quainted; and with the Laureate Warton, whose death prematurely for the interests of classical taste and elegant literature no one more sincerely regretted or more keenly felt than Mr. Price, he was necnon Eccles. de Glympton in com. Oxon. Rectoris. His son, Mr. William Huddesford, was born on the 15th of August 1732, and received his academical education at Trinitycollege, Oxford. He was elected a Scholar of that Society in 1750, and Fellow in 1757. On the 20th of October 1756, he proceeded to the degree of M. A. and on the 7th of December 1767 to that of B. D. In 1755 he was appointed Keeper of the Ashmolean Museum, which highly disgusted Dr. Rawlinson. ("Literary Anecdotes," vol. V. p. 495.)—In 1765 he served the office of Senior Proctor of the University. To the inexpressible grief of his numerous friends and acquaintance he deceased on the 6th of October 1772. See " Literary Anecdotes," vol. I. p. 166; vol. II. p. 622; vol. III. p. 677, 683, 684; vol. V. . p. 291, 296, 495; vol. VIII. 595, 597, 600. This melancholy event is feelingly alluded to in the following letter from Mrs. Cox to Mr. Granger: "REV. AND WORTHY SIR, St. Giles's, Oct. 19, 1772. "I have the honour to address you, by the desire of Mr. Cox, who is prevented (by being out of town) answering your letter, though he has taken care of the request contained in it, which will be fully complied with (if such prints are to be found) as soon as the executor arrives. He has commissioned me likewise to thank you very kindly for your sympathising letter, which so exactly suits our sentiments and affection for our beloved and ever to be lamented friend, that it both soothes and nourishes our grief. You justly observe, that he was never in better health and spirits than when you saw him last. The few days he passed at Oxford, in his way to Warwickshire, he spent chiefly with us, when he was remarkably well and cheerful, which rendered the melancholy news of his death still more afflicting to us, who had conceived great hopes of his perfect recovery; but he is called to the reward of those virtues and excellencies which he has left us to admire, and happy for us if we endeavour to imitate. "You are very obliging in transmitting to us his lively verses, which are so exactly like him, that, without his name, we had known the author. The prompt reply, with your characteristical distich, do honour to the poetical genius of the Biogra on the most intimate terms of friendship. At the suggestion of the latter it was that Mr. Price removed from Jesus to Trinity-college, of which society he ever after continued a member, and to which, on various phical Historian. I am, Reverend Sir, with great respect, JANE COX. "P. S. The President and Mrs. Huddesford are as well as can be expected after so severe a shock." Letters to and from Granger, by Malcolm, p. 426. "Your obedient humble servant, Mr. Tyson, in a letter to Mr. Gough, thus mentions Mr. Huddesford's death: "Poor Huddesford! he is a loss indeed! with what accuracy has he made indexes to those four volumes of Original Correspondence of Lister, given to the Ashmolean Library in 1769 by Dr. Fothergill. He had many works in eye; a collection of curiosities from those 160 MS. Pocket-books of Tom Hearne in Bodley." Literary Anecdotes, vol. VIII. 600. Mr. Gough, in his "British Topography," observes that Mr. "William Huddesford, whose immature death every one who had the pleasure of his acquaintance must join with me in deploring, had collected materials for the Lives of Humphrey Lluyd, a Physician of Denbigh, and in Mr. Camden's opinion one of the best antiquaries of his time, and author of Commentarioli Britanniæ Descriptionis fragmentum, auctore Humfred Lloyd, Denbyghiense, Cambro-Britanno, 1572,' 12mo, and of Edward Llwyd, Keeper of the Ashmolean Museum and Author of Archæologia Britannica. Oxon. 1707.' fol." British Topog. vol. II. p. 486. Mr. Huddesford was the editor of the following works, viz. "Catalogus Librorum Manuscriptorum Viri clarissimi Antonii à Wood, being a minute Catalogue of each particular contained in the Manuscript Collections of Anthony a Wood, deposited in the Ashmolean Museum at Oxford, 1761," 8vo, a publication of very unfrequent occurrence; "Martini Lister, M. D. Historiæ, sive Synopsis Methodica Conchyliorum et Tabularum Anatomicarum, Editio altera, &c. 1770," folio; "The Lives of those eminent Antiquaries John Leland, Thomas Hearne, and Anthony à Wood, with an authentic Account of their respective Writings and Publications from Original Papers; in which are * In a note from the family at Caversham to Mr. Granger, it is said, Mr. Byrne "is greatly distressed at the loss of that truly worthy and ever to be lamented man Mr. Huddesford, with whom he had been acquainted more than seven-and-twenty years; who knows, but that if he had been under the hands of the faculty at Oxford, he might still have continued here a blessing to mankind! From the scorbutic humour which Mr. Cox mentioned to Mr. Granger as having fallen upon his brain, it is much to be feared that unskilful management might be the occasion of this disaster." Letters to and from Granger, by Malcolm, p. 151. occasions, he proved himself a liberal benefactor. occasionally inserted memoirs relating to many eminent Per- In 1764 Mr. Huddesford published anonymously, "An Address to the Fremen and other Inhabitants of the City of Oxford. Lucern, printed for Abraham Lightholder." Mr. Malcolm, in "Letters to and from Granger," has inserted "A Parody on Cato's Soliloquy, occasioned by being sick with drinking Punch over-night at a Club in Oxford; and drinking a glass of water and reading Dr. Cheyne's Essay the next morning," p. 11, which he conceives to be Mr. Huddesford's production; as well as a whimsical effusion, which he considers to be from the same pen, p. 150. In the same work likewise are inserted nine letters from Mr. Huddesford to Mr. Granger, pp. 136-150. His library was dispersed in a Sale Catalogue of Messrs. Fletchers, Oxford, 1771. In Kett's "Flowers of Wit" vol. II. p. 180, is an anecdote relating to Mr. Huddesford. In the Fourth Volume of this Work, pp. 456–476, are fourteen letters from Mr. Huddesford to Mr. Da Costa; p. 466 a letter to Dr. Wright; pp. 476-478 three letters to Mr. Gough; and p. 479 Memoirs of the Rev. Francis Wise, B. D. F.S.A. and a letter to Dr. Ducarel. Mr. Huddesford contributed to the Gentleman's Magazine, in 1771, “A Description of Oseney Abbey," printed in vol. XLI. pp. 153, 204; and in a Description and History of the Nunnery at Godstow near Oxford, vol. LIII. pt. ii. p. 462. In Wood's "Athenæ Oxonienses," ed. Bliss, is a character of the author by the same pen. Life, vol. I. p. cxxxiv. * Dr. Bandinel, the present Keeper of Bodley's Library, arranged this munificent bequest on the plan adopted by Mr. Gough himself in his British Topography, and edited it under the following title: "A Catalogue of the Books relating to British Topography and Saxon and Northern Literature, bequeathed to the Bodleian Library in the year MDCCXCIX, by Richard Gough, Esq. F.S.A. Oxford, MDCCCXIV." 4to. With the ingenious Mr. Astle also, and many other gentlemen eminent for their talents and literary worth, Mr. Price was in habits of the strictest intimacy and regular correspondence. A few years previous to his death, Mr. Price resided in a small house in St. Giles's, adjoining the back gate of the College, where he breathed his last on the 12th of August 1813, in the 79th year of his age. "His saltem accumulem donis, et fungar inani Munere." His remains were conveyed to his favourite Wilcote; and, at his particular request, interred in the Church-yard of that parish. In the Chancel a mural-tablet is erected to his memory, on which is sculptured the following just and appropriate inscription: Juxta conditus est Hujusce Parochiae nuper Vicarius*, Deinde S. S. Trinitatis Bibliothecæ Bodleianæ Præfecturam per quinquaginta fere annos sedulo et fideliter administravit. Vir Literarum amans, earum vero Antiquitates patrias illustrantium, Vixit annos LXXVIII, Mr. Price + never, I believe, published anything of his own, with the exception of a communication *This is an error. It should be Rector. + Mrs. Serres, in her "Life of Wilmot," p. 153, in enumerating her uncle's friends, thus characterises the subject of this F to the Society of Antiquaries, which was inserted He assisted in the publication of the "Lives of Leland, Wood, and Hearne, 1772;" and few works appeared during the long period in which he was the Bodleian Librarian, the nature of which required deep, extensive, and laborious research, in the prefaces to which his essential services were not gratefully acknowledged. In "Letters to and from Granger," by Mr. Malcolm, pp. 312-315, are inserted three letters from Mr. Price to that gentleman. In the present Work, vol. III. pp. 506,507, are two letters to Dr. Ducarel; and in vol. V. pp. 514-558, is a series of epistolary correspondence between Mr. Price and many of his intelligent friends on interesting subjects of literary inquiry. In Mant's edition of "the Poetical Works of Warton" is the following acknowledgment: "To Mr. Price, of the Bodleian Library, I return my hearty thanks, not only for the zeal which he shewed in giving me such oral intelligence as might be serviceable, but also for favouring me with what he possessed of Mr. Warton's correspondence *." And in that gentleman's Life of the Laureate, prefixed to his works, are inserted four letters from Mr. Warton to Mr. Price †. Memoir: "Mr. Price, usually called 'Honest Johnny Price,' *Preface, p. iv. + Life, pp. lxxiv-lxxix. |