same year, he was again stationary at Cambridge, in the enjoyment of those rational pleasures which he so well describes in the last of the letters to Mr. Loveday. The letter is dated July 6th, 1740. "It " will not be long," he says, " before I must return "to Twickenham, to stay there a month or two, in "the neighbourhood of the town. In the mean sea"son, I am here, in an agreeable situation, amidst 66 66 plenty of books, printed and manuscript, entertain“ing myself, and serving distant friends in a literary "way. We have lately lost here an excellent man, "who lived and died in that pleasurable kind of toil: "I am just come from the hearing a fine panegyric "of him from St. Mary's pulpit. Mr. Baker is the person I mean; as you would have imagined, with"out my naming him. He lived to a great age, but "so lived as to make it necessary for those he leaves "behind him, to think he died too soon." From the tenor of this cheerful letter, it could little be expected how soon the latter part of the concluding sentence would become still more applicable to himself. But not long after his Easter Visitation in this year, "a complaint which he had many years too much "neglected, (the nail growing into one of his great "toes) obliged him in July to call in the assistance "of a surgeon at Cambridge, (Mr. Lunn) under "whose hands finding no relief, and his pain still increasing, he removed to London, and put himself "under the care of Mr. Cheselden. But it was now "too late; a bad habit of body, contracted by too "intense an application to his studies, rendered a "recovery impossible; and after undergoing several 66 66 painful operations, to which he submitted without "reluctance, and bore with an exemplary patience, "every thing tending to a mortification, he expired "with the same composure that he had lived, De"cember 23d in that year h." Connected with this concluding part of our author's history, is a pitiful attempt of his adversaries, to circulate an anecdote, which, whether well-founded or not, would be unworthy of notice, had not such men as Pope, and Warburton, and Middleton, thought fit to comment upon it with an air of serious animadversion. The story is related with unfeeling levity, and in the coarsest terms, in Middleton's 10th letter to Warburton, dated January 8, 1740-1, a fortnight only after Waterland's death. "The Church,” he says, “has received a great loss by the death of “Dr. W―d. I cannot say, an irreparable one, "whilst C- -n lives; to whom he has left some h Biograph. Britannica. The same, in substance, is the account given by Mr. Cole, in a note to one of Dr. Waterland's letters to Dr. Grey; adding, that he thinks he died at Cambridge, where he had been for a long time attended by Cheselden. In a subse quent memorandum, however, Mr. Cole says, "he was attended "here at Cambridge by the famous Mr. Cheselden for many days from London: and removing from Cambridge to Twick"enham for change of air, died there." He adds, " Mr. Cheselden " attended for many days, at a great expence, and with Dr. Plump"tre, the Professor of Physic, attended him to Town." 1 Middleton's Miscellaneous Works, vol. i. p. 404. 8vo. edit. * Dr. Chapman is, doubtless, here meant, the author of Eusebius, in answer to the Moral Philosopher, and of other learned works; to whom, however, Waterland's papers were not left: neither had Waterland ordered all his other papers to be burnt, since Mr. Clarke, the editor of his posthumous Sermons and of his treatises on Justification and Infant Communion, expressly states that these were consigned to his care (not to Dr. Chapman's) for pub 66 66 66 66 "unfinished papers on Infant-Communion, and wisely ordered all the rest to be burnt; he has bequeathed likewise to the College, such of his print"ed books, as they find scribbled by his own hand, "for such, I hear, is his own description of them. "By the silence of the public papers, upon the fall "of so eminent a luminary, we are to expect, I imagine, in a proper time, some laboured panegyric, " from a masterly hand. Though the great Hooker seems to have exhausted himself, in an effort of "the last week, to do justice to the character of the "excellent Eusebius, who is preparing to give the 66 coup de grace to that subtle and ingenious, but infamous writer, the Moral Philosopher. But as "to W―d, whenever they think fit to oblige the public with his life, they will not forget one story, "I hope, which is truly worthy of him, shews the "real spirit of the man, and which I can venture to "tell you on good authority." Then follows the story; which, divested of the grossness of the narrative, and the adventitious circumstances probably engrafted upon it by the narrator himself, is simply this;-that, on his way to London with Dr. Plumptre and Mr. Cheselden, Dr. Waterland found it ne 66 lication. Nor were his printed books, with his marginal notes, bequeathed to the College, only two or three having yet been found there. The rest fell into different hands, being probably sold, among the rest of his books, by public auction; and the greater number of them are now in Rawlinson's collection in the Bodleian Library. So inaccurately was Middleton informed respecting the man whom he thus treats with an affectation of contempt. “The great Hooker,” here ludicrously spoken of, was Dr. William Webster, editor of the Weekly Miscellany, published under the fictitious name of Richard Hooker, Esquire. cessary to send for an apothecary in a town through which he passed, for some medical assistance; that the apothecary, mistaking the name of Waterland for Warburton, was overpowered by the supposed honour conferred upon him, and assured Dr. W.'s friends, then with him, "that he was not a stranger "to the merit and character of the Doctor, but had lately read his ingenious book with much pleasure, "The Divine Legation of Moses;" that, upon this blunder being communicated to Waterland, he was "provoked by it to a violent passion," called the poor man ill names, and, notwithstanding Dr. Plumptre's endeavours to moderate his displeasure, would not suffer him to administer the necessary aid. Middleton then adds, " with such wretched passions and "prejudices did this poor man march to his grave; "which might deserve to be laughed at, rather than "lamented, if we did not see what pernicious influence they have in the Church, to defame and de66 press men of sense and virtue, who have had the "courage to despise them." 66 This anecdote appears to have been highly relished by Warburton and Pope. Warburton must almost immediately have communicated it to Pope; who, in a letter dated February 4, 1740-41, says, in reply, "This leads me to thank you for that very en"tertaining and, I think, instructive story of Dr. W. "who was, in this, the image of ***, who never "admit of any remedy from the hand they dislike. But I am sorry he had so much of the modern "Christian rancour; as I believe he may be con"vinced by this time, that the kingdom of heaven "is not for such." Probably, the whole of this idle tale was much exaggerated by the wanton malice of the narrator. But take it as it is told; and what does it amount to? That Waterland thought meanly of a practitioner, whom he might suspect to be as ignorant in his own profession as in that in which he pretended to play the critic; and was as unwilling to trust to his skill in one case as in the other. And where is the wonder, where the extreme offence, if, in a moment of pain and irritation, an expression or two of contempt escaped from his lips? Yet this is to be noted as a proof of "the wretched passions and prejudices with which he marched to his grave;" and Mr. Pope gravely infers from it the instructive lesson, "that the kingdom of heaven is not for such.” This too from Middleton, the bitterest of polemics; and from Pope, the most merciless and implacable of satyrists. 66 But whatever credit may be given to the story itself, the inferences thus uncharitably deduced from .it, are completely overthrown by the testimony of those who knew him best to his exemplary and truly Christian deportment during this lingering and painful disease. In addition to what has just been cited from the Biographia Britannica, Mr. Seed, his intimate friend, and who was with him during the last scene of his illness, speaks thus; "The meek and "candid Christian was not lost in the disputer of "this world. I never saw him in a different hu 66 mour, no, not even in his last illness. The same "unaffected cheerfulness, the same evenness and se"dateness, which was his distinguishing character, "appeared from the first commencement of our ac |