roughs,* who with his brethren was introduced by the Right Honourable the Lord Viscount Townshend, one of his Majesty's principal Secretaries of State. His Majesty was pleased to receive them very graciously; and they all had the honour to kiss his Majesty's hand.

Soon after this, Gibraltart was besieged. Many were weakly apprehensive it was designed to be given up, though nothing of that nature appears intended. Succours were sent, and the garrison defended themselves with great courage and bravery. The assailants made little impression.

March 20. Died Sir Isaac Newton,‡ the glory of

own felicity; more reformed from public threatening vices; and more united than ever, in piety to God, in loyalty to their prince, in liberty to serve their country, and in mutual affection one to another."

His Majesty was pleased to return a gracious answer in these words:

"I thank you for this dutiful and loyal Address. This seasonable instance of your zeal for my person and government, cannot but be very acceptable to me. You may depend upon my continued protection."-C.

*Minister" fifty-two years, to the general Baptist congregation, Barbican," till his decease, 1761, aged seventy-six; "through life the steady friend of liberty and free enquiry, and the strenuous promoter of the common interests of religion." See Dr. Toulmin's Neul, 1. p. xxvi. note.-ED.

+ See supra, p. 485.-ED.

Several of his Letters to Locke, never before printed, have been lately published by Lord King, from the Originals. supra, p. 443, note.-ED.

See

his country, for his exquisite skill in natural philosophy, and the mathematical sciences. He left the world in the eighty-fifth year of his age, and was buried in Westminster Abbey.

March 21. Died Mr. William Tong,* of Salter's Hall. Mr. John Newman,† co-pastor of his congregation, thenceforward had the sole care of it; and his son was chosen assistant. In the Tuesday lecture, he was succeeded by Mr. William Harris.

June 3. His Majesty went again for Hanover, and left all easy at home. 14. A messenger arrived, express, with the melancholy news that he departed this life, the 11th, about three in the morning, at Osnaburgh, being carried off by an apoplectic fit, in the sixty-eighth year of his age, and the thirteenth of his reign. His Majesty was much indisposed after landing in Holland, Tuesday, June 6, through the fatigue of his passage by sea. But, being desirous to finish his journey, without making any considerable stay by the way, he travelled after the rate of one hundred and fifty miles a day, without regular rest, or refreshment. Thursday, he was ill again, and ate his dinner heartily, but afterwards grew very ill, and was unhappily blooded upon the

* See Appendix, No. 1.—ED.

+ "Who delivered to crowded audiences, long and laboured sermons, without any assistance from notes, He died 1741, aged sixty-four, while in full reputation and usefulness, much missed and lamented." See Dr. Toulmin's Neal, 1, p. xxv. note.-ED.

road. Saturday, he reached Osnaburgh, where he died, at the palace of his brother, the Duke of York, and (as it was said,) in the very room in which he was born.

reason.

His death was much lamented, and not without Never was a Prince known, more intent upon making all his subjects easy and happy.* He often troubled his Parliaments about the Pretender and his designs. But that must be ascribed to the management of those that were at helm, in the reign of his predecessor. His will was never published, which is ascribed to several causes, though most of them are mere conjectures. How matters really stood between his Majesty and the Duchess of Kendal,† must and will remain, for the most part, a secret, until the great ones are pleased to make discoveries.

The following anecdote agreeably represents this Prince, as seeking to make himself "happy," by a laudable attention to intellectual improvement.

"It was the custom of George I. to unbend his mind, in the evening, by collecting together a company of philosophical foreigners, who discoursed in an easy and familiar manner, with each other, entirely unrestrained by the presence of his Majesty, who generally walked about, or sat in a retired part of the chamber." See "Mem. of Berkeley," (1784) p. 21, note.—Ed.

"Whom the King delighted to honour." For the gradations of rank which George I. in this case, had created by royal prerogative, not unlike his cousin, Charles II., to augment and adorn the British Peerage, see Chron. Hist. ii. 65, 91.

On "matters between his Majesty and the Duchess of Ken

CHAPTER X.

1727-1731.

Hints relating both to public and private matters in the Reign of King George the Second.

.

SIR Robert Walpole, who received the express, by the messenger, of the death of King George I. as he was at Chelsea, went away immediately, to the Prince and Princess at Richmond; and so made his court, that he continued in the same degree of favour with the son, as he enjoyed under the father, if not greater. dal," Dr. Calamy appears doubtful and mysterious, and, probably, "the great ones" never ventured" to make discoveries." This Duchess had occupied, for several years, in the favour of George I. the place early left vacant by his repudiated cousin and consort, (See supra, p. 288, note,) with whom he had acquired the Dukedom of Zell. She has been described as a lady equally virtuous and unfortunate." See " Biog. Hist." iii. 3, 5. "Nov. 2, 1726. Sophia Dorothea, Queen of Great Britain, died at the Castle of Ahlen, in the Electorate of Hanover, where she had been confined for many years." Chron. Hist. ii. 168. Whether this Princess, here mocked with the style of royalty, as if to dignify the prison and the grave, had suffered a durance of thirty years, (the reputed number,) under the law of the strongest, or under a "righteous judgment," has been disputed. Time, by which truth is not seldom "brought to light," notwithstanding the courtly reserve of "the great ones," may possibly discover this among " the hidden things of darkness."-ED.

The Prince and Princess came from Richmond to Leicester House, the place where they, for some time, had most usually resided, whither the Lords of the Privy Council were summoned that evening, for signing the proclamation, as was usual at the beginning of a new reign, for declaring his Royal Highness the Prince of Wales, King of these realms, by the name of King George II.

His Majesty made a gracious declaration in Council that evening, upon the sudden alteration that had happened, and the next day was proclaimed, with solemnity; first, in the Court before Leicester House, and in Leicester Square, and, afterwards, both in Westminster, and in the City of London, at the usual places. Both Houses of Parliament met the same day, and the members took the oaths to the new King, and were by commission prorogued to June 27, at which time his Majesty made a speech to his two Houses, and all things went on smoothly as before, and with general satisfaction.

Upon this sudden change, addresses soon came in from all parts, in abundance, and it was no small pleasure to the hearty lovers of their country, to see the son so peaceably settled on his father's throne, without the least opposition or disturbance. Among the rest that mingled their sorrow and joy upon the occasion, the body of the Dissenting Ministers of the three denominations, in and about the cities of London and Westminster, attended at Court, July 4, with an humble address to his Majesty. They were