St John's without the 50 allowance (which as he lives altogether in Durham he rightly reckons as part of his revenue) is not 6001i.3 I hope you and my aunt continue well. Were Durham no further off than Gloucester, I am sure she and you would take great delight in it. As it is, the agreeableness of the country without you is nothing. I beg my best duty to her and am most dear and honour'd Sir, your most dutifull nephew and devoted servant, W. WARBURTON. Durham May 30th 1755. DEAR SIR, DURHAM, July 27th, 1756. I understand from Prior Park that they got a glympse of you. But tho' you did them this pleasure, it was all. They could not prevail on you to dine with them. 4 I am here in residence. Last week, at a general chapter, the twelve were found assembled- -an adventure that has not happened these fifty years—which gave me an opportunity of seeing my brethren, no common sight I will assure you; for there is a prebendary, I could name, in this Church, who has never yet seen the face of the Dean, tho' he has been possessed of his stall these 14 years. Shall I reckon them up to you? Sr John Dolben5 is a gentleman; Dr. Sharpe a divine; Dr. Knatchbull? what the English call a good liver; Dr. Stearnes what the French call a bon vivan; Dr. hold I will not turn panegyrist. Suffice it for you to know that every one of us being of use to others, or of importance to himselfe, we abound in benevolence and politeness. But one, who has just deserted us for a bishoprick in Ireland, I must bring you acquainted with, that you may understand what bishops we send, or rather what bishops we return, thither; for you will not need to be told that the but The Rev. William Greenwell, under date 13 June, 1913, writes As far as I am able to judge, I think Warburton refers to the property attached to each individual stall and does not take into account the share which each prebendary had on the general corps of the Chapter.' The Hon. Spencer Cowper, Dean of Durham from 1746 to his death, 25 March, 1774: buried in the Nine Altars. 5 Sir John Dolben, bart., prebendary of the sixth stall, 1718, transferred to the eleventh stall, in the following year, holding the same to his death, 21 Nov., 1756: buried at Finedon, Northamptonshire, of which parish he was vicar. Thomas Sharpe, archdeacon of Northumberland, 1722. prebendary of the tenth stall, 1732, until his death, 16 March, 1758: buried in the Galilee. 'William Knatchbull, prebendary of the twelfth stall, 1738, transferred to the eleventh stall, 1757, holding the same to his death, 27 Dec., 1760: buried in the Galilee. 8 Jacques Sterne, prebendary of the second or Golden stall from 1755 to his death, 9 June, 1759: buried at Rise, Yorkshire. He was uncle of Lawrence Sterne, author of Tristram Shandy. hero of my story is a native of that country. His name is Lesley,9 to whom Lowth has procured Lim'rick in exchange for a large living and prebend of this Church, to which Lesley had been some years ago advanced by the miserable Chandler, 10 for the merit of marrying his niece. When this man went last to Ireland (I think it was to perfect his church-bargain) he contrived, in order to secure himselfe of a safe and easy passage, that the vane on the top of his house should be tied down to the east point. Don't think I tell you a flam; it is a litteral truth. It was, I suppose, a family charm; he might have learnt it of his ancestors, the descendants of those Lapland witches whom King Sweno transplanted into the North of Ireland to civilize the savage inhabitants. And you know how famous those Sibylls were for selling tyed-up winds. After such an exploit, you need not wonder at the success of his voiage; and indeed, by virtue of this new kind of inspiration, he returned a bishop. But as a charmer, charm he never so wisely, may do mischief, one unluckey circumstance attended his incantations. For while this intrigue was carrying on between him and his weathercock, Sr John Dolben was just got out of a tedious illness, and wanted exercise to re-establish his health. But as he was to wait for mild weather, he 9 Doctor James Lesley, Prebendary of Durham, and afterwards Bishop of Limerick, is stated to have been son of John Lesley of County Kerry, and grandson of John Lesley, rector of Urney in the diocese of Derry. He was educated at Trinity College, Dublin, and taking holy orders, became successively curate of Swords, vicar of Donabate, and perpetual curate of St. Nicholas', Dublin. In accordance with the Irish principle that their way of supporting Foreign Missions is to export clergy annually to evangelise the English, he came into the diocese of Durham, having married a grand niece of Bishop Chandler, by whom he was collated to the rectory of Wolsingham, 1741-1747, to the eighth stall at Durham, 1743, and the rectory of Sedgefield in 1747. In 1755 he was permitted to effect an exchange with Doctor Robert Lowth, who had been nominated Bishop of Limerick, by which he surrendered his stall and rectory and received the see. When at Sedgefield he was accused, almost certainly unjustly, of being a Papist in disguise (see Six North Country Diaries, p. 172). By his marriage with Joyce, daughter of Anthony Lyster, of Lysterfield, County Roscommon, Bishop Lesley had with other issue, the following children who were christened in the Cathedral of Durham: Also: Edward Lesley, baptized 5 Jan., 1746; of Wadham College, Oxford, matriculated 29 June, 1765; of Middle Temple, barrister-at-law 1777; M.P. for Old Leighlin, 1787-1790; created a baronet, 3 Sept., 1787; died 21 Nov., 1818 s.p.m. Richard Lesley, baptized 18 May, 1749; of Wadham College, Oxford, Barbara, baptized 9 May, 1744; buried at Sedgefield, 12 March, 1748/9. Katherine Elizabeth, baptized at Sedgefield 22 Oct., 1755. Bishop Lesley died in Limerick, 24 Nov., 1770. 10 Doctor Edward Chandler, bishop of Coventry and Lichfield, was translated to Durham in 1730, being confirmed on the 21st November: he died 20ht July, 1750. would needs be carried out every day into his garden to see how the wind stood. Unluckily no other weathercock was in sight, from thence, but Lesley's; and that, still pointed east. The young ladies, his daughters, would by no means commit him to his exercise, during that inclement quarter; so he was content to wait for a change. But the vane, as well it might, continuing steady to its trust, and the weather growing warm, the old knight lost all patience; and complaining to a friend of this discordancy between wind and weather, "I'll be hanged (said the other) if Lesley has not been playing tricks with his weathercock; for I remember being with him the morning he went away; when a workman came down stairs, and assured the Dr he had made all safe. This set them upon enquiry; and the spell, the blockhead had clapt upon the vane became the jest and entertainment of the place. This wonderful person is at present with us. And by the massiness of his looks and his unconquered taciturnity (for I tried to touch him to the quick) I judge him capable of still greater things. But what he has already done (sic) adds reverence to the sacred order, and what has been done for him is enough to distinguish this virtuous and well judging age. You have always my best wishes, which are health and the continuance of your chearfullness. Believe me to be, My dear friend, your most affectionate and faithful servant, W. WARBURTON. Ralph Allen, Esqr.11 11 Ralph Allen is stated to have been born circa 1694, being son of John Allen of St. Blazey, Cornwall, innkeeper. Obtaining a situation in the important post office of Bath he attracted the notice of General Wade, whose natural daughter, Miss Earl, he married. Having devised a scheme of cross-posts for England and Wales, which he was allowed to farm greatly to his own advantage, his profits, from 1720 to 1764, according to his memoir in the Dictionary of National Biography, averaging £12,000 a year. He also became proprietor of extensive quarries near Bath, out of which he built himself a fine mansion house which he called Prior Park. Here he used his wealth in benevolence and hospitalty, and he is said to be the original of Squire Allworthy in Tom Jones, and to him Fielding dedicated his Amelia. By his second marriage, with Elizabeth Holder, Allen had an only child Ralph Allen the younger, comptroller in the bye-letter office, who died in his father's lifetime. Through his influence with Pitt, who sat as member for Bath, Allen obtained ecclesiastical preferment for Warburton who had married his favourite niece, Gertrude Tucker. He died s.p. 29 June, 1764, and was buried at Claverton. By his will he gave Prior Park to his wife for her life and after her decease to his niece, Mrs. Warburton, with remainders over. To his brother, Philip Allen, postmaster of Bath (who died 17 Oct., 1765) he gave property at Hampton and Tiverton. Ralph Allen's head, in profile, was painted and etched by W. Hoare; and in the Guildhall of Bath there is a portrait in oils. Mrs. Warburton, who married, secondly, the Rev. Martin Smith, sometime rector of Fladbury, Worcestershire, succeeded to Prior Park and made it her residence. NORTHERN JOURNEYS OF BISHOP RICHARD POCOCKE. INTRODUCTION. Richard Pococke, Bishop of Meath, was born at Southampton in the year 1704, being the son of the Reverend Richard Pococke, master of the Edward VI. Grammar School of that place. He matriculated at Corpus Christi College, Oxford, 13 July, 1720, and graduated B.A. 1725; B.C.L., 1731; D.C.L., 1733. Having influence in the Church of Ireland through his maternal uncle, Thomas Milles, Bishop of Waterford and Lismore, he took holy orders and settled in that kingdom. At the earliest canonical age he was made Precentor of Lismore; he was appointed Vicar-General of Waterford and Lismore in 1734, Precentor of Waterford in 1745, and, in the same year, Archdeacon of Dublin. He was appointed Bishop of Ossory in 1756 and was translated to Meath in 1765. The Irish bishops of the eighteenth century have fallen under the lash of Macaulay, but their shortcomings were largely due to the ecclesiastical and political system of the period under which the Government of the day maintained its position and power through the purchase of votes in both Houses of the English Parliament by the distribution of titles and sinecure offices in Church and State. A close examination and study of the engraved portraits of Irish bishops fails to suggest that they were otherwise than learned and respectable men. Their misfortune was to draw an official income with no opportunity to render corresponding service. Between the years 1733 and 1742 Pococke made several tours on the Continent of Europe and in the East, the result of which he gave to the world in two volumes, published respectively in 1743 and 1745, entitled, A Description of the East and Some Other Countries, a work which Gibbon in his Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, cap. fifty-one, note 71, ed. Milman, characterizes as a pompous folio. His journeys in England and Wales in the years 1750, 1751, 1754, 1756, and 1757, as recorded in letters addressed to his sister, Miss Elizabeth Pococke of Newtown, near Newbury, Berkshire, have been printed by the Camden Society and form vols. 42 and 44 of the second series of their publications. His tours in Scotland in 1747, 1750, and 1760, edited by Mr. D. W. Kemp for the Scottish History Society, were printed in 1887. When in Scotland in 1760, and at the request of the Episcopal community, who had been destitute of bishops for some generations, he confirmed in the Episcopal Chapel at Elgin. (See Cotton, Fasti Ecclesiae Hibernicae, vol. ii., p. 287.) In his own diocese Bishop Pococke did much useful philanthropic work; he was also the founder of the institution now known as the Incorporated Society for Promoting English Protestant Schools in Ireland. In the garden at Ardbraccan of what (until the disestablishment of the Church of Ireland) was the seehouse of the diocese of Meath, there are still fine cedars grown from seed brought by Bishop Pococke from the Lebanon. Bishop Pococke, who was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society, 11 February, 1741/2, died at Charleville when on an episcopal visitation in the month of September, 1765, and was buried at Ardbraccan. His portrait in oils by an unknown artist is preserved at the office of the Incorporated Society for Promoting Protestant Schools in Ireland, 48, Kildare Street, Dublin; it is a three-quarters length, seated in episcopal robes and wig; and in the unmatched collection of engraved portraits of Irish Bishops belonging to Mr. William Chamney of Dublin, there is a small print of another portrait. It is believed that the following letters relating to the Bishop's journeyings in the North of England in the year 1760, preserved in the British Museum, are now printed for the first time. |