scarcity of corn, soon pointed him out to the notice of the Earl of Fortescue, Lord Lieutenant of the county, who in the most complimentary

manner acknowledged

those services, and appointed him a Deputy Lieutenant. About the year 1800 he was from the same causes selected by the late Lieut.-Gen. Simcoe, then commanding the western district, as one of his Aidesde-Camp, and continued as such to the time of the General's death in 1806; and shortly afterwards was appointed to the same situation on the staff of Lieut-Gen. England, the Lieut.-Governor of Plymouth, which post he also continued to hold during General England's life.

Upon the renewal of the war after the peace of Amiens, Lieut.-Col. Coleridge became the Commander of. a battalion of the artillery forming part of the East Devon Legion, under the command of the late Sir John Kennaway, and his battalion, with the infantry battalion, were upon the establishment of the Local Militia formed into a regiment, in which he held the rank of Lieut.-Colonel.

In the year 1816 Mr. Coleridge took upon himself the duty of a county magistrate, and in no other of the many services he rendered to his country, did he confer more lasting benefit than by the manner in which he executed this important office. To a vigorous mind and sound judgment he brought a more than ordinary knowledge of the customs of the country and of the habits and feelings of those between whom he was called upon to adjudicate; and the respect which was ever borne to his character seldom failed to produce a ready and cheerful acquiescence in the recommendations or judgments he expressed. As Chairman of the Committee of Expenditure, he presided for several years with great advantage to the county, and his services were acknowledged by a vote of thanks from the Court of Quarter Sessions.

When to this faithful record of his services as a soldier and citizen, we add that he lived and died in the fear of God, and in humble trust in His mercy for salvation through Jesus Christ, we crown the character of this useful and good man. And as a consolation to his children we will repeat the words of a friend, who, in addressing himself to one of them, on the loss sustained by his death, wrote thus :"He leaves a name behind him for honest integrity, upright principles, and Christian charity, which must be regarded as your noblest inheritance."

His six surviving children are-1. the Rev. James Duke Coleridge, LL.D. Prebendary of Exeter and Rector of Lawhitton, Cornwall; 2. the Hon. Mr. Jus

tice Coleridge, one of the Judges of the Court of King's Bench; 3. FrancisGeorge, a Solicitor practising in Ottery St. Mary; 4. Frances-Duke, the wife of the Hon. Mr. Justice Patteson; 5. Henry- Nelson, of Lincoln's-inn, Barrister-atLaw; 6. Edward, one of the Assistant Masters of Eton School, and Rector of Monksilver, Somerset.

HUGH LEYCESTER, ESQ.

Jan. 2. In New-street, Spring-gardens, aged 87, Hugh Leycester, esq. LL.D. one of his Majesty's Counsel, and a Bencher of the Middle Temple.

Mr. Leycester was the fourth son of Ralph Leycester, of Toft in Cheshire, esq. by Katharine, daughter and co-heiress of Edward Norris, of Speke, co. Lancaster, esq. His nephew, Ralph Leycester, esq. of Toft, was formerly M. P. for Shaftesbury.

He was educated at Eton, (where his brother-in-law, Dr. Norbury, was one of the Fellows, and his nephew, the Rev. Thos. George Leycester, at a subsequent period one of the Assistant Masters, and then Fellow of King's), and some of his Latin poetry will be found in the "Musæ Etonenses." He was afterwards a lay Fellow of King's College, Cambridge, where he graduated B.A. 1771, M.A. 1774, LL.D. 1782; and, subsequently was for some time one of the Counsel of the University. Having entered himself as a student of the Middle Temple, he was called to the bar by that Hon. Society June 30, 1775; was in 1795 appointed a King's Counsel; and in 1802 one of the Judges of Assize for the counties of Caernarvon, Anglesea, and Merioneth.

On the death of Foster Bower, esq. in 17-, Mr. Leycester was elected Recorder of Chester, and he subsequently succeeded Sir Richard Perryn as Vice-Chamberlain of the County Palatine. The Recordership he resigned in 1814.

At the general election in 1802, he was returned to Parliament as one of the burgesses for Milbourne Port, for which he was re-chosen in 1806 and 1807, and sat till the dissolution in 1812. Having been elected, by ballot, a member of the Committee of twenty-one, appointed to examine the report of the Naval Commissioners, in connection with the administration of Lord Melville as Treasurer of the Navy, he was elected its Chairman, and in that capacity delivered an account of its proceedings to the House. made a long speech on the subject of Lord Melville's prosecution, on the 12th June 1805, when he opposed Mr. Whitbread's motion for an impeachment, considering that his Lordship had already

He

Sept. 1. In Great Ormond-street, Jabez Henry, esq. Barrister-at-Law, Conveyancer for the Dutch Colonies.

Mr. Henry was called to the bar by the Hon. Society of the Middle Temple, Nov. 24, 1809. He was the first English President of Demerara, Essequibo, and Berbice, in 1813; and was the first Supreme Judge of the Ionian Islands after their occupation by the English, and framed the Procedura for their new constitution. He revised the Roman Procedura on his journey homewards, at the desire of Cardinal Gonsalvi, in 1819. He was next Commissioner to Italy and Counsel for Queen Caroline, by appointment of Lord Castlereagh; and was afterwards, in 1824, senior of the Commissioners for Legal Inquiry in the West Indies. He published many legal works and pamphlets, of which the principal were: Points on Manumission, and Cases of Contested Freedom, 1817; Report on the Criminal Law of Demerara, and in the ceded Dutch Colonies, 1821; Foreign Law, including the Judgment of the Court of Demerara in the Case of Odwin v. Forbes, &c.; and a translation of Vander Linden's Institutes of the Laws of Holland, 1828. Only a few days before the stroke which caused his death, he had published a pamphlet, "Manifesto of a Neutral," which ran through three editions,

A portion of Mr. Henry's Law and Miscellaneous Library was sold by Messrs. Sotheby on the 17th and 18th of March, 1834.

Mr. Henry experienced the first shock of a paralysis on the 28th of Feb. 1835, and since that time was wholly confined to his bed. He was known to a very extensive circle of friends, and generally beloved as an upright and amiable man.

He has

left a widow and several children. The sons are mostly grown up; and, having been carefully educated, are all, it is beBeved, filling employments with credit.

THOMAS WALKER, ESQ.

Jan. 20. At Brussels, Thomas Walker, esq. M. A. Barrister-at Law, and one of the magistrates of Lambeth-street Police Office.

He was born in the year 1784, and was a native of Manchester, in which town his father and uncle were extensive manufacturers; but, at the outbreaking of the French Revolution, were unfortunately mixed up with the political agitation of the day. The father was tried for high treason at Lancaster, Lord Erskine acting as counsel for his defence; he was acquitted, and his advocate never appeared more great than he did on this occasion. The uncle left the country, settled at Naples, and died there within the last few years.

The subject of our memoir was a fellow of infinite jest," and we cannot do better than let him commence his own biography. "Some months before I was born, (we quote from The Original') my mother lost a favourite child from illness, owing, as she accused herself, to her own temporary absence; and that circumstance prayed upon her spirits, and affected her health to such a degree, that I was brought into the world in a very weakly and wretched state. It was supposed I could not survive long; and nothing, I believe, but the greatest maternal tenderness and care preserved my life. During childhood I was very frequently and seriously ill, often thought to be dying, and once reported to be dead. I was ten years old before it was judged safe to trust me from home at all; and my father's wish to place me at a public school was uniformly opposed by various medical advisers, on the ground that it would be my certain destruction. During these years, and a long time after, I felt no certain security of iny health. At last, one day when I had shut myself up in the country, and was reading with great attention Cicero's treatise De Oratore,' some passage, I quite forget what, suggested to me the expediency of making the improvement of my health my study. I rose from my book, stood bolt upright, and determined to be well. In pursuance of my resolution I tried many extremes, was guilty of many absurdities, and committed many errors, amidst the remonstrances and ridicule of those around me. I persevered, nevertheless, and it is now, (1835) I believe, full sixteen years since I have had any medical advice or taken any thing by way of medicine. During that period I have lived constantly in the world, for the last six years in London, without ever being absent during any one whole week, and I have never foregone a single engagement of business or plea

sure, or been confined an hour, with the exception of two days in the country, from over exertion. For nine years I have worn neither great coat or cloak, though I ride and walk at all hours and in all weathers. My dress has been the same in summer and winter, my undergarment being single, and only of cotton, and I am always light shod. The only inconvenience I suffer is occasionally from colds; but with a little more care I could entirely prevent them; or if I took the trouble, I could remove the most severe cold in four and twenty hours." Thus far Mr. Walker has told his own story; he has made the reader smile, and nothing could better or more directly shew the peculiarities of his character.

Mr. Walker was a member of Trinity college, Cambridge, where he graduated B.A. 1808, M. A. 1811. He was called to the bar, at the Inner Temple, May 8, 1812, and was appointed to his magisterial office in 1829.

A very gratifying letter of condolence, forwarded by the Rector and parochial authorities of Whitechapel to Mr. Charles Walker, brother to the deceased, will shew in what respect he was held, and how satisfactorily and honourably he conducted himself in the capacity of a magistrate :

Placed, as Mr. Walker was, in the performance of his magisterial duties, under our immediate observation, we had ample opportunities of remarking the efficient manner in which those duties were performed; and we reflect with gratitude upon the benefits which were derived by the district under his official superintendence, and especially by this parish, from the sound practical views which regulated his decisions, and from the ardour with which he frequently pointed out, and at all times encouraged, the execution of plans for the improvement of our parochial affairs.

"In a neighbourhood which from the poverty of the bulk of the inhabitants, may be supposed to present peculiar temptations to the commission of crime, Mr. Walker was ever found zealously active in the search of the best information as to the state of society, and in the endeavour to disseminate among all classes those opinions which were best calculated for its amelioration, by the due encouragement of industry, and by reprobating, whenever the opportunity offered, that sordid acquiescence in penury inseparable from the opposite habit."

Those who best knew him as a magistrate, having been allowed to speak, we shall now, in our turn, say a few words

about him as an author, or rather companionable essayist.

Having mixed much in society, and heard and hoarded and revolved upon the lighter, witty conversations naturally dropped by the cleverest men in their hours of freedom from profounder callings, Mr. Walker possessed a mine of richfed ore gold, yellow, glittering, precious gold "—and, unlike most mines, the metal was discernable upon the surface. The Original knew that "stuff" was in him, and at length resolved unscrupulously to tell the world what fond conceits and long digested imageries had crowded round about his brain.

Hence arose the weekly periodical called The Original. This paper commenced its brief career in May 1835, and comprises in the whole twenty-six numbers, the last of which appeared on the 11th Nov. last. The subjects treated on are Aristology, or the art of dining and giving dinners (ab apistov, prandium,) the art of Travelling, Clubs, Roasted Apples, &c. &c. These

and other like commonplace topics The Original has contrived to dulcify by an eccentric and humourous diction, and innate quaintness and jocosity.

Mr. Walker had been in ill health for some short time past, and was for that reason travelling on the Continent. A few days before his death he had been residing at the Hotel de Belle Vue, Brussels, and as usual spending his time in visiting and inquiring into the state of the neighbouring prisons and places of confinement. On Saturday (16th Jan.) he was walking with a friend, and on ascending the Montagne de la Cour, towards the hotel, he appeared oppressed and complained of difficulty of breathing. The next day he attended the church of his friend Mr. Drury, and dined at the table d'hôte. On the Tuesday following he had made an appointment to visit the prison at Vilvorde, but found himself too unwell to fulfil his engagement. His friends then pressed him to send for medical aid, which he refused (it will be remembered he had "not taken anything by way of medicine for sixteen years.") In the evening he ordered some tea, and was not again visited till the next morning, when the waiter entering the room found the tea-things untouched, and Mr. Walker a corpse. Dr. Tobin, physician to the Embassy, and three other eminent medical men, being called in, examined the body, and signed a declaration, alleging the cause of his death to have been pulmonary apoplexy.

Mr. Walker was buried at the Cemetery, Brussels; where it is the intention

of his brother to erect some monument to

his memory; and, by order of the Rector and parochial authorities of St. Mary's, Whitechapel, a tablet will be placed in that Church.

H. H. GOODHALL, ESQ.

Nov. 3. In Crutched-friars, London, in his 70th year, Henry Humphrey Goodhall, esq. F. G.S. and M.R.A.S. the tea-warehouse-keeper of the East India Company.

Mr. Goodhall was a native of Bromham in Bedfordshire, and at his birth had good expectations, his mother being one of the coheiresses of John Peers, of Astwood, Bucks; but these were destroyed by the indiscretion of his father, who afterwards retiring to the West Indies, left the mother of Henry with very imperfect means for the education of her

son.

Under these circumstances Mr. Goodhall came to London at an early age, recommended by the late Henry Smith, esq. of Peckham, to Mr. Stockwell, then the Company's tea-warehouse-keeper; by whom he was immediately employed in his office, and in Oct. 1783, the Court of Directors appointed him a writer, and in April 1786, a junior clerk on their tea-warehouse establishment. In this situation he manifested the strictest integrity, great prudence, and close application to the business of the office, as well as to the improvement of his mind, by reading and study; and by these means Mr. Goodhall progressed rapidly through the several stages of promotion until he had obtained the situation of head clerk in the teawarehouse, at which he arrived in 1815. In 1820 the Court appointed him assistant to the warehouse-keeper, and warehouse-keeper on the retirement from the service of his friend John Stockwell, esq. now of Cheltenham, in 1822.

When Mr. Goodhall was first placed officially in connexion with this gentleman, the latter was himself a very young man, and anxiously employed in reforming a large and important department of the Company's service; and it was in association with him that the talents of Mr. Goodhall were developed, his character formed, and his services made eminently useful to the East India Company;more particularly so under the Commutation Act, by which the extent of the trust reposed in the tea-warehouse-keeper had been greatly enlarged, and the Company's tea trade much extended. Under that Act the exertions of these officers were successfully employed in the management of a property in tea, amounting not

unfrequently to more than 8,000,000 of pounds sterling.

Mr. Goodhall was at the time of his decease the father of the East India Company's home service, and considered an ornament to it by all his contemporaries. He was remarkable for the independence of his character, not relying on patronage, nor soliciting favours, but trusting to his own exertions and integrity towards his employers, with which he united the most friendly dispositions towards his juniors in the service, and kind consideration for all those who were placed under his superintendence.

In his private and personal relations he was not less distinguished for uprightness, firmness, and liberality, than by the uniform kindness and cheerfulness of his manners and the sobriety and consistency of his conduct.

As Mr. Goodhall advanced in life, he cultivated a taste for literature and science. In the indulgence of this taste he made considerable manuscript collections respecting the history and topography of Bedfordshire, which are now in the possession of his son; and in the latter part of his life devoted his leisure time with much ardour and perseverence to the study of Geology. He was elected a member of the Royal Asiatic Society and also of the Geological Society: the latter on the 15th May 1829. In the pursuit of this long neglected and still infant science, he formed, and has left behind him, a large collection of Geological specimens, many of them of considerable rarity, and all of them peculiarly valuable on account of the care and precision with which their localities are described upon them. appears to have been in the prosecution of this study in Shropshire, during the last summer, that he caught those repeated colds which are supposed to have accellerated his end.

It

He contributed some valuable articles to the Collectanea Topographica, and was one of the occasional correspondents of this Magazine: but we are not aware that he published any separate work.

WILLIAM GRAY, ESQ.

Nov. 29, At Dumfries, of a rapid decline, William Gray, esq. M. A. of Magdalen College, Oxford, and Barrister-atLaw of the Inner Temple.

Mr. Gray entered Oxford in 1824 as a gentleman commoner of St. Alban Hall; but on the death of Dr. Elmsley, to whom he was particularly attached, he removed his name to the books of Magdalen College, and took his degrees as a member of that Society-B.A. June 25, 1829; M.A. June 2, 1831, grand compounder. He

possessed great natural abilities, which were improved by much general reading and an extensive acquaintance with the literary men of the North. Having neglected classical literature in his youth, and being desirous of repairing the deficiency, he became a member of the University of Oxford, at a time when he scarcely knew the Greek alphabet! Four years of application, accompanied by kind and judicious aid, enabled him, however, to pass his examination in the Schools, in a manner that drew forth the marked approbation of the examiners; and there is little doubt but that he might have risen to great eminence in his profession, had not illness, of late years, prevented any effort at serious and laborious application. During his residence in the University, he was an occasional contributor to the Oxford Herald, to which, among other valuable communications, he furnished an admirable account and character of Professor Elmsley, which is transferred to a place of more easy reference in the Gentleman's Magazine, for April 1825. He printed also, during his residence in Oxford, an Historical Sketch of the origin of English Prose Literature, and of its progress till the reign of James the First: Oxford, 1828; and the Miscellaneous Works of Sir Philip Sidney, with a life of the author and illustrative notes: Oxford, 1829.

In 1829, Mr. Gray projected an Oxford Literary Gazette, of which six numbers only appeared. There was little doubt of the success of this undertaking, for many of the articles were written with great ability and excited much interest; but the recurrence of the Long Vacation, and the consequent difficulty of providing for the publication during that interval, occasioned its suspension and subsequent abandonment. He was called to the bar by the Hon. Society of the Inner Temple, June 10, 1831.

MR. ROBERT BICKERSTAFF. Dec. 18, 1834. At his lodgings in Great Ormond-street, aged 77, Mr. Robert Bickerstaff.

He was the youngest son of Mr. Edward Bickerstaff, who held a situation in the Excise, and resided at Eastwick, in Hertfordshire. Edward was the youngest son of Richard Bickerstaff, of Stanah, on the river Wyre, in Lancashire, yeoman, who, with his ancestors, had cultivated their own estate for many generations.

The late Mr. R. Bickerstaff, being the last surviving heir male of his family,*

* His elder brother, Mr. John Bickerstaff, chemist, Aldgate, died March 31, 1812. See Gent. Mag. LXXXII, i. 297.

succeeded to a portion of that estate on the estate on the death of his only near relative in 1825, who died intestate.

Mr. Bickerstaff was apprenticed to Mr. Macfarlane, bookbinder, in Shire-lane; and was afterwards assistant to Mr. W. Browne, bookseller, of the Strand, to whose business he succeeded in April 1797, and which he carried on for 20 years with the highest credit and integrity. He retired from business in Jan. 1818, with a moderate fortune, acquired by his own industry, a portion of which he invested in a government life annuity. Since that time his principal occupation and amusement has been to collect prints to illustrate a copy of the Gentleman's Magazine from its commencement in 1730 to 1830.

His body was conveyed for interment to the grave of his parents at Eastwick, in Hertfordshire.

By his will, after bequeathing legacies to the amount of about 2,5401. to several friends, he left the residue of his property, amounting to near 5,000l. to the six benevolent institutions following, in equal portions: the Literary Fund, the National Society for educating the Poor, the Asylum for Female Orphans at Lambeth, the Philanthropic Society, the Refuge for the Destitute, and the Society for the Relief of small Debtors.

As Mr. Bickerstaff left no near relatives, we think he showed great judgment in heading his list of charities by the Literary Fund. As a bookseller, he had obtained his fortune by the abilities of learned men; at his death he returns a portion of his substance to a society which with equal promptitude and delicacy administers to the necessities of the unfortunate scholar. Some of the brightest names in contemporary literature have been beholden to the bounty of this institution, and in numerous instances its interference has shielded friendless merit from utter ruin.

The same grateful feelings for authors in distress seem to have actuated the minds of three eminent printers recently deceased. Andrew Strahan, esq. gave to the Literary Fund, during his life-time, the munificent donation of 1,000l. 3 per cents; and at his death 1,000l. sterling, free of legacy duty. Mr. Bulmer bequeathed to the society 501.; and Mr. Alderman Crowder 371. 5s. The Company of Stationers, also, as a body, contribute 201. annually to the Literary Fund.

MR. ROBERT DAVIES. Jan. 1. Aged 66, at his residence, Nantglyn, near Denbigh, Mr. Robert

Davies.