Kennett was characterised throughout life by a strong party feeling, which he took care to display on every occasion. He was born at Dover in 1660, and his first publication, at the age of twenty, gave great offence to the Whig party; it was in the form of a letter from a Student at Oxford to a friend in the country, concerning the approaching parliament. He scarcely ever published a sermon without so far mixing party matters in it as to obtain replies and rejoinders; the rector of Whitechapel employed an artist to place his head on Judas’s shoulders in the picture of the Last Supper done for that church, and to make the figure unmistakeable, placed the patch on the forehead which Kennett wore, to conceal a scar he got by the bursting of a gun. His diligence and application through life was extraordinary. He assisted Anthony Wood in collecting materials for his “Athenæ Oxonienses;” and, like Oldys, was continually employed in noting books, or in forming manuscript collections on various subjects, all of which were purchased by the Earl of Shelburne, afterwards Marquis of Lansdowne, and were sold with the rest of his manuscripts to the British Museum. He died in 1714, of a fever he had contracted in a journey to Italy.—Ed.
See Bishop Kennett’s Letter in Nichols’s “Life of Bowyer,” vol. i, 383.
The best account of the Rev. Wm. Cole is to be found in Nichols’s “Literary Anecdotes of the Eighteenth Century,” vol. i. His life was eventless, and passed in studious drudgery. He had all that power of continuous application which will readily form immense manuscript collections. In this way his life was passed, occasionally aiding from his enormous stores the labours of others. He was an early and intimate acquaintance of Horace Walpole’s, and they visited France together in 1765. Browne Willis, the antiquary, gave him the rectory of Blecheley, in Buckinghamshire, and he was afterwards presented to the vicarage of Burnham, near Eton. He died in 1782, in the 68th year of his age, having chiefly employed a long life in noting on all subjects, until his manuscripts became a small library of themselves, which he bequeathed to the British Museum, with an order that they should not be opened for twenty years. They are correctly characterised by Nichols: he says, “many of the volumes exhibit striking traits of Mr. Cole’s own character; and a man of sufficient leisure might pick out of them abundance of curious matter.” He left a diary behind him which for puerility could not be exceeded, and of which Nichols gives several ridiculous specimens. If his parrot died, or his man-servant was bled; if he sent a loin of pork to a friend, and got a quarter of lamb in return; “drank coffee with Mrs. Willis,” or “sent two French wigs to a London barber,” all is faithfully recorded. It is a true picture of a lover of labour, whose constant energy must be employed, and will write even if the labour be worthless.—Ed.
Cole’s collection, ultimately bequeathed by him to the British Museum, is comprised in 92 volumes, and is arranged among the additional manuscripts there, of which it forms Nos. 5798 to 5887.—Ed.
In his “Critical and Philosophical Enquiry into the Causes of Prodigies.”