skirted by 100 nurses and 200 girls, while the whole course of the procession was marked by a battalion of Marines in single files, with reversed arms. Since the funeral, his Majesty has announced his intention of giving 500l. towards the erection of a monument, to be placed in the Painted Hall, in Greenwich Hospital, in memory of the lamented Admiral.

For the foregoing Memoir we are indebted to the "United Service Journal."

53

No. III.

WILLIAM SOTHEBY, Esq. F.R.S. F.A.S. &c. &c.

MR. SOTHEBY was one of the most estimable men of our time; and his memory must be dear to all who love literature, and who appreciate great talent the more highly when they find it united with genuine goodness of heart, and with every kind disposition and social quality which ennobles human nature.

He was truly what is comprehended under the term a gentleman, in its best and widest sense: amiable, courteous, well-informed, of liberal sentiments, humane, and generous. Shortly after his decease, a small volume appeared, entitled, "Lines suggested by the Third Meeting of the British Association for the Advancement of Science, held at Cambridge in June, 1833; by the late William Sotheby, Esq. F.R.S. &c. &c." To that volume is prefixed an interesting memoir, the writer of which justly observes, that Mr. Sotheby was "one, who, though his life was far from eventful in the ordinary sense of the word, was too much beloved by his friends, and too much distinguished in the general world of letters, to be allowed to sink into the grave without some slight tribute of respect to his memory." A similar feeling will, we trust, be a sufficient apology for transferring this memoir to the pages of the Annual Biography and Obituary.

Mr. Sotheby of Sewardstone, in the county of Essex, was descended from the younger branch of an ancient family of the same name, formerly settled at Pocklington, and Birdsall

in Yorkshire. He was the eldest son of Colonel Sotheby of the Guards, and Elizabeth, daughter of William Sloane, Esq. of Stoneham, in Hampshire, and was born in London on the 9th of November, 1757. By the death of his father, when only seven years old, he was left under the guardianship of the Honourable Charles Yorke, afterwards Lord Chancellor, and of his maternal uncle, Hans Sloane, Esq. By them he was placed at Harrow, where he remained till the age of seventeen, when that active disposition which accompanied him through life induced him to enter the army, instead of completing his education at either of the Universities. He purchased a commission in the Tenth Dragoons, from which he immediately obtained leave of absence, and passed several months at the Military Academy at Angers, for the purpose of more fully studying the principles of his profession. This was the course usually adopted by young men of family and fortune, England not then possessing any institution of a similar nature.

On quitting Angers, Mr. Sotheby spent the following winter and spring in the brilliant societies of Vienna and Berlin, and, returning through the South of France to England, rejoined his regiment towards the close of 1777.

The love of literature, which at first displayed itself at Harrow, seems now to have taken a permanent hold on his mind. At Knaresborough, where the Tenth Dragoons were then quartered, he employed himself in the diligent and critical perusal of Shakspeare, and the other great masters of English poetry, and committed their finest passages to memory, thus early acquiring that command of poetical language, and facility of versification, which at a later period were so fully exhibited in his works. This did not, however, prevent him from paying strict attention to his military duties, or from maintaining a steady friendship with the officers of his regiment,—a friendship, in most instances, ter minated only by their deaths. He often reverted with much pleasure to this part of his life, and to the more actively employed portion of it in Scotland, when the Tenth Dragoons

were occupied in protecting a considerable line of coast, against the predatory incursions of Paul Jones. His first attempts in poetical ccmposition appear to have been written at this period, when under the roof of his friends Lord and Lady Elcho, in whose elegant and cheerful society he passed much of his leisure time, while quartered in the neighbourhood of Edinburgh.

In the autumn of 1779, the regiment being removed to Northamptonshire, Mr. Sotheby renewed an early acquaintance with his relation Ambrose Isted, Esq. of Ecton in that county, to whose youngest daughter, Mary, he formed a permanent attachment. The ensuing lines, addressed to her shortly before their marriage, are a pleasing testimony, not only to his early poetical talent, but to that affection, which he placed, so fortunately for his own happiness, on one to whom, for the remainder of his long life, he was chiefly indebted for its cheerfulness and tranquillity.

TO MARY.

ETTON, JUNE, 1780.

From flower to flower of every hue

The bee delights to stray,
Collects around the honied dew,

Then wings its flight away.

Alike the lily and the rose,

With every meaner flower that blows

In wild variety,

Allure yet soon the charm is o'er,

Their sweets, scarce tasted, please no more,
They flourish, fade, and die.

To many a fair my vows I paid,
By different beauties caught,
But fleeting, the impression made.

And passed, with passing thought
Then say, why thus content my breast
No longer roams? Why Jul&terest
My youth yet scarce begun
My Mary, best adoret eontes
Virtue alone gives hanniness. —

Upon his marriage in July, 1780, he quitted the army, and purchased Bevis Mount, near Southampton, where he continued to reside for the next ten years. This place was celebrated, from having been the residence of the well-known Earl of Peterborough, and by the frequent visits of Pope, to both of whom allusion is made in the following sonnet:

WRITTEN AT BEVIS MOUNT,

1782.

Whether I rest in peace, till life's decline,

Within thy bowers, oh loved retreat! or stray
Far from thy shades, my wandering steps away,
To thee, the bard thou shelterest, shall consign
The meed most due of this memorial line

Not form'd by vulgar hands, in waving way

Bend thy slope banks, and woods that dim the day.
These elms, that o'er my head their branches join,
A hero planted, one whom conqu'ring Rome
Had proudly crown'd. - And underneath the gloom
Of yon old oak a skill'd magician sung :
Oft at his call these sunny glades among
Thy guardian sylphs, Belinda, sportive play'd,
And Eloisa sigh'd in yon sequester'd shade.

Mr. Sotheby now principally devoted his time to the more diligent study of the classics, to the translation of many of the minor Greek and Latin poets, and some original compositions, which his maturer taste did not deem worthy of publication. Among these were several tragedies, one of which, entitled "Bertram and Matilda," was privately represented at Winchester, by himself and the families of Sir Chaloner and Dean Ogle, with whom he had formed an early intimacy on his first residence at Bevis Mount, which continued uninterrupted to the close of his life; particularly with Sir Chaloner's third daughter, Barbarina, the present Lady Dacre, in whom, from her refined poetic talent, and genuine love of the drama, he found a mind peculiarly congenial to his own. About the same time he also became acquainted with the Rev. William L. Bowles, well known for his elegant and feeling poetry, and formed a lasting