order in your eyes. Whenever they will permit you to draw forth and prepare your treasures for the Antiquarian Society I am persuaded they will be gratefully received. "I shall attend to the Commission you have sent me, but must at the same time inform you that our intelligence, in the way you wish, is not so early nor so general as you may imagine. In a late instance, indeed, of an exchange that was meditated, and had, as I thought, taken place between Dr. Berkeley, of Canterbury, and Dr. Ekins, for the Deanery of Derry, I knew the rise and progress of it; but why it has failed I am not so certain. I see the deanery is given to Lord Carlisle's Second Chaplain; and I suppose Dr. Ekins waits for a vacant bishopric to make a better exchange. Possibly he may have no objection to make such an exchange with an English dean; and if you should hereafter go to Ireland, there are two divines here upon the town, Mr. Herries and Dr. Colin Milne, who, I dare say, would be very glad to attend you thither as your chaplains; for alas! here Ploravêre suis non respondere favorem, &c. Till I read the inclosed I did not know that you had patronised the latter as well as the former: but I suppose it must be true because he says it himself; for I have no doubt that he drew up the inclosed character, which I thought you would not be sorry to see.* "Poor Mr. Thrale breathed his last yesterday morning. I was at an assembly, or conversatione as it is called, at his house in Grosvenor Square, on Saturday evening, and I sat by him on the settee a considerable time; and, though I thought then that there was little appearance of his recovery, yet I did not think I should not see him him alive again; more especially as I was engaged to go there again last night, when the Bramin and the two parsees were to be exhibited. "I am told that Dr. Milles and Co. are soon about to publish a defence of Rowley's existence and poems: yet I hope he will not appear in propriâ persona in this Don Quixote adventure. For, though I shall be very glad to get some further eclaircissements on this subject, yet I had Dr. Lort inclosed in this letter a portrait and memoir of Dr. Colin Milne, which will be found in the Sunday Magazine, Feb. 25, 1781. Dr. Milne died in 1815. See an account of him in Gent. Mag. lxxxv. ii. 380. rather they should come from any other hand than the President of the Antiquarian Society. "I beg my compliments to Mrs. Percy and the young ladies. "Yours very truly, To Bp. PERCY. M. LORT." Lambeth Palace, Oct. 2, 1782. "MY DEAR Lord, "It gives me great pleasure to think that I shall be able to give Mr. Percy such a recommendation to the chaplain of the English Factory at Lisbon as I flatter myself may be of the use you wish it to be to him; for it so happens that Mr. Allen* was my contemporary at College, where I was well acquainted with him, and continued my acquaintance with him after he left it to be the second teacher of the Charter-house School, where he had been educated, and from whence he went to Lisbon, where I understand he still continues; but since he has been there I have never had any occasion to write or apply to him. However, I do flatter myself that my recommendation will have some weight with him; yet, if you wish to have any other, I dare say you may get it from some of the Charter-house people. Mr. Allen was a very good classical scholar, and, when at the Charter-house, published some of Demosthenes' Orations from Lucchesini's edition. I have inclosed what I think of saying to him by way of introduction of myself and your son to his notice, leaving it to your lordship to fill up, and add what you wish to have said further as to any particular services you may be glad to have done for the young gentleman, which I will adopt and copy in my letter to Mr. Allen. I know no other person at Lisbon, nor any other way in which I can be serviceable to Mr. Percy on this occasion. "I have no other news to communicate to you than what the papers will furnish, which tell us that Barrét has *The Rev. Wm. Allen was a Fellow of Trinity College, Cambridge, where he graduated B.A. 1747, M.A. 1751. In 1755 he published the Twelve political Orations of Demosthenes in favour of Liberty, with the Latin translation of Wolfius, and the notes of Lucchesini. The work is in two volumes, and was dedicated to Dr. Mawson, Bishop of Ely. It was commended in the Monthly Review, vol. XVIII. 125. He was educated at the Charterhouse, where be afterwards became Second Master. In 1775 he was Senior Fellow of Trinity College; and in 1784 he was (as appears above) chaplain of the English factory at Lisbon. + The Rt. Hon. Col. James Barré. He lived 20 years after his blindness, and died July 20, 1802, aged 75. See Gent. Mag. LXXII. 694. He was lost his eyesight, and this I understand to be a real fact. "I beg my best respects to Mrs. Percy and all your family, and remain, "Your Lordship's ever faithful friend and servant, "To the Rt. Rev. the Lord Bp. of Dromore, Carlisle." To Bp. PERCY. "M. LORT. "MY DEAR LORD, Lambeth Palace, Oct. 11, 1782. "You did well not to inclose your letter to the Archbishop, as it gives me an opportunity of sending this and the inclosed by the return of the post. I hope it will answer your purpose. "I will endeavour to see or get Dr. Heberden spoken to for a recommendation to his broker at Madeira, but I suppose there can be no such hurry for this. I did not think of Mr. Percy's embarking for Lisbon from any port but London or Falmouth. I most heartily wish him a good voyage, and all the benefits of a milder winter than we are likely to experience here, especially if it should prove proportionably colder than the summer has been. "Your Lordship's ever faithful, "M. LORT. "P.S. Lord Shelburne has certainly written to Mr. Wyvill that he will support his reformation and equal representation schemes. "The Bp. of Dromore, at W. Fleetwood's, Esq. near Liverpool." To Bp. PERCY. Lambeth Palace, Oct. 12, 1782. “MY DEAR Lord, "By last night's post I sent an answer to your letter received yesterday, that is, to the more material part of it. I intended this day to have called on Dr. Heberden; but before I went, thought it right to inquire whether his brother at Madeira was living, and was informed that he was not, of which I think it right to apprize you as soon as may be, for I have no other reason for writing again so soon. "It is generally believed that the united fleets have orders to dispute Howe's reaching Gibraltar, and seamen one of the supposed authors of Junius. See Gent. Mag. 1813, i. 5, ii. 415. Some anecdotes and a character of Col. Barré will also be found in Gent. Mag. 1817, ii. 131. here wish it may be the case, as they doubt not Howe will give a good account of them. "Your Lordship's ever faithful, "M. LORT. "The Bp. of Dromore, at W. Fleetwood's, Esq. near Liverpool." "MY DEAR LORD, Lambeth Palace, Nov. 11, 1782. "I received your favour relative to your son's being obliged to alter his course from Lisbon to Leghorn. I heartily wish I could as well have procured or given him a recommendation to any person in this last place or its neighbourhood, but I have endeavoured to do it in vain, I hope you have succeeded better in your applications elsewhere. "At the opening of the Royal Society's meeting last Thursday, Mr. Herschel, the Bath astronomer, in a very formal letter to the president, announced his having named the new planet in our system, which he has discovered, Georgium Sydus— Georgium Sydus, Tu nunc assuere vocari. The Astronomer Royal* gave his fiat in as formal a manner to this nomination, and recommended it to the president to give directions to the secretary to anounnce this nomination to all the academies in Europe. "I am just setting out for Bath to spend a fortnight, and at my return shall take up my residence at No. 6, in Saville Row, where I shall be happy to see any of the name of Percy. I am, with great truth, "Your Lordship's ever faithful, "The Bp. of Dromore, Carlisle." "MY DEAR Lord, "M. LORT. Saville Row, Jan. 15, 1783. "As soon as I was able I went to Lambeth, and communicated the contents of your letter to the Archbishop, which gave great satisfaction to his Grace, more especially as he told me that your Lordship had mentioned to him some very awkward particulars relative to those persons who had taken pains to recommend this person to his Grace. However, all is well that ends well, and if this new convert goes on without a relapse it will be the best Lambeth degree that ever was given; I shall be glad Rev. Neville Maskelyne, D.D. He died Feb. 9, 1811. See memoirs of him in Gent. Mag. LXXXI. 197, 672. + Sir Joseph Banks. to hear that he has purified and amended the outward as well as the inward man. "The Bishop of Carlisle* made me a morning visit lately, and appeared to be in very good health and spirits. "I presume you have hardly heard from your son since his departure. By the last Gazette I find there are new chaplains appointed at Lisbon and Oporto, but what is become of my friend Allen I have not learned. "I do not find that the Ministry are prepared to announce peace to the Parliament next week. It is supposed that neither the French nor Spaniards will be in earnest on this subject, till they shall have tried whether Jamaica is as impregnable as Gibraltar; which I do not apprehend it to be, and wish they may not succeed better in their attempts on it. There goes a story, how true I know not, that when Franklin was about to sign the preliminary articles for American Independence, he stept out of the room and returned in a much worse coat than that in which he left it, saying, That he hoped the gentlemen would excuse an old man's whim, but that he chose to sign these preliminaries in the same dress in which he was abused by Mr. Wedderburne at the council chamber.' "Mr. Ritson, a young lawyer of Gray's Inn, is the author of the attack on Warton; he has been digging hard in the Museum mines for some time past, and is quite a Drawcansir, for I am told he has a pamphlet ready to be published against Steevens and Malone's Shakspeare, and also a Collection of Old Ballads, in which I presume a former Editor† is to be handled as roughly. "Poor Dr. Johnson is said to be in a bad way with water on his breast; he is bled often, and takes laudanum frequently, but whether by his own or better advice I cannot say. "When the Parliament meets next week I suspect many strange petitions will be presented to it, one I am told from the county of Flint, for a bill to prevent translations of Bishops. There is a most poisonous pamphlet dispersed gratis by the members of what is called the Constitutional Society; it is entitled, The Principles of Government, in a Dialogue between a Scholar and a He was * Dr. Edmund Law; elected 1769, died Aug. 14, 1787, aged 84. father of Edward first Lord Ellenborough, of Dr. J. Law, Bishop of Elphin, and of Dr. G. H. Law, Bishop of Bath and Wells. See Lit. Anecdotes, Gen. Index, VII. 223, 612, + Bishop Percy himself. |