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simplicity of good-natured mirth, displaying the perpetual feast of cheerful, and sportive habits in a gifted, and richly cultivated intellect, under the. discipline of a religious, and moral character, will in every age, and scene of life, attract, by its native influence, the best affections of the taste, and of the heart.

"A very singular man”—“ a very odd creature," &c. are popular words, too indefinite, and very little understood. They are like the adjective, as Lilly describes it, when he says, that it cannot " stand by itself," but waits till the substantive puts it upon its feet. Sense, and folly, -Virtue, and her opposite, vice,-Pride, or humility, -the poet, and the calculator,the benevolent, and the selfish, may be all of them Comets, like the Wharton of Pope, or the Villiers of Dryden; but with no other affinity, or centre of union. The amiable humourist is the only original, who deserves to be the hero of social intercourse in the moral world.

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Perhaps I am prejudiced; for it has really happened, that some of my dearest friends have not been exempted from their whims of taste, of manner, of opinions, and of conduct.

When I shall describe my own first impressions of Mr. DANIEL WRAY, the reader will smile at the ridicule of his portrait; but, if I am not self-deceived, he will admire, love, and venerate the man, before we part with him.

I had begun to think he was not born at all; and I cannot forbear to cite a paragraph in a Letter which I received a little time ago from one of his friends, and as pleasant as he would have been himself upon a similar topic.

"I do not with accuracy know, that he had any "parents at all; but I should presume that he came "into the world, as we know that he went out of it,

"much

"much as others have done before, and since his "time. But, Mr. Asgill would say, it was a violent "presumption. In his ingenious, and most elabo"rate argument, he acknowledges, that men have "all along been in the habit of dying; but he adds, "that such a mere habit is no imperious negative "upon other modes of travelling out of this world "into the next. Analogy, therefore, may argue the possibility of other ways into this world, besides "the habitual one."

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The first hints to me of DANIEL WRAY'S parentage were parts of an obliging note from Lady Lucas; who acquainted me, that she heard him say, his father had remembered Cheapside, and Fleet Street a desert in 1665. From that insulated fact, I had only to infer a conjecture, that his father was of London. I had then little hope to know more of his early days. But I was deceived; and have been surprized, as well as gratified, in a degree that love to the memory of departed friends alone can estimate, by the information, which persevering assiduities have enabled me to obtain, though living in the depth of solitude, and of seclusion from the world.

He was born upon the 28th November, 1701, in the parish of St. Botolph, Aldersgate; the youngest of Sir Daniel Wray's many children by two marriages. The father was a London citizen, who resided in Little Britain, made a very considerable fortune in trade; and purchased an estate in Essex, near Ingatestone, which the son possessed after him.

For that County Sir Daniel Wray was High Sheriff; and was knighted, March 24, 1707-8, on presenting an Address to Queen Anne on the French King's attempts to invade these Realms, dethrone her Majesty, and substitute in her place a Catholic Pretender.

There

There is a peculiar simplicity in the Register of the Son's birth:

"DANIEL, Son of DANIEL WRAY-against the Church."

He was the son of his father's old age; and we have his own word for this fact, in his own hand, still preserved. It is in a shape no less amusing, than authentie, a poetical portrait of his life, and character, drawn by himself.

We can trace him to no school before he was thirteen years of age; and we find him then received at the Charter-house, as a day scholar; his parents residing in Charter-house Square, to superintend his education.

He gives his father credit, in the poem to which I have just alluded, for a liberal mind, in educating him with all attainable advantages, and without fear of the cost; instead of hoarding for him, and leaving him, as he well expresses it, "a booby-heir."

It is idle, and visionary, to enquire, at such a distance of time, near a century ago, what figure he made at this admirable school. Nor, indeed, is the boy, of course, a mirrour, and prophetic image of the future man. But all traces of him at later periods representing him as passionately fond of literature as a man of bright parts, and of lively manners, animated by incessant habits of diligence, and by a thirst of knowledge insatiable-as an acute, and luminous critic, a deep scholar, and a laughing philosopher; we may at least naturally infer that he was accomplished in the best literature of schools at an early period; and that his passion for a jest when a man, was equally, if not more, conspicuous in the boy.

I must here, as your Brother Antiquary, lament that exercises of the boys in that School have not been preserved (like those of a period equally remote at Westminster, and Eton); because I have little doubt, that, if they were extant, they would confer honour upon the boys, and upon the taste of those who had presided over them.

He

He has told us himself (as you will see) that even at this early period he had a passion for the Muse. In 1718 he left the Charter-house; and was entered as a Fellow-Commoner at Queen's College, in the University of Cambridge. To this pride of distinction he alludes humourously in his poem, and says, "they took him for the son of a Bank-director at least." His father was then living*.

That he was at this early period exemplary in morals, the tenor of his life in the world may give unquestioned assurance; for nothing like irregularities of any kind ever touched his character; and there never existed a man who had a deeper sense of Religion.

But a circumstance occurred, even at school, which may in part account for the temperance of his life in the fiery ordeal of youth. Before he left the Charter-house, an asthma fell upon him, and it clung to him during the sequel of his life. This may in part account for his abstinence from enervating pleasures at College, or in the world; but it would be invidious to lay stress upon it, when this abstinence had the elevated principle of morality, and virtue for its guide.

It may here be remarked, that, under this afflicting visitation, he attained the age of eighty-three, with a serenity of temper, and with a cheerful play of animal spirits, never disconcerted, and much less peevish, or querulous.

Dr. William Heberden, the genuine heir of his venerable parent's intellect, and virtues, acquaints me, that his Father, who was at Cambridge intimate with Mr. WRAY, found him there oppressed by this complaint, and with such peril, that he despaired of enjoying his friendship in the world. But, happily for both of them, they were destined

* It appears by the " Historical Register" that he died July 2, 1719; and by the Register of St. Botolph's that he was buried on the 10th of that month.

for

for that blissful intercourse through a singular extent of time, and their attachment had no intermission. One peculiar trait of an amiable character distinguished Mr. WRAY at an advanced period of his life, a delight in the society, and improvement of young men, or boys.

Dr. Heberden (the Son) most ingenuously certifies to me, that Mr. WRAY's parental encouragement in early days to his pursuits engaged his gratitude, esteem, and affection.

Mr. Philip Salter, Vicar of Shenfield, near Brentwood, in Essex, the Son of Dr. Satter who was Master of the Charter-house, enables me to copy his portrait of this parental character in our friend. If the zeal which I cherish for the ashes of that friend had only given rise to my correspondence with so pleasant a coadjutor as this gentleman, during a very short period, I should have thanked, and blessed the occasion. I was a perfect stranger to him; and we became friends at once. He has all the animation of youth, at an advanced age; wit, eloquence, and genius, with a heart as glowing as the pen. To him I owe the Asgill argument upon death, so archly reported by him. His words in the portrait of Mr. DANIEL WRAY are these:

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"Of all my father's friends, none were of more "valuable service to me, than Mr. WRAY. He was "not only a deep scholar, and a man of general know"ledge, but he was also a man of the world. **** "The remembrance of my father, and of his "friends-of Archbishop Secker, my God-father-of "the second Lord Hardwicke, and of Mr. Wray, is no fleeting image.-It is a remembrance, fixed, and permanent, ever present, ever pleasing.—What I saw, heard, and funded in their society, is never "to be forgotten. **** I was always fond of Mr. "WRAY, from the time that I was nine years of age. "He was pleasant in his manner to me, when a boy, and when a man. He had a most fascinating way in his notice, and encouragement of

"young

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