way serviceable in paying Mr W what You are o kind to collect for him, I shall with pleasure ob erve any directions you shall give; for I know not a more deserving object than he is, though we have numbers of poor clergy in these parts, nor a more charitable office that a person can be employed in. another, and are all seemingly (and I' hope really too) sincere Christians, and sound members of the Established Church, not one Dissenter of any denc mination being amongst them all. 1 have got to the value of 401. for my wife's fortune, but had no real estate or cash of my own, being the youngest of twelve children, born of obscure parents, Letter from Mr. Walker to Mr. and though my income has been but Collinson. SIR, ROBERT WALKER, Curate of Seathwaite. Mr. Whatley was very naturally interested by the character of this clergyman, and more than twenty small, and my family large, yet by a providential blessing upon our diligent Jan. 31, 1755. endeavours, the kindness of my friends, Your's of the 16th instant was com- and a cheap country to live in, we have municated to me by Mr. Cooperson, always had the true peace of life. By and hould have returned an immediate what I have written, (which is a true answer, but the hand of Providence and exact account to the best of my then lying heavy upon an amiable knowledge,) I hope you will not think pledge of conjugal endearments, has your favours to me, out of the late ince taken from me a promising girl, worthy Dr. Stratford's effects, quite miswhich the disconsolate mother too pen- bestowed; for which I must ever grate sively laments the loss of; though we fully own myself your most obliged have yet eight living, all healthy chil- humble servant, dren, whose names and ages are as follows: Zaccheus, aged almost eighteen ; Eliza, sixteen and ten months; Mary, fifteen ; Moses, thirteen and three months; Sarah, ten and three months; Mabel, eight and three months; William Tyson, three and eight months ; and Ann Esther, one and nine months: years after the dates of these letbesides Ann, who died two years and ters, communicated them to his six months ago, and was then between friend, the Rev. D. Watson, Rec. nine and ten; and Eleanor, who died tor of Middleton-Tyas, near Rich25th of this instant January, aged six mond, Yorkshire, who died not years and ten months. Zaccheus, the eldest, is now learning the trade of a tan- many years ago. Mr. Watson, ner, and has two years and a half of his in his reply, dated June 15, 1776, apprenticeship to serve. The annual in- says, come of my chapel at present, as near as I can compute it, may amount to 171 ten of which are paid in cash, 51. from the governors of the bounty of Queen Ann, 21. from Mr. Penny, of Penny-bridge, out of the annual rents, he being lord of the manor, and 31. from the several inhabitants of Scathwaite, settled upon their tenements as a rent charge. A house and gardens 1 value at 41. yearly, and not worth more. I believe the surplice fees and voluntary contributions, one year with the other, may be worth 31. value, as the inhabitants are few in number and the fees very low; this last mentioned article consists chiefly in freewill offerings. I am situated greatly to my satisfaction, with regard to the conduct and behaviour of my auditory, who , not only live in a happy ignorance of the follies and vices of the age, but in mutual peace and good-will one with curious letters you sent me. I have, "I thank you for the copies of the since I received them, met with a cleryears ago, but does not know whether gyman who knew the man about thirty he is living, but says, a son of his is brought up to the church, and in his journey to some bishop, he could not tell which of them, for orders, had lately the misfortune to break his leg. I have no acquaintance in that part of the country, though I am in the same diocese. It is at least eighty miles from hence. The character is an amiable one, and deserves to be handed down to pos terity. Blush! ye stalled prebendaries and fat pluralists! how does such a cha racter, when contrasted with any in the higher spheres, shine in the midst of a crooked and perverse generation.” Such is the account which I Or, in plain prose, and according to these documents, with little more than half of that annual in come. Of the death of this extraordinary man, there is the following notice in the Obituary of the Gentleman's and the Monthly Magazines, for September, 1802. "In a very advanced age, at Seathwaite, near Ulverstone, the Rev George [Robert] Walker, upwards of sixty years curate of that chapel. This venerable man continued to discharge the duties of his sacred function till within the last four years, when, his sight failing, his office was supplied by another clergyman. Mr. Walker, upon a small stipend, with great industry and economy, brought up a large family in a very decent manner, giving to one of his sons, since deceased, an aca demic education, and being contented in his retired situation, without a wish to change it, he was beloved by his family and respected by all who knew him." Monthly Magazine, xiv. 189. In the letter which I have quoted, and another written a few months before, Mr. Watson communicates to Mr. Whatley the following anecdotes of STERNE, with whom they were both well acquainted. "Jan. 10, 1776. taking in washing. Yet this was the " June 15, 1776. old friend. I am glad you are so carefully attended. Had you come sooner, instead of three, this lady and the two you met on the stairs, you might have seen thirteen.'-His wife, it seems, died a papist. I do not wonder at it, for when she fetched me from York to Sutton, to read the papers, I thought her a most eccentric woman. As to the man, considered as man, I have nothing to say, but that he could work himself up to the most exquisite feelings without having any real feelings at all; and nothing is more true X than the story about his mother. But he is gone, and let his blemishes sleep with him. It hurts one, that the body of so extraordinary a genius should not have been distinguished from common bodies, stolen for the use of the surgeons, till it got to Oxford, when one, who knew him well, cried out, ' Alas! this is poor Sterne."" Having now brought together two characters so opposite as the celebrated author of the "Sentimental Journey," the insidious, and therefore the more certain perverter of youth and innocence, and the obscure, but exemplary, "curate of Seathwaite chapel;" I Shall I tell you what York scandal says? viz that Sterre, when possessed cannot close this letter more suitof preferment of 3col. a year, would not ably than in the words with which pay 10l. to release his mother out of Dr, Priestley concludes his " DeOusebridge prison, when poverty was scription of a Chart of Biography.” her only fault, and her character so good, He there observes, as a great that two of her neighbours clubbed to set her at liberty, to gain a livelihood, moral benefit which he derived she had been accustomed to do, by from his labour, in compiling the chart, that it hath a peculi. be changed more; how much arly striking and happy effect more solicitous should we be, even upon the mind to consider how from a passion for true fame, to widely different a tablet of merit have our names written in the would be from a tablet of fame; tablet of real merit, though as yet how many names would be wholly concealed from human view, than obliterated, and how many new in the tablet of mere present and ones, absolutely unknown to the perishable renown; having in proworld, would take their places, spect that time, in which the upon changing the one into the righteous only shall be had in everother. And, considering that these lasting remembrance, while the tablets will at length be chang- name of the wicked shall rut." ed, that the tablet of fame will be Your's, cancelled, and that of merit, or moral worth, produced, never to J. T. RUTT. ACCOUNT OF A BOOK, ATTRIBUTED TO WILLIAM CORRY, ESQ. ON LIBERTY AND NECESSITY. To the Editor of the Monthly Repository. SIR, London, Dec. 22, 1807. A friend put into my hand lately a volume purchased at the sale of the library of the late Mr. Isaac Reed*, of which, as a curiosity, I send you a brief ac count, The volume contains two copies, both printed in London; one in the year 1759, and the other in 1761, of a tract, entitled, "Reflections upon Liberty and Necessity, &c." A motto from Lord Bolingbroke stands on the title page, which has no booksir's name. In the first blank leaf is written, I suppose in his own hand-writing, Isaac Reed, 1795," and, in the same hand, there is a memorandum below, as follows: "By Willm. Corry, Esq. "These volumes were never published or publicly sold. "The author of them put an end to his existence, by means of a pistol, on the 2d of August, 1763, at his house in Argyle-buildings. He was a man of some property, but was said to have imprudently married a woman with whom he had coha bited. "His suicide was a deliberate act. D. H. told me that he had dined, and was about to go to his study, when, being told a pye was about to be brought in, he said he might as well eat some of it. He did so, then went to his study and blew his brains out." The author professes himself to be a "Necessitarian Deist." He is a disciple of Collins, and vindicates his master against Dr. Clarke. He seems to have considered the doctrine of necessity as essentially incompatible with Christianity. He says, page 3, For the Obituary of Mr. Reed, see Monthly Repository, Vol. II. p. 103. The sale of his library lasted many days. It sold for nearly 4,100l. an extra ordinary sum, if it be true, as stated in the Courier newspaper of December 19, 1807, that Mr. Reed's income newer, in any period of his life, exceeded 3001. per annum. EDITOR. "The necessity of human actions changeably formed, and preju is just as good an argument against dices of every kind have taken too revelation, as revelation is in fa- deep root to be entirely eradicat tour of free agency." In answer ed," p. 23. Still he considers the to the objection that necessity doctrine of necessity as a great makes God the author of sin, he and invaluable discovery. "When says, p. 19, that he "can nei- satisfactorily proved and clearly ther conceive the possibility of assented to, (he says, p. 30,) it the creature's sinning against its appears to me to be the sword Creator, nor perceive the least which cutteth all knots, the soludifference between permitting and tion of all doubts, and the panacausing with respect to an ac- cea for every uneasiness of the knowledged first cause of infinite human mind; I mean that it is power and wisdom." He con- productive of these effects, in cedes a great deal as to the mis- case a proper use be made of it; chievous consequences of the doc- whether such use ever is or ever trine of necessity, by his mode of can be made of it, I presume answering this charge against it, not to determine." It would apwhich is, that "the situation of pear from the whole tract that human creatures is such, that it the author had no idea of a future is morally impossible that this life. His style is slovenly, his doctrine should ever be generally allusions disgustingly coarse, and received, probably not by one his jeers at Christianity profane; man in a million," and that, with but there is often a smartness in regard to this one man, the spe- his arguments. He discovers culative belief of it will scarcely throughout a contempt of human be attended by any bad conse. nature. quences, because it is not likely that he will investigate the subject till he arrives "at a time of life when habits of acting are un SIR, I am, Sir, 66 I lately picked up on a bookstall a volume in small quarto, with the following title: A. B. To the Editor of the Monthly Repository. "The Two Books of John Crellius Francus, touching One God the Father, wherein many Things also concerning the Nature of the Son of God and the Holy Spirit are discoursed of. Translated out of Latine into English. Printed in Kosmoburg, at the Sign of the Sun-Beams, in the Year of our Lord MDCLXV." This, I apprehend, is the version of Crellius De uno Deo R. EULOGIUM ON THE LATE MR. GILBERT WAKEFIELD. {From Lectures on the Truly Eminent English Poets, by Percival Stockdale, jus published, in 2 vols. 8vo.) It is impossible for my best personal intercourse between us; feelings not to fling aside every but we interchanged unequivocal paltry caution, (according to their and strong testimonies of the ine. usual ardour,) and pay a short, vitable and general unison of our but sincere tribute to the memory minds, from the prevailing strain of that excellent man*. His of our natures, and of our intellearning was extensive and cle- lectual pursuits. Let political gant; and it was modelled and and ecclesiastical power look polished by a truly attic taste. down from their artificial heights, The integrity of his heart did ho- and learn Christian toleration and nour to the powers of his mind- benevolence from two private (how conquerors, and splendid men, whom a disdain of hypocriusurpers shrink before him!)—that sy, and of misprision of truth, integrity could not have been cor- doomed to walk in the humble rupted by an offer of the empire vale of life. Accept, thou amiof the world! His very faults able and beautiful shade! this were glorious: they were the ingenuous and respectful offering excesses of a mind of unbounded to thy genius and thy virtues! and intrepid generosity; they re- If thy happy and eternal state sulted from a divine enthusiasm admits any sublunary objects to for civil and religious freedom; thy view-that a friend bestowed for public and private virtue. I on thy merit that honest eulogy owe this little tribute to his me. which hireling state-scribblers demory, from gratitude as well as nied thee, will, in some degree, from justice. Our sentiments, deserve thy approbation. The on some of the most important recollection that I was honoured subjects, were diametrically op- with the attention and regard of posite; yet we entertained for Gilbert Wakefield, will always be each other the warmest good propitious to every temper of my wishes; the warmest mutual mind; it will invigorate my acesteem. I add, with regret, that, tive, it will console my languid from our accidental situations and hours, connexions in life, there was no J. M.'S REPLY TO THE CLERGYMAN ON THE DIVINITY OF CHRIST, SIR, To the Editor of the Monthly Repository. LETTER I. Oct. 22, 1807. gation of truth. The admission It is with peculiar pleasure that of my Observations on the Cler I recognize in your publication a gyman's Remarks, might have liberal work open to the investi- been expected from their conge • Gilbert Wakefield. |