1815.]

Lis political pen, which he did under the signature of Old Slyboots, and several others. These essays were collected and published by Richardson and Urquhart, in a small octavo volume. In 1771, after being presented to the Rectory of Simonburn, worth 50001. per annum, he married Anne, danghter of Henry Scott, esq. He resided in Park-street, Grosvenor-square, and preached frequently at St. George's, Hanover-square; at Park-street and Audley Chapels. He published ten occasional Sermons, and printed one for the benefit of his parishioners on the necessity of receiveing the Holy Sacrament. He also published three Seatonian Prize Poems, &c. which exalt him high as a poet. He devoted the last three years to the revisal of some of his Sermons for the press. As a public speaker he had scarcely an equal: his voice was loud and harmonious, and his action solemn and dignified. Mr. Clapham says, "His elocution is, I think, greatly superior to what I have ever heard either in the pulpit or the senate; and his sermons, whether considered as elegant compositions or persuasive exhortations, will, when published, be esteemed, I doubt not, superior both to those of Blair and Porteus." In private life he shewed himself influenced by the principles of the religion he so powerfully recommended in his public addresses. His fortune being considerable, and his preferment large, he lived in a manner becoming his distinguished station, exercising the atmost hospitality, and singularly happy when he had his friends around him, whilst his hands were always open to public charities and private distress.

[The late Mrs. Roberts.-Margaret Roberts was the youngest daughter of a respectable clergyman of the name of Wade, who resided at Boxford in Suffolk; and in the year 1792 she became, after a long and mutual attachment, the wife of the Reverend Richard Roberts, third son of Dr. Roberts, late Provost of Eton. Immediately after their union she went to reside with her husband at the village of Mitcham, in Sarry. She had not the happiness of being herself a parent; but the situation which it was her lot to fill, was such as to awaken in her affectionate nature much of the tender anxiety of the maternal character, as Mr. Roberts had under his tuition seventeen or eighteen boys, from the age of seven to fourteen, over whose health and comfort 'she watched with tenderness the most endearing. This tenderness was repaid by them by feelings of affectionate gratitude, which survived the presence of the object that called them forth, since many a youth and many a man has continued eager to own, and anxious to re turn, his obligations to that care which constituted so great a part of the comforts of his childhood. On this scrupulous at tention to the welfare of the children com

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mitted to the care of her husband, I might rest Mrs. Roberts's pretensions to the character of an excellent wife; but her claims to that title did not end there. The manner in which she fulfilled her arduous duties as a mistress of a family, was equally worthy of imitation. Like one of the heroines of her own novel, she was never idle, never for a moment unemployed; and to the conscientious employment of her time is to be attributed her power of doing more in a day with less apparent effort, than any one who had not witnessed it can be easily led to believe. Though she had to conduct a very large and troublesome establishment; though during the occasional short absences of Mr. Roberts she had to preside in the school, no one heard her complain of want of time for any useful or pleasant occupation. one staying at the house ever missed her at the hour of projected amusement; and though every domestic duty was regularly fulfilled, she seemed, when in the company of her guests, to have nothing to do but to amuse herself and them. Never were her necessary avocations an excuse for any neglect of her person or her dress. She was neat, even to Quaker neatness, in her appearance and her apparel; and the same presiding spirit of nicety was visible in her house and in her grounds, It was remarkable also that, though she had so many serious claims on her time, she had more correspondents, and wrote more and longer letters, than almost any other person in a private situation. Such is the practical usefulness resulting from a re solution to allot to every passing moment some rational employment, or some saluta ry recreation. It was this resolution which enabled Mrs. Roberts to be in the space of one little day the superintendant of a large family, the delight of a circle of friends, the punctual correspondent, the elegant work-woman, the instructive writer, and the admirable reader of poetry or prose. About eight or nine years ago she was induced to write, and then to publish, a little work called "The Telescope, or Moral Views," for children; which was a promising proof of those talents for that line of writing, which she afterwards displayed in "Rose and Emily," a work, with her name to it, published two years ago. She has left behind her some other manuscripts, among which are several admirable songs". She always seemed to prosper herself

what is usually effceted only by the slow hand of time. When we first met, we soon forgot that we had not met before, and a few years gave to our friendship a solidity and a truth, commonly the result of long acquaintance alone. I have merely to add, that after an illness of only three weeks duration, and one to all appearance not attended with danger, she sunk unconsci→ ously into the grave, lamented not only by the husband and the friend who fondly watched beside her bed of death, but by a far far-spreading circle of friends and acquaintances, over whose prospects the unexpected loss of such a joy-diffusing being cast a thick and sudden darkness, and which must have been felt in order to be conceived. She was buried in the family vault at Boxford, by the side of her parents and of her sister, the sisters of her virtues and her talents, Louisa Carter, whom she survived only two years and ten months. AMELIA OPIE.]

[Lord Auckland. In 1771, his lordship was appointed anditor and a director of Greenwich-hospital; and about the same time he published his Principles of Penal Law. In 1772, he quitted the bar to be come under-secretary of state, an employinent which he retained for six years. In 1774, he became M.P. for Woodstock, and continued an active and useful representative till 1793. In 1776, he married Miss Eleanor Elliot, daughter of the late Sir Gilbert E. and sister of Lord Minto. Iu the same year, still retaining the office of under-secretary of state, he was appointed one of the lords' commissioners of trade and plantations, a situation in which he continued until the suppression of that board in 1782. Early in his parliamentary career, Mr. Eden began to distinguish himself. In 1776, he brought forward the bill for incor porating the commissioners of Greenwich Hospital: and, in the same session, the bill for punishing by hard labour offenders liable to be transported to the American colonies. In 1778, Mr. E. went to America as one of the commissioners for the restoration of peace with the revolted colonies. Soon after his return, in 1779, he brought forward a bill relative to the amendment of the laws conaerning the transportation, imprisonment, or other punishment of offenders. In this business he is supposed to have had the assistance of Sir Wm. Blackstone and Mr. Howard. The objects of the bill were to enforce a strict attention to the health and the morals of the prisoners, to introduce solitary confinement for certain crimes, and to establish penitentiary houses. In 1779, Mr. E. published his letter to Lord Carlisle on various topics of public importance; which were followed by a short controversy with Dr. Price on the population of Eng land. In 1780, he was appointed chief secretary in Ireland, under Lord Carlisle, a member of the Irisha Privy Council, and

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maintained, that Mr. Thompson retired within our lines, and ever after remained firm in the interests of Great Britain. His local knowledge, his good sense, his various information, and his superior attainments, soon made him known to, and rendered him respected by, the English generals. It was his wish, however, to visit the mother coun try, which he had been taught to consider as the seat of literature and of science; he accordingly repaired thither with the best and most respectable recommendations, and was applied to and consulted relative to the immediate appearance and the probable result of the then bloody and uncertain warfare. Mr. Thompson was no sooner introduced to Lord George Germaine than that nobleman conceived a friendship for him, and ever after exerted himself in promoting his welfare. In his office he enjoyed an honourable post, and at his table he was a frequent guest. The war, however, was now drawing to a close, and the American department was doomed to experience the fate of American dominion, and be annihilated along with it. Lord George Sackville, however, determined to make some provision for his friend, and accordingly sent him over to New York before the final close of hostilities, where he raised a regiment of dragoons, obtained the provincial rank of Lieutenant-colonel, and became entitled to half-pay. Soon after his return in 1784, his Majesty conferred on him the honour of knighthood. This, together with his growing reputation, induced the Elector Palatine, reigning Duke of Bavaria, to invite him into his service, and the most honourable terms were held out? to him for that purpose. Having obtained his Majesty's permission, he set out for Munich, and soon introduced the most salutary reforms into the various departments of the clectoral government. He arranged the military affairs, so as to form, instead of so many disjuncta membra, one complete whole. But this was not all; the Elector's capital swarmed with beggars, to the discredit of the government, and the unhappiness of the miserable wretches themselves. Mendicity had been actually formed into an art, and the many thousands who subsisted by this means from hour to hour and day to day, not content with reducing their trade to a system, seemed to consider this vagrant course of life as a profession, which, like others, possessed its own peculiar rights and privileges. Sir Benjamin, who liad now obtained considerable influence in public affairs, determined to find a remedy for such an intolerable nuisance. He had by this time been decorated by the Sovereign with the ensignia of his various orders, obtained a respectable military rank, and been created Count of Rumford. Having taken. the necessary previous steps, Count R. accordingly, at a given day and hour, accompanied by several military officers and a

in matters of arbitration between his fellow-citizens in the commercial world. He had, for some time past, withdrawn himself from the bustle of political life, yet he has been more than once cousulted on transatFantic affairs. No individual was more strenuous in his exertions to persuade the government, that the late obnoxions Orders in Council would be the cause of a war, to be deplored eventually by Britons, Ever the advocate of Peace, he in these latter, as well as former hostilities, viewed alike the measures adopted towards America as destructive of public tranquillity. He rejoiced that the ravages of war had, ir a measure, ceased-and he fondly hoped, that ere long human beings would discem the folly and wickedness of an appeal to arms, instead of having recourse to a wise adjustment of the opposite and jarring in terests of mankind. With respect to his religion, having been educated in the principles of the Friends, he retained a partiality for their views, especially as they are detailed in the writings of Barclay and' Penn-who held them in their purity. He married, Mary, the daughter of the Rev. and venerable Hugh Evans, and sister to the Rev. Dr. Caleb Evans, president of the Baptist Academy at Bristol. She bore her husband eleven children--four of whom only, a son and three daughters survive.] [Further particulars of Count Rumford, whose death, near Paris, has been already noticed-Sir Benjamin Thompson, commonly called Count Rumford, was born on the Trans-atlantic Continent, at that period when it contained the colonies, and formed part of the dominions of Great Britain, The little town of Rumford, perhaps so termed from the circumstance of some of its first inhabitants having come from Rumford in Essex, was the place of his nativity the scene of his early youth, and the spot from which, in his riper years, he derived his title, and by which he is now designated. His parents were neither too rich or too poor for the enjoyment of happiness. Their son Benjamin received the best education that could be afforded by an obscure country village in America. The narrator of this has been informed that so precocions were the talents of Mr. Thompson, that he began to instruct others at a period when young men in general are only obtaining instruction for themselves. He also married advantageously early in life, and, having always a turn for military affairs, obtained a majority in the militia of his native district. He had begun too to cultivate the sciences with success; but, as it is with science as with laws, to the former may be applied what has been said of the latter: "Silent Leges inter ARMA." We accordingly find, that, no sooner had the unhappy contest between the mother country and the colonies assumed that serious complexion which it ever afterwards

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