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it was in the evening generally that he played; when he hurt his eye (it was on the 7th of Dec.) he had been at his books all the morning, and went between dinner and dusk to take one set at tennis. When he lost his life hunting, he had not hunted ten times the whole season. And what have been represented as his last words were not his last words; and even if they were, they had no other meaning than “ Pray prevent a helpless man from slipping down out of his place." That he was not a mere sportsman, a mere idler, or a mere trifler, witness the wet eyes that streamed at every window in the streets of Dublin as his hearse was passing by; witness the train of carriages that composed his funeral procession; witness the throng of nobility and gentlemen that attended his remains to the sea-shore; witness the families he had visited in Ireland; witness the reception of his corpse in England; witness the amazing concourse of friends, tenantry, and neighbours, that came to hear the last rites performed, and to see him deposited in the tomb, witness the more endeared set of persons who still mean to hover round the vault where he is laid!

The Duke had been of age only three months when the fatal accident happened, and he had not taken his seat in the House of Lords. Whether he would ever have made an eloquent speaker in Parliament, is a question that, if it must be decided, may be decided in the negative; but, as to his making a very useful member of that august assembly, there can be no question at all; for in any deliberation where sound judgment and acute discrimination were requisite, there he must have shone. He bad all the qualities that go to the making up of an honest man. He had all the accomplishments that are essential to form a perfect gentleman. He had a high sense of his rank, and of the dignity of his ancestry, tempered with true humility. His manners were gentle and engaging; and if in a mixed party some remnants of shyness were still perceptible, to his familiar friends he was a most agreeable companion. His temper was peculiarly amiable, not so much perhaps constitutionally serene, as chastened by self-discipline. His affections were warm and steady;

his attachments most sincere; and he had a heart formed for charity in the most extensive meaning of that copious term. He was a fond and dutiful son; he was kind to the poor, generous to the distressed, slow to anger, ready to forgive. He had a mind exactly constituted to admire Christianity for the sublimity of its principles, and to revere it for the purity of its precepts. His religion was free from ostentation, his practice was not designed to attract the applause of the world. He sought out opportunities of doing ing good as it were by stealth, and relieved distress where the persons relieved did not even know who their benefactor was. To say that he had no faults, or never committed sin, would be ridiculous, if not profane; for what human being is free from sin? but to say that, if he was occasionally betrayed by youth, surprize, or passion, into the commission of a sin, he did not suffer it to become habitual; or that selfdenial and self-controul were two very conspicuous features in his character, is no more than doing justice to his magnanimity. He had been early instructed in the three fundamental principles of the Gospel, faith, repentance, and improvement of life; and he constantly acted as if he had those principles firmly rooted in his mind:-inshort, both in sentiment and practice, he endeavoured to be, and was, a good Christian: and, if such, even an event so awful and tremendous that it is deprecated in the Liturgy, and which it was his apparently hard lot to encounter, though it took him unawares, could not find him unprepared.

The sketch here given of the Duke of Dorset's character is a very faint and imperfect one, but it is not exaggerated. Those who knew him need no record of his virtues; and those who were ignorant of his merits may form some, though far from an adequate notion of them, from this authentic document. A life terminated in the very dawn of manhood, and including only the brief space of twenty-one years and three months, cannot be expected to furnish much incident for narration, or to make a very splendid figure in the annals of fame. But, if an uncommon docility of disposition, an undeviating regard to truth, an ardent emulation in the pursuit of literary attainments, an unremitting

unremitting desire of distinction in all meritorious competitions, may be deemed a good model of behaviour at School; of the same thirst of knowledge, interrupted only by an accident, a steady submission to discipline, an unswerving adherence to every honourable principle, be a useful example to contemporaries at the University-if, upon coming out into the world, a modest and unassuming deportment, a strict regard to justice, a correct attention to pecuniary concerns, be beneficial to Society, the Duke of Dorset did not live in vain. If a conscientious discharge of duty in all the relations of life as far as be was tried, if the tenderest affection in the domestic charities which he had experienced, of son, brother, and friend, if a fervent patriotism united with sound judgment and integrity, be a sure pledge of utility in maturer years, the Duke of Dorset's death was a loss to his Country. If a due observance of all holy ordinances, an habitual piety, a firm faith, an abhorrence of vice, wonderful selfcontroul, a just appreciation of all transitory things, be the best preparation for a summons into Eternity, come when it may, though he was cut off in the bloom of youth and the vigour of health, though he was torn from the kindest of Parents, Sisters, Friends, though at scarce a moment's warning he was called upon to relinquish the fairest prospect of happiness this world can afford the Duke of Dorset did not die an untimely death.

a

Ostendent terris hunc tantùm fata.

Mr. URBAN, AM happy

Sept. 7.

I to inform your Readers, that at no period since the Revolution have the friends of regular Episcopacy in Scotland exerted themselves more in its support than at the present time. In various country districts several new Chapels have recently been erected; and in Edinburgh and Aberdeen there are just now two in the former, and one in the latter, building in a very superior style. Those in the Scottish Metropolis are indeed magnificent: the one is in York-place, and the other in Princes-street, for the Bishop of the district, forms the Western perspective to the splendid Regent's Bridge, which has lately been commenced, to

give a grand Eastern entrance to the City from the London Road. While, however, all these things are going on in Scotland, I am equally surprised with your Correspondent "G." (vol. LXXXV. Part II. p. 495), that no suitable place in Edinburgh has ever been suggested for the display of the Banners of the Knights of the most ancient Order of the Thistle; it is a reflection, that the Scottish national Order of knighthood is not on a footing in splendour with the other Orders of the United Kingdom-the subject requires investigation.

Yours, &c.

T

PERTHENSIS.

Mr. URBAN, Windsor, Sept. 13. what has been said lately on so beneficial a subject as that of Universal Instruction among the Poor both in England and Ireland, scarcely any thing more can be added, except indulging a firm reliance on the exertions of the Legislative Committee appointed for that laudable purpose to establish Parochial Schools similar to the excellent Scottish model, long since adopted in that intelligent country; the expence of which is defrayed by the heritors, or freeholders; and should be so likewise in the other parts of the United Kingdom, and not left, as hitherto, to the precarious subscriptions of individuals, who are constantly moving about, or removed by death; or the charge might be deducted from the rates, or paid by Government. Schools thus established, it is evident, would be of the highest public utility both to Church and State; and until such a measure is adopted, the most sanguine friends to the system will assuredly find themselves much disappointed as to a general final result. AMICUS.

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S.W. View of the Tower of S. Peter's Church,
BARTON-UPON-HUMBER,
Lincolnshire.

T

Mr. URBAN, Birmingham, June15. HE Tower of St. Peter's Church, at Barton-upon-Humber, co. Lincoln, (see Plate I.) has long been regarded as an object of curiosity; and is noticed as such by Mr. Gough (Camden's Britannia, vol. II. p. 278.) for its "round and pointed arches alternately, of old construction." A further communication of its history from any of your intelligent Correspondents would be gratifying to the lovers of Architectural Antiquities.

A View of the other Church at Barton may be found in Mr. Howlett's very elegant publication. M. R.

New Illustrations of the early Character, moral and intellectual, of GEORGE WITHER, the Poet; drawn

from the Editor's Preface to the Reprint of WITHER'S Hymns and Songs of the Church.

Mr. URBAN,

YOU

Aug, 14.

TOU have mentioned in page 32, Sir Egerton Brydges's Reprint of GEORGE WITHER'S Hymns and Songs of the Church. I wish to call the attention of your Readers to a few remarks on the Author and the Work. The Preface to this new Edition, which contains long extracts from a rare tract in prose of the Poet, entitled The Scholler's Purgatory, furnishes more curious and interesting illustrations of this singular man's early life and sentiments, than any of the numerous notices or criticisms of him with which the press has teemed. They exhibit, not the factious demagogue; the party scribbler; the inditer of careless, flat, colloquial, and prosaic rhymes; but the writer of eloquence and genius; of pure and exalted ambition; estimating the high callings of a POET with a sort of Miltonic loftiness and disdain. How it happened that such a man fell, in his latter days, from his high aspirations, can only be accounted for by the frailties and inconsistencies of human nature.

Speaking of his past productions, he says: "Though I was so young every way, that I first began to write, and then to learn, as the childishness and indiscretions of my Poems discover, yet they procured me respect and applause: which well considering on, and weighing my own insufticiencies, the slenderness of my perGENT. MAG. September, 1816.

formances, and my little means of knowledge, together with what base entertainment lines of that rature usually find in the world, I began to persuade myself that God had extraordinarily given me this unlooked-for esteem for some better purpose than either that I should despise the same, or glory in it to a vain end. And that which made me give most faith to such an apprehension was this: I observed that the good repute which I had obtained unto never got me any outward profit; nor ever befriended me in the compassing of any thing for my pleasure. Whereupon, Jest God should turn his blessing to a curse, and my reputation to my shame, if I sought not what way to employ. it unto his praise; and observing withal, that we make use of the most excellent expressions of the Holy Ghost in rude and barbarous numbers, whilst our own wanton fancies were painted and trimmed out in the most moving language: methought it fared with us as with those against whom the Prophet Hosea complained, that dwelt in cieled houses themselves, whilst the Temple of God lay waste: and therefore, seeing no other to undertake the same, I spent about three years to prepare imyself for such a task; and then proceeded with the Translation of the Psalms according to that ability God had given me."

"This is

WITHER then says, that, hearing the Psalms were in the hands of another, he was persuaded to undertake The Hymns and Songs. that book," says he, "for which I, ever worst used for my best intentions, suffer more than for all my former indiscretions."-" Verily," he goes on, "if I be not altogether for. getful of my own thoughts, or too apt to believe over-well of myself, as perhaps I am, my principal aim was the glory of God," &c. "How unfortunate am I, as some think, that, having performed a good work, do nevertheless hear it exclaimed upon as a frivolous labour; and stand accused for oppressing the people, because a few Hymns, containing the praises of God, are commanded to be divulged the most convenient way." "I am confident that I sball in due time be delivered from that, and from all scandalous imputations which the world hath laid to my charge." "God,"

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