“And shall Trelawney die?
And shall Trelawney die?
Then twice five hundred Cornish men
Will know the reason why.”
It is said that the bishop was open, generous, and charitable, a good companion, and a good man. He died in 1721. [100]
Charles Trimnell, son of the Rev. Charles Trimnell, Rector of Repton Abbotts, Huntingdonshire, was educated at Oxford. He was consecrated Bishop of Norwich in 1707; was made Clerk of the Closet to George I., and translated to the see of Winchester in 1721. This bishop, naturally of a weak constitution, did not long survive his last promotion. He died at Farnham in 1723, aged 40. This prelate was a steady partizan of the revolution, which he defended by his pen; warm, yet temperate; zealous, yet moderate; and his piety did not prevent him from gaining a perfect knowledge of mankind.
Richard Willis, Fellow of All Souls College, Oxford, was promoted to the deanery of Lincoln, by King William; and in 1714 was consecrated Bishop of Gloucester, translated in 1721 to Salisbury, and thence to Winchester in 1723, where he resided till his death, which happened suddenly at Winchester House, Cheyne Walk, in 1734, aged 71; his wife was buried in Chelsea Church, in 1727, but he himself was buried in his own Cathedral.
Bishop Hoadly, a prelate of great merit, was the son of the Rev. Samuel Hoadly, Master of the Public Grammar School at Norwich; he was educated at his father’s school till he went to Catherine Hall, Cambridge, where he afterwards became College Tutor, and appears to have been held in high esteem throughout the whole course of his academical studies. Although he applied to study with an intensity of application that made him eminent, he acquired at the same time considerable proficiency in music. In 1698 he was ordained, and about three years afterwards he married Miss Curtis, a great proficient in the art of painting, many of her portraits exciting public attention, particularly one of Bishop Burnet.
In 1704 Mr. Hoadly obtained the rectory of St. Peter le Poor; he began writing as soon as he came to London; and in 1709 the following vote was passed in the House of Commons:—“Resolved, That the Rev. Benjamin Hoadly, having often justified the principles on which his Majesty and the nation proceeded in the late happy revolution, hath justly merited the favour and recommendation of this House. That an humble address be presented to her Majesty, that she would be graciously pleased to bestow some dignity in the church on Mr. Hoadly, for his eminent services, both to the Church and State.” A change of Ministry prevented any benefit arising to him from this address; but he afterwards had bestowed on him, by the grandmother of the Duke of Bedford, the rectory of Streatham, Surrey. Soon after the accession of George I. he was made Bishop of Bangor. From thence he was successively translated to those of Hereford, Salisbury, and Winchester, which last he enjoyed nearly twenty-seven years.
It is somewhat a singular circumstance, that when Bishop Hoadly went to Court to kiss the King’s hand on his promotion, he did not know the way up stairs, the attendants being all busily engaged at the moment, and by mistake he sat down in an outer room unobserved, and some affirm that he lost the honour of being presented on that occasion to his Majesty.
The doctrines contained in his publications gave such offence to the clergy, that they produced the famous Bangorian Controversy. On the 16th of December, 1761, having supped, he retired to bed in perfect health, but in the middle of the night he was seized with a fit of vomiting, of which the violence abated in about an hour. Medical assistance was immediately sent for, and the bishop seemed better, but about two o’clock the following even, his lady found him dead, without knowing the precise moment of his departure. As a writer, he possessed powerful talents; his greatest defect, perhaps, was in extending his periods to a disagreeable length; for which Pope has thus recorded him:—
“But, sir, of writers? Swift for closer style,
But Hoadly for a period of a mile.”
Amongst the most celebrated writers of modern times, who have possessed great argumentative powers, this “defect” is generally a natural consequence. Lord Brougham, for instance, was remarkable for the length of his periods, or final sentences, but with him it evidenced deep thought, and enabled him to impart into his writings and speeches that eloquence and force of language for which he was so highly extolled. Bishop Hoadly might have been one of those “powerful” writers.