Dean of Ely, his second wife is a relation of Mr. Lort, and the Abp. is a most hearty friend to the Dean. The Abp. offered him the Rectory of St. Dunstan's in the East, vacant by the Archd. Jortin's death; but as it would have vacated his Fellowship, by being too much in the King's books, Mr. Winstanley quitted St. Matthew's to accommodate it, and took St. Dunstan's. "In the preface, p. 8, of the new edition of the Biographia Britannica, under the auspices of independent teachers, they ostentatiously hold forth the name of the Rev. Mr. Lort, Chaplain to his Grace the Archbishop of Canterbury, at full length, as contributor to the work: which is only that the members of the Established Church may be deceived, in believing that it was promoted and set on foot by that persuasion. "Dr. Lort told me, Dec. 3, 1780, that he had a paper in the Gent. Mag. of Nov. signed Historicus, upon Wm. of Worcester; and that the letter signed B. in the same Mag. of Nov. upon Pul pit Cushions and Coffee, was by George Ashby of Barrow. "Gent. Mag. for 1780, p. 513, Historicus by him, as he told me, Dec. 3, 1780. 94. Wm. Heberden, M. D. Fell. of St. John's. "This gentleman practised with so great success his profession at Cambridge, that for many years before he left the place, which he did with regret, as he told me often both before and since, he was invited by men of the greatest name in London of his profes sion to come there, as Drs. Wilmot, Mead, &c. He left Cambridge in 1749, and lived in Cecil Street. He read every year for many years a course of lectures on the Materia Medica, and collected for that purpose a choice collection of specimens, which he presented in 1750 to St. John's Coll. He was for two or three seasons at Scarborough, as a physician, and met there with abun dant success. A man of great and universal knowledge in books and men; of a sweet and winning aspect and behaviour; most temperate in his way of life, which as a philosopher he carries perhaps into excess. He has printed several small treatises in his way, but never published them. "Remarks on the Pump Water of London, and on the Method of procuring the purest Water, by Wm. Heberden, M. D. Fell. of the Coll. of Physicians, and of the Royal Society. Read at the College, June 22, 1767. This short essay is printed in the London. Chronicle of March 26 and 29, 1768, and in the Medical Transactions published by the College of Physicians in London, vol. i. 8vo. p. 472. “ANTIOHPIAKA, an Essay on Mithridatium and Theriaca. By W. Heber den, M. D. 1745, 8vo. Printed at Cambridge by Mr. Jos, Bentham, but not so said in title. Pages 19. Given to me by Dr. Heberden, April 27, 1745. In my interleaved Carter's Cambridge, at p. 260 I have long ago entered this note.- "Wm. Heberden, M. D. my most worthy friend, long practised with the greatest success at Cambridge, where he also read annually lectures on the Materia Medica at the anatomy schools opposite Queen's College Chapel, and almost contiguous to the S. W. corner of St. Catherine's Hall, one course of which I attended. It was no small piece of good fortune to the physic professor, Dr. Russell Plumptre, who was neither liked, nor had much practice, that Dr. Heberden's great character called him to London, where he had the greatest success and practice. He and I constantly almost spent our evenings at poor Dr, Middleton's, where, if ever we staid supper, was never any thing beside a tart and bread and cheese; both Dr. Heberden and Dr. Middleton being persons of the greatest abstemiousness I ever met with, rarely drinking more than one glass of wine. After Dr. Heberden settled in town, he married a daughter of Mr. Martin of Worcestershire, brother to Mr. Martin of Quy in Cambridgeshire, and I have dined with him several times, while I was Rector of Hornsey, near London, and during my residence there, in Cecil Street. After her death he married a daughter of Francis Wollaston, Esq. of Charter House Square, in Jan. 1760. Dr. Heberden, before he left Cambridge, was very desirous of marrying a daughter of Dr. Clark, Dean of Salisbury, who lived in an house opposite St. Clement's Church; but she did not accord, and married a physician of Salisbury, Dr. Jacob, formerly Fellow of King's College, a younger man, and better person; although Dr. Heberden, á tall, thin, spare man, was perfectly well made, and of a florid countenance, shortsighted. I thought it remarkable that he should ever establish himself in London; because, whenever he had occasion to go thither from Cambridge, as he had frequent calls of that sort, I have heard him say often and often, that the air was so dissimilar to his constitution and lungs, that he could never stay there, but always lodged at some miles distant. Great Genii deal often in paradoxes. He soon reconciled him to an air that so amply filled his pockets. He has a son now at St. John's, March 9, 1773." 95. Charles Plumptre, D. D. Archdeacon of Ely, 1771. Rector of St. Mary, Woolnoth, London. "Dr. Plumptre was son of Mr. Plumptre, Member for Nottingham, educated at Mr. Newcome's school at Hackney, then sent to Clare Hall, where he was my Fellow Collegian, and took his first degree in Arts there, where he was much in the familiarity, friendship, and acquaintance of his school-fellow, and my dear and ever esteemed friend, Tho. Western, of Rivenhall in Essex, Esq. He thence removed to a Fellowship of Queen's College, and was offered the Mastership of that College on the death of Mr. Sedgwick, but had the address to get his brother, Robert Plumptre, who married my nephew Newcome's sister, elected in his stead: he rather chusing to attach himself in his London situation to his great friend, Mr. Charles Yorke, who died, unluckily for him, just as he was made Lord Chancellor of England. The old Lord Hardwick had given him very early the Rectory of Wimpole, and got him the adjoining parish of Whaldon. Wimpole he quitted, and was succeeded in it by his brother Robert, now Master of Queen's. He is now beneficed in London, Archdeacon of Ely, and D. D. How he quitted the Chaplainship of Abp. Secker is related in another place. He is a very worthy man, thin and sharp-nosed, as is his brother; which is a presump tive argument with me, though by no means an infallible one, that the owners of such noses are apt to be snappish, peevish, and positive. I was told by Dr. Gooch, this 6 June, 1771, breakfasting with me, in his way from Ely to Cambridge, that when the Prebend he holds fell vacant, his father gave it to his Chaplain, Dr. Goodall, to hold for him, who was then Archdeacon of Suffolk, and he not of age to take it himself: and that when the Archdeaconry of Ely became vacant, he would have given that to Dr. Goodall also, but thought it not convenient that he should be Archdeacon of two places at once; so bid him look out for an exchange. Dr. Ch. Plumptre was the Prebendary of Norwich, of the gift of Lord Chan. Hardwick, who gave his consent that Dr. Goodall should have the stall, in case Bp. Gooch gave the Archdeaconry of Ely to Dr. Plumptre, who was the younger man. The Dr. said, that if he had not met with an exchange, he would have given the Archdeaconry to Dr. Goodall also, though he had one already. "He died on Tuesday, Sept. 14, 1779, suddenly, being on a visit at Thos. Barrett's, Esq. at Lee, in Kent. "He was also Rector of the sinecure of Orpington in Kent, given him by Abp. Secker. "His nephew, Joseph Plumptre, dining with me at Milton, Sunday, Nov. 21, 1779, told me, that the late Archdeacon, his uncle, had had a slight touch of the palsy about six weeks before his death, and had been declining a year or more. What gave occasion to the report of his dying at Mr. Barrett's was, his having been on an afternoon's visit there, a day or two before. He was buried at Nottingham. I was told that the Archdeacon died rich, and left his fortune to his elder brother, who did not want it; leaving only an hundred pounds apiece to the Master of Queen's daughters, though the said Master had ten or eleven children, and his brother, Septimus Plumptre, Vicar of Mansfield, a large family also: but with him he never was on good terms; and with the Master on ticklish ones, being of a peevish and fretful dispo sition." 96. Tho. Gray, Pembroke Hall, My most ingenious and lamented friend. "Mr. Tho. Warton of Oxford, in the preface, p. iv. of his History of English Poetry, 4to. 1774, gives no bad specimen of his vanity, by pretending to condemn it, when he tells us that Mr. Mason and Mr. Gray both, gave him their own, together with Mr. Pope's plan and scheme for such an History, but that he had rejected them, on finding them incompetent. "In 1778, Mr. Mason put up a monument for him in Westminster Abbey, and made these verses, to be inscribed on it. No more the Grecian Muse unrivall'd reigns: "I am apt to think that the characters of Voiture and Mr. Gray were very similar. They were both little men, very nice and exact in their persons and dress, most lively and agreeable in conversation, (except that Mr. Gray was apt to be satirical,) and both of them full of affectation. What gave occasion to the reflection was the following passage from the 2nd vol. of Melanges d'Historie, et de Litterature, by the Carthusian Dom. Bonaventure d'Argogrie, p. 416, a book that I bought on Mr. Gray's recommendation of it to me. • Madame la Marquise de Sablé avoit accoûtume de reprocher Monsieur de Voiture en riant, qu'il avoit une vanitè de femme: ce que marquoit fort bien son caractere. Il en rioit aussi lui même, et ne croioit pas, que dans un procession qu'il faisoit d'aremer le monde, et toutes ses affectations, ce petit reproche lui fût desavantageuse.' "Reading Gil Blas for the 10th, or possibly 15th time, April 29, 1780, the print of Scipio in the arbour, beginning to tell his own adventures to Gil Blas, Antonia and Beatrix, was so like the countenance of Mr. Gray, that if he had sat for it, it could not |