on that pretence had a right to borrow books, and take them to his chamber, and desired much to be burnt in the hand, and not sent abroad, by which he should be deprived of making restitution, or of settling his affairs with great numbers of people, who had trusted him with his management of them, as also he had a young family to take care of: that owing rent to his landlord, he had been obliged to send these books into the country and Holland, to make money, and hoped for mercy, as he had been already in confinement half a year, at the hands of his judges, with whom he had the honour to be acquainted: that if he was suffered to stay in England, no one should see his face any more. Finding his transportation determined on, he begged that he might be allowed to transport himself, or for a gentleman of York to contract for him; but this was not allowed, and he went with the common transports to America: but returned into Europe, and lived in some of the Flemish towns, where, I think, he died. I remember to have seen him in Trin. College: he was a short squat fat man, and pitted with the small pox. See his whole trial in the Sessions Papers, N° iv. part ii. Lond. 4to. 1736, p. 110. from whence I chiefly extracted this."

102. Soame Jenyns, one of the Lords of Trade, St: John's College.

"This gentleman is son to Sir Roger Jenyns, Knt. of Botis ham in Cambridgeshire; who being an artful, cunning, and intriguing man, raised from a small beginning in fortune, for he was of a good family, of Hayes, a very considerable estate by his management in the fen corporation matters. He married Eliz. a daughter of Sir Peter Soame of Haydon in Essex, Bart. by whom he had this only child, Soame Jenyns, Esq. But by a former wife, who is buried in the south transept of Ely Cathedral, in which city he formerly lived,, and built a neat house fronting the Bishop's palace gallery, before he purchased Botisham, he had a daughter, married to one Mr. Delamore, of Long Sutton in Lincolnshire,

whom I have often seen at Botisham, and indeed at my chambers in King's College: which daughter was taken small notice of by her father and mother-in-law.

Mr, Soame Jenyns was educated in St. John's College, under Mr. White, and was married very young by his father to a young lady of between 20 and 30,000l. to whom he was left guardian, and without much consulting the inclinations of the young couple, who were first cousins in blood, she being natural daughter to Colonel Soame, of Dereham Grange in Norfolk: so that it is generally supposed there never was any great affection between them. However they lived tolerably well together, as to any outward appearance in the eye of the world, so long as old Sir Roger lived, who was supposed to have kept them together; for they always lived in the same family. But on the death of Sir Roger, Mrs. Jenyns, under pretence of a journey to Bath for her health, made! an elopement with one Mr. Levyns, whom I remember at Eton School, and was a Leicestershire gentleman, with whom it was supposed she had lived long familiarly; even while that gentleman used to be at Mr. Jenyns' house at Botisham, on the footing of a friend and acquaintance: and what made it more extraordinary, Mrs. Jenyns was neither young nor handsome, a very bad complexion, lean scraggy arms, and no ways inviting; since which elopement, about the year 1742, they never cohabited together; a separate maintenance being allowed to the lady, who lived altogether in or about London. By this lady he has no issue; who dying about the beginning of 1754, or the latter end of the preceding year, Mr. Jenyns remarried, in Somerset House Chapel, on Tuesday, Feb. 26, 1754, his first cousin, Mrs. Eliz. Gray, who had lived in the house with him long before his first wife's elopement, and ever after; and has been said to have occasioned early differences between them. She was daughter to a Mr. Gray, a merchant in London, who failed in his business; after whose death, she and her mother for some time lived at Hackney; and after Mr. Jenyns's first wife's elopement, with him in London and Botisham, where the old lady died and was buried. Mr. Jenyns marrying this lady may be looked upon as a great piece of generosity and honour, as she is a person of no great beauty now,

whatever pretensions she might have had formerly, which I have often heard say she had, and likewise pretty far advanced in years, and no fortune at all to make up deficiencies; which, though Mr. Jenyns wants not, yet as he is rather of a niggardly and covetous disposition, would no doubt have added much to her recommendation. She is rather undersized and thin, unlike her mother in that respect, who was short and squat, and all of an heap: yet alike in temper and disposition, being both of them of a very sweet, soft, and mild disposition, and well spoken of by every one. As Mrs. Jenyns is past the flower of her beauty, as well as of life, there is hardly a probability of their having any children; so that the estate will go to the son of Roger Jenyns, late of Windsor, who had been clerk of the peace for Buckinghamshire: which son married the daughter of Professor Chappelow, and has been long subject to the complaint called St. Vitus's Dance; though otherwise a well looking jolly young man. It is well known that several of the soft and tender things in his poems are designed as compliments to his second lady, who is indeed very deserving of them, so far as an easy, good, and complying temper can entitle her to them; otherwise of a very insipid and unmeaning conversation.

"Mr. Jenyns is the author of several poetical as well as prose performances, published separately without his name, and afterwards by Dodsley in his Collection; and since collected altogether in one pocket volume, without his name, but the author's arms only in the title-page, viz. 3 bezants on a fesse.

"The first performance in the poetical way which appeared was his Essay on Dancing, which is well esteemed of in its way: and indeed one would wonder that it should be otherwise; inasmuch as the author seems calculated by nature, person, and manner to excel in that profession; and if a person who did not know him was to be asked on seeing him dressed what was his profession, I think it is ten to one but that he would say he was a dancing-master. He has the misfortune to be extremely shortsighted, a circumstance not unusual with eyes formed as his are, which are very projecting; and though he has a large wen on his neck, which a grave, and even no very large wig would cover or

hide, yet the predominancy of dress is such, that a small little bag pig-tail wig is preferred; by which means the aforesaid blemish is visible to every one. About 10 years ago [I write this, Dec. 20, 1768,] he printed two octavo volumes; the first of which was on the Origin of Evil, and wrote in the mode of the present age, and gave offence to those who have any regard for Revelation: the other was made up of detached political pieces and other things; among which are many of great humour and liveliness. I have the books; but in my present confused situation, I cannot recur to them.

"In 1767, was printed at London a small pamphlet, without his name, but known to be wrote by him, with this title, Thoughts on the Causes and Consequences of the present high Price of Provisions; which was looked upon, on its first appearance, to be a well written and sensible account of the subject it treated of: however there appeared soon after, in the spring of 1768, a short pamphlet, said to have been written by Mr. Samuel Peck, Fellow of Trinity College, and Vicar of Trumpington, with this title, An Answer to a Pamphlet, entitled Thoughts on the Causes, &c. In a Letter addressed to the supposed Author of that Pamphlet. By a Gentleman of Cambridge. Lond. 8°. 1768. price 6d. pages 34. which is written with great tartness and acrimony to the person of Mr. Jenyns, upon his being a pensioner, as well as in ridicule of his arguments. Mr. Peck denied his writing it to me: however, by the turn of the periods and manuer of it, I rather suspect him to be the author of it. But I will finish this account by transcribing what I wrote in another book many years ago about him.

:

"Mr. Jenyns is a man of a lively fancy, and pleasant turn of wit: very sparkling in conversation, and full of many conceits and agreeable drollery, which is heightened by his particular inarticu late manner of speaking through his broken teeth and all this is mixed with the utmost good nature and humanity: having hardly ever heard him severe upon any one, and by no means satirical in his mirth and good humour. But notwithstanding all his amiable qualities, which are calculated rather for social than public life, it is probable he will not be rechosen for Cambridgeshire, except VOL. 111.

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the Duke of Rutland should, luckily for him and the Marquis of Granby, not get over this most dangerous fit of the stone at Bath. For Mr. Jenyns, being rather of a finical and beauish turn, and not at all made for canvassing and caballing at elections, has no other interest in the county than what my Lord Montfort procures him, and indeed would never have been chosen at all, had it not been for the same gentleman and Mr. Sam. Shepheard, who were distressed where to apply to in the country for a proper representative, many of the principal gentry of the country, to whom it was offered, refusing it: and indeed Sir Roger and Mr. Jenyns himself had always been of a contrary interest to those gentlemen, but they conceiving well of this gentleman's good sense and integrity, were thoroughly satisfied in their choice for he saw that the keeping up of parties was only a political contrivance of a minority, in order to make themselves considerable, and be taken notice of, yet always avail themselves of every occasion that offers itself to serve their own interests. V. Mr. Granger's Catalogue of Engraved English Heads, vol. ii. p. 53.

"A free Enquiry into the Nature and Origin of Evil. In 6 Letters to.... Lond. 8vo. V. Literary Magazine for 1757, p. 171, &c. &c. where is a long criticism on it: probably by the celebrated Mr. Samuel Johnson, who had the direction of this Magazine, the preface to which is evidently of his writing.

"A Review of a free Enquiry into the Nature and Origin of Evil. It is the first article in the first vol. of Miscellaneous and fugitive Pieces, published about 1774, in three 8vo. vols. by T. Davies of Russel Street, Covent Garden, and may possibly be the same criticism mentioned above. V. Critical Review for 1776, p. 200, 232, for 1781, p. 213, 214, &c. for 1782, p. 249.

"A Series of Letters, addressed to Soame Jenyns, Esq. on occasion of his view of the internal Evidence of Christianity. By A. Maclaine, D. D. Minister of the English Church at the Hague. Non tali auxilio.-VIRGIL. Lond. 8°. 1777, pages 274.

"Philosophical Disquisitions on the Christian Religion, addressed to Soame Jenyns, Esq. and W. Kenrick, LL.D. Lond. small 8vo. 2s. V. Critical Review for 1777, p. 394, 236. Sept.