Page:Notes and Queries - Series 12 - Volume 3.djvu/328

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NOTES AND QUERIES. 1123.111

M.P. for Bridport, and Bencher of the Inner Temple. He is drawn to the life in ' The Old Benchers of the Inner Temple,' where there is a reference to the " agreeable seat at North Cray, where he seldom spent above a day or two at a time in the summer." A near neighbour at North Cray was Robert Dingley, of Lamb Abbey, Foots Cray, founder of the Magdalen Hospital.

Hetherington appears to have been uni- versally liked. There is an amusing re- ference to him in one of those hundred or so of wonderful MS. books written by the Rev. William Cole of Milton, the Cambridge antiquary and the friend from their school- days at Eton of Horace Walpole (B.M. MSS. 5848, p. 92) :

" Dr. Ewin calling here this morning June 4.

1777 towards dining at (?) he told me, that

he had heard Dr. Cook* very frequent speak slightingly of Mr. Hetherington Fellow of Eton with Cook, as that he was a good sort of man, but no scholar, of a shallow and moderate under- standing and fit only for little Things : yet the Doctor said, he knew that he was under Obliga- tions to this poor Mr. Hetherington, whose Understanding, Honesty and Integrity is worth a 1000 Times as much as the other's Dirtiness, Artifice, Pedagogy, Provostry and Grammar. When such a worthy Character as that of Mr. Hetherington is brought into the scale with such a Pimp and white-livered Fellow as Cook, the latter sinks into its natural insignificance, weighed down by the preponderating merit of the generous and gentlemanlike Mr. Hetherington. I own I have no patience whence [sic] such dirty Scoundrels to whom it is an Honour to speak attempt by artful Insinuations to lessen the Character of those it is not in the Power of Nature to imitate. Yet this shitten Fellow, on meeting with Mr. Hetherington, is all Flattery and Obeisance to his very Feet. Such is the 'Nature of all Back- biters and Traducers.

" Mr. Bryant told me in July 1780, that Mr. Hetherington left the Bp. of Elyf 200, not out of any Regard to his Character, which he had long had no opinion of, but merely that it might not be thought that ho resented any Part of his Behaviour : it is no wonder that 2 such congenial Spirits are Bp. and Dean of the Same Church : the one loves Flattery, and the other is made to bestow it where he knows that Incense is grate- ful."!

There is naturally a good deal said of Hetherington's goodness in Moore's Funeral Sermon, and the words ring true. We read of his " uncommon chearfulness," his " gaiety of spirit." He had a " happy and

Vice-Chancellor of Cambridge (1773), and Dean of Ely (1780). See ' Dictionary of National Bio- graphy.'
 * Dr. Cooke (1711-07) was Provost of King's,

t Dr. Ednvund Keene, Master of Peterhouse.

t W. Cole, MS., vol. xlvii. Cole had a quarrel with Cooke about the property at Milton, and he elsewhere applies to him various opprobrious epithets. Cf. ' D.N.B.' article on Cole.

equable temperament " and was not easily ruffled. He is Thomas Coventry's " most amiable friend and affectionate kinsman " - T you figure the contrast between the trucu- lent, but good-hearted, Bencher apparently miserly, but not so really,* who to children appeared most terrifying when he tried to be friendly and the gentle country clergy- man with his sympathy and open-handed generosity.

William Hetherington died on Tuesday,f Dec. 1, 1778, aged 80 years. His end was calm and edifying. He prayed for the " Divine blessing on the whole world." The domestics were called together to take leave of their master, and he exhorted them to have peace and love one with another.

The death is noticed in the leading London, papers of Tuesday, Dec. 8, 1778. In addition to the multitude of benefactions made in his lifetime he left " upwards of 100,OOOZ. to charities, friends, and servants." [j

In the course of this short account of Hethermgton frequent reference has been made to the sermon preached at his funeral ; this interesting discourse has supplied several facts and clues. The preacher, the Rev. Thomas Moore, was a former Fellow of Worcester ; he wrote an excellent sermon in the eighteenth-century style stately, well balanced, and leisurely ; it runs to 28 pages, rather larger than those of ' N. & Q.' The text is 1 Chronicles xxix. 28 :

" He died in a good old age, full of days, riches, and honour " ;

and one of the happiest quotations from Scripture is Job xxix. 11-13, 15, 16 :

" When the ear heard me, then it blessed me ; and when the eye saw me, it gave witness to me : because I delivered the poor that cried, and him that had none to help him. The blessing of him that was ready to perish came upon me ; and I caused the widow's heart to sing for joy. . . .1 was eyes to the blind, and feet was I to the lame. I was a father to the poor."

Tombstone inscriptions may occasionally need discounting, but the scanty facts now unearthed from a forgotten past show that William Hetherington's is not exaggerated

30,0007. at once in his lifetime to a blind charity. The actual amount was 10,OC07. South Sea Stock,, given in 1782. It looks as if Lamb had added this to Hetherington's original 20,0007., crediting- Coventry with the whole amount.
 * C. Lamb, ' Old Benchers' : " C. gave away

t London newspapers of Dec. 8, 1778, say '' last Wednesday."

f T. Moore, ' Sermon.'

E.g., Gazetteer and New Daily Advertiser* I. James's Chronicle, General Evening Post.

\\ General Evening Post, Dec. 8, 1778.