thomas Leader, D.D.. 1671. 
 
 William Sill, M.A., I678 ; lieM St. ranenis. 
 
 Edward Nnrtdii, M.A., 167:t ; hild Maplesbury. 
 
 Wright l!iinl(t, .M.A., l(;:i:t. 
 
 William Whitfi.-M, .M.A., 1695 ; held Wclsdon. 
 
 Henry Roby, 1689. 
 
 Joshua Barton, M.A., I7O6. 
 
 William Hawkins. 17II7. 
 
 John llcvlin, D.D., 1736. 
 
 Th.inias Uavn.-, M.A., 1759. 
 Itichard Onii.nMl. .M.A., 1789. 
 
 Thomas .lacKsoM, D.D., 1792. 
 
 lleiirv William Mngeadie, D.D., 179!!; Bishop ..f 
 Baligor, I8(l((.
 
 108 
 
 PREBENDARIES OF ST. PAUL'S. 
 
 Gerald Valerian Wellesley, M.A., 1809. 
 Robert James Carr, D.D., 1827 ; Bishop of Chi- 
 chester, and afterwards of Worcester. 
 Sydney Smith, M.A., 1831. 
 
 PREBEND OF NEWINGTON. 
 
 In the parish of Stoke Nevvington, Middlesex, 
 stands in the king's books at £28. 0. 0. ; de- 
 mesne lands, 325 acres ; reserved rent, £28. 
 
 PREBENDARIES. 
 
 Wilward or Vilward. 
 
 Tulk, prior of St. Osyth. 
 
 Walter, son of Bishop Richard. 
 
 Gilbert Foliot — see Bishops. 
 
 John de Garland. 
 
 William Comin. 
 
 Ralph de Bisacia, 1217 and 1243. 
 
 John de Ramesey. 
 
 Henry de Wengham. See Bishops. 
 
 Thomas de Ingaldesthorp. See Deans. 
 
 Ralph de Baudake. See Deans. 
 
 John de Everd. or Everdon. See Deans. 
 
 Roger de Str.athone. 
 
 John de Sandale. See Deans. 
 
 Roger de Northburg. 
 
 Thomas de Lynton. 
 
 John Barnet, 1387. 
 
 Thomas More, 1391. See Deans. 
 
 John Langton, 1428. 
 
 William Briggeford, 1447 — held Islington. 
 
 William Say. See Deans. 
 
 John Chad'worth, 1464 — held Wenlakesbarn, and 
 
 was Bishop of Lincoln, 1471. 
 William Dudley, M.A., 1471 ; held Brownswood, 
 
 and was Bishop of Durham. 
 Richard Lichfield, LL.D., 1472 ; held Cadington 
 
 Minor. 
 Hugh Oldham, 1496 ; Bishop of Exeter, 1505 ; 
 
 died, 1519. 
 John Pickering, B.D., 1504— held Consumpta per 
 
 ]\Iare. 
 John Young, LL.D., 1511— held Holborn. 
 
 Thomas Wells, D.D., 1516. 
 
 William Warham — held Brownswood.. 
 
 John Boxhall, D.D., 1558— deprived by Queen 
 Elizabeth. 
 
 Thomas Penny, M.A., 1559— also deprived. 
 
 Robert King, 1577- 
 
 Hugh Lloyd, XL.B., 1584 ; died, 1601. 
 
 Zachary Pasfield, B.D., 1601. 
 
 Richard Cluet, D.D. 
 
 William Prichard, 1620. 
 
 Edward Stillingfleet, D.D., 1672. See Deans. 
 
 John Tillotson, D.D., 1689 ; Archbishop of Can- 
 terbury, 1691. 
 
 John Hunt, B.D., 1691. 
 
 John Millington, D.D., 1703. 
 
 Joseph Smith, D.D., 1728. 
 
 Samuel Nicholls, LL.D., 1756. 
 
 Charles Weston, 1763. 
 
 Thomas Briggs, M.A., 1802. 
 
 John Lonsdale, B.D., 1831. 
 
 PREBEND OF ORGATE. 
 
 In the Parish of Wilsdon, Middlesex, rated in the 
 king's books at £7. 1. 3. 
 
 PREBENDARIES. 
 
 Arturus, 1103. 
 
 Nicolas Croceman, or Crocumannus. 
 
 Nicolas, the son of Croceman, 1 150. 
 
 Richard de Windesore, 1 192. 
 
 Roger the Chaplain. 
 
 Geoffrey de Norfeue, or Norfolk, 1233. 
 
 Bimar, or Bimarus frater Regis. 
 
 Reynar Lumbardus. 
 
 Robert de Wynchelse. 
 
 Laurence Roman. 
 
 Aldebrandinus, natns Jacob. 
 
 Richard de Miliciis, de Urbe. 
 
 Adam de Limberwe. 
 
 Thomas de Hatfield. 
 
 William de Ayrmine— held Kentish Town. 
 
 William de Rejiiham, 1327. See Chancellors. 
 
 John de Wodeford. 
 
 Edmund de la Beche, 1339. 
 
 Richard de Murimouth, 1340. 
 
 Richard de Bui-y, 1354. 
 
 William de Wykham, 1361 ; supposed to be Bi- 
 shop of Winchester, and founder of New Col- 
 lege, Oxford. 
 
 John de Brinkle. 
 
 Thomas de Aston, 1374. 
 
 John Donewych. 
 
 William Eyremynne, 1392. 
 
 Henry Merston, 1401. 
 
 John Mostyn. 
 
 William Bokynham, 1419. 
 
 Thomas Pulter, 1426. 
 
 Laurence Both, 1449. See Deans. 
 
 John Bermyngham, 1453— held Mapesbury. 
 
 John Drewell, LL.D., 1457. See Treasurers. 
 
 William Wvlde, 1467 ; Precentor, 1474. 
 
 Walter Bate, M.A., 1477- 
 
 Edmund Albane, M.D., 1479. 
 
 William Talbot, D.D., 1481. 
 
 Thomas Hobbys. 
 
 John Pratt, LL.B., 1509. 
 
 Polydore Vergil, 1513. 
 
 John Braban. 
 
 Edmund Bunny, M.A.,1564 ; died, 1617- 
 
 William Paske. 
 
 John Hansley, M.A., 1639. 
 
 Robert Adams, D.D., 1639—1640. 
 
 John Berwick, D.D., 1661. 
 
 William Sancroft, D.D., 1664. See Deans. 
 
 John Tillotson, D.D., 1677- 
 
 Laurence Newton, M.A., 1690. 
 
 Thomas Felstead, M.A., 1691. 
 
 Michael Stanhope, B.D., 1711. 
 
 George Walker, M.A., 1737- 
 
 Henry Greene, M.A., 1772. 
 
 Samuel Glasse, D.D., 1797- 
 
 Richard Lendon, M.A., 1812. 
 
 William Parker, M.A., 1833. 
 
 PREBEND OF ST. PANCRAS. 
 
 In the Parish of St. Pancras, London. The estate 
 consists of about 70 acres— the Prebend is rated 
 in the king's books at £22. 15. 10. ; with it is 
 held the appropriated Rectory of Chigwell, in 
 Essex. 
 
 PREBENDARIES. 
 
 Osbern, or Osbert de Auco. 
 Robert, son of Osbert de Auco, 1145. 
 John de Cantuar. See Chancellors. 
 William de Belmeis.
 
 rREBENDARIES OF ST. PAUL'S. 
 
 KH) 
 
 John de St. Laurence, 1192. 
 
 Lucas, the Kind's Treasurer. 
 
 William de Lich, or de Lichfield, 1250 and 1258. 
 
 Hugh de Mortuo Mari, or Mortimer, )2.'>9. 
 
 Anthony Heck, or de Bok, 1278 ; Bisho]* of Dur- 
 ham, 1383 ; Patriarch of Jerusalem, 1305 ; died 
 at Eltham, 1311. 
 
 Richard deSwynefend, 1281 ; Bishop of Hereford, 
 1282 ; on his death — 
 
 Robert de Ros, 131f;. 
 
 William de Bray, 1314 and 1.324. 
 
 Richard de Ferby, or de Fei-iby, 1342. 
 
 John Cruse. 
 
 Henry de Wakefield, 1362. See Treasurers. 
 
 Thomas Street de Kneswoth, 1368. See Trea- 
 surers. 
 
 William Brian. 
 
 John Silebv, 1395. 
 
 Richard Cl'ifFord, 1417- 
 
 John Ixworth, st'iiior, 1419. 
 
 John Ixworth, jitxior, 1431. 
 
 Roger JIartyn, M.A., 1447- 
 
 Thomas Gauge. 
 
 Ranulph, or Raljdi B\Td, 1470 — held Islington. 
 
 John Barvile. B.D., 1478. 
 
 Thomas Dulling. 
 
 William Whetley, M.X., 1494. 
 
 John Fyshar. 
 
 John Davis, M.A., 1511. 
 
 Thomas Sewell, D.D., ) 521— held Hoxton. 
 
 Robert Rydeley, D.D., 152?— held Islmgton. 
 
 John Royston, D.D., 1529. 
 
 John Rogers, 1551 ; burnt in Smithfield, 1558. 
 
 Thomas Chetteham, called Sydonen Episcopus, 
 1553. 
 
 Robert Willanton, M.A., 1558— held Ealdland, 
 and was deprived. 
 
 William Alley, 1559 ; Bishop of Exeter, 1560. 
 
 James Calfed, B.D., 1562. 
 
 Thomas Sampson, D.D., 15/0 ; died, 1589. 
 
 Lancelot Andrews, B.D., 1589 ; successively Bi- 
 shop of Chichester, Ely, and Winchester ; died, 
 1626. 
 
 Roger Fenton, B.D., 1609 ; died, 1615. 
 
 Henrv King, M.A., 1615 ; Bishop of Chichester, 
 1641. 
 
 Rieliard Steward, LL.D., 1641. 
 
 Philip King, D.D., 1660. On his death- 
 Richard Henchman, D.D., 1666. See Treasurers. 
 
 William Wiggan, 1671. 
 
 Charles Smith, IM.A., 1674. 
 
 William Sill, IM.A., 1678— held Measdon. 
 
 William Sherlock, D.U., 1681. See Deans. 
 
 James Williams, M.A., 1707- 
 
 William Crowe, M.A., 17-28. , 
 
 Fifield Allen, D.D , 1743. 
 
 John Harris, LL.B., 1764. 
 
 William Palev, M.A., 1794. 
 
 William Boloe, 1805. 
 
 A. R. Chauvcl, B.C.L., 1817- 
 
 PREBEND OF PORTPOOLE. 
 
 In tlie Parish of St. Andrew, llolborn, London — 
 stiimls in the king's books at £5. 6 8. 
 
 I'UICBKNDAIIIES. 
 Theobald, suii)ioKf:d to be Arclidcanon of Essex in 
 
 1218 to 1228. 
 AstanuH. 
 
 Robert, the son of Wlured or ^\■alured. 
 
 Gilbert, styled Nepos Archid. 
 
 Robert de Clifford. 
 
 William de la Fara. 
 
 \\'illiam Heremita, or Eremita, 1226. 
 
 Roger de Oi'sethe, Oi-sete, or llorset ; afterwards 
 
 Precentor. 
 Ednunul I3rytho, or Brito. 
 Arcalduldus Burgiugo, or AreuldulfT th- Bur- 
 
 gundian. 
 Philip, the son of John, the son of Geoffrey. 
 Robert de Stowe, 1280. 
 Dionysius de Crienciis. 
 (iilbert de Segrave. See Bishops. 
 Thomas de Segrave, 1329 to 1331. 
 Geoffrey de Schrop. 
 Robert de Stratford — held Mora. 
 William de Killesby, or Kildeshy ; died, 1347- 
 William de Stow — held Holborn. 
 Walter Aldebery, or de Aldebury I afterwards 
 
 Dean. 
 William Chamber. 
 Gilbert de Stoua, 1411. 
 
 Walter l\Iedford, LL.B., 1417. See Treasurers. 
 William Barton ; exchanged Cadiugton .Minor, 
 
 1418. 
 John Standolf, LL.B.. 1420. 
 Robert RoUeston, 1422. 
 John Sexton, 1420. 
 Thomas Bulevn, LL.B., 1447 
 Thomas Halle, 1451. 
 John Gyles, LL.D., 1470. 
 John Smyth, LL.B., 1481. 
 John Aleyn, or Kerver, LL.B., 1484— held .\lns- 
 
 dou. 
 John Ncwcourt, D.D.,1484. 
 Richard Fitzjames, D.D., 1485. See Bishops. 
 Richard Fcni-otlier, LL.B., 1497. 
 John Dowman, LL.B. — held Twyford. 
 John Palgrave, or Palsgrave, iM..\., 1514. 
 Edmund Brygotte, D.D., 1554. 
 Edmund I'arkinson, M.A., 1565. 
 Thomas Thurswell, M.A., 1580. 
 Richard Wood. 
 Gabriel Powell, B.D., 1609. 
 Thomas .Sanderson, D.D., 1611. 
 Christo])her Shutc, lOdO. 
 Charles Ma.son, D.D., 1663 ; died, 1677. 
 William Battle, >LA., 1678. 
 Fi'ancis Hare, 1706— afterwards l^i^hol> of I'lii- 
 
 chester. 
 Joseph Butler, 1740, Bishop of Bristol. 
 Thomas Seeker, 1750, !5isiio|) of 0,\fi.rd. 
 Thomas Thurlow, 1782, Itishop of Lincoln. 
 George Prctvni;m, D.D., 1787- See Deans. 
 Wiiiiani Vaii .Mild.rl. D.D.. 1820 ; Bislmpof Llan- 
 
 dali', and afterwards of jlurliani. 
 Charles Kichard .Sumner, D.D., 182(i ; Bishop of 
 
 Llandalf, and afterwards of Wiiiehe.sler. 
 Chailes Wodsworth, M.A., 1828. 
 
 PREBEND 01- RECULVERL.\NI). 
 
 In the parish of Tilliiigham, Essex rated in the 
 king's books at jCL3. (i. 8. 
 
 rREIlliNl)AIUI>. 
 
 Aldr.'d. 
 R<jbert Picton.
 
 110 
 
 PREBENDARIES OF ST. PAUL'S. 
 
 Berbund de Walthara. 
 
 Willimus, or William, the Archdeacon. 
 
 St. Thomas, of London. 
 
 Hugh de Rac, or de Raculfer, 1185 to 1192. 
 
 Henry de Civitate, 1215. 
 
 Giles de Ardigtou, or Erdinton. 
 
 Ralph de Fremingham, 1270. 
 
 Ralph de Staunford. 
 
 Robert Clothal. See Chancellors. 
 
 John de Elham. 
 
 Simon Flambard, 1331. 
 
 William de Wykyngeston. 
 
 Robert de Chigwell, 133C. 
 
 William de Coloisine, 1371. 
 
 John Wyke, 1308. 
 
 John Ixworth, LL.D., 1419 ; held Ealdstreet. 
 
 Richard Betty, 1421. 
 
 Nicholas Sturgeon, 1440. 
 
 Richard Bole, LL.B., 1452 ; held West Thurrock. 
 
 Thomas Arderne, B.D., 145C. 
 
 Thomas Jan, D.D., 1471 ; Bishop of Norwich, 
 
 1499. 
 William Lambert, 1479. 
 John Hill, 1492 ; held Finsbury. 
 Edward Vau'^^han, LL.D., 1493 ; Bishop of St. 
 
 David's, 1509. 
 Robert Frost, B.D., 1499. 
 
 Charles Booth, or Both ; Bishop of Hereford, 1516. 
 Roger Norton, 1516. 
 John Allen, LL.D., 1526 ; Archbishop of Dublin, 
 
 1528. 
 John Bell, D.D., 1528 ; supposed to have been 
 
 Bishop of Worcester, 1539. 
 Edward Sepham. 
 Henry Pendilton, D.D., 1554. 
 Robert Willanton, M.A., 1557. 
 Michael Reniger, D.D., 1583. 
 Leonard Hutton, D.D., 1009. 
 John Tolson, D.D., 1632. 
 Benjamin Stone, M.A., 1638. 
 Richard Owen, D.D., 1660. 
 William Bell, B.D., 1665. 
 Ambrose Atfield, D.D., 1683. 
 Edward Carter, M.A., 1684. 
 Robert Brabant, M.A., 1688. 
 Henry Bridges, D.D., 1722. 
 Thomas Spateman, 1728. 
 Denison Cumberland, M.A., 1761. 
 John Hotham, M.A., 1763. 
 Stothard Abdy, M.A., 1771. 
 Richard Beadon, clerk, 177L 
 George Watson Hand, M.A., 1775. 
 Francis John Wollaston, B.D., 1802. 
 William Stanley Goddard, D.D., 1814. 
 
 PREBEND OF RUGMERE. 
 
 This Pi'ebend used to be in the parish of St. Pan- 
 eras, but its site is not now known. The corps 
 consists of the parsonage and tithes of Through- 
 ley, in Kent, of which Lord Sondes is lessee — 
 rated in the king's books at £5. 6. 8. 
 
 PREBENDARIES. 
 
 Ralph, the son of Algod, 1104 to 1132. 
 
 William, the son of Ralph. 
 
 Ralph de Chilton, or Chilthone, 1183 to 1192. 
 
 John Wytiug. 
 
 Chinchius, or Cincius Romanus. 
 
 William de Rising, 1226. 
 
 Nicholas de Bladentone, or Bladlngthone. 
 
 Walter Niger. 
 
 Richard de Wendover. 
 
 Walter de Salerna. See Deans. 
 
 Rostandus, or Rustandus, 1259. 
 
 Jordan, the Pope's Vice-Chancellor. 
 
 Osbertus Romanus. 
 
 William de Chadleshmit, or Chateleshunte. 
 
 Gilbert de Bruera. See Deans. 
 
 John de Welwick, 1354. 
 
 William de Dighton, 1361. 
 
 William de Beverlee, 1363. 
 
 John de Brettevill, 1367. 
 
 Robert Bragui'e, or Bradegare, 1374. 
 
 Robert Manfeld, 1 409 ; held Brownswood. 
 
 Richard Bruton, LL.B., 1409. 
 
 Henry Ware, 1416 ; Bishop of Chichester, 1418. 
 
 Thomas Danet, 1418. 
 
 Thomas Liseux. See Deans. 
 
 John Sutton, M.A., 1452. 
 
 Thomas Jan, D.D., 1479 ; held Reculverland. 
 
 Oliver King, LL.B., 1487 ; Bishop of Exeter, 1492 ; 
 
 and of Bath and Wells, 1497- 
 John Morgan, LL.D., 1492 ; supposed to have 
 
 been Bishop of St. David's, 1503. 
 Peter le Peuer, LL.D., 1496. 
 Thomas Randolf, 1499. 
 
 Thomas Bemiet, LL.D., 1521. See Treasurers. 
 Tristram Swaddle, deprived by Queen Elizabeth. 
 Thomas Cole, M.A., 1560. 
 Robert Avys, M.A., 1571. 
 William Goddel, 1581. 
 Zachariah Goddel, 1590. 
 Matthew Smallwood, D.D., 1660. 
 John Williams, M.A., 1683 ; Bishop of Chichester, 
 
 1696. 
 John Wright, M.A., 1697. 
 James Barker, 1700. 
 Fifield Allan, B.D., 1736. 
 Edmund Gibson, M.A., 1738. 
 Lancelot Jackson, 1741. 
 William Gibson, M.A., 1741. 
 Thomas Archer, M.A., 1743. 
 Anthony Hamilton, M.A., 1767. 
 John Hotham, M.A., 1771. 
 D. Hollingbury, M.A., 1780. 
 John Sleath, D.D., 1822. 
 
 PREBEND OF SNEATING. 
 In the parish of Kirby, Essex. 
 
 PREBENDARIES. 
 
 Living, or Livingus, the son of Lewred. 
 
 Elias, the son of Bishop Ralph, supposed to be 
 
 Ralph Hambard, Bishop of Durham, 1099. 
 William, the son of Oco, or Otlio, the Archdeacon. 
 Ralph, the brother of Elias. 
 William, the Physician. 
 Richard, the son of Nicholas. 
 Edmimd de Suwell. 
 
 Robert de Watford ; afterwards Dean. 
 Benedict, Chaplain to Pope Gregory IX. 
 Robert, the Monk. 
 Reginald de Brandon, 1279 to 1295. 
 John de Ditton, 1310 to 1321. 
 Alan Hotham, 1331. 
 Thomas Brember, 1354. 
 William Tyrmgton, 1361,
 
 PREBENDARIES OF ST. PAUL'S. 
 
 Ill 
 
 Richard Courtney, 1394 ; Bishop of Norwich, 1413 ; 
 
 died at the siege of Ilai-fleur, 1415. 
 Nicholas Coiner. 
 
 Nicholas Bvllvsdon, LL.D.. 1420. 
 Richard Wetwan^e, B.D., 1441. 
 John Sendall, 1 453. 
 William Radclitto. LL.D.. 1454. 
 James Goldwell, LL.D, 1458. 
 John Weston, 1459. 
 William Poteman, LL.D., 1459. 
 Richard Bigod, acolite, 1466. 
 Robert Pewesev. 
 Robert Blith. 1494. 
 Geoffrey Blith ; Bishop of Liclifield and Coventry, 
 
 1503." 
 Edward Underwood, 1502. 
 Thomas Brerewood, LL.B., 1518. 
 William Stillington, D.D., 1524. 
 Walter Preston, D.D., 1528. 
 Simon Mathew, alias Coiir, 1533. 
 Henry Cole, LL.D., 1541. See Deans. 
 John Wymmeslcy, LL B., 1541. 
 Robert Stoopes, i\I.A., 1556 ; deprived. 
 David Pade, 1559. 
 William Cotton, ^LA., 1577 ; Bishop of Exeter, 
 
 1598 ; died, 1621. 
 John KiiiK, B.D., 1599. See Bishops. 
 William Ballow, B.D., 1611. 
 John Moimtford, B.D.. 1618. 
 John Wilton, B.D., 1660. 
 Thomas Grigg, B.D., 1666 ; held Wilsdon. 
 Francis Turner, D.D., 1669 ; Bishop of Chichester, 
 
 Rochester, and El v. 
 Henrv Godolphin, M.A., 1683. 
 Thom'as Machin Fiddes, M.A., 1733. 
 Fifield Allen, B.D., 1734. 
 Leonard Twells, :\[.A., 1736. 
 Benjamin Bulkelov, D.D.. 1742. 
 William Hunter, M.A., 1757- 
 George Jubb, D.D., 1781. 
 Thomas Carwardine, ^I.A., 1788. 
 John Davison, B.D., 1824. 
 Thomas Ilartwell Home, B.D., 1831. 
 
 PREBEND OF TOTTENHALL. 
 
 In the parish of St. Pancras, Middlesex, better 
 known as Tottenham Court Road — rated in the 
 king's books at £46. : demesne lands, in 1649, 
 240 acres. 
 
 PREBENDARIES. 
 
 Wulman, or Ulstan, the Dean, t. Mill. Con. 
 
 Ralph, Bishop of DuiJiam, i. .'. Ralph Hambard. 
 
 Humphrey, the sou of Roger Bigod. 
 
 William de Waren. 
 
 Ralph de Langford, "| 
 
 Hugo de Mar(?in, successively Deans. 
 
 Ralph de Diceto, J 
 
 A lard de Biirnham. 
 
 William, the son of Robert, 1233. 
 
 GeoH'ny, or Galfridiis, filius Decani, supposed to 
 
 be G< oflrcy Lucy, Dean. 
 John .Maii.sell. See ChancellorH. 
 Richard de Gravcsend. See Bishops. 
 Anthony Bek ; hrld ranrras. 
 James de llisjiania, or Ispania. 
 John d(! Olford. 
 
 John de Branktre, 13GL 
 William de Wickham. Ou his resignntion — 
 John de Blebury, 1362. 
 William de Wiikbaui, renominated 1363. 
 J( hn Flamsted, 1363. 
 Jchn, the son of Roliert Thiband, 1364. 
 ^^■illiam Dighton, 1386 ; held Ruginere. 
 John Car]., 1391. 
 
 Reginald Kentwoi^d, 1400 ; also Dean. 
 Thomas Wodford, 1441 : held Cadington Minor. 
 Thomas Liseux, B.D., 1452 ; also De:ui. 
 Laui'ence Both, 1456 ; also De;ui. 
 Thomas Grant, 15.1)., 1457. 
 Thomas Wiiiterbnrnc, LL.D., 1473 ; also Di'an. 
 Walter Knightly, 1478 ; also Treasurer, 
 (hmdisalve Ferdinand ; also Precentor. 
 William Horsev, D.D., 1513 ; held Holywell. 
 Richard Gwent, LL.D.. 1543. 
 Thomas Darbyshire, 1543. On liis deprivation- 
 Thomas Watts, M..V., 1559. 
 Adam Squire, 1577- 
 Alexander Nowcll, 1588 ; also Dean. 
 Simon Rogers, 1601. 
 John Overall, D.D., 1602— also Dean. 
 Samuel Baker, 1636. 
 Robert Marsh, M.A., 1660. 
 Zaeheus I.sham, B.D.. I6«7— held Ilarleston. 
 John Belling, D.I)., 1705. 
 Hugh Wynn, LL.D., 1750. 
 Richard Browne, D.D., 1754. 
 Michael Lort, D.D., 1780. 
 Thomas Willis, LL.B., 1790. 
 C. E. J. Dering, M.A., 182?. 
 
 PREBEND OP EAST TWYFORD. 
 
 In the Parish of Wilsdon, Middlesex — has no 
 estate attached — I'ated in the king's books at 
 £5. 6. 8. 
 
 PREBENDARIES. 
 
 Durand, or Durandus, 1 103. 
 
 Robert do Cadamo, or Cadomo, 1132. 
 
 ]{ichard Riiffus, or Rufus. 
 
 Thomas de llussibonie, 1191. 
 
 William de Potterne. 
 
 Maurice de Herlawe, 1218. 
 
 William de Lodnes. 
 
 Robert de Insula, or Lisle ; died, 1246. 
 
 William Pas.semore, or Passcmero — held Con- 
 
 sunipfa pi'r Marc. 
 Robert de Dray tone— also Trea.surer. 
 Bartholomew liV l'.r.'ntia, or IVrentino, 1309 
 LaiMMuce Fast..ir, 1331 t.. 1349. 
 I'asca.sius tb' Moloigiic, 1360. 
 Thomas de Keynes, i:.61. 
 Alexander ile .Soulho, or South, I3C6. 
 .Inhn Uerking. 
 
 William Soiid.y, LL.D., 1390. 
 Thomas W.stnn, 1393. 
 John Daiibv, 1397. 
 .I..lm Mildvanl, I HlO. 
 l;i.-hanl ("ivIVur.!. i.r CliffMid. 1108. 
 Thiimas Wulliiri', 1416. 
 Elias llolcot.-, M.A.. 1 145. 
 Kichanl ChesUr, 1448. 
 John NN'anlalc.
 
 112 
 
 PREBENDARIES OF ST. PAUL'S. 
 
 William Wodecock, 1472. 
 John Bailey, 1487. 
 Robert Draper, LL.D., 1495. 
 William Fitzherberd, D.D., 1498. 
 John Dowman, LL.D., 1514. 
 William Cliff, LL.D., 1526. 
 William Chadsay, D.D., 1548. 
 Arthur Cole, 1554. On his deprivation — 
 Robert Greenaeres, M.A., 1562. 
 William Barkesdale, 1573. 
 Hugh Johnson, M.A., 1660. 
 
 Thomas Cartvvright, D.D., 1665 ; Bishop of Ches- 
 ter, 1689 ; died, 1689. 
 Lucas Beaulieu, B.D., 1686. 
 Samuel Baker, M.A., 1723. 
 
 Kilburne, S. T. P. 
 
 Francis Stanley, 1730. 
 John Mangey, M.A., 1775. 
 Henry Waring, M.A., 1782. 
 Henry Meen, B.D., 1795. 
 Samuel Birch, D.D., 1819. 
 
 PREBEND OF WENLAKESBARN. 
 
 In the Parish of St. Giles — stands in the king's 
 books at £21. 6. 8. 
 
 PREBENDARIES. 
 
 Adwinus, or ^Edwin, 1104. 
 
 William de Wintonia, or Wiconio. 
 
 Richard, son of William de Wintonia. 
 
 Albert. 
 
 Walter Berdeperier. 
 
 Richard Foliot. 
 
 Robert Folet, 1192. 
 
 Ralph de Nevil. 
 
 Lucas, Archdeacon of Surrey. 
 
 Geffrey de Fering. 
 
 Adam Bek. 
 
 John de Sancta Maria, 1279. 
 
 Hugh Colingham, 1283. 
 
 Stephen de Gravesend. See Bishops. 
 
 Gilbert de Middleton, 1318. 
 
 Richard de Bery, Bury, or Byry ; Bishop of 
 
 Durham, 1333 ; Lord Chancellor, 1336. 
 Robert de Tanton, 1334. 
 William de Cusancia, 1335. 
 John de Hanney, 1.375. 
 Thomas H or ton — also Precentor. 
 Nicholas Slake, 1394. 
 William de Stynettle, LL.B., 1395. 
 Thomas Bubbewyth, 1406 or 7- 
 John Horton, 1428. 
 John Carter, 1441. 
 Gerald Hesyll, 1443. 
 Thomas Grant, B.D., 1451. 
 Richard Hayman, 1457. 
 John Chadworth, 1462— held Newington. 
 William Say, D.D., 1464— also Dean. 
 Richard Lichfield, LL.D., 1468. 
 John Gunthorp, 1471. 
 William Pykenham, LL.D., 1472. 
 Humphrey de la Pole. 
 
 Edward Sharnbi'oke, 1509. On his death — 
 Richard Foxford, LL.D., 1530. 
 Peter Ligham, D.D., 1533— held Wilsdon. 
 
 Gilbert Wykes, 1538. 
 
 Henry Cole, LL.D., 1541 — also Dean. 
 
 William May — also Dean. 
 
 John Pullen, B.D., 1561. 
 
 John BuUingham, M.A., 1565 ; Bishop of Glouces- 
 ter and Bristol ; died, 1598. 
 
 Robert Tower, B.D., 1571. 
 
 Henry Hamond, 1585. 
 
 John Leese, M.A., 1592. 
 
 Griffin Vauglian, M.A., 1605. 
 
 Samuel Fell, M.A., 1612. 
 
 Brian Walton, D.D., 1660 ; Bishop of Chester ; 
 died, 1661. 
 
 George Stradling, M.A., 1660 ; died, 1688. 
 
 Francis Hawkins, D.D., 1688. 
 
 Roger Altham. 
 
 Matthew Gibson, 1730. 
 
 Lancelot Jackson, 1741. 
 
 John Wickms, D.D., 1750. 
 
 Samuel Parr, LL.D., 1783. 
 
 Rev. Sir Herbert Oakeley, Bart., 1825— held Ma- 
 pesbury. 
 
 PREBEND OF WILDLAND, or WELD- 
 LAND. 
 
 Parish of Gillingham, Essex — rated in the king's 
 books at £1. 17- 1. 
 
 PREBENDARIES. 
 
 Charles de Cicestria. 
 
 Alard, the son of Goldman. 
 
 Geffrey, the son of Alard, 
 
 Walter de Dunstavill, or Dunstanville^ 
 
 Walter de Insula. 
 
 Nicholas, termed Nepos Archiepisc' 
 
 Simon de Glocestria, 1213. 
 
 John Belemaus, or Belmeis ; held Chiswick. 
 
 Henry de CornhuU ; also Dean. 
 
 Roger de Weseham. 
 
 Stephen de Sandwic, or Sandwich. 
 
 William Lupus. 
 
 Philip Lovell. 
 
 Henry de Sandwich. See Bishops. 
 
 Nicholas de Ely. 
 
 Bartholomew de Regio. 
 
 John de Luc, or de Luco ; held Islington. 
 
 Thomas de Northflete ; held Chamberlain Wood. 
 
 John de St. Clair, or de Sancto Claro, 1298. 
 
 William de Chadleshunt — held Rugmere. 
 
 Regmald de St. Alban, or de Sancto Albano — held 
 
 Bromesbury. 
 Walter Reginald!, son of a baker at Windsor ; 
 
 tutor to Edward II., Bishop of Worcester, 
 
 1308, Lord Chancellor, 1311, Archbishop of 
 
 Canterbury, 1313, died 1329. 
 Gilbert de Middleton, 1313 and 1316. 
 John Walwyn, 1318. 
 Thomas de Bourgh. 
 
 Robert de Reddeswell, 1330 — held Islington. 
 John de Gadesden, 1342. 
 Richard de Chest erfeld, 1361. 
 Richard de North well, 1365. 
 Robert Wanendon. 
 Robert Whitteby, 1393. 
 John Rider, 1417 — held Islington. 
 William Kynmelmei-sh, 1421.
 
 PREBENDARIES OF ST. PAUL'S. 
 
 113 
 
 John Snell, 1426. 
 
 John Stokes, LL.D., 1430. 
 
 Adam Molens, LL.D., 1440, Bishop of Chichester, 
 
 1445, slaiu at Portsmouth, 1449. 
 Nicholas Upton, LL.D., 1443. 
 Robert Ascogh,or Aiscough, D.D., 1446. 
 Richard Hajinan, 144?— held Weulakesbara. 
 Laurence Both, 1453. See Deans. 
 James Goldwell, LL.D., 1457 ; Bishop of Norwich, 
 
 1473. 
 John Wode,or Wodde, B.D., 1458. 
 William Fryston, 1461. 
 Thomas Chaundeler, D.D., 1475— held Cadington 
 
 Major. 
 Robert Sherborne, 1489 ; afterwards Dean. 
 John Hill, 1493— held Holywell. 
 Richard Rathur, LL.D., 1495. 
 John L^nderhill. 
 
 John Incent, LL.D., 1519 ; afterwards Dean. 
 Gilbert Bourne, 1545 ; Bishop of Bath and Wells, 
 
 1554 ; deprived by Queen Elizabeth ; died 
 
 1569. 
 Robert Wyllanton, M.A., 1548— held Ealdland. 
 John Mori-en— held Ealdland, and was deprived. 
 Alexander Nowell, M.A., 1560 ; afterwards Dean. 
 William Hutchinson, M.A., 1588. 
 Arthur Bright, D.D., 1590. 
 William Pierse — Bishopof Peterborough, 1630 ; of 
 
 Bath and Wells, 1632 ; died 1670. 
 Robert Thompson, M.A., 1631. 
 Thomas Lant, B.D., 1662. 
 John PuUej-n, M.A., 1688. 
 Thomas Sherlock, 1713. 
 George Lewington, or Lavington, 1731. 
 John Hume, D.D., 1748. 
 Frederick Cornwallis, 1766, Bishop of Lichfield 
 
 and Coventi'y. 
 John Egerton, 1768, Bishop of Bangor. 
 John Green, 1771, Bishop of Lincoln. 
 John Jeffreys, D.D., 1779. '. 
 
 Samuel Ryder Weston, clerk, 1798. 
 
 PREBEND OF WILSDON. 
 
 Parish of Wilsdon, Middlesex— stands in the 
 king's books at £12. : demesne lands 160 acres ; 
 manor-house near Kilbum turnpike ; estate va- 
 lued, in 1649, at £156. 7- 5. per annum ; re- 
 served rent, £12. 
 
 PREBENDARIES. 
 
 Uctred or Huctredus. 
 
 Hugh, the son of Generun, 1115 and 1150. 
 
 Henry, the Treasurer. 
 
 William, 1220. 
 
 Nicholas de Gamborile, or Camborile. 
 
 •John de Northampton. 
 
 liobert de Burton, or Barthonc — also Dean. 
 
 Raljih de Bonn. 
 
 William Passemere — held Consumpta super Mare, 
 
 and Twyford. 
 Henry de Chaddosdcn, 1350. 
 Thomas do Brewes, 1352. 
 John do Thorp, 1361. 
 Adam de llertingtou, 1375. 
 
 Thomas Baketon. 
 
 Roger Walden, 1396. See Bishops. 
 
 John Chitterne, 1409. 
 
 John Wvkes, or Wyke, 1419— also Precentor. 
 
 Thomas "Ward, D.D., 1427. 
 
 John Pakenham, LL.B., 1452. 
 
 Seth, 1459. 
 
 William Warsley, or Worseley — also Dean. 
 Richard Rawlens, D.D., 1499 ; Bishop of St. 
 
 David's, 1522. 
 William Patenson. 
 John Tunstall, 1525— held Mora. 
 Peter Wylberfosse, B.D., 1527. 
 Peter Lighara, D.D., 1533— held Wendlakesbam. 
 William Saxey, LL.B., 1533 ; also Treasurer. 
 William Gravett, M.A., 1567- 
 John Dixe, D.D., 1598. 
 Henry Mason. 
 Samuel Hoard, B.D. 1637. 
 Robert Porey, D.D., 1660. 
 Thomas Grigg, B.D., 1669— held Sneating. 
 Thomas Cooke, D.D., 1670 ; also Treasurer. 
 Robert Grove, B.D., 1679 ; afterwards Bishop of 
 
 Chichester. 
 Stephen Bordley, M.A., 1691. 
 Robert Altham, M.A., 1694— held Wenlakesbarn. 
 William Whitfeld, M.A., 1698— held Neasdon. 
 Joshua Bui-ton, 1707-8 ; on his death- 
 Edmund Marten, LL.D., 1730. 
 SackvUle Turner, 1751. 
 Richard Browne, D.D., 1752. 
 George Seeker, M.A., 1754. 
 Charles Sturges, M.A., 1768. 
 RobertWintle, D.D., 1809. 
 
 PREBENDARIES, 
 
 The names of whose Prebends are not recorded, 
 as given by Newcomb, Report. Eccles. vol. i. 
 p. 231. 
 
 Edvinus, Ailwardus, Bermaudus, Gunfredus, 1103. 
 
 Robertas de Caen, Nicholas, Gaufridus fil. Wlfredi, 
 Hubertus, Teodoricus, Ranulphus, when Wil- 
 liam was Dean. 
 
 Allericus and Hugo, when Ralph de Langford was 
 Dean. 
 
 Ranulphus, Theodoricus, Alboricus, Nicolaus fil. 
 dementis, Nicolaus til. Nicolai, Galfr. fil. Wlfredi, 
 Hubertus, Willimus cognomento Pullus, present 
 at the constitution de Paul ct Servitio, a.d. 1150. 
 
 Theodor. Nicol. Hubert, Hugo, Richardus, when 
 Hugo de Marmis was Dean, as is thought, from 
 1160 to 1181. 
 
 Alardus Diaconus, Richardus Juvcnis, Hen. fil. 
 Episc, Hugo do Raculvcr, Radulphus arehid. 
 Heref. Job. dc Wicona, Hen. fil. Jacobi, Edmun- 
 dus, Osbort do Camera, Radulphus de Ely, 
 I'etrus do Waltham, when Riilph de Diceto was 
 Dean, A. 1). 1192. 
 
 Ricardus do Finchlcy, when Alard de Bumham 
 was Dean. 
 
 Guido do Paludo, had cither Cadington Minor or 
 Ealdstreet, after William de SanctaJ Marite 
 Ecclesia, a.d. 1243. 
 
 G. de Weseham, 1243.
 
 114 
 
 PREBENDARIES OF ST. PAUL'S. 
 
 Will. Facetun, or de Faceto, 1266. 
 
 Joh. de Crachale, had the Prebend which was 
 
 Rusland's, an. 1269. Rusland held Rugmere. 
 Ric. frater Archid Ric. frater Ric. Rufli, when 
 
 Ralph de Dieeto was Dean. 
 Walter de Witen, when Gilbert Foliot was Bishop. 
 John de Storteford, 1218. 
 Ranulphusand Gilbertus,Will. de S. Maria, Bishop. 
 
 Will, de Bernes, 1290. 
 
 Joh. de Cherthale, when Ralph de Baldock was 
 
 Dean. 
 Hen. de Saracenis, 1310 and 1330. 
 Joh, de Munden, 1314. 
 Geraldus de Cusance, 1319, 1324,and 1329. 
 Ric. Wodelock and Will, de Gray in 1324 and 
 
 1325. 
 
 tHE END- 
 
 
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