obtained Chester, thirteen years after translated him to Bangor, having succeeded the late Dr. Warren in 1800; and by this exchange got an increase of at least one third, in point of income. Nor did he tarry very long there, for after six years enjoyment, he finally succeeded that very learned prelate, Dr. Samuel Horsley, in the see of St. Asaph, the revenue of which is usually estimated at about 5000l. per annum.

Thus in point of finances, Dr. Cleaver must not only have been comfortable, but in no small degree opulent. Unincumbered with a very large or very expensive family, what with his bishopric, his income as principal of Brazen Nose, together with his other preferments, doubtless far exceeded all his wants. In short, he may be deemed not only a rich but a fortunate prelate, for, as if to crown all his wishes, he enjoyed the satisfaction to behold his pupil Lord Grenville nominated chancellor of his own university.*

As the head of Brazen Nose College, his Lordship, to his great credit be it said, endeavoured to restore the ancient discipline; and succeeded to a certain degree. It is allowed that under his management, that foundation greatly encreased in point of members and respectability.

As a bishop, he is said to have discountenanced all those preachers who are usually termed evangelical, and in his charges to the clergy of his diocese, he was accustomed to plead "his infirmities and other necessary avocations," as an apology for not being more frequently among them. He was a great enemy to non-residence, and a great friend to the erection of parsonages. Some doubts however may perhaps be entertained in his own case, whether a headship be compatible with the constant and faithful discharge of the duties of a diocesan.

On the other hand, it must be owned, that the bishop's charities were extensive, and that he was a strenuous and orthodox defender of the doctrines of the Church of England. He has boldly maintained, both from the pulpit and the press, the opinion first suggested by that learned divine †, the author of the "True Intellectual System of the Universe," and revived The Rev. Ralph Cudworth.

* Is 809.

and enforced by Dr. Warburton, "That the Sacrament of the Lord's Supper, is a Feast upon a Sacrifice."

His Lordship preached a sermon before the University, in which he openly dissented from the Bishop of Lincoln, in respect to his censures of the damnatory clauses in the Athanasian creed. In addition to this, he steadfastly upheld the "Articles," in opposition to the Calvinists; was always a strenuous supporter of the Society for promoting Christian Knowledge; and has endeavoured by his recommendation to assist candidates for holy orders, in the choice of those books best adapted to their studies and avocations. *

His Lordship has been said by a respectable author, " to be a man of stiff and scholastic manners, with little of the knowledge or pliability of the world." It is difficult perhaps wholly to deny such a charge, in respect to any one who spends nearly the whole of his life in the enjoyment of any dignified office, either in an English or Foreign University. Such a personage is likely, at the end of forty or fifty years, to become a mannerist; and generally speaking, the want of pliability, must rather be deemed an eulogium, than a censure, in the person of a dignitary of the Established Church.

Dr. Cleaver's character always stood deservedly high, as a scholar of the very first class. And it has lately been enhanced, by the publication of the new Homer, a work unrivalled in point of care and correctness. This was printed at Oxford, by the munificence of the Grenville family; and most ably edited by the subject of these memoirs.

The bishop, after living to a good old age, and surviving most of his contemporaries, died in Bruton-street, after a few days illness, on May 15, 1815. His remains were transferred

* Dr. Cleaver, on this occasion, has displayed more knowledge of the world, and of the age, in which he lived, than the able and recondite Dr. Warburton, who recommended the perusal of a whole library of divinity, merely as a simple introduction to the study of Theology. It was thus indeed, that he himself, had entered the vestibule of the temple:

"Hæc limina Victor Alcides subiit."

But what student is able to follow in the track of the Bishop of Gloucester ?

soon after to Oxford, and entombed with all due respect in the chapel of Brazen Nose College.

His family originally consisted of five children; of his two sons, one was educated at Christ-Church, and the other was a King's scholar at Westminster.

The following is a list of the works, written by, edited, or attributed to the late Dr. William Cleaver, Bishop of St. Asaph.

1. De Rythmo Græcorum, first published in 1777, 8vo. edit. 1789.

2. Directions to the Clergy of the Diocese of Chester, on the Choice of Books. 8vo. 1789. Third edit. 1808. Meeting of the Charity

3. A Sermon, preached at the Children in St. Paul's, 4to. 1794.

4. A Sermon preached before the House of Lords, on the Anniversary of King Charles's Martyrdom, 4to.

5. A Sermon preached before the University of Oxford, on the Athanasian Creed.

6. Pardon and Sanctification proved to be the Privileges annexed to the Lord's Supper, 1791.

7. A Sermon on the Design and Formation of the Articles of the Church of England.

8. A Sermon preached before the Society for promoting Christian Knowledge, 1794.

N. B. These sermons, together with those of his father, were collected by Dr. Cleaver, and published in one vol.

8vo.

9. A Charge, delivered to the Clergy of the Diocese of Chester, 1797.

10. The Grenville Homer.

11. Animadversions on Dr. Marsh's Dissertation on the Origin of the Three first Gospels. Anon.

No. III.

JOHN EARDLEY WILMOT, ESQ., F.R. S. & S. A.

LATE M. P. FOR THE CITY OF COVENTRY; A MASTER IN CHANCERY, FIRST COMMISSIONER OF THE BOARD FOR ENQUIRING INTO, AND COMPENSATING THE LOSSES AND SERVICES OF THE

AMERICAN LOYALISTS.

[With an Analysis of all his Works.]

MR. Wilmot, born in 1748-9, was the second son of Sir John Eardley Wilmot, for some years, Lord Chief Justice of the Court of Common Pleas. *

We learn from one of the many interesting biographical records of Mr. Nichols, that his education was of a mixed kind;

The Right Honourable Sir John Eardley Wilmot, second son of Robert Wilmot, of Osmaston, in the county of Derby, Esq., by Ursula, one of the daughters and co-heiresses of Sir Samuel Marow, of Berkswell, in the county of Warwick, Bart., was born at Derby, on the 10th of August 1709. He was named Eardley from the circumstance of his grandfather's marriage with Elizabeth, daughter, and at last sole heiress of Edward Eardley, of Eardley Hall, in the county of Stafford, Esq. Mr. Wilmot was educated at Lichfield, Westminster, and Cambridge; and while at the university, contracted a passion for study and retirement, which never quitted him during life. Having entered himself of one of the inns of court, he in due time became a barrister. In 1753, he refused an offer made by the Lord Chancellor to make him first a King's counsel, and afterwards King's serjeant; and in 1754, he actually made his farewel speech in the Court of Exchequer. Immediately after this, he withdrew to Derbyshire; while there, he was nominated to succeed Sir Martin Wright, as a judge in the court of King's Bench without his application, and even without his knowledge. He was chiefly induced to accept of this station, from the circumstance of having five children, the eldest of whom was not at that time ten years old. On this occasion he was knighted in the usual manner.

When Lord Hardwicke resigned the Great Seal in 1756, Sir Eardley was nominated one of the commissioners; and in 1766, was appointed Chief Justice of the Common Pleas ; an office which he at first intended to refuse. Immediately after this, he became a member of the Privy Council.

The day before Lord Camden resigned, that good and amiable nobleman came up to Sir Eardley in the House of Lords, and pointing to the Great Seal, said, "there it is Sir Eardley, you will have it in your possession to morrow." He, however, actually declined it. In 1771, he resigned the Common Pleas, and accepted a trifling provision in the shape of an annuity, with no small degree of reluctance. In 1780, he was attacked by a jaundice, from which he recovered; but in 1786, he was seized with a violent fever, and at length died on the 5th of February 1792, at the age of eighty-two.

for he received the rudiments of it at Derby, Westminster, and Brunswick; and completed his studies at University College, Oxford. A fellowship was afterwards obtained at All Souls. Being intended for the church, his studies were of course pointed that way; and the son of so distinguished a lawyer could be at no great loss, either for advice or preferment. In respect to the former, the author of the "Divine Legation," voluntarily stepped in to his assistance; and it was for him, that Warburton penned those directions for a young clergyman, which were afterwards published by Dr. Hurd in his posthumous works. Whoever chuses to peruse the catalogue in the note annexed, would be almost inclined to

* See the 4to. Ed. & 8vo. supplement to Dr. Warburton's works. The following is a list of parts, being merely introductory; as the Tyro was doubtless doomed to peruse a much longer, and still more recondite catalogue for the purpose of completing his studies; but Part II. has not as yet been found. It is perhaps entombed for a time amidst the immense mass of papers, appertaining to the subject of this memoir a 1. Locke on the Human Understanding;

2. Quintilian's Institutes;

3. Grotius de Jure Belli & Pacis ;

4. Woollaston's Religion of Nature;

5. Cumberland on the Law of Nature;

6. Cudworth's Intellectual System;

7. Maimonides' Ductor Dubitantium ;

8. Spencer de Legibus Hebræorum Ritualibus ; 9. Walton's Polyglot Bible;

10. Critici Sacri ;

11. Locke's Reasonableness of Christianity; 12. Burnet de Fide, & Officiis Christianorum ;

13. Grotius' Comment on the Apostles;

14. Locke on the Epistles;

15. Joseph Mede on the Apocalypse ;

16. Episcopii Instituta Christianæ Theologiæ;

17. Limborch's Theologia Christiana;

18. Grotius de Veritate Religionis Christiana; Amica Collatio cum erudito Judæo;

19. Chillingworth's Religion of Protestants, a safe Way to Salvation;

20. Hooker's Ecclesiastical Policy; 4 first books;

21. Taylor's Liberty of Prophesying;

22. Stilling fleet's Irenicum;

23. Locke's Letters on Toleration;

24. Boyle's Commentary on the words, " compel them to come in ;"

25. Mosheim's Ecclesiastical History;

26. Collier's Church History;

27. Fuller's Church History;

28. Sleidan's Commentarii de Statu Religionis & Republicæ Carolo Quinto Cæsare

Commentarii ;