to the Hebrews. I saw him t'other day, poor creature, in the midst of his pain, correcting Rahab the Harlot. "Old Sam: Shepherd's daughter (a fine girl, worth 150 thousand pounds), will, probably, by Lord Montford's death, escape marrying his worthless son. The deceased behaved in the best manner to this young lady. "I have seen here lately a daughter of Dr. Grey's of Northamptonshire, with Mrs. Hoadly's sister. This Miss Grey astonishes the world of painters &c., by her works in worsted. I saw a bunch of grapes of her doing that are equal to anything of Rubens. And I saw a painter astonished at being told that what he saw was needle work, though he stood but three or four yards from it; * and more astonished when he went up to it. I think I have emptied my budget, & finished my paper. So good night. "I am &c., "E. PYLE. "She has also copied a picture of Rubens of Fruit & Landscape in worsted, on seeing which the Princess of Wales presented her with 100 guineas & wished herself able to take the work & give her a proper reward. It is thought it will sell for £600. "There is a Bill for regulating marriages in Scotland just brought into the House of Lords. "The King will go abroad very early, & as Lord Holderness goes as Secretary, Dr. Green (of Cottenham) will go as Chaplain, & be Dean of Peterborough, on the Vacancy which Bishop Sherlock's death is expected to make, of London, & the promotion of the Præceptor of Peterborough, & the promotion of Dr. Lamb, of the Deanery. Dr. Green (Master of Bennet) is to be Dean of Ely. But Allix (they say) is tough. "Lord Gage after having called himself a Protestant for many years, returned, & died in the bosom of the church of Rome. On his death-bed he performed the following penance in order to be absolved-viz. had his head shaved, & lay 2 days & nights without a cap, & as oft as he was able, held a wax taper in his hand." (Addressed) To The Revd Dr. Kerrich, B Free Win chester.. Philip, younger brother of Edmund Pyle, was entered of Corpus in 1742, when he became Fellow, and after holding the preferment mentioned by Pyle, was appointed in 1756 Rector of North Lynn. How far he had earned the fantastic benediction of his brother there is no evidence to show, beyond the fact of his separating himself and his fortunes from Bishop Hoadly. He wished apparently, like Bishop Gooch, to "breathe his last where he breathed his first." The Lynch mystery to Pyle in 1755 is an enigma to us a century and a half later. We gather from subsequent letters that this well-preferred ecclesiastic was troubled with what Pyle calls "a vast carcass." He was Dean of Canterbury from 1734 to his death in 1760, and Master of St. Cross, Winchester, where "he lived like a Prince," for thirty-three years, & during which time he displayed a "cryingly shameful neglect" towards the fabric of that beautiful church and the Hospital buildings. He was one of the nineteen children of John Lynch of Staple, Kent, and married Mary, elder daughter of Archbishop Wake. Henry Bromley, only son and heir of John Bromley of Horseheath, Cambridgeshire, was born 1705, and educated at Eton and Clare Hall. He sat as M.P. for Cambridge from 1727 to 1741, in which latter year he was created Baron Montfort. He committed suicide in the manner that Pyle relates on January 1, 1755, and was buried in Trinity Chapel, South Audley Street. His wife died at the birth of her son Thomas, who succeeded his father as second Lord Montfort. He was Member for Cambridgeshire, and married Mary Ann, sister of Sir Patrick Blake, Bart. He was, as Pyle states, a worthless person, and set up for a man of fashion, and sold Horseheath to gratify his extravagances, one of them being a taste for menageries. So "the fine girl," Miss Shepherd, and her hundred and fifty thousand pounds, had an escape. Samuel Chandler was a Nonconformist of much distinction. In the full list of his works by Flexman there is nothing about his answering Bolingbroke. He wrote many attacks upon Roman Catholicism, and furnished several contributions to the Deist controversy, including “Reflections on the Conduct of Modern Deists," "Plain Reasons for being a Christian," and a defence of Sherlock's "Trial of the Witnesses of the Resurrection of Jesus." John Leland was another Nonconformist divine, who also attacked the Deists, particularly in a work that came out in two volumes, 1754-1756, "A View of the Principal Deistical Writers that have appeared in England during the last and present Century," a work, as Sir Leslie Stephen says, of some value to the history of English thought. Leland published a separate volume in 1753 on Bolingbroke's "Letters on the Study of History," and it is not apparent that he again answered Bolingbroke as Pyle implies. About 1742 Warburton attacked Bolingbroke's "Letters on the Study of History," and he assailed him again in 1749 on the appearance of the "Letters" on the "Idea of a Patriot King." Pyle now alludes to Warburton's "View of Lord Bolingbroke's Philosophy" in answer to Mallet's posthumous edition of the sceptic's works. Of David Hume, the acutest thinker in Great Britain of the eighteenth century, it must suffice here only to recall that he went to France at the age of twenty-three, and lived a solitary life at La Flèche dreaming his philosophy. The publication of the first and second books of his "Treatise on Human Nature" gave the impulse to the storm that it aroused both in Scotland and Germany, and he was described as the outcome of the empirical philosophy of Locke. It was not until 1751 that Hume abandoned philosophy for history, his first volume appearing, as Pyle indicates, in 1754. It met with a most disappointing reception, a condition which time has amply remedied. The scepticism of Hume, his relations with Rousseau, and his political career can only be alluded to here. John Butler, thus commended, was not a member of either university, but Cambridge gave him his LL.D. degree. Having taken orders he became a popular preacher in London, and in 1754 was appointed chaplain to the Princess Dowager. He appears to have been vicar of Great Yarmouth before 1755, and Hayter, when Bishop of Norwich, made him his chaplain. Lord Hardwicke's Marriage Act of 1753 practically placed marriage on the lines upon which it is now conducted. Miss Grey was daughter of the rector of Hinton in the Hedges with Stene, where Nathaniel, Lord Crewe, Bishop of Durham, 1674-1722-of discreditable political memory, and of Bamborough Charity and Lincoln College munificent fame-had his ancestral home. Here is the picturesque chapel built by his father, Sir Thomas Crewe, in 1620, in a mixed, late Perpendicular and classic style, containing effigies-two by Nicholas Stone-and monuments, and the waving heraldic banners of the family. It may now be recalled that just a century later Miss Linwood, of a stock long settled at the delightful village of Cogenhoe in the same county, astonished society by similar trumpery performances to those of Miss Grey. Robert D'Arcy, fourth Earl of Holderness, was Gentleman of the King's Bedchamber, in 1744 Ambassador to the Venetian Republic, and in 1749 Minister Plenipotentiary to the States General of the United Provinces. In 1751 he was one of the principal Secretaries of State, a position which he resigned in 1752, but was re-appointed two years later. He made way for Lord Bute in 1760. By his death in 1778, without male issue, the barony of D'Arcy and the earldom of Holderness became extinct. Peter Allix was of Jesus, Cambridge, and successively Dean of Gloucester and Dean of Ely. Thomas Gage, succeeded as eighth baronet, created Baron Gage of Castlebar, Co. Mayo, and Viscount Gage of Castle Island, Co. Kerry, Ireland. He died as described by Pyle, and was succeeded by his elder son, who was created a British peer in 1780, Baron Gage of Firle, Sussex. On the death of his only son in 1790, being deprived of direct descendants, he obtained another British peerage as Baron Gage of High Meadow, co. Gloucester, with remainder to his nephew and heirpresumptive, from whom the present and fifth Viscount Gage is descended. LETTER LXXIV "20 Feb. 1755. "DEAR SIR, "I have a word or two to say whilst I think of it. 1. Pray buy a pennyworth of good ink, of Mr. Somersby of Lynn; for I can scarcely read your letters. 2. I can say nothing as yet to the Bishop of Norwich, for he is busy over head & ears in making a sermon, for some publick occasion. 3. The skilful say there will be no war; Our preparations have done the business. By which Lord Anson has got great credit. 4. I know nothing of the book about Babel, nor does any body else that comes in my way. Do you mean that the author has reflected |