mentary on the Epistles of Paul," in the very handsome form which the first or 4to edition, lately published, exhibits. In his political sentiments, Dr. Pett was, as might have been expected from his family and his education, a Whig, and friendly to every real and salutary reform. He rarely expressed strong indignation, except when the arrogant assumptions of oppressors, and the invasion of the independence of nations, and of the rights of man were the topics of conversation. His best affections were with the nations now struggling on the continent of Europe for their liberties, and he expressed to the writer, not long before his death, that he felt too keenly on this subject for his own comfort. The opinions, both political and religious, of Dr. Pett, had their root in benevolence, and hence they produced no unpleasant feelings to wards such of his acquaintances and friends as differed widely from himself in both. No one could be more remote in belief from the Roman Catholic religion yet he sympathized with the Roman Catholics as far as they were op pressed for conscience' sake, and would have scrupled no exertion within his power on their behalf. When the absurd and hypocritical cry of "No Popery" prevailed in 1813 and 1814, and a petition echoing it was got up in the parish of Hackney, he associated with a few neighbours to ascertain the practicability of a parochial meeting in order to protest against the measure: through the prejudice of the many, and the timidity of the better-informed, it was found that public opposition would be fruitless or rather injurious to the cause of liberality; but Dr. Pett was not satisfied without making some attempt to stem the torrent of bigotry, and accordingly, having obtained permission of the author, he was chiefly instrumental to the reprinting of a considerable impression of Mr. Charles Butler's admirable "Address to Protestants," (inserted in our VIIIth volume, pp. 149, &c.), and to the circulation of it, by leaving a copy at every respectable house in the parish. In the same liberal spirit, he was a subscriber to the Roman Catholic School at Somer's Town, where he also sometimes attended gratuitously in the exercise of his profession; induced to this partly, no doubt, by his friendship for the excellent patroness, Miss Trelawney, daughter of Sir Harry Trelawney, with whom in earlier life he was very intimate, and for whom, amidst all the Baronet's vicissitudes of faith, he en ́tertained sincere respect.-This brief memoir will appear to strangers to be a panegyric; the writer can only say that he could not trace the life of Dr. Pett without falling into this strain. He had Dr. T. F. Middleton. (See Vol. XVII. p. 772.) A. 1822. July 8, at the Presidency of Calcutta, after a short but severe illness, in the 53d year of his age, the Rev. THOMAS FANSHAW Middleton, D. D., F.R.S. His Lordship was in the full possession of his health on the preceding Tuesday, when he visited the college. On the day of his death, he was considered to have passed the crisis of his disorder, and to be out of danger; at half-past seven he was thought much better than before, but at eight he was seized with a violent paroxysm of fever, and at eleven o'clock he expired, to the great grief of all who had the honour of his acquaintance. Dr. Middleton was born in Jan. 1769, at Kedleston, in Derbyshire, and was the only child of the Rev. Thomas Middleton He was educated at of that place. Christ's Hospital, under the rigid discipline of the Rev. James Bowyer, who has been not inaptly termed the Busby of that establishment. Here he was contemporary with Sir Edward Thornton, our present ambassador to the court of Sweden; the Rev. George Richards, D.D. F.R.S., author of the Aboriginal Britons, and Bampton Lectures; and Mr. Coleridge the poet, from whose fertile pen has issued a just tribute of gratitude to the zeal and ability of their tutor, From Christ's Hospital he proceeded, upon one of the school exhibitions, to Pembroke Hall, Cambridge, where he took the degrees of B.A. 1792; M.A. 1795; and B. and D.D. in 1808. In March 1792, after taking the degree of B.A. and being ordained Deacon, by the then Bishop of Lincolu (Dr. Prettyman), he entered upon his clerical du. ties at Gainsborough. In 1794, he was selected by Dr. John Prettyman, Archdeacon of Lincoln, and brother of the Bishop, to be tutor to his two sons; and it was probably to this circumstance that he was indebted for the future patronage of the Bishop, who presented him, in 1795, to the rectory of Tansor in Northamptonshire, vacant by the promotion of Dr. John Potter to the see of Killala, in Ireland. About this time he published a periodical essay without his name, entitled "The Country Spectator." In 1797, Dr. Middleton married Elizabeth, eldest daughter of John Maddison, Esq., of Gainsborough, and of Alving. ham, in Lincolnshire. In 1798, he published "The Blessing and the Curse; a Thanksgiving on occasion of Lord Nelson's and other Victories;" and in 1802, obtained from his former patron the consolidated rectory of Little Bytham, with Castle Bytham annexed, which he held with Tansor, by dispensation. In 1808, Dr. Middleton established his reputation as a scholar by the publication of his celebrated "Treatise on the Doctrine of the Greek Article, applied to the Criticism and the Illustration of the New Testament;" and the following year, "Christ divided; a Sermon preached at the Visitation of the Lord Bishop of Lincoln." In 1810, he began to act as a magistrate for the county of Northampton; but in 1811, resigned his livings in that county, upon being presented, by the same gene. rous patron, to the vicarage of St. Pancras, Middlesex, and Puttenham, Herts; and shortly after took up his residence at the Vicarage-house, Kentish Town. In April 1812, he was collated by the Bishop of Lincoln, to the Archdeaconry of Huntingdon; and in the autumn of the same year, he directed his attention to the deplorable condition of the parish VOL. XVIII. of St. Pancras, in which he found a population of upwards of 50,000 persons, with only the ancient very small village church, which could not accommodate a congregation of more than 300. On this occasion he published "An Address to the Parishioners of St. Pancras, Middlesex, on the intended Application_to Parliament for a New Church." Middleton's influence and perseverance caused a Bill to be brought into Parlia ment, for powers to erect a New Church; but the Bill was lost in the debate upon the second reading. Dr. In 1813, the Rev. C. A. Jacobi, a German divine, having been appointed one of the missionaries to India, Dr. Middleton was requested to deliver, before a special meeting of the Society for promoting Christian Knowledge, a charge to the new missionary, previous to his departure. About this time the friends of the establishment of Christianity in our Eastern dominions, were very active in prevailing upon Government to establish an episcopacy in those vast regions; and Lord Castlereagh, in a debate on the renewal of the East India Company's Charter, adverted to the expediency of such an establishment. It was subsequently enacted, that the Company should be chargeable with certain salaries, to be paid to a bishop and three archdeacons, if it should please His Majesty, by his letters patent, to constitute and appoint the same. In the autumn of 1813, Dr. Middleton received an order to wait upon the Earl of Buckinghamshire, President of the Board of Controul, by whom he was recom mended to His Royal Highness, the Prince Regent, as the new Bishop of Calcutta. He was consecrated on the 8th of May, 1814, at Lambeth Palace, the Archdeacon of Winchester having preached the consecration sermon. On the 17th of the same month, he attended a special meeting of the Society for promoting Christian Knowledge, to receive their valedictory address, delivered by the Bishop of Chester; on the 19th, he was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society; and on the 8th of June, took his depar ture for Bengal. Upon his arrival in India, Dr. Middleton was mainly instrumental in founding the Mission College at Calcutta, for the following purposes: 1. For instructing Native and other Christian youth in the doctrine and discipline of the Church of England, in order to their becoming preachers, catechists, or school-masters; 2. For teaching the elements of useful knowledge, and the English language, to Mussulmans and Hindoos, having no ob ject in such attainments beyond secular advantage; 3. For translating the Scriptures, the Liturgy and Moral and Religious Tracts; 4. For the reception of English missionaries on their first arrival in India, for the purpose of acquiring the languages. Toward the erection and endowment of this college, the Society for promoting Christian Knowledge, the Society for the Propagation of the Gos 1823. Jan. 21, at Chichester, in his 72d year, Mr. STREET, surgeon. Mr. S. was one of the oldest members of the Unitarian Chapel in that city, and the event of his death was improved, on the Sunday following, the day of his funeral, by Mr. Fullagar, in a discourse, founded on the remark of Jesus, recorded John xvi. 32: "Behold the hour cometh, yea, is now come, that ye shall be scattered every man to his own; and shall leave me alone; and yet I am not alone, because the Father is with me." After enumerating the comforts arising from a sense of the Divine presence and favour, amidst the loss of friends, the decay of nature, the vacancies occasioned by death in our religious assemblies, and in the prospect of dissolution; the habitual piety of our Loid, his frequent communion with his God, his imitation of the Divine Being in acts of kindness and benevolence, and his uniformly bearing witness to the truth, were stated as the probable grounds on which he could assure himself that the Father was ever with him. 46 Many," ," then continued the preacher, "actuated by such feelings, have on their death-bed, invited spectators practically, if not verbally, to see how a Christian can die. And the thoughts of those before me have, I doubt not, coincided with my own, in tracing a similarity between these principles and those of that old member of this religious assembly, on whom the grave has this week been closed. Flattery becomes not this place; but there are characters to whose goodness silence is injustice; in respect of whom, silence is injustice towards survivors; in respect of whom, silence is injustice towards the Unitarian faith; which is sometimes declared by those who reject it, to have in it nothing capable of supporting us in the prospect of dissolution. If the memory of the just be blessed, to trace the actions of the just is a respect due to their memory. If there be an undecaying nature in virtue, it is necessary to perpetuate the remembrance of that virtue, that by imitation it may itself be perpetuated. This must plead my excuse, if I call to your minds pel in Foreign Parts, and the Society for Missions to Africa and the East, have each contributed 50007. Under any circumstances, the death of such a man as Dr. Middleton would be a great loss to the profession of which he was so distinguished an ornament, and has caused a chasm that will with great difficulty be filled up worthily. The Inquirer, No. III. one who, of unobtrusive habits, wished in the most unobtrusive and unosteutatious manner, to be carried to the land of his fathers. He rests in peace: but 'while the virtues mourn, Friend, Parent, Pattern,' it may be allowable for a few moments- to consider his excellence. Belonging to a profession in which, it is notorious, many holding Deistical opinions are found, but from which remark, generally speaking true, there have been, among the worshipers in this house, many honourable exceptions, our deceased friend was not tainted with the too much prevailing moral disease of his brethren; he was not tainted with that religious indifference, too common among them, and among us all; his general conversation and demeanour, his regularity in attending the public services of religion, demonstrated that devotion had taken possession of his soul. Nor was he merely devotional, as far as correct views of the greatness of the Almighty, and of the insignificance of man, are calculated to inspire awe and veneration for the Deity; he was ready to endure difficulty, and in the course of his professional labours he experienced some slights and inconvenience on account of his steady attachment to what he deemed Christian truth. was not merely in the sanctuary of his God that our deceased friend took his constant seat; but he worshiped from conviction with those who are more or less contemned by the ignorant and interested in what is called the religious world, especially in the vicinity of aspir ing cathedrals. A hope of professional lucre did not tempt him to make shipwreck of faith, nor could faction draw him, as it sometimes does those who are only or chiefly anxious to appear unto men to fast, from what he believed to be the path of Christian duty, the asylum of Christian truth. He drank deeply of the benevolent spirit of Jesus; this made him, while following a profession in which there is great opportunity either of imposing on the credulity of man, or of being his friend and helper, pre-eminently attentive to all the sons and daughters of suffering, whatever the ranks of It life they occupied. Happy will it be for the poor of this place and neighbourhood, and honourable will it be for the present medical practitioners of our city, if, from their assiduity, the poor have no occasion to regret that heaven did not extend, to a longer period, the professional labours of our deceased friend. He was not, it is true, during his illness, left solitary and alone, for conjugal and filial affection was ever active in its attention; but the calmness and serenity he displayed from the commencement of his illness, assured, as he seemed to be, from the hints he dropped, that he would never more join the bustling sons of men, demonstrated that he had with him in his confinement, not merely his earthly friends, but his heavenly Father also. The energies of his nature failed, and his gradual descent to the house appointed for all the living, was not by art or solicitude to be impeded; but he knew that he was in good hands, in the hands of his Father and his God, and in the joyful hope of a future resurrection, with composure of spirits he was gathered to his fathers in peace. Let me die,' may all who saw him exclaim, 'the death of the righteous, and let my last end be like his.' "We yet survive; and what are the duties which, from these reflections, seem to be incumbent upon us? To cultivate pious feelings; to display benevolent affections; to be ardent in an inquiry after, and to be dauntless in the profession of, Christian truth. Then, by inducing others by our example to glorify our Father in heaven, we may become instrumental, in the hands of our God, in filling up that vacancy in the church and in society, which the removal of our friend has oCcasioned; then may we find the work of our God prospering in our hands; and then may we entertain a well-grounded hope, that if the decay of nature, or the prior removal of friends, should leave us, to human appearance alone, we shall not be ALONE, for that our heavenly Father will be with us, his promises will support us through the vale of death, and the fulness of joy belonging to heaven be ours; when, with a voice as resistless as that which now commands the sons of Mr. STREET was, for many years, surgeon and dispenser of medicine at the Dispensary in Chichester; which Institution has had the able assistance of Dr. Bayley and Dr. Sanden, who, with Dr. Silver and Dr. Powell, whose premature and deeply regretted death happened a few years since, frequented the Unitarian Chapel. men to return to their native dust, the sleeping saints shall be raised from their slumbers, and this mortal shall be or dered to put on immortality.” Jan. 25, at Newbury, in the 75th year of his age, the Rev. JOHN WINTER, thirtyeight years pastor of the Independent Churchi, in that town. 29, at Brighton, after a long season of debility and suffering, JAMES WESTON, Esq., of Upper Homerton, at the age of 63. He has been extensively known for many years as one of the firm of solicitors bearing his name, in Fenchurch Street, and respected by the public for his honourable character, and highlyesteemed by his numerous friends for the amiableness of his temper and manners. - 31, after an illness of a few days; Mrs. ANNE WELLBELOVED, the wife of the Rev. C. Wellbeloved, of York: "a woman," says the York Herald, "little known to the world, but in the bosom of her family, and within a small circle of friends, admired, esteemed and loved, for her excellent understanding, her exemplary fortitude, her cheerful piety, and her regular discharge of every social and domestic duty." Feb. 4, at her house in Harley Street, Lady RUMBOLD, widow of Sir Thomas Rumbold, Bart., and daughter of the late Dr. Edmund Law, Bishop of Carlisle. 6, at Stoke Newington, in the 53rd year of her age, Mrs. MYRA HODGKINS, relict of the Rev. George Hodgkins, many years minister of the Dissenting congregation at that place. [Mon. Repos. IX. 639 and 788.] By her amiable temper and pleasing manners she endeared herself to all who had the pleasure of being acquainted with her. The removal of this excellent woman from this sublu. nary sphere of being was most sudden and impressive. She had entertained a party of friends the preceding evening in the possession of her accustomed health and cheerfulness. Seized with an apopletic fit, she never afterwards spoke, and within the hour expired! Little did she imagine that Providence had ordained that she should so soon follow her beloved youngest daughter, who was a few months before consigned to the tomb.A sole surviving eldest daughter and a beloved sister remain to bewail her irreparable loss, and cherish her many virtues. The deccased was interred in the family' vault in the cemetery of the new Church, Feb. 16, near Vauxhall, aged 60, WILLIAM ARTAUD, Esq., the artist, well known by some of his portraits of distinguished men, and amongst others of Dr. Priestley. The 4to engraving by Holloway of this eminent man, the best extant, is from Artaud's picture. 21, at his house, St. Mary at Hill, aged 74, Mr. SAMUEL BROWN, winemerchant. He has left a widow, one of the daughters of the late Rev. Robert Robinson, of Cambridge. He was the brother of Mr. Timothy Brown, (Mon. Repos. XV. 553,) who was the friend of Mr. Horne Tooke, and the associate of all the principal Reformers of his day, and also the friend of the Rev. E. Evanson, whose peculiar hypothesis he favoured, as he shewed by causing a New Testament to be printed after Mr. Evanson's death, agreeably to his standard of genuine scripture. Lately, the Rev. ISAAC ASPLAND, M.A., Rector of East Stonham, Suffolk, and formerly Fellow of Pembroke Hall, Cambridge. INTELLIGENCE. FOREIGN. FRANCE. The question of war with Spain remains in the same undecided state. All the population of France, excepting always the priests, are said to be against the projected legitimate crusade. "On the superstitious minds of the Comte d'Artois and the Duchess d' Angoulême," says a writer from Paris on the 19th inst., "the bad weather has had a serious effect, and some ineffectual prayers of the Abbé Frayssinous for sunshine to light up the invading army, have had their share in increasing the apWhatever prehensions of the war. be the cause, a momentary stop has certainly been put to the military movements." Prince TALLEYRAND made an eloquent speech in support of the amend ment on the address to the King of France, earnestly deprecating war with Spain. The importance attached to the sanction of England to the measures of the French Government was manifested by a fabricated speech of our King to the Parliament having been published by the Etoile, an Ultra Journal, in which his Majesty was represented as pledging himself in all events to a strict neutrality. The Cour Royal has sentenced M. BENJAMIN CONSTANT, for the Letter to M. Mangin, to a fine of 1000 francs. He is said to have delivered a long and eloquent speech in his defence. |
