variation, those affecting words of old

Evander ;

- Mihi tarda gelu, sæclisque effœta senectus Invidet eloquium, seræque ad fortia vires." The last public act, if I may so term it, of the Bishop's life, was worthy of all that he had done before, and I give it in his own words.

"I had for some time past," he says, "observed in several of the papers an account of a meeting, chiefly of military Gentlemen, at an Hotel at the West end of the Town, which was regularly announced, as held every other Sunday during the winter season. This appeared to me, and to every friend to religion, a needless and wanton profanation of the Christian Sabbath, which by the laws both of God and man was set apart for

very different purposes; and the Bishops and Clergy were severely censured for permitting

and exhausted frame; and it became evident to those most constantly with him, that nature could not much longer sustain the shock. He was himself indeed strongly impressed with the conviction, that his end was fast approaching; and he contemplated the event with all that calm, composed resignation, which nothing can inspire but a deep sense of piety, and a devout, religious submission to the will of God. On Thursday the 10th of May, I saw him for the last time; and never can I forget the affecting solemnity of voice, and look, and manner, in which he begged my most earnest prayers for his early and easy release. He said little more to me, for his mind seemed wholly absorbed in the near prospect of an eternal world. The following day he was at his own desire removed to Fulham; and for a

short

short time the change of air and scene appeared to cheer and exhilarate him. As he sat the next morning in his library, near the window, the brightness of a fine spring day called up a transient glow into his countenance; and he several times exclaimed, O, that glorious Sun! Afterwards, whilst sitting at dinner, he was seized with some slight convulsions, which were happily of short duration; and he then fell, as it seemed, into a gentle sleep. From that time however he never spoke, and scarcely could be said to move. Without a pang or a sigh,by a transition so easy, as only to be known by a pressure of his hand upon the knee of his servant, who was sitting near him, the spirit of this great and good Man fled from its earthly mansion to the realms of Peace!

How

How truly were his own prayers accomplished, thus beautifully expressed many years before in his Poem upon Death: At Thy good time

Let Death approach; I reck not:-let him come
In genuine form, not with thy vengeance armed,
Too much for man to bear. O! rather lend
Thy kindly aid to mitigate his stroke.
Then shed thy comforts o'er me; then put on
The gentlest of thy looks; then deign to cheer
My fainting heart with the consoling hope
Of Mercy, Mercy, at thy hands!—And Thou,
Whom soft-eyed Pity once led down from Heaven
To bleed for Man, to teach him how to live,
And, O, still harder lesson! how to die;
Disdain not thou to smooth the restless bed

Of sickness and of pain.

That feeble Nature drops;

Forgive the tear

calm all her fears;

Fix her firm trust on thy triumphant Cross,
Wake all her hopes, and animate her Faith;
Till my rapt Soul, anticipating Heaven,
Bursts from the thraldom of encumb'ring clay,
And, on the wing of ecstacy upborne,
Springs into Liberty and Light and Life."

In obedience to express directions, which he left in writing, he was removed to Sundridge, and there interred in a

vault, in the church-yard, which he had some time before caused to be erected. The Inscription on the tomb simply records, in compliance with his own wish, the dates of his birth and death; the former, on the 8th of May 1731; the latter, on the 13th of May 1809.

The Executors to the Bishop's Will were his old and much valued friends, the Bishops of Durham and Lincoln, and his nephew, Mr. Thomas Porteus: and, in addition to various kind remembrances to different parts of his family, the following are the principal Bequests:

TO the Rector of St. James's Westminster, to be distributed by him at his discretion amongst the deserving Poor of that parish, within three months after his decease, £. 100.

To the Vicar of Fulham, in Middlesex, to be distributed by him in the same manner, and within the same time, £. 100.

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