Russia was also pleased to send him the riband and cross of a Knight of Malta.*

At the commencement of 1800, Lord Duncan resigned the command in the North Sea; and, in the month of June, the Kent was sent to reinforce the fleet under the orders of Lord Keith, on the Mediterranean station. In the course of the same year an attack was meditated upon the city of Cadiz, and Captain Hope was nominated to the command of a battalion of seamen, to be landed with the army; but in consequence of the representations which were made by the Spanish Governor of the miserable situation of the inhabitants, who were then suffering beneath a violent epidemic disease, the enterprise was abandoned, and the fleet returned to Gibraltar.

In the month of December, Captain Hope received Lieutenant-General Sir Ralph Abercromby, with his staff, on board the Kent, at Gibraltar, and conveyed him from thence to Egypt. He was subsequently employed in the blockade of Alexandria; and remained upon that station till Cairo surrendered to the British arms. As the service then required the Kent to be appropriated to the flag of Sir Richard Bickerton, and as Captain Hope was not disposed to serve under a flag-officer, he was allowed to return to Europe; but previously to his departure he received, by order of the Sultan, the Turkish order of the Crescent. The Commander-inchief was also pleased, in compliment to his professional merit, to offer him the situation of First Captain of the Fleet. Particular circumstances, however, with which we are unacquainted, induced him to decline the proposal.

A general peace soon afterwards took place; in consequence of which Captain Hope remained on half-pay until the renewal of hostilities, in the spring of 1804; when he was appointed to the Atlas, of 74 guns, originally a three-decker,

* His imperial majesty the Emperor of all the Russias is the Grand Patron of the Order, which has never, we believe, been conferred on more than two British officers; viz. Sir W. Johnstone Hope, and the late Sir Home Riggs Popham, a memoir of whom will be found in the "Annual Biography and Obituary for

fitting at Chatham, and afterwards employed off the Texel. This command he held for about three months, at the expiration of which time he was obliged, from ill health, to come on shore: and we find no farther mention of him till early in 1807, when he was called on, during the presidency of Lord Mulgrave, to take a seat at the Board of Admiralty; which seat he vacated in the year 1809. He was nominated a Colonel of Royal Marines, August 1. 1811; advanced to the rank of Rear-Admiral, August 12. 1812; appointed Commander-in-chief at Leith, in November, 1813; created a K. C. B., January 2. 1815; and re-appointed, in the spring of 1816, to the chief command on the coast of Scotland, where he continued until September, 1818.

On the 12th of August, 1819, he was promoted to the rank of Vice-Admiral. In January, 1820, he again became a Lord of the Admiralty; and when the Duke of Clarence was appointed Lord High Admiral, he retained his seat at the board as one of his Royal Highness's Council. He was created a Grand Cross of the Bath, October 4. 1825.

In March, 1828, Sir William Hope was appointed by the Lord High Admiral, Treasurer of the Royal Hospital at Greenwich, and thereupon resigned his seat at the Admiralty. On the passing of the Act for the better regulation of that noble establishment, by which the office of Treasurer was abolished, he was appointed one of the five Commissioners for managing the affairs of the institution. At the formation of Lord Grey's ministry, on the 23d of November, 1830, he received his last honorary preferment, a seat at the Privy Council.

Sir W. J. Hope was for thirty years a member of the House of Commons. He was first elected in 1800, for the Dumfries district of Burghs; and in 1804, on the death of General Sir Robert Laurie, was chosen for the county of Dumfries, which he continued to represent during six Parliaments, until the general election of 1830, when he was succeeded by his son.

Sir William Hope was twice married: first, July 8. 1792,

to Lady Anne Johnstone Hope, eldest daughter of James third Earl of Hopetoun, Maid of Honour to her Majesty, by whom he had two daughters and four sons: 1. Elizabeth, 2. Mary, 3. John James Hope Johnstone, Esq., who has assumed the name of Johnstone after his own, and is a claimant (through his mother) for the disputed title of Marquis of Annandale; he married in 1816, Alicia Anne, eldest daughter of George Gordon, of Halhead, Esq.; 4. Captain William Hope Johnstone, now Captain of the Britannia, the flag-ship of Sir Pulteney Malcolm, in the Mediterranean; he married in 1826, Ellen, eldest daughter of Sir Thomas Kirkpatrick, Bart.; Charles James, Captain R. N., who married, in 1827, Eliza, third daughter of Joseph Wood, Esq.; and 6. George James, also Captain R. N., who married, in 1826, Maria, daughter of Joseph Ranking, Esq. Lady Anne Hope having died August 28. 1818, Sir William was re-married October 30. 1821, to the Right Hon. Maria Countess Dowager of Athlone, widow of Frederick William sixth Earl of Athlone, daughter of Sir John Eden, Bart., and cousin to Lord Auckland and Lord Henley. Her Ladyship survives.

Sir William died at Bath, on the 2d of May, 1831; aged 64. His remains were interred on the 21st May, in Johnstone church, in the county of Dumfries. A portrait of him, when a Post-Captain, was published in the Naval Chronicle

in 1807.

"Marshall's Royal Naval Biography," and "The Gentleman's Magazine," have furnished the materials for the foregoing Memoir.

75

No. VI.

THE VENERABLE

THOMAS PARKINSON, D.D., F. R. S.;

ARCHDEACON OF LEICESTER; CHANCELLOR OF THE DIOCESE OF CHESTER; A PREBENDARY OF ST. PAUL'S; AND RECTOR OF KEGWORTH, IN LEICESTERSHIRE.

DR. PARKINSON was born at Kirkham in the Fylde, in Lancashire, on the 14th June, 1745. His father being engaged in pursuits which called him much from home, Dr. Parkinson was brought up chiefly under the guidance of his mother, who was a most affectionate parent, zealously solicitous for the best interests of her family, continually watching over them, and who ensured and enjoyed, as the reward of her amiable exertions, the gratitude and love of her children.

Dr. Parkinson was sent at an early age to the Free Grammar School in Kirkham, where he received the rudiments of a classical education. When there he was always considered a youth of promising talent and great application. Contrary to the wishes of his father, he formed an early desire to obtain an university education, and the opposition which he experienced no doubt delayed his removal to college beyond the usual period at which young men were then accustomed to enter the university. The difficulties, however, which he had to encounter in the above respect were at last obviated, and at the age of 19 years he was entered as a pensioner at Christ's College, Cambridge.

Mr, Parkinson had trials of no ordinary nature to undergo when at college; the same spirit which opposed his entrance at the university in the first instance, induced his father to

refuse him all pecuniary assistance when there. An octogenarian friend of the subject of our memoir has recently expressed his belief, that, beyond common necessaries, Mr. Parkinson never occasioned his father to expend more than 201. in the whole course of his life. He left the school at Kirkham for college with an exhibition of 347. per annum.

It was the denial of all pecuniary assistance on the part of his father which probably compelled Mr. Parkinson, after engaging closely in the routine of college studies, to spend much time in abstruse calculations, and seldom allow himself more than five or six hours for repose. On the recommendation of a college friend, Mr. Parkinson was employed by the Board of Longitude in the calculation of tables of the series of parallax and refraction. He was assisted in this labour by Mr. Lyons, the author of a Treatise on Fluxions. By their united efforts (the greater portion of the fatigue, however, devolving upon young Parkinson,) the volume, a tolerably thick quarto, closely printed, was completed in two years. At this period it was highly creditable to the subject of our memoir, that, although suffering under grievous disadvantages, he annually remitted a sum for distribution amongst the poor of his native town, and educated his brother Robert at Emanuel College. In the outset of life Mr. Parkinson's worldly disappointments were great, and his prospects gloomy. Independently of receiving no aid from his father in his college pursuits, he had the mortification of seeing a property which he had been always taught to expect would have been his own, bestowed elsewhere. What would have operated as a severe affliction upon some, had not that effect upon him; he regarded the privation as a mercy, and has been frequently heard to remark, that, had affluence smiled upon his early career, indolence would probably have claimed him for her own.

The time spent in the calculations above referred to must have materially impeded his private studies, preparatory to taking his Bachelor's degree: he, however, gained the first mathematical honour of his year, and that against a competitor of great reputation in his day as a mathematician. Mr.