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xxiv

PREFATORY EPISTLE TO WILLIAM STEVENS, ESQ.

objects of her attention are beautiful to the eye, and she passes none of them over without examining what is to be extracted from them; her workmanship is admirable; her economy is a lesson of wisdom to the world: she may be accounted "little among them that fly," but the fruit of her labor is the "chief of sweet things."

but he spent his life in subduing his passions, | mankind. But let it rather be my amuseand in teaching us how to do the same. He ment to follow and observe the motions of the fought no battles by land or by sea; but he bee. Her journeys are always pleasant; the opposed the enemies of God and his truth, and obtained some victories which are worthy to be recorded. He was no prime minister to any earthly potentate; but he was a minister to the King of Heaven and Earth; an office at least as useful to mankind, and in the administration of which no minister to any earthly king ever exceeded him in zeal and fidelity. He made no splendid discoveries You know, sir, to what interruptions my in natural history; but he did what was bet-life has been subject for thirty years past, and ter: he applied universal nature to the im- there is some tender ground before us, on provement of the mind, and the illustration which I am to tread as lightly as truth will of heavenly doctrines. I call these events: not such as make a great noise and signify little, but such as are little celebrated, and of great signification. The same difference is found between Dr. Horne and some other men who have been the subject of history, as between the life of the bee and that of the wasp or hornet. The latter may boast of their encroachments and depredations, and value themselves on being a plague and a terror to

permit; you will pardon me, therefore, if my progress hath not been so quick as you could have wished; and believe me to be, as I have long been,

Dear Sir,

Your most affectionate and obliged, humble servant, WILLIAM JONES.*

*Mr. Jones died in 1800.

MEMOIRS

OF THE

LIFE AND WRITINGS

OF

DR. HORNE.

*

she and my sisters bear up with great forti-
tude. I have lost a very dear friend and
pleasant companion! Pray for us-All join
in every affectionate wish for the happiness
of you and yours, with
G. H."

(No date.) DOCTOR GEORGE HORNE, late bishop of | MY DEAR Friend: Norwich, and for several years president "Last night, about half an hour past eight, of Magdalen College in Oxford, and dean of it pleased God to take from us, by a violent Canterbury, was born at Otham, a small vil- fit of the stone in the gall-bladder, my dear lage near Maidstone in Kent, on the first of brother Sam. He received the blessed sacraNovember, in the year 1730. His father ment, with my mother and myself, from the was the reverend Samuel Horne, M. A., hands of Dr. Wetherell ;* and, full of faith, rector of Otham, a very learned and respect- with the most perfect resignation, departed able clergyman, who for some years had been in peace with God, the world, and himself. a tutor at Oxford. This gentleman had so It is a heavy stroke to my poor mother; but determined with himself, to preserve the integrity of his mind against all temptations from worldly advantage, that he was heard to say, and used often to repeat it, he had rather be a toad-eater to a mountebank, than flatter any great man against his conscience. To this he adhered through the whole course The youngest brother, the Rev. William of his life; a considerable part of which was Horne, was educated at Magdalen College in spent in the education of his children, and Oxford, and is the present worthy rector of in a regular performance of all the duties of Otham, in which he succeeded his father, as his parish. He married a daughter of Bowyer also in the more valuable rectory of Brede, Hendley, Esq., by whom he had seven chil-in the county of Sussex. Mr. Horne, the father of the family, was dren, four sons and three daughters. The eldest son died very young. The late bishop of so mild and quiet a temper, that he stuwas the next. His younger brother, Samuel, diously avoided giving trouble on any occawas a fellow of University College, where sion. This he carried so far, that, when his he died, greatly respected and lamented. He son George was an infant, he used to wake. inherited the integrity of his father, and was him with playing upon a flute, that the an "Israelite indeed," who never did or wished harm to any mortal. Yet his character was by no means of the insipid kind: he had much of the humor and spirit of his elder brother; had a like talent for preaching; and was well attended to as often as he appeared in the university pulpit. His death was announced to an intimate friend by his elder brother in the following short and pa

thetic letter:

He died in 1768, aged 75.

change from sleeping to waking might be gradual and pleasant, and not produce an outcry; which frequently happens when children are awakened suddenly. What im-. pression this early custom of his father might. make upon his temper, we cannot say: but, certainly, he was remarkable, as he grew up, for a tender feeling of music, especially that of the church.

* The present_master of University College, and dean of Hereford, &c.

contest, instead of dividing them, united them ever after, and had also the effect of inspiring them with a love of the lyric poetry of that author: which seems not to be sufficiently known among scholars, though beautiful in its kind. The whole work was once in such esteem, that King Alfred, the founder of University College, and of the English constitution, translated it.

Under his father's tuition, he led a plea- they both did as well as they could: and the sant life, and made a rapid progress in Greek and Latin. But some well-meaning friend, fearing he might be spoiled by staying so long at home, advised the sending of him to school. To this his good father, who never was given to make much resistance, readily consented and he was accordingly placed in the school at Maidstone, under the care of the reverend Deodatus Bye, a man of good principles, and well learned in Latin, Greek, and Hebrew; who, when he had received his new scholar, and examined him at the age of thirteen, was so surprised at his proficiency, that he asked him why he came to school, when he was rather fit to go from school? With this gentleman he continued two years; during which, he added much to his stock of learning, and among other things a little elementary knowledge of the Hebrew, on the plan of Buxtorf, which was of great advantage to him afterwards. I am witness to the high respect with which he always spoke of his master, whom he had newly left when my acquaintance with him first commenced at University College, to which he was sent when he was little more than fifteen years of age. When servants speak well of a master or mistress, we are sure they are good servants; and, when a scholar speaks well of his teacher, we may be as certain he is. in every sense of the word, a good scholar.

I cannot help recounting, on this occasion, that there was under the said Deodatus Bye another scholar, very nearly related to Mr. Horne, of whom the master was heard to say, that he never did anything which he wished him not to have done. But, when the lad was told of this, he very honestly observed upon it, that he had done many things which his master never heard of. He is now in an office of great responsibility. They who placed him in it, supposed him still to retain the honesty he brought with him from Maidstone school; and I never heard that he had disappointed them.

While Mr. Horne was at school, a Maidstone scholarship in University College became vacant; in his application for which he succeeded, and, young as he was, the master recommended his going directly to college.

Soon after he was settled at University College (where he was admitted on the 15th of March 1745-6,) Mr. Hobson, a good and learned tutor of the house, gave out an exercise, for a trial of skill, to Mr. Horne, and the present writer of his life, who was also in his first year. They were ordered to take a favorite Latin ode of Boetius, and present it to the tutor in a different Latin metre. This

His studies, for a time, were in general the same with those of other ingenious young men; and the vivacity of his mind, which never was exceeded, and made his conversation very desirable, introduced him to many gentlemen of his own standing, who resembled him in their learning and their manners, particularly to Mr. Jenkinson, now earl of Liverpool, Mr. Moore, now* Archbishop of Canterbury, Mr. Cracherode, Mr. Benson, the Honorable Hamilton Boyle, son of Lord Orrery, the late Reverend Jasper Selwin, and many others. Mr. Denny Martin, now Dr. Fairfax, of Leeds Castle, in Kent, was from the same school with Mr. Horne; and has always been very nearly connected with him, as a companion of his studies, a lover of his virtues, and an admirer of his writings.

To show how high Mr. Horne's character stood with all the members of his college, old and young, I need only mention the following fact. It happened about the time when he took his bachelor's degree, which was on the 27th of October, 1749, that a Kentish fellowship became vacant at Magdalen College; and there was, at that time, no scholar of the house who was upon the county. The senior fellow of University College, having heard of this, said nothing of it to Mr. Horne, but went down to Magdalen College, told them what an extraordinary young man they might find in University College, and gave him such a recommendation as disposed the society to accept of him. When the day of election came, they found him such as he had been represented, and much more; and in 1750 he was accordingly chosen a fellow of Magdalen College, and on the first of June, 1752, he took the degree of master of arts.

If we look back upon our past lives, it will generally be found, that the leading events which gave a direction to all that followed, were not according to our own choice or knowledge, but from the hand of an overruling Providence, which acts without consulting us; putting us into situations which are either best for ourselves, or best for the world, or best for both; and leading us, as it led the patriarch Abraham, of whom we are

* Late.

told that he "knew not whither he was known in the university for their abilities in going." This was plainly the case in Mr. music, of whom the principal were Mr. Horne's election to Magdalen College. A Phocion Henley, of Wadham College, Mr. person took up the matter, unsolicited and in Pixel, of Queen's, and Mr. Short, of Worsecret: he succeeded. When fellow, his cester, drew me often to Wadham College; character and conduct gave him favor with which society has two Hebrew scholarships, society, and, when Dr. Jenner died, they on one of which there was a gentleman, a elected him president: the headship of the Mr. Catcott, of Bristol, whose father, as I college introduced him to the office of vice-afterwards understood, was one of those chancellor, which at length made him as well known to Lord North, as to the Earl of Liverpool: this led to the Deanery of Canterbury, and that to the Bishopric of Norwich.

If we return to the account of his studies; we shall there find something else falling in his way which he never sought after, and attended with a train of very important consequences. While he was deeply engaged in the pursuits of oratory, poetry, philosophy, and history, and making himself well acquainted with the Greek tragedians, of which he was become a great admirer, an accident, of which I shall relate the account as plainly and faithfully as I can, without disguising or diminishing, drew him into a new situation in respect of his mind, and gave a new turn to his studies, before he had arrived at his bachelor's degree. I may indeed say of this, that it certainly gave much of the color which his character assumed from that time, and opened the way to most of his undertakings and publications, as he himself would witness if he were now alive.

authors who first distinguished themselves as writers on the side of Mr. Hutchinson. He possessed a very curious collection of fossils, some of which he had digged and scratched out of the earth with his own hands, at the hazard of his life; a pit near Wadham College, which would have buried him, having fallen in very soon after he was out of it. This collection* I was invited to see, and readily accepted the invitation, out of a general curiosity, without any particular knowledge of the subject. This gentleman, perceiving my attention to be much engaged by the novelty and curiosity of what he exhibited, threw out so many hints about things of which I had never heard, that I requested the favor of some farther conversation with him on a future occasion. One conference followed another, till I saw a new field of learning opened, particularly in the department of natural history, which promised me so much information and entertainment, that I fell very soon into the same way of reading. Dr. Woodward the physician, who had been a fellow-laborer with Hutchinson, and

*It is now deposited in the public library at Bristol, to the corporation of which city he left that and his MSS., on a principle of gratitude for the preferment they had given him; and there I saw it in the year 1790, with many large and valuable additions.

It is known to the public that he came very early upon the stage as an author, though an anonymous one, and brought himself into some difficulty under the denomination of an Hutchinsonian; for this was the name given to those gentlemen who studied Hebrew and examined the writings of John Hutchinson, Esq., the famous Mosaic philosopher, and became inclined to favor his opinions in the-ite in life and manners. To his industry we owe a ology and philosophy.

Of the collector it may be truly said, that he was not only an Hebræan in his learning, but an Israel

Treatise on the Deluge, which, when compared with many others, will be found to give the best and About the time of which I am speaking, most curious information upon the subject. This there were many good and learned men of good and innocent man, whose heart was well both universities, but chiefly in and of the affected to all mankind, died before his time; and the manner of his death, if it has been truly reUniversity of Oxford, who, from the repre- ported, will raise the indignation of every sensible sentation given to the public, some years be- and charitable mind. He kept his bed with a bad fore, by the right Honorable Duncan Forbes, fever; and, when rest was necessary, he was disthen Lord President of the Court of Session turbed by the continual barking of a dog that was in Scotland, and from a new and more prom-civil message desiring that the dog might be removed chained up near at hand. When his friends sent a ising method of studying the Hebrew lan- till the patient was better, it was refused; and, in guage, independently of Jewish error, and the event, he was fairly barked to death. If this from a flattering prospect also of many other fact be true, how cheap are the lives and sufferings advantages to the general interests of religion cule! homini plurima ex homine sunt mala!—for of some men in the estimation of others!-Herand learning, were become zealous advocates the dog intended no harm. Of this gentleman himin favor of the new scheme of Mr. Hutchin- self, we are informed by one of his intimate friends, Mr. Horne was led into this inquiry, that, when he settled his account at the year's end, partly by an accident which had happened he considered all the money that remained after his own debts were paid, as the property, not of himself, to himself. but of the poor, to whose use (being a single man) he never failed to apply it.

son.

An attachment to some friends, then well 3

VOL. I.

followed very nearly the same principles, tive to me, though I was much his junior. had made the natural history of the earth, He often allowed me the pleasure of his conand the diluvian origination of extraneous versation, and sometimes gave me the benefit fossils so agreeable and so intelligible, that I of his advice, of which I knew the meaning was captivated by his writings and from to be so good, that I always heard it with rethem I went to others; taking what I found, spect, and followed it as well as I could. This with a taste and appetite, which could not, gentleman, with all his other qualifications, at that time, make such distinctions as I may was a reader of Hebrew, and a favorer of Mr. have been able to make since. In the sim- Hutchinson's philosophy; but had kept it to plicity of my heart, I communicated some himself, in the spirit of Nicodemus; and of the novelties, with which my mind was when I asked him the reason of it afterwards, now filled, to my dear and constant compan- and complained of the reserve with which ion, Mr. Horne, from whom I seldom con- he had so long treated me in this respect; cealed anything but found him very little " "Why," said he, "these things are in no reinclined to consider them; and I had the pute; the world does not receive them; and mortification to see, that I was rather losing you, being a young man, who must keep what ground in his estimation. Our college lec- friends you have, and make your fortune in tures on Geometry and Natural Philosophy the world, I thought it better to let you go on (which were not very deep) we had gone in your own way, than bring you into that through with some attention, and thought embarrassment which might be productive of ourselves qualified to speak up for the philo- more harm than good, and imbitter the future sophy of Newton. It was therefore shock-course of your life: besides, it was far from ing to hear, that attraction was no physical being clear to me, how you would receive principle, and that a vacuum had never been, and never would be, demonstrated. Here, therefore, Mr. Horne insisted, that if Sir I. Newton's philosophy should be false in these principles, no philosophy would ever be true. How it was objected to, and how it was defended, I do not now exactly remember; I fear, not with any profound skill on either side but this I well recollect, that our disputes, which happened at a pleasant season of the year, kept us walking to and fro in the quadrangle till past midnight. As I got more information for myself, I gained more upon my companion: but I have no title to the merit of forming him into what he after-ter in the Hebrew before night. wards proved to be.

them; and then I might have lost your friendship." It was now too late for such a remonstrance to have any effect; I therefore, on the contrary, prevailed upon him to become my master in Hebrew, which I was very desirous to learn: and in this he acquitted himself with so much skill and kind attention, writing out for me with his own hand such grammatical rules and directions as he judged necessary, that in a very short time I could go on without my guide. I remember, however, that I had nearly worked myself to death, by determining, like Duns Scotus in the picture-gallery, to go through a whole chap

To this gentleman, whose name was George In the same college with us, there lived a Watson, I recommended Mr. Horne at my very extraordinary person. He was a clas-departure from Oxford; and they were so sical scholar of the first rate, from a public well pleased with each other, that Mr. Horne, school remarkable for an unusual degree of instead of going home to his friends in the taste and judgment in poetry and oratory; vacation, stayed for the advantage of followhis person was elegant and striking, and his ing his studies at Oxford, under the direction countenance expressed at once both the gen- of his new teacher: and, in the autumn of tleness of his temper and the quickness of his the year 1749, he began a series of letters to understanding. His manners and address his father, which fill above thirty pages in were those of a perfect gentleman: his com- large quarto, very closely written; from the mon talk, though easy and fluent, had the whole tenor of which, it is pleasant to see, correctness of studied composition: his be- how entire a friendship and confidence there nevolence was so great, that all the beggars was between a grave and learned father, and in Oxford knew the way to his chamber-door: a son not yet twenty years of age. Of these upon the whole, his character was so spotless, letters, though they are by no means correct and his conduct so exemplary, that, mild and enough, either for style or judgment, to stand gentle as he was in his carriage toward them, the test of severe criticism, it is highly prono young man dared to be rude in his com- per I should give some account; to show pany. By many of the first people in the what those opinions were which had now university he was known and admired: and got possession of his mind; intermixing with it being my fortune to live in the same stair- my abstract such notes and explanations as case with him, he was very kind and atten- shall seem requisite for a better understanding

of it.

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