half of them Common-Prayer-books, which are to lie in the schools between Sunday and Sunday. I got twenty Testaments, and forty Spelling-books at first setting out. Bibles I cannot yet afford to buy. Mrs. Raby Vane has made a present of a hundred Common Prayer books to the Sunday schools in Darlington. My late worthy neighbour Mr. Kay* has left near 10,000l. to the College where he was educated. His charities were great, but secret. I have been employed by him to give 20l. to one object. Let his works praise him in the gates. Yours, &c. D. WATSON." "DEAR SIR, Jan. 8, 1791. "No need to make any apology. That you have succeeded so well in so few years, and by your own merit have procured a comfortable situation, is matter of pleasure to me, that abundantly pays for any little thing I could do for you at first setting out. Your father and mother came to dine with us in September, both Joe and Horace + being with us. The former could only stay a month. The latter is still here. Admiral Milbanke gave him preferment in the Navy; but, on the Convention taking place, it was not worth his acceptance, as there is no chance of rising in time of peace. And we now hope he has got his fling over, and will live upon terra firma, though nothing yet turns up for him. As you have plenty of time, and books may any where be procured for such as like them, I make myself sure you read a good deal; and that, instead of paying court to Squires, they consider it as a favour when you dine with them. This advice was given me in early life by a very good and wise man, and I have never had any reason to repent having followed it. "The new Rector of Croft has lost his wife; a real loss indeed. I was a bearer, and felt sensibly for him and six children. I think his Lincolnshire preferment was better than Croft; but it being near Durham, was an inducement for the Bishop's Chaplain to make the exchange; and, should the Bishop recover, there is little doubt but he will get something in that Church. In the mean time he has an offer of something in Lincoln. Talking of great preferments, puts me in mind of Curates. A friend of mine has some years had a 40l. Curacy, which he writes he must give up at May-day, his Rector meaning to do his own duty. They will part upon the most friendly terms. He has desired me to look about for him. I can find none in this country. Can you find one in Lincolnshire? Do, et eris mihi magnus Apollo. All here unite in every good wish for your health and prosperity, and believe me, &c. D. W." May 26, 1797. "DEAR SIR, "I thank you for your inquiry after my lads. We had a Letter from Joe, announcing his better health, and the honour of addi*The Rev. Thomas Kay, M. A. Senior Fellow of University College, Oxford; of whom more hereafter. + Sons of Mr. Watson; see the Literary Anecdotes, vol. VIII, p. 339. ✰ Rev. Edward Bowerbank (of Queen's College, Oxford; M. A. 1765 ; B. D. 1775), previously Rector of Buckden, Huntingdonshire, and Chaplain to Bishop Thurlow. and tional preferment bestowed upon him, that of Registrer and Secretary to the Court of Appeals. His business is, to examine the witnesses; which, he says, he can do almost as easily in their language as his own; and to register the decisions of the Court. He calls it a respectable employment, and hopes it will be a pleasant one to attend the Circuit; and he retains his rank in the Army, along with this place, and that of Malabar Translator; so that, if he keeps his health, he is richly provided for: and, thank God, Horace goes on as a Merchant, has an assistant in his counting-house, and full employment. He has hitherto been equally industrious and cautious; and great need is there of caution to a general Merchant in these critical times. May Heaven bless him with success! But, alas, my dear good woman continues very weak. D. W.” "DEAR SIR, June 14, 1797. "We are sending to-day to Grange to inquire after Miss Allan. My daughter wished to have gone herself; but, alas! she cannot leave her poor mother, who continues in a very weak state indeed. May Heaven restore her!-If, out of six, I have made choice of an improper Curate in Mr. I have nobody to blame but myself. I desired him to read aloud in our sittingroom. His voice is not strong, but he read very deliberately; and I could perceive no impediment whatever. His moral character is such, that, if his conduct is answerable to it, it will preach every day. And a very good judge has told me the other day, that he is a good Classic. If he is such, he must have a taste for Polite Literature, and be a reader. This will be some comfort to an old man in an evening, who has nobody to amuse him on such subjects. I am astonished that, in such a populous place as Darlington, the Booksellers should not have had a large demand for such penny and two-penny things as I ordered. Both the Booksellers and the Hawkers have a large allowance. The subscription is a very large one for printing such pieces, by some of the most respectable characters, with the Bishop of London at the head of it. Your good Bishop too is a Subscriber to it. As gloomy an aspect as things wear, we ought not to despair. There may be many thousands that have not bowed the knee to Baal. Nor ought we by any means to impute it, as you do, to unrewarded merit, in this age in particular. That merit has not been properly attended to, has been the complaint of individual sufferers, as they thought themselves, in all ages, is true enough; but chiefly in Republican governments, in which this very complaint has brought Revolutions, not at all to the ameliorating the condition of the subjects; and the complaint has still continued. Let us leave to God the government of the world, and each discharge his duty according to his talents. My duty has been, to do all I could with the lower orders; but with so little success, that I have often secretly wished John Wesley would have come amongst them, to rouze them from the sleepy spirit of indifference as to a future account. The many hundreds of colliers, keelmen, and manufacturers in and about Newcastle, are orderly orderly and regular in their conduct, and attend the Church service, or that of the Meeting-houses, twice every Sunday. Forty years ago it was not so. Who brought about this reform? John Wesley. And it gave me great pleasure all this winter to observe a still silence in the streets; and that families who dine at four and five o'clock on other days, dine at half-past two on Sundays for the sake of their servants. I suppose you must have read Gisborne; an excellent book, and worthy so excellent a Christian Philosopher as he is, both in profession and practice. I hope Wilberforce's book will do much good amongst the higher orders; though some may, perhaps, think that he looks too much towards the Methodists to propitiate the Deity for us. I read it with great satifaction, and am told that Hannah More has superintended the second edition of it. That excellent creature deserves a statue of gold; but her reward will be more lasting in Heaven. I have had a present from my friend Miss Portia Young, sister to Sir William, of a large octavo; consisting of a selection she has made from the Divines of the last century, and from others in this; with a well-written Preface. You see from this instance there are ladies of rank who are serious. D.WATSON.” Rev. JAMES TOPHAM to GEORGE ALLAN, Esq. M. P. "DEAR SIR, Darlington, Jan. 19, 1814. "I have sent you, as required, a few of our late Friend's Letters; and am fully persuaded it will be highly gratifying to read the good intentions of so worthy a friend. Their contents are well established in my heart, and shall never depart from thence till death deprives me of their remembrance. JAMES TOPHAM." ["When the two first of the foregoing Letters were written, Mr.Topham was Curate of Yarm, in the North Riding of Yorkshire; whence he removed to the Curacy of Broughton, near Brigg, in Lincolnshire. He was afterwards translated to Darlington, and has been Sub-curate of that large parish, containing a population of 10,000, for more than 20 years, on a stipend and fees never exceeding 100l. per annum. He was educated at Scorton School; and published a Thanksgiving Sermon, and some small tracts on the Sunday Schools, none of which can be properly the object of criticism. He is a pious and well-meaning man, and has brought up a family in a most respectable manner. His eldest son is now at St. John's College, Cambridge; the second a Lieutenant in the Royal Marines; another serving his time to an eminent Surgeon. He has also a daughter, the youngest child; and the mother is living. The young man in the Marines, I have been informed, has made his father a present of 5001. received as prize-money, which enables him to support the elder brother at College. Could the Lord Chancellor or the Bishop of Durham be persuaded to present Mr. Topham to a living in a village of 2001. per annum, I am satisfied he would not envy the Archbishops; and it would be a good deed, for he is really unequal to doing the duties, and presiding over a parish divided into Sectaries of every possible discordant denomination." G.A.] BRIEF MEMOIRS of EDWARD CAPELL, Esq. By the late SAMUEL PEGGE, Esq. F. S. A. The Writer of the following Minutes, for he is not master of regular biographical information, was led to them by the very transient and disrespectful mention that is made of Mr. Capell in the " Biographia Dramatica * (Second Edition, 1782)." The cold manner in which he is there treated as an Editor of Shakespeare; the small credit given to his erudition; and the suggestion that he was in circumstances merely above want, by virtue of the post of Deputy Inspector of the Plays, are insinuations which seem to have been designedly brought forward to depress him in the opinion of the world. The Editor, it is plain, thought Mr. Capell was living when he wrote the ill-natured account of him published in 1782, though (in his Additions and Corrections) he chose to find out that he had died in 1781. I do not lay this account to the charge of the Compiler of the "Biographia Dramatica;" but rather consider it as a guiltless subornation, and that the Memoir was dictated by a party inimical to Mr. Capell- Delenda est Carthago."-But, before we comment, let us see the text. The short Memoir in the "Biographia Dramatica" runs in these words: 66 CAPELL, EDWARD. This gentleman appears to have been of the county of Suffolk, and received his education at the school of Bury St. Edmund's. * The "New Biographical Dictionary, 1785," twelve volumes, 8vo. is not more favourable to him; and is partly copied from the above account, and partly from the Reviews. S. P. 1790.The account of Mr. Capell to which Mr. Pegge here alludes (as is also the more detailed Memoir by Mr. Chalmers, in the late much-improved Edition) was taken from a criticism (undoubtedly by Mr. Steevens) in vol. XLIX. of the Monthly Review; and those who wish to investigate the merits of Mr. Capell, as an Editor, at a small expence of time, may be referred to the other volumes of that Review in which his Works are characterized, and to the Critical Review, vol. XLI. and LVI. See also the "Literary Anecdotes," vol. VIII. p. 540; vol. IX. pp. 425, 662. VOL. I. 2 H In In the Dedication of his Edition of Shakespeare to the Duke of Grafton he observes, that his father and the grandfather of his Grace were friends; and to the patronage of the deceased Nobleman he owed the leisure which enabled him to bestow the attention of twenty years on that work. He was Deputy Inspector of Plays, a situation of some profit; and died Feb. 24, 1781. He (with the assistance of Mr. Garrick) altered one Play from Shakespeare, which was performed at Drury-lane, viz. [Antony and Cleopatra, Historical Play, 8vo, 1758. Since his death, his School of Shakespeare has been published, in three volumes, 4to. 1783 *. Mr. Capell was born at Troston, near Bury, in Suffolk, June 11, 1713. He was descended from the Capells of that County, but from what branch of them the Writer cannot say with precision, though it became collateral before the family was ennobled, and therefore was not in the entail of its honours, as some have imagined. This has been acknowledged by Mr. Capell, for an affectation of this kind of pride was not among his foibles. The Father of the gentleman before us was a Clergyman, and held the family living hereafter mentioned; and, I presume, was a younger brother, and became heir to his elder brother, for he enjoyed a considerable patrimonial estate, which afterwards devolved to Edward his eldest son; while the living, with a younger brother's fortune, went to Robert the younger and only brother of Edward. Edward had one brother, Robert; and three sisters, Hester, Dorothy, and Anne. He had an uncle *The quotation is here given as it is incorporated in Mr. Jones's Edition of the "Biographia Dramatica, 1812." EDIT. ↑ Arthur Capell was created Lord Capell of Hadham, 1641. Henry, his second son, was Knight of the Bath at the Coronation of Charles II.; created Lord Capell of Tewkesbury, anno 4 William and Mary. Arthur, who succeeded his father Lord Capell of Hadham, was created Viscount Malden and Earl of Essex 1661, with limitations, which did not take place, the present Earl being a lineal descendant from the first Earl. of |