With the Dissenters his Grace was sincerely desirous of cultivating a good understanding. Though firmly attached to the Church of England, and ready on all proper occasions to defend its discipline and doctrines with becoming spirit; yet it never inspired him with any desire to oppress or aggrieve those of a different way of thinking, or to depart from the principles of religious liberty, by which he constantly regulated his own conduct*, and wished that all others would regulate theirs. He considered the Protestant Dissenters in general as a conscientious and valuable class of men, and was far from taking the spirit of certain writings to be the spirit of the whole body. With some of the most eminent of them, Watts, Doddridge, Leland, Chandler, Lardner, he maintained an intercourse of friendship or civility; by the most candid and considerate part of them he was highly reverenced and esteemed; and to such amongst them as needed help, shewed no less kindness and liberality than to those of his own communion.

Nor was his concern for the Protestant cause confined to his own country. He was well known as the great patron and protector of it in various parts of Europe; from whence he had frequent applications for assistance, which never failed of being favourably received. To several foreign Protestants he allowed pensions, to others he gave occasional relief, and to some of their Universities was an annual benefactor.

There is therefore the utmost reason to believe that he spoke the language of his heart, in relation to these matters, in the conclusion of his answer to

A strong confirmation of these assertions may be seen in one of his Grace's Letters to Dr. Lardner, written when he was Bishop of Oxford, and preserved in the Memoirs of that learned man, which have been lately published, p. 98.

Dr. Mayhew: which well deserves to be here laid at full length before the reader.

"Our inclination is to live in friendship with all "the Protestant churches. We assist and protect "those on the continent of Europe as well as we are "able. We shew our regard to that of Scotland as " often as we have an opportunity, and believe the "members of it are sensible that we do. To those "who differ from us in this part of the kingdom, we "neither attempt nor wish any injury; and we shall gladly give proofs to every denomination of Chris"tians in our colonies, that we are friends to a tole"ration even of the most intolerant, as far as it is 66 safe; and willing that all mankind should possess "all the advantages, religious and civil, which they "can demand either in law or reason. But with "those who approach nearer to us in faith and bro'therly love, we are desirous to cultivate a freer

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communication, passing over all former disgusts, "as we beg that they would. If we give them any seeming cause of complaint, we hope they will signify it in the most amicable manner. If they publish it, we hope they will preserve fairness and "temper. If they fail in either we must bear it with patience, but be excused from replying. If any "writers on our side have been less cool or less civil " than they ought and designed to have been, we are sorry for it, and exhort them to change their style "if they write again. For it is the duty of all men, "how much soever they differ in opinion, to agree " in mutual good will and kind behaviour *."

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This passage Dr. Mayhew himself allows to be. written"in such a candid, sensible, and charitable * Answer to Mayhew, p. 68.

+ Mayhew's Remarks on an Anonymous Pamphlet, p. 83.

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way, as did the author great honour, shewed the "amiable spirit of Christianity in an advantageous light," and was worthy the pen of a metropolitan, "whose Christian moderation," he acknowledges to be "not the least shining part of his respectable "character*." And it may on the best grounds be added, that Archbishop Secker in this place not only expressed his own real sentiments, but those of the present truly benevolent primate, and of far the greatest part in every rank of the English clergy in general.

In public affairs his Grace acted the part of an honest citizen, and a worthy member of the British legislature. From his very first entrance into the House of Peers, his parliamentary conduct was uniformly upright and noble. He kept equally clear from the two extremes of factious petulance and servile dependance; never wantonly thwarting administration, from motives of party zeal, or private pique, or personal attachment, or a passion for popularity; nor yet going every length with every minister, from views of interest or ambition. He admired and loved the constitution of his country, and wished to preserve it unaltered and unimpaired. So long as a due regard to this was maintained, he thought it his duty to support the measures of government. But whenever they were evidently inconsistent with the public welfare, he opposed them with freedom and firmness. Yet his opposition was always tempered with the utmost fidelity, respect, and decency, to the excellent prince upon the throne; and the most candid allowances for the unavoidable errors and infirmities even of the very best ministers, and the peculiarly difficult situation of those who • Mayhew's Remarks on an Anonymous Pamphlet, p. 86.

govern a free and high-spirited people. He seldom spoke in parliament, except where the interests of religion and virtue seemed to require it; but whenever he did, he spoke with propriety and strength, and was heard with attention and deference. Though he never attached himself blindly to any one set of men, yet his chief political connections were with the late Duke of Newcastle, and Lord Chancellor Hardwicke. To these he principally owed his advancement, and he had the good fortune to live long enough to shew his gratitude to them or their descendants, particularly to the former of them: with whose solicitations though he did not always think it necessary to comply, when that nobleman was at the head of affairs; yet when he was out of power, the Archbishop readily embraced every opportunity of obliging him; and gave him so many solid and undeniable proofs of friendship, that the Duke always spoke of his Grace's behaviour to him in the strongest terms of approbation, and made particular mention of it to some of his friends but a very short time before his own death.

During more than ten years that Dr. Secker enjoyed the See of Canterbury, he resided constantly at his archiepiscopal house at Lambeth; as being not only most commodiously situated for his own studies and employments, but for all those who on various occasions were continually obliged to have recourse to him. These reasons weighed with him so much, that no consideration, not even that of health itself, could ever prevail upon him to quit that place for any length of time. A few months before his death indeed, the dreadful pains he felt had compelled him to think of trying the Bath waters; but that design was stopt by the fatal accident which put an end to his life.

His grace had been for many years subject to the gout, which in the latter part of his life returned with more frequency and violence, and did not go off in a regular manner, but left the parts affected for a long time very weak, and was succeeded by pains in different parts of the body. About a year and a half before he died, after a fit of the gout, he was attacked with a pain in the arm near the shoulder, which having continued about a twelvemonth, a similar pain seized the upper and outer part of the opposite thigh, and the arm soon became easier. This was much more grievous than the former, as it quickly disabled him from walking, and kept him in almost continual torment, except when he was in a reclined position. During this time he had two or three fits of the gout; but neither the gout nor medicines alleviated these pains, which, with the want of exercise, brought him into a general bad habit of body.

On Saturday the 30th of July, 1768, he was seized, as he sat at dinner, with a sickness at his stomach. He recovered himself before night, but the next evening, whilst his physicians were attending, and his servants raising him on his couch, he suddenly cried out that his thigh-bone was broken. The shock was so violent, that the servants perceived the couch to shake under him, and the pain so acute and unexpected, that it overcame the firmness he so remarkably possessed. He lay for some time in great agonies, but when the surgeons arrived, and discovered with certainty that the bone was broken, he was perfectly resigned, and never afterwards asked a question about the event. A fever soon ensued. On Tuesday he became lethargic, and continued so till about five o'clock on Wednesday afternoon, when he expired with great calmness, in the 75th year of his

age.