A new Edition of Sir Roger L'Estrange's Translation of the Works of Flavius Josephus. "The Life of William Cecil, Lord Burleigh," &c. published by Arthur Collins*. 66 * Arthur Collins, the Historiographer of the "Baronage" and Baronetage" of England, was born in 1682. He was the son of William Collins, esq. gentleman-usher to Queen Catharine in 1669, by his wife Elizabeth, daughter of Thomas Blyth, daughter of John Horwood, esq. of Okely, in the county of Southampton. Having received a liberal education, and being from his youth much inclined to the cultivation of letters, particularly to the study of Antiquity, he conceived the arduous design of digesting a compendious account of the Nobility of these kingdoms, whose genealogies had till that time lain mouldering in private cabinets. For the execution of this task he was certainly entitled to the gratitude of the Nobility, if we consider the great pains he took to investigate, and the perspicuous manner in which he has recorded, the illustrious deeds of their ancestors ; tracing with a faithful and interesting pen the steps by which each family had risen to eminence. Neither was a work of this nature without a considerable claim upon his countrymen at large; inasmuch as a faithful picture of the rewards attendant on meritorious services and heroic actions, must necessarily prove the strongest incitement to the statesman, the soldier, and the citizen, to pursue the glorious career of virtue and honour. The merit of the before-mentioned works is unquestionable; and to the present day they have continued the great authorities to which all subsequent writers on the same subject have had recourse. But the fruits of them were not in proportion; nor did their author experience that liberal patronage to which the many midnight vigils he had passed in dry genealogical studies seemed to give him an indubitable claim. The other literary productions which bear his name are, the "Sydney State Papers;" some "Historical Collections of the noble Families of Cavendish, Holles, Vere, Harley, and Ogle;" and a "Life of Edward the Black Prince." Delighted with raking in the dust of the closet, with poring over MSS. scarcely legible, and rescuing half-devoured sentences from the combined attacks of Time and the moth, he lost many years which might have been employed much more profitably to himself. While unfolding the pedigrees of other families, he lost sight of the provision which was necessary for his own. Such were the laborious productions of Arthur Collins, and so inadequate his rewards! Whatever praise is due to biographical literature in general, certainly belongs to one who dipped even into the funereal urn to stamp his labours with authenticity; and such is the credit they have obtained, that, while there remains a spark of veneration for the ancestry and actions of our Peerage, the volumes which record them, and bear Collins's name, will be consulted as the faithful history of that splendid Mr. Whatley's translation of Rapin's Abridgement of Rymer; folio. A second edition of Dr. Richard Grey's "Memoria Technica," 8vo. "Oratio de novo Physiologiæ explicandæ munere, ex celeberrimi Woodwardi Testamento instituto *; habita Cantabrigiæ in Scholis Publicis, à Conyers Middleton, S.T.P. Academiæ Cantabrigiensis Protobibliothecario, et Lectori ibidem Woodwardiano." "An Account of the Colony in Georgia ;" and "An Essay on Plantations; or, Tracts relating to the Colonies;" both of which were the production of James-Edward Oglethorpe, Esq. splendid and necessary part (which has been so happily termed the Corinthian column) of the British Constitution. Mr. Collins married about 1708; died in 1760; and was interred in the parish-church of Battersea, in Surrey. He had issue several children; of whom one son only survived him, viz. Arthur Tooker Collins, esq. who died Jan. 4, 1793 (a major-general in the service, and commandant of the Plymouth division of marines); closing in London a life of honourable service, zeal, and integrity. David Collins, esq. who lately favoured the publick with an ample and interesting "Account of the English Settlement in New South Wales," is a son of Major-general Collins above mentioned.-I owe this note to my very accurate friend Mr. Stephen Jones. "It is easy to suppose, that the reading of lectures upon fossils was not an employment suited either to Dr. Middleton's taste, or to the turn of his studies; and therefore we cannot wonder that he should resign it, as he did, in 1734." T. F. + This truly respectable gentleman was the descendant of a family very antiently situated at Oglethorpe, in the parish of Bramham, in the West Riding of the county of York; one of whom was actually Reeve of the county (an office nearly the same with that of the present high-sheriff) at the time of the Norman Conquest. The antient seat at Oglethorpe continued in the family till the Civil Wars, when it was lost for their loyalty;. and several of the name died at once in the bed of honour, in defence of Monarchy, in a battle near Oxford.-William Oglethorpe (son of William, who died Nov. 24, 1631) was born in 1588; and married Susanna, daughter of Sir William Sutton, knt. and sister to Lord Lexington. He died in November 1634; leaving two children, Sutton, born 1612, and Dorothy (who afterwards married the Marquis of Byron, a French nobleman), born 1620. Sutton Oglethorpe, being fined 20,0001. by the Parliament, his estates at Oglethorpe, &c. were sequestered, and afterwards given to General Fairfax, who sold them to Ro VOL. II. C bert The second volume of a magnificent edition of "Churchill's Collection of Voyages and Travels," with near 530 Copper Plates," in Six Volumes folio. that name. bert Benson, of Bramham, father of the Lord Bingley of that Sutton Oglethorpe had two sors, Sutton, and Sir Theophilus: 1. Sutton, was stud-master to King Charles II. and had three sons (1. Sutton, page to King Charles II.; 2. John cornet of the guards; and 3. Joseph, who died in India); 2. Sir Theophilus was born in 1652, and bred to arms; he fought under the Duke of Monmouth in the affair at Bothwell-bridge, where a tumultary insurrection of the Scots was suppressed, June 22, 1679; commanded a party of horse at Sedgmoor-fight, where the said Duke was defeated, July 6, 1685; and was lieutenant-colonel to the Duke of York's troop of his Majesty's horseguards, and commissioner for executing the office of Master of the Horse to King Charles II. He was afterwards first equerry and major-general of the army of King James II.; and his attachment to the family of Stuart continuing after their abdication, two different proclamations, July 12, 1690, and May 8, 1692, were issued for apprehending him, amongst other persons suspected of corresponding with them. Having seated himself by purchase at Westbrook-place near Godelming in Surrey*, he was appointed deputy-lieutenant, and put into the commission of the peace for that county. In 1698 he was elected M. P. for Haslemere; and died April 10, 1702, as appears by a pedigree in the Collection of the late J. C. Brooke, esq.; though the following inscription in the parish-church of St. James, Westminster, where he was buried, has it a year earlier: "Hic jacet THEOPHILUS OGLETHORPE, Eques auratus, ab atavo Vicecomite Eborum, Normanno victore, ducens originem. Cujus armis, ad pontem Bothwelliensem, succubuit Scotus: Necnon Sedgmoriensi Palude fusi Rebelles. Qui, per varios casus et rerum discrimina, magnanimam erga Principem et Patriam fidem, sed nec temerè, sustinuit. Obiit Londini, anno 1701, ætat. 50." He married Eleanora Wall, of a considerable family in Ireland, by whom he had four sons and four daughters; the five eldest of whom were born in St. James's house; and two of the danghters were in the 1 court of King James's Queen at St. Germain's, and married men of the first rank in France.-Lewis, the eldest son, was born in February 1680-1; and admitted of Corpus Christi college in Oxford in 1698-9, his matriculation bearing date March 16 in that year. He was equerry to Queen Anne; represented the borough of Haslemere in Parliament in 1702; and served under the Duke of Marlborough at the attack of Schellenburgh, where the Bavarians were routed, July 2, 1704; on which occasion he received a wound, of which he shortly after died, in the * See Manning and Bray's History of that County, vol. I. p. 610. "Dissertationes duæ de viribus medicatis Olei Animalis in Epilepsiâ aliisque affectibus convulsivis," 8vo; two editions. * 24th year of his age; and was interred also in the church of St. James aforesaid, with the following inscription to his memory, on the same tablet with that of his father: "Hujus claudit latus LUDOVICUS OGLETHORPE, tam paternæ Virtutis quam Fortunæ hæres qui prælio Schellenbergensi (victoria Hochstetensi præludio) tempestivum suis inclinantibus ferens auxilium, vulnera honestissima recepit, et, præclaræ spe indolis frustratâ, obiit vicesimo secundo ætatis anno, atque Domini 1704." Underneath. "Clarissimo utriusque cineri Marmor hoc amantissima Conjux et Mater posuit, Domina ELEANORA OGlethorpe.”— Sutton, the third son, died an infant.-James-Edward, the fourth and youngest son, was born in 1698; was an ensign in the army when Peace was proclaimed in 1713; aid-de-camp to the Earl of Peterborough, with whom Dr. Berkeley, his Lordship's chaplain, was fellow traveller in going express to the embassador in Italy; and admitted of Corpus Christi college in Oxford in 1714. Succeeding his brother Lewis in several estates in the parish of Godelming, he was elected a burgess in Parliament for Haslemere in 1722, and again in 1727-8. In 1729 he engaged in the generous enquiry into the state of the Gaols, on finding a gentleman whom he went to visit in the Fleet loaded with irons, and used in the most barbarous manner. He was chairman of the Committee appointed by the House of Commons to make this enquiry; on which such facts came out as were shocking to humanity. It seemed incredible that such infamous oppressions should have so long remained unpunished, in a country where (happily) the law is superior to power. The good effects of this interposition have been felt ever since by the unhappy prisoners. Jan. 19, 1730-1, he was chosen a director of the Royal African Company; and Jan. 19, 1731-2, Deputy Governor of the same. In 1732 he distinguished himself by several able speeches in the House of Commons, on the subject of the Address to the King (Gent. Mag. vol. II. p. 866); on the Sugar Colony Bill (ib. p. 938; vol. III. p. 200); on Sir John Lombe's Petition for the Establishment of Silk Mills at Derby (vol. II. p. 940, 985); and on the Charitable Corporation (ib. p. 989.) June 30, 1732, he was appointed a Trustee for the establishment of the new Colony in Georgia; on which service he embarked, in the Anne galley at Deptford, on the 30th of October following. His account of the Indians is in the Magazine, vol. III. pp. 108, 483; and a poetical address on his settling the Colony of Georgia, ib. p. 209. Engaging in the service with that ar * In the 22d according to the inscription on his monument. But it was proved by evidence on oath, before the House of Commons, Nov. 10, 1702, that he was born in February 1680-1; so that he must have died in the 24th year of his age. Carew on Elections, p. 265. "A Critical Examination of the late new Text and Version of the New Testament in Greek and dour which marked all his undertakings, he succeeded, after encountering innumerable hardships and difficulties, and expending in the course of it large sums of his private fortune, which, it is believed, were never re-paid. June 13, 1734, he was elected a third time for Haslemere; and, arriving in England about the same time from Georgia, was, on the 19th of that month, graciously received by their Majesties at St. James's, and afterwards by the trustees of the Colony, who expressed their great satisfaction in the eminent services he had performed on behalf of the new settlement. (See verses to him on his return, Gent. Mag. vol. IV. p. 505; and in that year his head was proposed by Mr. Urban as a prize-medal.) On this occasion, he brought with him into England Tomo-chi-chi, Micho of the Creek Indians, Senauki his wife, Micho John Tooanahowki their son, and Hillispilli the war captain, with other Indians, who were introduced to their Majesties at Kensington, Aug. 1; and, having been entertained here for some time at the expence of the Government, embarked at Gravesend on their return home on the 30th of October following. Oct. 14, 1735, Mr. Oglethorpe himself set out for Gravesend, in order to embark a second time for Georgia; and carried with him the two brothers John and Charles Wesley, who went with the pious intention of instructing the Indians. He arrived there Feb. 5, 1735-6 (see accounts from him in Gent. Mag. vol. VI. pp. 219, 357, 686); in the latter end of which year he made another voyage to England, and raised a regiment to carry over, permitting every man to take a wife with him. In June 1737, he was constituted general of the forces in South Carolina in Georgia; as also, on the 25th of August following, colonel of a regiment raised for the service of the Colony, In 1737 he was officially complained of by the Spaniards (Gent. Mag. vol. VII. p. 500); and in that year made an excellent speech in the House of Commons, on the Bill concerning the Riots at Edinburgh (ibid. p. 712.) July 1, 1738, he sailed from St. Helen's, with the Hector and Blandford men of war, for Georgia the third time, where he landed Sept. 19; but had great difficulties thrown in his way, as well from the Spaniards, who watched him with a very jealous eye, as from the mismanagement of those he was obliged to intrust, and from the want of supplies from home; the latter occasioned an attempt to assassinate him (Gent. Mag. vol. IX. pp. 48, 215) and a mutiny, which he quelled by his personal courage and conduct. In 1740 he attacked the Spaniards, took two small forts, and besieged St. Augustine, but without success (ib. pp. 203, 242, 359, 468.) In 1741 he was, in his absence, elected the fourth time burgess for Haslemere. In 1742 the Spaniards attacked the new settlement, but were repulsed by him. At length, after continuing about five years in the service of the Colony from the time of his last embarkation, he arrived in England Sept. 28, 1749; having been ap pointed |