Page:Notes and Queries - Series 10 - Volume 4.djvu/82

 62 NOTES AND QUERIES. noe S. IV- JULY 22. mos. Henry Wanseyl? see ‘ D. N .B.’], who went to America to examine w ether emigration thither would be eligible, and on his return published his tour, with the reasons why he determined against it; and with Andrew Lindegren, now government agent at Ports- mouth. I remember, too, Samuel Gambier, now Commissioner of the Navy, and his younger brother, now Lord Gambier, but they were some years younger than I.” In his fifteenth year, in September, 1764, “ my father and mother carried me to Eton and laced me under Dr. Bamard, the then head master. Fortunately for me they were acquainted with Jacob Bryant, who lived at Cypenham, within two miles of it ...... Mr. Br ant gave me for mv tutor Roberts, afterward; doctor, fellow and Provost o ton.” He was at first in the house of Dame Bagwell, “close to Barnes pool bridge.” His parents gave up the business a year after, when he “removed to Dame Gra am’s at the south end of the long walk ...... kept by two Scotch ladies, sisters” of Graham, the remove master. His chief friend at Eton was the younger Sargent. “The elder Sargent I knew little of at Eton, intimate as I was with him after- wards.” They were members of the family which at a later date included the ladies who became Mrs. Manning, the two Mrs. Wilber- forces, and Mrs. Ry er. Many other Eton boys are mentioned in the autobio raphy. Both the Sargents went to St. .Iohn’s Col- lege, Cambridge, and Longley was entered there as a fellow-commoner on 24 June, 1767 (‘ Admissions to St. J ohn’s,’ part iii., ed. R. F. Scott, pp. 176, 719), "under the tuition of Dr. Frampton, a man of good address and pleasant manners, but fonder of sporting and Newmarket than of books and his colle e. The office of lecturing his pupils devoIved on his deputies Richard Raikes and Mr. (now Dr.) Pearce, who were able men and well qualified for the purpose.” While an undergraduate Longley went with his friend Irby, son of Lord Boston, to hear the Douglas case. “ Lord Mansfield, in a speech replete with elegant diction, legal know edge, and soundvsense, supported the claimant’s le itimacy. Sargent senior took his degree at Cambridge in 1769, and as his brother “was not anxious for university honours, it was determined they should quit it together.” Longley did not wish to stay behind them, especially as he found that the subscription to the Thirty- Nine Articles would not allow him to take a degree. With the subscription “I could not conscientiously comply, being convinced that several of the doctrines in them, and particularly that of the Trinity, were un- scriptural.” He left with his friends, dis- appointing Dr. Powell, the master, who offered, if he would take his degree, to obtain for him a fellowship. Longley entered as a student at Lincoln’s Inn on 10 Sept., 1764, and came to London in October, 1769, to study the law. At first he was placed in the house of Oliver Farrer, attorney, in Chancery Lane, “ with whom he was to logtge and board as well as work.” This prov unsatisfactory, and at the end of a year he went into chambers at 4, Old Square, Lincoln’s Inn. He was called to the bar on 2 July, 1772. For a short time he went the complete Home Circuit, but in 1774 he “contracted his attendance to the Kentish assizes and sessions.” He continued that custom for some years until the younger men got before him. “ I then withdrew from practice in the courts.” At Bath, in September, 1772, Longley made the acquaintance of a Miss Bedingfield, of Norfolk, and fell in love with her, but it did not end in marriage. In the following January he renewed at Rochester his ac- quaintance with Elizabeth, daughter of Thomas Bond, a timber merchant in London, and became engaged to her. After some delay caused by the error of an attorney, who had drawn up the settlements with “not less than a dozen capital blunders in them,” they were married at Battersea Church on 23 Sept., 1773. She had a fortune of 8,000l., and her father agreed to pay 501. per annum during his life. In February, 1774, the cou le settled in a small but pleasant house in St. Margaret’ Rochester, and in 1777 Longley purchase? the adjoining house, “forming it into apart- ments for the children.” Even this proved insufficient for his growing family, and in 1784 he-as he subsequently acknowledged, very injudiciously-purchased Satis House, on Bully Hill, in the parish of St. Nicholas, Rochester. This had been the residence of Richard Watts, founder of the hospital, who in it entertained Queen Elizabeth in 1573. Two years, during which Longley altered and enlarged the old house at a cost of 2,000l., passed before he could occupy it. Longley was unanimously elected to tha Recordership of Rochester in 1784. It was in July, 1783, that the conversation recorded in Boswell took place, and I quote the pas- sage, with a preamble that was not given by my late friend Dr. Birkbeck Hill in his edition of Boswell:- “Some time before I left St. Margaret’s 1 became ac uainted with Mr. Bennet Langton, the friend of(l)r. Johnson. The Lincolnshire militia was then in Chatham barracks, in which he had acompan , and he acted besides as an assistant engineer. lie resided at the Vicarage, having brought down