himself." He published some defences of the Divine Legation,' in which, with a glow of zeal for his friend, he showed much logical precision and acuteness.* The latter, Dr Balguy, was a person of extraordinary parts, and extensive learning; indeed of universal knowledge; and, what is so precious in a man of letters, of the most exact judgment: as appears from some valuable discourses,† which, having been written occasionally on important subjects, and published separately by him, had raised his reputation so high, that his majesty, out of his singular love of merit, and without any other recommendation, was pleased in 1781, to make him the offer of the bishopric of Gloucester. Dr Balguy had a just sense of this flattering distinction; but was unhappily prevented by an infirm state of health from accepting it. With these, and such as these, the bishop was happy to spend his leisure hours. A general conversation he never affected, or rather took much pains to avoid, as what he justly thought a waste of time in one of his temper, talents, and profession. But to draw to an end of this long, and, as it may seem to those who knew little of him, too fond a character of my friend. He had his foibles, no doubt; but such as we readily excuse, or overlook, in a great character. With more reserve in his writings and conversation, he had passed through the world with fewer enemies (though no prudence could have kept a genius, like his, from having many); and, with a temper less irritable, he would have secured a more perfect enjoyment of himself. But these were the imperfections of his nature, or rather the excrescences of his ruling virtues, an uncommon frankness of mind, and sensibility of heart. These qualities appear in all his writings, especially in his private letters: in which a warm affection for his friends, and concern for their interests, is everywhere expressed. The following is, I believe, an exact list of them: But his ten 1. Critical Inquiry into the Practice and Opinions of the ancient Philosophers concerning the Soul, &c. London, 1748. 2. Exposition of the Orthodox System of Civil Rights and Church Power; addressed to Dr Stebbing. 3. Argument of the Divine Legation, fairly stated. London, 1751. 4. Free and candid Examination of Bishop Sherlock's Sermons and Discourses on Prophecy. London, 1756. 5. Dissertation on the ancient Mysteries. London, 1766. 6. Remarks on Dr Lowth's Letter to Bishop Warburton. London, 1766. These discourses, with some others, were afterwards collected into one volume in 1785, and presented with a handsome dedication to his majesty.—This excellent person died January 19, 1793, while the concluding sheets of this discourse were yet in the press, derness for his family, and, above all, his filial piety,* strikes us with peculiar force. In a letter to me from Durham, July 12, 1757, he writes thus-"“ I am now got, through much hot weather and fatigue, to this place. I hurried from the heat of London at a time, and under circumstances, when a true court chaplain would never have forgiven himself the folly of preferring the company of his friends and relations, to attendance on the minister. But every one to his taste. I had the pleasure of finding you well at Cambridge; I had the pleasure of finding a sister and a niece well at Broughton, with whom I spent a few days with much satisfaction. For, you must know, I have a numerous family: perhaps the more endeared to me by their sole dependence on me. "It pleased Providence that two of my sisters should marry unhappily: and that a third, on the point of venturing, should escape the hazard, and so engage my care only for herself. I reckon this a lucky year: for I have married a niece to a reputable grocer at York, and have got a commission for a nephew in the regiment of artillery. These are pleasures," &c. What his filial piety was, will be seen from the following extracts:— "I am extremely obliged to you," says he to a confidential friend,† "for your remembrance of my dearest, my incomparable mother, whom I do more than love, whom I adore. No mortal can ever merit more of me, than she has done. Her decline of life possesses me with anxiety; and I have no support for this but in the thoughts of that last meeting, which excludes all farther chance of separation. But I must break off. You have had long experience, what pain it is to me to speak of subjects that affect me most." And, again, to the same person, on occasion of her death in 1748— "You should have heard from me sooner, but that the afflictive news of my dear mother's death, which met me at this place,‡ made me incapable of writing, or indeed of doing any thing but grieve for the loss of the most admirable woman that ever was. She was the last of her family; and had in herself alone more virtues than are generally possessed by whole families throughout the whole course of their existence. My extreme sorrow for her death can only give place to my incessant medita * A leading feature in the character of great men. See Plutarch's Coriolanus. Ed. Xyland. p. 215. Marcius, says his biographer, οὐκ ἐνεπίμπλατο οὐολυμνίαν εὐφραίνων καὶ τιμῶν· When I complimented my friend on his promotion to the see of Gloucester,-"It comes," said he, "too late if my mother had been living, it might have given me some satisfaction." Seneca says to his mother, of his brother Novatus, In hoc dignitatem excolit, ut tibi ornamento sit.' De Consol, ad Helviam, c. xvi. H. Dr Taylor. May 22, 1746. Prior Park. tion on her virtues and adoration of her memory. This is one of those losses that nothing can repair, and only time can alleviate. For I shall never enjoy that happiness as in the days when you and I were conversing together, while she was giving us our coffee. At present, I can think of nothing," &c. But I grow prolix again, for the reader's sake I will not say, tedious, while I indulge myself in extracting these tender passages from his letters. To conclude at length, in one word. How differently soever men might think of him in his lifetime, all are, or will be, agreed in their opinions of him, now he is dead. For, as a divine of his own size, and one after his own heart, said excellently well, "When great prelates are living, their authority is depressed by their personal defaillances, and the contrary interests of their contemporaries; which disband, when they are dead, and leave their credit entire upon the reputation of those excellent books and monuments of learning and piety, which are left behind them."* What that credit of our great prelate is, this collection of his works will show; and will, if I mistake not, deliver him down to posterity, as the ablest divine, the greatest writer, and the first genius of his age. They are faithfully printed from the last editions of the author, and those in many places corrected by his own hand. In one respect only, I have some apology to make to the reader. Several of his friends had observed to him, and he was himself convinced of it, that he had filled the margin of the Alliance' and 'Divine Legation' with too many notes; and had swelled those volumes, in the latter editions, with too many extracts, under the name of postscripts, or appendices, from his controversial tracts. The longer notes occupy the reader too much, and divert him from the main argument, which, as it lies in the text of the 'Divine Legation' especially, is drawn out to a sufficient length; otherwise, they are infinitely curious and learned, and deserve to be read with great care. They are now, therefore, printed together at the end of each book, and referred to in the text. By this disposition, the reader's convenience is consulted, and the dignity of those capital works is preserved. As for such of the postscripts as are extracted from his controversial works, these I ought, perhaps, to have withdrawn: but, as hereafter they may have their use in separate editions of the Alliance' and 'Divine Legation,' I have permitted them to keep their place. I did this the rather, because these discourses are not merely repetitions, but have received many corrections and alterations from the author; while the controver * Bishop Taylor, L. P. p. 210, Svo, London, 1709. sial treatises, from which they are taken, were never retouched by him, but left in their original state. Those controversial pieces themselves could by no means be suppressed or altered in the least, as they present the liveliest image of the writer's character and genius, and derive a peculiar grace from being seen in that connexion of thought and glow of colouring which they took, in the heat of composition, from his careless and rapid hand. Some of his private letters (such as had been printed in his lifetime by himself or others), conclude the last volume; and show how much he excelled in this sort of composition, for which he was indeed singularly qualified by the characteristic virtues both of his head and heart. The reader will therefore wish for a larger collection of them; and he may in due time be gratified with it, out of the editor's long correspondence with him. It may be proper to add, that this elegant edition of his works is given at the sole expense of his widow, now Mrs Stafford Smith,* of Prior Park: who also erected the monument, before spoken of, to his memory in the church of Gloucester. I have now, as I found myself able, and in the manner I judged most fit, discharged my duty to this incomparable man: a duty which he seemed to expect would be paid to him by one or other of his surviving friends, when, in the close of his preface to Mr Pope's works, he has these affecting words: "and I, when envy and calumny take the same advantage of my absence, (for, while I live, I will trust it to my life to confute them) may I find a friend as careful of my honest fame as I have been of his." I have, I say, endeavoured to do justice to his memory; but in so doing, I have taken, the reader sees, the best method to preserve my own. For in placing myself so near to him in this edition of his immortal works, I have the fairest, perhaps the only chance of being known to posterity myself. Envy and prejudice have had their day: and when his name comes, as it will do, into all mouths, it may then be remembered, that the writer of this life was honoured with some share of his esteem; and had the pleasure of living in the most entire and unreserved friendship with him for near thirty years.† R. WORCESTER. I DECUS, 1, NOSTRUM ; MELIORIBUS UTERE FATIS.-Virg. Æn. vi. 546. She survived the bishop somewhat more than seventeen years; and died at Fladbury near Evesham, a living of good value, which I had given to Mr Stafford Smith, September the 1st, 1796. R. W. This life was originally prefixed to a full edition of the author's works, hence many expressions, the reader will observe, refer to that edition. APPENDIX TO THE LIFE. APPENDIX A, p. 17. "I HAVE known this gentleman about twenty years. I have been greatly and in the most generous manner obliged to him. So I am very capable, and you will readily believe, very much disposed to apologize for him. Yet for all that, if I did not really believe him to be an honest man, I would not venture to excuse him to you. Nothing is more notorious than the great character he had acquired in the faithful and able discharge of a long embassy at Constantinople, both in the public part and the private one of the merchants' affairs. The first reflection on his character was that unhappy affair of the Charitable Corporation. I read carefully all the reports of the committee concerning it: and as I knew Sir Robert Sutton's temper and character so well, I was better able than most to judge of the nature of his conduct in it. And I do in my conscience believe that he had no more suspicion of any fraud, carrying on by some in the direction, than I had. That he was guilty of neglect and negligence as a director is certain; but it was only the natural effect of his temper, where he has no suspicion, which is exceedingly indolent. And he suffered sufficiently for it, not only in his censure, but by the loss of near £20,000. And at this very juncture he lost a considerable sum of money, through his negligence, by the villany of a land-steward, who broke and ran away. Dr Arbuthnot knew him well; and I am fully persuaded, though I never heard so, that he had the same opinion of him in this affair that I have. But parties ran high, and this became a party matter. And the violence of parties no one knows more of than yourself, And his virtue and integrity have been since fully manifested. Another prejudice against him, with those who did not know him personally, was the character of his brother the general, as worthless a man, without question, as ever was created. But you will ask, why should a man in his station be engaged in any affair with such dirty people? It is a reasonable question; but you who know human nature so well, will think this a sufficient answer. He was born to no fortune, but advanced to |