finally, a legacy from Mr. Murray * of ten thousand pounds currency, (twenty-five thousand dollars.)

"But after the erection of the college building and the purchase of a philosophical apparatus, the trustees found it impossible to proceed on the liberal plan which they had begun, without encroaching on the permanent fund, or obtaining some farther assistance. This was supplied by a collection, made in England, for the joint use of the colleges of New-York and Philadelphia, which produced to the former the clear sum of six thousand pounds sterling.

"While this liberal spirit was displayed on the part of the public, Dr. Johnson was not inactive, and on June 17th, 1754, he began the collegiate course of instruction alone, with a class of twelve students. He was shortly after assisted by his son William Johnson, Mr. Cutting, a graduate of the University of Cambridge, who is still remembered as a thorough-bred classical scholar; and Mr. Treadwell, of Harvard College, Massachusetts, who was appointed professor of Mathematics and Natural Philosophy.†

"In the midst of all his academic labours, Dr. Johnson never lost sight of the high duties of his profession; and he from time to time combatted such errors as he deemed of peculiarly dangerous tendency

* Mr. Murray was a lawyer of great eminence in the city of NewYork, about the middle of the last century. He was one of the Council, and Attorney-General of the Province, and much celebrated in his day as a constitutional lawyer.

Mr. Treadwell died in 1760, and was succeeded, as professor of Mathematics, by Mr. Robert Harper, a gentleman educated at the University of Glasgow.

in this country, in some tracts and single sermons, published about the year 1761; while his popularity as a preacher induced the Vestry of Trinity Church, New-York, soon after his removal to that city, to call him as a lecturer in that Church; where he officiated in turn with the rector and assistant, but without having any other parochial charge. After filling these stations, for which he was so eminently qualified, about nine years, finding his activity gradually impaired by age and infirmity, and his spirits sinking under domestic calamity, in the loss of his youngest son, and some time after of his wife; seeing too, the college thoroughly established, and flourishing beyond his hopes under the immediate superintendence of Dr. Myles Cooper, the professor of Moral Philosophy, his destined successor, a man of acknowledged learning and talents; he was induced in 1763 to resign his office and retire to Stratford, to finish the remainder of his days in the bosom of his family.

"In this peaceful retreat, he again resumed the duties of a parish priest, and pursued his studies, and discharged his clerical functions, at the age of seventy, with the same zeal with which he had applied himself to them more than forty years before.

"Thus occupied in works of piety and usefulness, his virtuous and venerable age glided peacefully along, until the 6th of January, 1772, when, after a very short, and apparently slight indisposition, he expired in his chair without a struggle or a groan. His remains are interred in the Episcopal burying-ground at Stratford, where a neat monument is erected with

the following inscription, from the classic, pen of

President Cooper :—

M. S.

SAMUELIS JOHNSON, D. D.,

COLLEGII REGALIS, NOVI EBORACI,

PRÆSIDIS PRIMI,

ET HUJUS ECCLESIE NUPER RECTORIS

NATUS DIE, 14 TO OCTOв. 1696.
OBIIT. 6 TO JAN. 1772.

If decent dignity and modest mien,

The cheerful heart and countenance serene;

If pure religion and unsullied truth,

His age's solace, and his search in youth;
In charity, through all the race he ran,
Still wishing well, and doing good to man;
If learning, free from pedantry and pride;
If faith and virtue, walking side by side;
If well to mark his being's aim and end,
To shine through life, the husband, father, friend;
If these ambition in thy soul can raise,

Excite thy reverence, or demand thy praise,
Reader, ere yet thou quit this earthly scene,

Revere his name, and be what he has been.

"Dr. Johnson was in person tall, and in the decline of life rather corpulent; his countenance was mild and pleasing. A good engraving of him may be found in the American Medical and Philosophical Register' for October, 1812. He was remarkable for a very uniform and placid temper and great benignity of disposition, which was displayed in habitual beneficence and hospitality. His theology, to which he was warmly attached, was that of the Church of England in her purest form. Having submitted to the laborious oper

ation of forming his own mind upon every important point, without taking any thing on trust, or from authority, he fully felt the difficulties attendant on the exercise of private judgment in matters of religious difference, and the importance of a charitable interpretation of the motives and principles of others. This turn of thought gave to his controversial writings, a spirit of mildness and urbanity not always to be found in polemical theology. The prominent features of his mind appear to have been, strong and clear sense, and a habit of diligent and patient investigation."

The ministers of the parish for several years after this period, seem to have been labouring with great diligence and success. Each annual account of Mr. Auchmuty to the Society appears to be better than the other. The number of adults and infants baptized by him among the blacks, was steadily increasing. His catechumens were becoming more numerous. And additions to the communion were also more frequent. The Prayer Books and catechisms sent out to him for their use, he had distributed among them, as he hoped, to good purpose; since they regularly attended divine service, and were devout and attentive in the worship of the Church. He took pleasure in assuring the Society, that the negroes under his care were becoming more and more deserving of the pains he took with them, and that many of them were a credit to our holy religion; that it was an unspeakable satisfaction to him to find that his labours among the poor slaves were not lost, but through the goodness of God produced such consid

erable fruit; and that not one single black who had been admitted by him to the holy communion, had turned out bad, or been in any shape a disgrace to his profession.

In the beginning of the year 1756, the Rev. Mr. Barclay acquainted the Society, that the Church had suffered a great loss by the death of Mr. Colgan, formerly a catechist in this parish, but for many years a laborious and worthy missionary at Jamaica Town, in Long Island; and that the churches under his care were very apprehensive of great difficulties in obtaining a clergyman of the Church of England to succeed him, because the dissenters were a majority in the vestry of that parish. It too soon appeared that their apprehensions were not without good reason, for the dissenters prevailed by their majority in the vestry to present one Simon Horton, a dissenting teacher, to Sir Charles Hardy, the Governor, for induction into the parish, but the Governor, in obedience to his instructions from his Majesty, would not admit him into that cure, because he could not procure a certificate under the Episcopal seal of the Bishop of London, of his conformity to the Liturgy of the Church of England. And when no person thus qualified, had been presented to the Governor after more than six months, his Excellency was pleased to collate to the cure of the Church the Rev. Samuel Seabury, Jr., father of that true churchman and sound divine, the first Bishop of Connecticut, and great grandfather of the distinguished theologian and acute polemic who bears his name at the present day.

At a meeting of the Vestry, held on the 24th of