XV.

how affection struggles against reason - how tena- CHAP. ciously the mind clings to the lessening chances of recovery - how slowly hope darkens into fear, and 1730. fear into despair! We may observe Morice, at first so sanguine in his expectations from change of scene, ere long compelled to see, compelled to own, the rapid wastings of the inexorable disease, until at length, when all human means appear to fail, he can only implore the Prelate's prayers! The anxious desire of Mrs. Morice was to reach Toulouse, and to see her dear father once more before she died. That wish at least was vouchsafed to her. With great courage she ventured all night up the Garonne, and reached her father at Toulouse early in the morning. But let me, for the closing scene, borrow Atterbury's own touching words: -" She “lived twenty hours afterwards, which time was "not lost on either side. For she had her senses "to the very last gasp, and exerted them to give

me in those few hours greater marks of duty "and love than she had done in all her lifetime,

though she had never been wanting in either. "The last words she said to me were the kindest "of all, a reflection on the goodness of God, which "had allowed us to meet once more before we

parted for ever...... She is gone, and I must "follow her. When I do, may my latter end be "like hers! It was my business to have taught "her to die; instead of it, she has taught me. I am not ashamed, and wish I may be able to learn

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1730.

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CHAP. "that lesson from her. What I feel upon her loss "is not to be expressed, but a reflection of the manner of it makes me some amends. .... Yet "at my age, under my infirmities, among utter strangers, how shall I find out proper reliefs and "supports? I can have none but those with which reason and religion furnish me, and those I lay "hold on and grasp as fast as I can. I hope that He who laid the burden upon me (for wise and

good purposes, no doubt,) will enable me to "bear it in like manner as I have borne others, "with some degree of fortitude and firmness."* Who, at such expressions, would not forget Atterbury's failings! Who might not observe how often it pleases Providence to call to itself the best and worthiest of its creatures in their youth, and leave only the less noble spirits to struggle on to age! And how true and touching seems the remark of the great poet of our time in speaking of one of his early friends" He was such a good "amiable being as rarely remains long in this "world!" t

* Atterbury to Pope, November 20.; and to Mr. Dicconson, December 4. 1729. Mr. Evans who had attended Mr. and Mrs. Morice from England concludes a letter to his own brother by "a reflection I made at the time, that it was well worth my "while to have taken so long a voyage, though I was immediately to return home again, and reap no other benefit from "it than the seeing what passed in the last hours of Mrs. Mo"rice!" (Nov. 30. 1729.)

+ Lord Byron of Mr. Edward Long. See Moore's Life, vol. i. p. 96. 12mo. ed.

XV.

1730.

If, however, there be any relief in such afflictions, CHAP. it is, next to religion, to be found in employment either of business or study, and to these Atterbury had recourse. The favour of Inverness was now upon the wane, and the Pretender beginning to repent his folly in alienating by far the ablest man of his party. He seems about this time to have solicited Atterbury to return to Paris and resume the chief management of his affairs; the Bishop complied, but from the state of European politics could render no signal service. He held several conferences at Paris with the Duchess of Buckingham, an illegitimate daughter of James the Second by Mrs. Sedley, and now upon her way to Italy on a visit to her brother. This Dowager was one of the heads of the Jacobites in England-a sort of Tory Duchess of Marlborough, and a counterpoise to that illustrious relict-like her, full of pride and passion but like her also, with enormous wealth to make herself respected. Atterbury used his influence over her to prevent the Duke of Berwick from giving a Roman Catholic preceptor to her son, the young Duke of Buckingham, and even quarrelled with Berwick when he found the latter insist on his design. He also induced the Duchess to exert herself in Italy, and complete the dismissal of the Invernesses from her brother's service. But Inverness, still hoping to recover his lost ground, had recourse to an expedient that strongly marks his base and unscrupulous character: he abjured the Protestant for the Roman Catholic religion.

XV.

CHAP. The very last letter which Atterbury ever wrote was to upbraid him with his apostasy. for so we 1730. may surely call a conversion in which conscience has no part.*

The studies of Atterbury, at this period, were, in some measure, forced upon him. Oldmixon, a virulent party writer of small reputation or merit, had made an attack upon him, Bishop Smalridge, and Dean Aldrich, as joint editors of Clarendon's History, accusing them of having altered and interpolated that noble work. Atterbury, as the only survivor of the three †, thought it incumbent upon him to write in their vindication and his own. Accordingly, in 1731, he published a temperate and satisfactory answer. The last sentence contains a prophecy on Oldmixon, which has been verified by time: "His attack on me, "and on the dead, who he thought might be "insulted with equal safety, is no proof of a gene"rous and worthy mind; nor has he done any "honour to his own history by the fruitless pains

* Atterbury to Lord Inverness, February, 1732. Corresp. vol. iii. p. ix. Inverness, it is said, had the effrontery to observe:→→ "Since I see nothing is likely to be done for the King at pre"sent, I think it high time to take care of my soul ! ”

+ Bishop Smalridge had died in 1719, and Dean Aldrich in 1710. The latter was a man not only of great learning, but of wit and jovial temper. His five reasons for drinking are well known:

:

"Or least we should be by and by,

"Or any other good reason why!"

His Compendium of Logic is less agreeably remembered by
Oxonians.

XV.

1730.

"he has taken to discredit that of my Lord Cla- CHAP.
"rendon, which, like the character of its author,
"will gain strength by time, and be in the hands
"and esteem of all men, when Mr. Oldmixon's
"unjust censure of it will not be remembered, or
"not be regarded!"

MA copy of this vindication was sent by Atterbury
to the Prince whom he had so zealously and so
unhappily served, and his letter, on that occasion,
reverts almost involuntarily to his own desolate
feelings:-
:-"Whilst I was justifying the Earl of
"Clarendon's History, I own myself to have been
"tempted to say somewhat likewise in defence of
"his character and conduct, particularly as to the
"aspersion with which he has been loaded, of

advising King Charles the Second to gain his "enemies and neglect his friends. A fatal advice! "which he certainly never gave, though he smarted "under the effects of it, and was sacrificed by his "master to please those who were not afterwards "found to be any great importance to his service. You may, perhaps, not have heard, Sir, that "what happened to my Lord Clarendon was the "first instance in the English story of banishing

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any person by an Act of Parliament, wherein a "clause was expressly inserted to make all correspondence with him penal, even to death. "Permit me to add, that I am the second instance "of a subject so treated, and may, perhaps, be the "last, since even the inflictors of such cruelties "seem now to be aweary and ashamed of them.