was many years rector of Stamford Rivers, near Ongar, in Essex;
was many years
rector of Stamford Rivers, near Ongar, in Essex; and
author of the celebrated “Essay on Delicacy,
” Select Letters between the late Dutchess of Somerset, Lady Luxborough,
” &c. &c. He w;is a man of strong natural parts, gieat erudition, refined taste, and master of
a nervous, and at the same time elegant style, as is obvious
to every one who has had the happiness to read the Essay
here spoken of. His writings were fewer in number than
their author’s genius seemed to promise to his friends, and
his publications less known than their intrinsic excellence
deserved. Had he been as solicitous as he was capable to
instruct and please the world, few prose writers would
have surpassed h m; but in his latter years he lived a recluse, and whatever he composed in the hours of retired
leisure, he (unhappily for the public) ordered to be burned,
which was religiously (I had almost said irreligiously) performed. He was a native of Cheshire; and in his early
years, under the patronage and friendship of the late earl
of Cholmondely, mixed in all the more exalted scenes of
polished life, where his lively spirit and brilliant conversation rendered him universally distinguished and esteemed;
and even till within a few months of his decease (near seventy-five years of age) these faculties could scarce be
said to be impaired. The Essay on Delicacy (of which we are now speaking) the only material work of his which
the editor knows to have survived him, was first printed in
1748, and has been very judiciously and meritoriously
preserved by the late Mr. Dodsley in his Fugitive Pieces.
”
Notwithstanding Mr. Hull’s assertion, that his uncle wrote
nothing but the “Essay,
” a sermon of his, under the
title of“Public Virtue, or the Love of our Country,
” was
printed in The Old Serpent, or
Methodism Triumphant,
” 4to. The doctor’s imprudence
involved him so deeply in debt, that he was some time
confined for it, and left his parsonage-house in so ruinous
a condition, that his successor Dr. Beadon was forced entirely to take it down. He died June 20, 1775, leaving
two daughters, one of whom married to the rev. Thomas
Wetenhall, of Chester, chaplain of a man of war, and
vicar of Walthamstow, Essex, from 1759 till his death,
1776.