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EUROPEAN MAGAZINE,

AND

LONDON REVIEW,

FOR DECEMBER, 1816.

MEMOIR OF

GRANVILLE SHARP, Esq.

[WITH A PORTRAIT, ENGRAVED BY T. BLOOD, FROM AN ORIGINAL DRAWING BY GEORGE DANCE, ESQ. R.A.]

He knew, the Patriot knew,

That letters and the Muses's powerful art
Exalt the ingenuous heart,

And brighten every form of just and true :-
They lend a nobler sway

To civil wisdom, than Corruption's lure

Could ever yet procure;

They, too, from Envy's pale malignant light,
Conduct her forth to sight,

Cloth'd in the fairest colours of the day.

Akens. Ode 4th, B. 2.

These principles are fixed on a basis irreversible by the erring reason of man; but in times like the present, when even the divine prescript is questioned by the pertinacious decision of human petulance, it may not be unseasonable for us to make them the subject of a few preliminary reflections; especially when we see the name of pa

N the long career of beneficent action, throughout which the exemplary character before us pursued and promoted the individual welfare of mankind, we trace the path of both the patriot and the philanthropist: and both associated in that genuine and unsophisticated union of the noblest qualities of each, which blends the purest energies of the man with the more elevat-triot, claimed by every self opinionated ed virtues of the Christian.

This is an union which, alas! for the civilized dependencies of human nature, is but seldom recognized by us in all its salutary influence; yet, certain it is that, to love our country for its own sake, and to love mankind for GOD's sake, are doubtless the soundest principles on which any one can assert his pretensions to patriotism and philanthropy.

These were the principles which prompted every sentiment and sympa. thy that regulated the public and private life of this zealous advocate of his country's freedom, this conscientious supporter of the liberty of the subject on the firm foundation of the laws of Heaven, themselves grounded in that love which "deals equally to all."

demagogue, and that of philanthropist assumed by every cold-hearted sophist of a party, who pretends to lament the sufferings of the poor, but exclaims against the means of alleviation devised for their relief; not because the provision is not commensurate with the necessity, but because he would irritate the feeling of this necessity into an excitement to dissatisfaction and revolt.

Were he, of whom we are about to speak, still numbered among the living, sure we are that his patriotic convic tions would be arranged on the side of the public weal, which he well knew consisted in the uniform maintenance of that just balance between authority and subordination which preserves the rule of government and the submission

of the governed in a just equipoise of law and obedience, of equity and right. While, therefore, we trace this memoir, we feel, that at this very momentous instant of the times, teeining as it is with various implications of the best interests of our national prosperity, our pen is guided by the tutelary shade of him whose judgment was too clear to decide by events, and whose heart was too free from the adverse domination of the evil passions, to place those events in hostile array against the tranquillity of his native soil.

The name, the talents, and thevirtues of Granville Sharpe embody the idea of patriotism with all its most recommend atory identity of intrinsic qualification. "He loved his country for his country's sake" he had none of those question able measures to accomplish, which a vain self-reference, or a selfish regard to personal pre-eminence might suggest. When his country's happiest interests were concerned, he was totus in illis-he was neither the leader nor the tool of a mob-his patriotism was the effluence of deliberate conviction, not the ebullition of an empassioned prejudice-his judgment was formed by profound study, not framed according to the every-day impulse of a superficial feeling; what he thought he said, and what he said he did-but then he thought maturely and he spake advisedly-and what he did he feared not to do again, because he knew it could not be better done he owned no other authority, he followed no other precedent, than what the soundest dictate of the law, and the safest testimony of experience corroborated he loved his country, because he was conscious that in all her wisest provisions for the security of her children, she deserved his love-it was her honour, her happiness, that he kept in view; not his own aggrandisement, not his personal popularity, not his own brief authority among those who knew not in what that honour and that happiness intrinsically consistedit was not with him as with the puny satellites of the multitude; he sought not to become conspicuous by partially eclipsing the sun of his country's glory; he was anxious that she should throw her splendour over all the civilized world; and, instead of dividing her rays for the greater facility of his own participation in the borrowed light, he was studiously employed in bringing them into a focus of concentrated brilliancy and power; that Britain might be acknowledged as

the invigorating source of all that was sublimely great in the character of nations, all that was dear and cherishing to associated man.-He loved his Country for her own sake; wherever he perceived defects in her polity, or deviations in her government (and, of all, these he was competent to judge), he stepped forward, not to signalize his own talent, but to remedy the evil-not to place himself above his country, but to raise his country above the worldhe was the obedient vindicator of her laws, the filial defender of her fame; but at the same time he was the affectionate restorer of the purity of the one, and the disinterested guardian of the other. He knew no party but that of truth-he adopted no prejudice but what justice essentially upheld-he was a patriot because he was an Englishman, and he loved his country because he patriotically maintained the unalienable rights of Englishmen. Yet, in all this he was no system-monger-no visionary projector of uncertain innovations upon the constituted order of things-he well knew the comprehensive good his Country's jurisprudence was capable of producing, and, while he acknowledged the value of the casket, he descended into the depths of the mine, he traversed the regions of its treasures, he brought many a gem into its appropriate light, and increased the lustre of the general store. As the diamond is po fished by its own component particles, so Granville Sharp caused the laws of his Country to emit a clearer ray of justice, by bringing into collision those intrinsic excellencies which lay hid in the passive mass of custom, or were obscured by the erroneous construction of precedent. This he effected, not less by his numerous and learned_publications, thau by his strenuous and successful exertions in the indefatigable pursuit of the various objects which constantly occupied his benevolent attention.

His Remarks" On the Obsolete Laws and Customs of Villenage,”—“ On the Impress Service,"-" On the Mistaken Application of the Crown Law in Cases of Manslaughter and Murder,"- and his "Researches into the Ancient Provisions of our earliest Jurisprudence, as they related to the great question of Reform in the elective franchise," inanifested a very active and disinterested spirit; while the temper and argument which characterized his discussions, proved the purity of his motives and

the superior strength of his understanding.

Besides these and many other evidences of his being actuated by the most equitable principles, there re main on record several instances of his personal intervention in behalf of individuals, in which oppression found him its most determined adversary, and its victims, however humble their condition or depressed by destitution, hailed him as their generous and ardent defender.

As it has happened in the natural world that the most fortuitous incidents have led to the most important discoveries and improvements in the arts and sciences, so, in the political, judicial, and moral systems, apparently trivial causes have given rise to many of those wholesome provisions and solemn regulations of national polity, by which the natural and civil rights of the man and the citizen have been progressively developed and ultimately secured.

It was from a similar concurrence of events, merely accidental, that the Society for the Abolition of the Slave Trade was instituted by the subject of this Memoir. The origin of this institution arose out of a circumstance eutirely casual-Mr. Sharp having been an accidental witness of the brutal treatment of a negro servant by his master, who claimed him as his slave, he indignantly vindicated the poor fellow's right to the protection of the laws of this free country; and he did not lose sight of the affair until, by his humane and persevering exertions, he delivered the black from the tyranny of his pretended owner. Such an incident could not fail deeply to impress a benevolent mind, and having succeeded in the instance of one individual negro, he interested himself in the condition of many others, whom he met wandering about the streets of London; and, at his own expence, he collected them together and sent them back to Africa, where they formed a colony on the river Sierra Leone; to which, in grateful remembrance of their benefactor, they gave the name of Granville. He thus emancipated the whole race of blacks from a state of slavery whilst on British ground, and, in fact, banished slavery from Great Britain. During this undertaking, which he fully accomplished, he published several tracts, and controverted the opinion of the then attorney and solicitor-general. His comprehensive powers of mind were

thenceforward applied, with the utmost eagerness, to a more general extension of this measure of emancipation, and slavery in every shape and country became the object of his unceasing oppo sition. The society which he had been the means of establishing, very shortly grew into an institution which spread its branches through every part of the United Kingdom. Among its members were found the most exalted personages,

men of the highest rank and talent, and not more ennobled by birth than eminent for their virtues. Never were more eloquent appeals made to the humanity of the world-never was a better cause more ably supported, and yet never were stronger prejudices nor more inveterate hostility opposed to the efforts of the wisest and the most beneficent part of mankind. At length, however, complete success crowned the glorious struggle, and a victory even of divine triumph recompensed the charity, the fortitude, the perseverance, and the virtue of those who boldly maintained their ground throughout the conflict. The drooping slave was restored to freedom-the iron that entered into his soul" was removed, and the easy yoke of heaven's law substituted in its stead. To the glory of Goo-to the happiness of man

and to the everlasting honour of Britain, this law of mercy was first promulgated by a British senate; and, now, by the wisdom of its councils and the influence of its power, is made the rule of almost all the civilized parts of the globe.

To the philanthropy of a private individual this great work of moral good owes the first spring that gave impulse to its action-and that man was Granville Sharp-whose name will, for this deed alone, "shine as the stars of heaven for ever."--and, incorporated with the names of his coadjutors, will form the brightest constellation in the hemisphere of our national greatness.

This, then, is true philanthropy, which induces us to love our fellow-creatures for God's sake, and to adopt, as the pure standard of our conduct towards them, that ever-flowing compas. sion which, although it has, from the first beginning of the world, been employed in pouring unceasing blessings upon its inhabitants, is still as rich and inexhaustible in goodness as its Eternal Source. O, how degraded from such a standard are those minds, who seek to raise their inferior natures into a false

that he is numbered among the dead— that the name of Granville Sharp ranks among the most able defenders of that Redeemer's divinity. In his Remarks on the Uses of the Definitive Article in the Greek of the New Testament, he has elicited many irrefragable proofs of the divinity of Christ, from passages incorrectly translated in the Common English Version.—His scholastic learning was thus made to co-operate with his Christian impressions, in this, putting to the blush many of those adversaries of GOD and man, who are prouder of their learning than of their religion

power and wisdom of their Creator, and to reject the faith of wiser and better men than themselves, rather than surrender the vain and short-lived distinction of being better sophists than Christians; or, in other words, of being more capable of asserting their own judgment, than disposed to submit it to the will and ordinances of the Most HIGH.

importance by pretensious to a regard for rights without social restraint, and freedom without legal order-who, with the fierce aspect and portentous course of the comet's menace, traverse the system of our country's peace, and fill our minds with fearful foreboding of subversion and destruction-disquieting the ignorant, and involving the well-disposed in alarming doubts and trembling incertitude! yet these men say they are philanthropists-while they acknowledge no interest but that of their own selfish passions-no government but their own unyielding self-reference-no law but the dictum of their own head--who do not hesitate to deny even the strong wills; their plea is necessity, but their purpose is, to aggravate the inevitable visitations of heaven into an excitement to discontent-their avowal is reform, but their design is the aggrandisement of their own vicious and lawless domination-their pretence is restoration, but their practice is confusion and every evil work"-and, in this confusion they hope to seize by surprize what they are conscious they never can retain but by faction. Our fervent prayer is, that their plea may be detected-their avowal despised-their pretence scorned-their practice disowned-their hope frustrated -and their faction punished, by the vigour of our laws--by the good sense of the people--by the conviction of our Country's better experience-and by the vital strength of her long-tried Constitution. Our prayer is grounded upon the assured persuasion that, among the true patriots and real philanthropists of our beloved native soil, there is many an one, in whom the cultivated genius of a Sharp still prompts the intellect and directs the heart; for he was a Christian, and a man of literary attainments; and these he always conformed to the positive duties of that responsibility which the conscience of the Christian justified.-Religion was his law, not his party;-He had humi. lity enough to submit himself to the dictate, and he had learning enough to know that this dictate, as conveyed in doctrine and precept by the constituent principles of the Established Church, was, in all essentials of the Christian's obligations and hopes, sufficient to make his present condition of trial a medium of his future reward, through the merits of a Redeemer. It was his chief happiness, while living, and it is the bright record of his reputation now

On no such self-assumption were the faith and life of Granville Sharp constructed. He was educated and brought up in the principles of the Established Church, and his knowledge of those principles gave a stedfastness to that attachment to them which he justified, not more by his learning than by his life. And it is recorded of him, that the wisdom of the one and the uniform piety of the other, gave that consistency and value to his opinion, that the first episcopal establishment in Canada originated from his suggestion; for he introduced to the Primate of all England the first Bishop whom his Grace consecrated to the supremacy of that branch of the English Church.

The vigour of his intellect, and the power of his talents, continued unimpaired unto the very eve of his death; which he sufficiently demonstrated by an elaborate " illustration of the 46th Psalm, relative to the hill of Bashan, and the calling together of the Jews." This extraordinary performance displays at one view that union of the scholar and the Christian, which it was the study and the practice of his long life to maintain, and confirms the wis dum of the one and the piety of the other by the testimony of his experi ence, that he considered neither incompatible with the other; but rather was anxious to prove, that the principles of both could not be better blended than

in cultivating that blessed hope which extends beyond the grave.

Such was Granville Sharp, as a patriot, a philanthropist, and a Christian. It now only remains for us to relate his personal biography.

He was the grandson of the celebrated Doctor Sharp, Archbishop of York; who, in the despotic reign of James the Second, so honourably distinguished himself as the Champion of the Protestant Religion, and of the liberty of his Country of both of which he continued to be the zealous advocate during the whole period of his valuable life.

The son of this ornament of his country was Master of the Temple, and emulated the zeal of his Sire in all its estimable qualities, which he transmit ted with undiminished lustre to the subject of this Memoir, who was born at Durham in the year 1735, where he received the first rudiments of his education, and then came to London to pursue his fortunes in trade. This object, however, he changed for a different medium of activity, having obtained a situation in the Ordnance Department, which he held until the year1775; when he relinquished it in consequence of his adverse sentiments with respect to the -American war. He then took chambers in the Temple, and devoted himself to a life of study, at the same time laying himself out for public utility; and first became known to the public by his exertions in the poor Negro's case, to which we have referred; --and died on the 6th of July 1813, at the house of his sister, Mrs. William Sharp, of Fulham, after having pursued his studies to the age of 79, with all the mental ardour - of his youth.

He possessed a very valuable library, in which the theologian, the classical scholar, the politician, the antiquary, and the orientalist, might find almost every thing which their respective studies required; and his collection of Bibles was esteemed the best in the kingdom. Many of these he gave to the library of the British and Foreign Bible Society, of which he was a zealous promoter. The rest, and remaining part of his library, were sold by auction by Messrs. Leigh and Sotheby. He was the author of the following Works.

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I. "Remarks on several very important Prophecies; in five Parts. Remarks on the 13th, 14th, 15th, and 16th Verses in the 7th Chapter of Isaiah; in answer to Dr. Williams's Critical Dissertation on the same subject; 2. A Dissertation on the Nature and Style of the Prophetical Writings, intend ed to illustrate the foregoing Remarks; 3. A Dissertation on Isaiah vii. 8; 4. and on Gen. xlix. 10; 5. Answer to some of the principal Arguments used by Dr. Williams, in Defence of his Critical Dissertation," 1768, 8vo.-II. "A Re presentation of the Injustice and dan gerous Tendency of tolerating Slavery, or of admitting the least Claim of private Property in the Persons of Men in England; in four Parts; containing, 1. Remarks on an opinion given by the then Attorney-General, and SolicitorGeneral, concerning the Cases of Slaves in Great Britain; 2. Answer to an Objection made to the foregoing Remarks; 3. Examination of the Advantages and Disadvantages of tolera ting Slavery in England; 4. Remarks on the antient Villenage, shewing that the obsolete Laws and Customs, which favoured that horrid Oppression, cannot justify the Admission of the modern West Indian Slavery into this Kingdom, nor the least Claim of Property or Right of Service deducible therefrom," 1769, 8vo.-III. "Re

His form was the medium between the thin, and the athletic; his stature was of the middle size; his countenance was clear; his disposition cheerful; his gait upright; his nerves steady; and his action, though thus considerably advanced in life, possessed all the spright- ́ ́marks on the Encroachments on the liness of his earlier years.-He was an able linguist, deeply read in theology, and was well acquainted with the Scriptures in their original tongues-He was pious and devout without gloom, strictly moral and temperate, a great lover of music, and lively in conversation. The graces and the virtues of life were all his own; and few persons in private society have deserved a higher or a more honourable commemoration from posterity.

River Thames near Durham Yard," 1711, 8vo. IV. "Remarks on the Opinions of some of the most celebrated Writers on Crown Law, respecting the due Distinction between Manslaughter and Marder; being an Attempt to shew, that the Plea of sudden Anger cannot remove the Imputation and Guilt of Murder, when à mortal Wound is wilfully given with a Weapon: That the Indulgence allowed by the Courts fo yoluntary Mauslaughter in Rencoun

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