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As physician both of body and soul, he "bound up "the broken-hearted-he gave medicine to heal their "sickness-he went about doing good." At his first going to his parish, the communicants were few, which was matter of grief to him; but by exerting himself in the pulpit and out of it, he gradually effected a reformation, and the Sacrament was afterwards well attended.

In 1798, being then upwards of seventy years of age, he was collated by the Archbishop of Canterbury to the sinecure Rectory of Hollingbourne, in Kent, benevolently intended as a convenient addition to his income, after the discontinuance of his pupils. In this year was published a Letter to the Church of England, pointing out some popular errors of bad consequence. By AN OLD FRIEND AND SERVANT OF THE CHURCH. It is executed with great vigor of mind, and shews that, "though his outward man decayed, his inward man "was renewed day by day."

From a survey of what this servant of God has done, it appears how closely through life he kept within the circle of his duty: the three great subjects with which a Christian Minister is concerned-the word of God, the Church of God, and the Christian life-having uniformly been the employment of his thoughts.

The year 1799 began with a severe trial, the irreparable loss of the careful manager of his family, his be loved wife with whom he had lived in sweet converse

for near half a century. Like many other good and pious men before him, he had long very much dreaded the pains of death, but to his own great comfort, this dread he completely overcame. He had had a paralytic stroke, which deprived him of the use of one side. During his confinement, the Sacrament had been frequently administered to him, and he received it for the last time a few days before his death. About the time of his departure, as his Curate was standing by his bed-side, he requested him to read the 71st Psalm, which was no sooner done than he took him by the hand, and said, with great mildness and composure, If this be dying, Mr. Sims, I had no idea what dying was before, and then added in a somewhat stronger

tone

tone of voice- thank God, thank God, that it is no • worse.' He continued sensible after this just long enough to take leave of his children, a son and daughter, and expired without a groan or a sigh. "And "when Jacob had made an end of commanding his sons, he gathered up his feet into the bed, and yield"ed up the ghost."

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The above is an Extract from a very interesting Life prefixed to Mr. Jones's works, consisting of twelve volumes in octavo.

DR. LAWSON.

MY enquiries respecting this eloquent writer have not been accompanied with the success I was sanguine enough to expect. I am indebted to a very respectable Clergyman, who was educated in the University of Dublin, for the following account-which I give in his own words.

"Dr. John Lawson, formerly senior tutor, and Professor of Oratory in the College of Dublin, was the most popular and universally-admired preacher in the kingdom of Ireland. As a writer of sermons, we have, unfortunately, very insufficient authority to form any judgment; for I do not know that he ever in his life time published one sermon; and at his death he left, as I have been assured, the strictest injunction to his executors, to destroy all his manuscripts. About four years after his decease, an obscure printer in Dublin published a collection of "Occasional Sermons, twenty in number; by a late eminent Divine of the Church of England;" together with a Latin Oration delivered at the funeral of Dr. Richard Baldwin, Provost of that University. Prefixed to this publication. is an Advertisement, dated from London; but so dated, with a view, as I conceive, of concealing the true Editor."

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From the advertisement it appears that the sermons which compose the volume, profess to be nothing more than copies from Lawson's original manuscripts. They have, however, been, always, understood as sermons preached by Lawson; and three of them in particular the first, sixth, and eighteenth, together with the oration, I can affirm to have heard him deliver. Never any man, I believe, succeeded so well as a public speaker against the disadvantage of a weak and cracked voice, as well as of an appearance not altogether prepossessing: yet in a very short time after he had ascended the pulpit, every defect was totally lost to his audience in his correct enunciation, in his unaffected, yet animated and impressive deliHe was deemed a man of considerable learning, unblemished morals, and exemplary piety, and was endowed with no small share of genius and elegance of taste. No man could be more highly esteemed both in and out of the University. He published a course of Lectures on Oratory, which he delivered in the University: these were very well received; for he took every opportunity of relieving the dryness of his subject, by introducing apposite specimens in prose or poetry, either original or translated. These Lectures were first printed in Dublin in 1759, in one vol. 8vo. and have, I think, been reprinted. Dr. Lawson seemed to be about fifty when he died."

very.

The late Bishop of Ossory was so obliging as to

write thus:

"I had the pleasure of being well acquainted with Dr. Lawson in the latter part of his life, as I became a fellow of the College some years before he died; but he was very much my senior. He must have been elected a fellow about the year 1735; and he died in the beginning of the year 1760, and was buried in the College of the Anti-chapel early in the morning: I being then the junior dean, read the funeral service. He was certainly an excellent and agreeable preacher; much applauded in the College; and followed, when

appeared in the city Churches. He was a man of

an

an elegant taste in literature, and his company much sought after."

"Some time after his death a volume of sermons was published, in which there are some that I had heard preached by Dr. Lawson; and I know he used to lend his sermons, sometimes, to his friends."

The late Sir John Coghill, who had been à Gentleman-Commoner of Trinity College, told me that the Gentlemen-Commoners, having been, as they thought, grossly insulted by the senior fellows, shaved in one night the tails of all their horses except Dr. Lawson's, which run in a field belonging to the College-a very flattering proof of the estimation in which he was universally holden!

The writers of the Critical Review say,

"These discourses, if we are rightly informed, were written by the late Dr. Lawson. We do not find that they were intended by the author for the press. Yet though they appear under all the disadvantages which attend a posthumous edition, they may be ranked in the first class of sermons. The author delivers his sentiments, which, in general, are just and manly, with a fluency and energy of style, at once affecting the passions, and convincing the understanding, of the reader.

"In these discourses the reader will perceive certain traces of a lively genius, great moderation, rational piety, and extensive benevolence."

The writers of the Monthly Review express themselves with equal praise.

"These discourses have a considerable share of merit. The author's style is easy and perspicuous; his sentiments, in general, are just and rational; some of his reflections are beautiful and striking; and there are several passages which shew him to have been a man of taste and genius.'

To the testimonies of these several critics I presume to add, that his addresses to the passions, frequent in

b 2

his

his charity sermons, are not surpassed, I believe, by any Protestant Divine. It is surprizing that sermons possessing such originality of thought, splendor of diction, knowlege of human nature, and forcible appeals to the heart, should not have been reprinted.

The Lectures on Oratory discover profound thinking, extensive erudition, and exquisite taste; not so copious as Dr. Blair's, but evincing a deeper knowlege of the several subjects proposed to the reader.

DR. LLOYD.

DR. PIERSON LLOYD was born in 1704, and

was elected on the foundation of Westminster School in 1718, and elected to Trinity College in Cambridge in 1722. He returned to the school as usher in 1724 -ushers in that situation having leave to keep their terms in the University-and became second master in 1748, which office he resigned in 1771, when he was succeeded by Dr. Vincent, the present learned and respectable Dean of Westminster. In 1733 Dr. Lloyd was instituted to the first portion of the rectory of Waddesden, in Bucks, on the presentation of the Dutchess of Marlborough. After leaving the school he had a pension of £500 a year on the privy purse. He was collated by the Archbishop of York to the sinecure rectory of Kirby, in the North Riding of Yorkshire, worth about £300 per ann. to a prebend in York Cathedral, and then to the Chancellorship of the Church of York. He died in 1781, and lies buried in the Cloisters at Westminster, without any monument or inscription.

The character of Dr. Lloyd was that of a gentle, placid man, who conciliated the esteem of all who knew him the attachment of the school to him was extraordinary; for, though possessed of no consummate abilities, he was a pleasant and an excellent

teacher:

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