in Malden in Bedfordshire, near Ampthill; and about the year 1703 was promoted further to a good living in London diocese; but Bishop Compton being dissatisfied about an expression in The Choice, concerning his preferring a single to a married state, though he was then actually married, a stop was put to his institution for some time; during the interval of which he took the small-pox and died at London at the age of 36. On the margin of my copy I had entered this:

"Mr. Benjamin Pomfret of Newport Pagnel tells me this, January 20, 1761, that he was no relation of the poet, as said in a former edition; and that he died of the small-pox in London while he was waiting on Bishop Gardiner to clear his character from something he had said in The Choice. But query, if not as above, waiting on Bishop Compton?"

64. Nevile Maskelyne, B. D. 1775, Fellow of Trinity College and F. R. S.

"He was presented in January 1775 by his nephew, Lord Clive, to the Rectory of Shrawarden in Salop. He is Astronomer Royal of Greenwich Hospital.

"One Mr. W. Gardiner, of Richmond in Surrey, who had been educated under Dr. Newcome of Hackney, went to Lisbon as a merchant, and had a great turn for astronomy, had many letters in the public papers relating to the earth's rotation, and challenged Mr. Maskelyne to confute his position: but Mr. M. seemed wise enough not to enter into any correspondence with a Don Quixotte in astronomy, and who was tilting at the Royal Society, the Professors of the two Universities, and every one. whom unluckily he met in his way. He gave 20007. in 1774 to St. Thomas's Hospital; and offered as much to St. Bartholomew's as a sacrifice for God's having put it in his power to overturn Sir. Isaac Newton's system. He seems to be no bad writer; but mad and enthusiastic.

"The Rev. Mr. Nevile Maskelyne, F. R. S. and of Trinity College, was appointed Astronomer Royal to his Majesty, Feb.

13, 1765, on the death of Dr. Nath. Bliss, and resides in the Royal Observatory in Greenwich Park. He was presented by the Master and Fellows of the College to the living of North Runcton in Norfolk, vacant by the death of Mr. Hassal."

65. Beilby Porteus, Chaplain to Abp. Secker.

"When Dr. Porteus waited on his Majesty with his thanks for the honour of being nominated to the See of Chester, the King was pleased to tell him, That the dignity was conferred as a reward due to his merit, without the application of interest." Camb. Ch. Jan. 25, 1777.

"It is inconceivable the clamour, uproar, and rage which the order from the Archbishop to observe decently Good Friday, in 1777, gave to the faction for many weeks together the presby terian newspapers were full of abuse and lies relating to Archbishop Cornwallis and his family; and when one expected it should have subsided, two months after the day was observed, out comes the following long and severe paragraph in the London Evening Post of May 29, 1777; a paper one would rather suppose to have been printed in the capital of New England, than at London, on the Bishop of Chester, who, as a decent and respectable man, on that score is an offence to the fanatical tribe. Probably what roused their spirit was an excellent sermon on the Bishop's predecessor, Archbishop Markham of York, who had told a few truths of them, that galled their old sores; for in the same paper is the first of a threatened suit of letters relating to that sermon. The paragraph relating to Bishop Porteus is this, in which the King is not spared.

'On the late announcing a sort of outlandish name, one Porteus, to an English Bishopric, I naturally asked what was become of all our old, learned, and venerable English clergy, of the best families, that they were all passed over with so much contempt and injustice? I was informed that the young Prelate was a man distinguished by his Majesty's own judgment, and exalted by his

mere personal favour, as one of the most promising talents and disposition to fill the sacred office, in a manner the most suitable to his own pious feelings and sentiments, and the mild and liberal plan of government adopted by him. A countenance and a character so clear of cynical and ecclesiastical pride and austerity could not escape the penetrating observation, and the generous sympathy of the royal Patron. A Charles has had his favourite Laud. Similar characters and principles will always attract each other. It has indeed been insinuated, that over and above the great merit of Scottish extraction and interest, he has distinguished himself as a ministerial writer in the public papers almost as much as by the stretch of church power and arrogance in shutting up the city shops on Good Friday; which, as a sanctified, hypocritical triumph over both reason and Scripture, the civil and religious right of Englishmen, could not but be highly acceptable to tyrants and hypocrites of every denomination, particularly at court. By this experiment on the tame and servile temper of the times, it is thought the Host and Crucifix may be elevated to prostrate crowds in dirty streets some years sooner than could have been reasonably expected. And when a Wedderburne shall be keeper of the King's conscience and seals, and a Porteus of the spiritual keys, as the alterius orbis papa, there is no doubt but our consciences, and our property too, will be effectually taken care of.'

"That firebrand, Lord Chatham, unhappily found himself well enough to come to the House of Lords just at this time, and proposed an immediate agreement with the rebels of America, in which he was abetted by our Chancellor, the Duke of Grafton, who took occasion to attack the Archbishop's sermon, who arose and told the Duke, that his Grace did not know what whiggism was, but that his conduct was founded on whiggism run mad; and that he would at any time meet the Duke and justify, defend and maintain, every tittle of his sermon. The Bishop of Peterborough, Hinchliffe, the Duke's shadow, rose up and endeavoured to draw off the attention from the sermon to the agreement with America, which he abetted, say these gentlemen, with an accuracy of language and elegance of composition rarely heard in

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either senate house.' Lord Shelburne also abetted Lord Chatham's motion, and reprobated the Archbishop's sermon.

"On Monday, March 19, 1781, Lord Ferrars having made a speech against the Roman Catholics, with a proposal for severe penalties to be laid on them, as they increased much in Cheshire, the Bishop got up and made an excellent answer, and the lay Lord withdrew his motion for a time. After the riots of last year, it was a piece of cruelty to begin to stir again such troubled waters, and shews the humanity of whiggism.

"I have been told that Bishop Porteus, notwithstanding his present orthodoxy, was near being overset at one time by his junction with the Feathers Tavern petitioners, but had sagacity enough to observe the precipice, and suddenly left them: he has still, as I am informed, somewhat of the leaven, by reading lectures in his Cathedral in the afternoon."

66. Samuel Pegge.

"Mr. Pegge is an ingenious and sensible antiquary, and has various dissertations in the Gentleman's Magazine, besides some books upon various parts of our English antiquities. He is this year, I think, made Prebendary of Lincoln. He styles himself anagrammatically Paul Gemsege.

"It is rather unfortunate Mr. Pegge, whose first work is on the usefulness of precision, should stumble at the threshold, which is ever held ominous; for by thus aiming at an over great precision, we may be as liable to fall into mistakes, as following the beaten tracks of common authorities: for in the first place, Mr. Willis, who is criticised at p. 1, does not say at the place cited, vol. i. p. 387, of Hist. of Cath. that Bishop Weseham was Archdeacon of Oxford; though it is true, in a MS. note which I have copied, he has added it in the margin. In the next place, in a MS. list of the Archdeacons of Rochester, by the same gentleman, and by me transcribed into my 28th vol. of MS. Collections, p. 53, he puts down Roger de Weseham as Archdeacon of

Rochester in 1238, and resigning the same in 1245, when he was made Bishop, at which time William de Thriplow succeeded; and afterwards he makes Roger de Weseham Archdeacon of Rochester in 1304; so that it is evident he met with two persons of that name in that dignity.

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"As Mr. Pegge takes several other advantages against his late good friend, Dr. Willis,' as he styles him at p. 2, and as Mr. Willis was then in another world, I shall, from my obligations to him, endeavour to invalidate Mr. Pegge's triumphs over him, in some passages where I have taken occasion to examine whether he was so faulty as represented. Mr. Willis's researches were far extended: no wonder in the multiplicity of them he was often mistaken; and to be candid, I allow he often was so; but I do not know how it was possible he should be otherwise, considering the variety of MSS. and registers he had to consult, which were often faulty themselves. At p. 7 Mr. Willis is again called to account, and I have added in the margin :

'Now after all the parade and precision on the author's part, and negligence of Mr. Willis, it is evident from a MS. note of the latter, that he was satisfied about the date, 1239, which he corrected into that in two places in his copy of his first volume of Cathedrals, p. 75 and 116.'

At p. 23 he corrects Mr. Willis again, on account of a MS. which he has printed in the second volume of his Cathedrals, p. 219, and I have added on the margin as follows:

'Whatever the MS. quoted here may say, Mr. Willis in a MS. note has put down Rob. de Marisco as first Prebendary, 1249, for which he quotes Prynne's Collections, vol. ii. p. 625, so that Mr. Willis's want of precision ought in justice to be ascribed to the multiplicity of his subjects; which yet, we see, he was able to reduce to a greater exactness, as occasion offered: this appears from numberless corrections and additions entered by himself on the margin of his own copies of such books as he had published; all which I have entered into the margins of my copies from the MSS. themselves; therefore, triumphing over such mistakes, especially when the subject was so confined, as a single life, and a few that depended on it, is neither candid nor