will meet you in the streets and highways as they did our Saviour; and perhaps they may take you short, so that you may lose more than you will gain by pretending to work miracles." He could not credit Mr. Wesley's story about the woman with the devil in her belly; and this gentleman thought it better to send her home to her own country without attempting to take the devil out of her.

However, if we can believe what he tells us in his Journals, he has been very successful in effecting some cures of this sort, He went once, as he informs us (3d Jour. p. 95) to see a woman in this melancholy state; and when he got to her, stoutly asked the devil, how he dared to enter into a Christian? On which the devil spoke thus to him out of her belly, "She is not a Christian; she is mine." But Mr. Wesley soon forced him to shift his quarters. Risum teneatis amici?

Mr. Skelton, in his conversation with him, talked lightly of the common stories we hear about ghosts and devils; and mentioned to him, in a ludicrous way, that some people in one of his parishes, who were wrong in the head, imagined they were haunted by these. But Mr. Wesley, he said, was very grave, and did not seem willing to join in the joke. He would, indeed, have been inconsistent with himself if he had; for there was scarce a Magazine he put out, that had not some marvellous story in it of this kind. Yet he, probably, considered these and the like as so many pious frauds necessary to serve the cause of Methodism, which, usually, has most effect on weak minds. And, indeed, it is but reasonable to conclude, that this extraordinary man had too much good sense to believe the gross absurdities he countenanced by his authority. But then, what are we to think of his principle?

Some time after this, his ears were stunned with the fame of the pulpit orator Dr. Peckwell, who preached through Dublin, in meeting houses, methodisthouses, and churches. Crowds followed after him, enticed by novelty, as he preached without notes, which is a sure way of captivating the multitude, who

are

are, always, taken with strange appearances. About three months after, the doctor sent Mr. Skelton from England a sermon he had just then published, the merits of which were, indeed, small. But a cold phlegmatic reader is not so easily pleased as a hearer, who is warmed and captivated by the voice, gesticulation, and countenance of the extempore preacher." Adde vultum, habitumque hominis.

To remedy, in some degree, the inconvenience that attends the use of notes, Mr. Skelton recommended it to the young Clergy, to follow his method of copying their sermons in a large fair hand. It was, indeed, his ardent wish, that the Clergy of our Church, in their public, and private, conduct, should afford no pretence for the cavils of sectaries, some of whom tell us, we read our sermons like a ballad.

In the year 1784, he published, by subscription, his sixth volume, entitled, An Appeal to Common Sense on the Subject of Christianity. This volume, the profits of which were, as the former ones, to be applied to the Magdalen Charity, is also dedicated to Lady Arabella Denny.

The appeal is, in style and arrangement, even superior to any thing he ever wrote before. It contains an historical proof of the truth of Christianity and shews his faculties were in full force at the age of seventy-six.

A few days after the publication of this volume, he received the following letter:

Rev. Sir,

I have read your Appeal to Common Sense on the subject of Christianity. I wish all the world could say the same; but at present, few can have that advantage. If If you will permit a less expensive edition to be published, That may be the means of rendering the circulation more extensive, and of promoting the great end for which you labored.

In compliance with this proposal, which, it may be supposed, was very agreeable to him, a new edition was published soon after, at Mrs. Stringer's expence, with the foregoing letter prefixed. When it was in the press, he sent her twelve pounds, to pay part of the expence of printing; but she refused to take it. Of this edition, he bestowed about two hundred on each of the parishes he had had the care of, either as

curate or rector.

In the following year, his seventh volume was pub lished, entitled, Senilia, or an Old Man's Miscellany. Its materials are variable, and wrought into a style natural and agreeable: the most valuable part of it, is Brief Observations on some Passages of the New Testament; which are useful, intelligible, and consistent with Scripture and common sense.

He published, this year, 1786, a short Answer to a Catechism used in Sunday Schools, written by one Watson, a Yorkshire Vicar*, which he supposed to contain an erroneous doctrine with respect to the state of men immediately after death. This answer he sent to all the Bishops in England and Ireland, that they might exert their authority against a book apparently of such pernicious tendency. Accordingly the Archbishop of Dublin stopped the use of it in his diocese.

In the latter end of this year, he was busily employed in re-publishing the sermons of Rob. Walker, a Scotch Presbyterian minister, which had, deservedly, had five previous editions in Great Britain. To the sixth edition, he prefixed a long letter to encourage both the Dublin bookseller and the Irish reader. "The sermons of this worthy author," he observes, "are most excellent in themselves, and greatly wanted in these times."

On Good Friday, 1788, he was attacked with a severe fit of illness. About this time, a young man from Fintona called to see him. Having enquired of

* Mr. Watson was Vicar of Middleton Tyas, near Richmond, in Yorkshire: he died at Bath, in 1804. He was a very exem plary and respectable man, and an excellent parish priest.

him, most affectionately, concerning his parishoners, he lamented, with tears in his eyes, the irregularity of their conduct, but especially their unhappy propensity to drunkenness, of which all his instructions could not cure them. The Rev. Dr. Hastings, Archdeacon of Dublin, attended him carefully during his sickness; which put an end to his life on Friday the 4th of May. The preceding evening, he repeated, intelligibly, the Lord's Prayer, and never spoke after.

He was buried on the Tuesday following, at six o'clock in the morning, near the west door of St. Peter's Church-yard, the place he had appointed for himself.

He left behind him near £700, of which at least £540 were due from his parish, including £120 chargeable on his successor; so that he had, hardly, £150 clear in his own hands. The whole he disposed of by will, which began thus, In the name of the glorious and eternal Trinity. To his nephew, Dr. Skelton, he left £150. To his servant, John Swap, £40, and the rest to Miss Leslie, daughter of Henry Leslie, Esq. and grand-daughter to the late Rev. William Leslie, his best friend. He appointed the Rev. Dr. Hastings his sole executor. As an apology for his making his will in this manner, he mentions in it, that he was indebted to the Rev. William Leslie, under God, for his preferments in the Church, and to his family for many kindnesses for a series of years.`

His manuscripts and his works he left to Dr. Hastings, whom he styles his excellent friend.

I have extracted this account from Mr. Burdy's Life of Skelton. I reprinted in the year 1808 those sermons he had published in Ireland, with twenty of his Senilia; all of them very interesting dissertations, not doubting but that I should be encouraged to reprint all the valuable parts of the work of this invaluable writer, but to my great surprize, the impression, though a small one, is not entirely sold. 1815.

DR. TUCKER.

THE account of this distinguished writer is extracted partly from the first volume of PUBLIC CHARACTERS, and partly from the GENTLEMAN'S MAGAZINE, vol. 69, part 2. 1799. The latter confessedly written by an intimate friend of Dean Tucker.

He was born in Wales. His father, after giving him the best education that could be found in the principality, sent him to Oxford, either to St. John's or to Jesus' College.

At the age of twenty-three, he entered into holy orders, and served a curacy for some time in Gloucestershire.

About 1737 he became Curate of St. Stephen's Church in Bristol, and was appointed Minor Canon in the Cathedral of that city.

Here he attracted the notice of that profound Divine, Dr. Joseph Butler, then Bishop of Bristol, and afterwards of Durham. In consequence of this, the Bishop appointed Mr. Tucker his domestic Chaplain: the Bishop and his chaplain frequently walked in the palace gardens in the dark, generally conversing upon metaphysical and theological subjects.

By the interest of this amiable and learned prelate, Mr. Tucker obtained a prebendal stall in the Cathedral of Bristol; and on the death of the pious and ingenious Mr. Catcott, well known by a volume of excellent sermons, he became Rector of St. Stephen.

He took the degree of M. A. in 1739, of D. D. in 1755. He resigned his prebend on being appointed Dean of Gloucester in 1758.

In 1745-6, he preached an excellent sermon before the governors of a very laudable institution, then first erected in the city of Bristol. After mentioning the depravity of the lower ranks, he says, "Our houses "of correction, as they are called, are so far from "answering the original ends of their institution, that "they corrupt more than correct, and harden rather "than reform; so as to make the young offender, if

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