Nicholas Vansittart, Lord Bexley, was the second son of Henry Vansittart, Governor of Bengal, and was born on the twenty-ninth of April, 1776. Four years after, his father perished in the Aurora frigate, when that vessel foundered at sea, on her outward passage to India. In 1791 he was called to the bar, but, finding little prospect of forensic advancement, he deserted Westminster Hall for the more ambitious arena of the House of Commons, being elected member for Hastings in 1796. In 1801 he proceeded on a special mission to the Court of Copenhagen; but the Danish Government, overawed by France and Russia, refused to receive an English ambassador. Soon after his return he became joint secretary of the treasury, which office he held until 1804, when the Addington ministry resigned. In 1805, he was appointed Chief Secretary for Ireland; in 1806, he resumed his former duties at the treasury; and, in 1812, on the formation of the Liverpool administration, he obtained the office of Chancellor of the Exchequer, for which he was peculiarly fitted by the bent and information of his mind. So far back as 1796, he had addressed a series of pamphlets to Mr. Pitt, on the conduct of the bank directors; and in 1796 he had published an inquiry into the state of the finances, in answer to a very popular production, by a Mr. Morgan, on the national debt. The death of Lord Londonderry, in 1822, led to a reconstruction of the ministry; and Mr. Vansittart was offered a peerage and the Chancellorship of the Duchy of Lancaster, with a seat in the cabinet, on condition that he quitted the Exchequer. This arrangement was carried out in the month of January following. At length, in 1828, he retired from public life, and since that period resided in comparative retirement, at Footscray, near Bexley, in Kent. Lord Bexley was F.R.S., D.C.L., and F.S.A.
John Pye Smith, D.D., F.R.S., one of the most eminent scholars and theological writers of the time, died at Guilford, near Leeds, in England, on the fifth of February, at the advanced age of seventy-six—having been born at Sheffield in 1775. His father was a bookseller, and it was intended to bring him up to the same business, but his early displays of talent, and his love of learning induced his father to send him to Rotherham College, where he greatly distinguished himself, and upon the completion of his terms of study became a classical tutor. In 1801—at the early age of twenty-five—he became theological tutor and principal of Homerton College, the oldest of the institutions for training ministers among the Independents. The duties of that responsible post he filled with untiring devotedness and the highest efficiency for the long space of fifty years. A theological professorship is naturally combined with ministerial duties; and in two or three years after his settlement at Homerton he received a call from the church at the Gravel Pits chapel, and continued the pastor of that church for about forty-seven years. The chief labor of Dr. Pye Smith's life, and his most enduring monument, was the work entitled The Scripture Testimony to the Messiah: an inquiry with a view to a satisfactory determination of the doctrine taught in the Holy Scriptures concerning the person of Christ. This work is admitted by the greatest scholars to be the first of its kind. It is marked by profound and accurate learning, candid criticism, and by that reverential and Christian spirit which ought to govern every theological inquiry. He published several less important compositions, including one of decided value upon the relations of geology and revelation, which led to his election into the Royal Society; and he left a voluminous System of Christian Doctrine, in MS.
Ladies' Fashions for the Spring.
The advance of the spring appears to have brought increase of gayety in London and in Paris, in which cities fashionable society has received new impulses from circumstances connected with affairs. Heavy velvets have generally given place to silks and satins, and there is a prevailing airiness in the manner in which they are made up. The first of the above full-lengths represents a dress composed of a pale sea-green satin; the sides of the front decorated with bouffants or fullings of white tulle, formed in rows of three; at the top of each third fulling is a narrow border of green cord, forming a kind of gymp; these fullings reach up to each side of the point of the waist; low pointed corsage, the centre of which is trimmed to match the jupe; a small round cape encircles the top part of the corsage, descending halfway down each side of the front, trimmed with fullings of white tulle and narrow green cord; the lower part of the short sleeve is trimmed to match. The hair is arranged in ringlets, and adorned on the right side with a cluster of variegated red roses.
In the second, is a dress of rich dark silk, made plain and very full, with three-quarter-high body, fitting close to the figure; bonnet of deep lilac.