and executed by himself. His system of anchoring during the strongest gales, with sometimes three cables on end, was rewarded by the most complete success. During the neap tides, the line of battle ships for the most part rendezvoused at North Yarmouth, by which a saving to his country in wear and tear, and probable loss of ships, was effected to an immense amount. Indeed, while the blockade of the Texel was the most efficient ever known, and was conducted with all the rigidness of a state of bitter warfare, it was marked by instances of the most refined and generous humanity, which procured the respect and esteem of the Dutch Admiral Kictchurt, his officers, and men.

To the qualities of a thorough-bred English seaman, with the science of an able naval tactician, he added the nicest and highest sense of honour, and the manners and urbanity of a courtier. He was brave, generous, and humane.

Admiral Russell's death took place suddenly, in his carriage, at Great Canford, near Poole, on the 22d of July, 1824.

181

No. XIII.

THE REV. THOMAS MAURICE, M. A.

ASSISTANT KEEPER OF THE MSS. IN THE BRITISH MUSEUM; AND VICAR OF CUDHAM, KENT, AND WORMLEIGHTON, WARWICKSHIRE.

MR. MAURICE has been his own biographer. From his well-written and very amusing memoirs, most of the following particulars of him are gleaned; to which are added such others as we have been enabled to collect.

The family of Maurice is of high Cambrian origin, and allied to the ancient princes of Powis. The pedigree of Maurice shows its descent in a regular line from the celebrated chief Einion, who ranks at the head of one of the five royal tribes of Wales. That branch from which our author descended settled at Whittington in Shropshire. His grandfather, Thomas Maurice, Esq., was the younger brother of Edward Maurice, Esq., of Lloran and Pen-y-bont. This Thomas Maurice having received the fortune of a younger brother, and having increased it by a marriage with the daughter of John Trevor, Esq., of Oswestry, towards the close of the seventeenth century, settled as a merchant in London, but was ruined by the South Sea bubble in 1721. He had three children, Thomas (father of our author), brought up to succeed him in his own line, Peter, and John.

Thomas (the father of Mr. Maurice) was articled to a West India merchant, made several voyages to the West Indies, and settled in Jamaica. The climate not agreeing with him, after three years he returned to England; and being accomplished in mathematical sciences, he opened an academy

at Clapham, where he married an elderly lady with some property. In 1737, by the interest of Sir John Bernard, then Lord Mayor, he was elected by the governors of Christ's Hospital head-master of their establishment at Hertford; (whither he carried with him his private pupils,) and held that situation twenty-six years. His character for humanity and integrity is recorded in the annals of that noble institution. Late in life, having become a widower, he married a very young woman, (who had been the companion of his first wife,) by whom he had six children; the eldest (the subject of this article), and one brother, William *, alone reached maturity. The father died in 1763, leaving every thing he possessed to his young widow. She seems to have been an affectionate mother, but was subject to low spirits, and occasional fits of derangement. Unfortunately she became entangled with the Methodists, and after some little time was persuaded to marry an Irish preacher, named Joseph Wright. Her new husband used her shamefully; she was got away from him; but the law expences in Chancery swallowed up the little fortunes of herself and her children.

T

On the death of his father, the subject of this memoir was first sent to Christ's Hospital; but his health declining, he was removed, in about a year and a half, to an academy at Ealing, then kept by Mr. Pearse, and now flourishing under the superintendence of the Rev. Dr. Nicholas. Thence he was sent, in consequence of his mother's attachment to Methodism, to the "Athens of Wesleyan Literature, in the neighbourhood of Bristol." His next preceptor was Mr. Bradley, a learned orthodox clergyman, near London. His original destination, the church, being now considered impracticable, he was placed in the chambers of Mr. Brown, of the Inner Temple, preparatory to the study of the law. But instead of writing notes on Coke and Blackstone, he was engaged in the study of Ovid and Tibullus, or Shakspeare and Milton.

This gentleman was afterwards a respectable surgeon at Welwyn, and died a few years since.

"It was about this period," says Mr. Maurice," that the Rev. Samuel Parr, a name that will ever be dear to me to the last moment of my existence, having, with glaring injustice, been refused the substantial claim which his education on the spot, his profound erudition, and the very statutes of the founder, gave him of succeeding his friend and patron Dr. Sumner, in the head-mastership of Harrow, opened a school on the neighbouring hill of Stanmore, to which he was followed by a large portion (about forty) of the scholars, whose fathers, thinking him illiberally treated by the governors, encouraged him to commence the hazardous undertaking. At my request he was written to by my guardian, and was informed of the accumulated misfortunes that had overwhelmed my youth, and had obstructed my progress in literature. This did not fail deeply to interest in my favour a heart warm and benevolent as his own, and laid the foundation of that friendship which now for above forty years, I exult to say, has subsisted between us with unimpaired vigour. His reply was in the usual manner of that gentleman, prompt, ardent, and energetic. A meeting was instantly appointed, at which I was neither terrified by his quick penetrating glance, nor dismayed by the awful magnitude of his overshadowing wig. I felt, however, degraded in the presence of so great a scholar; I repeated the tale of my early calamities; and ingenuously acknowledged my profound ignorance. His answers were in a high degree candid and consoling; and having been shown some specimens of my poetic talent, he honoured them with a gratifying, but guarded eulogy."

Too much praise cannot be given to the liberality of Dr. Parr on this occasion, who benevolently received Mr. Maurice under his protection, directed his studies, with what success will subsequently appear, and supported him, though with slender appearances of receiving an adequate remuneration. The affection between these learned men continued till death divided them. Dr. Parr ever considered Thomas Maurice as his admired pupil and highly-esteemed friend; and Mr. Mau

rice ever entertained for the Doctor (as we have above seen) the deepest gratitude and sincerest affection.

At Dr. Parr's, young Maurice, though a junior boy, associated with companions of considerable talents and matured intellect; this was to advance in knowledge. Pre-eminent among these worthies of Stanmore, were William Julius, the Captain, and Walter Pollard, excellent scholars, natives of the tropic, "souls made of fire, and children of the sun;" the latter of whom was Mr. Maurice's confidential friend through life; Monsey Alexander, a very good scholar, and Mr. Maurice's most intimate friend at Oxford; the incomparable scholar, Joseph Gerald; and the two ingenious sons of Dr. Graham of Netherby. These eminent young men assisted Maurice in his studies; and the Archdidaskolos himself condescended to indulge him with private instructions.

At the age of nineteen, Mr. Maurice was entered at St. John's College, Oxford; and in about a year afterwards removed to University College, under the tuition of the present Lord Stowell.

Whilst at the University, he cultivated his poetic talents. "I began my career in life," says Mr. Maurice, "as a poet, and my publications in that line were honoured with no inconsiderable share of the public approbation; the literary public I mean, as of my principal work, the translation of the noblest tragedy of Sophocles, they alone could be competent judges. The history of their composition forms, indeed, an essential part of the history of my own life, with which, in its early periods, they are inseparably connected." "The warm commendations of a Johnson, a Parr, and a Jones, with which my translation of the Edipus Tyrannus was honoured, have excited in me hopes that it will not wholly be doomed to oblivion.".

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Among the poems published about this time, besides his translation of the Edipus Tyrannus, were "The SchoolBoy, a Poem, written in Imitation of the Splendid Shilling," 4to. 1775; "The Oxonian," a poem, which accurately described the scenes then too prevalent in that now reformed