he appeared. No one who ever partook, will forget his cheerful, cordial hospitality.

In his occasional intercourse, as one of the representatives of the body of dissenting ministers, with His Majesty's court and government, Dr. Rees was courteous, dignified, firm, and upright. He was honoured twice with being deputed by the dissenting ministers of the three denominations of Protestants, to present their address of congratulation to King George III. and to King George IV., a fact which, perhaps, never before happened to the same man. In the former case, Lord Halifax, the lord in waiting, expressed a regret that Dr. Rees did not belong to the right church, as then his loyalty might have been personally rewarded.

The character of Dr. Rees's mind was that of a sober thinker, and logical reasoner. He possessed equal powers of comprehension and discrimination. His eyes betokened his sagacity. He was quick in discerning men's foibles, and he sometimes laid them under tribute for the promotion of the objects of religious charity that lay near his heart. "I do not represent him," continues Mr. Aspland, " much as I revered him living, sincerely as I mourn him dead, and lasting as will be my remembrance of his talents and his virtue

I do not represent him as a perfect man. He had doubtless his infirmities, but they were mere infirmities — and they were as few as I ever saw (for here I must speak my own opinion) in a man of the same natural robustness of mind, the same resolution, the same zeal, and the same anxiety for the great purposes to which his life, and heart, and soul, and strength were devoted. The bodily weaknesses that were the consequences of extreme age, were no part of himself, and cannot be brought into the estimate of his character. His heart was always right. His Christian principles never forsook him. They had been the guide of his youth, and the distinction of his mature life, and they were the stay of his old age!"

In 1798, Dr. Rees suffered a severe loss by the death of

his son, Mr. Philip Lewis Rees, in a consumption, at the of twenty-two.

age

For several months before his death, Dr. Rees's health had been visibly on the decline; but his life insensibly waned to its close without much bodily suffering; and on the 9th of June, 1825, in the eighty-second year of his age, he sank, with the hope and patience of a Christian, into the repose of death, without a struggle. He died as he lived, respected and beloved by all who had opportunities of appreciating the various excellencies of his character: and his memory will be long cherished and revered by a large circle of friends, who have either benefited by his public religious instructions, or enjoyed the pleasure of his interesting conversation in the more intimate and familiar intercourse of social life.

"Semper honos, nomenque tuum, laudesque manebunt." His body was interred on the 18th of June in Bunhill Fields.

The foregoing memoir and character of Dr. Rees are derived from his Funeral Sermon, by the Rev. Thomas Apsland; from an Address delivered over the body previously to its interment, by Dr. Thomas Rees; from the Public Characters; from the Imperial and Gentleman's Magazines; and from the Literary Gazette.

291

No. XI.

THE RIGHT HONOURABLE

FREDERIC HOWARD, EARL OF CARLISLE;

VISCOUNT HOWARD, OF MORPETH; BARON DACRES, OF GILLESLAND; AND A KNIGHT OF THE MOST NOBLE ORDER OF THE GARTER.

THE family of this distinguished nobleman was ennobled towards the middle of the seventeenth century, soon after the close of the civil war; the first patent being dated April 20,

1661.

The late earl was the eldest son of Henry, fourth Earl of Carlisle, by his second wife Isabella, daughter of William, fourth Lord Byron. He was born May 28, 1748; and on the death of his father, Sept. 3, 1758, succeeded to the family title and estates. His lordship was sent early to that celebrated seminary erected by the "ill-fated Henry,"* - where so many of our noble youths have been educated. At Eton College he was the contemporary of many men who afterwards attained either high rank or great celebrity; of Hare, whose verses were appended to the school-room on account of their excellence; of Charles James Fox, whom he was fated to admire, "ere yet in manhood's bloom," to differ from at a riper age, and again to support; and of the late Duke of Leinster, with whom he always lived in habits of familiarity. It was here too that his lordship formed an intimacy with the late Mr. Storer,† the son of an eminent * Eton College was founded by Henry VI. in 1440.

"Let softer strains ill-fated Henry mourn,

And palms eternal flourish round his urn."

Mr. Storer, on his death, became the benefactor of the seminary which he had adorned while living; bequeathing to it his superb collection of books and paintings.

planter in the island of Jamaica. This young gentleman, ingenuous, engaging, and accomplished, beloved and admired by all his schoolfellows, became the fast friend of Lord Morpeth (by which title the earl was of course known during his father's life-time), and they were the Pylades and Orestes of Eton. It was with such companions as these that Lord Carlisle was accustomed to spend his early days in alternate study and recreation. It was with them that he imbibed a taste for the classic page, or trundled the hoop, bowled at the wicket, or manned the galley, and was borne on the bosom of the silvery flood. It was here, too, that he probably caught the inspiration of poetry, and might have exclaimed:

"First in these fields I try the sylvan strains,

Nor blush to sport on Windsor's blissful plains:
Fair Thames! flow gently from thy sacred spring,
While on thy banks Sicilian muses sing;
Let vernal airs through trembling osiers play,
And Albion's cliffs resound the rural lay.”

But the time at length arrived when his Lordship was compelled to quit this retreat of the muses, and tread the busy haunts of men. He repaired to the continent, and made the grand tour. During his travels, although he was not a peer of Scotland, he was elected one of the Knights Companions of the Order of the Thistle, and was invested with the insignia of the order Feb. 27, 1763, at Turin; the King of Sardinia representing his Britannic Majesty on that occasion.

On the expiration of his minority, Lord Carlisle returned to England, and took his seat in the House of Peers. He presently became one of the gayest noblemen in the capital. Possessing a small but elegant figure, in which symmetry was happily blended with agility and strength, he shone a meteor of fashion. Elegant in his dress and manners, with his green ribband across his vest, a brilliant star sparkling on his side, and his person otherwise decorated with the greatest care, he was considered one of the chief ornaments of the court.

It is no less singular than true, that at that period Mr. Fox and Lord Carlisle were the two greatest beaus of their day; and, among other juvenilities, endeavoured strenuously, but ineffectually, to introduce the foreign foppery of red heels. But the intoxication of youth soon yielded to "maturer counsels;" and after the lapse of a few years the country beheld them resuming the original bent of their nature and education, and contending in the lists of Parliament for the prize of eloquence, and the meed of fame.

Lord Carlisle entered on the political stage at a time when the government of his late Majesty was almost paralyzed by the selfish contests of faction. At length, however, Lord North obtained the ascendancy, and appeared to be the first minister who had enjoyed the full confidence of his Sovereign since the Earl of Bute. At this epoch the empire had attained an unexampled degree of prosperity. Our national debt was indeed large, even at that period, but our means were ample, and our resources untouched. A glorious war, terminated by a magnanimous, if not an advantageous peace, had rendered us respected abroad; our trade at home was in a flourishing state; and our colonies in another hemisphere appeared to regard us with a filial eye, and to look up to us for security and protection. But the differences with our trans-atlantic possessions soon put an end to all these flattering prospects. We found ourselves engaged in an unnatural and hopeless contest. During the earlier part of it, the Earl of Carlisle, who began to distinguish himself in the House of Peers, was sworn a member of the privy council, and nominated treasurer of the household; and when it was found that measures of coercion had failed in their anticipated effect, a different plan was resorted to; and this nobleman was selected, on account of his acknowledged temper and moderation, to act a conspicuous part during the disputes between the mother country and the insurgent colonists.

The scheme of sending commissioners to America had already been tried, and had proved unsuccessful. In 1776, a commission, at the head of which was Lord Howe, had in vain