No. XLVIII.

THOMAS MARCH PHILLIPS, Esq.

OF GARENDON PARK, IN THE COUNTY OF LEICESTER.

MR. March Phillips was born in the year 1746. His father, Thomas, was a merchant of the city of London; his maternal grandfather, Sir Ambrose Phillips, a noted lawyer of his day, was created a king's serjeant by James II. only two years anterior to the abdication of that ill-starred monarch.

In consequence of the bequest of a relative, who left him considerable estates, Mr. Phillips, out of respect to his memory, obtained his Majesty's leave for the addendum of March to his name in 1796; and having removed from Dorsetshire to Garendon-House*, he resided there during a long series of years.

He married his cousin, Miss Susan Lisle, by whom he had ten children, the sons and daughters in equal portions; and in 1801, he served the expensive office of High Sheriff of the

• We are obliged to the worthy and indefatigable Mr. Nichols, for the following particulars, extracted from Vol. III. page 802, of his " History and Antiquities of the Town and County of Leicester :". "The present mansion was built on the site of Garendon Abbey, and is supposed to have been erected about 150 years; but considerable alterations were made in it, and the beautiful garden-front was erected, by Ambrose Phillipps, Esq. about 1736. He was a most accomplished gentleman, and travelled through France and all parts of Italy; and was so remarkably beautiful in his person, that at Rome and Venice he was called The handsome Englishman.' "He ornamented the park with large plantations, and built the magnificent gateway and the elegant temple and obelisk in the park. The garden front of the present mansion shows the great taste he had in architecture; and was only designed as the second front to a most magnificent house he intended to have built, had he lived to have com. pleted it. He was chosen M. P. for Leicestershire in 1797 and 1734; and dying un. married, in 1737, was buried at Shepeshead; where an elegant Latin epitaph by Dr Lisle is inscribed to his memory."

county of Leicester, in which his family had possessed very considerable estates for more than a century and a half. Their pedigree is to be found in Nichols' Leicestershire.

Mr. Phillips not only lived to a good old age, but had the satisfaction to behold his sons honourably employed, at the bar, in the church, and in the navy; while two of his daughters married, the one into a respectable, the other into a noble family; being the wife of the Hon. and Right Reverend Henry Ryder, D. D. Lord Bishop of Gloucester, Dean of Wells, and Vicar of Lutterworth, in the County of Leicester. These events afforded some consolation amidst the afflictions incidental to age and disease.

Having removed, some time since, to Bath, Mr. Thomas March Phillips died in Pulteney-street, in the 71st year of his age, after encountering a long and painful illness, towards the middle of June, 1817.

No. XLIX.

ELLIS BENT, Esq.

JUDGE-ADVOCATE OF NEW SOUTH WALES.

THIS HIS gentleman, one of the sons of Robert Bent, Esq., was born either in 1784, or 1785. After the usual preliminary education, at an early age, he was sent to the University, where he obtained the degrees of B. A. and M. A. Being destined for the bar, he applied himself with great assiduity to his professional avocations; and by a laborious course of reading, as well as by due attention to practice, qualified himself within the short space of four years after he had become a barrister, for the important office of Judge Advocate.

Having been appointed to exercise his duties in that capa. city, within the colony of New South Wales, he repaired thither, and soon formed certain arrangements for the furtherance of justice, within his own department, which greatly contributed to the happiness and prosperity of the infant colony. His singular attention to the duties of his station, is supposed to have shortened his life; for he died in the town of Sidney, at the early age of thirty-two, in the beginning of 1817.

The utility of his plans, which we have already alluded to, has been fully attested by a report of a committee of the House of Commons, to which was referred "the consideration of the state of the Colony of New South Wales," and the excellence of his private character, was demonstrated by the crowd of mournful spectators, who accompanied his remains to the place of interment. On that occasion, his brother, Jeffery Bent, Esq., the judge of the New Court of Equity, performed the melancholy office of chief mourner; while his Excellency the Governor, together with all the officers both civil and military attended, in order to testify their respect.

Mr. Bent has left behind him, a widow and no fewer than five children.

No. L.

MISS HENRIETTA RHODES,

A POETESS, NOVEL WRITER, &c.

THIS HIS lady, born in the county of Salop, in the year 1756, was the daughter of Mr. Rhodes of Cann-Hall in the borough of Bridgnorth. At an early period of life, although never successfully wooed herself, yet she wooed the muses, and in the opinion of her friends, with no small degree of good fortune. Some of her neighbours, however, supposed that her verses did not rise above mediocrity; although all concurred in excepting her ballads, a taste for which she had cultivated by reading of the famous collection *, published by the late Dr. Percy, Bishop of Dromore. She also edited a work written by her nephew; composed several short and fugitive articles for her friends; and printed a novel with a most romantic name, long after she had left off the style and appellation of a spinster; having for some time back been called Mrs. Rhodes.

This lady interposed at the election of members of parliament, for the place of her nativity, in 1784, with a generous warmth, in support of a friend; and died at her house in East Castle Street, Bridgnorth, February 28, 1817, in the sixty-first year of her age.

List of the Works of the late Miss Rhodes.

1. Various Poetical Compositions, in early life, some of which were afterwards published.

2. Rosalie, or the Castle of Montalabretti, 4 vols. 12mo. 1811.

3. An account of Stonehenge, 8vo. 1814.

4. Poems and Miscellaneous Essays, published by Subscription, 8vo. 1814,

* Reliques of ancient English Poetry, 3 vols. 12mo. 1765.

long, and almost unexampled term of twenty-five years.

On

the impeachment of Mr. Hastings, this able and eloquent Commoner, was deemed of such consequence, as to be appointed one of the managers, and acquitted himself with singular firmness and decorum upon this occasion. † He was also a strenuous opposer of Mr. Pitt's Regency bill.

On the demise of his elder brother, the Right Honourable Henry Beauchamp St. John, on December 16, 1805, (who had no issue by Miss Emma Whitbread, second daughter of the first Samuel Whitbread, Esq.) he succeeded to the honours and estates, as Baron St. John of Bletsoe. His Lordship supported the same party as a peer, which had obtained his aid when a member of the House of Commons; and he spoke several times with his wonted talents and abilities.

During the second administration of Mr. Fox, by whom he was greatly esteemed, he obtained the office of Captain of the Band of Gentlemen-Pensioners; and at a period of considerable alarm, he also accepted a commission in the Bedfordshire volunteers.

Lord St. John, was at one time an orator of some note. His two best speeches, as a commoner, were those delivered on opening one of the charges against the Ex-Governor-general Warren Hastings, in 1787; and that in 1789, when he seconded Mr. Baker's motion, on "the state of the nation." He also distinguished himself in the House of Lords, in 1808, against the "Orders in Council;" on which occasion, the resolutions moved by his lordship, were supported by fortyseven peers.

On July 16, 1807, Lord St. John married Louisa, eldest daughter of Sir Charles-William-Rouse Broughton, Bart., of Downton Hall, in the county of Norfolk, by whom he had issue, several children. This nobleman, who had attained the age of fifty-eight, died at his seat at Melchburn, in Bedfordshire, in 1817, leaving his widow pregnant. He is succeeded by his eldest son, a boy, only seven years old.

* "Dec. 5th, 1807.

In 1791, he opened the fourth article of the printed charges.