offered the Doctor the use of his Collection towards the work he had in hand, which, as the Doctor had well nigh finished, he could not accept of. Mr. W. bought the Collection which the Doctor published. "In 1751, he had so great an esteem for Dr. Middleton, whose picture he had taken many years ago, and hung up in his house in Arlington Street, that he had a mezzotinto plate engraven from it by Faber. This picture is now, 1768, in his elegant Gothic gallery at Strawberry Hill in Twickenham parish. "Mr. Walpole is a lively and ingenious writer; not always accurate in his determinations, and much less so in his language; too often led away by a desire of rooting prejudices, and destroying giants and yet there is no province wherein he appears to more advantage, in general, than in throwing new light upon characters in British history. I wish he would compose a regular work, making this his principal point. He has with great labour, in his Book of Painters, recorded matters of little importance, relative to people that were of less. I have a right to be severe, for his volumes cost me above thirty shillings: yet where he drops the antiquarian in them, his remarks are striking, and worth perusal.' Mr. Shenstone's Letters, vol. iii. of his Works, p. 381, 382. London, 1769. "Mr. Robertson, in his History of Scotland, vol. ii. p. 243, 4to. after doubting of Queen Elizabeth's love for the Earl of Essex, thus remarks: But the force of this objection [from the Queen's age] is entirely removed by an author, who has illustrated many passages in the English history, and adorned more.' "John Ives, Esq. dedicates his first number of Select Papers to him, 1773, 4to. which he false dates from Great Yarmouth, St. George's Day, 1773; whereas I spent the evening of that day with him and a select party that stayed after dinner, at the Mitre tavern in Fleet Street, where about one hundred members of the Antiquary Society dined, the Bishop of Peterborough, Dean of Exeter, &c. Indeed it is possible that Mr. Ives might have been at Yarmouth in the morning of that day, as he did not come to the meeting till about 7 o'clock in the evening. He is a little man, very talkative and noisy, and somewhat forward and con ceited: was educated privately, as Mr. Nasmith of Bene't told me, with him. "An account of the Giants lately discovered, in a letter to a friend in the country: written much in favour of patriotism in an humourous stile. Thuanus de Seipso. Applicable to Mr. Horace Walpole, Atque aliquis, longo cineres post tempore nostros Huic quanquam in plumis, fortunaque insuper ampla “Dr. Lort, dining with me at Milton, Sunday, Dec. 3, 1780, told me, that calling on Mr. Walpole lately, he told him, that the late Madame de Deffand of Paris, the last time he went over thither to see her, offered to leave him all her effects and fortune; but that he absolutely refused it, and said he would never see her more, if she talked of it again; and that if she left it, he would not accept of it. She then pressed him to her collection of china, of which she had a valuable assortment: he then went and took a cup and soucoupe, which had strawberries and strawberry leaves on them, in memory of his house of Strawberry Hill; but utterly refused every thing else, except her papers, which she also offered to him. These, as there were many letters from Voltaire and the greatest men of France, he accepted; and she accordingly left them to him, with a gold snuff box, with a picture of a favourite dog in the lid. This lady died in 1780, as by one of his letters to mie." 33. Henry Wharton, Caius College. "Fourteen Sermons, preached in Lambeth Chapel before the most Rev. Father in God, Dr. Wm. Sancroft, late Lord Archbishop of Canterbury, in the years 1688, 1689, by the learned H. W. A. M. Chaplain to his Grace, with an account of the Author's Life. 2d edit. L. 8vo. 1700. "Print in his canonical habit and black wig. Tilson, pinxt. R. White, Sc. S. a maunch Ar. and a crescent in chief A. for difference: a border O. and eight pair of lion's paws in saltier gules. "Old Mrs. Swan of Newton in Cambridge told me that he died in her father's house, who was steward to the Dean and Chapter of Westminster, (Mr. Nedham, as I think) of a violent consumption; and that he was reduced at last to breast milk. "Dr. Jortin, in his Life of Erasmus, vol. i. p. 54, gives the following quotation, and observation on it, from the Longueruana, vol. ii. p. 23, &c. I have made remarks upon the History of Cardinal Wolsey, in which I have exposed the horrible lies of Sanders. Burnet is a madman of another kind, of whom the reader should be aware. Henry Wharton, in his Anglia Sacra, hath shewed much accuracy and love of truth. Massey, Dean of Christ Church in Oxford, my particular friend, who followed King James, told me, that we were great fools to give any credit to Sanders, who was a rascal, and had robbed the College of Christ Church. Massey knew him well.' The learned Abbé Longuerue, who appears to have been tolerably furnished with self-suffi ciency, and much prejudiced against Burnet, may perhaps have made, as well as Fiddes, some reasonable remarks in behalf of Wolsey's political merits; of whom also it must be owned, that he was an encourager of learning: but to justify the Cardinal in other respects is a weak and vain undertaking, to say nothing worse of it... "It seems to me a very hard thing, that self-sufficiency, a drug more common than we are apt to believe, should be denied to those who have as good a right to it as our own dear selves; but we are always apt to be jealous of what we are most fond. Dr. Jortin, as a great scholar and critic, may parade and show away as he pleases; but his skill as an antiquary will be called in question, if he believes what this self-sufficient Abbé here relates of Dean Massey, who died at Paris, August 11, 1715: he must have been born about 1650: and though I have no books to consult, (they lying all in confusion in a garret at Milton, till my library is fitted up I write this July 28, 1770) yet I dare venture to say, that Sanders had been dead above fifty years before the Dean's birth; so that if he knew him well, it must refer only to tradition of him at the University, and from his writings. "He published-A Treatise, proving Scripture to be the Rule of Faith, written by Reginald Peacock, Bishop of Chichester. L. 1688, 4to. "Mr. Baker had entered this note in his copy of the Remains of Archbishop Laud, vol. ii. London, fol. 1700, which I took from his original writing, and entered into my copy of the same book, behind the title-page. 'Henricus Wharton, A. M. obiit 3 Nov. Martii, Ao. D'ai. MDCXCIV. ætatis su xxxi.' "See his Life, written by Dr. Green, late Bishop of Ely, (as Dr. Benet told me) from materials collected by Mr. Wharton's father. "I desired Dr. Gooch, who called upon me at Milton, Monday, March 23, 1778, to write to the Dean of Salisbury about this affair he did so immediately, and sent me the following letter from Mrs. Green, wife to Mr. Charles Green of Hemingford. 'DEAR SIR, hi I WAS this day favoured with yours, for which accept my thanks, though I did not intend to have troubled you, till we had again heard from you, with regard to the coach but the Dean of Salisbury, to whom I have just delivered your letter, begged of me, in his name (as writing is at present so very disagreeable to him) to present his compliments to you, and to say, that he does not know that the Life of Mr. Heary Wharton was drawn up by Bishop Green, nor does he ever remember to have seen the book you mention, in his father's collection; and had it been in his power would have been very glad to have obliged both you and Mr. Cole with letting him have a sight of it, &c. I am, Sir, your obedt. servt. 'MATILDA Greene." 34. John Wenlock. "To the most illustrious, high and mighty Majesty of Charles II. by the Grace of God King of Great Britain, France, and Ireland, Defender of the faith, &c. The humble Declaration of John Wenlock of Langham, in the County of Essex, Esquire, an Utter Barrister of near forty years continuance, in that honourable of Lincoln's Inn: being first, a supplicatory Preface and Discourse to his Majesty, and then humbly shewing the great and dangerous troubles and intolerable impressions of himself and his family, and the true occasion thereof, in the woful times of the late most unhappy distractions: wherein the perfect loyalty of a true subject, and the perfidious malice and cruelty of a rebel, are evidently deciphered, and severally set forth to the public view in their proper colours, as a caution for England. Hereunto are annexed certain Poems, and other Treatises, composed and written by the Author upon several occasions, concerning the late most horrid and distracted times, and never before published. London, printed by T. Childe and L. Parry for the Author, 4to. 1662." "Pages 152, besides the dedication to the King of 8 pages. Before the title-page is a short apology, on account of the expensiveness, why he did not put his effigies and arms, as designed, with a dozen verses which were composed to be placed under them, and which are there printed. Mr. Lort, who lent me the book, which cost him 5 s. and seems to have been the very book presented to his Majesty, as the royal arms are impressed in gold on both the covers, has written this severe stricture on a blank page, on the author of it. |