spirit; and beg you to accept the following hints for the management of your charity. When I was nineteen, I taught Mr. Newton's school of Green-coats, in St. Martin's church, in Leicester, and I think yours may answer the same purpose, from eight to eleven in the morning, and from three to five, or after, in the afternoon. I can begin the evening prayers at two, or half after one; and then, as I expect our scholars to be all at church, except for laudable reasons, they may have half an hour more. In Leicester, each teacher has thirty-five scholars; the masters are allowed 2s. a day, the mistresses 1s. 6d.; though I know no reason for that difference. I advise you to admit fifty scholars, from seven years old and upwards, of an equal number of both sexes, and to make up the deficiency of one sex by the other. If the number is not completed, make it up by some of six years old; and if more of these offer than you want, take all their names, and draw the number you want by lot. Let there be two masters; the chief to have 1s. 6d. the day, and teach thirty. Let the other have is. and teach only twenty children. If there is not sufficient room in the chancel for both, let one of the teachers take the church, near the windows. The preference should be given to William Bunney, an old teacher in the town, if he chuses to be employed; and he must give every assistance and instruction his brother teacher may need. If no proper teachers, who are natives or resident in your town, offer themselves, you must engage some from other places. To prevent prejudice and discontent, let the second master always take twenty different scholars, each following Sunday, from the whole body of the school. By this scheme, the teachers will do more justice to the children, from their fewness, and be paid better than the Sunday-school mistresses in Leicester. Let there be six writers at least, besides, to be drawn from the best readers; and for want of such at present, to admit grown persons, who can read tolerably well, and who may improve their reading by saying lessons at intervals. For these additional six, let the head-master be paid an additional six-penoe. If subscriptions should fail, or you wish to increase the num ber of writers, children, or grown persons, I will undertake the charge of six of these, above my first subscription. After what I have said, you may use your own discre tion. May the father of mercies direct you on this and all occasions; and bless you, and the whole community to which you belong, with every needful grace and mercy ;.is the hearty prayer of your humble servant, WM. BICKERSTAFFE, N. B. It is expected that the parents, as well as the children, be an orderly church-going people. 4. To the Right Honourable Edward, Lord Thurlow, Lord High Chancellor of Great Britain. MY LORD, Leicester, August 10, 1786. By the advice of Mr. Macnamara,* a representative of Leicester, I am instructed to appeal to your Lordship's humanity, to grant me a gracious hearing, by a private ad dress. At fifty-eight years of age, permit a poor curate, unsupported by private property, to detain your attention a few moments. From 1750 I have been usher at the Free Grammar school here, with an appointment of 191. 16s. a year; seven years curate of St. Mary's, my native parish, in this borough; then six years curate at St. Martin's with All Saint's, lately bestowed by your Lordship on Mr. Gregory of this place; and now an opportunity occurs to your Lordship, to give me an occasion to pray for my benefactor, and those that are dear to him, during my life: 'tis this, a dispensation is expected every day, by the head-master of the school where I serve, the Rev. Mr. Pigot, vicar of Great Wigston, in this county, to connect a fresh acquisition in Lincolnshire, with it; and he urges your Lordship's petitioner to try for the living of St. Nicholas here, which he must relinquish. It is simply 351. a year; but as this corporation grants an annual aid to each living in Leicester, of 10l. a year, St. Nicholas, joined to my school, might render me comfortable *Letters to the same purport were addressed to Mr. Macnamara and Mr. Hungerford. To the latter he says, " Mr. Keck and yourself solicited Lord Denbigh in my behalf for St. Mary's; and I hope I have not forfeited your favour since." for life, and prevent the uncertainty of a curacy, and the hard necessity, at my time of life, of being harrassed, in all weathers, by a distant cure. My Lord, if this freedom is disgusting, impute it to the sympathising heart of the generous Macnamara, who prompted me to it in these words, speaking of your Lordship: "indeed I feel too forcibly my obligations to press further, or trespass more at present upon his Lordship; but, as you are a native of Leicester, and a freeman, I conceive it my duty to hint to you, that an application immediately from yourself, stating your situation exactly, as you have done to me, may have the desired effect, as his Lordship's great abilities can only be equalled by his humanity and benevolence." May the Almighty, all-present, and all-merciful God, direct your Lordship, on this and all occasions, to do His pleasure; and protect you from all dangers, which may threaten soul, body, or estate; is the hearty prayer of your Lordship's humble suppliant, WM. BICKERSTAFFE. 5. I think, if Dr. Farmer would undertake my cause, through means usually at hand with men of eminence, I might, by Divine Providence, find the Lord Chancellor disposed to serve me. This living is so immediately tenable with my school, and compatible with an additional curacy, such as Ayleston, which I have, that I cannot forbear troubling your Reverence to take up arms in my cause, and declare, "old neighbour, old playfellow," inveniam viam, aut faciam. My school is but nineteen pounds sixteen shillings a year. I have no other certain tenure at present. I served Mr. Simmonds seven years at St. Mary's, and Mr. Haines six at St. Martin's with all Saints'. These have vanished with their vicars; and if I had not Ayleston, I might be harrassed with a distant cure, to the discomfort of my life, and the prejudice of my health, at a time when more ease and leisure seem necessary. I presume Mr. Secretary Pitt, the representative of Cambridge University, and even the Chancellor of the same, with a crowd of other great personages, have eyes, ears, and hearts, at the service of its late Vice-Chancellor, and yet Master of Emanuel. To another friend he says, 6. At fifty-eight years of age, having more inclination to a church-living than a wife, I applied to my old neighbour and play-fellow, Dr. Farmer, to procure me St. Nicholas parish here; and my application was so well-timed, as to get the business into the hands of Mr. Pitt, their University representative, by the kind service of the Vice-Chancellor, who at the same time attended to commit to him the University address to the King. Dr. Farmer informed me, that this Chancellor was his particular friend; and that, if St. Nicholas's was pre-engaged, I was put in the way of church preferment. The living is yet undisposed of; the Lord Chancellor is, or lately was, at Buxton, and I remain unin formed of any thing further: there is no room to expect a smile of favour till the gout is more civil. It seems like a chancery suit. The present Chancellor is said to be a leisurely gentleman in these matters. He keeps livings in suspence. This may be designed to accumulate an aid, to pay for the seals and induction. Swift says, "Lord Trea surer, for once be quick." Should you tell the Chancellor, "it would suit him, and that I say it," it might cost me the loss of his slow favours. At my age, I could tell him, with strict propriety, "Bis dat, qui cito." Lines written on the wall, on an Inn at Stockport, on account of the reception some Botanical Gentlemen found there 1634. "Ask your friends who are not in the secret," Mr. B. says, "which is the original, the Latin or the English." Si mores cupias venustiores, Si lectum placidum, dapes salubres, Si sumptum modicum, hospitem facetum, O, Dominâ dignas, formâ et fœtore ministras ! TRANSLATION. If, traveller, good treatment be thy care, Neat maid, and ready waiter, quit this coast. The girls, O frowzy frights, here with their mistress vie! 1789, March. XLVIII. Anecdotes of Mr. HENDERSON, of Pembroke College, MR. URBAN, Oxford. April 3. MUCH has been said in your Miscellany respecting the late Mr. Henderson, of Pembroke college, Oxford, whose extraordinary abilities and eccentricity of character justly rendered him, during his life, an object of general curiosity, and will continue to stamp an adscititious value on any authentic particulars that may be recorded of him. A correspondent in your last Magazine requests Mr. Agutter to favour the world with an account of" the literary courses Mr. Henderson took, and the various authors he conversed with, in his penetration of the obscure regions of magic, divinity, and physic." As Mr. Agutter will, in all probability, return a copious answer to the inquiries of this correspondent, I shall avoid a discussion of the points alluded to by him, and shall content myself with exhibiting a few traits of Mr. Henderson's character and deportment, collected during that acquaintance which I maintained with him at the University of which he was a member. It may not perhaps be impertinent or superfluous to mention some particulars relative to the commencement of our acquaintance. I had never seen Mr. Henderson before he entered at Pembroke college, though his fame had previously reached my ears. One morning, while I was occupied in my apartments at this college, I was surprised by the unexpected appearance of the joint-tutors of our society, introducing to me a stranger, who, from the singularity of his dress, and the uncouthness of his aspect (I speak not with any disrespect,) attracted my notice in an uncommon degree. His clothes were made in a fashion peculiar to himself: he wore no stock or neckcloth; his buckles were so small as not to exceed the dimensions of an ordinary knee-buckle, at a time when very large buckles were in vogue. Though he was then twenty-four years of age, he wore his hair like that of a school-boy of six. This stranger was no less a person than Mr. Henderson, who had that morning been enrolled in our fraternity, and had been recommended to apartments situated exactly under mine; [* He died on the 2d day of November, 1788, in the thirty-second year of his age. E.] |