LXVI. The Rev. Dr. Free to Archbishop Moore. MY LORD, Feb. 9, 1788. I BEG leave to present your Grace with the fourth edition of my History of the English Tongue, begun by the permission of his Royal Highness Frederick Prince of Wales, for the use of his eldest son, now King George the Third, which honour was communicated to me by Mr. Drax, Secretary to his Royal Highness; but the Prince dying before it was printed, I missed of my reward, and with it my future. hopes of preferment. For though there could not be, in my station, a better subject to one of the best of princes, King George the Second, as your Grace will see by the papers which accompany this book; yet I found my services overlooked, or obstructed, by the Duke of Newcastle and his adherents:-Of this I was convinced once for all, by the unsuccessful application of a 'great man abroad, who was much a favourite of King George the Second, and chancellor of his University of Gottingen, Baron Mosheim, with whom I kept a Latin correspondence, and who, out of friendship, immediately took a journey from Gottingen to Hanover, where the king was at that time, to solicit a prebend of Bristol for me, which was then vacant; but meeting there the Duke of Newcastle, he was told that it was disposed of. During the administration of my Lord Bute, I presented my petition to the king, a copy of which accompanies this book; by which your Grace will see, that by some misrepresentation I was again disappointed. My dependencies upon churchmen were altogether as delusive as those which were founded upon the favour of ministers of state. I have been connected with three bishops as my diocesans, esteemed by them all, but never preferred by any. The first was Bishop Peploe, when I was vicar of Runcorn, in Cheshire; his politics and mine agreed. I associated with him in the rebellion, for the defence of the king and royal family; but, having relations, he could not gratify me with a prebend of Chester, the height of my request. Upon my return from Cheshire to Oxford, the rebels were advanced as far as Derby, when I preached at St. Mary's, the famous 5th of November, a serinon, which procured the curses of the other party, who abused me in every Jacobite paper through England; and the then ministry, through fear of displeasing them, consented to such a sacrifice; robbed of my pupils by the party, I left the University, and went to teach school in Southwark. Here I had hopes at this time from Dr. Willes of Bath and Wells, the second bishop under whom I served:-His name appears amongst my father's friends, who was a sufferer for the royal cause, in the rebellion of the year 1715, as may be seen in my petition to the king. Dr. Willes was under promise of providing for me, which was made to the warden and fellows of Merton College in Oxford, where I was disappointed of a fellowship, to make room for one of his friends. Being removed from Runcorn, in Cheshire, to East Coker, a vicarage of the same mean value, which was in his diocese-every body imagined that I should be a prebendary of Wells and so forth; but the bishop died before he could provide for me. The third diocesan is the present bishop of that see [Dr. Moss,] a very worthy gentleman, with whom I have lived upon very good terms; but places in his cathedral would be too long to expect, and the charge of a parish I would not now undertake. For, during these periods, I am advancing to the age of 77 years; had been a public preacher, at the time I left the pulpit, 54 years; a doctor in divinity 44, without any share of preferment from the patronage or patrimony of the church, but a vicarage about 701. the year, to struggle with the world and bring up a family:-Reduced by this situation, I am obliged to the charity of the laity to make up deficiencies. Emeritus Miles Ecclesiæ Anglicana, a wornout invalid, who has served in 54 campaigns, and finds himself in a worse situation than a Chelsea pensioner; for they are supported by the military establishment, whilst a clergyman, whose writings, preaching, and behaviour, have been irreproachable, is turned over to another professionto ask for bread. While I am giving this detail, my lord, I would not have it thought, though it looks suspicious, that I am applying to your Grace for your personal charity for my subsistence--No; it is the church that I demand it of:-These are the spara Xpe, which, by St. Paul's leave, I choose to construe the arrears of the church, which I demand for the loss of my time and labour, to be brought to an account, and see it settled before I go hence. I beg leave to deposit these demands. in your Grace's hands, not doubting but, when you have power and opportunity, your Grace will do me justice. In the late scramble for preferment, I had thoughts once more of applying to the minister, in the throng of the clergy attending his levee as minister for church and state, that while the rest were striving to gratify their ambition, I might meet with some of the fragments of the loaves and fishes; for there were many to be fed; but then it occurred, that I might not be quick enough; being old, the young ones would out-run me, or I might be thrown down in the scuffle. This shewed that on such an occasion I ought to have an advocate more powerful than myself. But where should I find a person in power of that affability and freedom of access, to receive a petition from the disappointed; of that humanity, as well from his disposition as from experience, to pity their sufferings; of that activity in his high station, to endeavour their relief; of that compass of thought as a politician, to look upon it as a bad symptom in a state to see a good subject distressed in and by the community, which he all his life-time faithfully served, and moved thereby from the love and credit of his country to seek for their redress? Upon reflection, I could not find another person of high rank with whose character this description so well agrees as with that of his Grace the Lord Archbishop of Canterbury; and from this persuasion, I make bold to beg the favour of your Grace to be my advocate, and represent my case to Mr. Pitt, who is generally well spoken of for his good disposition, and whose sentiments may be the same with your own. His father, Lord Chatham, professed an esteem for me: I have received compliments from Hayes on account of some of my works which he approved; and that he regarded my politics, I have an evident proof from his adopting my plan of invading Normandy, first published in the 58th Monitor, Saturday, September 1756, which paper is luckily preserved, notwithstanding the violent removal of my writings, and is requested to be returned when seen by Mr. Pitt; for this descent upon Normandy was followed by the reduction of Cherburg, and the conquest of Beileisle, which if not given up at the peace, would have been of the same advantage to England, as the possession of the Isle of Wight would be to France. These are some of the services I have rendered my country, both in church and state, for which I do not expect at this time such a reward as my long residence in the University, and the expences of my four degrees, might in equity and ancient custom require, because of late those emoluments have gone to people of another stamp, who have never seen an University; but as matters now stand, and for present use, that Mr. Pitt would be so good as to give me a small pension to enable me to buy my own bread as I used to do, and, that I may not be altogether another Aristides, to provide me a coffin when I make my exit. I am, my Lord, &e. [To this his Grace said, that it was a melancholy thing for a person who had been so long in the profession, and so active in it, to have his bread to seek at this time; and that he would represent the case to Mr. Pitt. His Grace afterterwards did him signal service.] 1788, May. LXVII. The Rev. S. Pegge to the Rev. Charles Hope, Minister of All Saints, Derby, relative to the subscription for the reparation, &c. of the Cathedral Church of Lichfield, Whittington, May 10. DEAR SIR, As the Dean and Chapter of Lichfield are at this time promoting a subscription throughout the diocese of Lichfield and Coventry, with the approbation and good wishes of the Honourable and Right Reverend the Bishop, for the purpose of making certain repairs, alterations, decorations, and improvements, in the Cathedral of Lichfield, it may not be improper to inquire into the ground and foundation of such their application, and to shew, in few words, that it is a requisition neither unreasonable nor novel. The fabric of this Cathedral, Sir, is ancient and elegant, inferior to very few in this kingdom; but, by length of time, and through the inability of the Dean and Chapter, who have but a scanty fund for its support, is grown much out of order, and in some parts ruinous. One material inconvenience, to mention no others, nor the want of a general repair, attends it, which is, that the congregation, by reason of the smallness and incommodiousness of the choir, are obliged to remove, whenever there is a sermon, into the nave or body of the church; a circumstance very awkward, disagreeable, and troublesome. The Dean and Chapter, Sir, have no fund, as was observed, adequate even to the common and necessary reparation of their Cathedral, and much less competent for undertaking a work of such magnitude as that now intended, which, according to the estimate of Mr. James Wyatt, the Architect, amounts to the sum of £5950 and upwards. Now, Sir, in regard to the step which the Dean and Chapter are taking, of soliciting donations from the Clergy and Laity of the Diocese, for the purpose of gaining aid and assistance towards accomplishing the arduous, and necessary, and honourable enterprise, it may be observed, that at the foundation of this Cathedral in the middle of the seventh century, the Cathedral was esteemed to be the Mother Church of the whole Diocese, and that the Parochial Churches were altogether dependant upon it; that the Clergy, who then resided with the Bishop, issued from the. Cathedral to serve and officiate at the several Churches in the Diocese, and that the Diocese for that reason was coinmonly called Parochia, as if the few Parish Churches existing in those times were to be considered as but so many Chapels of Ease to the Cathedral. Hence it came to pass, that, for many ages after, the country congregations made annual processions to the Cathedral as to their Mother Church, that the Parochial Clergy fetched the Chrism from thence, and that their parishioners made a yearly payment to the Cathedral for the sustentation and maintenance thereof; this went under the name of Pentecostals, or WhitsunFarthings, because usually paid at that season of the year; and, in the case of Lichfield in particular, was termed Chad-pennies, or Chad-Farthings; the Cathedral there being dedicated to St. Chad, and put under his more imme、 diate patronage and protection. This payment of the Pentecostals, Sir, or Chud- Farthings, the Bishop, John Hacket, probably had in his eye, when, after the horrible havock and devastation committed in the. Cathedral of Lichfield by the Oliverians, he, at the Restoration, sent about his circular letters to the Clergy and Gentlemen of his Diocese, to beg money for the reparation, beautifying, and restoring of his Church to its pristine splendor. These letters succeeded admirably, and certainly are a fair precedent for the Dean and Chapter of Lichfield to follow in the present exigence, as it may serve to convince every one, that it is no novel or unreasonable mode of raising money which they are pursuing, but that they may have the example and sanction of former times, and consequently Gentlemen and others may be induced by it to contribute the more liberally. 1788, June. I am, Sir, Your affectionate brother, And most obedient servant, |