Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 18.djvu/19

Eston taken by his mother's brother, the Rev. John Prior, vicar of Ashby-de-la-Zouch, and chaplain to the Earl of Moira. In 1764 he entered the academy at Warrington, while the divinity chair was filled by Dr. Aikin. Here he made up his mind that he could not subscribe to the articles of the established church, although he still desired to become a minister of religion; and in 1770 he accepted an invitation to become the colleague of the Rev. Thomas Wright at the unitarian chapel at Lewin's Mead, Bristol, and entered upon his duties in January 1771. He soon afterwards opened a school at St. Michael's Hill, Bristol, which met with great success, some of his pupils rising to eminence in parliament and the professions. His pupils held him in so much esteem that they obtained the degree of LL.D. (Glasgow) for him without his knowledge. It was conferred in 1807. Coleridge, Southey, Priestley, Mrs. Barbauld, and Robert Hall were among the friends attracted by his attainments and fine generous character. His publications, of which a list is given at the close of Mrs. Barbauld's ‘Memoir’ of him (Monthly Repository, xii. 373–5), were numerous, and date from 1790. His ‘Familiar Lectures’ were published in 1818, and are preceded by a reprint of Mrs. Barbauld's ‘Memoir.’ About 1816 his sight began to fail; in 1817 he resigned his pulpit, receiving a large sum of money from his congregation as a testimonial; and preaching his farewell sermon on 22 June, he retired to a cottage he had built for himself at his favourite summer haunt, Southerndown, Glamorganshire. There, on Sunday 10 Aug., he was seized with an effusion of blood on the chest and died immediately, aged 70. He was buried in the graveyard of Lewin's Mead chapel.

Estlin married first a Miss Coates, secondly a Miss Bishop, both of Bristol. By his first wife he had one son; by the second three sons and three daughters. One of these last three sons was the surgeon John Bishop Estlin [q. v.]

[Annual Register for 1817, p. 146; Memoir of John Bishop Estlin, p. 4; Christian Reformer, iii. 391–2; Monthly Review, vols. vi. xxiv. xxxvi. xxxviii. lxxvi.; Monthly Repository, xii. 373–5.]  ESTON, ADAM (d. 1397). [See ]  ESTWICK or EASTWICK, SAMPSON (d. 1739), musician, was born about 1657, or earlier, if it be true that he was one of the first set of children of the Chapel Royal under Cooke, after the Restoration, and a chorister at St. Paul's at the same early date. He proceeded B.A. at Christ Church, Oxford, in 1677, M.A. in 1680, and B.D. in 1692. His intimacy with Henry Aldrich, dean of Christ Church, gave rise to the line: ‘I prithee, Sam, fill,’ in Aldrich's famous smoking catch. Estwick was probably too sympathetic and constant a frequenter of the rehearsals of music held weekly in the dean's lodgings, to fall under the extreme penalty dealt unto delinquents by the genial host, namely; the restriction for the one evening to small beer, and exclusion from the next meeting. Apart from the pipe and punishments, Aldrich's management of the cathedral choir was excellent, and the case of Estwick is quoted by the author of the ‘Remarks on Avison's Essay Musical Expression’ as a ‘remarkable instance of the effect of such a training. He was not only an excellent and zealous performer in the choral duty until extreme old age rendered him incapable of it, but a remarkable fine reader also.’ He became sixth minor prebend at St. Paul's Cathedral in 1602; senior cardinal, or superintendent of the choir, in November 1698, and sacrist on the death of James Clifford in February 1698-9 (for the office of cardinal see, St. Paul's, and , Ancient Funerall Monuments).

Estwick was appointed vicar of St. Helen's, Bishopgate, in 1701, and rector of St. Michael's, Queenhithe, in 1712, but he continued to perform his choral duty at the cathedral till near the time of his decease, ‘when little short of ninety years of age. . . . Bending beneath the weight of years,’ Hawkins goes on to say, ‘but preserving his faculties, and even his voice, which was a deep bass, till the last, he constantly attended his duty at St. Paul's, habited in a surplice, and with his bald head covered with a black satin coif, with grey hair round the edge of it, exhibited a figure the most awful that can well be conceived.’ He died on 16 Feb. 1738-9. The ‘reverend and truly venerable Mr. Estwick’ was regretted by the author of the ‘Remarks’ as a ‘good man and worthy clergyman,’ while the ‘London Evening Post’ of 20 Feb. bears witness to his ‘exemplary piety and orthodox principles.’ Estwick was said by Hawkins to have been an unsuccessful candidate for the Gresham professorship of music. He attended all the early meetmgs (from the first held in January 1725-6) of the Academy of Vocul Musick, and his name heads the list of contributors.

His sermon on ‘The Usefulness of Church Musick,’ preached at Christ Church. 27 Nov. 1696, upon the occasion of the anniversary meeting of the lovers of music on St. Cecilia's day, was published in the same year by request of the stewards. In the dedicatory