BISHOP HOADLEY.
BISHOP HOADLEY.
This portrait is in grand style, though rather in the French manner. The painting, and the plate engraved from it by Baron, were carefully preserved in the Bishop's family.
Dr. Benjamin Hoadley, a prelate of considerable eminence, was born November 4, 1676; educated at Catharine Hall, Cambridge; elected Lecturer of St. Mildred, Poultry, 1701; Rector of St. Peter-le-Poor in 1704, and of Streatham in 1710; King's Chaplain, February 16, 1715-16; Bishop of Bangor, March 18 following; translated to Hereford in 1721, to Salisbury in 1723, and in 1734 to Winchester, which he held nearly twenty-seven years, till on April 17, 1761, at his house at Chelsea, in the same calm he had enjoyed amidst all the storms that blew around him, he died, full of years and honours, beloved and regretted by all good men, in the 85th year of his age. Few writers of eminence have been so frequently or so illiberally traduced; yet fewer still have had the felicity of living till a nation became their converts, and of knowing "that sons have blushed their fathers were their foes." His useful labours, which will ever be esteemed by all lovers of the natural, civil, and religious rights of Englishmen, were collected in 1773, in three folio volumes.
The Bishop had two sons: Benjamin Hoadley, M.D., F.R.S., Physician to Frederick Prince of Wales, and to George the Second; of high rank in his profession; and well known by many valuable writings, more especially by his comedy of The Suspicious Husband. He died, in his father's lifetime, in 1757. The other son, the Rev. Dr. John Hoadley, Chancellor of Winchester, was also a most amiable man, and an elegant poet. He was the editor of his father's collected works, introduced by a well-digested biographical memoir. He died March 10, 1776; and with him the name of Hoadley became extinct. His relict, who long survived him, possessed several original paintings by Hogarth, which were afterwards the property of the late Mr. Archdeacon D'Oyley.