summer he quitted college, where he had lived most happily for the last fourteen years, to reside at Lambeth. Here he had ample leisure for his professional studies; and it was besides a singular advantage, which he did not fail to improve, to have constantly before him such a guide as the Archbishop; a man whom he well describes "as endowed with superior talents, which he had highly cultivated; of a strong and sound understanding; of extensive and profound erudition, more particularly in Hebrew literature, and every branch of theology; an admired and useful preacher; of unblemished purity of manners, unaffected piety, unbounded benevolence, and exemplary in the discharge of all his various functions, as a parochial clergyman, a bishop, and a metropolitan." "He was to me," he adds, "a most kind friend and a bountiful

á bountiful benefactor: but far beyond all the other benefits I derived, was that invaluable one of enjoying his conversation, of being honoured with his direction and advice, and of living under the influence of his example. These were advantages indeed; and, although I did not profit by them so much as I ought, yet to them, under Providence, I ascribe whatever little credit I have attained in the world, and the high situation I have since arrived at in the Church*."

On the 13th of May 1765, Mr. Porteus married Margaret, eldest daughter of Brian Hodgson, Esq. of Ashbourne in Derbyshire; and in the course of the same year he was presented by the Archbishop to

the

* This and other passages in the Bishop's own words, which the reader will find introduced into his life, are extracted chiefly from several manuscript volumes in my possession, and in his own handwriting, containing a great variety of facts, and observations on the principal incidents of his life.

C

the two small livings of Rucking and Wittersham in Kent, which, however, he soon resigned for the rectory of Hunton, in the same county, in addition to a prebend at Peterborough, which had been given him by His Grace before. Upon the death of Dr. Denne, in 1767, he obtained the rectory of Lambeth; and soon after this he took his degree of Doctor in Divinity, on which occasion he preached the Commencement sermon. In this discourse, which is now the eighth of his first volume," I ventured," he says, "to recommend it to the University to pay a little more attention to the instruction of their youth, especially those designed for orders, in the principles of revealed religion. I proposed that these should have a place assigned to them among the other initiatory studies of the place; that they should have the same encouragement

This

encouragement given to them as all the other sciences; that they should be made an indispensable branch of academical education, and have their full share of academical honours and rewards. produced no practical effect at the time; but some years afterwards, Mr. Norris, a gentleman of fortune in Norfolk, into whose hands some extracts from this discourse happened to fall, was induced by them to found and endow a professorship at Cambridge, for the sole purpose of giving lectures to the students there in the doctrines of revealed religion, and afterwards to bequeath by his will a premium of twelve pounds per ann. to the author of the best prose essay on a sacred subject; the larger part of that sum to be expended on a gold medal, and the remainder in books."

These, as may be well imagined, were

most gratifying circumstances to Dr. Porteus, and far exceeded his expectation. At the same time, the object which he had in view was in itself so reasonable, so evidently necessary in all Christian education, and he had enforced it in a manner so powerful and convincing, that one cannot wonder it should make on serious minds a very deep impression, and be followed by some endeavour, either on the part of the University, or of some pious individual, to carry it into execution. The result unquestionably has been a most beneficial one; for it has not only produced some excellent prize dissertations on various important subjects, and made theology an essential part of academical instruction, but has been the means of giving to the world one of the ablest and most compendious systems of divinity, of which it is at present in pos

session,