MEMOIR OF THOMAS HINDERWELL. HOMAS HINDER WELL was descended from a respectable family, which had for a long series of years been resident in Scarborough, where he was born 17 November, 1744, O. S. He received the rudiments of his education at his native town, after which he was placed at the celebrated *He thus apostrophizes the place of his nativity: "Seat of my Sires! dear native place, With grandeur crown'd and deck'd with grace!" The house in which he was born is situated on the Cliff, commanding an uninterrupted view of ocean scenery. It is the next in a line with Donner's Hotel and is at present the property of Richard Wilson, Esq. Since the birth of our Historian, it has, however, undergone quite a metamorphosis; it's exterior having been completely modernised, and it consequently presents a totally different appearance. 1 Free Grammar School, at Coxwold, Yorkshire, where he made considerable progress in the Greek and Latin languages, under the Rev. Robert Midgley, A. M. "who was fifty-three years Master of that school, and was deservedly admired for his fine taste in classical and polite literature. He educated several gentlemen, who were an honour to their country,"* among whom may be included the subject of this memoir, On finishing his academical studies, Mr. Hinderwell presented to the library, as a proof of his approbation of the School, a copy of a beautiful edition of Xenophon. His intimate friend, the Rev. Samuel Bottomley, observes"I feel sorry that I never asked him how and when his first religious impressions commenced, but they must have been early in life. I have heard him speak of his exercises of conscience at Coxwold school." After he had finished his education, he entered upon a sea-faring life, when he visited many of the continental cities, and we cannot but consider that a man of his observation, would improve his mind by such visits. For a memoir of Mr. M., see Nichols's "Illustrations of Literary History." Among the acts of bravery which he exerci sed in his early years, I cannot omit to notice the following circumstance: During the War of the Russians with the Turks, there were six Transport Ships engaged by the former from Scarborough, of one of which Mr. Hinderwell was Captain. On their arrival at St. Petersburgh (after having received instructions from the Emperor, in the important service in which they were engaged) a magnificent banquet was given to the Officers, and on their return to their several Ships, Captain Hinderwell, in an heroic manner, seized the firelock of one of the Russian Centinels, which he wrenched from his hands, and said, "I aín now invested with the power to pierce you through with this bayonet-but," continued he, spiritedly presenting it to the centinel, “I return it— earnestly entreating you to make honourable use of so honourable a weapon:" He seems always to have had an inclination for study, and to have been imbued with a love of literature, as he related to Mr. Bottomley; the pleasure he took in reading while at Sea, "which Captain Burn, of Scarborough, perceiving, lent him some books written by the Rev: Robert Riccaltoun: these were of much use in informing his judgment respecting the way of salvation." Having reaped the reward of meritorious exertion in the sea-service;about 1775, he relinquished all connexion with it, and in the succeeding year was elected one of the corporation of Scarborough, and in five years afterward called to the magistracy of the Borough; an office which he ably sustained, and exerted the power with which he was invested for the punishment of evil doers and the praise of them that did well. He was afterward three several years 1784, 1790 and 1799, elected Chief Magistrate and continued a member of the corporate body until he was the Father of it, when he withdrew from public life in 1816, in order, as he always stated, that he might have leisure to pursue objects of eternal import. In the year 1784 he filled the office of President of the Amicable Society of the town, of which excellent institution he had been a Member for the space of nearly half a century. He wrote some appropriate " Admonitions to be delivered to each boy going out of the school ;” and when the Rules of the society were revised in 1804, he was president of a Committee appointed for that purpose. He was also President of the Trinity House, having previously sustained the office of Warden of the Institution. For several years prior to the publication of his History, he lived as, and truly supported the character of, an independent gentleman; during which period he was maturing his great work—“The History and Antiquities of Scarborough," which, in the Autumn of the year 1798, made it's appearance in one 4to. volume, and in the publication of which he conferred a lasting obligation upon his native town; which idea has been expressed with great poetic energy and feeling in the " Lines on Scarborough Castle," from the MSS, of George Bennet, the Younger, inserted in "The Scarborough Album." Writing of the ruins of the Castle, he thus addresses them : Could I embody thee, or plant a tongue From that dark hour to this, or tell thy fate |