Lord Barrington now retired to pri

his two seats in Berkshire and Essex. At the latter place he was often visited by his neighbour Anthony Collins, the celebrated deistical writer. Lord Barrington had generally some divines of eminence at his table, among whom Dr. Jeremiah Hunt of Pinner's Hall was an especial favourite.

mously, two argumentative tracts, one entitled "An Essay upon the In-vate life, dividing his time between terest of England, in respect to Protestants dissenting from the Established Church," and the other, "The Rights of Protestant Dissenters." In the composition of these pieces, he was assisted by his friend Locke, who introduced him to Lord Somers. That great statesman was so pleased with his young friend, that he intrusted to bis management the project then designed by the Whigs for effecting a union of the two kingdoms of England and Scotland. This arduous undertaking, in spite of the prejudices which prevailed on the northern side of the Tweed, was accomplished chiefly through the exertions of Mr. Shute, who, in 1708, was rewarded with a seat at the Board of Customs. This office he held three years, but on the | change of administration was displaced. The loss, however, was made up in another way, for Mr. Wildman, a country gentleman of Becket, in the county of Berks, though no way related to him, adopted him as his heir, and left him the whole of his estate.

About the same time his fortune was increased by the death of Mr. Barrington, on which he obtained an act of parliament to change his name, and take the arms of that family.

On the accession of George I. to whom he had been introduced while abroad, he was elected into parliament for Berwick; and in 1720, without his knowledge, the king created him a peer of Ireland, by the titles of Baron and Viscount Barrington. In 1723, however, he suffered a severe blow by being expelled the House of Commons at the instigation of Sir Robert Walpole, who made his lordship the scapegoat to bear the odium excited by the failure of a project called the Harburgh Lottery, which scheme had been set up purposely to benefit the king's German dominions. Lord Barrington accepted the situation of deputy-governor of this company under Prince Frederic, son of the Prince of Wales; and the wily minister, who made little scruple in sacrificing even his best friends to serve his own purposes, was particularly inclined on this occasion to make him the victim, from an old grudge that he bore him on account of his attachment to the Earl of Sunderland, with whom Walpole could never agree.

At one time Collins observed, that he had a great respect for the apostle Paul, "who was," he said, 66 So complete a gentleman, and of such veracity, that if he asserted he had worked a miracle he should believe him." Lord Barrington upon this immediately took down a Greek Testament, and read two passages, one in the epistle to the Romans, and the other in the second to the Corinthians, in both of which the apostle has unequivocally stated his miraculous works. The infidel read the texts, paused, blushed, and in a little time took his departure.

At another time Lord Barrington having been informed that Collins always made it a point that his servants should frequent a place of worship, asked him the reason of his acting so inconsistently; when the other frankly told him, he did it to prevent their robbing and murdering him. The writer of this remembers to have heard the late Lord Orford, better known as Horace Walpole, pay the same undesigned compliment to the power of religion.

To return to Collins, who at this period was in the zenith of his fame. The pernicious effects produced by his plausible productions in favour of free-thinking, gave Lord Barrington considerable uneasiness, and therefore, to counteract them, he published two masterly performances, one entitled "Miscellanea Sacra, or a new method of considering so much of the history of the Apostles as is contained in Scripture;" and the other," An Essay on the several Dispensations of God to Mankind." These works, which were well received at their first appearance by the public, having become very scarce, were reprinted, in 1770, with additions, from an interleaved copy and other papers left by the author. The editor was the late Bishop of Durham, then of Llandaff. Lord Barrington died rather suddenly at Becket, in consequence of a hurt

1

the judges for North Wales, which office he exchanged for the second justiceship of Chester. He was a distinguished naturalist and antiquary; and died unmarried in 1800. Samuel Barrington, the fifth son of the first viscount, was brought up in the navy, and acquired high distinction as an admiral in that important service during the American war. He died at Bath within a few months of his brother, the judge, leaving a son, who is at present in orders, and possessor of the title and family estates.

combe, in Gloucestershire, and heiress of her brother, Sir William, the last baronet. This exemplary lady, whose memory will long be cherished by the poor of Durham, died without ever having had any children, August 8, 1808, at her hereditary seat, Mongewell, in Oxfordshire, which continued to be the favourite residence of the bishop during the remainder of his life.

Not long after his elevation to the see of Llandaff, a body of the clergy, and several of the rational dissenters, as they called themselves, petitioned both houses of parliament to abolish the obligation of subscription to the thirty-nine articles. When this busi

ness came under discussion in the lords, Bishop Barrington opposed the claims of the petitioners on strong

Shute, the sixth son of John Lord Barrington, was born at Becket, in Berkshire, May 26, 1734, so that he was but seven months old when he lost his father. At an early age he was sent to Eton, where he had the advantage of studying under that ex-grounds, by shewing the necessity of cellent Greek scholar, John Foster, by whose instructions he profited greatly; which, with the sweetness of his manners, endeared him very much to Dr. Barnard, the master of that seminary. In 1752 Mr. Barrington became a gentleman commoner of Merton College, Oxford, where, in 1755, he proceeded to his first degree, and obtained a fellowship. The year following he was ordained by Dr. Secker, then Bishop of Oxford, and afterwards Archbishop of Canterbury. On the 10th of October, 1757, he took his master's degree, and the same year he was appointed by Dr. Thomas Randolph, the vice-chancellor, to make a public oration on the munificent donation of the Pomfret marbles to the university; which task he executed with great applause. At the accession of his late majesty he was nominated one of the chaplains in ordinary, and in 1761 he was made canon of Christ Church, where, in 1762, he took his degree of doctor of law. About this time he married Lady Diana Beauclerk, only daughter of Charles second Duke of St. Alban's, but her ladyship died in 1766, without leaving any issue. In 1768 Dr. Barrington was promoted to a canonry of St. Paul's, and on the 4th of October, in the following year, he was consecrated Bishop of Llandaff, which see had been just vacated by the translation of Dr. Jonathan Shipley to St. Asaph.

On the 20th of June, 1770, the bishop was married to his second wife, Jane, only daughter of Sir J. Guise, of Rend

some test as a security for the established church. Other peers, temporal as well as spiritual, resisted the application on the same principle, and the petitions were rejected by a great majority. This circumstance drew upon the Bishop of Llandaff a severe attack from some of the defeated party, who took care to remind him that all his family, on both sides, bad been dissenters. It was at this time that his lordship offended the same party, by the sermon which he was called to preach before the lords on the 30th of January; and in which he very nearly expressed the same sentiments as in his speech. He had the consolation, however, of receiving the approbation of that distinguished and moderate divine, Dr. Thomas Balguy, the son of one of his father's most valued friends, and one who was never suspected of high church principles. But in truth the question, then at issue, was not whether tender consciences should be relieved, for on that point there could exist no difference of opinion in an enlightened age; but whether the preferments of the church should be thrown open to Arians, Socinians, and other professors of a lax and undefined Christianity.

In 1775 Bishop Barrington preached at Bow Church the anniversary sermon before the Incorporated Society for the Propagation of the Gospel in Foreign Parts. This discourse was printed as usual, with the report of the institution, and it has since been republished in the collection of his lordship's sermons and charges.

Shortly after this, the see of Salisbury becoming vacant by the demise of Dr. John Hume, Bishop Bar

his knowledge, by the king, who gave a peremptory refusal to the application of the prime minister, the earl of Shelburne, in favour of Dr. Hinchliffe, bishop of Peterborough. On this occasion his majesty was actuated by a regard to the principle of justice, for the same earl had a little before deprived lord Barrington not only of the post office, but of his pension, in order to provide for a friend of his own; which circumstance being made known to the king, hurt him so much, that when the bishop of Salisbury died, he resolved to bestow that valuable preferment on the brother of the injured nobleman, to whom he was much attached on account of his long and faithful services. But his majesty was besides well acquainted with the merits of Dr. Barrington, to whom, after this appointment, he gave the familiar appellation of "his bishop," perhaps in allusion to the situation of Windsor, which lies in the diocese of Salisbury; or rather, as there is reason to believe, to express his regard for the personal virtues of the amiable prelate.

In 1777 the bishop exchanged his canonry of St. Paul's for one in the collegiate church at Windsor, on account of the health of Mrs. Barring-rington was nominated thereto, without ton, who suffered very much from the confined air of a town residence. The alarming increase of the crime of adultery induced the Bishop of Llandaff, at the beginning of 1779, to propose a bill in the House of Lords for the more effectual prevention of that crying evil. After representing with great pathos the private miseries consequent on such offences, and the misfortune to the state from a cause which became so much the more dangerous, on account of its being a domestic disorder, he went on to state that in the first seventeen years of his majesty's reign the number of divorces which had occurred equalled what could be enumerated in the whole anterior period of the English history. There were, he said, two reasons for this; one the total extinction of that internal monitor, shame, in the present age, which our ancestors felt in full force; and the other, an injudicious relaxation of the penal laws in regard to this crime. By the common law of England, said the learned prelate, no woman after a divorce was permitted to regain her dower, or even to marry again within a limited time. But a method of evading this salutary statute had lately been discovered, by making previous settlements, or by entering into private bonds; so that a woman might now enjoy as many conveniences of rank and situation after a legal separation from her husband, as in the case of death, and where she had merited every thing by her conjugal tenderness and fidelity. The remedy proposed consisted in a restriction of the offending parties from intermarrying, which was opposed very strenuously by some noble lords, but was as ably supported by the chancellor; and on a division the bill was sent to the commons, where it was thrown out, on the second reading, chiefly through the arguments of Mr. Fox and his friends.

In 1781 the Bishop of Llandaff experienced a loss, which he keenly felt, in the death of his intimate friend, Sir William Blackstone, whom he visited frequently in his illness, ministered to him the offices of religion, and, at the desire of the judge, read the burial service at his funeral.

How well the good bishop deserved the royal confidence appeared soon after in the improvements of the ca thedral and palace of Salisbury. The former, though one of the finest structures in the kingdom, had been suffered by successive diocesans and deans to fall gradually into decay, and to accumulate so many excrescences, as threatened, if not the entire ruin, the complete deformity, of the sacred edifice. To restore the church to its pristine dignity, and to give strength and ornament to the building, constituted an early and favourite idea of the new bishop. But his own means were inadequate to the magnitude of the object, and the extent of the estimate. His lordship, however, was not a man to be diverted from a laudable purpose by ordinary discouragements. He determined upon opening a subscription for the repairing and beautifying of the cathedral; and he had the satisfaction to witness the full success of his plan.

While the work was going on, a gentleman plainly dressed visited the cathedral one day, and after survey

ing the place, asked the person in attendance to let him see the subscription book, which was produced; when he immediately presented a bank bill for one thousand pounds as his donation. The officer stared, and respectfully desired to know what change he must return; and what name he should enter; Oh," said the stranger, “take the whole; and place it to the account of a country gentleman of Berkshire." This was done, and the country gentleman was afterwards discovered in George the Third.

66

printed at the desire of the clergy. This pastoral address, however, gave offence to some persons, on account of the animadversions which the right reverend monitor thought it his duty to bestow upon the ministers of the church, who introduced the doctrines of Calvin into their churches, instead of that practical divinity which tends to edification. The charge, therefore, immediately on its appearance from the press, was attacked with great severity, the bishop being most unjustly accused, as trying to extinguish the small sparks of devotion which were still left among us, and with endeavouring to hold up sterling piety to contempt. No one, however, that had the slightest knowledge of the bishop's private character, or had marked his public conduct, could be affected by such aspersions, which only rebounded upon the party, who, while they pretended to be actuated by an ardent concern for religion, had forgotten that zeal without charity is nothing worth.

In

Bishop Barrington, it may well be supposed, was not behindhand on this occasion; but though he subscribed munificently to the improvements of the church, he took the whole expense of the repairs of the palace, which was in a very dilapidated state, upon himself. While he held this see, he laid out not much less than ten thousand pounds upon the episcopal residence, of which the principal improvements were these. The situation of the palace being very low, and subject to great damps, he caus- It was a little before this, that the ed several drains to be cut from the bishop of Salisbury communicated river, some passing through the some very valuable notes to the third grounds, and others under the house, edition of "Bowyer's Critical Conjecby which means all the stagnant wa- tures on the New Testament." ters are carried off. He also changed stead of rashly proposing new readthe entrance; the present hall, hav-ings to remove a supposed difficulty, ing been formerly the dining room. To guard against the inconveniences arising from damp, all the sitting rooms were constructed on the first floor, and, to give a sufficient number of sleeping apartments, a floor was thrown over the great hall, by which six bed rooms were gained. This splendid act of liberality has been commemorated in an appropriate Latin inscription placed over the door leading to the great staircase, by the late worthy prelate Dr. Fisher. But bishop Barrington was not merely mindful of the comforts of himself and his successors; for he also settled a permanent fund of two thousand pounds, the interest of which is yearly distributed among the poor clergy and their families; and he also applied six thousand pounds to the augmentation of the revenues of the alms houses of St. Nicholas in the city of Salisbury,

In 1783 the bishop of Salisbury held his first visitation of the diocese, on which occasion he delivered a charge, that was soon afterwards

the bishop laid it down as a rule, never to alter any approved or well authenticated text whatever. In these contributions, therefore, he suggested only those alterations in the lections which might possibly be more correct, by the changing pointing, or attaching a word to the second part of the sentence in the room of the first, and vice versa. As the books of the Greek Testament were originally written without the arbitrary division into verses, or any punctuation to mark the several clauses of a paragraph, the bishop was in the habit of reading the sacred volume on this plan, each narrative or epistle as a summary discourse without breaks; and this prac tice, which met with the approbation of his friends Kennicott and Blayney, he often recommended to young clergymen and students. An interleaved copy of the "Critical Conjectures," containing many additional remarks by the bishop and his much valued chaplain, Dr. Henry Owen, was presented, about fourteen years ago, by his lordship to Mr. Nichols, the wor