Page:Notes and Queries - Series 10 - Volume 12.djvu/373

 10 s. xii. OCT. 16, 1909.] NOTES AND QUERIES.

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Stubbes was appointed by his College in 1722 to the vicarage of Earls (or Long) Wittenham, near Abingdon, and by the Bishop of Salisbury on 20 March, 1723/4 to the rectory of Pusey, near Faringdon, Berkshire ; but he probably did not reside on either of these livings. He seems to have lived for the most part at Tarrant Gunvile, the parish of Dorset in which his friend Dodington's estate of Eastbury was situated, and must often have listened to the witty conversation at the hospitable dinners of that indefatigable peerage-hunter. Jamie Thomson, writing to Mallet from Eastbury on 20 Sept., 1729, mentions that he had been there " in dead solitude " for some days, as Dodington had gone to London to wait upon the King. " Poor Stubbs kept me alive. He toils here in two parishes for 4:01. a year : had I paper, I would rail for a page more at it " (' Philobiblon Soc. Miscellanies,' iv., 1858, part i. 38). Two years later (24 Oct., 1731), when abroad, Thomson referred, in a letter to Dodington, to Young and Stubbes as English poets ('Works,' Aldine ed., 1866, p. Iviii).

For some time Stubbes was domestic chaplain to the Duke of Dorset, and on 26 June, 1734, he was appointed (probably through Dodington's influence) chaplain in ordinary to Frederick, Prince of Wales. He was no doubt indebted to the same friend for his appointment by the Lord Chancellor to the rectory of Tolleshunt Knight's, near Witham, Essex, on 24 Oct., 1734 ; and to that of St. Laurence, Newland, in the same county, on 27 Jan., 1736/7.

His first wife was the sister of " Mr. Deputy Wilkins, the Whig printer in Little Britain," by w^hom his various works were published. The entry of his marriage to his second wife, "Susana" King, on "October ye 28, 1736," is given in the registers of Tarrant Gunvile. She is said by one authority to have been a daughter of Mr. Alderman King, of Salisbury ; if so, her father was probably John King, Mayor of that city in 1712. Another authority states that she was the only daughter of the Rev. Daniel King, Rector of Tarrant Gunvile, and she was no doubt a near relation of that clergyman. The parish registers of Tarrant Gunvile state that Stubbes was buried on 30 July, 1742. His" widow, " Mrs. Susanna Stubbes," was married on 1 Jan., 1745/6, at Houghton All Saints, near Stockbridge, the benefice which the father of Stubbes had held, to the Rev. Richard Hinckesman, its rector. Their daughter Anna Susannah (sic) was baptized there on 9 Nov., 1746. Stubbes was a man

of much talent, but is said to have been silent and reserved, wanting address of manner. This accounted for the com- parative poverty of his preferments.

The other works by Stubbes comprised

1. 'A Dialogue on Beauty [between Socrates and Aspasia] in the Manner of Plato,' 1731, the dedication to Dodington being sigrted George Stubbes. It was prompted by " some Socratic conversations at Eastbury," in which he had " the pleasure to bear a (very little) part," and he showed an " imperfect sketch " of it to Dodington on his last visit to Dorset. He hoped that Dodington would express approval of his- first essay in this style, and then he would repeat the experiment. He speaks of the friendship with which Dodington had long honoured him, of Dodington's generous warmth of favour, and wished his patron to present the dialogue to the Duke of Dorset. He made this dialogue the foundation of lines on Dr. John Hoadly's marriage in 1735 76,, which he enclosed to the Doctor, with a letter, * Aspasia to Florimel.'

2. " A New Adventure of Telemachus, by the author of the ' Dialogue on Beauty in the Manner of Plato,' "1731. It was first published in The London Journal in several papers in 1724, and was " founded upon principles of liberty and true government."

3. ' A Dialogue in the Manner of Plato on the Superiority of the Pleasures of the Understanding to the Pleasured of the Senses,' 1734 ; dedication to Frederick, Prince of Wales, signed George Stubbes.

4. ' Some Remarks on the Tragedy of "Hamlet, Prince of Denmark," written by Mr. William Shakespeare ' (anon.), 1736. This was reprinted by some unknown admirer in 1864. The authorship is assigned to Stubbes in MS. Rawlin&on, J. 4 3, at the Bodleian Library. He endeavoured to found his remarks on the manner of Addison's criticism of ' Paradise Lost,' and he praises the edition of Theobald. Hamlet's speech upon seeing the King at prayers and the scene of the gravediggers were condemned by him.

In conjunction with Hugh Boulter (after- wards Archbishop of Armagh), Ambrose Philips, Zachary Pearce (subsequently Bishop of Rochester), 'Richard West (who became Lord Chancellor of Ireland), and Gilbert Burnet (son of the bishop), Stubbes con- tributed to The Free-thinker, a periodical edited by Philips, and printed for W. Wilkins. His translation from the French (said to have been the first, and perhaps the best in English) of the ' Letters of Madame