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perhaps you expected; but I could hardly make it shorter without doing wrong to a good author.

"In what a strange manner have we conducted our affairs in the Mediterranean ! quelle belle occasion manquée!

I am, with perfect esteem, dear Sir,

Your most humble servant,

1791, March.

JAM. WOLFE."

LXXIV. Dr. Kennicott to Mr. Daddo.

REV. AND HON. SIR,

Wadh. Coll. Mar. 30, 1744.

GRATITUDE to benefactors is the great Law of Nature, and lest I should violate what was ever sacred, I presume to lay the following before you.

There are, Sir, in the world, gentlemen who confine their regards to self or the circle of their own acquaintance; and there are (happy experience convinces me) who command their influence to enlarge and exert itself on persons remotely situate both by fortune and habitation. To you, Sir, belongs the honour of this encomium, to me the pleasure of the obligation; and as I am now first at leisure in the place whither your goodness has transplanted me, I lay this acknowledgement before you, as one of the movers in this system of exalted generosity; for, when I consider myself as surrounded with benefactors, there seems a bright resemblance of the new-exploded system of Ptolemy, in which, Sir, (you know) the heavenly bodies revolved around the central earth, which was thus rendered completely blest by the contribu tion of their chearing and benign influences.

And now, Sir, the sentiments of duty rise so warm within me, that every expression of thanks seems faint, and I am lost in endeavours after a suitable acknowledgement of my obligations.

But I know, Sir, whom I am now addressing; I know those who most deserve can least bear praise, and that your goodness is so great, as even to reject the very thanks of the grateful; like the sun in its splendour, which forbids the eye that offers to admire it.

That Heaven may reward yourself and Mrs. Daddo with its best favours, and console you under your parental sorrows, is my daily and fervent prayer; and I shall esteem it

one of the great honours of my life to be favoured at your leisure with any commands or advices you shall condescend to bestow on, Rev. Sir, your dutiful and obliged servant, BENJ. KENNICOTT.

To the Rev. Mr. Daddo,* in Tiverton, Devon.

1791, March.

LXXV. From Bp. Horne, a letter of Consolation.

North of Ireland, March 21.

MR. URBAN, I WAS much gratified by reading in your Obituary, your very just character of that most respectable and learned man, the late Bp. of Norwich. I had the happiness of being acquainted with his lordship, and while I live I shall consider the friendship he honoured me with as a blessing. Never did I know a more exalted character! How should I mourn his death, were I not sure, that to him death has opened the gates of everlasting felicity.

I shall make no apology for sending you a copy of a letter from his lordship to a particular friend of mine (who has obligingly given me leave to transmit it) upon the death of her father. His friendship for the worthy character, whose death he so pathetically laments, displays at once the tenderness of his feelings, and the goodness of his heart. I must add, from my own knowledge of this excellent man, that his lordship's portrait of him, though painted by the hand of friendship, was a just resemblance.

The Dean of Canterbury† to Miss ———.

"MY DEAR MADAM,

ANNA.

Canterbury, Nov. 11.

"LITTLE did I think a letter from would afflict my

Mr. William Daddo was, for many years, master of Tiverton school, where Kennicott received the rudiments of his classical education. Mr. Daddo having acquired a considerable fortune from the emoluments of his school, quitted Tiverton, and retired to Bow-hill House, in the neighbourhood of Exeter, and there died many years ago, leaving a daughter and only child, who afterwards was married to the Rev. Mr. Terry.

+ His lordship was at that time Dean of Canterbury.

soul, but yours received this morning has indeed done it Seeing your hand, and a black seal, my mind forboded what had happened: I made an attempt to read it to my wife and daughters, but it would not do-I got no further than the first sentence, burst into a flood of tears, and was obliged to retreat into the solitude of my study, unfit for any thing, but to think on what had happened; then to fall upon my knees, and pray, that God would evermore pour down his choicest blessings on the children of my departed friend, and as their "father and their mother had forsaken them," that he would "take them up," and support them in time and eternity. Even so! Amen.

"You ask comfort of me, but your truly excellent letter has suggested comfort to me, from all the proper topics; and I can only reflect it back to you again. All things considered, the circumstance which first marked the disorder may be termed a gracious dispensation. It at once rendered the event, one may say, desirable, which otherwise carried so much terror and sorrow in the face of it. Nothing else in the world could so soon, and so effectually, have blunted the edge of the approaching calamity, and reconciled to it minds full of the tenderest love and affection. To complete the consolation, that only remained, which we all know to be the fact, Mr. stood always so prepared, so firm in his faith, so constant in his christian practice of every duty, that he could not be taken by surprise, or off his guard: the stroke must be to himself a blessing, whenever, or however, it came. His death was his birth-day: and, like the primitive Christians, we should keep it as such, as a day of joy and triumph. Bury his body, but embalm his example, and let it diffuse his fragrance among you from generation to generation. Call him blessed, and endeavour to be like him: like him in piety, in charity, in friendship, in courteousness, in temper, in conduct, in word, and in deed. His virtues compose a little volume which your brother should carry in his bosom; and he will need no other, if that be well studied, to make him the gentleman and the Christian. You, my dear Madam, will, I am sure, go on with diligence to finish the fair transcript you have begun, that the world around you may see and admire.

"Do not apologise for writing; but let me hear what you do, and what plan of life your brother thinks of pursuing. With kindest compliments from the sympathising folks here, believe me, ever, my dear Madam, your faithful friend and servant,

1792, April.

G. HORNE."

LXXVI. From Dean Stanhope, containing advice to a Young Clergyman.

DEAR COUSIN,

AT your father's request, to whom I can deny nothing, and (as he tells me) at your desire also, I trouble you with this letter of advice relating to your studies in divinity. A good deal of pains might perhaps be saved to both of us, by my receiving first an account of the entrance and progress you have already made since your thoughts were turned to this profession. You will, therefore, pardon me, if I suggest several things which your own proficiency, or the advice of other friends, had made unnecessary.

The first care of a divine should be to make himself well skilled in the Bible; which is not to be done without the help of good commentators. But in regard to what Solomon says of books in general, is as true of this as of any other sort, that of many of them there is no end, and that much study of them is a weariness to the flesh; I will point you out a few, in which you will find the substance of a great

many.

These are, Bishop Patrick's Commentaries, which will lead you a great way, even from Genesis to Isaiah; Day upon that Prophet; Pocock, on those of the minor Prophets, which he has undertaken; Hammond and Whitby on the New Testament: and the incomparable St. Chrysostom, both for his explications and moral improvements of Scripture. With these, and the help of Pool's Synopsis, or the great critics, for those parts of Scripture not before named, it might be well to go through a whole course of the Bible with great attention and care, wherein it may be fit to take along with you Archbishop Usher's Annals, Prideaux's Connection of the Old and New Testament, the Works of Lightfoot, and Mr. Mede. But in regard the Bible is to be a constant study, and it would be too troublesome, upon every reading of it, to turn to so many exposi tors, I advise by all means, that you would get the Old and New Testaments in quarto, doubly interleaved with blank paper, a page for each column, and divided into nine or ten volumes. Thus, as you go along, you may enter such remarks as you think useful, and such references to authors as may occasionally be consulted; which, when done, will save you the trouble of reading more than your own notes as often as you shall go over the Bible afterwards. This I have found of great use to myself, and herein can speak of my own experience.

As to other books which may fit you for the discharge of your duty, Mr. Hooker, Bp. Sanderson, Bp. Pearson, Bp. Stillingfleet, Dr. Jackson, and Archbishop Tillotson, cannot be read too often. Happy is the man that can form his style upon the last of these; and, in plain practical preaching, upon the rational, instructive, and familiar way of the Whole Duty of Man, and Bishop Blackall. I had rather you should be told by any other person, that the time may not be quite lost which is employed in casting an eye now and then upon my Boyle's Lectures, my volume of Sermons, printed in 1700, and Comments upon the Epistles and Gospels, for the course of the whole year. I am sure, at least, that will be well spent which you bestow on Scot's Christian Life, and Lucas's Inquiry after Happiness, and Sherlock's Treatises of Death, Judgment, and Providence.

There is a French Testament, in 4 volumes 8vo. the very book of Quesnell, which hath made such a bustle of late, by giving rise to the famous Bull Unigenitus, which if you are not master of the French, may be had translated into English. This abounds with many excellent reflections, both moral and devotional; and though some there might better have been saved (which a person of your parts and attainments will find no difficulty to distinguish from the rest); yet upon the whole, the book may do great service to a discerning reader, both for framing in himself a religious temper of mind, and for instructing others in their duty. -Your country I know, swarms with Papists and Dissenters. For maintaining your ground against the former, I know not a shorter or more effectual way than to make yourself master of the tracts written against them in the reign of King James II. and for the latter, besides Hooker and Sanderson, the London Cases against the Dissenters, and Bishop Stilling fleet's Unreasonableness of Separation, as to the Discipline part; and as to the Doctrinal, besides Dr. Jackson, Bishop Bull of Justification, Clagett upon the Operations of the Spirit, and the Collection of Tracts concerning Predestination and Providence, printed at Cambridge 1719, are excellently good. I mention only these several authors above, as fit to be studied, without enlarging upon Ecclesiastical History, Fathers, or Casuistical Divinity, which will naturally hereafter fall into your way, because at present I design to recommend what may soon lay a sure foundation for a true Church of England divine. And supposing you think, as I do, that it is high time to have done, I will only add one word more about preaching, which is, that you would not disdain to do it in as low and familiar,

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