All this while, as it was necessary his place of residence should be concealed, he kept up no correspondence at Buckingham, so that death had kindly removed his greatest trouble, two or three years before he heard of it. She had, as he himself allows, one child, and, as she used to affirm, two by him; but the parentage of the latter was very equivocal. However, they both died soon after the mother, and Hill returned to Buckingham in the end of January, 1744, N.S. He maintained himself for four or five years, by his first occupation of taylor and staymaker; but marrying a third wife, in 1747, who proved as good a breeder as his first, this, with the dearness of provisions, and hardness of the times, reduced him to inexpressible distress.

Though his modesty had always made him keep his acquisition of the learned languages as secret as possible, it was rumoured about the country," That he could read the bible in the same books, and the same strange figures as the travelling Jews did." A neighbouring clergyman, finding it to be true, took a liking to him, and has been his friend ever since. This gentle man, some time after, set him to write remarks on the Essay on Spirit, which appeared in 1753, and was the first piece of Mr. Hill's that was printed. The next thing the same gentleman employed him about was, a tract against the Papists, shewing that the favourite doctrines of the church of Rome are novel inventions. About the same time he wrote The Character of a Jew, when the bill for naturalizing that people was in agitation. This, he says, was the best thing

he ever wrote, and was the least approved of. And, latterly, he has written Criticisms on Job, in five sheets, which is the largest of all his works.

He says, he would now engage to teach Hebrew to any body of tolerable parts, and with very moderate application, in six weeks, at an hour each morning, and another each afternoon. He is writing a Hebrew grammar, on which sort of subject he will probably succeed better than in any other, because it has been the most general study of his life. Mayr's grammar he thinks much the best of twenty Hebrew grammars he has read; he therefore intends to build his chiefly on Mayr's; as Mayr himself did on that of Cardinal Bellarmine. He says, it is very hard work sometimes to catch a Hebrew root; but that he never yet hunted after one which he did not catch in the end. He might affirm the same of every thing he has attempted, for his application and attention exceed what any one can conceive who hath not observed the process of his studies. He is a vast admirer of St. Jerom, whom he equals to Cicero. He says, he has had more light from father Simon, than from all our other writers put together. He thinks the Hutchinsonians wrong in almost every thing they advance. He is a most zealous son of the church of England. Of the poets, his chief acquaintance have been Homer, Virgil, and Ogilvy. The Iliad he has read over many times.

The Odyssey being put into his hands, in 1758, both in the original, and in Mr. Pope's translation, he was charmed with both, but

said

said that it read finer in the latter, than in Homer himself. Pope's Essay on Criticism charmed him still more: he called it "The wisest poem he had ever read in his whole life."

Hill seems to have been the better citizen, in marrying three times; and Magliabechi, perhaps, was the wisest student, in not marrying at all.

I am very sorry that there is still one point remaining, in which Hill is as unlike Magliabechi, as many of the preceding. Magliabechi lived and died, as has been already said, in very great affluence: he abounded in money, and his expences were very small, except for books; which he regarded as his truest treasure; whereas poor Mr. Hill has generally lived in want, and lately more than ever. The very high price, even of the most necessary provisons, for this and the last year, that is 1758 and 1757] have not only made it often difficult for him to provide bread for himself and his family; but have in part stopt up even the sources for it, in lessening his business. Buckingham is no rich place at best; and

even

there his business has chiefly been among the lower sort of people; and when these are not able to purchase the food that is necessary for them, they cannot think of buying new cloaths. This has reduced him so very low, that I have been informed, that he has passed many and many whole days, in this and the former year, without tasting any thing but water and tobacco. He has a wife and four small children, the eldest of them not above eight years old; and what bread they could get, he often

spared from his own hunger, to help towards satisfying theirs. People that live always at their ease, do not know, and can scarce conceive, the difficulties our poor have been forced to undergo in these late hard times. He himself assured me, upon my mentioning this particular to him, that it was too true.

"But alas! (added he) it is not only my case, but has been that of hundreds in the town and neighbourhood of Buckingham, in the last, and for the former part of this year [1758]; and I fear we must make many more experiments of the same kind, before it is at an end."

If any one in this age, so justly eminent for charities of almost all kinds, shall be so far moved with the distress and necessities of so worthy and industrious a poor man, as to be inclined to help towards relieving him; they are humbly intreated to send any present which they might wish in his hands, either to Mr. Richardson, in Salisbury-court, Fleet-street, or Mess. Dodsley, booksellers, in Pallmall, London; Mr. Prince, at Oxford; Mr. Thurlbourn, at Cambridge; Mess. Hamilton and Balford, at Edinburgh; Mr. Faulkner, at Dublin; Mr. Owen, at Tunbridge; Mr. Leake, at Bath; Mr. Cadel, at Bristol; Mr. Hinxman, at York; Mr.Richardson, at Durham; Mr. Creighton, at Ipswich; Mr. Chase, at Norwich; Mr. Burdin, at Winchester; Mr. Collins, at Salisbury; and Mr. Seeley, at Buckingham: and they may be assured, that whatever may be thus collected, shall be put to the properest use for the service of him and his family.

Some

Some anecdotes extracted from the life of the Duke of Buckingham (son to the great Duke of Buckingham, killed by Felton, in the reign of Charles 1.) from an original manuscript in the possession of the late Bishop Atterbury, written by Mr. Fairfax, and lately published.

THE

HE duke, says Mr. Fairfax, inherited from his father the greatest title, and from his mother* the greatest estate of any subject in England; and from them both so graceful a body, as gave a lustre to the ornaments of his mind.

The duke, and his brother Francis, were sent to Trinity college, Cambridge, whence they repaired to King Charles I. at Oxford; and there, says this their panegyrist, they chose two good tutors to enter them in the war, Prince Rupert, and my Lord Gerard; and went with them into a very sharp service, the storming of the Close at Litchfield. For this the parliament seized on their estates; but by a rare example of their compassion, restored it again, in consideration of their non-age.

They were now committed to the care of the Earl of Northumberland, and were sent to travel in France and Italy, where they lived in as great state as some of those sovereign princes. Florence and Rome were the places of their residence, and they brought their religion home again, wherein they had been educated, under the eye of the most devout and best of Kings. The duke did not, as his predecessor, in the title of Lord Ross, had done before him, who changed his religion at Rome, and left his tutor, Mr. Mole, in the

inquisition, for having translated King James's book, his Admonition to princes in Latin; and Du Plessis Mournay's book of the mass into English.

Their return into England, was in so critical time, as if they had now chosen the last opportunity, as they had done the first, of venturing all in the King's service.

In the year 1648 the King was a prisoner in the isle of Wight, and his friends in several parts of England, designing to renew the war; Duke Hamilton in Scotland, the Earl of Holland and others in Surry, Goring in Kent, many in London and Essex, and these were the last efforts of the dying cause.

The duke and brother, my Lord Francis, in the heat of their courage, engaged with the Earl of Holland; and were the first that took the field about Rygate in Surry.

The parliament, with their old army, knew all these designs, and despised them; till they grew so numerous in Kent, that the general himself was sent to suppress them, who found sharp service in storming of Maidstone, and taking of Colchester.

Some troops of horse were sent under the command of Colonel Gibbons, to suppress them in Surry; and then drove my Lord of Holland before them to Kingston, but engaged his party before they got thither, near Non-such, and defeated them.

My Lord Francis, at the head of his troop, having his horse slain under him, got to an oak-tree in the highway, about two miles from Kingston, where he stood with his back against it, defending himself, scorning to ask quarter, and they

bar

barbarously refusing to give it; till, with nine wounds in his beautiful face and body, he was slain. The oak-tree is his monument, and has the two first letters of his name, F. V. cut in it to this day.

Thus died this noble, valiant, and beautiful youth, in the twentieth year of his age. A few days before his death, when he left London, he ordered his steward, Mr. John May, to bring him in a list of his debts, and he so charged his estate with them, that the parliament, who seized on the estate, paid his debts.

His body was brought from Kingston by water to York house in the Strand, and was there embalmed, and deposited in his father's vault in Henry the VIIth's chapel.

The duke, after the loss of his brother, fled to St. Neod's, where, the next morning, finding the house where he lay surrounded, and a troop of horse drawn up before the gate, had time with his servants to get to horse, and then causing the gate to be opened, he charged the enemy, and killed the officer at the head of them, and made his escape to the sea-side, and to Prince Charles, who was in the Downs, with those ships that had deserted the Earl of Warwick.

And now again the parliament gave him forty days time to return to England, but he refused, and chose rather to stay with the prince, who was soon after King Charles the second, and to follow him in his exile.

The parliament seized on his estate, the greatest of any subject in England, having now his brother's estate fallen to him; the yearly value was above 25,000l.

It happened that the manor of Helmesly, which was his brother's, was given to my Lord Fairfax, with York-house in the Strand, for part of his arrears, and this fortunately came to him by his marrying my Lord Fairfax's daughter.

All that he had to live on beyond sea, was the money he got at Antwerp for his pictures, which were part of that costly and curious collection his father got together from Italy by the help of Sir Henry Wootton, and others, which adorned York-house, to the admiration of all men of judgment in pictures. A note of their names and dimensions is all that is now left of them. The Ecce Homo of Titian, was valued at 5000l. being the figure of all the great persons in his time. The archduke bought it, and it is now in the castle of Prague. These pictures were secured and sent to him by his old trusty servant, Mr. John Traylman, who lived in Yorkhouse.

The King (Charles II.) resolving to go into Scotland, the duke attended him, and now again the parliament offered him to compound for his estate for 20,000l. which was less than a year's value; but he chose to run the king's fortune in Scotland, worse than exile, came with him out of Scotland into England; and at Worsley his escape was almost as miraculous as the King's in the Royal Oak. He escaped again into France, and went a volunteer into the French army, and was much regarded by all the great officers, signalizing his courage at the siege of Arras and Valenciennes.

When he came to the English court, which was but seldom, the King was always glad to see him.

He

He loved his person and his company; but the great men about him desired rather his room than his company.

There then happened a great turn in the course of his life. My Lord Fairfax had part of his estate, about 5000l. per annum, allotted him by the parliament, towards the payment of his arrears, due to him as general, and he remitted more than would have purchased a greater estate. They gave him the manor of Helmesly, the seat of the noble family of Rutland in Yorkshire, as a salve for the wound he received there, being shot through the body. They gave him also York-house in London, which was also the duke's. The duke heard how kind and generous my Lord Fairfax was to the countess of Derby, in paying all the rents of the Isle of Man, which the parliament had also assigned to him, for his arrears, into her own hands, and she confessed it was more than all her servants before had done.

1

The duke had reason to hope my lord had the same inclinations as to this estate of his, which he never accounted his own, and the duke wanted it as much as the countess.

He was not deceived in his hopes, for my Lord Fairfax wished only for an opportunity of doing it. He lived in York-house, where every chamber was adorned with the arms of Villiers and Manners, lions and peacocks, He was descended from the same ancestors, Earls of Rutland, Sir Guy Fairfax his two sons having married two of the daughters of the Earl of Rutland; which my lord took frequent occasion to remember.

The duke resolved to try his for tune, which had hitherto been ad

verse enough, and he had some revenge on her, by his translation of the ode in Horace, "Fortuna sævis "læta negotiis." Over he came into England, to make love to his only daughter, a most virtuous and amiable lady. He found a friend to propose it, and I think it was Mr. Robert Harlow.

The parents consented, and the young lady could not resist his charms, being the most graceful and beautiful person that any court in Europe ever saw, &c. All his trouble in wooing was, he came, saw, and conquered.

When he came into England, he was not sure of either life or liberty. He was an out-law, and had not made his peace with Cromwell, who would have forbid the banns if he had known of his coming over. He had a greater share of his estate, had daughters to marry, and would not have liked such a conjunction of Mars and Mercury, as was in this alliance: knowing my lord's affection to the royal family, which did afterwards produce good effects towards its restoration.

They were married at Nun-Appleton, six miles from York, Sept. 7, 1657, a new and noble house built by my Lord Fairfax, and where he kept as noble hospitality.

Cromwell, it seems, was so of fended at this match, that he sent the duke to the Tower; which so provoked Lord Fairfax, that high words arose between him and the protector: but the latter dying soon after, I (continues this writer) carried the duke the news, and he had then leave to be prisoner at Windsor castle, where his friend Abraham Cowleywas his constant companion. Richard Cromwell soon after abdi

cated,