master or mistress, we are sure they are good servants; and, when a scholar speaks well of his teacher, we may be as certain he is, in every sense of the word, a good scholar.

I cannot help recounting, on this occasion, that there was under the said Deodatus Bye another scholar, very nearly related to Mr. Horne, of whom the master was heard to say, that he never did any thing which he wished him not to have done. But, when the lad was told of this, he very honestly observed upon it, that he had done many things which his master never heard of. He is now in an office of great responsibility. They, who placed him in it, supposed him still to retain the honesty he brought with him from Maidstone school; and I never heard that he had disappointed them.

While Mr. Horne was at school, a Maidstone scholarship in University College became vacant; in his application for which he succeeded, and, young as he was, the master recommended his going directly to college.

Soon after he was settled at University College, (where he was admitted on the 15th of March 1745-6), Mr. Hobson, a good and learned tutor of the house, gave out an exercise, for a trial of skill, to Mr. Horne and the present writer of his life, who was also in his first year. They were ordered to take a favourite Latin ode of Boëtius, and present it to the tutor in a different Latin metre. This they both did as well as they could: and the contest, instead of dividing, united them ever after, and had also the effect of inspiring them with a love of the Lyric Poetry of that author; which seems not to be sufficiently known among scholars, though beautiful in its kind. The whole work was once in such esteem, that King Alfred, the

founder of University College, and of the English constitution, translated it.

His studies, for a time, were in general the same with those of other ingenious young men; and the vivacity of his mind, which never was exceeded, and made his conversation very desirable, introduced him to many gentlemen of his own standing, who resembled him in their learning and their manners, particularly to Mr. Jenkinson, now Earl of Liverpool, Mr. Moore, late Archbishop of Canterbury, Mr. Cracherode, Mr. Benson, the Honourable Hamilton Boyle, son of Lord Orrery, the late Reverend Jasper Selwin, and many others. Mr. Denny Martin, afterwards Dr. Fairfax, of Leeds Castle, in Kent, was from the same school with Mr. Horne; and has always been very nearly connected with him, as a companion of his studies, a lover of his virtues, and an admirer of his writings.

To shew how high Mr. Horne's character stood with all the members of his college, old and young, I need only mention the following fact. It happened about the time when he took his Bachelor's degree, which was on the 27th of October, 1749, that a Kentish fellowship became vacant at Magdalen College; and there was, at that time, no scholar of the house who was upon the county. The senior fellow of University College, having heard of this, said nothing of it to Mr. Horne, but went down to Magdalen College, told them what an extraordinary young man they might find in University College, and gave him such a recommendation as disposed the society to accept of him. When the day of election came, they found him such as he had been represented, and much more; and in 1750 he was accordingly chosen a fellow of Magdalen College, and on the first of June, 1752, he took the degree of Master of Arts.

If we look back upon our past lives, it will generally be found, that the leading events, which gave a direction to all that followed, were not according to our own choice or knowledge, but from the hand of an over-ruling Providence, which acts without consulting us; putting us into situations, which are either best for ourselves, or best for the world, or best for both; and leading us as it led the patriarch Abraham; of whom we are told, that he knew not whither he was going. This was plainly the case in Mr. Horne's election to Magdalen College. A person took up the matter, unsolicited and in secret he succeeded. When fellow, his character and conduct gave him favour with the society, and, when Dr. Jenner died, they elected him president: the headship of the college introduced him to the office of vice-chancellor; which at length made him as well known to Lord North, as to the Earl of Liverpool: this led to the deanry of Canterbury, and that to the bishopric of Norwich.

If we return to the account of his studies, we shall there find something else falling in his way which he never sought after, and attended with a train of very important consequences. While he was deeply engaged in the pursuits of Oratory, Poetry, Philosophy, and History, and making himself well acquainted with the Greek Tragedians, of which he was become a great admirer, an accident, of which I shall relate the account as plainly and faithfully as I can, without disguising or diminishing, drew him into a new situation in respect of his mind, and gave a new turn to his studies, before he had arrived at his Bachelor's degree. I may indeed say of this, that it certainly gave much of the colour which his character assumed from that time, and opened the way to most of his undertakings

and publications; as he himself would witness if he were now alive.

It is known to the public, that he came very early upon the stage as an author, though an anonymous one, and brought himself into somé difficulty under the denomination of an Hutchinsonian; for this was the name given to those gentlemen who studied Hebrew and examined the writings of John Hutchinson, Esq. the famous Mosaic philosopher, and became inclined to favour his opinions in Theology and Philosophy.

About the time of which I am speaking, there were many good and learned men of both Universities, but chiefly in and of the University of Oxford, who, from the representation given to the public, some years before, by the Right Honourable Duncan Forbes, then Lord President of the Court of Session in Scotland, and from a new and more promising method of studying the Hebrew language, independently of Jewish error, and from a flattering prospect also of many other advantages to the general interests of religion and learning, were become zealous advocates in favour of the new scheme of Mr. Hutchinson. Mr. Horne was led into this enquiry, partly by an accident which had happened to myself.

An attachment to some friends, then well known in the University for their abilities in music, of whom the principal were, Mr. Phocion Henley of Wadham College, Mr. Pixel of Queen's, and Mr. Short of Worcester, drew me often to Wadham College; which society has two Hebrew scholarships, on one of which there was a gentleman, a Mr. Catcott of Bristol, whose father, as I afterwards understood, was one of those authors who first distinguished themselves as writers on the side of Mr. Hutchinson: he possessed a very curious collection of fossils, some of which he had digged and

scratched out of the earth with his own hands at the hazard of his life; a pit near Wadham College, which would have buried him, having fallen in very soon after he was out of it. This collection* I was invited to see, and readily accepted the invitation, out of a general curiosity, without any particular knowledge of the subject. This gentleman, perceiving my attention to be much engaged by the novelty and curiosity of what he exhibited, threw out so many hints about things of which I had never heard, that I requested the favour of some farther conversation with him on a future occasion. One conference followed another, till I saw a new field of learning opened, particularly in

* It is now deposited in the public library at Bristol, to the corporation of which city he left that and his MSS. on a principle of gratitude for the preferment they had given him; and there I saw it in the year 1790, with many large and valuable additions.

To

Of the collector it may be truly said, that he was not only an Hebræan in his learning, but an Israelite in life and manners. his industry we owe a Treatise on the Deluge, which, when compared with many others, will be found to give the best and most curious information upon the subject. This good and innocent man, whose heart was well affected to all mankind, died before his time; and the manner of his death, if it has been truly reported, will raise the indignation of every sensible and charitable mind. He kept his bed with a bad fever; and when rest was necessary, he was disturbed by the continual barking of a dog that was chained up near at hand. When his friends sent a civil message desiring that the dog might be removed till the patient was better, it was refused; and, in the event, he was fairly barked to death. If this fact be true, how cheap are the lives and sufferings of some men in the estimation of others!-Hercule! homini plurima ex homine sunt mala!-for the dog intended no harm.-Of this gentleman himself, we are informed by one of his intimate frends, that, when he settled his account at the year's end, he considered all the money that remained after his own debts were paid as the property not of himself but of the poor, to whose use (being a single man) he never failed to apply it.