graphy in the English language. Jortin took his M. A. degree in 1722; and in 1755 his friend Archbishop Herring conferred on him the degree of D. D. Jortin's "Lusus Poetici," being Latin poems, much and very justly admired, were first published in 1722. To an abusive poem, written against them by some person of Sidney College, Jortin replied as follows Angry reformer of the times, The Lord have mercy on thy rhimes : They are so very cold and hot. Mr. Jackson, an eminent chronologist, must be mentioned. He was of the Arian sentiments. Many of his books, with his own MS. notes, are in this college library. Dr. Kennicott's testimony" to the merit of his "Chronological Antiquities," as quoted by Mr. Wakefield, is worth quoting again: "Totam questionem de Chronologia antiqua, præ cæteris, perspicacissime et accuratissime, quantum ego judicare valeam, solvit Jacksonus." Mr. Jackson was A. B. in 1706. If the book of graduates is correct, he never took the degree of A. M. He died in 1763. Creed, a mark of heterodoxy with W. Whiston. Whiston's Memoirs, vol. i. p. 357. For a more particular account of Jortin, see his Life by Dr. Disney, 1792, and an eulogium on him by Dr. Parr, wrought up in his best manner, in the Preface to two Tracts by a Warburtonian. • Kennicott's General Dissertation, sect. 74. subjoined to his Hebrew Text of the Old Testament. b Memoirs, &c. Lyndford Caryl was a grave minute gentleman, and most parsimonious in the use of words. "Gen-tle-men,"-he generally put a few seconds between every word,-“ we— shall-ei-ther-gain-this-e-lection,-or-we-shalllose-this-election;" and beginning again, (ditto repeated) by-" a single vote"." But he was correct, as to the event. Dr. Caryl was a proper gentleman to continue the List of Graduates begun by Richardson. This useful work he undertook. He was D.D. in 1751, and succeeded Dr. Ashton in the mastership of Jesus. Mr. Francis Fawkes, the translator of Appollonius Rhodius, Theocritus, and Anacreon, was of this college. The translations may be seen in Dr. Anderson's edition of Translations. He was assisted in his Apollonius Rhodius by Mr. Meen, formerly fellow of Emmanuel College", who brought it through the press, after his death, and himself translated Coluthus. Mr. F. died in 1777. Contemporary with him was Mr. Nevile, an easy and elegant imitator of Horace's and Juvenal's Satires: and to whose character Mr. Wakefield has annexed these lines, from Mr. Nevile's own imitation of Horace, Ep. i. 4. 'Tis your's to act the just, the candid part, Sense, and the freedom to declare the mind. Of David Hartley, the author of Observations on a See Wakefield's Memoirs. So I am informed by Mr. Meen himself. Man, much might be said; but he has been already introduced; so the less will be said here. He was student of this college, and there is some account of Hartley's religious sentiments in Mr. Wakefield's Memoirs, where it is said he did not go into orders, from scruples of conscience; and a just critique on his doctrine of Vibrations, in Dr. Aikin's and Mr. Morgan's Biographical Dictionary. He was, it seems, an Arian. He took his A. M. degree at Cambridge, in 1729, his M. D. elsewhere; but, it appears, his family preferred his Cambridge degree, and used to call him Mr. Hartley. Lawrence Sterne, who has made so many persons laugh, and look grave, and exquisitely feel, at the same time, began to be witty first in this college. He took his M. A. degree in 1740. His Tristram Shandy, and Sentimental Journey, are indebted for something, both of manner and matter, to Burton's rich book, entitled the Anatomy of Melancholy. He was descended from Archbishop Sterne, already noticed as master. Besides the works alluded to, our witty-grave Yorick wrote Sermons, and there is a posthumous work of his, being letters to Eliza. He died in 1768, the following epitaph being written by his friend David Garrick, the actor. Shall pride, a heap of sculptur'd marble raise, Of this scientific, ingenious, but I think, incomprehensible work, there was a second edition published with notes, being a translation from the German of the Rev. Herman Andrew Pistorius. An Abridgment, Contemporary with Sterne, though of a different cast of mind, was Henry Venn, A. B. of this college, (1745,) though of Queen's, where he became fellow, in 1759, when he took his M. A. being the first scholar on Dr. Battie's foundation, in 1747. He first held the living of Huddersfield, in Yorkshire, and afterwards of Yelling, in Huntingdonshire, being of the same school as John Berridge, of Clare Hall, favouring the doctrines then propagated by the methodists. He was a popular preacher, and author of several religious treatises; the best known is that entitled, the Complete Duty of Man, which has gone through several editions. Mr. Gilbert Wakefield must close this list. He was the son of Mr. George Wakefield, formerly of this college, late vicar of Kingston, and minister of Richmond, in Surry. As a student, he was of extraordinary industry, and a writer of no less extraordinary quickness and variety; editor, translator, critic, poetical imitator, and auto-biographer. His published works consist of thirtysix articles, some of several volumes, and considerable character. Of his Entire New Translation of the New Testament, I have had occasion to speak in a former work of mine; and of his edition of Lucretius, and of his Silva Critica, in this work. The first number of his Silva Critica was printed at the Cambridge University press, in 1789. Being a separatist from the established church, and a whig in his political principles, he was engaged much in also, was made of it by Dr. Priestley. Both sides of this curious question, on the Nature of the Soul, (which, after all, I suspect, must be resolved into the incomprehensible arcana of nature,) are stated at large in Dr. Rees's edition of Chambers's Encyclopædia, under the article Soul. the controversies of the time. His Lucretius he dedicates, in a Latin copy of verses, to Mr. Fox. For some expressions, at which government took offence, in his reply to a pamphlet of the Bishop of Llandaff, he was sentenced to two years' imprisonment in Dorchester jail. During his confinement he published a critical work on the Metrical Laws of the Greek Poets", ingenious and valuable, but somewhat hypothetical: and he left in MS. very greatly advanced, an English Greek Lexicon. He died at Hackney, in Middlesex, Sept. 9, 1801, aged only forty-five. Mr. Wakefield took his A. B. degree in 1776; but never took his A. M. from dislike to subscription. I purposely avoid entering into nice discriminations of character, either in a way of panegyric, or censure, in this work. But of an estimable friend, well known by many years' intimacy, I must be permitted to add, that what ever apparent asperities occur in his writings (more critico) they never passed into his private life. There he was eminently amiable and mild. And this must suffice for biography. Let us pass to more general remarks. The most agreeable spots were usually selected for monasteries. As the choice was made for life, and preferences were allowed the religious, they of course chose the best; and it is allowed there is no college of the university, the site of which is better adapt This is one of the most splendid editions of a classic author, that ever issued from an English press, in three volumes folio, and very scarce, many copies having been burnt at a fire which happened at the printing office. A copy, bound in Russia, usually sells for at least eighty guineas. b Noctes Carcerariæ. sive de Legibus Metricis Poetarum Græcorum. qui versibus Hexametris Scripserunt, Disputatio. At their rise, however, it was the reverse. |