write with lefs afperity, and to speak of the fociety and the church with a little refpect. He was finally replied to by Dr. Apthorpe in a Review of Dr. Mayhew's remarks, to which the American doctor prudently declined making any reply.

Not long after this, the archbishop engaged in refuting a moft ridiculous, but malevolent calumny, which had appeared in a pamphlet, accusing bishop Butler with having died a papist.

When the Confeffional of Blackburne came out, one of the emptieft and most impertinent libels that ever was publifhed against the Church of England, the archbishop employed Dr. Glofter Ridley in writing an answer to it, which he performed in three masterly letters, addreffed to the anonymous calumniator.

In the compofition of these letters, the archbishop had himself a great fhare; and though Blackburne had never the modesty to recant any of his false affertions, or fcurrilous invectives, he very wifely fhrunk away from the unequal conteft.

The archbishop had the welfare, credit, and the good influence of the clergy entirely at heart, and he omitted nothing that could be done to promote their interests. Men of worth and eminence in the Church he cherished and befriended, and he endeavoured to bring them forward into ftations wherein they might be moft ufeful. Above all, he diftinguished with peculiar marks of his favour, the confcientious and diligent parish priest; being of opinion, that the main fupport of piety and morals confifted in the parochial labours of the clergy; and that if this country is to be preferved from utter profligacy and ruin, it must be by their means.

The conduct which he obferved towards the feveral denominations of Christians, was fuch as fhowed the most liberal and catholic temper. The profelyting fpirit of Popery, indeed, he was juftly of opinion, fhould be always kept under proper reftraints. He obferved its movements with care, and he exhorted his clergy to do the fame, efpecially those who were fettled near Roman Catholic families of diftinction. He took all fit opportunities of combating the errors of the Church of Rome in his own writings; and the best answers which were published to fome of the apologies for its doctrines, were written at his inftance, and by his help. He had the good fortune to preserve fome persons of confequence from embracing that communion, and to receive feveral converts from it, into the Church of England.

Towards

Towards his proteftant brethren of all perfuafions, he demeaned himself with great mildness and moderation; and with many of the diffenters he kept up a good correfpondence. Some of the most eminent and learned of them were his intimate friends; particularly Watts, Doddridge, Leland, Chandler, and Lardner.

Nor was his concern for the protestant cause confined to his own country and the colonies. He was well known as its great patron in various parts of Europe; from whence he had frequent applications for affiftance, which never failed of being favourably received. To feveral foreign proteftants he allowed penfions, to others he gave occafional relief, and to fome of their universities he was an annual fubfcriber.

In public affairs, he acted as an honest citizen and a worthy member of the legislature. From his first entrance into the house of lords, his parliamentary conduct was uniformly upright and noble. He kept equally clear from the two extremes of factious petulance and fervile dependance; never wantonly oppofing adminiftration from a spirit of party zeal, private pique, perfonal connection, or the defire of popular applaufe; neither on the other hand, joining the minifter in every thing, from motives of interest or ambition. He feldom fpoke in the house, except when the interefts of religion and virtue feemed to require it; but whenever he did, it was with propriety and force, and he was always heard with great attention and refpect.

During more than ten years that Dr. Secker enjoyed the fee of Canterbury, he refided conftantly at Lambeth; as being not only moft conveniently fituated for his own ftudies and employments, but also for all those who, on various occafions, were continually obliged to have recourse to him.

There is an anecdote in the life of Dr. Eachard, prefixed to Davies's edition of his works, which is too pleasing and characteristic of the archbishop, to be omitted. It relates to the mode of entertaining guefts in the archiepifcopal palace, which prevailed before his advancement, and was inferted to vindicate archbishop Sheldon from an invidious cenfure of Dr. Warburton.

"It was a practice I fuppofe from time immemorial," fays the editor, "when any guests dined at Lambeth, for the archbishop, when dinner was over, and after drinking two or three loyal toafts, to invite fome part of the company into a withdrawing chamber. The reft went up with the chaplains into their own room, fituated in the highest tower

of

of the palace, where they amufed themfelves with a pipe of tobacco, as honeft Wood fays, and a fober glass, till the bell invited the family to prayers.

"In archbishop Potter's time, I am told, this old cuftom. received fome fmall alteration: after the ufual toafts, that prelate invited fuch of the company as chofe it, to drink coffee in another room, and immediately withdrew.

"At length archbishop Secker made a very confiderable alteration in the etiquette of the palace of Lambeth. He broke through the ftrange and unpolite practice of diftinguifhing one gueft from another. He laid afide the aufterity of the high facerdotal character, as unfit for feftivity, and conversed at his table with the ease and freedom of a private gentleman. His conftant method of entertaining his guefts, was fuch as became the primate of all England, who ought to be at once a pattern of hofpitality, and an example of fobriety. His meals were chearful, and always seasoned with difcourfe equally agreeable and inftructive to all who were invited. When the hour of parting arrived, all the company went away together."

This good and great prelate had been for many years subject to the gout, which in the latter part of his life returned more frequently and violently, leaving the parts affected very weak for a long time. About eighteen months before he died, he was attacked with a pain in the arm, near the fhoulder, which continued about a year, and then a fimilar pain feized the upper and outer part of the oppofite thigh, on which the arm became eafier. But the pain in the thigh was foon more grievous than the former, as it disabled him from taking exercife, and kept him almost in continual torment. During this time he had two or three fits of the gout; but neither these nor medicines alleviated his pains.

On Saturday July 30, 1768, as he fat at dinner, he was taken with a fit of fickness at the ftomach. He recovered before night, but the next evening, while the phyficians were in attendance, and his fervants were raising him on his couch, he exclaimed that his thigh-bone was broken. He lay for fome time in great agonies, but when the furgeons arrived and discovered that the bone was certainly broken, he felt perfectly refigned and never afterwards asked a queftion about the event. A fever foon followed; and on Tuesday, he fell into a lethargy, in which flate he continued till about five o'clock next morning, when he expired in the 75th year of his age.

On

On examination, the thigh-bone was found carious about four inches in length, which difeafe arose from the inner part, and had fo completely destroyed the fubftance, that nothing remained but part of the outward integument which had alfo many perforations. It was evident that the torture, which his grace endured during the corrofion of the bone, must have been very great. Yet he bore his pains above fix months with furprifing patience and fortitude; converfing with his friends, and mixing with his family at the usual hours, with his wonted cheerfulness; and retaining nearly all his faculties in full vigour till within a few days of his death.

He was buried, according to his own directions, in a paffage leading from a private door of the palace to the North door of Lambeth church; but he forbade any monument or epitaph to be placed over his remains.

He appointed Dr. Daniel Burton, canon of Chrift Church, Oxford, and Mrs. Catherine Talbot, his executors: and left thirteen thousand pounds in the three per cent. annuities to Dr. Porteus and Dr. Stinton, his chaplains, in truft to pay the intereft thereof to Mrs. Talbot and her daughter during their lives, and that of the survivor; * and

after

* Miss Talbot did not long survive her good friend the archbishop. In October 1769, she took to her bed and was soon given over. Her disorder was a cancer, which had for three years been kept a profound secret from all her friends, except the archbishop and Mrs. Carter, principally from the pious wish that her mother might not have the grief of seeing her languish of a disease which had been pronounced incurable. Contrary to all expectation, however, she lived to the 9th of January, 1770, when she expired with the greatest fortitude and most devout resignation, in the forty-ninth year of her age. Her most intimate friend, Mrs. Carter, published a few months afterwards, "Reflections on the Seven Days of the Week," a small but elegant and pious tract, which was found among the papers of Miss Talbot. Of this valuable performance, numerous editions have since appeared. To this work, Mrs. Carter afterwards added two duodecimo volumes of Essays, Poems, and other detached pieces, written by the same excellent person. These also have passed through the press several times.

Mrs. Talbot was upwards of eighty when she met with this irreparable loss, which she bore with greater fortitude than could have been expected. She survived her ingenious and pious daughter many years, and died at the advanced age of ninety-two.

Pennington's Life of Mrs. Eliz. Carter.

after their deaths, then eleven thousand of the faid fum to be transferred to charitable purposes. He left alfo one thousand pounds to his fervants, and fome legacies; and the refidue of his eftate, which was by no means large, went to his nephew. He left to the library at Lambeth, all fuch books in his private collection as were not there before, and a great number of manufcripts, among the moft valuable of which were his notes on the Scriptures, of which, that profound critic and elegant scholar, bishop Lowth, made confiderable use in his tranflation of Ifaiah, as he acknowledges in his preliminary differtation. His words are thefe: "I am greatly obliged to feveral learned friends for their obfervations on particular paffages. To one great perfon more especially, whom I had the honour to call my friend, the late excellent archbishop Secker; whofe marginal notes on the Bible, depofited by his order in the library at Lambeth, I had permiffion to confult by the favour of his moft worthy fucceffor. There are two Bibles with his notes: one a folio English Bible interleaved, containing chiefly corrections of the English tranflation; the other a Hebrew Bible of the edition of Michaelis, Halle, 1720, 4to. the large margins of which are filled with critical remarks on the Hebrew text, collations of the ancient verfions, and other fhort annotations; which ftand an illuftrious monument of the learning, judgment, and indefatigable industry of that excellent perfon: I add alfo, of his candour and modefty; for there is hardly a propofed emendation, however ingenious and probable, to which he has not added the objections, which occurred to him against it. These valuable remains of that great and good man will be of infinite fervice, whenever that neceffary work, a New Translation, or a revifion of the prefent Tranflation of the Holy Scriptures for the use of our Church, shall be undertaken.”

In the Memoirs of Mrs. Elizabeth Carter, by her nephew Mr. Pennington, is a letter written by that learned and excellent woman to a friend, in which the gives the following character of the archbishop.

66

"I am much obliged to you for the concern you exprefs for my friends (Mrs, and Mifs Talbot) and me, of the late melancholy event at Lambeth. You rightly judged how much I must be ftruck by the death of that great and good man, with whofe friendship I had been honoured for more than twenty years, and to whom I had fuch innumerable obligations.

"'The