country by his talents, integrity, and impartiality. He revered and protected, with unshaken firmness, the liberties and constitution of his country, supporting with one hand the just prerogatives of the crown, and with the other arresting any encroachment on the rights of the subject. As an orator, his eloquence was clear, graceful, and harmonious, his diction impressive and select, and his arguments succinct, perspicuously arranged, and pointed. In private and domestic life, his piety, his benevolence, and engaging manners, secured him the warmest affections of those who enjoyed his intimacy; and from the salutary controul which he had long acquired over his appetites and passions, he possessed a tranquillity and evenness of mind which no circumstances could shake, and which, though naturally of a delicate constitution, preserved his health and spirits nearly unimpaired to the age of 73. At this period he was attacked with a dysenteric complaint, and, after some months of suffering, which were endured with the utmost patience and resignation, he submitted with cheerfulness to the common lot of mortality on March the 6th, 1764. During his lordship's last illness, his friend, Dr. John Green, bishop of Lincoln, wrote the following affec tionate lines; suggested by the visibly approaching fate of this accomplished Peer. O still let Envy rear her head, Can Envy there infix a sting, Whose harmless wound will last? A day will come, that day I fear, When Slander's tongue shall mute appear, When every mouth his name shall boast, And every heart revere : That fatal day I dread the most; That day is much too near. Lord Hardwicke was, at an early period of life, a contributor to the Spectator. It is affirmed, on the authority of Dr. Thomas Birch, that he was the author of two numbers in this work; only one of his compositions, however, can now be ascertained, and this is a letter on Travelling, in No 364, signed Philip Homebred. From its date, which is April the 28th, 1712, it must have been written when our author was but twenty-two years of age; a circumstance which, were it ne cessary, should disarm the rigour of criticism. It is, however, if not remarkable for originality or depth of thought, a sensible and entertaining production, not deficient in humour, and in its style easy and perspicuous. 1 The subject had been previously noticed by Addison in the Tatler N° 93, and since by Swift, by Chesterfield, and by Hurd. The sound judgment and literary acquisitions which are necessary to render a tour upon the continent useful and ornamental, are seldom to be met with in very early life; and the ridiculous custom, which prevailed at the era of this letter, and through the greater part of the century in which it was written, of sending raw and half educated young men to France and Italy, was productive of nothing but vice and folly, of consummate foppery, and of the worst species of pedantry, the affectation of foreign forms and manners. "Among the many impertinencies," observes Swift, "that superficial young men bring with them from abroad, this bigotry of forms is one of the principal, and more predominant than the rest; who look upon them not only as if they were matters capable of admitting of choice, but even as points of importance, and are therefore zealous upon all occasions to introduce and propagate the new forms and fashions they have brought back with them; so that, usually speaking, the worst bred person in company is a young traveller just returned from abroad *. 29. WILLIAM FLEETWOOD, a prelate of great learning and piety, was born in the year 1656; and having received a good education at Eton school, was elected to King's-college, in the university of Cambridge. He took orders about the period of the Revolution; was shortly afterwards appointed chaplain to King William and Queen Mary; and, through the interest of Dr. Godolphin, vice-provost of Eton, he was made fellow of that college, and rector of St. Austin's, London. The celebrity which, in this situation, Mr. Fleetwood acquired as a preacher, soon led to further preferment; he was, in a short time after his establishment in the metropolis, chosen lecturer of St. Dunstan's, in Fleet-street; and, just previous to the decease of King William, he was nominated to a canonry of Windsor. A strong inclination for literary retirement induced Mr. Fleetwood, in the year 1705, to resign his living and lectureship, and to retire to a small rectory which he possessed near Eton. Here, while immersed in the study of history and antiquities, he was unexpectedly, and with* Swift's Works, vol. x. p. 220, 221. out the least solicitation on his part, chosen by Queen Anne to fill the see of St. Asaph. He succeeded Dr. Beveridge; and though he found the political and religious opinions, which prevailed in the diocese of St. Asaph, widely different from his own, his manners, his virtues and address were such, that no prelate had been remembered there more universally loved and respected. The attachment which this worthy divine had uniformly shewn for liberty and the protestant religion was rewarded, on the accession of the House of Hanover, by the valuable bishopric of Ely, a preferment which rendered his exertions in the support of liberal knowledge and rational piety much more extensive and beneficial. The literary labours of our author, during his advancement to, and possession of, these ecclesiastical dignities, were immense; not less than forty-two of his publications are noticed in the Biographia Britannica, all of which were subservient to the best and most useful of purposes. They may be arranged under the heads of Antiquities, History, and Theology; and we shall mention a few of these works as specimens of his exertions in each of the departments. His classical literature and critical powers were exhibited to great advantage in one of his early productions, entitled Inscriptionum Antiquarum Sylloge, |