with great care to fix the subjects and the books, and the measure of proficiency in the classical languages and the abstract sciences, as in their judgment the most proper to fit the applicant to enter with advantage on the College course, and to graduate with the highest credit and honour. Of the Glasgow College committee, on whom these important duties devolved, Mr. Aspland was long an active and efficient member. He took his share with his colleagues in the deliberations on the difficult question of the literary qualifications, and, while his health permitted, attended the examinations of the candidates for admission, intended to test their proficiency.

"The schools founded by Dr. Williams in Wales for the instruction of the children of the poor are comparatively humble institutions; but, in the state of education in the Principality, have been productive of much good. Mr. Aspland was a member of the committee having the more immediate charge of these seminaries. The object was one in which he felt a lively interest, and he took pleasure in watching over their management and promoting their efficiency. When the Trustees, in order to acquaint themselves with their actual condition, and to ascertain of what improvement they might be susceptible, appointed a deputation to visit and inspect them, Mr. Aspland was selected as one of the number. On this occasion I had the pleasure of being one of his associates, the other being our mutual friend Mr. James Esdaile. With that deference to his judgment and experience in such matters which was justly his due, we appointed him the Chairman of the deputation, and committed to him the chief labour of the examination of the scholars, and we had reason to be well pleased with the kindness and the efficiency with which he acquitted himself.

"It is scarcely necessary to descend into further details of the Trust business to shew with what zeal and fidelity Mr. Aspland discharged the duties of his office. It will suffice to add, that in all other matters under the administration of the managers, such as the selection of books on practical theology for distribution, the advancement of the Dissenting interest in Wales by the appointment of ministers to special services in particular localities, or in dispensing occasional assistance to poor ministers and ministers' widows, he was always ready to aid by his presence and his counsel, and to contribute his share of labour to accomplish to the utmost practicable extent the benevolent purposes contemplated by the founder of the Trust.

"In preparing this summary, I feel very sensibly that I have been able to convey but a very imperfect impression of the nature, extent and importance of Mr. Aspland's services in the administration of Dr. Williams's charities. Enough has, however, been said to render it apparent, that he devoted to them large portions of his time and energies; whilst his excellent understanding, his sound judgment and his philanthropic spirit, imparted to the whole singular value and efficiency.

"I cannot conclude this retrospect without expressing the gratification I experienced in being associated with my ever-esteemed and much-lamented friend in the discharge of common duties throughout the whole period of his connection with the Trust. During this long interval we were engaged in many important discussions in which differences of opinion might naturally occur; but on no occasion was the harmony of our feelings towards one another in the least degree disturbed, nor our friendly attachment-anterior in its origin to that of our professional career and official connection-ever for a single instant interrupted.

"Believe me to remain, my dear Sir, most truly yours,

"Rev. R. B. Aspland.”

THOMAS REES.

In the Centenary Oration already referred to, it was declared with great truth and with becoming pride, that "no Trust was ever dis

charged with more care, or applied with more disinterested fidelity to fulfil the intentions of the founder, than that of Dr. Williams."*

A circumstance may be mentioned in this connection which will illustrate the delicate sense of honour which actuated Mr. Aspland in the use of the patronage which belonged to the Trust. In the year 1819, his eldest son commenced the more public part of his education for the Christian ministry, and Glasgow was the University selected for him. There were more bursaries than one to be allotted that year by the Trustees, and his colleagues expressed their more than willingness to assign one to his son. He felt, however, an invincible reluctance to permit funds in the management of which he had a share to be applied to his own benefit, and he provided from his own means for his son's residence at Glasgow. The self-denial was enhanced by the fact that at this period he had to bear the charge of educating seven or eight of his children.

To the purity of the administration of their office by the existing generation of Dr. Williams's Trustees and their immediate predecessors, remarkable testimony was lately borne by one in high legal station. In 1843, as one of the consequences of the decision, adverse to the Unitarians, of the suit respecting Lady Hewley's Trust, an information was filed against the Trustees of Dr. Williams by a solicitor who had been engaged for orthodox parties in the Hewley case. The suit was subsequently stayed by the order of Sir Frederick Pollock, the AttorneyGeneral, in whose name the proceedings were necessarily taken. In 1846, the Attorney-General (Sir Frederick Thesiger) summoned to his chambers the counsel and solicitors of the Relators in the suit, and also the solicitor of the Trustees; and after listening to an argument protracted to a late hour at night, in which the respective law-agents contended for and against the renewal of the proceedings against the Trustees, he determined that his sanction as Attorney-General should be withdrawn from the Relators. The ground on which he gave his official protection to the Trustees was, that they had well and faithfully administered the Trust, and in all respects conformed to the wishes of the Founder. He did not think the suit, in the altered state of the law, a proper one, and refused to expose the charity to litigation and loss merely on account of the personal religious opinions of the Trustees. Mr. Aspland did not live to receive this disinterested and significant testimony to the integrity of the Trust. The suit occasioned him some anxious hours during the last two years of his life, and he

* Dr. Lindsay eloquently added, "If that Founder could have foreseen that men who were to be the ornaments of science as well as religion-the Chandlers and Kippises, the Prices and Priestleys, the Reeses and Belshams of the coming age, the future champions of that learning and freedom which he loved-if he could have foreseen that such men would have given their time and labour to promote the objects of his piety, it would have added one delightful feeling more to those which must have passed through his mind in contemplating the probable effects of his own beneficence."

†The same difficulty did not apply to his son's subsequent admission to the College at York. Then Mr. Aspland gratefully accepted the offer of the Trustees, conveyed to him in terms of marked kindness, to place his son as a student on the foundation.

See the proceedings as reported in the Record and Inquirer newspapers, March, 1846.

solaced himself during a portion of his long confinement to the house by studying whatever threw light on the principles and opinions of Dr. Daniel Williams, of the Trustees named in his will, and of their immediate successors.

One of the few rewards of his Trusteeship was the occasional society of his colleagues in office. Four times a year the Trustees, in accordance with the directions of their Founder, assembled round a table spread with plain yet substantial hospitality. That frugal table had, however, attractions of the best kind;-knowledge and strong intellectual power generally, and sometimes eloquence and wit, seasoned the conversation of the guests. The party assembled in the principal room of the Library, which is hung round with portraits of Nonconformist worthies. Earlier in the century, before fashion had put aside all distinctions of costume, venerable divines in state-wigs and the other insignia of the clerical dress, and aged gentlemen in the becoming costume of a former generation, sat near the head of the table, and equalled, if they did not surpass, in dignity the figures which looked down upon them from the surrounding canvas. With stately grace did Dr. Abraham Rees preside over these simple banquets: his powers of conversation were great. On one side of him would sit Dr. Lindsay, on whom Nature had been prodigal in its gifts, and who to a noble person added the endowments of a powerful and cultivated mind. On the other side might be seen Mr. Belsham, whose manners were those of the gentleman, as his conversation was that of the scholar and the wit. Not unfrequently some interesting stranger, a scholar, or a traveller from abroad, or some valued friend of religious liberty-Dr. Parr, Mr. Everett, Mr. William Smith or Mr. G. W. Wood-was an invited guest.

From a manuscript book in Mr. Aspland's hand, dated 1821, are taken the following notes of a conversation, which may serve as a specimen of the table-talk of Dr. Williams's Library:

"Jan. 11, 1821.-Dr. Rees related the pleasant meetings of a Club which used to meet at the London Coffee-house, of which Dr. Franklin was a member. Every thing new in the Royal Society was there talked of. Dr. F. was the life of the Club; but when a stranger was introduced was always mute. On the breaking out of the American war, the Club became political: this lessened its usefulness; but the first news of proceedings in America were there to be learned.

"Dr. Franklin was exceedingly fond of the air-bath, i.e. of stripping himself and sitting in a strong current of air. Dr. Heberden once told him that he went beyond him in this way; for he not only sate unclothed in a draught, but took a pitcher of water and threw it up to the ceiling, and let it fall on his body.

"Mr. Belsham.-Dr. Franklin was sceptical. He told Dr. Priestley that he had never fairly studied the evidences of Christianity, and lamented that, owing to his having in early life been accustomed to hear Christianity ridiculed, he was never able to bring himself to study it seriously. Dr. Kippis and Dr. Harris always looked on Dr. F. with suspicion.

"Dr. Rees.-But Dr. Priestley idolized him. Dr. Kippis knew little of the world; Dr. Harris differed from Dr. F. in his politics. The truth lay between

the two.

"Dr. Rees talked on his favourite subject of the safety of the middle path. He reminded Mr. Belsham that, in company with Dr. Price once, he (Mr. B.) had asserted that he was a middle man; upon which Dr. P. replied, 'If you be in the middle, I can point out one extreme; but where is the other?'

"Mr. Le Breton told of a late pleasantry at the Westminster school. There was a question (debated in Latin) concerning the morality of the Romans who killed Julius Cæsar, and it was said, 'Nec male fecerunt, nec bene fecerunt, sed interfecerunt.' What was the meaning of inter in this word? We had medley in a similar sense.

"Mr. Belsham.-Chance-medley is accidental homicide.

"Dr. Rees expatiated on his Arian views. He believed in the pre-existence of Christ-a distinguished spiritual being in a former state, perhaps this world, before the revolutions that preceded what is called the creation. The spiritual nature took the place of a human soul at generation. All souls preexisted.

"Mr. Belsham would probably agree with the Dr. if he knew his meaning. "Both Dr. Rees and Mr. Belsham eulogized Bishop Pearce as a commentator. His exposition of our Lord's saying to Mary, 'Touch me not,' was quoted with approbation. But Mr. Belsham said that Mr. Wakefield held the Bishop cheap as a biblical critic.

"Dr. Rees complained jocosely of the precipitancy of theological inquirers, who would not stop at the right point. Mr. Belsham replied, that he had been in the Dr.'s favourite mean for twenty years, which he thought quite long enough to remain in Arianism.

"Thomas Lord Lyttelton.-Dr. T. Rees inquired after the account of his death. Mr. Belsham was last week in company with a person who lived with him at the time of his death, which really took place as related. He had the day before made a brilliant speech in the House of Lords, and the excitement brought his brain into a morbid state. He was both superstitious and profligate.

"Mr. Parkes.-He had debauched two of his cousins.

"Dr. Rees.-He once told Dr. Priestley that they were agreed on the subject of a future life. The Dr. said, No; quite the contrary. His Lordship denied an hereafter; he believed in it on the testimony of Divine Revelation. Yes, said his Lordship, granting Divine Revelation, I believe in it too.

"On some observations of mine in censure of the Morning Chronicle and of Mr. Perry's degeneracy as a politician and writer, Mr. Belsham said, 'I was as bad as Mr. Jekyll, who had observed that he (Mr. J.) was a Whig, but not a Perry-Whig!'

"Dr. Rees recurred to the story of his having been forbidden, through Dr. Stanier Clarke, the librarian to Carlton House, to dedicate the Cyclopædia to the present King (see Mon. Repos. XV. 704), and of his having communicated with the Duke of Kent upon the subject, who expressed his conviction that his Majesty knew nothing of the matter-he, unlike his father, George III., being accustomed to leave matters to his secretaries—and promised that he would, on a fitting opportunity, mention the affair to the King. (The Duke attributed the prohibition to Clarke's bigotry; Dr. Rees attributes it to something personal growing out of the Cyclopædia.) The pretence of refusal was, that his Majesty must not be made responsible for the contents of so multifa rious a work as the Cyclopædia; but on this the Duke of Kent remarked, that the plea was idle, for no one held even Dr. Rees, the editor, responsible for every article. The Dr. says he told the Duke that he should have liked to dedicate the work to him, but his (the Duke's) political opinions were so objectionable at Court. His Royal Highness assented, and stated that he should have been a candidate for the Presidency of the Royal Society, on the late vacancy by the death of Sir Joseph Banks, if he had not been enjoined to the contrary from Carlton House.

"At Library, Redcross Street, meeting of Book Committee, in conversation on brother F.'s plan of turning bookseller, Dr. Rees said that Dr. Chandler had been bookseller in London while minister at Peckham, and that he was in trade when he was chosen to the Old Jewry. He published his own answer to Collins, who used to frequent his shop."

Few men have through life more enjoyed the best pleasures of social intercourse than the subject of this Memoir. His powers of conversation were considerable; his animal spirits were seldom surpassed; he was quick in reading the character of a new associate, and equally happy in bringing out both its eccentric and its better qualities; he had humour himself and elicited it from others. In the not unimportant social art of story-telling he was sufficiently happy; and they that have listened with pleasure to his details of his early life, and his sketches of the religious world, will remember how racy was his style, and how successful he was in making his points. His happiest efforts in this way were over his pipe, of which he made almost a dramatic use, and tantalized the curiosity of his friends by a pause and an elaborate puff of tobacco whenever he approached the turning point of the story. If he occupied more than a proportionate share of the talk, it was usually freely granted to him by his associates. Of coxcombry and affectation and silliness he was markedly intolerant, and could in a very few minutes relieve a party from a tedious infliction of folly and vanity, by providing a bridle for the ass, and a rod for the fool's back. If in his presence a corrupt sentiment was uttered, or a base action applauded, the offender was reminded of his transgression against good morals with such decision, yet with so much personal presence and dignity, that defence was commonly felt to be vain.

Mr. Aspland made little use of the opportunities which his vicinity to the metropolis and his social position afforded him, of entering into merely literary or political coteries. He had nothing of the now fashionable taste for lionizing. Unless he found in a companion intellectual, moral and social sympathies, he cared nothing for him as an object of any kind of celebrity. Although he had some literary friends whom he greatly valued, such as Anna Maria Porter, George Dyer, Mr. Rutt and Dr. Bowring, he did not think the habits of the literary class favourable to the cultivation of the finest moral qualities. In some instances which fell under his own personal observation, he saw that celebrity was fatal to religious sincerity, and that the admiration of the world darkened the moral vision and enfeebled the courage of men who in youth gave promise of better things.

It was once observed to the writer by a friend who often met Mr. Aspland in society, and in several circles, that he never saw him where he did not take and easily keep a foremost place. He might be surpassed by one in learning, by another in wit, by another in grace; yet his breadth of understanding, his well-stored memory and his habitual force of expression, always secured him respectful audience from the most. gifted of his associates. At various periods of his life, he formed or united himself with several social clubs. One of these still exists, and bears very distinctly the impress of his ruling tastes. It deserves to be mentioned also on account of its contributions to Nonconformist literature, and the aid it has been enabled, during its existence of more than thirty years, to render to religious liberty.

The Non-Con Club was formed at his house in July, 1817. The object proposed by it is stated in the preamble of the minutes, written by his hand, to be, "to promote the great principles of Truth and Liberty as avowed and acted upon by the enlightened and liberal Nonconformists or Protestant Dissenters from the Church of England." 2 Q

VOL. V.