Ashton, Thomas

, an English divine, the son of Dr, Ashton, usher of the grammar school at Lancaster (a place of only thirty-two pounds per annum, which he held for near fifty years), was born in 1716, educated at Eton, and elected thence to King’s college, Cambridge, 1733. He was the person to whom Mr. Horace Walpole addressed his epistle from Florence, in 1740, under the title of “Thomas Ashton, esq. tutor to the earl of Plymouth.” About that time, or soon after, he was presented to the rectory of Aldingham in Lancashire, which he resigned in March 1749; and on the 3d of May following was presented by the provost and fellows of Eton to the rectory of Sturminster Marshall in Dorsetshire. He was then M. A. and had been chosen a fellow of Eton in December 1745. In 1752 he was collated to the rectory of St. Botolph, Bishopsgate; in 1759 took the degree of D. D. and in May 1762, was | elected preacher at Lincoln’s Inn, which he resigned in 1764. In 1770 he published, in 8vo, a volume of sermons on several occasions to which was prefixed an excellent metzotinto by Spilgbury, from an original by sir Joshua Reynolds, and this motto, “Insto pnepositis, oblitus praeteritorum.” Dr. Ashton died March 1, 1775, at the age of fifty-nine, after having for some years survived a severe attack of the palsy. His discourses, in a style of greater elegance than purity, were rendered still more striking by the excellence of his delivery. Hence he was frequently prevailed on to preach on public and popular occasions. He printed a sermon on the rebellion in 1745, 4to, and a thanksgiving sermon on the close of it in 1746, 4to. la 1756, he preached before the governors of the Middlesex hospital, at St. Anne’s, Westminster a commencement sermon at Cambridge in 1759; a sermon at the annual meeting of the chanty schools in 1760; one before the House of Commons on the 30th of January 1762; and a spital sermon at St. Bride’s on the Easter Wednesday in that year. All these, with several others preached at Eton, Lincoln’s inn, Bishopsgate, &c. were collected by himself in the volume above mentioned, which is closed by a “Clerum habita Cantabrigige in templo beatae Mariae, 1759, pro gradu Doctoratus in sacra theologii.” His other publications were, 1. “A dissertation on 2 Peter i. 19,” 1750, 8vo. 2. In 1754, the Rev. Mr. Jones of St. Saviour’s, delivered a sermon at Bishopsgate-churcb, which being offensive to Dr. Ashton, he preached against it; and an altercation happening between the two divines, some pamphlets were published on the occasion, one of which, entitled “A letter to the Rev. Mr. Thomas Jones, intended as a rational and candid answer to his sermon preached at St. Botolph, Bishopsgate,” 4to, was probably by Dr. Ashton. 3. “An extract from the case of the obligation of the electors of Eton college to supply all vacancies in that society with those who are or have been fellows of King’s college, Cambridge, so long as persons properly qualified are to be had within that description,” London, 1771, 4to, proving that aliens have no right at all to Eton fellowships, either by the foundation, statutes, or archbishop Laud’s determination in 1636. This is further proved in, 4. “A letter to the Rev. Dr. M. (Morell) on the question of electing aliens into the vacant places in Eton college. By the author of the Extract,” 1771, 4to. | 5. “A second letter to Dr. M.” The three last were soon after re-published under the title of “The election of aliens into the vacancies in Eton college an unwarrantable practice. To which are now added, two letters to the Rev. Dr. Morell, in which the cavils of a writer in the General Evening Post, and others, are considered and refuted. Part I. By a late fellow of King’s college, Cambridge.” London, 1771, 4to. Part II. was never published. He lived long in habits of intimacy with Horace Walpole, afterwards earl of Orford, who, Mr. Cole informs us, procured him the Eton fellowship but a rupture separated them. Mr. Cole adds, what we have some difficulty in believing, that the “Sermon on Painting,” in lord Orford’s works, was preached by Dr. Ashton at Houghton, before the earl of Orford (sir Robert Walpole) in 1742. ¹