Denne, Samuel

, youngest son of the preceding, was born at the deanry in Westminster, Jan. 13, 1710; admitted of Corpus Christi, or Bene’t college, 1748, where he proceeded B. A. 1754, M. A. 1756, and was elected F. S. A. 1783. He was presented in 1754 by the dean, and chapter of Rochester, to the vicarage of Lamberhurst, in Kent; and in 1767 to that of Wilmington, near Dartford; and the same year to the vicarage of Darent, having resigned Lamberhurst. For nearly forty years of his life he was afflicted with a bilious complaint, winch frequently interrupted his studies, and gradually impaired his constitution. For the last two months he was confined to a chair in his library, in which he was supported by a pillow, and although frequently sinking under an oppressive languor, his faculties remained entire to the last. He died Aug. 3, 1799, and was interred near his father in Rochester cathedral.

Like his father, much of his life was devoted to researches into ancient history and antiquities. The only publications of his not of this kind, were “A Letter to sir Robert Ladbroke, &,c. on the confinement of Criminals in separate apartments,” &c. 1771, and an anonymous pamphlet signed Rusticus, relative to the hardships experienced by the families of clergymen who happen to die just before the time of harvest. The “History and Antiquities of Rochester,” published by T. Fisher in 1772, was avowedly his compilation; and in 1795, he published “Historical particulars of Lambeth parish and Lambeth palace, in addition to the Histories of Dr. Ducarel in the Bibliotheca Topographica Britannica.” The works which he assisted by valuable contributions of essays, dissertations, &c. are the “Archacologia,” vols. VI. XIII.; Thorpe’s “Custumale Roffense;” Gough’s “Sepulchral Monuments;” Hasted’s Kent; “Biblioth. Topog. | Britannica” Nichols’s “Illustrations of the Manners and Expences of ancient times in England” Atterbury’s “Epistolary Correspondence” the “Topographer;” Ellis’s “History of Shoreditch;” and the Gentleman’s Magazine, to which he was a very frequent contributor, from vol. XLI. to the time of his death; his signatures were T. Row, and W and D, the initials of his two livings Wilmington and Darent. Many of his as well as his father’s books, were illustrated with manuscript notes, and are now dispersed in various libraries One of these, a copy of Letsome’s “Preacher’s Assistant,” filled with additions by him and his father, is now in the possession of the rev. Robert Watts, librarian of Sion college, who is preparing a new edition of that very useful work. ¹