M

ARCHBISHOP HORT.

1673-1751.]

ARSHFIELD, situated on the South Cotswolds at the

lower extremity of our county, and possessing in its ancient church, old chapels, endowed schools, almshouses, weekly markets, annual fairs, and other buildings and institutions, all the characteristic features of an old English town, was the birthplace of JOSIAH HORT, an Archbishop of the Irish Established Church, who was born February 2, 1673. He was the son of a Nonconformist gentleman named John Hort, who, after sending him to a Grammar School in Bristol, placed him for higher education, especially the study of philosophy, at the academy of Mr. Thomas Rowe, where Dr. Isaac Watts, one year his junior, was among his fellowstudents. This was probably followed by some special training for the ministry, and in course of time, it is said, he became pastor of the Nonconformist chapel in his native town.

In this position he does not seem to have continued long. Under some influences, which we cannot now trace, he resolved to enter the Established Church. Respectable as was the course of study pursued by young Nonconformists at their academies, yet they could not but feel how much they lost by their unjust exclusion from the national universities, and, doubtless, in some instances, ecclesiastical predilections were sacrificed to ardent longings for higher educational advantages. It might have been so with Hort; at all events he went to pursue further studies at Clare Hall, Cambridge.

In 1705 he was admitted into priest's orders by Dr. Patrick, Bishop of Ely, in whose diocese he held a donative.

parish for some time, till by the favour of Lord Chancellor Cooper he was instituted to the vicarage of Windsor. On the appointment of the Marquis of Wharton to the Lord Lieutenancy of Ireland, in 1709, Hort accompanied him as domestic chaplain to Dublin.

From this period his advancement is dated, his patron soon conferring on him a benefice in the diocese of Meath. The patronage being disputed he received no profits from it for seven years; but compensation was afforded by his appointment in 1718, by Lord Bolton, who had become Lord Lieutenant, to the rectory of Lowth, and the deanery of Cloyne. In 1720 he was made dean of Ardagh, and by the favour of another Lord Lieutenant-the Duke of Grafton-he was raised in less than a year to the bishopric of Ferns and Leighlin. This he held for six years, when he was translated by Lord Carteret to the sees of Kilmore and Ardagh. During the sixteen years of his episcopacy here he spent large sums in beautifying the church of Kilmore, improving the episcopal house, and making gardens and plantations.

He was nearing the seventieth year of his age, when, in January 1742, he was elevated to the Archbishopric of Tuam, one of the four Archbishoprics into which the Irish Established Church was then divided. In addition to this high and lucrative office he had license to retain the see of Ardagh in commendam: an arrangement which led to the sees being ever afterwards holden together.

His death at the age of seventy-eight, occurred December 14, 1751. He was buried in St. George's Chapel, a small and now little-used church, near Mountjoy Square, Dublin, where a monument to his memory bears a highly eulogistic inscription. Lodge's "Peerage of Ireland" gives a long account of the Archbishop's wife, who was a sister of the first Earl of Kerry. Among his descendants are Dr. Hort, of Trinity College, Cambridge, one of the Bible Revision Committee and Sir William F. G. Hort, Bart., of Kilkenny.

Among the Archoishop's published works is one entitled

"Instructions to the Clergy of the Diocese of Tuam." This, which was his primary charge delivered in 1742, has been so highly approved as to have been reprinted several times by his college at Cambridge. He also published a Thanksgiving sermon in 1707; a Visitation sermon in 1709: an Episcopal charge in 1731; and a Volume of discourses in 1738. He was a lover of Church music, and presented Tuam Cathedral with an organ.

There is now a proposal to erect a window to his memory in the Cathedral of his diocese, and it is hoped the project will shortly be carried into effect.

DR. JAMES BRADLEY, F.R.S.

[1692-1762.]

Thou hast measured the belt of Saturn, thou hast weighed the moons of Jupiter,

And seen, by reason's eye, the centre of thy globe;

Subtly hast thou numbered by billions the leagues between sun and

sun,

And noted in thy book the coming of their shadows;

With marvellous unerring truth, thou knowest to an inch and to an instant

The where and the when of the comet's path that shall seem to rush by at thy command."

A

-Martin Tupper.

STRONOMY, treating of the greatest material works of the Creator, may well hold the first place as the noblest of physical sciences. In the extent of its observations and the vastness of its discoveries no other study can compare with it; nor does any other inquiry make such high demands upon man's mental faculties. To devise means whereby the heavenly bodies may be traced in their courses involves efforts of sublimest genius: while the use of these methods calls for the exercise of equal intellectual power. Qualities of the highest order are, therefore, required for its pursuit; and as knowledge of its stupendous truths is gained, the mind of its student becomes enlarged and elevated.

It is no wonder, then, that popular imagination invests the astronomer with somewhat of that glory which pertains to the objects of his contemplation; and that around the names. of the great students of this science there beams a halo of celestial brightness. Grouped in the firmament of human knowledge they form its most glorious constellation; and where Copernicus and Tycho Brahe, Keplar and Galileo,

Newton, the Herschells, and others shine as stars of the first magnitude, there our own eminent countyman, JAMES BRADLEY, fills a conspicuous place.

The Bradleys, from whom this remarkable man descended, were a branch of a family originally seated at Bradley Castle, in the county of Durham. When, and under what circumstances, they came into Gloucestershire, cannot be told. It is also uncertain where they first settled. The birthplace of James has been thought doubtful; the honour having been claimed for two rural parishes on the Cotswolds. One of these is the pleasant village of Hampnett, the source of the river Lech, about a mile north-west of the little town of Northleach. That his parents resided there for several years, and that some of their children were born in that parish there can be no doubt. The Rev. W. Wiggin, M.A., the present rector, in reply to some inquiries, courteously writes:

"I have gone very carefully twice through the register of this parish, from the year 1680 to the year 1710, and can only find the following entries; alas! none of James Bradley :

Elenor, daughter of William Bradley, yeoman, and Jane, his wife, born 28th December, baptised 6th January, 1680.

John, born 16th July, baptised 24th July, 1682.

Mary, born 18th August, baptised 2nd September, 1684."

It would appear that after this date the family removed to the pretty village of Sherborne, lying on the banks of the Windrush, three miles east of Northleach, the register of that parish containing an entry of the baptism of William, son of William Bradley and Jane, his wife, July 27th, 1689. Most accounts give March, 1692, as the date at which James was born, and Sherborne as the place of his nativity. But as "there is a long gap in the register between 1690 to 1703,” no record of his birth or baptism can be found. For this omission in the parish records, the Rev. H. Madan Pratt, M.A., the present vicar, who has obligingly furnished these particulars, says he cannot at all account. That Sherborne was the birthplace of the future Astronomer Royal cannot be reasonably disputed.