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I believe the superstition of our Bishops (if they have any) is more towards New Moons than Sabbaths. By new moons, I mean new Ministers of State, who, like those, receive their borrowed lustre, from our civil suns; and, like those, have of late been as changeable. I think they deserve a stroke of your animadversion.-A Presbyterian is only the caput mortuum of an old Puritan Methodist, which is not less rancorous for being less fiery.

As to the Alliance you speak of between the Cloak and the Rochet, it is not like mine, between Church and State, which is an alliance of Truth and Utility: this is of utility alone; and which is likely to outwit the other, I cannot tell.

What you say is certainly true, that we, both of us, endeavour to serve Religion with equal sincerity and zeal, and shall be remembered when whole tribes of Politicians are forgotten.

My dear friend, your most affectionate brother, and obliged humble servant, W. GLOUCESTER.

LETTER XXXVII.

For the Rev. Dr. STUKELEY.

MY DEAR SIR, Prior Park, 31 Aug. 1763. On my return from Weymouth last night, I found your very kind and friendly letter of the 26th. The state of my hand is this: The remaining indisposition now, is only a stiffness in my fingers, and want of the usual free use, but yet in such a state, that they perform almost all their functions to which one usually applies them. I shall now try your oils, which I hope will perfect the cure; if they do not, as I propose to come to town in October, I shall then follow your advice, and electrify it.

I am, with a very grateful sense of your solicitude for me, dear Sir, your most affectionate and faithful humble servant, W. GLOUCESTER.

LETTER

LETTER XXXVIII.

For the Rev. Dr. STUKELEY.

DEAR SIR, Gloucester, 9 June, 1764. I received a plain and modest letter from the son of your old acquaintance, Mr. John Warburton, the Somerset Herald. You well know the character of the father, whom I never saw but once, 40 years ago, and had never any transactions with him further than my once demanding of him, by my agent, some rent due to me, as Rector of Frisby *, from the Berry estate; which he declined to pay, unless I would see him in person. I refused this condition; and so never got my rent. Your encouraging the son to write to me makes me conclude that he is one of a fair character; and if so, what I saw in the news this morning, that the place of RichmondHerald is disposed of to another, will give me concern; not that it was at all in my power to have served him in his pretensions, but because I interest myself in the success of every honest man.

I am, dear Sir, your most affectionate friend and faithful servant, W. GLOUCESTER.

*In a Letter to his friend Hurd, March 4, 1765, Bp. Warburton says: "Poor Dr. Stukeley, in the midst of a florid age of 84, was last Saturday struck with an apoplectic fit, which deprived him of his senses. I suppose he is dead by this time.". time."-Again,

* This Letter is the only notice I have yet seen of Bp. Warburton's having had the Rectory of Frisby (or Firsby) in Lincolnshire; though, by the forty years, it was his first preferment. He probably held it in trust; as the Duke of Newcastle presented another Rector to it in 1730, and again in 1756. — Warburton. had the Vicarage of Grieseley in 1726 from the Bp. of Lincoln; and Brent Broughton in 1728 from Sir Robert Sutton, who in that year presented another Vicar to Grieseley.

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"You say true, I have a tenderness in my temper which will make me miss poor Stukeley; for, not to say that he was one of my oldest acquaintance, there was in him such a mixture of simplicity, drollery, absurdity, ingenuity, superstition, and antiquarianism, that he often afforded me that kind of well-seasoned repast, which the French call an Ambigu, I suppose from a compound of things never meant to meet together. I have often heard him laughed at by fools, who had neither his sense, his knowledge, nor his honesty; though it must be confessed, that in him they were all strangely travestied. Not a week before his death he walked from Bloomsbury to Grosvenor-square, to pay me a visit; was cheerful as usual, and as full of literary projects. But his business was (as he heard Geckie was not likely to continue long) to desire I would give him the earliest notice of his death-for that he intended to solicit for his Prebend of Canterbury by Lord Chancellor and Lord Cardigan; "for," added het, one never dies the sooner, you know, for seeking preferment."

* Dr. William Geckie outlived Dr. Stukeley more than two years. Besides the Prebend of Canterbury, he was Archdeacon of Gloucester, and Rector of Southfleet, Kent. The Archdeaconry Bp. Warburton had the pleasure of giving to Dr. Hurd.

The Earl of Northington; see p. 55.

Dr. Stukeley died March 3, 1765, in his 78th year; and, by his own particular direction, was buried in the church-yard of East Ham, Essex, without any monument; but in the Register of that parish he is thus recorded: "The Rev. Dr. Stukeley, late Rector of St. George, Queen-square, buried March 9, 1765." -On a neat etching of that Church (a private plate by Mr. Tyson) is inscribed, "Ecclesiæ cujus in comiterio tumul. jacet corpus Gul. Stukeley hunc typum M. T. d. d. delineator."-An Inscription, intended for a cenotaph, either in the Church of St. George the Martyr Queen - square, or in that of All Saints, at Stamford, where his first wife was buried, may be seen in the Literary Anecdotes," vol. V. p. 705. - Some Original Letters of Dr. Stukeley will be given in a subsequent part of this volume.

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ORIGINAL

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ORIGINAL LETTERS FROM WARBURTON

TO PETER DES MAIZEAUX †.

LETTER I.

For Mr. P. DES MAIZEAUX, at Mr. Woodward's, Bookseller, at the Half-moon, over against St. Dunstan's Church in Fleet Street, London.

GOOD SIR,

Newarke-upon-Trent,
September 9, 1732.

I REMEMBER with a very particular pleasure those two or three agreeable hours which I had the happiness of passing in your conversation. It was a satisfaction like that the curious feel in viewing the

* From Birch MSS. in the British Museum, 4288.

This learned Writer, the son of a Protestant Clergyman, was born at Auvergne, in France, in 1666. He came over in his youth to England, and appears to have led the life of a man of letters, continually employed in composing or editing literary works. In 1720 he was elected F. R. S. and from his numerous letters in the British Museum, appears to have carried on a very extensive Correspondence with the learned men of his time, especially St. Evremont and Bayle. He died at London in June 1745. Bayle he assisted with many articles and remarks for his Dictionary, and published his "Letters" at Amsterdam, 1729, 3 vols. 12mo, with a variety of observations, which shew an extensive knowledge of modern Literature. He also wrote the Life of Bayle, which was prefixed to the edition of his Dictionary published in 1730, and was reprinted at the Hague in 2 vols. 1732, 12mo. By a letter in the beginning from Des Maizeaux to M. la Motte, it appears that the latter had induced him to undertake this life of his Friend. In 1732 he edited Bayle's Miscellaneous Works in 4 vols. folio, and probably was likewise the Author of the "Nouvelles Lettres de Pierre Bayle," Hague,

scene of any past action; for all the occurrences in the literary world did then immediately present themselves to me, in which I knew you had borne so long and so glorious a share. But the relations of Foreign Journals could but faintly represent to me, though they all concurred in doing it, that abounding candour and humanity that so much captivated my esteem and veneration. But was it only to tell you this (though I have been ambitious that you should know it) that I give you this trouble, I should be very much without excuse. What occa

sions it is, my chancing upon a little kind of curiosity, which, if it proves so, may not be unacceptable to you. It is a gold coin, which the Parisians of the League, when they held out against Henry IV. in 1592, struck to the old Cardinal of Bourbon, under the title of Charles X. The device is, the Arms of France, and the legend, CAROLUS X. D. G. FRANCOR. REX, 1592. The reverse, the fleur de lis, en croiz, with this inscription, CHRISTUS REGNAT, If this be any curiosity, I desire your acceptance of it, and will take care to

VINCIT, ET IMPERAT.

1739, 2 vols. 12mo. His intimacy and friendship for St. Evremond led him to publish the life and works of that writer, in 1709, 3 vols. 4to and 8vo, often reprinted aad translated into English, He also published the lives of Boileau in French, and of Chillingworth and Hales of Eton in English, which he wrote fluently. For some time it is said he was engaged in an English Dictionary, historical and critical, in the manner of Bayle, but no part of it appears to have been published, except the abovementioned Life of Hales, in 1719, which was professedly a specimen of the intended Dictionary. In 1720 he published some pieces of Locke's which had not been inserted in his works; and the same year" Recueil de diverses pieces sur la philosophie, la religion naturelle, l'histoire, les mathematiques, &c. by Leibnitz, Clarke, Newton, and others; Amst. 2 vols. 12mo. He appears likewise to have been the Editor of the "Scaligerana, Thuana, Perroniana, Pithoeana, et Colomesiana,” Amst. 1711, 2 vols. Besides these, and his translation of Bayle's Dictionary, he was a frequent contributor to the literary Journals of his time, particularly the "Bibliotheque Raisonné, and "The Republic of Letters." Chalmers's Biog. Dict. vol. XI. p. 514.

There

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