guage could convey, when he said, "The occasion of this day's meeting is the only cause of regret that has ever been felt by the inhabitants during the most unsullied administration which our annals can boast." Thus, followed by the blessings of those over whom he had ruled, he sought his native shores; and flattered indeed must he have been, to find that that mark of estimation for him as a man, and gratitude towards him as a governor, which his innate sense of delicacy taught him to decline whilst in Barbadoes, had been voted to him after his departure. It bears this inscription: "This service of plate was presented to General Sir George Beckwith, K. B., late Governor of Barbadoes, by the legislature of that island, as a sincere mark of the high regard and esteem in which he has been and will always continue to be held by every inhabitant of Barbadoes. A. D. 1814." The cost of this honourable present was 25007. Whilst his civil services were thus rewarded by those who could best appreciate them, his king still further proved the high sense he entertained of his military ones, by conferring on him an armorial distinction, such as the illustrious Wellington himself alone can boast:-" Issuant from a mural crown, a dexter arm embowed, encircled with a wreath of laurel; the hand grasping an eagle, or French standard; the staff broken." On the 4th of June, 1814, Sir George Beckwith received the rank of general. Talents great as Sir George Beckwith's were too rare to be allowed to lie long unemployed. In October, 1816, he was summoned from the circle of private life to take the command of the troops in Ireland; his health had become in some degree re-established, and he did not hesitate a moment in obeying the call. During the four years in which Sir George Beckwith directed the military strength, and watched over the internal quiet of Ireland, not one instance of outrage can be pointed out; and the splendid style in which he supported his rank in Dublin as commander of the forces, is acknow The high estimation in which these eminent services were held in England, cannot be more strongly characterized than in the leading paragraph of the Lords Commissioners' speech to both Houses of Parliament, on the 21st June, 1810: "We are commanded by His Majesty to express the satisfaction he derived from the reduction of the island of Guadaloupe by His Majesty's arms; an event which, for the first time in the history of the wars of Great Britain, has wrested from France all her possessions in that quarter of the world, and which, together with the subsequent capture of the only colonies in the West Indies which remained in the possession of the Dutch, has deprived His Majesty's enemies of every port in those seas from which the interests of His Majesty, or the commerce of his subjects, can be molested." These victories having left the subject of our memoir ❝ without more worlds to conquer," and the inhabitants of those islands beginning to feel and to acknowledge the benefits of living under the sway of the British empire, he returned to Barbadoes. Amidst his military avocations as commander-in-chief, he had never forgotten that his duties as governor imposed upon him the adoption of such measures as could best ensure the happiness and welfare of those entrusted to his charge; and the merchants of the West India islands will long consider his administration of their laws as the brightest times of their history. But it is not to be supposed that such combined and arduous duties could be accomplished without a sacrifice of health: Sir George Beckwith unfortunately experienced this; and in June, 1814, determined on seeking a restoration of that blessing in his native country. The last bill presented for his sanction by the legislature of the island of Barbadoes, was a vote of a service of plate to himself; and deeply as he must have felt so strong a mark of their approbation of his government, "this bill, gentlemen," said he, "is the only one from which I must withhold my assent." At a public dinner given him before his embarkation, the chairman, in proposing his health, guage could convey, when he said, "The occasion of this day's meeting is the only cause of regret that has ever been felt by the inhabitants during the most unsullied administration which our annals can boast." Thus, followed by the blessings of those over whom he had ruled, he sought his native shores; and flattered indeed must he have been, to find that that mark of estimation for him as a man, and gratitude towards him as a governor, which his innate sense of delicacy taught him to decline whilst in Barbadoes, had been voted to him after his departure. It bears this inscription: - "This service of plate was presented to General Sir George Beckwith, K. B., late Governor of Barbadoes, by the legislature of that island, as a sincere mark of the high regard and esteem in which he has been and will always continue to be held by every inhabitant of Barbadoes. A. D. 1814.” The cost of this honourable present was 25007. Whilst his civil services were thus rewarded by those who could best appreciate them, his king still further proved the high sense he entertained of his military ones, by conferring on him an armorial distinction, such as the illustrious Wellington himself alone can boast:-"Issuant from a mural crown, a dexter arm embowed, encircled with a wreath of laurel; the hand grasping an eagle, or French standard; the staff broken." On the 4th of June, 1814, Sir George Beckwith received the rank of general. Talents great as Sir George Beckwith's were too rare to be allowed to lie long unemployed. In October, 1816, he was summoned from the circle of private life to take the command of the troops in Ireland; his health had become in some degree re-established, and he did not hesitate a moment in obeying the call. During the four years in which Sir George Beckwith directed the military strength, and watched over the internal quiet of Ireland, not one instance of outrage can be pointed out; and the splendid style in which he supported his rank in Dublin as commander of the forces, is acknow ledged by every one who partook of his liberal and extended hospitality. On the 21st of September, 1818, in consequence of the death of the Earl of Lindsey, he was removed from the colonelcy of the 2d West India regiment to that of the 89th. Sir George Beckwith returned to England at the end of March, 1820; and the state of his health now began to show that the incessant and trying services in which he had been engaged, combined with the baneful effects of a long residence in a West Indian climate, had made slow but too certain ravages in his constitution. He struggled for many months against increasing malady, but at length expired, at his house in Half-moon Street, on the 20th of March, 1823, in the 70th year of his age. He reposes beside individuals of his family, by his own desire, in the vaults of Mary-le-bone burying-ground; though few are the tablets in Westminster Abbey, or St. Paul's, which commemorate the services of those who have deserved better of their country than Sir George Beckwith. No. VII. THE RIGHT REVEREND THOMAS FANSHAWE MIDDLETON, D.D. F.R.S. THE LORD BISHOP OF CALCUTTA. HE impression made upon every pious and thinking mind in the country, by the melancholy tidings of the death of this apostolic prelate, was such as can never be effaced. In Bishop Middleton the church of England has lost one of its most able, zealous, and affectionate supporters, and the church of India a founder and a father. Dr. Middleton was born in Jan. 1769, at Kedleston in Derbyshire, and was the only child of the Rev. Thomas Middleton of that place. From his father he imbibed those principles of piety, which were afterwards so singularly conspicuous in his whole character and conduct. He was educated at Christ's Hospital, under the rigid discipline of the Rev. James Bowyer, who has been not inaptly termed the Busby of that establishment. Here he was contemporary with Sir Edward Thornton, our present ambassador to the court of Sweden; the Rev. George Richards, D.D. F.R.S., author of the Aboriginal Britons, and Bampton Lectures; and Mr. Coleridge the Poet, from whose fertile and powerful pen has issued a just tribute of gratitude to the zeal and ability of his tutor. From Christ's Hospital he proceeded, upon one of the school exhibitions, to Pembroke Hall, Cambridge, where he took the degrees of B.A. in 1792; M.A. in 1795; and B. and D.D. in 1808. In March, 1792, after taking the degree of B.A., and being ordained deacon by the then Bishop of Lincoln (Dr. Pretyman), he entered upon his clerical duties at Gainsborough. |