a dark and dangerous staircase, to visit the abode of sickness and want; and there, with the gentle hand of charity, and the warm heart of a Christian, relieve and soften the sorrows inflicted by povertyand sickness. To feel for misery, and to relieve it, was the business of his life.

Mr. Goadby was also a public-spirited man; ! never sparing himself or his purse, when properly called upon. In the year 1754, he was one of the warm and active friends of Betty Canning; her story many now living must remember.

Mr. Goadby for many years sent a rich supply I of Bibles, Testaments, and pious books, for the poor at Hadleigh, and the villages around; and subscribed fifty pounds to the Patriotic Fund; he was also, for many years, a subscriber to the = Lying-in Charity, and to several Dispensaries; I and, by his will, left handsome legacies to the institutions he had subscribed to. Mr. Goadby's shop at the Royal Exchange was, for many years, of an evening, the meeting-place of a select party of men of superior abilities, for the purpose of conversation, Mr. John Payne, late Accountant-general of the Bank, the late Mr. John Ryland, Mr. John Cole, and (the Writer believes), the late Dr. Hawkesworth, with many more sensible men, that improved and enlarged their mental powers by the communication of ideas. Those meetings had a very different effect upon the members of this friendly circle, to that produced by convivial meetings, where wine and riot preclude sentiment, and destroy reason. The late Dr. Towers was, at the period of these sentimental meetings, a little lad, under the patronage of Mr. Goadby; being very small, he used to slip into the circle unperceived, listen with great attention to all he heard, and, by treasuring it up in his mind, he then laid the foundation of all his future respectability as a literary man. It will be well for young persons to remember such a circumstance; and to be anxious never to lose an opportunity that offers for enriching FF

VOL. III.

their

their minds, by attending to the conversation of the good and wise. Mr. Goadby had survived every member of the circle, in which he had for many years enjoyed so much rational satisfaction. How painful is the reflection, that the lot of all persons living to advanced age must be, to spend many of their solitary hours in a retrospect of past comforts, -comforts, that never, never, can return in this life! What then are the consolations of old age, under all the gloom of solitude, and pressure of infirmity? Nothing short of a well-grounded hope in the prospect of a happy Eternity. The circle they hope to join in a better world, will never be broken in upon by death; nor will their powers of enjoyment ever decrease.

Mr. Goadby had many singularities; he was very nice in his person; dressed very plain; but had made no [change in the cut of his coat for near 50 years. He had a particular dislike to the using of a hackney coach on the Sunday; thought it, in general, a profanation of the day; but he lived to be shocked by the rattling of stage-coaches from morning to night on that day, which, when he was a young man, was in this country devoted to rest and Public Worship. If Voltaire could now visit England, he would not say, as he once did, that, in this country, the Sabbath was more strictly observed than in any other he had been acquainted with; but to Voltaire's principles we may, without doubt, attribute the profaneness and dissipation that pervades, more or less, all ranks in society; as the spread of Infidelity will produce every moral evil. Mr. Goadby was a Dissenter from the Ceremonies of the Establishment; but he felt all that cordiality which Christianity inculcates, for every good man, though he might not be able to say Amen to his Creed in every point. The ladies who became his daughters-in-law, by his marriage with their mother, were, for the greatest part of his life, a source of real comfort to him; and the one with whom he resided for many years had the anxious

thou h

though delighful task, of consoling him in his last moments, with all the tenderness of an affectionate child. Mr. Goadby had much perplexity and trouble throughout his long life: but the domestic comfort he enjoyed for the last twenty years was derived from his marriage fifty-nine years ago: he had been a widower forty-two years. His remains were deposited, in the same grave with those of his late wife, in Bunhill-fields burying-ground, on Tuesday, June 22, 1808. Mr. Goadby had for many years attended the ministry of the Rev. Hugh Worthington; and the Funeral Oration was delivered at the grave by that gentleman, with a warmth of expression that evinced how justly he appreciated the excellence of his departed friend.

*

MR. ROBERT GOADBY

a Printer and Bookseller of Sherborne in Dorsetshire, and author of several useful publications, died August 12, 1778. His "Illustration of the Holy Scriptures," in 3 large folio volumes, is a book that has been very generally read, and widely circulated. He also compiled and printed a useful book, intituled "The Christian's Instructor and Pocket Companion, extracted from the Holy Scriptures;" which had the good fortune to meet with the approbation of Bishop Sherlock, and was very well received by the publick. The "Life of Bamfylde Moore Carew, King of the Beggars," was likewise written by him.

MR. JAMES HUTTON,

who in the early part of his life had been a Bookseller, was for many years Secretary to the Society of Moravians. He was a well-known character, and FF 2 very

very generally esteemed. He died April 25, 1795, in his 80th year, at Oxstead cottage, Surrey; and was buried in the Moravian cemetery at Chelsea. The preacher discoursed over the corpse in the chapel from the Nunc dimittis (or Song of Simeon) in the second chapter of St. Luke; and in the sequel of his discourse observed, that Mr. Hutton had been a faithful and liberal brother in that fraternity 55 or 56 years, both in Switzerland and Great Britain, and was in the Soth year of his age.-To this a Correspondent adds, "Mr. Hutton of late years usually resided in a house at Pimlico jointly occupied by Mr. De Luc; at least that was his home. He died at the house of two amiable ladies, whom he used to term his daughters, the possessors of Oxstead cottage. The character of Mr. Hutton was well known to me, as well as his person. I frequently met him at the houses of mutual friends. Though he was a Moravian preacher, his charities were confined to no sect; and the latter end of his life was spent literally in going about doing good. He had been married, but had no children, and was a widower before I knew him. How many of his relatives Mr. Hutton assisted I am not informed, but he shewed great kindness to a nephew brought up in the military line. Mr. Hutton possessed strong sense, with quick feelings and apprehensions, which the illumination of his countenance evinced even at seventy, though his difficulty of hearing was such that he could only converse by the assistance of an ear-trumpet. In the attitude of listening with this instrument, Cosway has taken a picture of Mr. Hutton, which does him honour, it being, perhaps, one of the most striking likenesses that was ever drawn. From this a mezzotinto was taken, which was eagerly bought up by Mr. Hutton's friends. He was highly esteemed by the two first characters for rank and virtue in the British nation, and well known to many of the nobility and men of letters. To those in affluence Mr. Hutton often recom

mended

mended misfortune when beyond his own ability to relieve; nor was he refused admittance to the highest ranks, though his ardent benevolence inclined him greatly to neglect his own dress, that he might the better feed the hungry, and cover the naked. An intimate friend of Mr. Hutton told me that, in the exercise of charitable pursuits, Mr. Hutton first met with those ladies with whom the greatest part of the two or three last years of his life was spent. These benevolent females, by their attention during that time, gave comfort to a good but infirm old man, full of years and good deeds. Mr. Hutton was the Moravian clergyman of whom

*The following jeu d'esprit, by Mr. George Steevens, apEpeared in the St. James's Chronicle, Dec. 17, 1776.

"SIR,

Q- -'s Palace. "Politicians from this place inform us that a new Favourite, has lately engrossed the K's attention, who bids fair to supplant the celebrated Pinchy and the facetious Grimaldi in the Royal favours. It is no less a person than the old deaf Moravian, James Hutton, who was formerly a Bookseller, and lived near Temple-bar, famous for his refusing to sell Tom Brown's Works, and Clarke on the Trinity. A certain lady who called at his shop for this last book, was induced by curiosity to know the Bookseller's reasons for his refusal; but whether he made a convert of the lady, or the lady of him, History is silent. Since that time he has travelled all over Germany and Switzerland, to spread the Moravian doctrine, and make proselytes to Count Zinzendorf's Creed. Whether his Majesty intends to raise Moravian regiments by Hutton's means among the faithful, to propagate the ministerial doctrine of unconditional submission in America, I know not: but this I am sure of, that a conversation between the King and Hutton must be exceedingly entertaining. Hutton is so deaf that a speaking trumpet will scarce make him hear; and the King talks so fast, that an ordinary converser cannot possibly keep pace with him. Hutton's asthma makes him subject to frequent pauses and interruptions; so that two interpreters will

be

necessary to explain matters between the King and his new Favourite. I hope Hutton and the Scotch Junto are upon good terms, else he will soon be obliged to discontinue his visits at Buckingham-house. After all, Hutton is an honest, humane, and sensible man, and worthy a King's regard, and however bigoted he was formerly and averse to selling the works of Samuel Clarke, am told one of his favourite authors at present is honest Laurence Sterne, author of Tristram Shandy. CURRent Report."

Mrs.