12. Henry Coventry, Esq. Fellow of Magdalen College.

"See preface to vol. ii. of Warburton's Divine Legation, after Contents.

"A man of a good-estate: part of it in the Isle of Ely. I used to be much with him at Dr. Middleton's and Mr. Horace Walpole's. When he first came to the University, he was of a religious enthusiastic turn of mind; as was Mr. H. W. also, even so much as to go with Ashton, his then great friend, and now Fellow of Eton, to pray with the prisoners in the castle: afterwards both Mr. Coventry and Mr. W. took to the infidel side of the question. I believe Mr. Coventry was somewhat disordered in his intellects before his death. He used to dress remarkably gay, with much gold lace; had a most prominent Roman nose; was, I think, a bastard son of an Earl of Coventry; at least in a bastard line; and was much of a gentleman. Author of Philemon to Hydaspes. He was uncle to the author of Pompey the Little, who was a Clergyman, and died young.

13. F. Coventry, of Magdalen College.

"Author of Pompey the Little. See Letters to and from John Hughes, Esq. 3 vols. 1773, 2nd edit. vol. ii. p. 41. Gent. Mag. for 1776, P. 64.

"Mr. Coleman of Benet told me, Apr. 29, 1778, that Mr. Duncombe, formerly of CCCC, and Editor of Hughes's Letters, told him, that after his decease there was found among his papers a MS. copy of The Fragment, full of interlineations and additions. As the pamphlet was easy to be had, few people would have been at the pains of transcribing it; therefore it was concluded that Mr. Coventry was the writer of it; tho' it had been given to Mr. Stebbing of Catherine Hall, and Mr. Tarrant of St. John's, who had been Proctor; but was too dull a man to be supposed to be the author of so lively a performance.

"The History of Pompey the Little: Lond. 8vo. 1751. pp. 272. See Gent. Mag. 1780, p. 124."

No. See Coll. Peer. last edit. 1812.

14. John Gilbert Cooper, Fellow Commoner of Trinity College.

"Changed his name from Gilbert to Cooper for an estate. He is a lively young man; but a most accomplished coxcomb; yet a good scholar. He travelled abroad, after he left College; and at his return married, and published some poetry. Author of The Life of Socrates, 8vo. 1749."

15. Abraham Cowley, Trinity College.

"Admissus socius Minor Coll. Trin. Oct. 30, 1640. Major Mar. 16, 1642. Art. Bac. ann. 1639. ·

"The celebrated Mr. Sam. Johnson, who directed the method of The Literary Magazine; and therefore on a subject in which he so greatly excels, may be very naturally supposed to be the writer of an essay on that subject, published in the 3d vol. of that periodical work, p. 198, thus mentions our author: The time seems to be at hand, when justice will be done to Mr. Cowley's prose, as well as poetical writings.'"

16. Collier, of Trinity College, Hebrew Professor, 1780.

"V. An Heroick Address to the Rev. Dr. Rd. Watson, pp. 37. Lond. 4to. 1780.

17. Arthur Wilson.

"Has verses before Edward Benlowe's Theophila, a divine poem. Lond. fol. 1652.

"In his Life by himself in Peck's Desid. Cur. vol. ii. b. 12. p. 6, he says, that when he was 19, and fit for Cambridge, his inclination rather carried him into France,

"In 1631, after leaving the Earl of Essex's service, (at the instigation of the Countess) he entered himself (tho' 36 years o. age, being born in 1595) of Trinity College, in Oxford, where he staid two years. Ath. Ox. ii. 155.”

18. Thomas Western, Esq. Clare Hall,

"I have heard his son, my dearest and most particular good friend, say, that Will. Whiston used frequently to be at their house, where he was always well received. Mr. Western was a particular friend of Mr. Addison, and wrote one or more of the papers which go under the name of the Spectator. His son and heir, my fellow Collegiate at Clare Hall, where he was Fellow Commoner, when I was pensioner, was of Riven-Hall in Essex, where he lives in a very retired way with his family upon a noble and fine estate: is a most worthy son of an ingenious father, being possessed largely of all those accomplishments, which adorn the fine Gentleman, without the pedantry, or conceit of a scholar, to which title he has most undoubted pretensions." V. Spectator, No. 261, v. iv. p. 42. Qu.

19. Wm. Whitehead, Clare Hall.

See his Epistle on Nobility, Lond. 1745. F.

"He is son of a baker in Cambridge, in St. Botolph's parish; educated, as I think, at Winchester, by the interest of Commissary Graves; placed with the Earl of Jersey, as tutor to Ld. Villiers; with which Earl he now continues, and is much in his favour, (Aug. 25, 1750) but because he would not go into orders three or four years ago, quitted his Fellowship." He was afterward Poet-Laureat.

20. Sir Wm. Peer Williams, Clare Hall.

"He was son of Sir Hutchins Williams, educated at Eton, then of Clare Hall, and was one of the prettiest figures of a man that could be seen. He was wild and extravagant, and not having an estate equal to the greatness of his condition, it is said that he went in the expedition to Bellisle, with a formed design not to return home again. His brother, Sir.... Williams, who I think was of Oxford, tho' I have seen him at Cambridge, was a good person of a man; but almost a natural.”

See Gray's Lines on Sir W. P. W. in his Poems.

21. Edw. Waring, M. D. Mag. Coll.

"Author of Meditationes Algebraica, 1771. Elected Lucasian Professor of Mathematics in Feb, 1760.

"Before he married, he took it ill that the Society of Magdalen did not elect his brother into a better Fellowship on his quitting it after his marriage, he settled for a time at St. Ives; and now, 1778, at Cambridge; but has little practice as a physician, being of a most shy and reserved disposition. He entered himself of Trinity College, on his quitting Magdalen. Vide Monthly Review, 1778, p. 81, where he is called to account for endeavouring to lessen the credit and abilities of Sir Isaac Newton. V. Gent. Mag. for 1779, p. 605, twice.”

22. Tho. Wilson, A. M. 1643. Qu.

"He was Rector of Otham in Kent, where, being prosecuted for dilapidations, and for contumacy suspended by the High Commission, he got an exchange for the Curacy of Maidstone in that neighbourhood, where he revenged himself of Abp. Laud by refusing to read the prayer against the northern expedition against the Scots, and the declaration for Sports on the Lord's day, which

made him very popular with the puritan party; and was in 1643 appointed one of the Assembly of Divines, and was an evidence against Archbishop Laud at his trial; when testifying that he had been suspended by the Abp. for not reading the Book of Sports, it turned out that it was for nonpayment of dilapidations.Wharton's Hist. of the Trial of Abp. Laud, p. 344; Prynne's Canterbury's Doom, p. 149. He printed a sermon, called 'David's Zeal for Zion; preached before sundry of the Honourable House of Commons, at St. Margaret's, Westminster, Ap. 4, 1641. His life is written by Mr. George Swinock.

"He is represented by the writer of his Life, as a very pious, zealous, and useful man, in the way he took; and died about 1651 or 1652. Newton's Hist. of Maidstone, p. 66, 67.

23. Paul Wright, D. D. olim of Pembroke Hall.

"He is Rector of Oakley, near Saffron-Walden in Essex; and in 1769, at the Commencement at Cambridge, printed bills for a new edition, with additions, of Sir Henry Chauncey's History of Hertfordshire. He then plagued me for assistance in it; but I soon found him to be a most odd and extravagantly ridiculous person; and by no means qualified to undertake such a work." He wanted me and others in the University to sign a paper of recommendation to be received a Member of the Antiquarian Society, which I declined: however he got one somewhere else; for in Dec. 1770, he was admitted a Fellow of that Society. He is a married man, and has a son a jeweller, or goldsmith, in London, where the father was born, and educated in St. Paul's school, as he told me he then gave me a printed bill to find his shop, if I wanted any thing in his way. He has since printed a book on heraldry." [I suppose Mr. Cole means a new edition of Heylin's Help to History.]

"At the Commencement, 1778, he proceeded D.D. Dr. Colman, the new Master of Benet College, told me, July 5, that' he called upon him to see the Book of St. Alban's, which he had, to his chamber, and shewed it to him: but he could not read it,"