Page:Notes and Queries - Series 12 - Volume 8.djvu/353

 12 s. VIIL APBIL 9, i92i.j NOTES AND QUERIES. 287 and, shortly afterwards, ' Self-Entertain- aiient ' * on the world, dedicating the latter to the Chancellor (B.M., Add. MSS. 35,591, folios 156, 159, 168, 171, 192, 217). But some hitch occurred, whether of excess of importunity or of indiscretion,! and by Aug. 3 he was back in Toft (Whatley to Hardwicke, Toft, Aug. 3,^1751, B.M., Add. MSS. 35,591, folio 217). From this point of time his- history is a blank until 1765, in the autumn of which, approaching seventy-five years of age he took for the sake of his health an " Ellip- tical Tour," "a circuit of 300 miles ride, passing through Lincoln, Nottingham, Derby- shire, Leicestershire, Bedford, Buckingham, Hertfordshire, Middlesex, London where he visited Dr. Birch J Welwyn recalling the lately deceased Young to mind Cambridge and Buckden where he stayed with his "antient Friend," the Master of Peterhouse, and the Bishop of Lincoln Tespectively and ending with Stamford and Cranwell, the last-named belonging to his friend, Sir John Thprold, Bart. (Whatley to Thomas Birch, Toft, Dec. 24, 1765, B.M., Acid. MSS. 4,321, folio 235). He and uninteresting environment, but " the air [of the tour]. . . .has given me new Spirits " (ibidem}. In June, 1767, he died and was buried on the 26th. Of Whatley 's friends we are able to cite ^Edward Gibson, Bishop of London ("the Great Bishop Gibson, who condescended, occasionally, to enliven it [Toft] with his epistolary favours "),|| Arthur Onslow, Speaker of the House of Commons ("the late Speaker .... whom I love and honour above all men. having known him now above 50 years "),<; "the famous" John Hardwire of the 23rd of May (B.M., Add. MSS. 35,591, folio 192). t So one might gather from the correspondence, or else he was played with and refused. 8 Information from the Toft Parish Registers kindly supplied by the Rev. F. H. Roach, the present Rector of 'Toft with Newton. His suc- cessor as Rector George Bassett. LL.B. was instituted on October the 16th (Public Record Office, Exchequer, First-Fruits and Tenths Office, Bishops' Certificates of Institution, Lin- coln 31) and as Prebendary William Abbott- on the 20th (Public Record Office, ibidem, York 40, where he appears as " Whartley," Le Neve, op. Git., vol. iii., p. 188;. !! Whatley to Birch, Toft, Dec. 24, 1765 (B.M., Add. MSS. 4,321, folio 235). Berridge,* Edmund Law, Master of Peter- house and later Bishop of Carlisle,! John Ward, Professor of Rhetoric at Gresham College (" Beloved friend of antient standing iTur. years "),* Pierre Desmaizeaux, the editor, and F.R.S., Thomas Birch, Fellow and Secretary of the Royal Society and F.S.A. ("my worthy, much beloved and much respected Friend "),|| Sir John Thorold, Bart., of Marston and Cranwell in Lincoln- shire, and Edward Young the poet, with whom Whatley "had spent so many agre- able hours, "^f and who in like manner died but a parish priest. Birch was a protege of the Hardwickes, and it was possibly in this way that Whatley climbed on to the Chancellor's knees. Of this restricted list, Law was a notorious Latitudinarian, Ward a Dissenter, Birch of Quaker parentage and Berridge an associate of Whitfield and Wesley, while King himself had commenced life as a Presby- terian. ** Two references to hearing Xewton express a certain opiniontf might lead one to conclude that Whatley could claim acquain- tance with him, a supposition confirmed if the 'Memoirs of the late Lord Chancellor King, and Sir Isaac Newton, chiefly taken from their own Conversation,' announced as forthcoming on p. [viii] of the ' Short His- tory,' be by his hand, ij Finally, as to his works, Whatley appears also to have been author of ' A Speech, Design' cl to have been spoken in the House of Commons, 011 the Resolution concerning the Terms of Peace. To which is prefix' d, an Introductory Preface ' ( 1 7 1 5 ). ( " Out of Print," 'A Letter to the L. and C.,' p. [56]), while p. 67 of ' Self -Entertainment ' promises us for " next winter " ' The Divine Oeconomy of the Human Mind,' but neither appears under his name in the Bodleian or in the Museum's catalogue. C. S. B. BUCKLAND. j Whatley to Ward, London, Feb. 23, 1751 (B.M., Add. MSS. 6,211, folio 178). Whatley to Desmaizeaux, Toft, Dec. 29, 1744 (B.M., Add. MSS. 4,289, folio 1). (B.M. Add. MSS. 4,321, folio 235). T Ibidem. gian of an anti-Papal trend. ft ' Self-Entertainments,' p. 53 note, Whatley to Birch, Toft, Dec. 24, 1765 (B.M., Add. MSS. 4,321, folio 235). Jt The announcement is anonymous, but no other works but Whatley's were advertized in his various pamphlets. Tt is not known whether the book ever appeared. Jijf A copy is preserved in the John Rylands Library, Manchester.
 * and six weekes complete Continuance,"
 * till complains of his "abstract. .Solitude "
 * Whatley enclosed a copy in his letter to
 * October.
 * Ibidem.
 * Ibidem. t Ibidem.
 * Whatley to Birch, Toft, Dec. 24, 1765
 * Sir John Thorold was himself a minor theolo-