(V- % l&/> bJotd DA La/5 v/. I CORNELL UNIVERSITY LIBRARY THE WORDSWORTH COLLECTION FOUNDED BY CYNTHIA MORGAN ST. JOHN THE GIFT OF VICTOR EMANUEL OF THE CLASS OF I919 AJL I Jf! 2D ffiztfym rf !30Mtm0tkJiil: OK, NOTABLE PERSONS BOEN IN THAT COUNTY €Ijj ftifnrraatinu. BY GEORGE ATKINSON, Esq., $Samsta;sat=lLato. " THB PKOPBB STODY OF MANKIND IS MAN." J. ROBINSON, 40, HIGH HOLBORN. MDCCCXLIX. %- /\U3^.oni LONDON : PRINTED BY T. BRETTELL, RUPERT STREET, HAYMARKET. %\}k\ Bittsgrirae, of Sitrtaj 1\.va*^L* BISHOP OF CARLISLE, PREBENDARY OF LINCOLN*, AND DEAN OF GLOUCESTER. 1660—1734. . . " Genus et proavos et quaj non fecimus ipsi Vix ea nostra voco. " Ovid. Nought from my birth or ancestors I claim, All is my own, all self-acquired fame. — »» gat»" — *\\ ope Sextus the Fifth, as stout a Pope as ever JtO wore the Triple Crown, hut a poor man's ' son, used to say in contempt of the sneers raised against him, that he was born of an illus- trious house ; because the sunbeams passing through the broken walls and ragged roof illustrated every corner of the homely cottage in which he was born. In this wise John Waugh's House was indeed * There is a fine engraved portrait of him in St. Peter's, Corn- lull, and in many houses in Westmorland; it is by Faberfrom an original by Vanderbank, to be found, as we believe, at Rose Castle. 134 BISHOP WAUGH. illustrious ! The little tumble- down, thatchless, and smoke-dried cabin, where he was born, may be found nearly opposite the Gardeners' Arms in Scat- tergate, Appleby. It was (if we are rightly in- formed) one of the old Burgage tenures, and so long as that ancient borough had the privilege, in common with the Sheep-cote of Old Sarum, to send representatives to the grand assembly of law- makers, it had its value in the estimation of the noble owner, and was industriously propped up and now and then occupied. But since the Augaean stable was cleansed by the all- sweeping measure of Reform, it has been the daily haunt of sparrows, snails, and lizards ; with no other covering but the canopy of Heaven, with a wisp of straw for a window, and a scale-board for a door; one gable standing, but — in mockery of the past. If one may reason from small things to great — from a cabin to a castle — the law maxim cessante ratione cessat et ipsa lex has been misprinted cessat et ipsa res on the audit ledgers of Appleby Castle. Let us hope that the rising star of the house of Thanet may stand over it ! A noble and generous spirit has just redeemed from the dust the hearth of Shaks- peare and others of humbler caste. May it extend its genial influence to such as that of John Waugh ! With our will uncontrolled a Guardian Angel should have charge of them. He was born at tins place in the year 1660. The general opinion seems to be that his father was a CHURCH. 135 blacksmith, and in this opinion we feel inclined to concur. How truly may be applied to him the aphorism Faber quisque fortunce sum ! " He that makes himself famous by his eloquence, justice, or arms [and let us add by his piety or learning] illustrates his extraction let it be never so mean ; and gives inestimable reputation to his parents. We should never have heard of Sophroniscus but for his son Socrates ; rior of Aristo and Gryllus if it had not been for Zenophon and Plato*. " Strong as necessity Waugh starts away, Climbs against wrongs, and brightens into day+." He was educated at Appleby School and Queen's College, Oxford, where he in time became a Fellow. In 1708 he was Hector of St. Peter's, Cornhill, London. In 1718 Prebendary of Lincoln. In 1720 Dean of Gloucester. In 1723 Bishop of Carlisle. For eleven years he watched over the ministry of his diocese with no less zeal than ability, with no less advantage to the Church than credit to himself. He died, in 1 734, in Queen's Square, Westminster, and was buried in St. Peter s, Cornhill, near the altar there. Dr. John Waugh, Chancellor and Prebendary of Carlisle, Eector of Caldbeck in Cumberland, and Dean of Worcester, was the Prelate's son. He died in March 1765, and was buried in the south aisle * Seneca. + Savage. 136 BISHOP WAUGH. of the cathedral at Carlisle, behind the Bishop's throne*. The Bishop is said to have published eleven occasional sermons, but we have never seen them. He, like the good Barnaby Potter in St. Paul's Covent Garden, lies in St. Peter's Cornhill, without even a mark to indicate his resting-place ! Will no kind soul lend a helping hand to a work of common justice ? * Jefferson's Hist, of Carlisle. lir (itnrgj jfbmhtg, 36ort BISHOP OF CARLISLE. 1667—1747. Xobilitas sola est atque unica virtus." » ■ Juv. Virtue is the only source of true nobility. CjfN these days of Ked Republicanism we often r3 bear the threadbare phrase, " Nature is favorable to democracy ! " Without stopping to examine into its truth or falsehood, we must content ourselves with saying, that the subject of the present memoir was not of that self-satisfied order, but of the ancient house of Le Fleming of Rydall Hall ; and by his virtues proved himself worthy of the name and arms he bore. He was born in the hall of his ancestors in 1667 ; and was the fifth son of Sir Daniel Fleming, Knt., 138 BISHOP FLEMING. afterwards Bart. He seems to have had his school- education at Appleby. From school he went to Edmund Hall, Oxford. After leaving the Univer- sity we find him under the fostering wing of that noble and generous soul Dr. Thomas Smith, Bishop of Carlisle, who made Fleming his domestic chap- lain; then Vicar of Asp atria ; and, in 1700, Pre- bendary of Carlisle. His great patron died, as we have elsewhere recorded, in 1702; but Dr. Smith was happily succeeded by the learned Dr. Nicholson (afterwards Archbishop of Cashell) and Dr. Waugh. The former, in 1705, raised Fleming to the Arch- deaconry. The latter in 1727 promoted him to the Deanery, upon whose death, in 1734, he was consecrated to the see of Carlisle. He, in his turn, was the patron of Edmund Law, the father of Lord Ellenborough. Thus was true merit called forth and rewarded within the diocese of Carlisle in days that are past ! William Fleming, Archdeacon of Carlisle (1734), was the Prelate's only son. He married a Wilson of Dallam Tower, and left several daughters*. He died (in 1743) before his father, and was interred in the cathedral there. Sir George Fleming, Bart, died at Bose Castle, July 2 d - 1747, in the eighty-first year of his age, and in the thirteenth of his consecration. He was * See Burn, 172. CHURCH. 139 buried in the Cathedral at Carlisle, where at the top of the south aisle are two marble monuments, the one to his memory, and the other to that of his wife Catherine, daughter of Mr. Thomas Jefferson of Carlisle. The inscription to the memory of the aged Prelate seems a faithful summary of his life and death : — Here is deposited till a general resurrection whatever was mortal of the Eight Rev d - Father in God Sir George Fleming, Bart., late Lord Bishop of Carlisle, whose regretted dissolution was July 2, 1747, in the 81st year of his age and the 13th of his consecration. A Prelate who by gradual and well merited advancement, having passed through every dignity to the Episcopal, supported that with an amiable assemblage of graces and virtues which eminently formed in his character the Courteous Gentleman and the Pious Christian, and rendered him a shining ornament to his species, his nation, his order. His deportment in all human relations and positions was squared by the rules of morality and religion. Under the constant direction of a consummate prudence, whilst his equanimity amidst all events and occurrences, in an inviolable adherence to the golden medium 140 BISHOP FLEMING. made liim easy to himself and agreeable to others, and had its reward in a cheerful life, a serene old age, a composed death. His excellent pattern was a continual lesson of goodness and wisdom, and remains in his ever reverable memory an illustrious object of praise and imitation. ' *tt&*rrxK&te&>*= dBitrntttri fihann*. — I-^H \ 1r- BISHOP OF LONDON, DEAN OF HIS MAJESTY S CHAPEL ROYAL, AND ONE OF THE LORDS OF H. M. MOST HONORABLE PRIVY COUNCIL, &c. 1669—1748. *' Genius is patient labor." Btjffon. Cette goutte de semence, de quoy nous sommes produits, porte en soy les impressions non de la forme corporelle seulement, mais des pensements et des inclinations de nos peres ? Cette goutte d'eau ou loge elle ce nombre infini de formes ? et comme port-elle des ressemblances d'un progrez si teme- raire, et si desregle, que Farriere-fils respondra a son bisayeul, le nepheu a l'oncle ? " Montaigne, (one of the best and oldest of the French moralists) pursues these philosophical inquiries by ascribing * There is a very fine portrait of him in the Library at Fulham Palace by Vanderbank. Amongst other arms in the windows are, Az. 3 Storks rising Arg. for Gibson impaled with the See of London. In another window Gibson impaled with the See of Lincoln. There is also a portrait of him in the Hall of Queen's College, Oxon. tf o'7^_^- ^^ ^_*£jL_J3 pxrvhr-e^-h e-v 142 BISHOP GIBSON. his qualite pier-reuse to hereditary causes ; as the descendant of Boltfolt of Harden did his own deformity* ; and as the world at large do a like one in the Greys of Howick to Grey of Berwick, sur- named de torto pede. Indeed the frequency of the fact makes the philosopher's expression intelligible, and is more or less exemplified in some shape or other in every family in the kingdom from the prince to the peasant. Whether he reasoned like a philosopher in thus passing from matter to mind, from finite to infinite, we need not now stoj) to inquire ; it is enough to say, that he thought the laws of the two analogous, and remember that he was Montaigne ! Run, thou sceptic, to Hanwell and to St. Thomas', and there learn wisdom ! The lunatic asylum will teach thee the laws of the one, the hospital the laws of the other ! Indeed, if self-knowledge does not teach thee this all but self-evident truth — that talent runs in families — go and search the family history of any distinguished man ; consult the family history of Edmund Gibson ; in few channels have the en- nobling currents of the soul run deeper, in none more uniformf. Edmund Gibson ! " Clarum et venerabile nomen, Gentibus et multurn nostra? quod proderat urbi." * Sir Walter Scott, and transmitted it to one of his grand- children. Lockhart's Life, C4 — 90. \ Thomas Gibson, author of Gibson's Anatomy, M. D., Fellow of the College of Physicians, Physician General to the Army, and CHURCH. 148 Ye craggs, and gills, and tarns, and fells, wherein our boyish childhood strayed — a stranger yet to pain ! though lost to sight to memory dear ! and still dearer for those snblime and hallowed asso- ciations thrown around you, by the industry of your stalwart sons, sent forth to run the great career of life, themselves impatient to be free ! Men whose noble rage chill penury could ne'er repress, on wings plumed with the dews of Heaven (all, perhaps, they could truly call their own) bounding forth and sweeping through the bound- less firmament of intelligence, amazing the world with the vigor of their wing and the boldness of their flight ! Now asserting eternal Providence, and justifying the ways of God to man ; now amidst the army of martyrs braving the dungeons of the Tower and the fires of Smithfield ; here in the sacred robes of Justice administering her decrees ; there bleeding in their country's cause ; now unfolding the arcana of Nature's laws : now, like the blind old man of Scio's rocky isle, flinging from the living lyre thoughts that wander through eternity ; there embracing into life the dull, cold marble; there throwing over the lifeless canvass Husband of Anna Cromwell, sixth daughter of Richard Lord Pro- tector. He died in 1704 ; she in 1727. John and Edmund were his nephews : John was Provost of Queen's College, Oxford, and Edmund Bishop of London ; and last, though not least, of the same family, Willy Gibson, alias " Willy at Hollins, " the dis- tinguished mathematician, author of, &c. &c. See Life. 144 BISHOP GIBSON. the mystery of colours. But, as no praise can be lasting but what is rational, let us subdue our tone awhile, that the facts may, in living language, speak for themselves. Thus far, however, we will venture to predict in Edmund Gibson's case, that the reader of his life will say of him that he was at once a great and candid Churchman, an industrious and accomplished scholar, a profound antiquary, a respectable lawyer, an active man of business, and, above all, emphatically an honest man. As a pastor he was most exemplary, as a bishop affable and dignified. A most unflinching champion of the rights of the Established Church ; yet withal, neither an enthu- siast nor a bigot. In public or private matters no prospects of advantage could ever shake his integrity, no temptations corrupt his heart ; and to these noble qualities may be added, the tenderest senti- ments of generosity, benevolence, and compassion. When outraged morality demanded his aid and protection, with admirable fearlessness he rebuked, in turn, his sovereign and the people. Hence his high reputation, and the universal esteem for him ; hence too, his Wolsey-like power in Church and State — power withal borne so meekly, that Princes respected him, and Ministers thought they loved him. Though beyond the reach of fortune, he was not free from its malice, especially in matters of church discipline ; all assaults upon him, how- ever, were no more than Xerxes' arrows — they darkened the day, but they could not strike the CHURCH. 145 sun*, t( Enfin representez-vous toutefois en lui seul, tout ce que l'eglise a de grand, tout ce que le ciel a de pompeux, et de magnifique, les biens, les honneurs, les dignites, le credit, les preeminences, et tout ce qui suit ordinairement la faveur et la re- connoissance d'un roi juste et puissant, lorsqu'elles tombent sur un sujet capable, fidele et neces- sairef." In B amp ton Church there are the two following Epitaphs — M. s. Edmundi et Jan^e Gibson Charissimorum Parentum Monumentum hoc posuit Edmundus Episcopus Londinensis An.no Domini m.dccxliii. r M. S. ThomjE Jackson in vicinianati Qui scholam hanc, cui circiter annos XLIV vigilantissime praefuit, Commendavit adeo Ut non tenuis fuerit gloria Inter Bamptoniee educatos numerari Utrumque docuit Gibsonum Alterum CI. Lincolniae praesulem Alterum Coll: Reg: Oxon: praepositum Et aliquos plurimos, qui patriae simul Et scholae sunt ornamenta Obiit pridie Kal. Junii Ann: D0111: M.DCCXXIX ^Etatis suae LXIV. * See " An Apology for Dr. Codex" (Dr. Gibson, author of the Codex), and several other pamphlets in the British Museum, bound together under the name of " Tracts on Gibson's Eccl. Jur." 1733, 1736. + Flechier. VOL. I. H 146 BISHOP GIBSON. The above melancholy records serve at once as the registers of his birth, and the history of his early life, especially of his parentage and education ; and these ought to suffice if no further information were forthcoming ; but we know from other sources that he was born in the year 1670 at Knipe, in the parish of B amp ton, where the family had lived for ages. The family was in the condition, provincially speaking, of a small and humble statesman ; humble ! Shade of Gibson forgive us ! Can there be aught humble about the curtilage that cradled thee and thine ? As far as the aristocracy of talent surpasses the aristocracy of birth or wealth, in our sight does that old dwelling-house exceed in beauty the palaces of the great. The family, to speak as a Eoman, " equestrem locum medium inter Patres et Plebem obtinuit." In the scurrilous and anonymous pamphlet (already alluded to) entitled " Apology for Dr. Codex," the writer says, " he was a man of mean parentage, born near Westmorland, and the son of a fisherman ! " To retort this writer's own motto against him, " Vis dicam quid sis ? Magnus es Ardelio*." He was educated as the latter inscription informs us by Thomas Jackson at B amp ton School : a man to whose memory, judging the tree by its fruit, no more than justice is done on the stone that marks * Martial. CHURCH. 147 his resting place. His brother John, afterwards Provost of Queen's College, Oxford, was educated there at the same time*. Dr. Watson (Bishop of Llandaff, himself from Heversham in Westmorland,) in writing to a friend, about the beginning of the present century, says, " In the North of England there was, fifty years ago, a good grammar school almost under every crag, the schools remain, but the spirit of trade has frightened away all the Muses. Cocker's Arith- metic has taken precedence of Lilly's Grammar ! " Alas how infinitely more painful is the reflection now ! B amp ton school stands, but stands the ghost of a great name ; it stands amid ruins ! How long is this ostracism to last ? This intellectual leprosy, this blight, this withering desolation of our village schools ? Is the worm that dieth not at the root of the oak ? Has the cursed ivy of trade, as Eichard of Llandaff suggests, strangled the tree in its em- braces; or is its sap but dormant for a while to burst into life again under the quickening rays of returning philosophy ? May the father of the present National Education scheme be the prophet destined to strike the rock for the living water ! But has Dr. Watson saddled the right horse ? Is not effect mistaken for cause ? Be it even conceded that the spirit of trade had some share in ostracising * They for once give the lie to the Cumberland saw " Ye make yeah son a Priest, an t'rest mowclywarp catchers." Satan cor- recting Sin ! 148 BISHOP GIBSON. the liberal sciences from our village schools, the Bishop of Llandaff, while he was throwing stones at our merchant princes, seems to have forgotten that he lived in a house of glass himself; the end of the fabled wallet, which contained the peccadil- loes of tradesmen he slung before him, but that which contained the offences of the bishops he studiously threw behind him. Convenient policy ! but not much in the spirit of truth or charity ; for we cannot help thinking, that a man less shrewd than Dr. Watson could see that the rule which they had promulgated and acted upon as to the admis- sibility of none but graduates or literati into the Church, would far outstrip the spirit of trade in the race of annihilation. A moment's reflection would have taught him that such a system would of itself, even before his generation passed away, have sealed the intellectual destiny of the North, especially of a county so poor as Westmorland*. While wisdom's voice was heard in the councils of the Church she embraced all that embraced her : the village school-man and the graduate met together in her cloisters, and merit alone decided her pre- ference. Every village school then prided itself in its name ; could boast of some distinguished man in Church or State ; in villages, family vied with family in sacrificing their comforts even to their sons' education, and teacher with teacher for the * Dr. Watson, to his honour, did object to this. CHURCH. 149 honour of their schools and scholars ; and so an uni- versal spirit of improvement and love of learning, with all their consequences, became diffused among a class of men where nothing of the kind, to say the least of their absence, now remains. But the book of knowledge was to be sealed ! and for what end ? Has the Church gained by it ? Has the world at large profited by it ? Were the sons of statesmen educated at village schools less moral, less learned, less pious than graduates or literati ? We affect no levelling principle (Heaven forbid! the world has had enough of it !) but we do pre- sume to say, that such a rule argued little wisdom in the resources of our native county, however applicable it might be to the more southern pro- vinces of the kingdom; and that it required no prophet to come from the grave to tell its authors the result. For truth's sake then, let the bishops be joined in the bill as accomplices in treason against the empire of learning, and, if convicted, let them lose the benefit of clergy. In 1686 he was admitted into Queen's College, Oxford, on the old foundation. Hence it appears that he went to college at the raw and beardless age of sixteen. The University statutes or ordi- nances would lead one to infer that it was not an uncommon practice, in those days, to convert those time-worn and venerable fabrics into infant gym- nasia or nurseries for children of tender years ; ordinances, if there be any truth in Dry den's saw 150 ' BISHOP GIBSON. that Men are but children of a larger growth, still observed there with some degree of religious rever- ence and respect. However his earliest productions (his Chronicon Saxonicum, for instance) afford the most conclusive evidence that, at this early age, he had a mind thoroughly disciplined and cultivated, especially in classical knowledge. We are not with some inclined to ascribe to his style the purity of Cicero, or the elegance of Pliny, or the playful turns of Terence, neither can we submit to the puerile sarcasm of Dr. Ingram. Perhaps in this, as in most things of the kind, truth lies between. His style and command of language lead one to suppose that he spoke Latin with great fluency ; for he made almost a living laoguage of it. His early matriculation however, was not owing so much to this development of understanding, precocious as it was, as to the system which then, and to a very recent period prevailed, with regard to the election of members on the old foundation of Queen's ; — the system, by which persons, one after another, acquired scholarships, taberdard- ships, fellowships, &c, merely because they chanced to be dropped in one or other of the two counties of Westmorland or Cumberland ! A system which placed the fool on a footing with the philosopher, the sluggard with the ant, the prodigal with the prudent, reversing the order of every principle upon which an educational institution (that deserves the name) can endure, and converting what its founder CHURCH. 151 intended as the pure rewards of merit, into little better than sops of servility or the prescriptive rights of drivelling idiots. A system, as affecting the college itself, at once a breach of trust, the derision of the rest of the University, the abomina- tion of every well-regulated mind, and the secret, or one of the main secrets, of its fallen state, indeed of its degraded condition; until the spirit of improve- ment and the fresh blood recently infused into the body corporate partly succeeded in restoring it to its pristine vigor, and its former prestige. This noble institution once held a dignified rank in the Uni- versity ; many truly great and learned men were educated there, and the blaze of intelligence con- tinued steady and pure until about a century and a-half ago, when its glory, like the last gleam of the dying embers, flashed for an instant with amazing brilliancy and power in Edmund Gibson, and expired. Why is this ? Causa latet, res est notissima. Some go to college to learn, and some to unlearn, and at times it is difficult to say whose success is the greatest ; in point of numbers, to use a parlia- mentary phrase, the latter have it: Gibson falls within the former category. " With prospects bright to college walls he came, Pure love of virtue, strong desire of fame ; Men watched the way his lofty mind would take, And all foretold the progress he would make." 152 BISHOP GIBSON. Whilst the Platonist consumed the midnight oil in learning how to prove a mouse a syllable, and a syllable a mouse ; and the Socratic his days in looking through a gnat's intestines, or calculating how many steps a flea might leap that bit the brow of Chserephon, and thence alighted straight upon the sage's head* ; Gibson kept steadily up the steep to the Temple of knowledge, which he reached with amazing rapidity and success ; and where he paid not his stated devotion for form's sake, nor for its eclat or its recompence, but where in truth he lived, and had his being for the last fifty years of his well-spent life. At this time the study of the Northern lan- guages was in fashion in Oxford, especially in Queen's College. To this he seems at once, upon matriculation, to have devoted himself; for, while yet an under-graduate, he published several inge- nious as well as useful books on the subject. The first instance of which, though comparatively of less importance, is a new edition of W. Drum- mond's Polemo-Middiana, and James the Fifth's Cantilena Rustica with notes. A juvenile excursion indeed, but suited to his standing. Besides a con- siderable knowledge of the northern languages shewn in his notes, it is apparent from his obser- vations (as Dr. Smallbrook observesf) that if he * Aristophanes. + " Some account of the Rt. Reverend Dr. Edmund Gibson, late CHURCH. 153 had thought fit to apply himself further to per- formances of the witty kind, he was as well quali- fied for them, "by his fine parts, as for more solid studies. Luckily, however, he soon directed the course of his studies to matters more useful, and more beneficial to the world at large. Soon after taking his degree of Bachelor of Arts he translated into Latin the Chronicon Saxonicum, and published it together with the Saxon original, and his own learned notes on the whole*. Although a truly magnificent and national work is now in the course of publication by command of Her Majesty, (en- titled " Monumenta Historica Britannica, prepared and illustrated with notes by the late Henry Petrie, Esquire, F.S.A., Keeper of the Records in the Tower of London, assisted by John Sharpe, B.A., Rector of Castle Eaton, Wiltshire," and which in design and execution surpasses all that has gone before it ;) yet as Gibson's accuracy, learning, and industry are there fully acknowledged, and no less used for building up the gigantic and noble fabric, it would be most unjust to slight them as things of no value. The Chronicon Sax- onicum, every reader should know, is a collec- tion of Chronicles containing the original and Lord Bishop of London." By Bishop Smallbrook, and the inti- mate friend of Gibson. See Winston's Life, 253. London 1749, British Museum. From this point passages are taken from it, word for word, and substantially the whole of it. * Oxon. 1692. 4to. H 5 154 BISHOP GIBSON. authentic testimony of cotemporary writers to the most important matters of our history, from the first landing of our Saxon forefathers to the acces- sion of Henry the Second (1154) ; containing like- wise interesting facts relative to architecture, agriculture, commerce, coinage, our liberty, and our religion, together with some specimens of Saxon poetry. " In the Saxon Chronicle and the Doomsday Book, England may boast of two sub- stantial monuments of its early history ; to either of which it would not be easy to find a parallel in any nation ancient or modern. * * Philosophically considered, this ancient record (Chronicon Sax- onicum) is the second great phenomenon in the history of mankind, for if we except the sacred annals of the Jews, contained in the several books of the Old Testament, there is no other work extant, ancient or modern, which exhibits at one view a regular and chronological panorama of a people described in rapid succession by different writers through so many ages in their own vernacular language. Hence, it may safely be considered not only as the primaeval source from which all subse- quent historians of English affairs have principally derived their materials, and consequently the criterion by which they are to be judged, but also as the faithful depository of our national idiom; affording at the same time to the scientific inves- tigator of the human mind a very interesting and extraordinary example of the changes incident to a CHURCH. 155 language, as well as to a nation, in its progress from rudeness to refinement*." And when we call to mind that the largest portion of the Westmorland dialect is pure Anglo-Saxon, to say nothing of local customs, and local habits of the same origin, it does indeed surprise us that these diggings are so much neglected. Let us hope for better days, and a more enterprising spirit in this vein. Saville, and many others, had gone over the ground before himf. Wheloc, too, in his Chronologia Anglo - Saxonica, published in 1644, had far advanced the landmarks of Saxon literature J ; but it remained for our countryman, with Wheloc as his text book, and with Laud as his favorite guide, to add to a preface of (what he conceived) an entire collection of these manuscripts, nunc primum integrum edidit ; and to be identified with them when Dr. Ingram's puerilities are forgotten§. It remains a living proof of his unwearied industry, his uncommon accuracy, and extensive learning. This work he attempted by the advice of the excellent Dr. Mill, whose Memoirs will be found in a succeeding page. It seems, however, to have been under Dr. Hickes, the then great promoter of Northern languages, that * Dr. Ingram's Edit. Pref. + There are about 150 in all, see Monumenta Hist. Brit. Intr. 27. { The learned Spelman had established a Professorship in Cambridge, and Wheloc was made Professor. § An Anglo-Saxon Professorship was established in Oxford in 1750. Dr. Ingram was Professor in 1803. 156 BISHOP GIBSON. his studies in this way were directed. The Saxon Chronicles being printed, he prepared himself for more exact researches into the antiquities of his own country, to the pursuit of which he had a natural inclination, and to the study of which he applied himself for some years with the greatest diligence. With this view, he withdrew for a while from the University to reside in London. There he became Librarian at Lambeth Palace, and Lecturer at St. Martin's : the one gave what his heart yearned after, plenty of black-letter books ; the other a small competency, and an opportunity of distinguishing himself as a preacher, which soon presented itself, followed with the most marked success. As his salary at Lambeth was but ^£.20 a year, and probably his lectureship not much more, he (as it is said) was forced to bow and sue for grace, and deify the power of those kings of literature, the metropolitan booksellers, and so eke out his lazar-like pittance with crumbs from the tables of the mighty Tonsons of the day ! After all, what a sublime spectacle, to behold such a man wrestling with the powers of this world, and with the strength of his own arm crushing them one by one under his feet ! Upon taking his degree, he might (alas ! how often it is done !) have rested on his oars, and drifted quietly down the stream of time, thinking of nothing but a Fellowship, or a College Living, and ended his days as one of the many useless drones of society ; or employed in CHURCH. 157 sucking his thumbs in a state of drivelling idiotcy. But no ! he had seen within the college walls too much of monastic life to respect it ; his heart recoiled from the thoughts of it ; he aspired after human good, and his aspirations were as happy as they were noble. But let us proceed to examine in their order the fruits of his labours : — In 1692 he also published a Treatise entitled Librorum MS. in duabus insiynibus Bibliothecis altera Te?iisoniana Londini, altero Duydaliana Oxonii Cataloyus, dedicated to Dr. Tenison, (then Bishop of Lincoln, afterwards Archbishop of Canterbury,) which was the first step he took to be introduced to that learned prelate ; and which, together with a series of subsequent recommendations of the latter kind, contributed to his obtaining the Archbishop's favor, and prepared the way for his successive preferments, and indeed for the happiness of his whole life. In the following year he published, or rather edited, two treatises on the antiquities of his country, viz. : Julii Cwsaris Portus Iccius illus- tratus, Somner's Tract (1673) ; and a Treatise on the Roman Ports and Forts of Kent. But while so engaged, the cultivation of the Roman authors was by no means neglected by him. For we find that in the very same year, he obliged the world with a beautiful edition of the great master of the rules of oratory, Quintilian de arte oratoticd, in 4 to., with emendations from several MSS., and the earliest editions of that admired work. It is very 158 BISHOP GIBSON. surprising indeed how, with all his diligence, he could engage in and finish the several books now mentioned, and those on subjects so different, within the narrow compass of a year or two. But, in truth, nothing was too difficult for his studious ardor and uncommon industry in the promotion of learning. This edition of Quintilian at once stamped him as a critic of the highest order ; it still remains without an equal. However, he soon left that task to others, and returned to the gratification of his own genius, and the improvement of the learned world, by his further application to the study of the antiquities of his own country. He accordingly chose, with great judgment, the best account extant of our own United Kingdom, viz. Camden's Britannia, a treatise so much celebrated by the world as to supersede the necessity of en- larging upon it ; more than to repeat what has so often been said of its author, that " he has been to our late Antiquarians the same thing as Homer was of old to the Poets of Greece, they have usually borrowed or stolen the whole stock from him." Another enlarged and improved edition of this valuable work he again, after a lapse of twenty- seven years, and when Bishop of Lincoln, com- municated to the world, with a life of the Author*. Then followed his Vita Thonue Bodleii Equitis Aurati, together with his Historia Bibliothecce * 2 Vol. fol. 1722. CHURCH. 159 Bodleian®, prefixed to a large volume intituled Catalogi Librorum MSS. in Anglid et Hibernid in unum collecti ; and the Reliquice Spelmaniance*, being the posthumous works of Sir Henry Spelman, relating to the laws and antiquities of England, with his lifef ; dedicated also to his Meceenas — the great and good Dr. Thomas Tenison, (now Arch- bishop of Canterbury,) whose patronage and en- couragement he very gratefully acknowledges in his dedication. It was probably about this time, or soon after, that he was taken into the Archbishop's family as a domestic chaplain. His next treatise was the Synodus Anglicana, or the Constitution mid Proceedings of an English Convocation, shewn from the Acts and Registers thereof to be agreeable to the principles of an Established Church, with an Appendix of the Registers of the Upper House, and two entire Journals of the Lower House%. In consequence of recent controversies this work has been much sought after. Its object was to explain the constitution of the Convocation, or the Ecclesiastical Synod ; (aiming at the same time to vindicate the power and prerogative of the Archbishop as President, against the attacks of Tindal, Collins, and the Freethinkers of the age; a set of men who seemed to think that no one could be a friend to liberty who was not an enemy * 2 Vol. fol. 1697, Oxon. + Folio 1698, Oxon. | London 1712. 160 BISHOP GIBSON. to the Established Church ;) and to compose, if possible, the unseemly conflicts which then took place between the Upper and Lower House of Con- vocation — conflicts which in the end proved fatal to their very existence. Although this synod was practically suspended in 1717, yet we must not hastily take for granted that the learning conveyed to us by this work thereby became worthless. By no means let us suppose so ; for it is, believe us, one of the main fountains of the sacred Nile we must explore, if we really wish for a just conception of the judicial and ministerial duties of the Arch- bishops, their courts, and the like ; and not wholly a barren field for those who love to revel in the vexata quastio of the union of Church and State ; or that of the power of Parliament over matters termed purely spiritual, as marriage with a deceased wife's sister, and the like. Judging, too, from appearances on the political horizon, it may become ere long as useful as it was in the Author's day, to set at rest differences amongst the clergy themselves quite as unseemly, and, it is to be feared, quite as fatal in the end. It is a remarkable fact, and a proud boast for us, that two Westmorland-born men, viz. Dr. Gibson and Dr. Burn, in all matters Ecclesiastical, give laws to Westminster Hall ; whence their opinions circulate as from the heart to the utmost extremities of the land — to the ex- tremities of dominions upon which the sun never sets. It has been said that Gibson studied for the CHURCH. 161 bar, and intended to make the law his profession* ; but we feel justified in disputing this, and in assert- ing, that neither of these men were trained up in the science or practice of the law. Their works are received on the bench, and at the bar, with a degree of reverence little short of those of the great oracle himself, Sir E. Coke. Such are the glorious results of studious ardor and unwearied industry in a free and enlightened nation ! What a noble and soul-stirring spectacle, to behold two men rearing themselves by dint of personal prowess from a lowly condition of life, and sitting, though no longer present, in our ancient sanctuaries of Justice, administering her decrees, and with an authority of well-nigh infinite wisdom, speaking to the remotest lands and to ages yet unborn ! Let us ask with the old moralist, " Who is the greater man, he that pronounces a sentence on the bench, or he that in his study reads us a lecture of justicef ? " But to return : On the convocation question, in which he took so lively an interest, many anonymous pamphlets are attributed to him, and seemingly on good authority J ; in this anony- * See Memoirs of Dr. Codex, 1733. f Seneoa. | A Letter to a friend in the Country, concerning the proceed- ings in Convocation in the years 1700, 1701 — 1703. The Right of the Archbishop to continue or prorogue the whole of the Convocation, London 1701, 4to, A Summary of the arguments in favor of the said rights. 1G2 BISHOP GIBSON. mous warfare lie seems to have had for the most part Mr. Foster, (afterwards Sir Michael Foster, the great crown lawyer,) as his chief antagonist ; to whom it was an honor to be opposed on snch a question, much more so to be opposed to him with anything like success. We now come to his great work, the Codex ; the title of this great work is " Codex Juris Ecclesiastici Anglica?ii, or the Statutes, Constitutions, Canons, Rub ricks, and Articles of the Church of England, methodically digested under their proper heads ; with a Commentary historical and judicial, and with an introductory discourse concerning the present state of the power, discipline, and laws of the Church of England ; likewise with an Appendix of instruments, antient and modern, by Edmund A Parallel between a Presbyterian Assembly and the New Model of an English Provincial Synod, London 1702, 4to. Reflections upon a paper entitled " The Expedient Proposed," London 1702, 4to. The Schedule of Prorogation Reviewed, London 1702, 4to. The Pretended Independence of the Lower House upon the Upper House a groundless notion, London 1703, 4to. A short Statement of some present questions in Convocation, London 1704. The Marks of a Defenceless Cause in the Proceedings and Writings of the Lower House of Convocation, London 1703. An Account of the Proceedings in Convocation in a cause of Contumacy upon the Prolocutors going into the Country without the leave of the Archbishop, commenced April 10, 1707. Then follow his visitation, parochial and general, Sermons de excommunicatione, and Tracts relating to the Government and Discipline of the Church of England 1717. CHURCH. 163 Gibson, D.D., Archdeacon of Surrey, Hector of Lambeth and Chaplain to his Grace the Lord Arch- bishop of Canterbury, London, 1713." This cele- brated work was formed and carried on under the eye of Archbishop Tenison ; and the author had the benefit of the advice of some of the most eminent lawyers of the age. Indeed, as the learned concur in saying, if he had prepared nothing else he might be justly said to have spent the best of his days in the service of the church and clergy. His Biogra- pher, Dr. Smallbrook, gives a decided preference to Gibson over Watson and all other writers on the same subject; and perhaps present opinion on the bench and at the bar confirms him in this choice ; not to omit the approving tone of Sir Wil- liam Blackstone. We cannot, however, help thinking that Watson's book (whether written by Watson or Page) is generally estimated far below its intrinsic worth : it is the book of a highly dis- ciplined mind, thoroughly soaked in law. As judges on the bench have said that it was written by Mr. Page, we must kiss the rod ; but it certainly bears the strongest impress of a civilian's pen, as Dr. Watson, the Dean of Battel, originally was. Perhaps both were concerned in it ; if so, like the joint productions of Eubens and Snyders, of Turner and Landseer, it becomes doubly valuable, as the joint production of two master-minds. Two editions of this work having appeared before the Codex, the author of the latter had great advan- tages. Although Lyndwood's was the book upon 164 BISHOP GIBSON. which Gibson pinned his faith, as, in his view, the best English canonist, yet in outline the Codex substantially resembles that of Watson, differing in this only, that the Codex contains the statutes and judicial authorities on reported cases in extenso, the other gives the legal effect. The one, in short, is the work of a well-trained lawyer ; the other of a clergyman, but of a clergyman of the most pro- found, erudite, and extensive reading. Burn's Eccle- siastical Law, (which is now in its ninth edition, and which has in a manner superseded both,) adopts Gibson's plan as regards the statutes and decided cases, and arranges (if A, B, C, D, can, with any grace, be called arrangement) his matter alpha- betically ; but of this we shall have to write more at large in the life of Dr. Bum. Before, however, we leave the subject of his works, we must take a glance at the "Life of Oliver Cromwell." It is suggested in Noble's House of Cromwell that he was the author of it ; but independently of internal evidence derived from style, &c, the author's ignorance of Bichard Crom- well's family, and especially of the connexion of the Bishop himself with the House of Cromwell, seems decisive in the negative ; for it must be always kept in mind that Anna Cromwell, sixth daughter of Bichard Cromwell, the widow of his uncle Thomas, lived till 1727, and lived with the Bishop on terms of nearest relationship*. * See Life of Dr. Thomas Gibson. CHURCH. 165 It would seem that Gibson also proposed to draw up an Ecclesiastical Institute in imitation of Justi- nian's Institutes, as drawn from the vast digests of the Civil Law, but did not live to complete it. It would also seem that, while in the decline of life, he carefully examined all the records and registers of the cathedrals in England and Wales, with a view to a work, as it is supposed, on what he termed the Ecclesiastical Common Law before the Eeformation. He made large collections and digested them, but did not publish them : where these manuscripts are we have not been able to discover. Having rendered an account of some of his principal works, passing over the rest by a bare reference*, let us direct your attention to other matters — different, but of no less important a kind. Two years after the publication of his Codex, namely on the 14 th December 1715, his friend Ten- nyson died, and was succeeded in Canterbury by Wake Bishop of Lincoln ; who was succeeded in the latter See by Edmund Gibson, at the mature age of fifty-four. He held the Eectory of Lam- beth, said to have been worth £.800 a year, for three years in commendam. At Lincoln he remained until April 1723, when, on the * Sermons 1717 ; Assize Sermon 1702 ; Pastoral Letters 1728 ; Visitation Charges, &c. ; Family Devotion ; Treatise against In- temperance ; Admonition against Swearing ; Advice to persons who have heen Sick ; Trust in God ; Sinfulness of neglecting the Lord's Day ; Against Lukewarmness in Eeligion ; A Collection of ithe Principal Treatises against Popery, 1738. 166 BISHOP GIBSON. death of Dr. Bobinson, he was translated to the See of London. The celebrated Dr. Cobden, Archdeacon of London, and Prebend of St. Paul's, was made his chaplain. It is well known (says Dr. Sinallbrook) that he had a very particular genius for the right management of business, which he happily transacted by means of a most exact method that he used on all occasions. This is a talent that rarely falls to the share of men of great learning, who are generally better suited to matters of a speculative, than of a practical nature ; and this he pursued with great advantage, not only in the affairs of his own diocese, which he governed with the most exact regularity, but of a vastly large district, by his great care in promoting the spiritual affairs of all the Church of England colonies in the West Indies : and indeed the Walpole administra- tion were so sensible of his great abilities in trans- acting business, that there was committed to him a sort of Ecclesiastical Ministry for several years, and more especially on occasion of the long decline of body and mind in Archbishop Wake ; when almost everything that concerned the Church was, in great measure, left to the care of the Bishop of London. On this high eminence he did as became a christian bishop, and has left the most lasting testimonials of his head and heart. He recom- mended several worthy and learned persons to the favor of the secular ministry ; employed his interest in procuring an ample endowment from the Crown CHURCH. 167 for the regular performance of divine service in the Royal Chapel at Whitehall, and for the mainte- nance of a competent number of select preachers selected out of both Universities, with proper salaries ; that men of worth might have an oppor- tunity of being known, and that there might always be a due supply of persons to fill the pulpits of the metropolis. Again, he was constantly on the watch against the repeated attempts to procure a repeal of the Test and Corporation Acts ; which he considered the fences of the Church of England : for he was of opinion that it was unjustifiable to arm those hands With power that might possibly employ it, as was done before, against the ecclesiastical constitution itself: that there ought always to be a legal esta- blishment of the Church, to a conformity with which some peculiar advantages might be annexed ; and at the same time, with great moderation and temper, he approved of a toleration of all dissenters, except that artfod sect which, under the appear- ance of an uncommon simplicity, wished to deprive the clergy of their legitimate emoluments and vested rights. But this proved his great stumbling-block ; for in March 1736, a bill for the relief of the Quakers, as regards tithes, &c, was warmly supported by Sir Robert Walpole, and on the 3 rd May was carried in the House of Commons by a majority of 164 to 48 ; but was successfully opposed in the House of Peers by the churchmen and the lawyers, especially 168 BISHOP GIBSON. by the Bishop of London, Lord Chancellor Talbot, and Lord Hardwicke. The rejection of this bill by a majority of 54 to 35, so ruffled the temper of the first minister of the Crown (according to Pulteney the hardest of men to provoke), that he bitterly complained of the vindictive spirit which reigned in the House of Lords, and was so acrimonious against the Bishop of London, to whom he attri- buted its defeat, that he withdrew from him the confidence which he had up to that time placed in him ; and transferred into other hands the con- duct of ecclesiastical affairs, with which he had been chiefly entrusted. The inveteracy displayed against this eminent prelate (as his biographer is bound to acknowledge) for the conscientious dis- charge of his duty, reflects no credit on the memory of Sir Robert Walpole. His esteem for the Bishop of London had been so great that when he was reproached with giving him the authority of a pope, he replied and a very good pope he is. Even after their disagreement he never failed to pay an eulo- gium to the learning and integrity of his former friend. The scurrilous and anonymous pamphleteer, to whom we have before alluded, insinuates that at his first appearance in life he was a Tory, and continued so until he was made Chaplain to Archbishop Ten- nyson ; which (adds he) occasioned the reflection that he was a Tory by nature, and a Whig by grace. He also says that at college he was so hot, CHURCH. 169 that he got the name of Jacobite. But as it is the author of " An Apology for Dr. Codex," that also says of our distinguished countryman, that he was a man of mean parentage, born near Westmorland, and the son of a fisherman ! we may throw his authority to the idle winds, and retort upon him his own irony, Mutato nomine, de te Fabula narratur He declined a translation to Winchester ; and was once esteemed, as Whiston says, heir apparent of the Archbishop of Canterbury. But his conduct on the Quakers' Bill had frustrated all his well- grounded hopes. On the death of Wake, the See of Canterbury was conferred on Potter : and when, on his death, in 1747, it was offered to Gibson he declined it, on account of his advanced age and increasing infirmities. As we have already said, his heart was as sound as his head ; attend, if you please, in this to one who had no other love for him than what was extorted by true merit. " And now (says Whiston*) I have spoken so much of Bishop — Archbishop Hoadly, of , I must say somewhat of Bishop Gibson ; one of quite another character than the forementioned bishop and archbishop: one that I think married but once, and changed his diocese but once, viz. from Lincoln to London ; one who * Wniston's Life, by himself, 253. VOL. I. I 170 BISHOP GIBSON. has written several devotional and practical manuals with good reputation ; one who performed divine offices in a sober, and grave, and solemn way, becoming a christian bishop ; one of such great generosity that he freely gave the £. 2,500 left him by Dr. Crow, once his chaplain, to Dr. Crow's own relations ; and one who, in the reign of George the First, preached against that gross Court foolery of masquerades, and procured an address to the King from several of his brethren, the bishops, to put them down, though without effect : which in my opinion was an action both very bold and very meritorious." We know no higher praise than this from a man like Whiston, who knew him intimately, and who had no inclination to flatter him, as is self- evident ; for amongst other severe remarks he says, " This bishop seemed to think the Church of England, as it just then happened to be established by modern laws and canons, came down from Heaven with the Athanasian creed in its hand." He used to call him " the heir apparent of the Arch- bishop of Canterbury; — the grand recommender to ecclesiastical preferments at Court," and the like ; and winds up the whole by expressions of inward satis- faction (akin to revenge tinged with monomania), with respect to Gibson's exclusion from Court in Whiston's great astronomical year 1736; as if Gibson had been excluded from Court in that very year to prove the truth of Whiston's reveries re- specting the influence of the heavenly bodies in that CHURCH. 171 year*. Beading the story of Dr. Crow's relatives and the good bishop, one cannot help repeating the aphorism, that the greatest actions of our lives are those we do in private ; and his bold and fearless onslaught upon the Court for their gross tom-fool- eries in masquerades and the like, recal to mind the brightest passages in the life of Bernard Gilpin ; and the sublime truth, that an honest man 's the noblest work of God. How long his exclusion from S t# James's continued does not satisfactorily appear ; the fair inference, however, from the facts seems to be that many overtures were made to him, which he steadily refused to the hour of his death. And admirable as were the general traits of his character, none were more so than his social virtues. Pride and haughtiness of demeanour were, it is true, imputed to him ; but, as one might expect, such idle suggestions are only found sprouting on the congenial soil of anonymous pub- lications ; in the crapulous remains of men who batten on the ruined reputation of others. If any such impulse ever moved him it was what Pope expressed, when he said — " Self-love but serves the virtuous mind to wake, As the small pebble stirs the peaceful lake ; The centre mov'd a circle straight succeeds, Another still, and still another spreads ; * Whiston's Life, 255; and "Essay on the Revolution," 320, 324. 172 BISHOP GIBSON. Friend, parent, neighbour, first it will embrace ; His country next, and next all human race ; Wide and more wide th' o'erflowings of the mind Take ev'ry creature in of ev'ry kind ; Earth smiles around, with boundless bounty blest, And Heav'n beholds its image in his breast." He was naturally a man of strong and vigorous constitution, but his health for a year or two before his death, had been giving way ; if we look back to his Herculean labours, the surprise is how he stood up so long. He went to Bath in search of health, but — as many more have — found a grave. He left behind him a large family well provided for. Whom, or when, or where, he married we know not. The Right Rev d - Christopher Wilson, Lord Bishop of Bristol, married one of his daughters ; and from this union sprung the present family of Upton of Ingmire Hall*. The Rev d - Dr. Edmund Gibson, a son, was buried at Fulham, April 21 st , 1771 ; and George Gibson, Esq., his grandson, in 1782; a Mrs. Dorville, a grand- daughter, also lies buried there, with others of the same family. * See Lysons's Environs of London, Fulham, 393. John Upton, whose birth was fatal to her, is still living. Whether Bishop Wilson was Westmorland-born, we cannot ascertain ; Mr. Wilson of Ledstone Lodge, near Pontefract (formerly much engaged on the Turf), was his eldest son. The families at Cas- terton Hall and Dallam Tower are in no way connected with them, as the present venerable head of the former house has kindly informed us. CHURCH. ] 73 His remains were removed from Bath to Fulham Churchyard, September 17 th , 1748, where, at the east end of the Church, he lies side by side with Kobinson, Eandolph, Louth, Sherlock, and others whose names will live when the fabric itself is no more. Near to them lie the remains of one of a different life and conversation — Theodore Hook. What a mighty leveller, what a great teacher is Death ! On the tomb is inscribed Edmundus Gibson, D.D. Londinensis Episcopus obiit Co Sept. A. D. 1748 aetat 79. And upon a handsome marble monument inside the church, at the east end thereof, is the following truthful description of his character and virtues : — To the memory of That excellent Prelate, Dr. Edmund Gibson, Lord Bishop of London, Dean of His Majesty's Chapels Royal, And one of the Lords of His Majesty's most honorable Privy Council. In him This Church and Nation lost an able and real friend and Christianity a wise, strenuous, and sincere advocate. 174 BISHOP GIBSON. His Lordship's peculiar care and concern for the constitution and discipline of the Church of England were eminently distinguished, not only by bis invaluable Collection of her Laws, but by his prudent and steady opposition to every attack made upon them. His affection for the State and Loyalty to his Prince were founded on the best principles ; and therefore were upon all occasions fixed and uniform, and his zeal to establish the truth and spread the influence of the Christian religion displayed in their most instructive defence of it. His pastoral letters will ever remain as the strongest testimony of the conviction of his own mind and of his affectionate attention to the most important interests of mankind. Thus lived and died this good Bishop, A great and candid Churchman, A dutiful and loyal subject, An orthodox and exemplary Christian. Obiit Sept. 6, 1748, setat 79. Cx£^^3 BISHOP OF KILLALA, ANB OF FERNS ANB LEIGHLIX. 1730—1789. " The praise that's worth ambition, is attain'd By sense alone, and dignity of mind." Armstrong. (VyviLLiAM Preston is one, and not the least, of XXJ tnat bright galaxy of talent which ap- peared all at once in Heversham School ; Back- house*, Prestonf, WatsonJ, Sir John Wilson§, and Ephraim Chambers ||, are names which must, so long as education, endures, throw over the Vale of Levens intellectual sunbeams of no ordinary attraction and renown. And what, above all, shall we add of Thomas Watson, who gave to all of them (except to Ins son, the Bishop of Llandaff) the first rudiments of wisdom ? May he rest in peace ! * Head Tutor of Trinity College, Cambridge. f Bishop of Ferns. I Bishop of Llandaff. § Judge of the Common Pleas. || Author of, &e., &c See Lives. 176 BISHOP PRESTON. And may the school which has contributed so largely to the advancement of knowledge and to the happiness of mankind, regain its ancient strength and prestige under the fostering control and management of its present obliging and able master* ! But Preston's intellectual powers were among the meanest of his virtues. He was a man whose life was pious, whose mind was enlightened by genius, enlarged by travel, softened by benevolence, and accomplished by societyf. By his happy career and great success in life, he roused the jealousy of his old school-fellow and townsman, Watson, of LlandafF; which (for reasons better to be understood after reading Watson's own Memoirs) we class high amongst the excellencies of Preston's life ; for there are many men whose censure is better than their praise, — whose jealousy is preferable to their love. Preston was born at Endmoor in the township of Preston Patric, in the year 1730; and as already stated he was sent as a boy to the neighbouring school of Heversham. He was educated under Thomas Watson (the father of Bichard Bishop of LlandafF), and, after his retirement, by Mr. Nicholson. From this school he went to Trinity College, Cambridge, with the exhibition of £.50 a-year, which belongs * The Eev. J. H. Sharpies ; as to the endowment of it, &c. see p. 192. | See Epitaph. CHURCH. 177 to this school ; and in which he was a few years afterwards succeeded by young Watson. In time he became Scholar and Fellow of his College. The official entries in the College books are few and far between ; but they show that he took his Bachelor of Arts' degree in the year 1753, and that of Master of Arts in 1756, and lastly, that he gave up his Fellowship in September 30, 1765, while Backhouse was tutor of the College. To this date his residence in college seems almost without a gap. He now went upon his travels, visiting nearly every capital in Europe. He seems to have lived some years in Vienna, the capital of the Austrian Empire. The probability is, for we can produce no positive evidence of the fact, that he went as tutor to some scion of the house of Rutland. Watson, in a letter hereinafter mentioned, tells us that he solicited for Preston during his absence the Professorship of Modern History in the University of Cambridge ; but as Professor his name does not appear in the Cambridge Calendar. The Duke of Butland had been, as the reader will find, the pupil of Watson, in Cambridge ; but whether he introduced Watson to Lord Granby, or Watson was the true Mecsenas, we are unable to determine. According to Watson's own account the credit was due to him ; but so inordinate was the man's vanity, — so abominably conceited and selfish, i 5 178 BISHOP PRESTON. that when self or politics were concerned, he was not (as the Spectator says of Will Honeycomb in matters of women) he was not a very honest man. But to return : The Duke of Kutland succeeded Lord Northington in the vice-royalty of Ireland, in June 1784, and continued there till October 1787. Preston went over with the Lord Lieutenant as his domestic chaplain ; or, as the Duchess of Eutland has caused to be recorded on his monu- ment, Private Secretary to the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland. He was probably both, and this will reconcile all the authorities on the point. His Grace, to mark his esteem for our countryman, conferred upon him the only vacant See during his administration, namely, the Bishopric of Killala. Gore, Bishop of Limerick, died, and Pery of Killala was translated to fill his place ; then in 1784 Preston was consecrated Bishop of Killala. According to the college books, this took place December 24th, 1784. Here he remained until June 1788, when he was translated to the Sees of Ferns and Leighlin. Now, in the order of time, falls a very important passage from the Anecdotes of Bishop Watson, written by himself, and which throws considerable light upon the characters of both. " About this time (says he), hearing that my old friend Preston, then Bishop of Ferns, was dangerously ill in Ireland, I felt my regard for him (which had been CHURCH. 179 lessened by his acceptance of a bishopric) return- ing with all its force, and I wrote the following letter to him : 1 e Cambridge, April 6, 1789. " My Dear Lord, " You have never written to me since you went to Ireland ; I know nothing of you except by report. I cannot however suffer an ardent friend- ship of many years' standing to cool so suddenly, as not to he greatly interested in what I hear of you, and they tell me that you are ill, and danger- ously ill. If the fact is so, and you think my consolation can he of any use to you, command me in any way, and to any extent you judge fit. Some twenty years ago, you were then, I believe, at Vienna, I preferred your interest to my own, in soliciting for you the Professorship of Modern History, and you wrote me word that you should die contented in having met with a true friend : that friend is still what he was then, and, though both our situations are mended, yet the principle of regard remains the same, " I am," &c. By way of breviary, as a postscript often is, follows this : — " I ought not to give you advice, for you have not consulted me; and if you had, our feelings 180 BISHOP PRESTON. may be different ; but nothing should induce me to embitter the rest of my life in the squabbles of a college." After the letter he makes this remark : — " It was then reported that Preston was to have been translated to an English bishoprick, and to have been made Master of Trinity College." How the dying prelate received this gentle reminiscence of supposed benefits conferred, and of college squabbles, we know not, but we do know how Hotspur would have received it and read it; how any well-regulated mind would have reflected on it. His regard for Preston had been lessened by his acceptance of a bishopric ! Good Heavens ! and yet he himself a few years before had accepted the Bishopric of Llandaff ; and would have accepted any other he could have clutched from that time until the last moment of his earthly existence. But it was quite in the style of that Diogenes. The truth will out ! nature will return in spite of every effort — " Quauivis repellas furca tamen usque recurrit." " It was reported (says he) that Preston was to have been translated to an English bishopric, and to have been made Master of Trinity." Here lies the mystery of his writing at all, — the pith and marrow of his tale : jealousy and disappointment CHURCH. 181 were the prime movers, at the bottom of this cool, cruel, hard-hearted, selfish, and unprovoked letter ! Nothing would have stung him to the quick so keenly as such a translation, or of his succeeding to the Mastership of Trinity. The very idea, the very report was, like a piece of red cloth to a certain animal, enough to goad him to madness. " I ought not (adds he) to give you advice, for you have not consulted me." Why should the Bishop of Ferns consult a man who had no corres- pondence with him ; who had no sympathies in common with him, who could have no love for him, and who was many years his elder in age ? When he tells him that he solicited the Professor- ship of Modern History for Preston, to the neglect of his own interest, we must beg to say Credat Judceus Apella ! Watson was the Professor of Chemistry, Professor of Divinity, and of other things, more particularly alluded to in his life ; and there- fore (assuming its truth) not to fill the chair of Modern History was an act of sublime self-denial, which none but a man of Watson's egotism would dare to talk of. He would have been fitted for it, just as well as he was for the University laboratory of chemistry, — we had almost said for the chair of Divinity. However, notwithstanding this entire estrange- ment for so many years, they contrived to repair at their joint expense the school where they had been 182 BISHOP PRESTON. educated, as appears by the following Inscription drawn up by Watson : — Hanc scliolam fundavit Amplisque reditibus annuis dotavit Edvabdus Wilson, De Heversham-Hall, Armiger, MDCXIII. Elapsis centum et aroplius annis Sepe et vallo conclusit Et circumcirca arboribus consitis condecoravit Thomas Watson, Ab anno 1698vo usque ad annum 1737"m Ovx o rvx^v §ida.(rica.\og, Vetustate tandem fere collapsum Suis sumptibus refici curaverunt Ejusdem olim simul alumni Eicardus Watson, Episcopus Landovensis, et Gulielmus Preston, Episcopus Fernensis, MDCCLXXXVIIL Watson was right in the report he heard of the dangerous illness of the Bishop of Ferns ; for, in truth, at the date of the above letter he was on his death-bed, as appears by the following memorandum recorded in the Kegister of Ferns* : — " The Eight Keverend William Preston, Lord Bishop of Leighlin and Ferns, died at the house of John Tidd, Esq., Clare Street, on Sunday the 19th day of April, 1789, at three o'clock in the morning." * See Eicke's Eccl. Reg. G Vol. 255 ; see also lb. 238. CHURCH. 183 Mr. Tidd was a barrister, and then resided in Clare Street, Dublin ; but how connected with our coun- tryman does not appear. We do not find that the Prelate was ever married, although a gentleman of great intelligence and research, and in daily intercourse with the present Bishop of the See, appears to think otherwise. There are certainly, as he suggests, two or three clergymen of the same name within the Diocese ; but if descendants in blood they have not inherited much, if any, of that which in him was " so en- lightened by genius, enlarged by travel, softened by benevolence, and accomplished by travel ;" in other words, they seem one and all devoid of the com- monest rules of civility, and of intercourse with mankind. Perhaps, in charity be it said, our letters were intercepted and used as cartridge-paper by the rebellious army of the King of Munster. May those who follow be more fortunate in their inquiries, and succeed in wiping the cobwebs from his manuscripts and correspondence ! We have sought in vain, too, for Mr. Tidd's descendants to clear up this difficulty. If we have only put future inquiry on the right track, we can then say with one whose name and writings will endure for ever, " we could wish to read one page more, but this is enough for our measure; we have not lived in vain." The Duchess of Eutland caused a monument to be erected to his memory in the Cathedral, at Ferns : 184 BISHOP PRESTON. as she was a woman graced with every virtue that adorns human nature, the inscription on his monu- ment, recorded at a time when all was hushed but the voice of Truth, speaks volumes to his praise. The following is the torriptinit: " Sacred to the Memory of the Rev. William Preston, who was Private Secretary to Charles Duke of Rutland, when Lord Lieutenant of Ireland. He was promoted by him to the See of Killala, in 1785 ; to that of Ferns in 1787 ; and after a long and painful illness, which he sustained with the patience of a Philosopher and the resignation of a Christian, he died on the 19th April, 1789, in the 60th year of his age. He was a man whose life was pious, whose mind was enlightened by genius, enlarged by travel, softened by benevolence, and accomplished by society. This monument is erected to his memory by Mary Isabella Duchess of Rutland, as a memento of those virtues and talents which she respected and admired, and as a testimony of gratitude for a friendship most valuable to her in his lifetime, and which in its effects extended beyond the grave." BISHOP OF LLANDAFF, ARCHDEACON OF ELY, F.R.S., &C. 173G— 1816. Love and meekness, Lord, Become a Churchman, better than ambition. Shakspeare. (1 VVe often hear it said of a man of parts, " that %\/ he would have been conspicuous in any thing " he had undertaken ; and the frequency of the fact makes the expression intelligible. iEsop was distinguished as a slave, and Shakspeare was not the least amongst poachers, as well as amongst poets ; and had the lot of Newton, or of Napoleon, been cast amongst hewers of wood and drawers of water, they would have overtopped their fellows. Byron and Coleridge are not exceptions, although the one never reached mediocrity in the House of * There is a fine portrait of him by Romney ; an engraving of it forms the frontispiece of his Anecdotes. 186 BISHOP WATSON. Peers, nor the other could ever get out of the awk- ward squad of his regiment; and simply because neither would have elicited, nor deserved the com- pliment. The remark, however, might have been honestly made of the subject of the present memoir ; for in Mo viro (asLivy says of Oato Major) tantum robur corporis et animi fuit, ut quocunque loco tiatus esset, fortunam sibi facturus videretur. But as John Locke (whose disciple in politics he always plumed himself on being) says, there is scarce any one without some idiosyncracy that he suffers by ; so, indeed, had our fellow-countryman his, which he suffered by, and will seriously suffer from in the judgment of Time. There is one word in the English language, in which all that was mortal of him might be expressed, but which, at present (for in dispensing justice, the forms of trial cannot be dispensed with) we forbear to use. The curious, however, may like to know that the epithet alluded to was the casus belli between Mr. Alderman Blotten and Samuel Pickwick Esquire, and is found recorded in the first of the Posthumous Papers of the immortal Pickwick Club, to which these worthies in a Pickwickian sense belonged. Dr. Johnson seems to have thought that to be the best memoir or life of a man which was written by the man himself. Whether he, with all his gigantic powers of pen and penetration, could have done what Boswell has done for him, or whether the opinion is conformable to general experience, CHURCH. 187 we need not now stay to inquire ; seeing that Watson has written his own under the popular title of Anecdotes, and that no Boswell has entered the lists to contest the prize with him. The merits of the hook itself we leave for review to a more seasonable moment. Suffice it now to observe, that it admits posterity behind the scenes on many interesting subjects, especially as to his own mo- tives, and those of his order, on the most important concerns of the day; and which must have passed away as a shadow, or been left to deduction, if not so industriously recorded by his own hand : it also raises us, as to himself, to that height whence we ought to survey so vast a subject — to the vantage- ground of truth ; whence we may see the errors, and wanderings, and mists, and tempests, in the vale below ; whence we may track him through the windings of his varied life ; watch his progress from youth to manhood ; from Heversham school to the See of Llandaff; explore the mysteries of his for- tune ; detect the sources of his power ; and the disturbing influences of Ins being. In a few words, whence we may survey the parts he sustained in the great drama of civil and religious liberty; tragedy rather let us call it, in the age in which he lived, wherein the destruction of the Altar and the Throne was the plot, the strongest men Europe ever saw were the actors, with the civilized world for their audience. The anecdotes narrated of his swaddling days are 188 BISHOP WATSON. as extravagant, and as numerous, as any told of remarkable men. But such nursery tales are be- neath the dignity of Biographical record; and although they might amuse some children of larger growth, as they could improve and instruct none, we shall not condescend to repeat them. He begins the narrative of his own life thus : " I was born at Heversham, in Westmorland, in August 1737." This is one of the many inaccu- racies in which the book abounds. The following is the register of his baptism from the church books, " Kichard, son of Mr. Thomas Watson of Heversham, September 25, 1736." His mother's maiden name was Newton. He had a brother and sister both older than himself. The brother was afterwards a curate at Kendal, and died at an early age. For the place of his birth he ever retained a strong partiality ; and his marriage into the ancient family of Wilson of Dallam Tower, while it flat- tered his vanity, added vastly to that love of fatherland, which nature has planted in the bosom of every one, and preeminently so, or they are much belied by the world, in the stalwart sons of Coniston, and Skiddaw, of Stainmore and Helvellyn. Watson was educated at the village school of Heversham. This school had been, for many years, under the rod of his father the Eeverend Thomas Watson, with no less credit to himself than to the benefit of the grey-coats around him ; many of whom, with an astuteness beyond their kind, took CHURCH. 189 the happy tide that led on to fortune, and lived to see their sons, educated by him, deserving and honoured dignitaries in Church and State. He was master of this school from 1688 to 1737; and therefore the son is again in error when he says that Iris father had resigned before he was born. There is a monument to him in Heversham Church, with the following Juxta hoc marmor S. E. Revdus. Thomas Watson, Aimos prope quinquaginta ludimagister Haud inutilis jEtat. 81. >v. 12, J ObiitNov. . ra 1753> Whether, in truth, Mr. Watson found the school in that high condition in which he left it to his successor*, after near fifty years' superintendence, our present information leads us to no safe conclu- sion : if a conjecture might be hazarded, that would be, that he found it a cold statue and em- braced it into life. Certain it is, that its habit and repute were good, and stretched far beyond the Vale of Levens, when the rod of power fell from his hands. It is a remarkable feature in the history of the * The Kev d - Thomas Nicholson. 190 BISHOP WATSON. human race, that at stated intervals (the age of Pericles, Augustus, Leo X., and Louis XIV.) different parts of the civilised world have, at one and the same time, been lit up with such a pure, steady, and intense blaze of intellectual fire, that the glorious millenium seemed nigh at hand, when man's imperfect sight was to be superseded by immediate vision, — which blazed awhile, and then re-sank below the horizon, leaving the earth again to darkness, and to man. Let us pray, if ever again those glorious rays of the Sun of Light should reach this earth, that a second Newton be vouch- safed to us, — be generated in the midst of them, to explore the hidden mysteries of these wonderful phenomena, and to vindicate the ways of God to man. Is there aught of extravagance, of impiety, or of materialism in the conjecture, that the Intel- lectual of man has its diversities of seasons, — its spring-tide and harvest, its summer and winter, its day and night, — after the manner of the baser bodies describing its orbit around oue common centre, whence its light is borrowed ? But we will not pursue the thought, — may the spark fall where it will kindle ! Again, what is true of the whole is also true of its parts. What has been predicated of the world at large, may be predicated of the narrow circle of a village school. From Litchfield Gram- mar School, for instance, there were, at one and the same time, about a century ago, no fewer than jive Judges on the bench of the superior courts in CHURCH. 191 Westminster Hall The lives of Gibson, Langhome, and Dr. Burn, will afford other happy illustrations of our meaning. And this brings us to Heversham School; where we find about the same time William Preston, afterwards Bishop of Killala, and of Ferns and Leighlin ; Richard Watson, afterwards Bishop of Llandaff ; Sir John Wilson, one of the Justices of the Common Pleas; Backhouse, afterwards Fellow and Head Tutor of Trinity College, Cam- bridge ; and though last, not least in the scale of intellect and usefulness, Ephraim Chambers, the author (amongst other works) of the " Dictionary of Arts and Sciences." At this school Watson was educated, and under Mr. Nicholson. It is possible that he might be, during a portion of the time, under Mr. Lee, but of this we are not quite sure. The increasing infirmities of the father, after his resignation, were such as to disable him from giving to his children the benefit of his experience. Indeed, in citing a passage from Erasmus' Antibarbarorum, Richard makes a touchiug allusion to his own mother, and to mothers in general ; and assures us, that in after-life he looked back to her as the being who had " led his tender years, . With all a parent's pious fears, That nursed his infant thought, and taught his mind to grow." Perhaps all, more or less (if they would but own 192 BISHOP WATSON. it), feel the quickening energies, the benign influence of a mother's care ; the returning tides of time cannot efface it ; death itself, that destroys all, has no dominion over it, — over the first im- pressions of the love of that mother that smoothed his pillow, and administered to his helplessness ; of her, who first tuned the little tongue to lisp, and the little knee to bend in prayer to Him who said, " Suffer the little children to come unto me, and forbid them not, for of such is the Kingdom of God." His father died on the 12th of November, 1753 ; having been afflicted much with palsy for several years. Eichard's fortune was ^0.300. About a year after this event, namely, on the 3rd of November, 1754, he was removed from school " To Cam's smooth margin, and the peaceful vale, Where Science called him to her studious quire, And met him musing in her cloisters pale." As luck would have it, an exhibition in Trinity from this school, enjoyed by Preston, at this moment fell in ; and to this accident, rather than to any great proficiency in learning, or to any marked precocity of talent, did he owe his early matricula- tion*. He entered Trinity as a Sizar. He had, it is * There are two Dallam Tower Exhibitions from this school of the annual value of .£.50; namely, one to Trinity College, Cam- CHURCH. 193 said, three qualifications, — a good constitution, an insatiable ambition, and an obstinate accident : of the value of the last there would be no great harm in evincing a little scepticism ; but the former was a mine of wealth if properly worked. He had, too, the advantage, and no mean one, to know Mr. Backhouse, who had been one of his father's pupils, and at that time Fellow and Tutor of the College. He set about his task with a resolution many make, but few fulfil ; and he pursued his studies with the most unwearied industry. The belles lettres seem to have affected him, as Toryism ever did in after-life, and as music, accord- ing to Pindar, affects a dog, — they disturbed and fretted him. He never had the classical zeal of the Baron of Bradwardine ; and, indeed, with it, one may safely assert that he never would have made a Scaliger or a Bentley. The mathematics were more constitutional with him ; as they seem bridge, the other to Queen's College, Oxford. The school also nominates Candidates for the Exhibition on the Miluer Founda- tion, at Magdalen College, Cambridge, of the value of ,£.80 a-year, ; and for Lady Betty Hastirjgs' Exhibition, in Queen's, Oxford, of the value of ,£.100 a-year, to be shortly increased to £.120. It is also endowed, but to what amount cannot well be ascertained, for there is a discrepancy between Burn and Watson on this point; probably they may be reconciled by adding the value of the land at Kendal, not now seemingly taken into account. Brougbam, where art thou ? The school is now ably conducted by the Bev<*. J. H. Sharpies. VOL. I. K 194 BISHOP WATSON. to be to most of his countrymen, judging from the low ebb of classical honours in that University, where the Muses are thought to reign supreme, and the long and proud list of Wranglers we have to boast of in the Cambridge Calendar. So intense was his application, that for two years and a half he was not from College a single day; he also took pupils as an under graduate. But the time was come when he was to reap the fruits of his amazing industry. In 1759, he obtained the high and dis- tinguished rank of second Wrangler, — the dream, the ambition of many, the proud lot of few, and of still fewer at his early age. In May 1757, it should not be passed over, and before the usual time of a Sizar's sitting, he had obtained one of Lady Jermyn's Scholarships ; laurels little inferior in value to those he was destined afterwards to reach ; for Scholarships in Trinity, Cambridge, are the pure rewards of merit, and not (as we have had occasion elsewhere to say of another College) not the sops of servility, or the prescriptive rights of drivelling idiots ! In his great go, or final exami- nation, he was examined by Maseres, the dis- tinguished mathematician, and afterwards Cursitor Baron of the Exchequer ; and the first time he himself was Moderator (1763), he examined Paley. When lolling on a bed of roses in after-life, he used to boast that when he was an under graduate, CHURCH. 195 he kept good company with Fellow Commoners and the like, — in other words, that he was either a tuft- hunter, or that he " Oft resolved, To drown his freshness in a pipe of port !" Arrant nonsense ! His tongue was not tuned to courtly lays; and debauchery, or even frivolity, was so inconsistent with his general habits, as to place the anecdote (if intended for one) beyond the pale of serious consideration. What amazing pains some men take to impose on themselves, and them- selves on the credulity of mankind, as rakes, or Heaven-born wits ! Strange infatuation ! as if a sound understanding, with a habit of industry, were not worth more than the most brilliant imagination without it. Genius (says Buffon) is patient in- dustry ; and with that Watson was pre-eminently gifted. To use his own phrase, he was never a poet, but a man of prose. His course of study was admirable. " I generally (says he) studied mathematics in the morning, and classics in the afternoon, and used to get by heart such parts of orations in Greek or Latin, as parti- cularly pleased me. Demosthenes was the orator, Tacitus was the historian, and Perseus the satirist, whom I most admired." Another secret of his success was, that he regarded man as a ruminating animal, and by thinking over again what he had read made it his own ; never being satisfied that he 196 BISHOP WATSON. understood a proposition in mathematics, or natural philosophy, until he had. proprio marte mastered it in a solitary week ; drawing the scheme in his head, and going through every step of the demon- stration without pen, ink, and paper. Reader, go and do thou likewise. This is the way that leads to the Temple of Honour. Watson's foot was now fairly on the ladder of fame ; with Fortune smiling her happiest looks, and watching over him with the most parental solicitude. The very gossip of the Combination- room seemed to join chorus, and harmonise with his onward movements. Amongst other little circumstances of the kind, a rumour that his Johnian adversary had triumphed over him in his final examination by favouritism, rather than by overwhelming merit, gave him no trifling impetus. In such anxious moments of hope and fear, of joy and disappointment, such insect stories must needs get wing, and that man is not wanting in ability who can readily turn them to advantage. That there was more of truth than scandal in the tale, seemed impliedly admitted by the powers that be, by the subsequent change in the system of exami- nation, and in the establishment of the Smith's prize : a system, odd and roundabout as it is, better adapted to secure to the most worthy the due reward of merit, and to check the petty purposes of such stumbling-blocks of literature as Mr. Modera- tor Hog. In October 1760, he was elected Fellow CHURCH. 197 of Trinity ; and shortly afterwards made Assistant College Tutor. In November 1764, on the death of Dr. Hadley, he was elected Professor of Chemis- try; in 17C7 Head Tutor of the College; in 1769 F.E.S. ; and, in October 1771, he succeeded Dr. Rutherford in the Chair of Divinity, a post of dignity and responsibility inferior only, if at all, to a bishopric. To this was annexed the Rectory of Somersham, in the county of Huntingdon. We are now on the threshold of his public life, and crave permission to breathe awhile, that we may throw a passing glance back upon the past, and make our step sure for the future. Hitherto we have seen the seed striking root into the clefts of the rock, and almost with the rapidity of thought spreading over its sterile birth-place all the beauties of vegetation. In the retrospect, the eye delights to dwell on a raw-boned stripling from a village school in Westmorland, forcing his solitary but resistless way through every obstacle, to the summit of intellectual grandeur, and to the enjoy- ment of the choicest fruits Alma Mater has to bestow on her favourite sons. Here and there, too, nickering on the verge of the distant horizon, a glimpse may be caught of those iynes fatui that led him astray from the high road of safety, into that Serbonian bog of politics, wherein eventually all his earthly hopes and happiness were engulphed. From the boy let us turn to the man ; from the romance of life to its realities, Had he on taking his degree, following an 198 BISHOP WATSON. example not uncommon, laid his head on the lap of Indolence, and waked to dose again, his venue would have been local, and the circle of a snail might have served as the circumference of his being ; but " Ccesar altis rebus intendebat." Let us also call to mind, that in his day it was not the battle of the frogs and mice contending with bullrushes for the mastery of the fen ; but giants at war with heaven and earth for all that was worth living for. Hence the necessity of a reference to, or brief outline of the casus belli, religious and political ; of balancing them with care and judgment, — with motives, causes, and consequences, in order to form a just estimate of the character of any one who assumed a prominent part in the stirring scenes of that eventful period of English history. He may be said to have commenced his public career in 1760, contemporaneously with that great and good man George III. : he died in 1816, — a long life, whether measured by time or circum- stances. Cicero has somewhere said, " that true friendships are very rarely found amongst men engaged in posts of honour and concerns of state." That intimacy which cements such men together, by what name soever it may pass current, our countryman had with Grafton, Shelburne, Kocking- ingham, Kutland, Camden, Thurlow, Gibbon, Burke, Pitt, Fox, Louis Philippe*, Hayley, Cowper, * The ex-King of France and his brother visited Watson at Calgarth Park, in 1803. CHURCH. 199 Sinclair, and with nearly all the choice and master spirits of the age, — with the American war, the French Revolution, Union with Ireland, Church Discipline Bill, Fox's India Bill, Representative Reform, the Catholic Question, and Test and Cor- poration Acts, as the battlefields on which they met to draw their claymores, and measure their strength with their gigantic adversaries. The war of opinion had now broken out, and every man of the age of discretion was a conscript on one side or the other. The questions more immediately pressing on the public mind, and which more or less continued to agitate it throughout the long reign of George III. were the balance of continental power, or the states- system, the balance of power at home, the right of the mother country to tax the American Colonies, and Wilkes's case which involved the legality of general warrants, and the freedom of election ; together with the subordinate, but no less important matters referred to, as the India Bill, and the like. Such were the matters on which parties had joined issue, when Watson, " Who born for the Universe narrowed his mind, And to party gave up what was meant for mankind." In one and all, either in preaching or pamph- leteering, he had his share. He called himself a Whig ; others called him a Republican. He called himself a political disciple of Locke ; others said 200 BISHOP WATSON. that on reading the works of that great man he had forgot (as Warburton says of Mallet's life of Bacon) that he was a philosopher ; above all, forgot that Locke was the author of" The Conduct of the Human Understanding." He certainly had not imbibed its philosophy, for Watson read but in part, arid saw but in part, and thought but in part; and from his partial views, partial conclusions followed. Like one of the Marian-Islanders, he thought the spot he set his foot on was the entire world ; that beyond the boundaries of the little Goshen cantoned out to him, all was chaos, where the light of truth never broke in ; that there was no wisdom but in the books he read, and read through his lens. Hence his ribaldry respecting Johnson, and Burke ; hence his admiration of Wilkes, Hoadley, Paine, Eobespierre, et id genus omne ; hence his unmanly and unconstitutional expressions of the King and Queen; hence a life (speaking of him as an ecclesiastic), a life which was one- continued lie to his creed. Nature had designed him for a democrat, and his early con- nection with Lord Granby, and other pupils from the ranks of the Whig aristocracy, aided by the liberality of principle in which the University of Cambridge then initiated her sons, gave a filip to his party prejudices. He made his debut on the public stage of politics in an Assize Sermon, preached before the Judges, and the University, in 1769 ; and as (according to CHURCH. 201 Seneca) the first breath we draw is but the first motion to the last, this was but one of a series, acquiring m their course the usual violence and acerbity, and the usual amount of notoriety. The political sermons he himself set the greatest value upon were, " The Principles of the Kevolution vindicated," and his " Fast Sermon," — models of composition for the Churchills, the Prices, and Horne-Tookes of his own day, and the Wades of this ! Political Sermons ! what a paradox ! But why, you will ask — why now rake up from the dust of oblivion the putrid ashes of the Vicar of Brent- ford, or the profligate friend of the profligate Wilkes ? Depend upon it, they are but the repre- sentatives of a class ; a class to which the Professor of Divinity belonged. Their hearts might be coloured gule, and his tinctured sable, but the deep ruling impulse was the same in both. How any man can dare to enter the Holy of Holies with the ribald refuse of political strife in his hands ; or even hope by an appeal to the worst passions of the heart, to produce the repose of peace and goodwill towards one another, or to turn the hearts of the disobedient to the wisdom of the just, has always been a mystery to us. Perhaps the solution is, that they themselves neither know nor care. To move the people to the release of Barabbas is their only study, as well as only pleasure. In few words, to make up a political parson there goes more malice prepense, more selfishness, more hyprocrisy, K 5 202 BISHOP WATSON. more self-conceit, and more cowardice, than to make up any other given character. He who preaches war is the Devil's chaplain, may he a trite, but it is a very true saying. In our younger days, it came to pass that the sexton of a parish not many miles from St. Giles'; in the city of Oxford, had a hopeful son whom he brought up, not as Emanuel Jennings did his, to the safe employ of a corn cutter, but to the pre- carious one of the prize ring, — a very unsafe one, as events proved, — the young sexton having been obliged ultimately to leave his country for his country's good. This lad, in process of time, aspired to the championship of the light weights. At that time the belt was worn by the late Dick Curtis. A challenge was sent — accepted ; the men went into training, as Charles Albert and Eadetsky have done of late, and the fight came off, not on the Mincio or the Adige, but at a place called Hurly Bottom, on the banks of the Thames. The Oxford Pet, as he was called, proved the better man. The news of his good fortune was brought to the anxious parent with all the rapidity (remem- ber there was no steam nor telegraphic wires in those days) with all the rapidity of an Oxford hack. Overpowered with joy, he rushed instinctively to the church, and rung the bells a right merry peal. The parson too was overjoyed, for the wish was parent to the thought that the sun of Toryism had set the night before in the Imperial Parliament. CHURCH. 203 He made no inquiries, and slept upon his inno- cence. On the following morning, the Times brought the news of an adjourned debate. " Why did the bells ring?" exclaimed he. Chagrined, troubled, and disappointed, off he ran to the sexton, and it is needless to add that the gravedigger's occupation was soon gone. On the following Sabbath-day, this worthy divine from the pulpit, as he was wont, poured over a pious and religious congregation the crapulous remains of his over- week's political debauchery. The ex- grave digger, as a parishioner, remonstrated, but took nothing by his motion, save and except an indictment for brawling, followed by fine and imprisonment. Such are the rewards and punishments when man has their distribution! " Datveniam corvis, vexat censura Columbas; " The cloves are censured, while the crows are spared." Let us not be misunderstood. The Clergy of this kingdom, as a body, demand our utmost praise. They are for the most part men of learn- ing ; men of great purity of life and conversation ; men of great earnestness in the cause of Truth. But the rose itself has its cankerworm, and the men we have been writing of are the cankerworms of the Church. Ambition, Watson's ruling passion, his besetting- sin, did not allow him to stop here. The Sermon was but the prologue of the piece. He scrupled not 2(U BISHOP WATSON to turn the Lecture Room of Trinity into a political debating society. He hesitated not to promulgate the "Rights of Man" from the Divinity Chair; he perverted the influence and revenues of that sacred Professorship, extorted by him from the Crown, to corrupt the purity of election, of which he affected to be the champion, and to make the Borough of Cambridge a rotten borough to please the Duke of Rutland. While he was Professor of Divinity, the counties of Cambridge and Hunting- don, where he had property in right of his office, were through him the hot-beds of disaffection. If the minister for the time being wanted his nominee returned, Watson was ready to lend a helping hand. If the discontented wanted an inflammatory address drawn up to the Crown or to Parliament, Watson's pen was ready dipped in gall. If the Senate at Cambridge was to be divided, that political intrigue might triumph in Whitehall, Watson was ever a ready tool for ministers to work with ; and the incense of flattery offered up to him by the great and small made him first a fool, then a knave, and lastly a mitred Jacobin. But if his evil manners are to be engraved in brass, are his virtues to be written in water ? Christianity forbid it ! As it would be idle in a work of this description (which at most can be but a summary of individual life) to attempt a critical review of bis various works, we must needs make a selection ; but still such an one as may prove the tree by its fruits ; one that will fairly demonstrate CHURCH. 205 the bent and powers of his mind; his reflections upon religious, political, and philosophical subjects; their effect upon his own life ; and, above all, his authoritative influence upon the lives and characters of his fellow-citizens. Of his politico -religious writings (and their name is Legion*) two of the most important are those * " Chemical Essay," 4to. Camb., 17C8. " Christianity con- sistent with every Social Duty," Assize Sermon, 4to. Camb., 17G9. " An Essay on the Subject of Chemistry and their general Division," 8vo. Camb., 1771. " Chemical Essay," 8vo. Lond., 1771. " Sermon on the King's Accession Days," 4to. Camb., 1776. " The Principles of the Revolution vindicated" Mo. Camb., 1776. " A Sermon preached before the University of Cambridge, 25th Octr. 1776," 4 to. Camb., 1776. " A Discourse delivered to the Archdeaconry of Ely," 4to. Camb., 1780. " Fast Sermon," 4th edit., 8vo. Camb., 1780. " A Letter to His Grace the Archp. of Canterbury," 2nd edit., 4to. Lond., 1783. " Sermon on the 30th Jany. before the House of Lords," 4to. Lond., 1784. " An Address to Young Persons after Confirmation," 8vo. Camb., 1788. " A Charge delivered to the Clergy of the Diocese of Llandaff," 8vo. Camb., 1788. " An Address on Confirmation," 12mo. Lond., 1789. " Sermons on Public Occasions," and " Tracts on Religious Subjects," 8vo. Camb., 1788. " A Collection of Theo- logical Tracts," 5 vols. 8vo. Lond., 1791. " Charge to the Clergy of Llandaff," 4to. Lond., 1792. " Sermon at the Dispensary, in 1785, with an Appendix," 4to. Lond., 1793. " Two Sermons," and a " Charge to the Clergy," 8vo. Lond., 1795. " An Apology for the Bible, 12mo. Lond. 1796. " An Address to the People of Great Briiain," 14th edit., 8vo. Lond., 1798. " A Charge to the Clergy," 4to. Lond., 1802. " Speech in the House of Lords, Novr. 22nd, 1803." " A Sermon preached before the Society for the Suppression of Vice, May 3rd, 1804," 8vo. Lond., 1804. " Two Apologies — one for Christianity, the other for the Bible {Gibbon and Paine)," 8vo. Lond., 1806. " Charge to the Clergy," 8vo. Lond., 1808. " Tracts on various Subjects," 8vo. Lond., 1815. " Anecdotes of his own Life," 4to. Lond., 1816. 200 BISHOP WATSON. which sprung out of the ever- memorable contro- versies with Gibbon and Paine, entitled " Apology for Christianity," and " Apology for the Bible " — by the bye, two very bad names for two very good books. Gibbon, the intelligent reader will re- member, had, in the year 1776, returned from Lausanne, in Switzerland, laden down with the spoils of literature from every age and clime, heralded with all the prestige that the learning of books could give him, and the closest intimacy with D'Alembert, Diderot, Barthelemy, Kaynal, Heraud, Helvetius, Voltaire, and others, could throw around him ; but above all, with the materials and the avowed resolve to carry out that grand design which, in very boyhood, he had conceived and planned to bridge the great abyss, the dark illi- mitable ocean that divides the ancient from the modern world. In " The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire," (that gigantic effort of human genius and human industry, which at once placed posterity on the vantage ground of Truth, England on the proud pre-eminence of learning, and its author on the highest pinnacle of intellectual grandeur,) it was an essential feature in the scheme to trace the origin, progress, and establishment of Christianity, and to point out how and by what causes it stood affected amid the ruins of that last Temple of the ancient world. Tins was the subject- matter of the fifteenth and sixteenth chapters of this great work. In general, it was received as it deserved, with the most profound admiration. CHURCH. 207 With the vast learning, the amazing industry, the power of generalization, the philosophic mind, the surpassing eloquence displayed in the accomplish- ment of the design, the enlightened — the truly intelligent stood amazed. But the two Universities rose en masse against him, and laid to his charge (as he said) things that he knew not of. As the 'primary cause, Gibbon asserted the irresistible evidence of the doctrine itself and an All-wise and over-ruling Providence. As secondary or human causes aiding its progress and establishment, he assigned five, namely, the zeal of the Christians, the doctrine of a future state, the miraculous powers ascribed to the primitive Church, the pure and austere morals of the Christians, and the union and discipline of the Christian Eepublic. But they charged him with having, from malice prepense, dexterously eluded or speciously conceded the Divine origin of the Christian religion. They charged him with duplicity; that, Janus-like, he had one face beaming with honesty and benevolence, another charged with insincerity and malevolence ; that while he gathered together the ashes of St. Cyprian and the Saints under the pretext of worship, it was but in scorn and mockery of their authority. They said, that while the throes of expiring Paganism could touch the tenderest notes of pity's lyre, and the rise of Mahometanism fire his soul to living ecstacies, Christianity was like the dull resting of a stone upon him, and failed to 208 BISHOP WATSON. interest or to move him, except to bile and bitter* ness. Gibbon's adversaries, in this memorable controversy, seem for the most part to have written their names and matter as the Sibyl did her pro- phecies, on the loose leaves of trees, and committed them to the mercy of the inconstant winds ; for every trace of their existence is well nigh obliterated. At this distant point of view it requires a lens as powerful as that of Lord Kosse — it requires the most microscopic eye to discern their genus and difference. If a conjecture, by way of definition or description, might be hazarded, one would be inclined to class them under the genus Alogi, who fed on the husks of Christianity ; their difference being plodding mechanics, lynx-eyed grammarians, and ill-tongued reptiles, who took raillery for rea- soning, the rules of grammar for the rules of logic, and the acracadabra of presumption for common sense ; who thought that the grandeur of Gibbon's " Decline and Fall of the Koman Empire " could be detected by the sense of smell. . . . " Unless above himself he can Erect himself, how mean a tiling is Man* !" Had its author been encountered in the mild, and forgiving, and charitable spirit of that Gospel they professed to believe and advocate, in all human * We must except Sir D. Dalrymple and Dean Milner. CHURCH. 209 probability the magnetic needle, when its disturbing- influences had been removed, would have settled on the true point of quiet. Truth once more might have fondly clasped the supposed prodigal in her arms ; and he, by a life of repentance, might have done her more honour and service than the most violent of his opponents, certainly more than their idol St. Cyprian ever did. But he was to be treated as an alien enemy, as an infidel, as one beyond the pale of the Church, and Lynch -law was their rule of action. This was the treatment Gibbon met with, especially in that University where he had received a part of his education ; and thenceforth his memory, until later travellers — the learned Guizot and their gifted Milman — following the same track in the mighty desert, have demonstrably shown, that if Gibbon had not traced to their sources all the streams of our sacred Nile, that he had, at least, been at the source of some of them, and that his account was true. Milman ! the University of Oxford owes thee an eternal debt of gratitude. But let us turn to the sister University, and, above all, to the Professor of Divinity. Watson at once stood forth and took up a bold, a manly, and dignified position ; he went not into the purlieus of Billingsgate for his rhetoric, nor into St. Giles's for his arguments; he cared not whether Eusebius was correctly translated, whether this was a mis-statement or that was a mis-statement, this a misprint or that a misprint ; he felt his cause was 210 BISHOP WATSON. just, and was animated to action. In a series of letters to Gibbon, replete with manly sense, he defended, as he supposed it to be, his assailed and insulted Church. He reviewed, one after another, the various causes assigned with such ease and temper, that they who wavered before wavered no more, and induced even Gibbon himself to solicit Ins friendship. Placing the hand over the ill- starred title-page to hide it from view, these letters may still be read with great interest and advantage. We now come to his Apology for the Bible, (what a title !) or his answer to Paine s Age of Reason. Twenty years had now rolled over his head since his controversy with the author of the "Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire;" and such twenty years ! Time, too, had not been idle with Watson ; for, amongst other changes in life, he had been married (21 st Dec 1 "- 1773) to Dorothy, eldest daughter of Edward Wilson, Esq., of Dallam Tower. In 1774 he had been made Prebend of Ely, and in January 1780, Archdeacon of Ely; in August 1780, Rector of Northwold, in Norfolk; in 1781, Rector of Knap toft, in Leicestershire; and in 1782, elevated to the Episcopal Bench as Bishop of Llandaff. Not that his promotion in the Church aided him at all in strangling this horrid monster from the den of Trophonicus ; nay, if at all, it operated as a drawback on his energies. In the year 1795 the second part of the Age of Reason was thrown by Paine upon the world, as he was on CHURCH. 211 his way to the Luxembourg prison, in Paris — a book, the contents of which are so awful, so abhor- rent to all our ideas of things in Heaven and things on earth, that the very recollection of them brings on a shudder and makes the very flesh creep on the bones of a sentient being ; the concentrated essence of blasphemy and atheism, the most disgusting, horrible excrement of a depraved mind that ever issued from the pen of man or the public press ; a book, come hot from hell with Ate by its side, that Satan might have written with Belial for the scribe. This was printed and circulated with such industry amongst the lower orders as to endanger the common safety of the realm ; scarcely a pothouse was without one, and no few had been, to use a Tyburn phrase, planted in the cottages of the poor. The common hangman had, ex officio, burnt the book ; but its very ashes had spread a pestilential malaria around. The arm of the law was paralysed, the passions of the rabble were excited, the founda- tions of morality undermined, and Jacobinism was making a dangerous inroad into the State ; but there was ground to hope that the national cha- racter was sound at core, and that reason and morality, if appealed to, would not be appealed to in vain. Watson, taking this manly view of it, with feet shod with Truth, stepped forth at his country's call, and with a giant's arm laid the au- dacious fiend at his feet. In the same free, easy, and popular style, and with the same good temper 212 BISHOP WATSON. as evinced in Gibbon's Controversy, he detected and neutralized, by the tests of reason and common sense, the subtle and deadly poison. In all human probability, if the antidote had not been thus timely and effectually administered, nothing could have saved this country from the anarchy and confusion of the French Kevolution. George the Third, Burke, and Pitt, were the master-minds of the age, the generals that planned the lines of our defence ; yet the services of Watson rise to view, and demand our homage and our prayer. Some there were, and some there are, who still think that what was im- puted to Gibbon might be so equally to Watson. Bishop Hurd, amongst others, used to say of his answer to Paine, that it was well enough if he was in earnest. He certainly wrote as if he neither believed nor felt ; but it was his misfortune, not his fault. There is now a man high in the legal pro- fession whose language is pure and, at times, eloquent, yet with a face so humorously set that jurymen who are strangers to him never believe him to be in earnest; and yet not a man in Court feels more intensely, or has a more just sense of his duty to his client. We find no fault with those upon whose minds Watson's language produces a like effect ; but, as in the advocate alluded to, we think there is no ground for the suspicion of insin- cerity, or want of zeal for the cause of true religion. Being naturally a strong-minded man, free from the leaven of the schoolmen, for he never read or CHURCH. 213 thought much about their divinity, his style of diction corresponded to his views, and, by its popular form, increased the suspicion. Gibbon, we suspect, fell under the same imputation, but in another form ; and in our time has Dr. Whately, Archbishop of Dublin, in his celebrated Essay, entitled Historic Doubts relating to Napoleon Buonaparte — a work of signal merit, and a thorough refutation of Hume and the Scotch phi- losophers on miracles. In answer to Paine no other style would have answered the purpose ; even that of the divine Hooker would have failed. Thousands could have written more learned things on the subject; Watson alone could write an answer to Paine's " Age of Eeason ;" and, as a fact, was the only man who did so. In America, as well as in England, the " Apology " was hailed with joy; and, to show their gratitude to the author, our brethren across the Atlantic elected him a Fellow of the American Society of Arts and Sciences, and Member of the Massachusetts His- torical Society ; in England, he got — nothing but kicks and halfpence. His Chemical Essays may be reviewed in a few words. On the 19th November, 1764, he was, as already mentioned, elected Professor of Chemistry in the University of Cambridge ; and within a few months, not knowing anything of the subject before, wrote some of them. The rest were published later in life ; but none of them, devoted as he was 214 BISHOP WATSON. to the laboratory, show either originality or power in any way to extend the landmarks of the science. They are written in his usual off-hand style ; indeed, he could embody his thoughts in no other, upon such subjects, and may be read with pleasure by the general reader ; but the man of science will hunt in vain for new or great ideas. He esteemed himself the Prince of Chemists ; he arrogated to himself the honour, not only of recommending it to the University of Cambridge, but to the notice of the kingdom in general. Depend upon it, if he found the science in its infancy, he left it in its cradle. He was wont to boast much and often of his knowledge of salts, and about some supposed suggestion as to the manufacture of gunpowder, that is, the making charcoal by distilling the wood in iron cylinders or close vessels ; and used to complain that he had not a pension from Govern- ment for it. Probably for the same reasons, and upon the same grounds, that the wife of Sir William Hamilton afterwards claimed an annuity from the public purse, for being the cause of the victory of the Nile. He seemed to have some compunctious visitings of conscience about this supposed dis- covery, as he deemed it, squaring with his duty as a minister of peace, but with a man so liberal- minded any qualms of the kind that started up in his breast were easily charmed again. He was one of the Trustees of the Hunterian Museum. For this Professorship of Chemistry he obtained from CHURCH. 215 Government, through his political influence, a stipend of £.100 a-year. Pray how many professor- ships are paid out of the public purse ? and how are the enormous revenues of the Universities applied ? Nearly allied to those are his mineralogical pur- suits — allied in degree and in kind. After his marriage into the Dallam Tower family, he was a constant visitor there, especially during the Uni- versity long vacation. Whilst there, he used to ramble about the hills and dales with a hammer in his pocket, as the Sedgwicks and Bucklands do now- a- days, chipping any little pebble he stumbled over ; probably to see whether it was the philoso- pher's stone, or contained any appearances of that precious metal which has been recently discovered in such quantities in California. In one of these rambles it chanced that he got to the top of Helm Crag, not many miles from Kendal, and picked up a substance, which he at once pronounced to be thrown from iEtna or Vesuvius, or some volcanic crater. On his way home he came, naturally enough, to the conclusion (naturally we say, for what we wish we readily believe), that Helm Crag itself was an extinct volcano. At the dinner table he produced this piece of lava as proof con- clusive of his amazing discovery. The authority of a professor fresh from his laboratory and still fresher from the University of Cambridge, could not be gainsayed ; the gentlemen too well bred, 216 BISHOP WATSON. the ladies too gallant to attempt it. There was one man, however, within hearing on whom all this excited hut pity and a smile — the old family-hutler. Of course he said nothing then, and Watson's dis- covery was all in all : hut on the following morning, finding the Doctor in the library poring over the lava and taking notes, thinking probably that the honours of Dallam Tower were now at stake, and with the privilege of his order, administered to him this salutary information : — " Dr. Watson, excuse me, but I thought I heard you say at the table yesterday that Helm Crag was an extinct volcano. I don't know what an extinct volcano is, as I never saw one, but I do know that when I was a lad, my father and I had a blast-furnace on Helm Crag, and that 's a piece of the cinder from the very spot." Facts are stubborn things : the Doctor looked aghast over his spectacles, put up his note-book, and with a gold guinea silenced, at least until the Doctor's departure, the discovery of the Doctor's ignorance. " Non meus hie sermo, sed quae praecepit Ofellus, Kusticus, abnormis, sapiens." Seriously speaking, these and such as these are the facts and deductions and levers by which the Watsons of the present age threaten to overthrow the Mosaic account of the world's creation ! May Heaven have heard, without offence, their arrogant pretensions ! CHURCH. "217 His Agricultural Essays are characterized by a like barrenness of invention, and observation. His inordinate self-conceit made him boast what great things he had done for the County of Westmor- land in the way of agriculture — " risurn teneatis, amici ?" It was a boast near akin to that of his being the father of English chemistry: without doubt, he had told it so often that at last he honestly believed it himself; like the Marian-Islanders spoken of by Locke, he probably thought that the County of Westmorland was enclosed by the mountain girdle that encircles Lake Windermere ; or did not, in fact, extend beyond the palings of Calgarth Park*. Certain it is, that the state of agriculture of the County of Westmorland, whether it consisted (to use his own words) " in building farm-houses, blasting rocks, enclosing wastes, making bad land good, or in planting larches," owed and owes no more to the Bishop of Llandaff, than the Goodwin Sands do to Tenterden steeple. As Wordsworth says of Peter Bell— " A primrose on a river's brim, A yellow primrose was to him, And it was nothing more." He gained, it is said, in 1789, a premium from * See his calculations of rain in Anecdotes, 301. VOL. I. L 218 BISHOP WATSON. the Society for the encouragement of Arts, Manu- factures, and Commerce. His private letters are admirable ; elaborate in composition, especially those to Lord Granby and other noble pupils, but full of instruction ; we know no letters that could be read with greater edifica- tion and advantage by those destined for the higher walks of life. His suggestions on the Government of Ireland, and its Church, the Discipline of the Church of England, the equalizing of its revenues and its duties, are still valuable. It has been already noted that in 1782 he became a spiritual peer; and as he died in 1816, he had a seat in Parliament about thirty-four years. During this long and unparalleled period of England's History, he took little part in the general debates of the House — demeanour not unusual and not unwise in those of his order. But in a Writ of Error on General Eesignation Bonds, — on the Commercial Treaty with France, — the Kegency Bill, — the Peace with France, — and the Union with Ireland, — he took a prominent part. He always spoke like a man of sense, and the House respected him ; individual members complimented him. His speeches were, however, too elaborately prepared to be effective ; in a word, as Plutarch says of Themistocles, " quamvis natures suffragio adjuva- retur, tamen eloquentim eruditionis expers erat!' The principles of the Revolution were his darling topics, which Whigs and Tories received, as Whigs CHURCH. 219 and Tories receive everything, just as they please. His pulpit-eloquence was much admired ; his voice was full, his action graceful, and his delivery correct. We must now hark back upon the morning quest. We will begin with the year 1781, when he had fairly " ventured, like little wanton boys that swim on bladders, on a sea" of politics. In that year the Duke of Kutland gave him the Kectory of Knaptoft, in Leicestershire. On the 26 th July, 1 782, through the same family influence, he was promoted, as already stated, to the See of Llandaff. He was also Archdeacon of Ely, having before that purchased a prebendal stall there, with a sinecure Rectory in North Wales given him by the same good-natured, easy, liberal-minded gentleman. That his political sermons, his cacoethes scribendi, his devotedness to the Rockingham Administration, his profligate prostitution of his sacred office to please the Duke of Rutland and to aid the cause of the Heaven-born Wilkes, were amongst the causes of these successive promotions, no thinking man can waver about. He seems anxious in after- life, as appears from his own Memoirs, to get rid of the soft impeachment ; but his very effort carries conviction with it — the natural effect of a guilty conscience. For fear of mistake, let us sum up his various official appointments. He was Bishop of Llandaff, Archdeacon of Ely, Professor of Di- vinity in the University of Cambridge, and in com- 220 BISHOP WATSON. mendam Rector of Knap toft, and Rector of So- niersham, producing together a very large income. Besides this, an old pupil, a Mr. Luther, of Ongar, in Essex, had bequeathed to hirn, in 1786, a legacy in all of ,£.26,500. Here was wealth for the wealthiest and honours for the most ambitious, even for a Wolsey ; yet they satisfied not Watson's hunger, nor slaked his thirst. He kept grumbling and growling to all around him of his own unbear- able poverty, and the neglect of him by the powers that be. He left no stone unturned to heap Pelion upon Ossa of his already abundant stores ; above all, to be translated to a wealthier diocese. And yet he could use this expression, — " The highest offices in Church and State resemble a pyramid, whose top is accessible to only two sorts of animals — eagles and reptiles. My pinions were not strong enough to pounce upon its top, and I scorned, by creeping, to ascend its summit. Not that a Bishopric was then or ever an object of my am- bition*." His true temper and frame of mind now began to show itself against friend and foe ; his vehementissima gloria cupido, which had been his polar star and had led him on to fortune, took its natural course, and ended in its natural way. " Wisdom for a man's self (says Bacon) is, in many branches thereof, a depraved thing; it is the wisdom of rats, that will be sure to leave a house some time * See Life, 71. CHURCH. 221 before its fall ; it is the wisdom of the fox, that thrusts out the badger who digged and made room for him ; it is the wisdom of crocodiles, that shed tears when they would devour. But that which is specially to be noted is that those which (as Cicero says of Pompey) are sui amantes sine rivali are many times unfortunate : and whereas they have all their time sacrificed to themselves, they become in the end themselves sacrifices to the inconstancy of fortune, whose wings they thought by their self- wisdom to have pinioned." Finding his friends in power unwilling or unable to gratify his restless ambition, he turned to the rising sun of William Pitt; hoping by that means to soften down, or remove from the Koyal mind, the barrier against his further progress to wealth and power. But Pitt was born for a higher destiny than to play second fiddle in the overture of William Tell. As it is no mean part of worldly wisdom to convert the elements of resistance into a friendly power, some might blame the Prime Minister for the rejection of this proffered armistice; as Watson could have written on one side as fast as on the other, as he could be a Hoadley or a Jenyns at will. But Pitt knew his man, and preferred honesty in rags to knavery in lawn. Thus a poli- tical outcast, fallen like Lucifer never to hope again, he resolved, under the pretence of ill health, to withdraw from the world to Calgarth Park, on the banks of Windermere Lake, and there spend the 222 BISHOP WATSON. remainder of his days in the service of himself — a service one and undivided for upwards of thirty years. Had the shade of Alexander visited the cynic in this spot, like his great prototype Diogenes in the tub, he would have ordered him to stand off, that he might see the sun — not the sun of Heaven, but the sun of his own creation. The question will naturally suggest itself, what became, during all this time, of his Diocese of Llandaff? What became of Ms parishioners at Knap toft and Somersham, and of his duties in Ely ? Pause awhile, and then — read on. There were in those parishes of which he was Kector, as well as in Ely, full-grown men and women (horresco referens !) who did not even know him by sight. They knew him by name, but they knew no more of him. The sinecure Eectory in North Wales, which he gave in exchange for his Prebendal Stall, he saw once. From 1786 the Chair of Divinity was filled by deputy. As regards the Diocese of Llandaff it may safely be asserted that, from 1 782 to 1816 he was not within it more than ten times, and then only for a few days for the purposes of visitation, confirmation, and the like. From 1789 to 1816 between eight and nine months in the year he lived nearly two hundred miles distant, blasting rocks, planting larches, and writing anec- dotes of himself. We look in vain for one single act of charity ; we listen in vain for even the vague tradition of one within the ambit of his Diocese, or CHURCH. 223 of the parishes whence his income was derived, or where he lived. The remainder of the year was spent, for the most part, in London, as a spiritual Peer of Parliament. How he demeaned himself there in general has been partly stated; but we must now add that he never of himself introduced any measure to carry out his views. He always came up to town, however, with something ready cut and dried to remedy the evils of non-resi- dence, and to improve the poorer Bishoprics from the spoils of the wealthier ones, which, from pru- dential motives, were delivered to the pious keeping of some less interested law-giver. Of course, livings held in commendam were excepted* ! His non-residence was attributed to the want of an Episcopal Palace within the Diocese. In the name of our native county, was there no house within the Diocese of Llandaff suitable for the son of a village schoolmaster ? His Lord and Master was laid in a manger ! At Knaptoft there was a residencef, in Ely there was a residence, in Somersham there was a Eectory House ; the pretext, therefore, was too flimsy to be believed. It was not true, it was false ; and yet when it suited his purpose he could say, " Pluralities and non-residence are scandals in the Christian Church as a Church, and injurious to those interests of the State, for the promotion of * See Gilpin's Life. r See in " Gent. Mag.," 1816, a wood-cut of it. 224 BISHOP WATSON. which it is at the expense of maintaining a Clergy*." Bernard Gilpin, the Northern Apostle, thought it was well nigh as lawful to have two wives as two livings ; hut Gilpin was an honourable man, a sin- cere and devout Christian, and one whose life never gave the lie to his creed. Watson now hated the Church and all that belonged to it, except its revenues ; and his commands to the poor parson of Windermere Church, never to read the Athanasian Creed in his presence, were given in pride of power rather than from any thought or anxiety for the souls of others. His proposed legislative enact- ments proceeded from the same, or from meaner motives. What a paradox is man ! How infinite in contrarieties ! As Dr. Watson he panted for an equality of ecclesiastical property, yet as a Peer of the Eealm his heart was cold and his tongue listless ! To Dr. Watson non-residence was an abomination, yet to the Bishop of Llandaff absen- teeism was a virtue, and planting larches on the banks of Windermere a conscientious discharge of his duty as a Bishop of the Church of Christ. Before we leave this part of his character, we must notice the insinuation or rumour that he had, during Pitt's administration, the offer of the See of Carlisle. We ourselves would rather believe that Sir James Lowther never existed, than believe that he either directly or indirectly countenanced such * See Life, 159. CHURCH. 225 an idea. There is no positive evidence of the fact ; and probabilities amounting to moral certainty are not to be outweighed by the bare suggestions of a distempered will. When the tone of the mind, the source of all thought and action, is once lowered or disordered, irregularity becomes the rule of life. He disposed of the estate Luther had devised to him almost immediately. Gibson and Gilpin would have returned it to the poor man's wife and family ! He sat to Eomney the painter, with a full know- ledge that the man had deserted his poor wife in Kendal, to live in adultery with that Phryne — Nelson's evil genius. When a bishop, he collected together and published a volume of sermons, written by dissenters. He quarelled with, and insulted on his very death-bed, that mild and benevolent Christian — Preston, Bishop of Ferns, for accepting a bishopric. He revelled in the spoils of a Christian church, and yet accounted an Unitarian a Christian. He wrote of Pitt, after the grave had silenced all enmity but his, in the spirit of a relentless fiend. He wrote and spoke of the most virtuous of Queens in language that Paine would have scrupled at. He insulted the best of kings to his face, while he bowed and sued for grace at the levees of the Duke of York for his son's promotion. For every See that was vacant he directly or indirectly made application, and hated L 5 226 BISHOP WATSON. the man who got it, though he did not know him. He saw none but great people ; he talked of none but great folks. In dress and in demeanour to the country people he was a coxcomb. He lived and died without one act of charity, friendship, or benevolence, to show that he had ever lived. Yet in his day he was a conspicuous man, and might have been a great one. Amentes estis, si multos in Ccesare Marios non videtis ; Cavendum est a puero male succincto." As he had lived all his life for himself, and for himself alone, he did by the spoils of the Church, by legacies, and by his writings, amass a very large fortune — very large for one who began the world with a clog and a shoe (£.300), and was the founder of his own fortune. Calgarth Park and demesnes are now the property of his grandson. We have seen how he lived, let us now see how he died; for " A death bed's a detector of the heart ; Truth is deposited with man's last hour, An honest hour and faithful to her trust ; Men may live fools, but fools they cannot die*." We frequently find from his own pen the ex- pression, the original disease never left me, and the like ; what this was in realityf, we know little * Young. + See 221. CHURCH. 227 more than what we have before suggested, and the fact that by means of James's Powders its attacks were defied, until he reached the venerable age of near threescore years and ten. In 1809, however, he was struck with paralysis, and from that time at intervals these strokes returned upon Mm ; at last he sunk under them on the 4th July, 1816, and in the 79th year of his age. His son, Eichard Watson, LL.B., Prebendary of Llandaff and Wells, who published his father's Life in 1817, says, " From this period (October 1813) the health of the Bishop of Llandaff rapidly declined ; bodily exertion became extremely irksome to him ; and though his mental faculties continued unimpaired, yet he cautiously refrained from every species of literary composition. The example of the Arch- bishop of Toledo was often before him, and the determination as frequently expressed, that his own prudence should exempt him from the admonition of a Gil Bias." He left a numerous issue well provided for ; some of whom are ecclesiastics, and seem to have inherited, as regards non-residence and the like, the mantle of their late father. The man who can leave his Diocese to blast rocks on the banks of Windermere, or who can absent himself for twenty years together at the expense of the Church to live a life of frivolity at Boulogne, deserves the con- demnation of every well-regulated mind. Les 228 BISHOP WATSON. Eveques a la lanterne will not, rebus sic stantibus, be confined long to the streets of Paris. May our prophecy never be fulfilled ! As we saw not the death-bed, we must reason from a knowledge of the human heart. But that know- ledge assures us that if some Eugenius, when life's last tide was ebbing, in that honest hour, — that hour so faithful to her trust, — had drawn the cur- tain to take his last farewell, he would have heard the last breath, hanging on the trembling lip, struggling into accents not unlike these : — " Farewell, a long farewell to all my greatness ! This is the state of man : to-day he puts forth The tender leaves of hope ; to-morrow blossoms, And bears his blushing honours thick upon him ; The third day comes a frost — a killing frost, And when he thinks, good easy man, full surely His greatness is a rip'ning, nips his shoot ; And then he falls, as I do. I have ventur'd, Like little wanton boys, that swim on bladders, These many summers on a sea of glory ; But far beyond my depth : my high-blown pride At length broke under me, and now has left me, Weary and old with service, to the mercy Of a rude stream, that must for ever hide me. Vain pomps and vanities of the world, I hate ye ! I feel my heart new open'd. Oh, how wretched Is that poor man that hangs on princes' favours ! There is betwixt that smile he would aspire to, That sweet aspect of princes and his ruin, More pangs and fears than war or women have ; And, when he falls, he falls like Lucifer, Ne'er to hope again. CHURCH. 229 Mark but my fall and that which ruined me ! My friend, I charge thee, fling away Ambition : By that sin fell the Angels ; how can man, then, Though th' image of his Maker, bope to win by 't ? Love thyself last; cherish those hearts that hate thee ; Corruption wins not more than honesty. Still in thy right hand carry gentle peace, To silence envious tongues. Be just, and fear not. Let all the ends thou aim'st at be thy country's, Thy God's, and Truth's ; then, if thou fall's t— Thou fall'st a blessed martyr* ! " The following is the Inscription of the Tablet in Windermere Church : — Quod mortale fuit RlCARDI LANDAVENSIS Juxta Ccemeterium habet Quod immortale est Faxit Deus En XPI2TQ Ccelum habeat, Vitam obiit IV. Non. Jul. a.d. MDCCCXVI. -Etat LXXIX. Hoc marmor, parvulum licet, egregii in conjugem Amoris monumentum poni curavit, Dorothea Watson : Et ipsa jEvo haud brevi sine labe perfuncta Tumulo eodem sepulta requiescit Excessit TIL id. April, a.d. MDCCCXXXI. jEtatis sua? LXXXI. * Cardinal Wolsey to Cromwell, in Shakspeare's Henry VIII. 230 BISHOP WATSON. Inscription of the Tomb in the Churchyard Ricakdi Watson, Episcopi Landavensis, cineribus sacrum, Obiit Julii 4o. a. d. I8I60. ^Etatis79o- Hie etiam conjugis, prope Depositee sunt reliquiae Dorothea Watson, Maximse natarum Edvardi Wilson, de Dallam Tower Arm. Vitam obiit III. id. April, a. d. MDCCCXXXI. ^Etatis suae LXXXI. 3&mutrlt #iljntt. BISHOP-NOMINATE OF CARLISLE*, ARCHDEACON OF DURHAM, & c . 1517—1583. "These are the best instructors that teach in their lives, and prove their words by their actions." Seneca. — > °£Sg3 ~ — aLEXANDER the Great commanded that no one should make a portrait of him except Apelles, nor any one attempt a statue of him but Lysippus. None but an artist of the highest powers should dare to sketch the portrait or mould the statue of The Northern Apostle. In Hugh Carletonf, Bishop of Chichester, and William Gilpin, M.A.J, our great countryman has found an * A conge d'elire issued for his election to the See, and he refused it. Nolo episcopari was a practical truth with him, and not a mere matter of form. Dean Barwick did the like. See Life. + London, 1636, 12mo, 4th edition. + London, 1753, demy 12mo, 2nd edition, to which is pre- fixed a fine line-engraved portrait of him ; one of the most intel- ligent heads the eye can rest upon. 232 BERNARD GILPIN. Apelles and a Lysippus ; and to their handiwork more than to our own, do we now invite your attention. Bernard Gilpin, say they, was born in the year 1517, at Kentmire Hall, in Westmorland ; which, in the time of King John, had been given by a baron of Kendal to Eichard Gilpin, as a reward for his services, from whom the estate descended to the father of Bernard, Edwin Gilpin, who became prematurely possessed of it by the death of an elder brother, killed at the battle of Bosworth. Edwin Gilpin had several children, of which Bernard was one of the youngest; an unhappy circumstance in that age, which, giving little encouragement to the liberal arts, and less to com- merce, restrained the genius and industry of younger brothers. No way, indeed, was commonly open to their fortunes, but the church or the camp. The inconvenience, however, was less to Bernard than to others ; for that way was open, to which his disposition most led him. From his earliest youth he was inclined to a contemplative life, thoughtful, reserved, and serious. Perhaps no one ever had a greater share of constitutional virtue, or through every part of life endeavoured more to improve it. The bishop of Chichester hath pre- served a story of him in his infancy, which will show how early he could discern, not only the immorality, but the indecorum of an action. A begging friar came on a Saturday evening to his CHURCH. 233 father's house, where, according to the custom of those times, he was received in a very hospitable manner. The plenty set before him was a tempta- tion too strong for his virtue ; of which, it seems, he had not sufficient even to save appearances. The next morning, however, he ordered the bell to toll, and from the pulpit expressed himself with great vehemence against the debauchery of the times, and particularly against drunkenness. Ber- nard, who was then a child upon his mother's knee, seemed for some time exceedingly affected with the friar's discourse, and at length, with the utmost indignation, cried out, " He wondered how that man could preach against drunkenness, when he himself had been drunk only the night before!' Instances of this kind soon discovered the serious- ness of his disposition, and gave his parents an early presage of his future piety. His first years were spent at a public school ; but at what school has not been recorded. From school, at the age of sixteen, he was removed to Queen s College, Oxford, where he was entered on the Old Foundation. He had not been long in the university before he was taken notice of. He was looked upon as a young man of good parts and considerable learning ; and they who were not so well qualified to judge in either of these points, admired and loved him for a remarkable sweetness in his disposition, and unaf- fected sincerity in his manners. At the usual 234 BERNARD GILPIN. term he took the degree of master of arts, and about the same time was elected fellow of his college. The reformed doctrines had hitherto made no progress in England ; and, as Gilpin had been bred up in the Komish church, he still continued a member of it. But though in appear- ance he was not dissatisfied with Popery, yet it is not improbable that at this time he had his suspi- cions of it. The writings of Erasmus (who about this time drew the attention of the learned world) had put him upon freer inquiries than were common in those days. He had the discretion, however, to keep to himself whatever doubts they might have raised in him ; and before he said anything which might shake the faith of others, he deter- mined to establish his own. He had not been long settled in his fellowship, before a very public testimony was given to the reputation he had acquired. Cardinal Wolsey was now at the head of the affairs of England ; a minister, who, not- withstanding his many vices, would sometimes entertain a noble design. He saw the corrupt state of monkery in the nation, was scandalized at it, and began to think of some method to check its progress. The monastic revenues he was con- vinced might easily be applied to better uses; particularly in raising the credit of the two Univer- sities. He was resolved, therefore, to make a trial ; and with this view obtained bulls for the supres- sion of several monasteries. Being thus enabled CHURCH. 235 to carry on his design, he laid the foundation of Christ Church College in Oxford, and about this time finished it. But his care extending farther than a mere endowment, he had his agents in many of the universities in Europe, to procure him men of eminence, whom he might transplant thither ; and copies of the best books then extant : for he designed that his college should be the means of the restoration of learning in England. Gilpin's character was then so great, that he was one of the first in Oxford to whom the Cardinal's agents applied. He accepted their proposal, and removed to Christ Church. Here he continued his former studies ; from the nature of which, and the inge- nuity and honesty of his disposition, it is highly probable he would in time have been led by his own reasonings to that discovery of truth he aimed at; but Providence rewarded a pious endeavour, by throwing in his way the means of an earlier attainment of it. King Henry VIII. was now dead; and his young successor began in earnest to support that cause, which his father had only so far encouraged as it contributed to replenish an exhausted exchequer, and break a yoke which sat uneasy upon him. Under this prince's patronage Peter Martyr went to Oxford, where he read divinity-lectures in a strain to which the university had been hitherto little accustomed; the conse- quence of which was a formidable opposition to him and to his doctrines ; which ended, as such 236 BERNARD GILPIN. things do often now-a-days at Exeter Hall, in an intellectual combat between Bernard, on the side of the Popish party, and Peter on the side of the Reformers. We are told that the disputation was soon over, our fellow-countryman giving up the cause with that grace which always attends sincerity. Peter Martyr henceforth became much attached to him ; and often told his friends " it was the subject of his daily prayers, that God would be pleased at length to touch the heart of this pious papist with the knowledge of true religion." And he prayed not in vain ; for Gilpin from this time became every day more reconciled to the Re- formers. It was not, however, until the Council of Trent (wherein it was decreed that the traditions of the Church should be esteemed of equal authority with the scriptures themselves), that he took the alarm, and forsook all Communion with the Church of Rome. While at Oxford, and in the thirty-fifth year of his age, the vicarage of Norton, in the diocese of Durham, falling vacant, his friends, who had interest to obtain it for him, renewed their solici- tations, and at length prevailed upon him to accept it. Before he went to reside, he was appointed to preach before the king, who was then at Greenwich. Strype, in his annals, seems to intimate, that Gilpin was at that time famous for his preaching in the North, and that it was upon this account he was called upon to preach at court. But there is little CHURCH. 237 authority for this. He does not seem to have been yet a preacher at all ; at least, of any note. It is rather probable, the only reason of his being sent to upon this occasion, was that he might give a public testimony of his being well-inclined to the Reformation : for the heads of the Protestant party were at this time very scrupulous in the disposal of livings. " It was then ordered/' says Heylin, in his church history, " that none should be presented unto any benefice in the donation of the crown, till he had first preached before the king, and thereby passed his judgment and approbation." Gilpin's plainness and uncommon fearlessness on that occasion, in rebuking the vices of the age, were very well taken, and recommended him to the notice of many persons of the first rank ; particu- larly to Sir Francis Kussell and Sir Robert Dudley, afterwards Earls of Bedford and Leicester, who from that time professed a great regard for him, and when in power were always ready to patronise him*. Gilpin is said likewise at this time to have been taken notice of by Secretary Cecil, afterwards Lord Burleigh, who obtained for him a general licence for preaching. In granting these licences great caution was then used : none but men of approved worth could apply for them with successf. * His brother, George Gilpin, seems to have lived on intimate terms with these men. f Upon looking over King Edward's grants, it does not appear there were more than two or three and twenty thus licensed during that king's reign. Among these were the Bishops Jewel, Grindal, and Coverdale. 238 BERNARD GILPIN. While he was in London, he frequently visited Cuthbert Tunstal Bishop of Durham (who was his uncle, and had always expressed a great regard for him.) It is probable, indeed, his parents intended him a churchman, with a view to his being ad- vanced by this prelate. But the bishop was at this time in no capacity to serve him : he was disgraced, and in the Tower. He now repaired to his parish, and immediately entered upon the duties of it. But so strongly did the tide of Popery set in upon him, and the respon- sibilities of his charge sit heavily on him, that he became uneasy, and wrote to Tunstal an account of his situation, the result of which was a resignation of his living, and a resolution to travel into Ger- many, France, and Holland, in search of the truths of the Gospel. He first went to Mechlin to visit his brother George, a man of eminent virtue and ability ; thence to Louvain, which he made his head quarters for two years, making occasional excursions to Antwerp, Ghent, Brussels, and other places. While at Louvain revelling in magnificent li- braries, in the society of the most eminent divines, and the discussion of the most important topics of religion, the news arrived of Queen Mary's accession, of Tunstal's release from the Tower and re-esta- blishment in his Bishopric, with the offer of a benefice of considerable value from his uncle. This he peremptorily refused. " Which of our modern gaping rooks (exclaims the Bishop of Chichester) CHURCH. 239 could endeavour with more industry to obtain a benefice, than this man did to avoid one !" He had been now two years in Flanders, and had made himself perfect master of the various points of religious controversy which had so long dis- tracted him, and the learned world at large. He left Louvain, therefore, and took a journey to Paris, Passing through a forest in his way thither, he was attacked by highwaymen, from whom, being very well mounted, he escaped to a cottage by the road side. The rogues pursued him to the house, and declared they would pull it down, or set it on fire, if he did not immediately come out. The family was in great consternation ; in vain did he represent that these were only idle threatenings, that on so public a road they durst not meddle with the house, and that they would presently be gone. All availed nothing. To quiet, therefore, the disturb- ance he had occasioned, he went out and gave the rogues his money. When he got to Paris the first thing he set about was printing the Bishop of Durham's book. This Prelate, as hath been observed, was a very moderate man ; no favourer of Protestantism, yet no friend to some of the grosser tenets of the Eomish Church, particularly to its extravagant doctrine of the sacra- ment of the Lord's Supper ; and this book, which showed the moderation of its author, gave much offence to all the more zealous Papists, and drew many severe reproaches upon him, who was gene- 240 BERNARD GILPIN. rally supposed to have corrupted the Bishop's work. Of what was said his friends gave him notice, particularly Wickliff, who desired, if the charge was unjust, that he would purge himself of it. Gilpin told him, that was easily done ; and opening a desk, "See here (says he) a letter from my Lord of Durham himself, in which he thanks me for my care and fidelity in this business." While he staid in Paris he lodged with Vascosan*, to whom he had been recommended by his friends in the Netherlands. This learned man showed him great regard, did him many friendly offices, and introduced him to the most considerable men in that city. Here Popery became quite his aversion; he saw more of its superstition and craft than he had yet seen — the former among the people, the latter among the Priests, who scrupled not to avow how little truth was their concern. He would frequently ask, " Whether such and such bad consequences might not arise from such and such doctrines ?" But he was always answered, " That was not to be regarded. The Church could not subsist without them, and little inconveniences must be borne with." He remained about a year in Paris, and then returned to England. Upon his arrival he went immediately to his uncle, who was then in his Diocese. The Bishop received him with great friendship, and, in a very short time, conferred upon him the Archdeaconry * An eminent Printer. CHURCH. 241 of Durham, to which the Rectory of Easington was annexed. Upon removing to his parish he found it, like the rest, in great disorder ; and he at once resolved to lay the axe at the root of the tree, hy imputing the principal sources of corruption to the Clergy themselves — to pluralities and non-residence*. The pastoral charge all over the kingdom, especially in the province of York, was most scandalously neg- * Bishop Latimer relates a story of a Bishop of this kind, which is worth transcribing. " I heard of a Bishop fsays he) that went on a visitation ; and (as it was the custom) when the Bishop should be rung into the town, the great bell's clapper was fallen down, so that he could not be rung in. There was a mighty matter made of this, and the chief of the parish were much blamed for it at the visitation ; and the Bishop was somewhat quick with them, and signified that he was much offended. They excused themselves as well as they could; but one among them wiser than the rest, comes up to the Bishop: ' Why, my Lord, (saith he) doth your Lordship make so great a matter of the bell that lacketh a clapper? Here is a bell (saith he, and pointed to the pulpit) which hath lacked a clapper these twenty years.' I warrant you this Bishop was an unpreaching Prelate. He could find fault with the bell that wanted a clapper to ring him into the town, but he could not find any fault with the Parson that preached not at his benefice." " Latimer's Sixth Sermon before the King." Again, in speaking of a Clergyman who was made Controller of the Mint. " Is this a meet office (says he) for a Priest who has cure of souls ? I would ask one question : I would fain know who controls the devil at home in his parish while he controls the Mint ? Tf the Apostle might not leave his office of preaching to be a Deacon, shall one leave it for minting? I cannot tell you; but the saying is, that since Priests have been minters, money hath been worse." VOL. I. M 242 BERNARD GILPIN. lected ; to use his own words, " while three parts out of four of the Clergy were picking what they could get off a common, the rest were growing wanton with stall-feeding." He thought, as every honest man must do, that it is well-nigh as lawful to have two wives as two livings — an admirable saying of his, especially of and to those who boast they are denied the rites of marriage, in order that they may be wedded to the Church ! It was pre- sently the popular clamour, that he was an enemy to the Church, a scandaliser of the Clergy, a preacher of damnable doctrines, and that religion must suffer from the heresies he was daily broaching if they spared him any longer. In short, he raised a flame which nothing but his blood could quench. Many articles were drawn up against him, and he was accused in form before the Bishop of Durham. The prosecution was managed chiefly by one Dunstal, a Priest in those parts, who had always distinguished himself as the Archdeacon's implacable enemy. The Bishop dismissed the cause, telling the accusers, " he was afraid they had been too forward in their zeal for religion, and that heresy was such a crime as no man ought to be charged with but upon the strongest proof." About the time of this persecution it was suggested to Mm by his enemies, or by the dictates of his own con- science, that Iris own practice should be first made conformable to his own preaching before he under- took to cast stones at others ; and that it would CHURCH. 243 become him to cease his heresy, or cease to be a pluralist. He went to his uncle (apparently under the plea of ill-health) and told him that he must resign either his Archdeaconry or the Eectory of Easington. " Have I not repeatedly told you (said the Bishop) that you will die a beggar ? Depend upon it you will, if you suffer your con- science to raise such unreasonable scruples. The Archdeaconry and the living cannot be separated ; the income of the former is not a support without that of the latter. I found them united and I am determined to leave them so." Gilpin, like an honest man, immediately resigned both. After this it seems for a while he lived with his uncle as one of his Chaplains, until the Eectory of Houghton-le- Spring (a living of considerable value) fell vacant, which he accepted. A Prebendal Stall in the Cathedral of Durham was also offered to him, which he refused. We now find him at Houghton pur- suing the same manly, fearless, and Christian-like career as he did at Easington, with the same con- sequences, especially as regards the relentless enmity of Dunstal and his abettors ; and this time, although their appeal was dismissed as before, they in fact succeeded — succeeded in making his uncle blot him out of his testament ; and finally in pre- vailing upon Bonner, Bishop of London, to give ear to their accusation. Here they went the right way to work. Bonner was just the reverse of Tunstal ; formed by nature for an inquisitor, and 244 BERNARD GILPIN. the properest agent their malice could have em- ployed. The fierce zealot at once took fire, extolled their laudable concern for religion, and promised that the heretic should be at a stake in a fortnight Gilpin's friends in London trembled for his safety, and instantly despatched a message, that he had not a moment to lose. He received the account with great composure ; and immediately after called up William Airay, a favourite domestic, who had long served him as Ms almoner and steward, and laying Iris hand upon his shoulder, " At length (says he) they have prevailed against me. I am accused to the Bishop of London, from whom there will be no escaping. God forgive their malice, and grant me strength to undergo the trial." He then ordered his servant to provide a long garment for him, in which he might go decently to the stake, and desired it might be got ready with all expedition, " For I know not (says he) how soon I may have occasion for it." As soon as this garment was provided, it is said, he used to put it on every day till the Bishop's messengers appre- hended him. His friends in the mean time failed not to interpose, earnestly beseeching him, while he had yet an opportunity, to provide for his safety. But he begged them not to press him longer upon that subject ; should he even attempt it, he said, he believed it would hardly be in his power to escape, for he questioned not but all his motions were very narrowly observed. Besides, he would ask, how CHURCH. 245 they could imagine he would prefer the miserable life of an exile before the joyful death of a martyr ? "Be assured (says he) I should never have thrown myself voluntarily into the hands of my enemies ; but I am fully determined to persevere in doing my duty, and shall take no measures to avoid them." In a few days the messengers apprehended him, and put an end to these solicitations. In his way to London, it is said, he broke his leg, which put a stop for some time to his journey. The persons in whose custody he was took occasion thence maliciously to retort upon him an observation he would frequently make, " That nothing happens to us but what is intended for our good," asking him, whether he thought his broken leg was so intended ? He answered meekly, " He made no question but it was." And indeed so it proved, in the strictest sense; for before he was able to travel, Queen Mary died, and he was set at liberty. Whatever truth there may be in this relation, thus much, however, is certain — the account of the Queen's death met him upon the road, and put a stop to any farther prosecution. Thus providentially rescued from his enemies, he returned to Houghton through crowds of people expressing the utmost joy, and blessing God for his deliverance. This Eectory was of considerable value, but the duty of it was proportionably labo- rious. It was so extensive, that it contained no less than fourteen villages ; and having been as 246 BERNARD GILPIN. much neglected in that dark age as the cures in the North then ordinarily were, Popery had produced its full growth of superstition in it. Scarce any traces, indeed, of true Christianity were left. Nay, what little religion remained, was even Popery itself corrupted. All its idle ceremonies were here carried higher than you would, perhaps, anywhere else find then; and were more considered as the essentials of religion. How entirely this barbarous people were excluded from all means of better information appears from hence, that in that part of the kingdom, through the designed neglect of Bishops and Justices of the Peace, King Edward's proclamations for a change of worship had not even been heard of at the time of that Prince's death. Such was the condition of the parish of Houghton when it was committed to his care — a waste so miserably uncultivated, that the greatest industry seemed but sufficient to bring it into any kind of order, and the greatest resolution only to make the attempt. But when the good of mankind was con- cerned, this true Minister of the Gospel had reso- lution enough to attempt whatever industry could accomplish. He was grieved to see ignorance and vice so lamentably prevail ; but he did not despair. He implored the assistance of God, and his sincere endeavours met with it. The people crowded about him and heard him with attention, perceiving him a teacher of a different kind from those to whom they had hitherto been accustomed. Upon his CHURCH. 247 taking possession of Houghton, it was some morti- fication to him that he could not immediately reside. His Parsonage House was gone entirely to decay, and some time was required to make it hahitable. Part of it was fitted up as soon as possible for his reception ; but he continued im- proving and enlarging it till it became suitable to his hospitable temper — a proper habitation for a man who never intended to keep what he had to himself. " His house (says the Bishop of Chi- chester) was like a Bishop's palace, superior indeed to most Bishop's houses, with respect both to the largeness of the building and the elegance of the situation." Though deprived of the assistance of his uncle, who, on refusing the oath of supremacy had been deprived, and committed to the Tower, he soon experienced, however, that worth like his could never be left friendless. His merit raised him friends wherever he was known ; and though his piety was such that he never proposed reputation as the end of his actions, yet perhaps few of his profession stood at this time higher in the public esteem. " He was respected (says the Bishop of Chichester) not only by the more eminent church- men, but by those of the first rank in the nation." When the Popish bishops were deprived, and many sees by that means vacant, his friends at court, particularly the Earl of Bedford, thought it 248 BERNARD GILPIN. a good opportunity to use their interest in his favour. He was recommended accordingly to the Queen as a proper person for one of the void bishoprics ; upon which, as he was a north coun- tryman, she nominated him to that of Carlisle ; and the Earl took immediate care that a conge d'elire, with her Majesty's recommendation of him, should be sent down to the Dean and Chapter of that See. Gilpin, who knew nothing of what was going forward in his favour, was greatly surprised at this unexpected honour, yet could not by any means persuade himself to accept it. He sent a messen- ger therefore with a letter to the Earl, expressing his great obligations to her Majesty and his Lord- ship for their favourable sentiments of him, but begged they would excuse his accepting their in- tended kindness ; they had really thought of placing him in a station which he did not merit ; he must therefore remove from himself a burden to which he, who was best acquainted with his own weakness, knew himself unequal : in the meantime he would not fail to do his utmost for the service of religion in an inferior employment. The Earl, upon the receipt of this letter, went immediately to Dr. Sandys, Bishop of Worcester, who was inti- mately acquainted with Gilpin, and nearly related to him, the Earl supposing he could not be without his influence over him ; and therefore earnestly desired he would endeavour to persuade his friend CHURCH. 240 to think less meanly of himself. The Bishop readily undertook the office, and wrote the follow- ing letter to him : — " My Much-Respected Kinsman, " Regarding not so much your private interest, as the interest of religion, I did what I could that the Bishopric of Carlisle might be secured to you : and the just character I gave of you to the Queen has, I doubt not, had some weight with her Majesty in her promoting of you to that See, which, not to mention the honour of it, will enable you to be of the utmost service to the Church of Christ. I am not ignorant how much rather you choose a private station; but if you consider the condition of the Church at this time, you cannot, I think, with a good conscience, refuse this burden ; especially as it is in a part of the kingdom where no man is thought fitter than yourself to be of service to religion. Wherefore I charge you, before God, and as you will answer to him, that, laying all excuses aside, you refuse not to assist your country, and do what service you can to the church of God. In the meantime, I can inform you, that by the Queen's favour you will have the bishopric just in the condition in which Dr. Ogle- thorpe left it ; nothing shall be taken from it, as hath been from some others. Wherefore exhorting and beseeching you to be obedient to God's call M 5 250 BERNARD GILPIN. herein, and not to neglect the duty of your func- tion, I commend both you and this whole business to the Divine Providence. Your kinsman and brother, " Edwin Worcester.' 1 London, Aprils, 1560. This letter, notwithstanding the pressing manner in which it is written, was without effect. Gilpin returned his thanks; but as for the bishopric, he was determined, and he thought for very good reasons, not to accept it. Nor could all the per* suasions of his friends alter this resolution. The vexation which the Popish party was likely to give to any one placed in the See of Carlisle, is imagined, by the author of Archbishop Grindal's life, to be a principal reason why he refused it. But this would have been as good a reason for his refusing the Eectory of Houghton, or any other employment in the church, for Popery prevailed universally over the country, and he could be placed no where in the north without experiencing a toilsome oj)position to the bigotry and prejudices of it. But his own ease and convenience were never motives of the least weight with him, when any service to mankind could be balanced against them. The accounts given us by Bishop Nichol- CHURCH. 251 son and Dr. Heylin of his behaviour upon this occasion are still more disingenuous; they both ascribe it chiefly to lucrative motives. The former intimates that the good man knew what he was about, when he refused to part with the Kectory of Houghton for the Bishopric of Carlisle* : the latter supposes that all his scruples would have vanished, might he have had the old temporalities undiminishedf. Both these writers seem to have been very little acquainted with his character, in which disinterestedness bore so principal a part : it will hereafter appear, that he considered his in- come in no other light than that of a fund to be managed for the common good. The bishop's insinuation therefore is contradicted by every action of Gilpin's life ; and as for Dr. Heylin' s, it is most notoriously false ; for the bishopric was offered to him with the old temporalities undi- minished {. The year after his refusal of the Bishopric of Carlisle, he had an offer of the Provostship of Queen's College, Oxford, which he also refused. The great ignorance which at this time prevailed over the nation, afforded a melancholy prospect to all who had the interest of religion at heart. To it was owing that gross superstition which kept reformation every where so long at a stand; a * In his Historical Library. f In his Church History. { See the Bishop of Worcester's Letter, p. 249. 252 BERNARD GILPIN. superstition which was like to continue ; for all the channels through which knowledge could flow were choked up. There were few schools in the nation ; and these as ill supplied as they were endowed. The Universities were in the hands of bigots, col- lecting their strength to defend absurdities, neglect- ing all good learning. At Cambridge indeed some advances in useful literature were made ; Sir John Cheke, Koger Ascham, and a few others, having boldly struck out a new path through that wilder- ness of false science which involved them ; but they were yet lazily followed. The great care of Parker, Archbishop of Canter- bury, his frequent and strict visitations, his severe inquiries into the ministry of the clergy, and man- ners of the laity, had made a very visible alteration for the better in the southern parts of England : but in the North reformation went on but slug- gishly. The indolent Archbishop of York slept over his province. In what great disorder the good Bishop Grindal found it, upon his translation thither, in the year 1570, appears from his episcopal injunctions, among which are these very extraor- dinary ones, — that no pedlar should be admitted to sell his wares in the church-porch in time of service, — that parish clerks should be able to read ; that no lords of misrule, or summer lords and ladies, or any disguised persons, morrice- dancers, or others, should come irreverently into the church, or play any unseemly parts with scoffs, jests, CHURCH. 253 wanton jestures, or ribald talk, in the time of divine service ; from these things we may conceive the state of the parish of Houghton when he came there*. Amidst such ignorance to introduce a knowledge of religion was a laborious work ; as difficult as a first plantation of the Gospel. There was the same building to raise, and as much rub- bish to clear away ; for no prejudices could be stronger, and more alien to Christianity than those he had to oppose. This weighed him down with sorrow ; but to promote, as far as he was able, the great work of the Reformation, he built and endowed a Grammar School, at Houghton, and procured the ablest masters from Oxford, as well as superin- tended it himself. One method used by him to fill his school was a little singular. Whenever he met a poor boy upon the road, he would make trial of his capacity by a few questions, and if he found it such as pleased him, he would provide for his education. Nor did * One would imagine it was in this part of the country where Bishop Latimer was travelling, when he gives us the following account : — " I sent word over-night to a town that I would preach there in the morning, hecause it was a holiday. When I came to the church, where I thought I should have found a great com- pany, the door was fast locked. I tarried half an hour. At last one of the parish comes to me, and says, ' Sir, this is a busy day with us ; we cannot hear you: it is Eobin Hood's day. The parish is gone abroad to gather for Robin Hood ; I pray you hinder them not.' So I was fain to give place to Robin Hood." Sermon vi. before the King. 254 BERNARD GILPIN. his care end here. From his school he sent several to the Universities, where he maintained them wholly at his own expense. To others, who were in circumstances to do something for them- selves, he would give the farther assistance they needed. By which means he induced many parents to allow their children a liberal education, who otherwise would not have done it. Nor was this uncommon care unrewarded. Few of his scholars miscarried : " Many of them (says the Bishop of Chichester) became great ornaments to the Church, and very exemplary instances of piety." Among those of any note who were educated by him, we find these three particularly mentioned ; Henry Ayray*, George Caiietonf, and Hugh BroughtonJ. In building this school, and purchasing lands for the maintenance of a master and usher, he ex- pended above five hundred pounds. As there was so great a resort of young people to this school, that in a little time the town was not able to accommodate them, he put himself to the inconve- nience of fitting-up a part of his own house for that purpose, where he seldom had fewer than twenty or thirty children. Some of these were the sons of persons of distinction, whom he boarded at easy rates : but the greater part were poor children, * Provost of Queen's. See Life. + Bishop of Chichester. t The Best Hebrew scholar of his day. CHURCH. 255 who could not so easily get themselves boarded in the town, and whom he not only educated, but clothed and maintained : he was at the expense likewise of hoarding in the town many other poor children. He used to bring several every year from the different parts where he preached, parti- cularly Readsdale and Tinedale, which places he was at great pains in civilising, and contributed not a little towards rooting out that barbarism which every year prevailed less among them. For the maintenance of poor scholars at the Universities, he yearly set apart sixty pounds. This sum he always laid out, often more. His common allow- ance to each scholar was about ten pounds a-year, which for a sober youth was at that time a very sufficient maintenance ; so that he never main- tained fewer than six. By his will, it appears that at his death he had nine upon his list, whom he took care to provide for during their stay at the University. This school, situated near his house, afforded him when old and infirm an employment ; and he thought he could hardly die in peace till he had settled it to his mind. What he had principally at heart was — to compose for it a set of good statutes, to provide it a better endowment, and to fix all by a charter. As to the statutes, he was daily em- ployed in correcting, adding to, and altering those he had drawn up ; advising with his friends, and 256 BERNARD GILPIN. doing all in his power to prevent any future abuse of his charity. With regard to a better endowment, it was not indeed in his own power to do anything more. His exhibitions, his other charities, and his generous manner of living, made yearly such large demands upon him, which increased as he grew old, that it became then impossible for him to lay up anything. He would gladly have contracted his hospitality, which he thought his least useful expense ; but when he considered that he might probably by that means lose much of the esteem of the people, he could not prevail with himself to do it. Thus unable to do anything more out of his own purse, he turned his eyes upon his friends. There was a gentleman in the neighbourhood, John Heath, Esq., of Kepier, with whom he had lived for many years in great intimacy. He was a man of uncommon worth, was master of a plentiful fortune, and had an inclination to put it to the best uses. He was besides a man of letters, and an encourager of learning. To this gentleman he applied in favour of his school ; Mr. Heath came with great readiness into the scheme proposed to him, and doubled the original endowment. Gilpin prevailed upon some others likewise to contribute their assistance, by which means the revenues of the school became at length answerable to his wishes. Having thus obtained a sufficient endow- ment, he began next to think of a charter. For CHURCH. 257 this he applied to his friend the Earl of Bedford, and was successful*. In his pastoral charge he set out with making it his endeavour to gain the affection of his parish- ioners. Many of his papers show how material a point he considered this. To succeed in it, however, he used no servile compliances ; he would have his means good as well as his end. His "behaviour was free without levity, obliging without meanness, insinuating without art; he condescended to the weak, bore with the passionate, complied with the scrupulous ; in a truly Apostolic manner, he became all things to all men. By these means he gained mightily upon his neighbours, and convinced them how heartily he was their friend. To this humanity and courtesy he added an unwearied application to the duties of his function. He was not satisfied with the advice he gave in public, but used to instruct in private; and brought his parishioners to come to him with their doubts and difficulties. He had a most engaging manner towards those whom he thought well-disposed; nay, his very reproof was so conducted that it seldom gave offence ; the becoming gentleness with which it was urged made it always appear the effect of friend- ship. Thus laying himself out in admonishing the vicious and encouraging the well-intentioned, in a few years he made a greater change in his neigh - * See Surtees' History of Durham, Tit. Houghton. 258 BERNARD GILPIN. bourhood than could well have been imagined ; a remarkable instance what reformation a single man may effect, when he hath it earnestly at heart ! But his hopes were not so much in the present generation as in the succeeding. It was an easier task, he found, to prevent vice than to correct it ; to form the young to virtue, than to amend the bad habits of the old. He laid out much of his time, therefore, in an endeavour to improve the minds of the younger part of his parish. Nor did he only take notice of those within his school, but in general extended Iris care through the whole place ; suffering none to grow up in an ignorance of their duty, but pressing it as the wisest part to mix religion with their labour, and amidst the cares of this life to have a constant eye upon the next. Nor did he omit whatever besides might be of service to his parishioners. He was very assiduous in preventing all law-suits among them. His hall is said to have been often thronged with people who came to him about their differences. He was not, indeed, much acquainted with law, but he could decide equitably, and that satisfied ; nor could his Sovereign's commission have given him more weight than his own character gave lrim. He had a just concern for all under affliction, and was a much readier visitant at the house of mourning than at that of feasting. He had conversed so much in the world that he knew how to apply himself to the most different tempers; and his large CHURCH. 259 fund of reading and experience always furnished something that would properly affect them. Hence he was considered as a good angel by all in distress. When the infirmities of age came upon him, and he grew less able to endure exercise, it was his custom to write letters of consolation to such as were in affliction. He used to interpose, likewise, in all acts of oppression ; and Iris authority was such, that it generally put a stop to them. Every year he used regularly to visit the most neglected parishes in Northumberland, Yorkshire, Cheshire, Westmorland, and Cumberland; and that his own parish, in the mean time, might not suffer, he was at the expense of a constant assistant. In each place he stayed two or three days, and his method was, to call the people about him and lay before them, in as plain a way as possible, the danger of leading wicked, or even careless lives ; explaining to them the nature of true religion ; instructing them in the duties they owed to God, their neighbour, and themselves ; and showing them how greatly a moral and religious conduct would contribute to their present as well as future happiness. When a preacher, though the merest rhapsodist or enthusiast, seems to speak from his heart, from a thorough sense of his duty, what he says will be listened to. The appearance of his being truly in earnest will dispose men at least to give him a fair hearing. Hence Gilpin, who had 260 BERNARD GILPIN. all the warmth of an enthusiast, though under the direction of a very calm judgment, never wanted an audience even in the wildest parts, where he roused many to a sense of religion who had con- tracted the most inveterate habits of inattention to everything of a serious nature. One thing he practised, which showed the best- disposed heart. Wherever he came, he used to visit all the jails and places of confinement, few in the kingdom having at that time any appointed minister ; and, by his labours and affectionate manner of behaving, he is said to have reformed many very abandoned persons in those places. He would employ his interest likewise for such criminals whose cases he thought attended with any hard circumstances, and often procured pardons for them. There is a tract of country upon the border of Northumberland, called Readsdale and Tinedale — of all barbarous places in the North, at that time the most barbarous. Before the union this country was generally called the debateable land, as subject by turns to England and Scotland, and the common theatre where the two nations were continually acting their bloody scenes. It was inhabited, as Camden in- forms us, by a kind of desperate banditti, rendered fierce and active by constant alarms. They lived by theft; used to plunder on both sides of the barrier, and what they plundered on one, they exposed to sale on the other ; by that means CHURCH, 2G I escaping justice. Such adepts were they in the art of thieving, that they could twist a cow's horn, or mark a horse, so as its owners could not know it ; and so subtle, that no vigilance could guard against them. For these arts they were long after- wards famous. A person telling King James a surprising story of a cow that had been driven from the North of Scotland into the South of England, and escaping from the herd had found her way home. " The most surprising part of the story" the king replied, " you lay least stress on, that she ptassed unstolen through the debateable land." In this dreadful country, where no man would even travel that could help it, he never failed to spend some part of every year. He generally chose the holidays of Christmas for their journey, because he found the people at that season most disengaged, and most easily assembled. He had set places for preaching, which were as regularly attended as the assize-towns of a circuit. If he came where there was a church, he made use of it : if not, of barns, or any other large building ; where great crowds of people were sure to attend him, some for his instructions, and others for his charity. This was a very difficult and laborious employment. The country was so poor that what provision he could get extreme hunger only could make palatable. The badness of the weather, and the badness of the roads through a mountainous country, and at that 262 BERNARD GILPIN. season covered with snow, exposed him, likewise, often to great hardships. Sometimes he was over- taken by the night, the country being in many places desolate for several miles together, and obliged to lodge out in the cold : at such times he would make his servant ride about with his horses, whilst himself on foot used as much exercise as his age and the fatigues of the preceding day would permit. All this he cheerfully underwent; es- teeming such sufferings well-compensated by the advantages which he hoped might accrue from them to his uninstructed fellow- creatures. Our Saxon ancestors had a great aversion to the tedious forms of law. They chose rather to determine their dis- putes in a more concise manner, pleading, gene- rally with their swords. " Let every dispute be decided by the sword," was a Saxon law. A piece of ground was described, and covered with mats : here the plaintiff and defendant tried their cause. If either of them was driven from this boundary, he was obliged to redeem his life by three marks. He whose blood first stained the ground, lost his suit*. This custom still prevailed on the borders, where Saxon barbarism held its latest possesion. These wild Northumbrians, indeed, went beyond the ferocity of their ancestors. They were not content with a duel : each contending party used to muster * See Spelman, Nicholson, &c. CHURCH. 263 what adherents he could, and commence a kind of petty war. So that a private grudge would often occasion much bloodshed. It happened that a quarrel of this kind was on foot, when he was at Eothbury in those parts. During the two or three first days of his preaching the contending parties observed some decorum, and never appeared at church together. At length, however, they met. One party had been early at church, and just as he began his sermon the other entered. They stood not long silent. Inflamed at the sight of each other, they began to clash their weapons, for they were all armed with javelins and swords, and mutually approach. Awed, however, by the sacredness of the place, the tumult in some degree ceased. Gilpin proceeded : when again the combatants began to brandish their weapons, and draw towards each other. As a fray seemed near, he stepped from the pulpit, went between them and addressing the leaders, put an end to the quarrel for the present, but could not effect an entire reconciliation. They promised him, how- ever, that, till the sermon was over, they would make no disturbance. He then went again into the pulpit, and spent the rest of the time in endea- vouring to make them ashamed of what they had done. His behaviour and discourse affected them so much, that at his farther entreaty they promised to forbear all acts of hostility, while he continued in the country. And so much respected was he 264 BERNARD GILPIN. among them, that whoever was in fear of his enemy, used to resort where he was, esteeming his presence the best protection. One Sunday morning, coming to a church in those parts before the people were assembled, he observed a glove hanging up, and was informed by the sexton that it was meant as a challenge to any one that should take it down. Gilpin ordered the sexton to reach it him ; but upon his utterly refu- sing to touch it, he took it down himself, and put it in his breast. When the people were assembled, he went into the pulpit ; and before he concluded his sermon, took occasion to rebuke them severely for these inhuman challenges. " I hear," saith he, " that one among you hath hanged up a glove even in this sacred place, threatening to fight any one who taketh it down : see, I have taken it down ;" and pulling out the glove, he held it up to the congregation ; and then showed them how unsuit- able such savage practices were to the profession of Christianity ; using such persuasives to mutual love as he thought would most affect them. The disinterested pains he thus took among these bar- barous people, and the good offices he was always ready to do them, drew from them the sincerest expressions of gratitude, a virtue perhaps as fre- quently the growth of these natural soils, as of the best cultivated. Indeed he was little less than adored. How greatly his name was revered among them one instance will show : — by the carelessness CHURCH. 265 of his servant, his horses were one day stolen. The news was quickly propagated, and every one ex- pressed the highest indignation at the fact. The thief was rejoicing over his prize, when by the report of the country he found whose horses he had taken. Terrified at what he had done, he instantly came trembling back, confessed the fact, returned the horses, and declared he believed the devil would have seized him directly, had he carried them off, knowing them to have been Mr. Gilpin's. Let us turn awhile to Ins home. Every Thurs- day throughout the year a very large quantity of meat was dressed wholly for the poor, and every day they had what quantity of broth they wanted. Twenty-four of the poorest were his constant pen- sioners. Four times in the year a dinner was provided for them, when they received from his steward a certain quantity of corn and a sum of money ; and at Christmas they had always an ox divided among them. Wherever he heard of any in distress, whether of his own parish or any other, he was sure to relieve them. In his walks abroad he would frequently bring home with him poor people, and send them away clothed as well as fed. He took great pains to inform himself of the cir- cumstances of his neighbours, that the modesty of the sufferer might not prevent his relief. But the money best laid out was, in his opinion, that which encouraged industry. It was one of his greatest pleasures to make up the losses of his laborious VOL. I. N 266 BERNARD GILPIN. neighbours, and prevent their sinking under them. If a poor man had lost a beast, he would send him another in its room ; or if any farmer had had a bad year, he would make him an abatement in his tithes. Thus, as far as he was able, he took the misfortunes of his parish upon himself; and like a true shepherd exposed himself for his flock. But of all kinds of industrious poor, he was most forward to assist those who had large families ; such never failed to meet with his bounty when they wanted to settle their children in the world. In the distant parishes where he preached, as well as in his own neighbourhod, Ms generosity and benevolence were continually showing themselves, particularly in the desolate parts of Northumberland. " When he began his journey (says an old manuscript life of him) he would have ten pounds in his purse, and at his coming home he would be twenty nobles in debt, which he would always pay within a fortnight after." In the jails he visited he was not only careful to give the prisoners proper instructions, but used to purchase for them likewise what neces- saries they wanted. Even upon the public road he never let slip an opportunity of doing good. Often has he been known to take off his cloak, and give it to a half-naked traveller ; and when he has had scarce money enough in his pocket to provide himself a dinner, yet would he give away part of that little, or the whole, if he found any who seemed to stand in need of it. Of this benevolent CHURCH. 267 temper the following instance is preserved : — One day returning home, he saw in a field several people crowding together, and judging something more than ordinary had happened, he rode up and found that one of the horses in a team had sud- denly dropped down, which they were endeavouring to raise, but in vain, for the horse was dead. The owner of it seeming much dejected with his misfor- tune, and declaring how grievous a loss it would be to him, Gilpin bade him not to be disheartened : " I'll let you have (says he), honest man, that horse of mine," and pointed to his servant's. " Ah, master ! (replied the countryman) my pocket will not reach such a beast as that." " Come, come, (said Gilpin,) take him, take him ; and when I demand my money, then thou shalt pay me." His hospitable manner of living was the admi- ration of the whole country. He spent in his family every fortnight forty bushels of corn, twenty bushels of malt, and a whole ox, besides a pro- portional quantity of other kinds of provision. Strangers and travellers found a cheerful reception. All were welcome that came ; and even their beasts had so much care taken of them, that it was hu- morously said : " If a horse was turned loose in any part of the country it would immediately make its way to the Hector of Houghton 's." Every Sunday from Michaelmas till Easter was a sort of a public day with him. During this season, he expected to see all his parishioners and their 268 BERNARD GILPIN. families. For their reception lie had three tables well covered ; the first was for gentlemen, the second for husbandmen and farmers, and the third for day-labourers. This piece of hospitality he never omitted, even when losses, or a scarcity of provision, made its continuance rather difficult to him. He thought it his duty, and that was a deciding motive. Even when he was absent, no alteration was made in his family expenses; the poor was fed as usual, and his neighbours enter- tained. He was always glad of the company of men of worth and letters, who used much to frequent his house. This sociable temper led him into a very large acquaintance ; which, as he could not select his company, became very inconvenient to him when he grew old. We must close this account of his manner of living with a story, which does no little honour to his housekeeping. Some affairs in Scotland obliging Queen Elizabeth to send thither her Treasurer, the Lord Burleigh, he resolved to take the opportunity of his return to pay a visit to Gilpin. Hurried as he was, he could not resist the desire of seeing a man whose name was every- where so respectfully mentioned. His free discourse from the pulpit to King Edward's court had early recommended him to this noble person ; since which time the great distance between them had wholly interrupted their acquaintance. The Treasurer's CHURCH. 269 return was so sudden that he had not time to give any notice of his intended visit. But the economy of so plentiful a house as Gilpin's was not easily disconcerted. He received his noble guest with so much true politeness, and treated him and his whole retinue in so affluent and generous a manner, that the Treasurer would often afterwards say, ' l He could hardly have expected more at Lambeth." While Lord Burleigh stayed at Houghton, he took great pains, by his own and the observation of his domestics, to acquaint himself with the order and regularity with which everything in that house was managed. It contained a very large family, and was besides continually crowded with persons of all kinds — gentlemen, scholars, workmen, farmers, and poor people, yet there was never any confusion; every one was immediately carried into proper apartments, and entertained, directed, or relieved, as his particular business required. It could not but please this wise lord, who was so well acquainted with the effects of order and regularity in the highest sphere, to observe them even in this humble one. Here, too, he saw true simplicity of manners, and every social virtue regulated by exact prudence. The statesman began to unbend, and he could not without an envious eye compare the unquiet scenes of vice and vanity in which he was engaged, with the calmness of this amiable retreat. At length, with reluctance, he took his leave ; and with all the warmth of affection embracing his 270 BERNARD GILPIN. much-respected friend, he told him, he had heard great things in his commendation, hut he had now seen what far exceeded all that he had heard. " If," added he, " Mr. Gilpin, I can ever he of any service to you at court, or elsewhere, use me with all freedom, as one you may depend on." When he had got to Eainton Hill, which rises about a mile from Houghton, and commands the vale, he turned his horse to take one more view of the place, and having kept his eye fixed upon it for some time, his reverie broke out into this exclama- tion : — '■' There is the enjoyment of life, indeed ! Who can blame that man for not accepting of a Bishopric ! What doth he want to make him greater, or happier, or more useful to mankind ! " Towards the latter part of his life, he went through his duty with great difficulty. His health was much impaired. The extreme fatigue he had during so many years undergone, had now quite broken his constitution. And while he was thus struggling with an advanced age, and much im- paired constitution, there happened a very unfor- tunate affair, which entirely destroyed his health. As he was crossing the market-place at Durham, an ox ran at him, and pushed him down with such violence, that it was imagined the bruises he re- ceived would have occasioned his death. He lay long confined ; and though he again got abroad, he never recovered even the little strength he had before, and continued lame as long as he lived. CHURCH. 271 But accidents of this kind were no very formidable trials to a mind so well tempered as his. It was a persuasion he had long entertained, that misfor- tunes are intended by Providence to remind us of our neglected duty : and thus he always used them, making self-examination the constant attendant upon whatever calamities befel him. To this it was owing that misfortunes never dejected him, but were received by him rather with thankfulness than repining. But sickness was not the only distress which the declining years of this excellent man had to struggle with. As age and infirmity began to lessen that weight and influence he once had, the malice and opposition of his enemies of course prevailed more. Of all his enemies at this time the most active were Chancellor Barns and Hugh Broughton, the latter of whom had been educated at Gilpin's sole expense both at school and college. This load of calumny, ingratitude, and ill usage, may justly be supposed heavy upon him, already sinking under a weight of years ; yet he bore it with great fortitude, strengthening himself with such consolations as a good Christian hath in reserve for all extremities. His resignation, how- ever, was not long exercised. About the beginning of Feb y - in the year 1583, he found himself so very weak that he was sensible his end must be drawing near. He told his friends his apprehensions, and spoke of his death with that happy composure 272 BERNARD GILPIN. which always attends the conclusion of a good life. He was soon after confined to his chamber. His senses continued perfect to the last. Of the manner of his taking leave of the world, we have this account : — A few days before his death he ordered himself to be raised in his bed, and his friends, acquaintance, and dependents to be called in. He first sent for the poor, and beckoning them to his bed-side, he told them he found he was going out of the world, he hoped they would be his witnesses at the great day that he had en- deavoured to do bis duty among them, and he prayed God to remember them after he was gone. He would not have them weep for him ; if ever he had told them anything good, he would have them remember that in his stead. Above all things, he exhorted them to fear God and keep his command- ments — telling them, if they would do this they could never be left comfortless. He next ordered his scholars to be called in ; to these likewise he made a short speech, reminding them that this was their time, if they had any desire to qualify themselves for being of use in the world ; that learning was well worth their attention, but virtue was much more so. He next exhorted his servants; and then sent for several persons who had not heretofore profited by his advice according to his wishes, and upon whom he imagined his dying words might have a better effect. His speech began to falter before he finished his exhortations. The remaining CHURCH. 273 hours of his life he spent in prayer and broken conversations with some select friends, mentioning often the consolations of Christianity, declaring they were the only true ones, that nothiug else could bring a man peace at the last. He died the 4 th of March, 1583, in the 66 th year of his age. We shall conclude this account of him with a few observations upon his character ; and some incidents which we could not introduce properly in any part of the narration. His person was tall and slender, in the ornament of which he was at no pains. He had a particular aversion to the fop- peries of dress. In his diet he was very temperate, rather abstemious. His parts were very good. His imagination, memory, and judgment, were lively, retentive and solid. His acquirements were as considerable. By an unwearied application he' had amassed a great store of knowledge, and was ignorant of no part of learning at that time in esteem ; in languages, history, and divinity, he par- ticularly excelled. He read poetry with a good taste ; himself, as the Bishop of Chichester relates, no mean poet. But he laid out little time in the pursuit of any study foreign to his profession. His temper was naturally warm, and in his youth we meet with instances of his giving way to passion; but he soon got more command of himself, and at length entirely corrected that infirmity. His dis- position was serious, yet among his particular friends he was commonly cheerful, sometimes facetious. His general behaviour was very affable. n 5 274 BERNARD GILPIN. His severity had no object but himself; to others he was humble, candid, and indulgent. Never did virtue sit with greater ease on any one, had less of moroseness, or could mix more agreeably with whatever was innocent in common life. He had a most extraordinary skill in the art of managing a fortune. He considered himself barely as a steward for other people, and took care, therefore, that his own desires never exceeded what calm reason could justify. Extravagance with him was another word for injustice. Amidst all his business he found leisure to look into his affairs, well knowing that frugality is the support of charity. His intimacies were but few. It was his endeavour, as he thought the spirit of Christianity required, to dilate rather than to contract his affections ; yet where he pro- fessed a particular friendship he was a religious observer of its offices. He was the most candid interpreter of the words and actions of others ; where he plainly saw failings he would make every possible allowance for them. He used to express a particular indignation at slander, often saying, it more deserved the gallows than theft. For himself he was remarkably guarded when he spoke of others ; he considered common fame as the falsest medium, and a man's reputation as his most valuable pro- perty. His sincerity was such as became his other virtues. He had the strictest regard to truth, of which his whole life was only one instance. All little arts and sinister practices, those ingredients of worldly prudence, he disdained. His perse- CHURCH. 275 verance in so commendable a part, in whatever difficulties it might at first involve him, in the end raised his character above malice and envy, and gave him that weight and influence in everything he undertook, which nothing but an approved sin- cerity can give. Whatever his other virtues were, their lustre was greatly increased by his humility. To conquer religious pride is one of the best effects* of religion; an effect which his religion in the most amiable manner produced. Thus far, however, he hath had many imitators. The principal recom- mendations of him, and the distinguishing parts of his character, were, his conscientious discharge of the duties of a Clergyman, his extensive benevo- lence, and his exalted piety. As to the discharge of his function, no man could be more strongly influenced by what he thought the duties of it. The motives of convenience, or present interest, had no kind of weight with him. As the income was no part of his concern, he only considered the office, winch he thought such a charge as a man would rather dread than solicit ; but when Provi- dence called him to it, (for what was not procured by any endeavours of his own he could not but ascribe to Providence,) he accepted it, though with reluctance. He then showed, that if a sense of the importance of his office made him distrust his abilities, it made him most diligent in exerting them. As soon as ever he undertook the care of a parish, it immediately engrossed his whole attention. The pleasures of life he totally relinquished, even 276 BERNARD GILPIN. his favourite pursuits of learning. This was the more commendable in him, as he had always a strong inclination for retirement, and was often vio- lently tempted to shut himself up in some University at home or abroad, and live there sequestered from the world. But his conscience corrected his inclination, as he thought the life of a mere recluse by no means agreeable to the active principles of Christianity. Nay, the very repose to which his age laid claim, he would not indulge ; but, as long as he had strength sufficient, persevered in the laborious practice of such methods of instruction as he imagined might most benefit those under his care. Of popular applause he was quite regard- less, so far as mere reputation was concerned ; but as the favour of the multitude was one step towards gaining their attention, in that light he valued it. He reproved vice wherever he observed it, with the utmost freedom. As he was contented in his station and superior to all dependence, he avoided the danger of being tempted to any unbecoming compliance ; and whether he reproved in public or private, his unblameable life and the seriousness with which he spoke gave an irresistible weight to what he said. He studied the low capacities of the people among whom he lived, and knew how to adapt his arguments to their apprehensions. Hence the effects that his preaching had upon them are said to have been often very surprising. In particular it is related, that, as he was once recommending honesty in a part of the country CHURCH. 277 notoriously addicted to thieving, a man, struck with the warmth and earnestness with which he spoke, stood up in the midst of a large congre- gation and freely confessed his dishonesty, and how heartily he repented of it. With regard to his benevolence never, certainly, had any man more disinterested views, or made the common good more the study of his life, which was, indeed, the best comment upon the great Christian principle of universal charity. He called nothing his own ; there was nothing he could not readily part with for the service of others. In his charitable distributions he had no measure but the bounds of Ins income, of which the least portion was always laid out on himself. Nor did he give as if he was granting a favour, but as if he was paying a debt; all obsequious service the generosity of his heart disdained. He was the more particu- larly careful to give away in his lifetime whatever he could save for the poor, as he had often seen and regretted the abuse of posthumous charities. " It is my design, at my departure, (says he, writing to a friend,) to leave no more behind me, but to bury me and pay my debts." What little he did leave he left wholly to the poor, deducting a few slight tokens of remembrance that he be- queathed to his friends. How vain it was for those who were not in real want to expect anything from him, he plainly showed by his own behaviour, for when a legacy was left him he returned it back again to such of the relations of the legatee as 278 BERNARD GILPIN. stood in more need of it. Such instances of bene- volence gained him the title of the Father of the Poor! Although a constant advocate for the marriage of Priests, he was never married himself. Thus lived and died the Northern Apostle! Viewed with such a life, how mean and con- temptible do the idle amusements of the great appear ! How trifling that uninterrupted succession of serious folly which engages so great a part of mankind, crowding into so small a compass each real concern of life ! How much more nobly doth that person act who, unmoved by all that the world calls great and happy, can separate appearances from realities, attending only to what is just and right ; who, not content with the closet-attainment of speculative virtue, maintains each worthy reso- lution that he forms, persevering steadily, like this excellent man, in the conscientious discharge of the duties of that station, whatever that station is, in which Providence hath placed him ! In the south transept of the Church at Houghton-le- Spring, is his monument — a massy altar-tomb of freestone, with some ornaments of chain- work on the sides; and on the west end the arms of Gilpin in bas-relief — namely, a boar under a tree. On each side of the escutcheon in raised letters — Bernerds Gilpin, Rector hujus ecclesiae, obiit quarto die Martii, An. Dom. 1583. Ifttrnj limif. PROVOST OF QUEEN'S COLLEGE, AND VICE-CHANCELLOR OF THE UNIVERSITY OF OXFORD. 1560— 1016. " Bold was the man who durst engage For piety in such an age." Hudibras. m any men get while alive the dignified title of learned ; few — very few deserve it : Henry Airay did both, — he acquired and deserved it. Two centuries and a half have swept over his remains, but to give them the hardihood of antiquity. Dr. Collinson, the late Provost of Queen's College Oxford, himself a man of strong head and great industry, used to say, that Henry Airay was the most learned man the House (the College) ever had within its walls from Westmorland or Cumberland. Dr. Fox, the present amiable head of that Institu- tion (if we are rightly informed), thinks so too; — * See Wood's Ath. Oxon. ; Annals of Colleges and Halls, Biog. Brit. 280 HENRY AIRAY. indeed, at the Provost's Lodge, it seems to be a matter of tradition. Whether this be his true and proper gradation on the intellectual scale we shall not at this moment step aside to discuss, but content ourselves with the remark, that Bernard Gilpin (the Northern Apostle), Edmund Gibson (the author of the Chronicon Saxonicum), Gerard Langbaine, and Dr. Mill, were born in the same county, and educated in the same house. Let us not, from this passing reflection, be suspected of a doubt of Airay's excellence, or of a wish to ex- tenuate his glory, or to set down aught in malice against him, or against his admirers ; for — " Brutus' love to Caesar is no less than theirs. If then those friends demand, Why Brutus Rose against Ceesar, this is my answer : Not that I loved Caesar less, hut that I loved Rome more." Be the first College prize awarded to whomsoever it may, the examples of the well- spent lives, and the lessons of wisdom left to the world, will secure for the others the everlasting regard of men, and the high reward — the applauding smile of Heaven ! He was, ex parte materna, of the ancient family, his mother's blood run on his dexter cheek, — in other words, of Gilpin, of Kentmere Hall. He was the nephew of Bernard Gilpin, being his sister's son ; — we state this upon the authority of one of the most accurate, luminous, and learned antiqua- rians in modern times — Surtees, the historian of CHURCH. 281 Durham*. , Before stumbling on this valuable passage, it must be owned that our own researches had led us to a different conclusion, and to register him on the short and simple annals of the poor; as one of those boys whom the Great Apostle, in one of his holy pilgrimages into the remote corners of the North (pilgrimages worthy of St. Paul himself) had met with, and adopted as his ownf. That they were strangers in blood seemed in some degree confirmed by the tenour of Gilpin's correspondence, and especially by his last will and testament (dated 27th October, 1582) in which his foster-child is made a legatee, but rather as a friend, than as a near relative. But we kiss the rod, and at once subscribe to so great an authority. But from which sister is he sprung ? According to Dr. Burn, there were sisters of the whole blood, and sisters of the half blood, — one of the latter, namely, Cicely, we are unable to trace, and the probability is that he was her son J. The alternative is, that some other sister was twice married, and for her second husband married Airay's father. It is somewhere said, that the natural flights of the mind are from hope to hope : in biographical details they are too often from doubt to doubt. One spectre laid, another more startling rises to * Surtees' History of Durham, 161. Tit. Houghton-le-Spring. t See " Life of Gilpin," p. 253. J Dr. Burn's " History" (Kentmere), 137, ch. 6. 282 HENRY AIRAY. thwart and dishearten us. Where was Airay born ? That he was born somewhere within the chapelry of Kentmere, in 1559, we have on the concurring testimony of biographers and historians. Kent- mere, it will be borne in mind, is bounded on the East by Long Sleddale, — on the South by Stavely and Ings, — on the West by the top of Garburn Fells, and on the North by Patterdale. From Dan to Beersheba of this secluded spot, Industry with her faithful pack has scoured in vain ; in vain — save the health a morning quest never fails to give. May the next generation be more fortunate in the quarry ! Two things, however, seem pretty clear, — that he was born, and that he was born in Kent- mere ; and, therefore, a Westmoreland-born Worthy. With these data, let us proceed from matter to mind, and leave the ' uncertainty of conjecture for the record of facts. It has likewise been said that Airay was educated at Barton School ; but this must be a mistake, pro- bably, for Adam Airay, who, together with Dawes, Langbaine, and Lancaster, many years afterwards founded that school* ; or it must have been when he was a very little boy ; for certain it is that he was taken by the Great Apostle, as hereinafter mentioned. The charter of the Kepyer School, at Houghton -le- Spring, in the county of Durham, bears date April 2nd, 1574f ; and it was in that, * See " Life of Langbaine." f See Surtees. CHURCH. 283 or early in the following year, we find under the great founder's roof Henry Airay, Carleton*, and Hugh Broughton, the best Hebrew scholar of his age, " but one of the chickens he had hatched, who did after seeke to pecke out his eyesf." Those who wish to have a just notion of the sublime designs of Gilpin in the foundation, endowment, and superintendence of this school, and above all, in the education of the children of the poor, would do well to consult the work already referred to, namely, the " History of Durham ;" and should there be any who think it a modern discovery, to improve the social condition of the people, by enlarging and purifying their minds, will there find that he, nearly three hundred years ago, discovered and attested its truth ; — discovered, if Paley's asser- tion be right, that "he only discovers who proves%." Here Airay remained, being clothed, fed, and instructed by Gilpin, until he was nineteen or twenty years of age. Of the progress he there made in his studies we have no note, in the " Life of Gilpin," or otherwise. But being chosen by him as part of his grand and godlike design to Christianize the world ; being educated under his immediate eye, a favourite pupil, and his own nephew, we may safely infer, that it was at Hough- ton-le-Spring that he laid the solid foundation of his future glory. * " Gilpin's Life," 254. + Bishop Barnes. J Paley's " Moral Philosophy." 284 HENRY AIRAY. At the age of nineteen or twenty, he was removed from school to St. Edmund Hall, in Oxford, whence he soon removed to Queen's College, in the same University : he was clothed, fed, and educated (with eight or nine others) at the sole expense of Gilpin; to each of whom he allowed £.10 a year; a sum, however small it may seem now, was then, from the difference in the value of money, and from the comparative simplicity of an University life, amply sufficient for every purpose of moral and religious education. There are two things remarkable respecting Gilpin's scholars : the one is, that most of them entered first of all into St. Edmund Hall, and thence removed to Queen's College ; and the other is, that they were four or five years older than others destined for that Foundation. Probably, at that day, the Hall was a mere off-shoot of the mother College, — a mere diversorium on man's way to the main establishment. The difference in age does not admit of so easy a solution. It may be that he abhorred the system of sending children to college before they had done with school*. The dates of his degrees and honours are, — B.A. in 1583; M.A. in 1586 ; B.D. in 1594 ; andD.D. in 1600; Provost of Queen's in 1598f; and Vice- Chancellor in 1606. * See " Life of Gibson," 151. f The " Oxford Calendar" says 1599, sed. qu. CHURCH. 285 After passing through the usual College grada- tions of pauper puer serviens, pauper puer, or Tarbarder, and the like, in 1586 he became Fellow of his College ; about this time also, he entered into Holy Orders, and " became a frequent and zealous Preacher." Oxford, at this time, i( had a greater resemblance to a colony from Geneva, than to a seminary of Anglo -Catholic Divinity ;" and Queen's College was the very hot-bed of dissent — dissent from the canons and discipline of the Church of England, as established in the reign of King Edward VI*. Although Abbott (afterwards Archbishop of Canterbury) seems to have headed the Puritans, it was in Queen's College where the genius of Calvin presided ; it was there where the dark theory of predestination found a congenial soil ; where the Established Church found its sturdiest non- con- formists, and the church of Rome its fiercest foes. As one of them, from conviction, and with a moral courage inferior only to that of his illustrious uncle, and with ability and a constitution equal to the task, Airay began his ministerial duties in St. Peter's in the East; where he for the most part preached, and became noted and esteemed for his holiness, integrity, learning, gravity, and indefati- gable pains in the discharge of his ministerial functions. It was at St. Peter's in the East, that he likewise deliveredf his Lectures upon the whole * Le Bas's " Life of Laud." + See Wood's A th. Oxon. 286 HENRY AIRAY. Epistle of St. Paul to the Philippians*. About the same time he wrote his " Treatise against bowing at the name of Jesus." To be brief, in practice and preaching, from first to last, he was a Puritan and a Calvinist. In 1598, as already stated, he suc- ceeded Henry Robinson in the Provostship of his College, and Calvinism then indeed became ram- pant with him ; for he was always a great maintainer of such as were of his mind, which then went beyond the number of those that were true English Churchmenf. The hour of persecution at last arrived, when Howson (the fiery controversialist) was made Vice- Chancellor in 1602; a man to whom Calvinists and Papists were alike objects of resentment^. He is reported to have said, " He would loosen the Pope from his chair, though fastened by a tenpenny nail." Before his elevation, Howson had in vain tried to bring his enemies to terms, by parleying and pamphleteering; they were too numerous, however, to be intimidated, they were too strong to be dislodged : in a spirit of revenge or despair he determined on a coup de main, to order the generale to beat, and to put them without mercy or quarter to the sword. The first object of his fury was John Sprint, of his own house, whom he called before him to answer for his doctrine ; next came * Bodl. 4to. A. 68, Th. f Wood's Ath. Oxon. 408. J Bishop of Oxford, and afterwards Bishop of Durham ; Surtees' Durham, xci. ; Fuller's Worthies. CHURCH. 287 Robert Troutbeck, of Queen s ; and then, as he called him, the most Calvinistic Provost — Henry Airay. Sprint, it would seem, found some loop- hole in his conscience by which he made his escape. The two Queen's-men stood to their guns, resolved to conquer or to die for their creed ; and did not only maintain in their preachings what Sprint had said and done, but also spoke many things to the disgrace of the Vice- Chancellor; among which was, that he had, to no other end and purpose, got the degree of Bachelor and Doctor of Divinity without exercise done for them, only but that he might sooner obtain the Vice- Chancellorship, and, conse- quently, show his authority in unjust proceedings*. The consequence of this bold defence was, that the Provost was excused and made no submission. Howson's time of office expired, but not the perse- cutions. The tide had only set in another direction. In 1606, Henry Airay was himself elected Vice- Chancellor, and poor Laud (whose life seemed but a transition from one scrape into another) was summoned to appear and plead before him to a charge of Popery, founded on some expressions in a sermon at Oxford. Whether he chose his arrows from Airay's quiver, or hurled the argumentum ad hominem with as vigorous an arm, and with the precision that the Vice- Chancellor had done at the head of Howson, we know not; fas est ab hoste * See Wood's Ath. Oxon. 288 HENRY AIRAY. doceri was a lesson he had no doubt been taught ere this. The story is so well told by Mr. Le Bas, in his " Life of Archbishop Laud," that we will venture to give it at length : — " In the year 1606 Laud was again exposed to the assault of his vigi- lant adversaries. On the 21 st October, in this year (1606), he delivered a sermon at St. Mary's, which was seized upon as an additional proof of his Komish propensities. The Vice- Chancellor in that year was Dr. Henry Airay, the Provost of Queen's College, a man of austere habits, recluse life, and high Calvinistic opinions. Among his publications was a ' Treatise on bowing at the name of Jesus,' a practice in which he conceived there was as much idolatry as in worshipping the brazen serpent. The discourse of Laud had the effect of arraying Dr. Airay among the number of his professed adversaries, with what justice it is impossible for us to judge as the composition has not been preserved. Thus much, however, is known, that in some way or other Laud was questioned by the Vice- Chan- cellor, but defended himself with such success that the storm, after growling for some time over his head, rolled away and left him untouched by any public censure;" and in a note Le Bas adds: — " This affair is thus triflingly noticed by Laud in his Diary, ' The quarrel Dr. Airay picked with me about my sermon at St. Mary's, Oct r - 21, 1606*. " * Le Bas's Life of Laud, ch. L, 12mo. 1836. CHURCH. 289 In 1604, when King James, in commemoration of his escape from the Gowrie conspiracy*, not only appointed an anniversary, but that there should always he a sermon and service on Tuesdays throughout the year, Dr. Airay introduced this last custom into Oxford, first at All Saints' Church and then at St. Mary's, with a rule that the sermons should he preached by the Divines of the Colleges in their respective turnsf. Writers concur in praising him for wisdom, and dexterity in the government of his College ; and that in his time many learned ministers were sent into the Church, and many worthy gentlemen into the Commonwealth. He was Provost of Queen's College from March 1598-9 to October 1616, when and where he died, at the age of fifty-seven years. In addition to the two works already noticed, he wrote a third, entitled " The just and necessary Apology touching his suit in Law for the Rectory of Charlton-on-Otmore, in Oxfordshire!. His Lectures were published after his death by Christo- pher Potter, with an Epistle of his own composition prefixed to them. By his will, he bequeathed to the College some lands lying in Garsington, near Oxford|| ; and to the Chapelry of Kentmere, his * In 1582, Hume Hist. t Biog. Diet. + Bodl. 8vo. F. 12, Art. 13, s. || Wood's Hist, and Ant. Oxon. VOL. I. O 290 HENRY AIRAY. native place, forty shillings a year for a monthly sermon*. For aught that we can learn, he was never married. There was afterwards (1621 — 1670) a Christopher Airay, who was horn at Clifton, and was Fellow of Queen's ; he was also author of the " Fasciculus praceptorum logicalium in gratiam juventutis Academicce compositus," &c. There was also a Christopher Airay, nephew to Dr. Adam Airay (Principal of Edmund Hall), who in 1660 contributed to enlarge the buildings of the College. Wood seems to think both were related to the Provostf. On a brass plate is the following SumifrtiBu: D. O. M. S. Quod mortale habuit hie deposuit Donee Christo iterum adveniente Resurgat Henrtcus Airay, S. T. D. Collegii hujus per annos, Sexdecim Praepositus Vivere desiit semper victurus, A. MDCXVI. VI. Id. Oct. Reliquias viri Reverendi ac optime de se Meriti hoc marmore texit Collegium. * Dr. Burn's History, 137. + Wood's Ath. Oxon. Annals of Colleges and Halls ; Biog. Diet. CHURCH. 291 In the College Chapel there is a black marble monument, erected to his memory by the College. The figure of him is most striking, bending in a most sublime posture of devotion, with the words Te Sequar ascending to Heaven in prayer ; above his head are the forms of clouds, and the figure of Elias in the act of translation to the world of spirits. The following words are written under- neath : — " Ignis et efflantes purgant aera venti, Transitus in ccelum promptior inde patet." There is a line engraving of it in the College, executed with equal fidelity and power, a proof copy whereof is in our possession. On the South wall of the Chapel there is another, put up by Christopher Potter, with the following Sttsrriptinit: Memoriae viri sanctitate etprudentia clarissimi Henrici Airay, S. Theol. D. hujus collegii Prsepositi vigilantiss. Reverendi Robinsoni, [ut Elias Elisha] successoris et semuli, Clariss. Patruelis Christopher Potter, hujus Coll. Socius, hoc amoris et observantiee testimonium M. Q. posuit. Non satis Elishae est Eliee palla relicta, Dum [licet in coelum raptus] amicus abest, 292 HENRY AIRAY. Tristis agit quseritque amissum turturis instar Consortem, ac moriens Te sequab orbus, ait. Splendeat ut mundo pietas imitabilis Aibye, In laudem Christi hoc aere perennis erit. Mortalitatem exuit anno 1616, 6to. Idus Octob. natus an, 57 et hie sepult. alterum Messise adventum spectat CJjrtstnpJj^r fnttu*. DEAN OF WORCESTER AND DURHAM, — CHAPLAIN IN ORDINARY TO KING CHARLES THE FIRST, &C. 1590—1645. " This zealot Is of a mongrel divers kind. Clerick before and lay behind, A lawless linsey-woolsey brother, Half of one order, half another : A creature of amphibious nature, On land a beast, a fish in water ; That always prays on Grace or Sin, A sheep without, a wolf withinf." 'hat industrious and exact Antiquary and Biographer, Anthony Wood, says of this our fellow-countryman, " that he was a person es- teemed hy all that knew him to he learned and religious, — exemplary in his behaviour and dis- course, — courteous in his carriage, and of a sweet and obliging nature and comely presence." And (upon the authority of Fuller) let us add, a friend to the poor ; — yet, withal, a man with faults un- whipped of justice. One who so acted — " As if hypocrisie and nonsense Had got tli' advowson of his conscience ;" * See Wood's Ath. Oxon. -f Hudibras. 294 CHRISTOPHER POTTER. whose defects were in the heart, not in the brain. He crawled into the Provostship of his College by some underhand dealing with his unsuspecting uncle ; he became a dignitary of the Church by the sacrifice of his creed ; from a Puritan he be- came an Armenian ; from a Koundhead he became a Royalist, — changes brought about by court in- fluence, and put on to please Archbishop Laud*. We love the man who has the moral courage to think for himself, and to reduce his thoughts to practice ; whether right or wrong, he is entitled to respect, if not sympathy : such a man is indeed worthy of Reason, — Reason the last and best gift of Heaven ! But the world expects him in such a crisis to be not only pure, but, like Csesar's wife, beyond suspicion. He must rebut the presumption arising from Ins fallen nature, or expect its penal- ties. Laud's creature, as Potter is sometimes called, was not beyond suspicion. Although in a letter to Mr. Vicars, he says he was more sinned against than sinning, and elaborately denies the desertion of his former principles ; yet no one, after a calm review of his life, can seriously doubt but that the sprinkling of Court Holy water, like an exorcism, had enchanted and conjured him into this new shapef. Upon the whole, he seems to have had a trifling share (if any) in that admirable * Wood, f Wordsworth's " Life of Sanderson," 504, n. CHURCH. 295 nobility of soul, that indomitable perseverance, that sturdy self-reliance, and bold independence of spirit, which were at once the cause and secret of many of our fellow-countrymen of that age rearing themselves from a lowly condition of life to the highest offices in Church and State. If he had any virtue, it was not the virtue of the sturdy oak, but that of the creeping parasyte, — living by the embrace he gave. He was the nephew of the good and great Barnaby Potter, Bishop of Carlisle*. He was born within the barony of Kendal, about the year 1591. That the barony of Kendal was the place of his birth, all writers agree in saying, but the where- abouts is a mystery wliich we have endeavoured in a former page to solve. With respect to his good old uncle, as a reference to the passage will show, we had no difficulty in finding a fitting origin, should any one be dissatisfied with Winster as his native placet. But with the nephew it is other- wise : his character obliges us (to do what pleaders were wont to do, in order to give the superior Courts jurisdiction over causes of action arising abroad) it obliges us to lay the venue, or give him a settlement in the parish of Stepney, in the county of Middlesex^. Westmester, wherever it may turn * See Life. + See p. 97. + In pleading, it used to be stated thus : " At Paris, in the Kingdom of France, — to wit, in the parish of Stepney, in the county of Middlesex;" from this probably arises the common saying and belief that if a man has no parish he belongs to Stepney. 296 CHRISTOPHER POTTER. out to be, was the birth-place of both uncle and nephew. Kendal is assigned to them by some ; but in this we do not agree, for reasons expressed more at large in a former page. Being but twelve years younger than his uncle, and being a zealous Puritan in the early part of his ministry in the church, the probability is, — for we can place it no higher, — that the village school of his native place was Scene I. Act I. of the Drama of Life, and that Mr. Maxwell (the puritanical tutor of the Bishop) was also the puritanical tutor of the nephew. In 1606, at the age of fifteen, he became Clerk of Queen's College, Oxford, — where he was after- wards Tarbarder, Chaplain, Fellow, and Provost. He took his M.A. degree in 1613. Soon after this he entered into Holy Orders, with duty at Abingdon, in Berkshire, where he was esteemed a zealous Puritanical lecturer, and much resorted to for his edifying way of preaching. It is remarkable that his uncle, and many others of our fellow-countrymen of the Calvinistic-Puritan sect, began their ministry in the Church at Abing- don. Not being a Queen's College living, we are a good deal at a loss to account for it ; perhaps it was the accident of an accident whose history has passed away, or arose from that habit of clanship with which the genius of the North is said to unite her children. In 1620, he took his B.D., and in 1627 hisD.D. degree. CHURCH. 297 On the 17th January, 1626, lie became Provost of his College, on the resignation of his uncle. When the College little expected a vacancy, his uncle suddenly resigned, " self- deny in gly, judging that his Church had more need of him as a Minis- ter, than the College as a Provost ;" or, as others say with more truth and honesty, — to make way for his nephew. Suspicion is not guilt, nor assertion proof; but none can read the account of this transaction and be satisfied, except of one thing, that the race is not always to the swift, nor the battle to the strong. With a slight change, one may after this well exclaim with Montaigne : " Chez les pretres fortune vault Men mieux que la raison." As he died in 1645, he was Provost of the College nearly twenty years. His epitaph says he was durus studiorum exactor ; and history assures us that the College flourished during his reign. But we set no great price upon this, for Colleges, like Kingdoms, sometimes flourish from other causes than the virtue or ability of their head ; sometimes, indeed, in very spite of their vices and ignorance. The Provost had now cast his bread on the waters. Henceforth, he was always fishing or mending Ins net ; and by practice became an adept in the art and mystery of courtship. The little pilot boats that he sent up to discover the forces and currents of the atmosphere above disclosed to him that they were now setting strong around the o 5 298 CHRISTOPHER POTTER. weather-beaten towers of Lambeth Palace ; and that, if he wished to be secure against the coming storm, or to feather his nest, he must lose no time in setting his sails to that favored haven. This tack he took. After a great deal of seeking (says Wood), he was made Laud's creature ; and, there- fore, by the precise party was esteemed an Armenian. Laud was now, be it remembered, Archbishop of Canterbury. The first crumb that fell from the table at Lambeth, was a Chaplaincy in Ordinary to his Majesty, with a promise of a Canonry of Wind- sor ; and then came a windfall in the Deanery of Worcester, which he obtained in the latter end of the year 1635. So far, so good; but his fortune was not to end here. The eagle, according to D'Alembert, is not the only animal that reaches the top of the pyramid. In the year 1640, he was Vice- Chancellor of the University of Oxford. This seems to have been anything but a bed of roses to him (a bed of thorns rather) ; troubles to him, caused in a great measure by the Puritanical and factious party of the University and city of Oxford. After this, the rebellion broke out, and he is said to have suffered much for the King's cause. For his sufferings, or under colour of his suffering in the Eoyal cause, in the month of January 1645, he was designed and nominated by his Majesty to the Deanery of Durham. But time and tide wait not even for courtiers, and he died before he was installed. CHURCH. 299 What his sufferings were is not recorded ; the stricken deer suffers from the buffetings and blows of his own herd, and it may be that the precise party, to which Potter was so zealously devoted before the commencement of his idolatry to Laud, used him in some such way. Dr. Dummerar, the worthy Vicar of Martindale cum Moultrassie, (according to Sir Walter Scott) was, in those self- same evil days and evil times, deprived of his living; and had, moreover, the poignant mortifica- tion of seeing Master Nehemiah Solsgrace (" the intrusive old Puritan howlet") there in his stead; and, what was more, the said Nehemiah darkening the gates of Martindale Castle*. The Vicar indeed was truly to be pitied ! But we do not find that our fellow-countryman, Christopher, lost any cure of souls, nor any Lambeth dainties in the Koyalist cause, nor that he was ever obliged to hide himself in the Eldon Hole, to escape the vengeance of those false crop-eared hypocrites, which infested the kingdom at that time, and to wait until Providence should proclaim to the world — " The King shall enjoy his own again." However, the Dean of Worcester made the powers that be regard him as a martyr for con- science-sake, and that is some proof of his ability. It is stated, however, upon good authority, that * Peveril of the Peak. 300 CHRISTOPHER POTTER. upon breaking out of the civil wars, he sent all his plate to the King, and declared that he would rather, like Diogenes, drink in the hollow of his hand than that his Majesty should want. A prudent course perhaps, if he was in danger and threatened with (as it is admitted he was) a sequestration for his debts. He was remarkable, as already noticed, for his charity to the poor. Fuller communicates to us this trait in his character in the following words, r ' for though he had a wife and many children, and expected daily to he sequestered, yet he con- tinued his usual liberality to them, having, on hearing Dr. Hammond's sermon at St. Paul's, been persuaded by the truth of that divine's assertion, that charity to the poor was the way to grow rich." His charity did not certainly begin at home. What a multitude of sins this charity doth cover ! What folly ! what knavery ! what dishonesty ! what hypocrisy ! What a mistaken notion of charity 1 He married Elizabeth, daughter of Dr. Charles Sorribanke, Canon of Windsor, who survived him ; and became the wife of his successor in College, the great and learned Dr. Gerard Langbaine. To her former husband she bore a large family ; their son Charles (student of Christ Church) afterwards turned Papist, joined Crofts alias James Duke of Monmouth, and was made one of the ushers to Henrietta Maria, the Queen-Mother of England. The Provost wrote and published CHURCH. 301 A Sermon at the Consecration of Barnabas Potter, D.D. Bishop of Carlisle, at Ely House, in Holborn, 15 March, 1628, on John xxi. 17." Lond. 1629. 8vo. " An answer to Edmund Knott's * Charity Mis- taken,' entitled ' Want of Charity justly charged on all such Komanists as dare affirm that Protes- tancy destroyeth Salvation,' &c. Oxon. 1683. 8vo. Second Edition, 1634, revised and corrected at the instance of his friend Laud, and dedicated to Charles I*." He also translated from the Italian into English " The History of the Quarrels of P. Paul V. with the State of Venice." Lond. 1626, by Eather Paul Scarp. There were several unpublished MSS. at the time of his death : " A Survey of the Platform of Predestination," and three letters on the same subject, which afterwaids coming into the hands of Twisse, or Twissius, of Newbury, were answered by him. He also wrote his " Vindication," by way of a letter to Mr, Vicars (Bishop Carleton's son), touching the points of God's Eree Grace, and Man's Eree Will, which seems to be an answer to Mr. Vicars' " Strictures on the Sermon preached at Ely House, on his Uncle's Consecration to the See of Carlislef." * See Life of Chillingworth, Wood's Ath. Oxon , and Fuller's Worthies. + See 5 Wordsworth's Eccl. Hist. p. 504 n. (Sanderson.) 302 CHRISTOPHER POTTER. " And a letter relating to the privileges of the University of Oxford*." He died on the 3rd March 1645, and was buried in Queen's College Chapel, where we find a monument, with the following elaborate, fulsome, and not the most grammatical gnHrriptintt: Christophori Potter, S. S. The. Professoris Coll. Reginae Oxon. Propositi, Ecclesiae Wigorniensis Decani, Dunelmensis designati, Sereniss. Regise Mti. a Sacris, Qui Craterum cum Hephestione miscens, QiKofiaaikevG idem et &t\oicapo\ov Serius pietatis cultor, rigidus honesti servator, Durus studiorum exactor, sobrius veritatis propugnator, Pacis servator pervicax, Literarum omnium divinarum humanarumque condus, Erga inopes universim, literatos imprimis Benignissimus facultatum promus ; Mox ut quas ipse colebat unice virtutes esse desierunt. Mendicitate, exilio, carceri, sseculoque (Et si quid ipso adliuc tristius impendente providebat) Propitia numinis indulgentia. opportune praereptus, Post justissimam Ev%oav In qua singula ipsi supra vota successerant Ev9a.va.cnav demum pro voto sortitus Mortalitatem exuit. * Wood's Ath. Oxon. (Edit. Bliss.) (luarfr Eattgliaitu. D.D., PROVOST OF QUEEN'S COLLEGE, OXFORD; KEEPER OF THE UNIVERSITY ARCHIVES, &C. 1008—1657. "Of right and wrong he taught, Truths as refined as ever Athens heard; And (strange to tell !) he practised what he preached." Armstrong. /fT^ERARD Langbaine was one of the brightest VJy ornaments of the University of Oxford in his day ; need we add, of his native county ? He succeeded the Dean of Worcester in the Pro- vostship of his College, and married his widow ; but here begins and ends the similarity of their fortunes and character. The one became the head of the institution by nepotism; the other by the force of his own genius : the one was ever ready to cast his skin for the sweet aspect of princes; the other would rather have been a worm and fed upon a dunghill than barter either for the first fruits of the Church. The one idolized Laud, and wor- shipped in turn the people and the Monarch ; the 304 GERARD LANGBAINE. other worshipped his God with all his might and with all his strength ; but mark, the one became Dean of Worcester and Dean of Durham, the other made Keeper of the University archives ! So unevenly are the good things of this world distri- buted, especially when they are in the hands of court minions, who are more pleased with the incense of flattery than the stern language of truth. But let us see what others thought of him, and what he did to deserve their praise. " He was (says Wood) in general esteem for his great learning and honesty, skill in satisfying doubts, and discretion in the composure of controversies, especially those between the two bodies — the Uni- versity and City. He was also an excellent linguist, an able philosopher and divine, a good common lawyer, a public- spirited man, a lover of learning and learned men ; beloved by Dr. Usher, Selden, and the great Goliahs of literature. He was also an excellent antiquary, and as judicious in his writings as indefatigable in his studies as in immense undertakings." He was the son of William Langbaine, a small statesman, at Barton-Kirke, and was born there in the year 1608*. There appears to have been no school there * Dr. Adam Airay and Dr. William Lancaster, Provost of Queen's, were natives of this parish (Martindale). Dr. Dawes, Archdeacon of Carlisle, was also a native of this parish. See Burn's Hist. (Barton). CHURCH. 305 until one was founded by himself and Dr. Lancelot Dawes in 1649. This we infer from the fact, that he was sent abroad for his education ; for it is the free school at Blencow, in Cumberland, that has the honour of his early education. Here he remained until he was eighteen years of age, or thereabouts, when he removed to Queen's College Oxford. All we know of his College life is, that he graduated, and successively became Tabarder, Fellow, and Provost of his College — honored with the last appointment in 1645, at the early age of thirty-seven; and, as already noted, succeeding the Dean of Worcester, and not by any intrigue or nepotism, but by the force of his own merits and by the unanimous approbation of all concerned and of all who knew him. The exact time when he married the widow of his predecessor, we are unable to point out; certain however it is, that he did marry her, and that she survived him also. To her former husband she bore a large family ; to Dr. Langbaine, so far as our inquiries instruct us, none. Langbaine was elected, as already suggested, Keeper of the Archives or Kecords of the Uni- versity, an office of no great emolument but one suited to his taste and habits of industry, as will partly appear from the learned works he has left behind him. His first work (being twenty-seven or twenty- eight years of age) was a translation of Longinus into Latin, with notes, entitled " Notse 306 GERARD LANGBAINE. in librum Dionysii Longini de grandi eloquentia sive sublimi dicendi genere, etc. Oxon. 1636 and 1638. 8vo*." The next was " A brief Discourse relating to the Times of King Edward VI., or the State of the Times as they stood in the Keign of King Edward VI.," by way of preface to a book, entitled " The true Subject to the Eebel," written by Sir John Cheek, Knt. Oxon. 1641. " Life of Sir John Cheek," revised, corrected, and published by Langbaine, with the same. " Episcopal Inheritance." 1641. Oxon. To which is added, " A Determination of the late learned Bishop of Salisbury (D'avenant) Englished;" both reprinted in Lond. 1680. " Review of the Covenant." 1644 ; and in Lond. 1661. " Answers of the Chancellor, Masters, and Scholars of the University of Oxford to the Petition, l Articles of Grievance and Reasons of the City of Oxford.' " 1649. " A Defence of the Rights and Privileges of the University of Oxford." Oxon. 1690. " Qusestiones Oxonise pro more solenni in Ves- periis propositi, an. 1651." Oxon. 1658. Published with some Verses of Langbaine, by Barlow, who * It is remarkable that one of the first efforts of his fellow- countryman, Edmund Gibson, was a translation of " Quintilian de oratore." CHURCH. 307 succeeded him as Provost, and was afterwards Bishop of Carlisle. ' Platonicorum aliquot, qui etiamnum supersunt, authorum Greecorum imprimis mox et Latinorum syllabus alphabeticus." Oxon. 1667. 8vo. It was drawn up at the desire of Arch. Usher, but left imperfect ; being found amongst his papers it was with some few necessary alterations placed at the end of " Alcinoi in Platonicam Philosophicam in- troductio," published by Dr. Fell, Dean of Ch. Ch. " The Foundation of the University of Oxford, with a Catalogue of the Principal Founders and Special Benefactors of all the Colleges and total number of Students, &c." Lond. 1651. " The Foundation of the University of Cam- bridge, with a Catalogue, &c." Usher's " Chronologia Sacra" was much la- boured at by him, but dying before completion it was published by his friend Barlow. He also translated into Latin " Beasons of the present Judgment of the University, concerning the solemn League and Covenant, &c," and assisted Sanderson and Zouch in the composition of them. Also into English, " A Beview of the Council of Trent," written in French by a learned Boman Catholic. Oxon. 1638. Fol. He also left behind him thirteen quartos and eight octavos in MS., with innumerable collections in loose papers, all written with his own hand, " in 308 GERARD LANGBAINE. order to some great work, which he intended, if life had been spared, to have published." He also had made several catalogues of MSS. in various libraries, and of printed books, in order, as it is supposed, for an universal catalogue in all kinds of learning. It is said he took a great deal of pains in the continuation of Bryan Twyne's Apol. Antiq. Acad. Oxon. But this is denied upon the authority of Dr. Barlow and Dr. Lamplugh, who had his library after his death. He was generally esteemed a good lawyer ; and there is no doubt that he wrote so much of Arthur Duck's " De usu et authoritate juris civilis Ro- manorum in Dominiis Principum Christianorum," lib. ii., Lond. 1653 and 1679, 8vo., Leyd. 1654, Lips. 1668, as to deserve the name of co-author. In the midst of all this he did not forget the wants of his home — wants probably he himself keenly felt. " The school at Barton (says Dr. Burn) was founded by Gerard Langbaine, D.D., Provost of Queen's College Oxon, a native of this parish, and the aforesaid Lancelot Dawes, in the year 1649 # ." This would be three or four years after he became Provost. How much it is to be regretted that College Principals of the present day do not pay more attention to village schools ! There * Bum, 40G (Barton). CHURCH. 309 is the root of good and evil ; it is there where the foundations of knowledge are laid; it is there where the seeds of wisdom are sown, and not in the Universities according to the present regime. He gave to the school £.30, and purchased an estate at Culgaith, of the then value of £.20 a year, half to the use of the school and half thereof to bind out two parish apprentices ; and thus " Prov'd by the ends of being to have been*." This good and learned man died on the 10 th of February, 1657, at the early age of forty-nine. He was succeeded in the Provostship by Barlow (afterwards Bishop of Carlisle), whose life will be found in a former page. Dr. Langbaine was buried in Queen's College Chapel, where there is a monument with the following Snmiflfan: D. 0. M. S. Gebakdo Langbainio, S.S.J., Professori, €oll. Reg. per xii. annos Prseposito Viro antiqua. pietate, summa integritate, Ingenio literarum omnium capaci, Omnibus supra fidem exculto. ■* Dr. Dawes gave £.25 and also £.25 yearly to this school out of the tithes of the estate called Barton- Kirke. Dr. Adam Airay also gave to it the interest of £.100, and Dr. Lancaster gave an additional sum ('how much does not appear) to augment the master's salary. The parishioners seem also to have subscribed something. See Burn (Barton). -310 GERARD LANGBAINE. Judicio acerrimo, industria animo pari, Cui corpus (quamvis validum) impar: Literis juvandis propagandisque nato, Qui temporibus suis omnia, Et naturam suam omnibus Restituere poterat. In quo nee collegium cui praefuit, Nee Academia cui se impendit, Vel fidem unquam desideravit vel successum, Qui sceculo difficillimo inter aestuantes rerum fluctus Clavum rectum tenuit Vixit annos L.M. 1. D. VI. Animam Deo reddidit A.D. IV. Id. Febr. A.S. CIO. IOCLVII. H. M. P. conjux meestissima. « if M. %. ntox. +m-«- A. Abbott, Archbishop Abingdon .... Acre customary, what Admittance to customary freeholds Age of Reason, by Paine Agricultural Societies Agricultural Essays, by Watson .... Air of the County Airay, Henry Adam Ewan William . Alienation, fines due on Almoner of Henry VII. Ambassadors, their duties . Ambleside .... Ancients, what . Anecdotes of Watson's Life 187, Anglo-Saxon Literature 30, Appleby. Wood cut of . Birth-place of Bishop Langton Birth-place of Waugh PAGE 102, 285 . 99 25 210 4 217 4 282 ib. 250 ib. 29 71 76 10 26 205 150 69 134 Appleby. Some say of Baynbrigg . School, Worthies educated at. S ee B aynbrigg, B ar- low, Smith, Waugh, Fleming. School-boy's Speech Donations to School 123, Apology for the Bible, by Watson . . . 205, 210 Apologies for Christianity, by Watson Apology for Dr. Codex . Archseologia, by Dr. Nash . Archdeacon of Oxford Archbishops. Baynbrigg, of York . Curwen, of Dublin . Ashby, mines at Property of Whitewall, or Whitewa', (Bishop Smith's birth- place, in the parish of) 126 Donation to Poor and Schools 130 Ascue, Anne . . .59 Assizes, where held . . 32 Judges' Lodgings . . ib. 60 30 130 205 146 64 113 66 84 11 ib. B. Backhouse, Mr. . . 175, 191 Bampton. Supposed birth-place of Curwen . . .83 Bampton. That of all the Gibsons' . 146 School at . . .147 Church, Monuments, &c. 145 312 INDEX. PAGE Bankfoot. John Hill, Esq. Lord of the Manor of Asby . 11 Bargain and Sale, and ad- mittance to tenant-right lands . . . .25 Barlow, Bishop. Portrait of . . .113 Birth, education . . 114 His character as a Divine and Civilian . .118 His writings . . . ib. His death . . . 122 His bequests . . . ib. Monument . . . ib. Barlow, Dr. William . .122 Barony of Kendal 24, 83, 97 of Appleby 24, 83, 97 . 282, 310 Barton, School at Baynbrigg (Cardinal of St. Praxede) His birth and education His rapid promotion Archbishop of York Cardinal of St. Praxis Ambassador at Rome Legate of the Ecclesiasti- cal Army His death Monument Blencarn Fell Bodleian Library 67 69 71 90 74 73 . 75 . 79 . 80 . 8 122, 286 PAGE Boleyn, Ann . 35, 47, 53 Bonner, Bishop . . . 243 Boons, what . . .29 Bottom of Westmorland 23, 97 Brazen-nose College, Oxford 84 Bray, Vicar of . . .81 Bread, sort of used in the County . . . .23 Breakspear, Nicholas . . 75 Brigantes . . . .16 Brigsteer Peat-Leader's Speech . . . .31 Britannia, Camden's . . 158 Broughton, Hugh . 254, 283 Brougham, Prebendary 121, 123 Castle . . 17 Browne, Archbishojj of Dublin . . . .89 Cox's Life of . . .90 Maltreated by Curwen . 89 Brydge's Northamptonshire 38,64 Bugden . . .116, 122 Burleigh, Lord 44, 64, 237, 269 Burgh, Lord De . . .44 Husband to Kateryn Parr 45 Family of . . . ib. Death of ... ib. Burn, Dr. . . 69,83,97,160 His Eccl. Law . .164 His authority as a Law writer . . . .161 c. Caldbeck, Rector of . . 135 Calgarth Park . . 221, 226 Calvinism .... 285 Cambridge (See Colleges and Professors) Camden . . . 1, 32 His Britannia . . 158 Canterbury, Archbishops of. Tenison, Wake . . 165 Canterbury, Archbishops of. Offered to Gibson, and re- fused . . . .169 Cantilena, rustica . . 152 Cardinal of St. Praxis 78, 81 C arleton, Bishop of Chiches- ter 231,254, ] 29, 283 Carlisle, Bishops of — Potter, Smith, WaughjFleming 129. INDEX. 313 Carlisle. School at, donations to . 130 Jefferson's History of 130, 16 Cathedral at . . . 139 Eailway . . . .19 Carte 48 Cashel, Archbishop of . 81 Casterton Hall, family of .171 Castle — Kendal, Appleby, Rose . 37, 134, 131, 138 Catherine Howard . .35 of Arragon . .35 Chalybeate Spring . . 33 Chambers, Ephraim 95, 175, 191 Chancellor, Lord (Curwen) 89 Char . . . 13 Charles, King 115 Chemistry, Cambridge, Pro- fessor of . 213 Essays, by Watson . 213 Christianity, Apology for, by Watson . . . 205, 209 Chronicon Saxonicum 150, 153 ChronologiaAnglo-Saxonica 155 Ciaconius . 74 Civil Law . 197 Clark's Mod. Div. 95 C loathing . 24 Clonfert, Bishop of 109 Coal Fell . 9 Cobden, Dr. 166 Codex, Gibson's . 145, 162 Apology for Dr. Codex . 146 Colleges. Christ Church. 235 Queen's, Oxford 33, 69, 98, 114, 126,135, 140,150,113 Trinity, Cambridge 176, 192 St. John's, Cambridge 110 PAGE Colleges. Brase-nose . . .84 Magdalen, Cambridge . 193 Collinson, Dr. . . .279 Copper, mines at Asby . 11 Copyhold and customary tenure . . . .25 Cotton's,FastiEcc.Hib.81,93,109 Convocation . . .159 Coralloid bodies . .12 Cotton's Kendal . . 33 County Court . .32 Covent Garden . . .107 Cox's Life of Archp. Brown 90 Cranmer . . . .89 Cromwell, Anna . . . 143 Life of Oliver . 164 Richard . . ib. Cross, Fell . . .8, 17. Crosby, Ravensworth . . 33 Crow, Dr 170 Cumberland . . 2, 3, 16 Average annual value of land .... 4 Population of . . 20 Fells of . . . .6 Dialect .... 30 Privileges of Natives in the two Universities . 33 Curwen. His family, &c. . . 82 His conduct in the Refor- mation . . .85 His violence as Arch- bishop of Dublin . . 89 Lord Chancellor . 91 Made Bishop of Oxford . 93 Death, monument, &c. . ib. Customary Lands . . 25 D. D'Alton ... 82, 90 Dacre, Lord . . .41 Dallam Tower, family of 188, 210 VOL. I. Dallam Tower, family of, Bishop Watson's marriage into . . . .210 314 INDEX. Dallam Tower, familyof, Sir George Fleming's marriage into . . . .138 Exhibitions by . . 192 Dalrymple's Answer to Gib- bon .... 208 Dawson, Bishop . . 109 Jacob . . , ib. Debateable land . . . 260 PAGE Dolben, Judge ... 28 Domesday Book. . 154-6 Donoughmore, Prebendary of . . ' . . .109 Down, Dean of . Drummond Dufton Fell Durham, Bishop of Dugdale, Sir W. 109 152 7 238 38 E. Eamont Easington . Ecclesiastical Synod . ■ Institute 12 241 159 165 12 91 Eden, river Edmonds, Eliz. . Edmund Hall, Oxford 99,138,284 Edward, Prince . . . 57 Egglesfield, Robert . . 69 Eicke's Eccl. Re>-£ ■ • 3 ^ J (Potter MU^t-- 2 £ ^y x 2o^rc^^ If 3 JW Are* <&«£■<&<* < f> £<&"* <*"$ ' ' **