ANECDOTES

OF

THE LIFE

OF

RICHARD WATSON,

BISHOP OF LANDAFF;

WRITTEN

BY HIMSELF AT DIFFERENT INTERVALS,

AND

REVISED IN 1814.

PUBLISHED BY HIS SON,

RICHARD WATSON, LL.B.

PREBENDARY OF LANDAFF AND WELLS.

Second Edition.

IN TWO VOLUMES.

VOL. I.

LONDON:

PRINTED FOR T. CADELL AND W. DAVIES, STRAND;

BY J. M'CREERY, BLACK-HORSE-COUrt.

J. M'Creery, Printer,
Black Horse Court, London.

1700~

Bi 6323125.3

1875, March 22.
Walker Bequeet.
(Vol. I, II.)

21 MAY 1912

ANECDOTES OF THE LIFE

OF

RICHARD WATSON,

BISHOP OF LANDAFF.

IT has been a custom with me, from a very early age, to put down in writing the most important events of my life, with an account of the motives which, on any occasion of moment, influenced my conduct. This habit has been both pleasant and useful to me; I have had great pleasure in preserving, as it were, my identity, by reviewing the circumstances which, under the good Providence of God, have contributed to place me in my present situation; and a frequent examination of my principles of action has contributed to establish in me a consistency of conduct, and to

confirm me, I trust, in that probity of manners, in my seventy-fifth year, with which I entered into the world at the age of seventeen. My health has been for several years precarious; and the faculty have long ago left my constitution to struggle with a disorder which first seized me in 1781. The body and mind, I begin to perceive, are both of them losing their activity; the evil days are coming on in which men usually say, there is no pleasure in them; may I not be allowed, then, without incurring the imputation of vanity, to live, in a manner, an happy life (for which I am most thankful to its Author) over again, by collecting and arranging some of the detached papers which I have written at different periods? By this means my children, when I am in my grave, may be gratified with knowing the character of their father; and the world, if it has any curiosity concerning him, will have an opportunity of perusing authentic, if not interesting, Memoirs of the Bishop of Landaff.

All families being of equal antiquity, and