Heber, Reginald

, a learned and amiable English clergyman, the second son of Thomas Heber, &sq. of Marton-hall in the deanery of Craven, one of the oldest families in that district of Yorkshire, was born at Marton, Sept. 4, 1728, O. S. He had his school education under the rev. Mr. Wilkinson at Skipton, and the rev. Thomas Hunter at Blackburn, Lancashire, afterwards vicar of Weaverham, Cheshire, author of “Observations on Tacitus,” and other works of credit. From Blackburn he ‘removed to the freeschool at Manchester, and on March 4, 1746--7, was entered a commoner of Brazen-nose college; where his elder’ brother, Richard Heber, was at that time a gentleman commoner. In October 1752, his father died, and his mother in the month of March following. He was admitted to the degree of M. A. July 5, 1753, and chosen fellow of the college November 15 following, having previously in that year been ordained deacon by bishop Trevor, Match 18, and priest by bishop Hoadly, Nov. 1, to qualify himself for the fellowship founded in 1533 by William Clifton, subdean of York, for which he was a candidate. He had private pupils when he was only B. A. and was afterwards in much esteem as a public tutor, particularly of gentlemen commoners, having at one time more than twenty of | that rank under his care. In July 1766, his brother died, and, as he left no male issue, Mr. Heber succeeded to a considerable estate at Hodnet in Shropshire, which was bequeathed in 1752 to his mother, Elizabeth Heber, by Henrietta, only surviving daughter and heiress of sir Thomas Vernon of Hodnet, bart. who chose for her heir the daughter, in preference to the son, of her niece Elizabeth wife of Richard Atherton, esq. ancestor of Henrietta wife of Thomas lord Liftbrd. Dec. 5, 1766, he was inducted into the rectory of Chelsea, the presentation to which had, several years before, been purchased for him by his brother and another kind relative. He resigned his fellowship July 1, 1767. Finding the rectorial house at Chelsea bad and unfinished, he in part rebuilt and greatly improved the whole, without asking for dilapidations, as the widow of his predecessor, Sloane Elsmere, D. D. was not left in affluent circumstances. In 1770, he exchanged Chelsea for the Upper Mediety of Malpas, Cheshire, into which he was inducted, July 25, on the presentation of William. Drake, esq. of Ainersham, Bucks; whose eldest son, the late William Drake, esq. had been one of his pupils in Brazen-nose college. In the long incumbency, and latterly non-residence, of his predecessor, the honourable and rev. Henry Moore, D. D. chaplain to queen Anue, and son of the earl of Drogheda, who was instituted to Malpas, Nov. 26, 1713, the parsonage was become ruinous. Mr. Heber therefore built an excellent new house, on a new site, which commands an extensive view of Flintshire and Denbighshire, and some other counties.

On the death of lord James Beauclerc, who held the rectory of Hodnet in commendam with the bishopric of Hereford, Mr. Heber was instituted to that living, of which he was patron, holding it with Malpas, from which it is distant about fourteen miles. In March 1303, he succeeded to the family estate in Yorkshire by the death of his brothers widow, Mrs. Heber of Weston, Northamptonshire, who held it in jointure. In the summer of that year, retaining still the vigour and faculties of younger days, he was present at a very interesting sight, when his second son, Mr. Reginald Heber, who two years before obtained the chancellor’s prize at Oxford for Latin verse, by his very spirited and classical “Carmen Sceculare,” spoke, with unbounded applause, a second prize poem, the admirable verses on-“Palestine,” since published, | Mr. Heber died Jan. 10, 1804. In April 1773, he married Mary, third daughter and co-heiress of Martin Baylie, M. A. rector of Kelsall and Wrentbam in Suffolk. She died Jan. 30, 1774, leaving an infant son, Richard Heber, esq. afterwards M. A. of Brazen-nose college, 1797, a gentleman well known in the literary world, as the judicious collector of one of the most extensive private libraries in the kingdom, and whose liberality in assisting men of literature with its valuable contents, has been often publicly acknowledged, and cannot be too highly commended. InJuly 1782, Mr. Reginald Heber married Mary, eldest daughter of Cuthbert Allanson, D. D. of Brazen-nose, rector of Wath in Yorkshire, who was for some years before his death chaplain to the house of commons. By this lady he left a daughter Mary, and two sons, Reginald and Thomas Cuthbert, commoners of Brazen-nose college. Mr. Heber, the father, although a man of taste and learning, published little. He has, however, some elegant English verses addressed to the king, on his accession to the throne, among the Oxford poems on that occasion, in 1761. The following year he published, but without his name, tf An Elegy written among the Tombs in Westminster Abbey," printed for Dodsley which was afterwards inserted, without his knowledge, in Pearch’s continuation of Dodsley’s Poems. The lines are moral, plaintive, and religious. 1

1 Life by Mr. Archdeacon Clmrtoa in Geat. Ma. vol. LXXIV,