reader some idea of the facetiousness of our ancestors, but there are many other tenures of equally trifling terms, and those who would wish to dip more deeply into the subject may be referred to Littleton, Coke, and more especially Blount, who seems to have taken particular pleasure in preserving these " fragmenta antiquitatis" as he call them, for the diversion of some and for the instruction of others." W. L. D.

Mr. URBAN,

Bath, Jan. 5. T has been for some time in my mind to recommend to public cognizance a Plan, which would tend greatly to national honour and to the diffusion of a patriotic spirit. The only cause of its delay in transmission has arisen from the doubt which I entertained, as to the most eligible method of giving it notoriety. But on reflection, I yield a willing preference to your agreeable Miscellany, as much from partiality, as from its being an appropriate channel for developement. From the " Essay on Local Poetry," which is prefixed to the new edition of "Bidcombe Hill, are extracted the following observations:

"However extraneous to the general purport of this essay, yet not wholly unconnected with this particular portion of it, is the expression of regret at our destitution of national monuments to memorize important events, to illustrate loyal attachment, and to kindle patriotic enthusiasm. However Great Britain may rival more ancient nations in literature and arms, yet is she exceeded by the Promethean fire of their sculpture, and the imposing magnificience of their public edifices. The Parthenon at Athens, and the Coliseum at Rome, will leave no parallels in the posthumous History of England. Let our monarch, nobles, and commoners, aggrandize their country by promoting the liberal arts. Let them emulate their fame, by acting in the spirit of Augustus, who found Rome of brick and left it of marble. But to return to my subject. Why does not some ponderous column pierce the clouds from Runnymede, inscribed on one side with the declaration of the Barons, "nolumus leges Angliæ mutari ;" and on the reverse, with those matchless lines of our Bard, where loyalty, patriotism, and poetry, strive for pre-eminence?

"Here was that charter signed, wherein the

move,

The

It will be recollected by many of your readers, (for your publication, notwithstanding its numerous rivals, is a favourite with our citizens,) that to the Rev. Author of the cited extract, our City is primarily indebted for one of its most splendid improvements. removal of the houses which shut out the view of our venerable Abbey, was recommended by Mr. Skurray, in an inaugural sermon before the mayor and corporation, and has since been acted upon as the leases fall in. The passages relative to this event are very properly inserted in Mr. Britton's recent history of our cathedral, and may be found at pages 186-7-8, of a volume of "Sermons on Public Subjects and Occasions."

It would be a gratifying circumstance, and would illustrate our national clas racter and liberties, if the same voice which animated our local authorities to an act of high honour and disinterestedness, should prove the instigator to a national monument at Runnymede. Its erection would draw down

blessings from the hearts and lips of thousands who in the different departments necessary for its construction, would find employment; it would stimulate a spirit of loyalty when "the love of many waxes cold," and no spectator in generations unborn, would survey this durable monument of patriotism, without fearing God and honouring the King.

Dec. 15, 1826. At his apartments in the Strand, in his 85th year, after gradually declining for about three weeks, Joseph Cradock, Esq. M. A. senior Fellow of the Society of Antiquaries.

Mr. Cradock was the only surviving son of Joseph Cradock, Esq., of Leicester and Gumley, by Mary Annice, his first wife. He was born at Leicester, 9th of January, 1741-2; and baptized at St. Martin's church there, 10th December following.

At a late period of his life, Mr. Cradock had taken great pains to elucidate the origin of his own family'; and the result of his researches was, that he conceived himself to be decended from Caradoc, by the Romans termed Caractacus. The final defeat of this patriot and defender of his country, was at a mountain near Shrewsbury, named after him Caer Caradoc; and his flying descendants settled afterwards in Leicestershire, Staffordshire, and a larger portion of them at Richmond, in Yorkshire. In travelling through Britanny, Mr. Cradock recognized the crest of his family, at a village called Caradoc, not far from Rennes, and the language of that province still bears great affinity to that of Wales.

Mr. Cradock's family long resided at Leicester. His great-grandfather, Edmund Cradock, was mayor in 1645, and again in 1657; and his grandfather, Edmund, served that office in 1702; from this gentleman is descended the present representative of the family, Sir Edmund Cradock Hartopp, bart.

Mr. Cradock's father was a younger brother. He acquired a large property, and purchased many estates in the Borough of Leicester, and at Knighton and Gumley, in that county. Mr. Cradock's mother, Mary Annice, died in 1749, aged 46; and his father married, secondly, Anne daughter of Richard Ludlam, M.B., and sister of two distinguished clergymen and mathematicians, the Rev. William and Thomas Ludlam.* For his mother-in

* See accounts of these eminent brothers in Nichols's History of Leicestershire, vol. I. p. 318, and 508.

GENT. MAG. January, 1897

law Mr. Cradock ever retained the fondest recollections. She died in 1774, aged 56; and was buried at Wilford, in Nottinghamshire.

When about nine years old, young Cradock was placed at the grammarschool of Leicester, then under the care of the Rev. Gerrard Andrewes, where he had for fellow scholars, Farmer, afterwards Master of Emanuel, who was some years his senior, and the son of his schoolmaster, Gerrard Andrewes, the late Dean of Canterbury, who was his junior. For both these eminent men Mr. Cradock retained a strong affection till their deaths; and here it may be remarked, that the grandson of his old master, the present Rev. Gerrard Thomas Andrewes, performed the last solemn rites at Mr. Cradock's funeral.'

Whilst resident at Leicester, young Cradock was assisted in his studies by a man of powerful genius, and a cele'brated Greek scholar, the Rev. John Jackson, Master of Wigston's Hospi'tal, author of "Chronological Antiquities," and a staunch opponent of Warburton.† As a reward for an exercise that pleased him, Jackson presented his pupil with an Elzevir edition of Buchanan's Poems, which Mr. Cradock ever retained with great veneration.

In passing through London to Bath, with his father, Mr. Cradock for the first time witnessed a theatrical exhibition; it seems to have made a very strong impression on him, as he to the last remembered with delight the pleasure he then enjoyed. It was Miss Macklin's benefit, and the play "As you like it," in which Woodward and Mrs. Cibber both performed.

It was Mr. Cradock's misfortune to lose his father, when he was about seventeen years of age, he dying in 1759, aged 70. After a short time, Mr. Cradock obtained his trustees' consent to spend the season at Scar borough, where, at the table of Dr (afterwards Sir Noah) Thomas, he was admitted to company, which if not very suitable to his age or station,

+ See an ample memoir of Mr. Jackson, in the History of Leicestershire, vol. I. p.

498-500.

must have been very inviting to a young man; the Duke of York, Marquess of Granby, Mr. Sterne, Mrs. Cibber, and Col. Sloper, were frequent visitors at the Doctor's table. After figuring for about six weeks, dancing at every ball, and partaking of every diversion, he was hastily recalled, and most strongly reproved for his levity and imprudence.

The time had now arrived when he ought to have been sent to college; but at the suggestion of his friend Dr. Hurd, his trustees first placed him for a year with the Rev. Mr. Pickering, of Mackworth, Derbyshire, who had no other pupil except Mr. Burdett, father of the present Baronet. Here he was happily secluded under a regular course of study, which soon fitted him for Emanuel College, Cambridge.

But first he was permitted to visit London, and be present at the gaieties consequent on the coronation of George the Third. This was the first time Mr. Cradock made any considerable stay in London. He soon acquired a lasting relish for the intellectual pleasures only to be enjoyed in perfection at the Metropolis. Theatrical amusements engrossed much of his attention. Garrick was then in the zenith of his fame, and Mr. Cradock was introduced to him behind the scenes, when dressed as Oakley, in the "Jealous Wife." This introduction afterwards ripened into a lasting friendship; for they were congenial spirits.

Mr. Cradock then retired to his studies at Emanuel College, where he profited by the able lectures of his quondam schoolfellow Farmer, in Aristophanes; he had a private tutor in the Greek classics in general; and ever looked back with great satisfaction to the lectures on the Greek Testament by the principal tutor of his College, the celebrated Mr. Hubbard. Having to house of his own, Mr. Cradock passed the vacations of College with various friends, particularly with the family of Sir John Cust, Speaker of the House of Commons; Peter Wyche, esq. of Great Ormond Street; Mr. Banks, Chancellor of York, the intimate friend of Lord Mansfield; Lady Wilmot, of Chaddesden, Derbyshire; &c. &c. Such company was more inviting to a gay and wealthy young man, than dry study at College. The consequence was that, when the time arrived, Mr. Cradock

dreaded his examination in mathematics, (in which science alone honours could be obtained) and, though he had devoted himself closely to classical studies, never offered himself for his degree. But declamation was his forte; and he entertained a hope that the young King would have visited Cambridge, when he was to have been recommended to speak before his Majesty, which might have entitled him to an honorary degree of Master of Arts. Of this he was disappointed; and he finally left Cambridge without graduating.

In town he had been introduced to the amiable young lady whom in 1765 he married. She was Anna Francisca, third daughter of the late Francis Stratford, of Merevale Hall, Warwickshire, esq. and was then residing with her grandmother in Great Ormond-street. Mr. and Mrs. Cradock settled in what was then a fashionable part of the town, in a house in Dean-street, Soho. But shortly after his marriage, he spent some time in visiting his wife's relations. Her eldest sister was married to Richard Geast, of Blythe Hall, Warwickshire, esq. a descendant of Sir W. Dugdale, and father of the present Knight of the Shire for Warwick; her second sister was Mrs. Chetwynd, late of Bath, who died in 1811; and her youngest sister, Miss Maria Stratford, latterly resided at Mortimer, near Reading, at a house she purchased of the present Viscount Sidmouth, where she died in 1797. At Merevale, the seat of his mother-in-law, Mrs. Stratford, he passed his time very delightfully, in the enjoyment of a good library, and amusing himself in landscape gardening, a science in which (as we shall hereafter have to notice more fully,) he excelled.

During the honey-moon, he was unexpectedly gratified by the presentation, from the hands of the Chancellor of Cambridge, the Duke of Newcastle, of a Royal Degree of Master of Arts. As this was the first of the kind that had been conferred on a student of Emanuel, the College was pleased to give a handsome entertainment on the occasion. Mr. Cradock ever retained a pleasing recollection of his residence at Emanuel; and in his will bequeathed to the College a fine antique Roman urn, which had been sent to him from Italy, by his relation Sir E. C. Hartopp, bart. whilst on his