NATURALISTS’ CALENDAR.
Mean Temperature 39·05.
[60] Acts and Monuments.
February 10.
Biographical Notice.
1818. On this day died in London, captain Thomas Morris, aged 74, a man of highly cultivated mind, who was born in its environs, and for whom when young a maternal uncle, of high military rank, procured an ensigncy. He beat for recruits at Bridgewater, and enlisted the affections of a Miss Chubb of that town, whom he married. He was ordered with his regiment to America, where he fought by the side of general Montgomery.
Captain Morris at one time was taken by the Indians, and condemned to the stake; at the instant the women and children were preparing to inflict its tortures, he was recognised by an old sachem, whose life he had formerly saved, and who in grateful return pleaded so powerfully in his behalf, that he was unbound and permitted to return to his friends, who had given him up for lost. He published an affecting narrative of his captivity and sufferings; yet he was so attached to the Indian mode of life, that he used to declare they were the only human beings worthy of the name of MEN. On his return from America to England, he quitted the army and gave himself to literary studies, and the conversation of a few enlightened friends. In the midst of “the feast of reason, and the flow of soul,” he often sighed for the grand imagery of nature, the dashing cataracts of Columbia, the wild murmurs of rivers rolling through mountains, woods, and deserts. Having met with some disappointments which baffled his philosophy, he sought a spot for retirement, and found it in a nursery garden, at Paddington. Here in a small cottage, he compared Pope’s translation of Homer with the original, in which he was assisted by Mr. George Dyer, a gentleman well qualified for so pleasing a task. In this pursuit he passed some years, which he declared were the happiest of his life.