Page images
PDF
EPUB

them, to devote their talents to the study of Physick, Divinity, or Law. But the subject of more important moment is yet untouched.

It being far from the intention of my mind to rake up the ashes of the dead, or to take up the first, or even the last stone, to deface the monument erected to the pious memory of the deceased; I seek for information only for the cause of Truth—to clear up what is obscure-and to throw its proper shade and light upon the character of Dr. Young.

With this view I look to the Sylvas Academi, where the more authentic information may perhaps be obtained respecting some of the parti culars attached to the present subject. And I should also hope, that some of the friends or surviving relations of our Author may be able to dispel the dark and heavy cloud, which with Cimmerian darkness hangs over his memory.

The fair name and the honest reputation of the Author of the Night Thoughts are deeply sullied by the Editor's associating him in friendship with the Duke of Wharton. But, leaving nothing to the uncertainty of imputation, he precludes us from the delusion of hope, and from all misconceived prejudice in his favour, by roundly asserting that his morals were far from being correct. I should be extremely reluctant, as well as unwilling, to give my assent to so heavy a charge, unless the accusation were supported by such evidence as could not be gainsaid.

Should the truth of the charge be found to stand in full force against him, and that his moral character was debased by the contamination of vice-such an aspersion, would not only tarnish the lustre and brilliancy of his character, but it would prove also to be a libelous attack upon the Warden and Fellows of All Souls College at that time existing; for from them he must then have received his Testimonial for Holy Orders. Under what construction of Religion could they have subscribed their names with the solemn assurance, if the scandal and reproach were well-founded of his immorality-tha the was qualified, by a moral and religious life, to be a Minister of the Gospel of Christ?

The different persons, thus brought forward to public notice, are now

[ocr errors]

resting in the grave. In that grave, where all things may be for a season forgotten, though I believe that our prayers for the dead avail nought, I may nevertheless innocently say, without blotting out a single iota from our creed, in pace quiescant!

The Biographer of Dr. Young has not thought fit to particularize the nature of his offence against the law of morality and order. Taking leave of his general charge, in hope that some friend may vindicate the Author of the Night Thoughts, and wipe off this foul aspersion from his name, I shall devote the remaining part of this interesting subject to the important consideration Whether, as a Father, to a Son who by some youthful indiscretion had given him offence, he did not exercise a severity too rigid, persevering with inflexible harshuess for a long series of years?

[ocr errors]

The minor age of the Son ought, in all reason, strongly to have pleaded in his favour against the sternness of the Father; whatever might have been the errors of his conduct. He had scarcely left Winchester school, when he was banished from his father's friendly roof-when he forfeited all his protection, the benefit of his seasonable advice, and the wholesome correction, which might have led to the happy end of regaining that blessing which he had lost.

How unharmoniously does this rigida virtus agree with those musis cal and melancholy sounds, which he breathed in extreme heaviness of grief and affliction, when he bede wed the grave of Narcissa with tears, which, in sympathy of sorrow, have since flowed down the cheek from many an eye!

Could the Father of a daughternot his own-and the Father of a son, legitimately born, discarded and for bidden from all approach to his per son, be the same identical being? Lord, what is Man!

Whether the melting melancholy strains which flowed from the pen of our Author, so deeply lamenting the death of Narcissa with a pathes sublimely great-overwhelmed with indignant sorrow at the cruel decree of the Romish Church denying his daughter the rites of Christian burial --whether those affecting strains were the genuine feelings of his heart; or caught from so fair a subject to

move the passions of the Reader, would be a kind of sacrilegious doubt. But, allowing those deep tones of grief to have proceeded from the bottom of his soul, his daughter felt not the difference between consecrated ground and the garden of flowers where her last remains were deposited; and, with respect to himself, he had the Christian philosophy to resort to, to support his mind under the Divine consolation, that her spirit had returned unto God who gave it - whilst his only son, the son of a Protestant Minister, a beneficed Clergyman, was wandering in this country, unprotected, unrelieved, and unforgiven. I remember him an unhappy wanderer, friendless, and often, full often, I believe, almost pennyless, but certainly deficiente crumenâ. It would be a melancholy discovery to retrace the different distressing scenes and occurrences which he passed through, without any of the gifts of fortune, without any profession, and without any employment. He was possessed of superior talents, and a well-cultivated understanding, enriched with a lively imagination, and a vein of poetical fancy, not inferior, time and circumstances considered, to that of his father. But the want of academical education left him to struggle under the frowns of adversity in the prime of life. The Editor of Young's Life, boldly, but ignorantly, affirms, that he was sent from Winchester to New College. But this he wrote by dashing through a cloud before his eyes, without any kuowledge of his subject, and wilfully mistaking his way; for, had he made his inquiry at the corner of New College-lane, he would not have fallen into so gross and palpable an

error.

If the writer was not a mere copyist, he was working up the compilation of a Life with materials of which he neither knew the consistency, or the propriety of using them. He would not otherwise have committed to the press this incoherent and contradictory account of Young's admission in the University. His words are these: "He was sent to New College, in Oxford; but there being no vacancy, though the Society waited for one not less than two years, he was admitted in the mean time in GENT. MAG. December, 1816.

Baliol." If he was sent to New College, for what reason was he admitted in Baliol? And if in the mean time he was admitted in Baliol, consequently he could not have been sent to New College. How could he possibly have been sent, when there was no vacancy for his admission ? It cannot with any propriety of language be said, that the Society were thus waiting; though it was strictly true of Young. Bot so far from his having been sent to the College, to which by a chapter of uncommon ill fortune, with all the chances in his favour, he never succeeded; he was during one of those two years the senior of the school at Winchester Col lege, waiting for the chance of the election in his last year, when he became a Superannuate.

But to digress no farther. Let it be granted that Mr. Frederick Young in the heyday of his blood had given his father just cause for resentment; should he have pursued the venge ance of his anger and displeasure to such a degree, and to such an unwarrantable length of time? Had he offended him beyond all hopes of forgiveness? Whatever faults the son had committed, so as to complete his ruin, should not the immoral habits of the father during his intimacy with the Duke of Wharton have risen up in his own judgment against himself, so as to have had compassion on the child of his bosom? The recollection of his having lived in friendship with a licentious and profligate Nobleman ought in reason to have induced him to have weighed in an even balance the demerits of the one with the evil habits of the other.

I am at a loss to conceive how a Clergyman like Dr. Young, so frequently laying open his heart in the confession of his sins with the rest of his Congregation, should so long have indulged a spirit of resentment, at the hazard of his own forgiveness from his Heavenly Father. With how much delusion of mind must he have offered up to Heaven the daily incense of his devotions in the Lord's Prayer without reducing to practice one of the most positive duties compreheuded in our most holy Religion! Equally surprising is it, that, as a priest of the Temple, he should repeatedly have administered the most

comfortable

HISTORY.

A. D. 607, at Chester, Britons defeated, and 1200 monks of Bangor Iscoed slain, by Ethelfrid, King of Northumbria.

895, Chester destroyed by the Danes, and 907 re-edified by Ethelfleda daughter of Alfred.

971, at Chester, Edgar received the homage of eight petty Sovereigns, who, according to Higden, rowed him down the Dee.

1069, William the Conqueror made this County a Palatinate, and conferred it on his nephew Hugh Lupus.

1159, at Chester, Malcolm IV. of Scotland ceded the Counties of Northumberland, Westmoreland, and Cumberland to Henry II.

1300, at Chester, Edward of Caernarvon received the homage of the Welsh. 1644, Jan. 18, Lord Byron and the Royalists repulsed in an attempt to storm Nantwich, and Jan. 21 defeated, with great loss, by Sir Thomas Fairfax. 1645, September 27, at Rowton Heath, Sir Marmaduke Langdale and the Royalists defeated by General Poyntz. The unhappy Charles beheld this defeat from the leads of Phoenix Tower.

1646, February 3, after a noble defence of twenty weeks, Lord Byron compelled by famine to surrender Chester to Sir William Brereton.

1690, at Hyle Lake, the forces under the Duke of Schomberg embarked to reduce Ireland.

BIOGRAPHY.

Aston, Sir Thomas, loyalist, Aston, 1610.

Birkinhead, Sir John, loyal poet, Nantwich, 1615.

Bradshaw, Henry, poet, Chester, 14th century.

BRADSHAW, JOHN, President of Regicides, Wybersley-hall, 1602.

Brerewood, Edward, Mathematician, first Gresham Professor of Astronomy,

Chester, 1565.

Broome, William, Poet, translator of Homer, (died 1745.)

CALVELEY, SIR Heou, warrior, Calveley (flourished temp. Edw. III.)

Chester, Roger of, historian, Chester (died 1339.)

Cowper, William, physician and antiquary, Chester (died 1767.)

Crew, Sir Randal, Lord Chief Justice, (died 1643.)

Davis, Mary, horned woman, Great Salghall, 1598.

Dod, John, Divine, Shotledge, 1559.

Downhamn, George, Bp. of Derry, logician, Chester, about 1560.

Downham, John, author of "Christian Warfare," Chester, (died 1644.)

Ecclestone, Thomas, Franciscan, historian of his Order, Ecclestone, (died 1340.) Egerton, Thomas, Lord Chancellor Ellesmere, Ridley, 1540.

Falconer, Thomas, annotator on Strabo, Chester.

Higden, Ranulph, author of "Polychronicon," Chester (flourished 1357.) Higgenet, Randal, author of Chester Mysteries in 1327, Chester. HOLINSHED, RALPH, historian, Cophurst, about 1510.

Holmes, Randle, three antiquaries of same name, father, son, and grandson, Chester.

Hough, Thomas, buried at Frodsham, March 13, 1592, aged 141.

King, Daniel, author of "Vale Royal," 17th century.

KNOLLES, SIR ROBERT, warrior, (flourished temp. Edw. III.)

Kynaston, John, divine, Chester, 1728.

Lancaster, Nathaniel, divine, author of "Essay on Delicacy," 1700.
Leycester, Sir Peter, antiquary, Tabley, 1613.

Lindsey, Theophilus, Unitarian, Middlewich, 1723.

Middleton, David, establisher of English trade at Bantam, Chester, (died 1610.)

Middleton, Sir Henry, discoverer of Middleton Straights in the Red Sea, Chester, (died 1613.)

Molyneux, Samuel, astronomer, Chester, 1689.

Richardson, John, Bp. of Ardagh, annotator on Ezekiel, (died 1658.)

Savage, Thomas, Abp. of York, Macclesfield, (died 1508.)

Sherlock, Richard, divine, author of "Practical Christian," Oxton, 1613. SPEED, JOHN, historian, Farndon, 1552.

Swinton, John, antiquary, Bexton, 1703.

Watson, John, historian of Halifax, Lyme cum Hanley, 1724.

Whitehurst,

Whitehurst, John, mechanic and philosopher, Congleton, 1713.

Whittingham, Wm. Dean of Durham, translator of Geneva Bible (temp. Eliz.) WILSON, THOMAS, Bp. of Sodor and Man, Burton Wirral, 1663.

MISCELLANEOUS REMARKS.

In the Chapter-house of the Cathedral lie the remains of Hugh Lupus, and five other Norman Earls of Chester.

66

Randle, Earl of Chester, being besieged in the Castle of Rhudland by the Welsh, was relieved by an army of Minstrels, and other Vagrants brought from Chester fair, by Ralph Dutton; for which service Randle conferred upon him and his descendants the jurisdiction of all Minstrels and Vagrants in this county, a privilege since frequently recognised by Parliament, a clause Saving the rights of the Duttons" being inserted in many of the Vagrant Acts. At Bunbury is the monument of Sir Hugh Calveley "The Cheshire Hero." His countryman and companion in arms, Sir Robert Knolles, was so famous for the destruction of buildings during his campaigns in France, that the sharp points or gable ends of overthrown houses in that kingdom, were jocularly styled "Knolles' mitres.”

The story of Robert Nixon "The Cheshire Prophet," said to be born near Vale Royal, appears, from the researches of Lysons, to be wholly legendary. The widow of Milton resided at Nantwich, and died there March 1726.

CORNWALL.

SITUATION AND EXTENT.

Boundaries. North and N. W. Bristol Channel. East, Devon. South and S. W. English Channel.

Greatest length 79; greatest breadth 43; circumference 250; square 1407 miles. Province, Canterbury. Diocese, Exeter. Circuit, Western.

ANTIENT STATE AND REMAINS.

British Inhabitants. Cornubii, and their conquerors the Danmonii. Roman Province. Britannia Prima.-Stations. Voluba, Grampound. Halangium, Carnbrè. Uzella, Lostwithiel. Musidunum, Stratton. Saxon Heptarchy. During this period the Cornish Britons generally retained their independence, but were occasionally subject to Westsex. Antiquities. The Hurlers, the Crellas, Dance main, Boscawen Un, Boskedand Botallak Druidical Circles. Pendarvis Quoit, Lanyon Quoit, Trevethey Stone, and Chûn Cromlechs. Carn Boscawen. Piran Round, and St. Just Amphitheatres. Obelisk on Carraton Down. Chûn, Carnbre, Launceston, Trematon, Tintagel, Pendeanis, Pengerswick and Restormel Castles. St. Germaias, Moorvinstowe. Launceston, Truro, St. Cleer, Bodmin and Kilkhampton Churches. Tower of Probus Church, Bodmin and St. Germains were Episcopal Sees.

nan,

PRESENT STATE AND APPEARANCE.

Rivers. Tamar, Camel or Alan, Fal, Looe, Fowey, Lynher, IIê!, Heyl, Tidi, Cober, Seaton, Torridge, Bude.

Inland Navigation. St. Columb, Polbrook, and Tamar-manure Canals. The eight first-mentioned Rivers.

Lakes. Lo and Dozmerry Pools.

Eminences and Views. Brown Willy 1368, Carraton-hill 1208, Kil-bill

1067, Henborough 1034, Cadouborough 1011 feet above the level of the sea. St. Agnes Beacon; St. Kit's-hill; Godolphin-hill.

Natural Curiosities. St. Michael's Mount. Lizard Point the most Southern, and Land's End the most Western land, in England. Cape Cornwall, Rame-head, Deadman's-point. Falmouth and Fowey Harbours. Entrance to Boscastle and Portraeth. Kynance and Lamorna Coves. Roche Rocks, Treryn Rocks, and Logan Stone; the Cheese Wring; the Tolmen; the Soap Rock. Wells of St. Cleer; St. Keyne, and St. Cuby. Seuts. Cotele-house, Earl of Mount Edgecumbe, Lord-Lieut. of the County. Anthony House, Reginald Pole Ca- Carclew, Sir William Lemon, bart. Clowance, Sir John St. Aubin, bart. Menabilly, Philip Rashleigh, esq.

rew, esq. Boconnoc House, Lord Grenville.

Pendarvis

Pendarvis House, John Stackhouse,

esq.

Trelawney House, Rev. Sir Harry
Trelawney, bart.

Trenant Park, Sir Edw. Buller, bart.
Trewithan, Sir Christopher Hawkins,
bart.

Penquite, James Rashleigh, esq.
Port Eliot, Lord Eliot,
Tehidy House, Lord de Dunstanville,
Tregothnan, Viscount Falmouth. Whiteford, Sir Wm. Pratt Call, bart.
Members to Parliament. For the County, 2; Bodmin, 2; Bossiney, 2; Cal-
Jington, 2; Camelford, 2; East Looe, 2; Fowey, 2; Grampound, 2;
Helston, 2; Launceston, 2; Liskeard, 2; Lostwithiel, 2; Newport, 2;
Penryn, 2; St. Germains, 2; St. Ives, 2; St. Mawes, 2; St, Michael's,
2; Saltash, 2; Tregony, 2; Truro, 2; West Looe, 2: total 44,
Produce. Tin, Copper, Lead, most of the semi-metals, China stone and
clay, Slate, transparent Quartz called Cornish Diamonds, Pilchards
and other fish.
Manufactures. Copper Spikes and Nails, Crucibles, Fishing implements.

POPULATION.

Hundreds, 9; Parishes, 203; Market-towns, 30; Houses, 39,371.
Inhabitants. Males, 103,310; Females, 113,357: total 216,667.

Families employed in Agriculture, 17,465; Trade, 10,954; in neither, 15,770: total, 44,189.

Baptisms. Males, 3,504; Females, 3,321.-Marriages, 1,531.- Burials, Males, 1,890; Females, 1,716.

Towns having not less than 1000 Inhabitants, viz.

[blocks in formation]

A. D. 446, On the departure of the Romans, Vortigern, Prince of Cornwall, was elected Sovereign of the Britons. At his invitation, to repel the incursions of the Picts and Scots, the Saxons first landed in England. 542, near Camelford, battle of Camblan, in which the famous Arthur and his traiterous nephew Mordred were slain.

835, at Hengston-hill, Britons and Danes defeated by Egbert.

935, Athelstan completed the conquest of Cornwall from the Britons.

1498, September, at Whitsand Bay, Perkin Warbeck landed.

1643, January 19, on Bradock Down, General Ruthin and the Parliamentarians defeated by Sir Ralph Hopton, who made 1250 prisoners.

1643, May 15, near Stratton, Earl of Stamford and the Parliamentarians defeated by Sir Ralph Hopton, who took prisoner Major-general Chudleigh and 1700 men. For this victory Sir Ralph was created Lord Hopton of Stratton.

1644, September 1, near Fowey, General Skippon and 6000 of the Parliamentarian infantry capitulated to Charles I.

1646, March 12, at Truro, Lord Hopton and 3000 of the Royalist cavalry capitulated to Sir Thomas Fairfax.

BIOGRAPHY.

Anstis, John, Garter King-at-Arms and Historian of the Order, St. Neots,

1669.

ARTHUR, King of the Britons, Tintagel, 452.

Arundel, John, Bp. of Exeter, Lanbearn, (died 1503.)

Arundel, John, who captured Duncan Campbell, Scotch Admiral, 14 Hen. VIII. Blaunpayn, Michael, Latin Rhymer, (flourished 1350.)

Borlase, William, Historian of his native County, Pendeen, 1696.

Carew,

« PreviousContinue »