Archbishop Herring was much attached to Croydon; and, at a very great expence, completely repaired and fitted up that old Palace; furnished it neatly; and laid out the gardens in a most elegant taste *. In the Summer of 1753 the Archbishop was seized with a pleuretic fever at Lambeth-house, which brought him to the brink of the grave; and by the great quantity of blood which he lost (fourscore ounces) his strength and spirits were so impaired, that though, on his retiring to Croydon, he did in some measure recover, yet from that time he might rather be said to languish than to live; declining as far as possible all public business, and seeing little company but his relations and particular friends. Once, indeed, the Princess Dowager of Wales did him the honour of breakfasting with him, and was received and entertained with that unaffected ease and politeness, for which his Grace was so eminently distinguished. July 1, 1753, he thus cheerfully addressed his worthy friend Mr. Duncombe: "Blessed be God for it, I have mended in my health since my first arrival here, and continue to mend gradually. In so acute a disorder as mine was, it was not to be expected that I could jump into health (jumping is too much for me); but I ought to be contented, and thankful too, if I can walk leisurely into it. I have for some time regained my natural rest; eat as well as a man can do, palled and fatigued with medicine; have no degree of a fever, and little or no cough: but yet my lungs have not their proper tone, and mounting up stairs puts me a little to that Christian spirit, which, did it generally prevail in the Governors of the Christian Church, would produce most extensive good effects, in regard to the present, as well as final happiness of mankind." Both these Letters are inserted in Mr. Duncombe's Collection of the Archbishop's Letters; which has furnished a considerable part of the present article. * Dr. Ducarel's History of Croydon, p. 42. it. I am sorry you have been so ill, and hope, when you favour me with another Letter, to hear a better account of you. I had two Physicians added to Dr. Wilmot; but yet the Doctor lost no reputation with me, for I have a high opinion of him." The two Physicians were Dr. Shaw and Dr. Heberden. During this severe illness, Count Zinzendorff* had the enthusiastic effrontery to send his Grace a letter, in which, on account of his many Christian virtues, this Bishop (or rather Pope) of the Moravians not only wished him a perfect recovery, but also tendered him ghostly absolution, notwithstanding the "great sin of omission" of which he had been guilty.--This letter the Archbishop shewed to a Friend; at the same time professing, that, though doubtless he had been guilty of many sins in his life-time, both of omission and commission, he had no idea of the particular sin to which the Count alluded. "Your Grace, I perceive," replied his Friend," is not acquainted with the writings and tenets of the Moravians: if you were, my Lord, you must have known, that with them, the great sin of omission' is celibacy. Your Grace is a Batchelor." From this period the Archbishop's health began to decline, till June 22, 1756, when he tells Mr. Duncombe, "I continue extremely out of order; I think in a confirmed dropsy; and though, I am sure, Dr. Wilmot has done all that art and friendship can do for me, I rather lose ground. I have now been near half a year in this dismal way, worse than the acutest pain, because of its duration; and every thing I take feeds the distemper, at the same time it prolongs life; for, This name reminds me of a memorable passage in a note on John xiii. 15, in the first edition of Dr. Doddridge's "Family Expositor;" wherein this " Bishop of the Moravians" is characterized as "the pious and worthy Count Zinzendorf, the Moses of our age." The worthy Author, however, in the subsequent editions of this excellent Work, saw good reason to correct this extraordinary eulogy." Dr. Loveday, in Gent. Mag. 1774, p. 314. * 'Ready 'Ready oft the port t' obtain, I'm shipwreck'd into life again.' "I know who sent me hither, and how much it is my duty to attend his summons for a removal: but life is over with me; and I sometimes, in my airings, repeat two pretty lines of Parnell, But what are fields, or flowers, or air, to me? O HEALTH!'" The Archbishop died at Croydon-house; and was buried in the church, where a black marble ledger is thus inscribed; "Here lyeth the body of The most Reverend Dr. Thomas Herring, who died March 13, 1757, aged 64." "He was (says the Earl of Corke) what a Bishop ought to be, and is, I doubt not, where all Bishops ought to be. Honour and reverence will attend his name while this world lasts: happiness and glory will remain with his spirit for ever." In 1763, Mr. Duncombe collected, and published "Seven Sermons, on Public Occasions," which his Grace had printed in his life-time; and in 1777 published "Letters from the late most Reverend Dr. Thomas Herring, Lord Archbishop of Canterbury, to William Duncombe, Esq. deceased, from the year 1728 to 1757. With Notes and an Appendix." The late Dr. John Loveday, in a Letter written in 1777, says, "In p. vii. of Mr. Duncombe's Preface to Abp. Herring's Letters, his Grace's Pulpit Discourses are justly celebrated; and, in my opinion, few passages in any writer can be produced of superior elegance, both in sentiment and language, to that in his Sermon before the Society for the Propagation of the Gospel, describing the "iniquity of the Roman Church, in shutting up the Holy Scriptures in an unknown tongue *." * See Gent. Mag. 1777, vol. XLVII. p. 314. Letters Letters of ARCHBISHOP HERRING. TO WILLIAM DUNCOMBE, Esq. "DEAR SIR, Sept. 2, 1737. "You are extremely kind in your congratulations upon the King's favour to me. It is generally looked upon as a point of happiness, and is, to be sure, an honour; yet, to say the plain truth, I am in no sort of raptures about it; nay, indeed, not without my apprehensions that I am making work for repentance, and that my friends may hear me repeating, ere long, Vitæ me redde priori! I have thought much of the affair, and can form to myself no new felicities it can bring me, unless it be the opportunities it may possibly be attended with, of living more among such friends as you are, and, some time or other, doing them some good. If that ever be the case, I shall then think some amends is made me for the incumbrance of title and distinction, for quitting the sweet calms of retirement, and venturing abroad into a troubled ocean. - I thank you for your quotation from Erasmus. It is most excellent heresy, and would really be deemed so in some Protestant times and countries. The Bishop you mention, Pope's Correspondent, [Atterbury,] would have spurned at it in public, and perhaps in his closet fed upon the pleasure it would give him: for, if he was not worse used than ever any honest man in the world was, there weré strong contradictions between his public and private character." Nov. 5, 1738, on returning from the first visit to his Diocese, he says, I thank you most affectionately for your obliging enquiry after me; and, I bless God, have the satisfaction to inform you that I am very well, after the most agreeable journey I ever had in my life. We travelled slowly and commodiously, and found Wales a country altogether as entertaining as it was new. The face of it is grand, and bespeaks the magnificence of Nature; and enlarged my mind so much, in the same manner as the stupendousness of the Ocean does, that it was some time before I could be reconciled again to the level countries Their beauties were all in the little taste; and I am afraid, if I had seen Stow in my way home, I should have thrown out some very unmannerly reflexions upon it; I should have smiled at the little niceties of art, and beheld with contempt an artificial ruin, after I had been agreeably terrified with something like the rubbish of a creation, Not but that Wales has its little beauties too, in delightful streams and fine valleys. But the things which entertained me were, the vast Ocean, and ranges of rocks, whose foundations are hid, and whose tops reach the clouds. I know something of your cast of mind, I believe; and I will therefore take the liberty to give you an account of an airing one fine evening, which I shall never forget. I went out in the cool of the day, and rode near four miles upon the smooth shore, with a vast extended view of the Ocean, whose waves broke at our feet. in gentle murmurs: from thence we turned into a village, with a neat a neat church and houses, which stood just at the entrance of a deep valley. The rocks rose high and near at each hand of us; but were, on one side, covered with a fine turf, full of sheep and goats, and grazing herds; and, on the other, varied with patches of yellow corn, and spots of wood, and here and there a great piece of a bare rock projecting. At our feet ran a stream, clear as crystal, but large and foaming, over vast stones rudely thrown together, of unequal magnitudes, and over it a wooden bridge, which could scarce be said to be made by the hands of art; and, as it was the evening, the hinds appeared, in many parts of the scene, returning home with pails upon their heads. I proceeded in this agreeable place, till our prospect was closed, though much illuminated, by a prodigious cataract from a mountain, that did, as it were, shut the valley. All these images together put me much in mind of Poussin's drawings, and made me fancy myself in Savoy, at least, if not nearer Rome. Indeed, both the journey, and the country, and the residence, were most pleasing to me." In the following year he adds, "I am come home quite well, after a very romantic, and, upon looking back, I think it a most perilous journey. It was the year of my Primary Visitation, and I determined to see every part of my Diocese; to which purpose, I mounted my horse, and rode intrepidly, but slowly, through North Wales, to Shrewsbury. I am a little afraid, if I should be particular in my description, you would think I am playing the traveller upon you; but, indeed, I will stick religiously to truth; and, because a little journal of my expedition may be some minutes amusement, I will take the liberty to give it you. I remember, in my last year's picture of North Wales, you complimented me with somewhat of a poetical fancy: that, I am confident, you will not do now; for a man may as well expect poetical fire at Copenhagen, as amongst the dreary rocks of Merionethshire. You find, by this intimation, that my landscapes are like to be something different from what they were before; for I talk a little in the style of Othello, Rough quarries, rocks and hills, whose heads touch heaven!" "I set out upon this adventurous journey on a Monday morning, accompanied (as Bishops usually are) by my Chancellor, my Chaplain, Secretary, two or three friends, and our servants. The first part of our road lay cross the foot of a long ridge of rocks, and over a dreary morass, with here and there a small dark cottage, a few sheep, and more goats in view; but not a bird to be seen, save now and then a solitary hern, watching for frogs. At the end of four of their miles we got to a small village, where the view of things mended a little; and the road and the time were beguiled by travelling for three miles along the side of a fine lake, full of fish, and transparent as glass. That pleasure over, our work became very arduous, for we were to mount a rock, and in many places of the road over natural stairs of stone. I submitted to this, which, they told me, was but |