same time raised up, when he least thought of it, the truest friend and protector to his wife and unborn daughter; who afterwards found in Mr Secker all that tender care and assistance which they could have hoped for from the nearest relation.

It being judged necessary by Mr Secker's friends that he should have a degree at Oxford; and having been informed, that if he should previously take the degree of Doctor in Physic at Leyden, it would probably help him in obtaining the other, he went over and took his degree there in March 1721 and, as part of his exercise for it, he composed and printed a dissertation de Medicina Statica, which is still extant, and is thought by the gentlemen of that profession to be a sensible and learned performance,

:

In April the same year, he entered himself a gentle man commoner of Exeter college, Oxford; after which he obtained the degree of Bachelor of Arts, in consequence of the chancellor's recommendatory letter to the convocation.

He now spent a considerable part of his time in London, where he quickly gained the esteem of some of the most learned and ingenious men of those days, particu. larly of Dr Clarke, rector of St James's, and the cele brated Dean Berkeley, afterwards bishop of Cloyne, with whom he every day became more delighted, and more closely connected. He paid frequent visits of gratitude and friendship to Mrs Talbot, widow of Mr Edward Talbot, by whom she had a daughter five months after his decease. With her lived Mrs Catharine Benson, sister to Bishop Benson, whom in many respects she greatly resembled. She had been for several years Mrs Talbot's inseparable companion, and was of unspeakable service to her at the time of her husband's death, by exerting all her courage, activity, and good sense (of which she possessed a large share), to support her friend under so great an affliction, and by afterwards attending her sickly infant with the utmost care and tenderness, to which, under providence, was owing the preservation of a very valuable life.

Bishop Talbot being in 1721 appointed to the see of Durham, Mr Secker was in 1722 ordained deacon by him in St James's church, and priest not long after in the same place, where he preached his first sermon March 28. 1723. The bishop's domestic chaplain at that time was Dr Rundle, a man of warm fancy and very brilliant conversation, but apt sometimes to be carried by the vivacity of his wit into indiscreet and ludicrous expressions, which created him enemies, and, on one occasion, produced disagreeable consequences. -With him Mr Secker was soon after associated in the bishop's family, and both taken down by his lordship to Durham in July 1723.

In the following year the bishop gave Mr Secker the rectory of Houghton-le-Spring. This preferment putting it in his power to fix himself in the world, in a manner agreeable to his inclinations, he soon after made a proposal of marriage to Mrs Benson; which being accepted, they were married by Bishop Talbot in 1725. At the earnest request of both, Mrs Talbot and her daughter consented to live with them, and the two families from that time became one.

About this time Bishop Talbot also gave preferments to Mr Butler and Mr Benson, whose rise and progress in the church are here interwoven with the history of

Mr Secker. In the winter of 1725-6, Mr Butler first Secken published his incomparable sermons; on which, as Dr Beilby Porteous and Dr Stinton inform us, Mr Secker took pains to render the style more familiar, and the author's meaning more obvious: yet they were at last by many called obscure. Mr Secker gave his friend the same assistance in that noble work the Analogy of Religion, &c.

He now gave up all the time he possibly could to his residence at Houghton, applying himself with alacrity to all the duties of a country clergyman, and supporting that useful and respectable character throughout with the strictest propriety. He omitted nothing which he thought would be of use to the souls and bodies of the people entrusted to his care. He brought down his conversation and his sermons to the level of their understandings; he visited them in private, he catechised the young and ignorant, he received his country neighbours and tenants very kindly and hospitably, and was of great service to the poorer sort of them by his skill in physic, which was the only use he ever made of it. Though this place was in a very remote part of the world, yet the solitude of it perfectly suited his studious. disposition, and the income arising from it bounded his ambition. Here he would have been content to live and die; here, as he has often been heard to declare, he spent some of the happiest hours of his life and it was no thought or choice of his own that removed him to a higher and more conspicuous situation; but Mrs Secker's health, which now began to decline, and was thought to be injured by the dampness of the situation, obliged him to think of exchanging it for a more healthy one. Accordingly, an exchange was made through the friendly interposition of Mr Benson (who generously sacrificed his own interest on this occasion, by relinquishing a prebend of his own to serve his friend) with Dr Finney, prebendary of Durham, and rector of Ryton; and Mr Secker was instituted to Ryton and the prebend June 3. 1727. For the two following years he lived chiefly at Durham, going every week to officiate at Ryton, and spending there two or three months together in the summer.

In July 1732 he was appointed chaplain to the king; for which favour he was indebted to Dr Sherlock, who having heard him preach at Bath, had conceived the highest opinion of his abilities, and thought them well worthy of being brought forward into public notice, From that time an intimacy commenced between them, and he received from that great prelate many solid proofs of esteem and friendship.

His month of waiting at St James's happened to be August, and on Sunday the 27th of that month he preached before the queen, the king being then abroad. A few days after, her majesty sent for him into her closet, and held a long conversation with him; in the course of which he took an opportunity of mentioning to her his friend Mr Butler. He also, not long after this, on Mr Talbot's being made lord chancellor, found means to have Mr Butler effectually recommended to him for his chaplain. The queen also appointed him clerk of her closet; from whence he rose, as his talents became more known, to those high dignities which he afterwards attained.

Mr Secker now began to have a public character, and stood high in the estimation of those who were allowed

Secker. Jowed to be the best judges of merit: he had already given proofs of abilities that plainly indicated the eminence to which he must one day rise, as a preacher and a divine; and it was not long before an opportunity offered of placing him in an advantageous point of view. Dr Tyrrwhit, who succeeded Dr Clarke as rector of St James's in 1729, found that preaching in so large a church endangered his health. Bishop Gibson, therefore, his father-in-law, proposed to the crown that he should be made residentiary of St Paul's, and that Mr Secker should succeed bim in the rectory. This arrangement was so acceptable to those in power, that it took place without any difficulty. Mr Secker was instituted rector the 18th of May 1733; and in the beginning of July went to Oxford to take his degree of Doctor of Laws, not being of sufficient standing for that of divinity. On this occasion it was that he preached his celebrated Act Sermon, on the advantages and duties of academical education, which was universally allowed to be a masterpiece of sound reasoning and just composition: it was printed at the desire of the heads of houses, and quickly passed through several editions. It is now to be found in the second collection of Occasional Sermons, published by himself in 1766.

It was thought that the reputation he acquired by this sermon, contributed not a little toward that promotion which very soon followed its publication. For in December 1734, he received a very unexpected notice from Bishop Gibson, that the king had fixed on him to he bishop of Bristol. Dr Benson was about the same time appointed to the see of Gloucester, as was Dr Fleming to that of Carlisle; and the three new bishops were all consecrated together in Lambeth Chapel, Jan. 19. 1734-5, the consecration-sermon being preached by Dr Thomas, afterwards bishop of Winchester.

The honours to which Dr Secker was thus raised in the prime of life did not in the least abate his diligence and attention to business; for which, indeed, there was now more occasion than ever. His learned biographers, Messrs Porteous and Stinton, now relate the manner in which he set about the visitation of his diocese, and the ceremony of confirmation, which he performed in a great number of places; he also preached in several churches, sometimes twice a-day. The affairs of his parish of St James's being likewise in great disorder, be took extraordinary pains to regulate and adjust every thing, particularly the management of the poor; and thus even in a temporal view became of signal service to his parishioners. But, say our authors, "it was their spiritual welfare which engaged, as it ought to do, his chief attention. As far as the circumstances of the times, and the populousness of that part of the metropolis allowed, he omitted not even those private admonitions and personal applications which are often attended with the happiest effects. He allowed out of his own income a salary for reading early and late prayers, which had formerly been paid out of the offertory money. He held a confirmation once every year, examined the candidates several weeks before in the vestry, and gave them religious tracts, which he also distributed at other times very liberally to those that needed them. He drew up, for the use of his parishioners, that admirable course of Lectures on the Church Catechism which hath been lately published, and not only read them once every week on the usual days, but also every Sunday

evening, either at the church or one of the chapels be- Secker. longing to it."

The sermons which at the same time, we are told, he set himself to compose, 66 were truly excellent and original. His faculties were now in their fult vigour, and he had an audience to speak before that rendered the utmost exertion of them necessary. He did not, however, seek to gratify the higher part, by amusing them with refined speculations, or ingenious essays, unintelligible to the lower part, and unprofitable to both; but he laid before them all, with equal freedom and plainness, the great Christian duties belonging to their respective stations, and reproved the follies and vices of every rank among them, without distinction or palliation. He studied human nature thoroughly in all its various forms, and knew what sort of arguments would have most weight with each class of men. He brought the subject home to their bosoms, and did not seem to be merely saying useful things in their presence, but addressing himself personally to every one of them. Few ever possessed, in a higher degree, the rare talent of touching on the most delicate subjects with the nicest propriety and decorum, of saying the most familiar things without being low, the plainest without being feeble, the boldest without giving offence. He conla descend with such singular ease and felicity into the minutest concerns of common life, could lay open with so much address the various workings, artifices, and evasions of the human mind, that his audience often thought their own particular cases alluded to, and heard with surprise their private sentiments and feelings, their ways of reasoning and principles of acting, exactly stated and described. His preaching was, as the same time, highly rational and truly evangelical. He explained with perspicuity, he asserted with dignity, the peculiar characteristic doctrines of the gospel. He inculcated the utility, the necessity of them, not merely as speculative truths, but as actual instruments of moral goodness, tending to purify the hearts and regulate the lives of men; and thus, by God's gracious appointment, as well as by the inseparable connection between true faith and right practice, leading them to salvation.

"These important truths he taught with the authority, the tenderness, the familiarity, of a parent instructing his children. Though he neither possessed nor affected the artificial eloquence of an orator who wants to amuse or to mislead, yet he had that of an honest man who wants to convince, of a Christian preacher who wants to reform and to save those that hear him. Solid argument, manly sense, useful directions, short, nervous, striking sentences, awakening questions, frequent and pertinent applications of scripture; all these following each other in quick succession, and coming evidently from the speaker's heart, enforced by his elocution, his figure, his action, and above all, by the corresponding sanctity of his example, stamped conviction on the minds of his hearers, and sent them home with impressions not easy to be effaced. It will readily be imagined that with these powers he quickly became one of the most admired and popular preachers of his time."

In 1737, he succeeded to the see of Oxford, on the promotion of Dr Potter to that of Canterbury, then vacant by the death of Archbishop Wake.

In the spring of 1748, Mrs Secker died of the gout in her stomach. She was a woman of great sense and 0 2 merit,

With the Dissenters his Grace was sincerely desirous of cultivating a good understanding. He considered them, in general, as a conscientious and valuable class of men. With some of the most eminent of them, Watts, Doddridge, Leland, Chandler, Lardner, he maintained an intercourse of friendship or civility. By the most candid and considerate part of them he was highly reverenced and esteemed; and to such among them as needed help he showed no less kindness and liberality than to those of his own communion.

Nor was his concern for the Protestant cause confined to his own country. He was well known as the great patron and protector of it in various parts of Europe; from whence he had frequent applications for assistance, which never failed of being favourably received. To several foreign Protestants he allowed pensions, to others he gave occasional relief, and to some of their universities was an annual benefactor.

In public affairs, his Grace acted the part of an honest citizen, and a worthy member of the British legislature. From his first entrance into the house of peers, his parliamentary conduct was uniformly upright and noble. He kept equally clear from the extremes of factious petulance and servile dependence; never wantonly thwarting administration from motives of party zeal or private pique, or personal attachment, or a passion for popularity; nor yet going every length with every minister from views of interest or ambition. He admired and loved the constitution of his country, and wished to preserve it unaltered and unimpaired. So long as a due regard to this was maintained, he thought it his duty to support the measures of government; but whenever they were evidently inconsistent with the public welfare, he opposed them with freedom and firmness. Yet his opposition was always tempered with the utmost fidelity, respect, and decency, to the excellent prince upon the throne; and the most candid allowances for the unavoidable errors and infirmities even of the very best ministers, and the peculiarly difficult situation of those who govern a free and high-spirited people. He seldom spoke in parliament, except where the interests of religion and virtue seemed to require it; but whenever he did, he spoke with propriety and strength, and was heard with attention and deference. Though he never attached himself blindly to any set of men, yet his chief political connections were with the late duke of Newcastle and Lord Chancellor Hardwicke. To these he principally owed his advancement; and he had the good fortune to live long enough to show his gratitude to them or their descendants.

For more than ten years, during which Dr Secker enjoyed the see of Canterbury, he resided constantly at his archiepiscopal house at Lambeth. A few months before his death, the dreadful pains he felt had compelled him to think of trying the Bath waters: but that design was stopped by the fatal accident which put an end to his life.

His Grace had been for many years subject to the gout, which, in the latter part of his life, returned with

more frequency and violence, and did not go off in a regular manner, but left the parts affected for a long time very weak, and was succeeded by pains in different parts of the body. About a year and a half before he died, after a fit of the gout, he was attacked with a pain in the arm, near the shoulder, which having continued about 12 months, a similar pain seized the upper and outer part of the opposite thigh, and the arm soon became easier. This was much more grievous than the former, as it quickly disabled him from walking, and kept him in almost continual torment, except when he was in a reclining position. During this time he had two or three fits of the gout; but neither the gout nor the medicines alleviated these pains, which, with the want of exercise, brought him into a general bad habit of body.

On Saturday July 30. 1768, he was seized, as he sat at dinner, with a sickness at his stomach. He recovered before night; but the next evening, while his physicians were attending, and his servants raising him on his couch, he suddenly cried out that his thigh-bone was broken, The shock was so violent, that the servants perceived the couch to shake under him, and the pain so acute and unexpected, that it overcame the firmness he so remarkably possessed. He lay for some time in great agonies; but when the surgeons arrived, and discovered with certainty that the bone was broken, he was perfectly resigned, and never afterwards asked a question about the event. A fever soon ensued. On Tuesday he became lethargic, and continued so till. about five o'clock on Wednesday afternoon, when he expired with great calmness, in the 75th year of his age.

On examination, the thigh-bone was found to be carious about four inches in length, and at nearly the same distance from its head. The disease took its rise from the internal part of the bone, and had so entirely destroyed its substance, that nothing remained at the part where it was broken but a portion of its outward integument; and even this had many perforations, one of which was large enough to admit two fingers, and was filled with a fungous substance arising from within the bone. There was no appearance of matter about the caries, and the surrounding parts were in a sound state. It was apparent that the torture which he underwent during the gradual corrosion of this bone must have been inexpressibly great. Out of tenderness to his family he seldom made any complaints to them, but to his physicians he frequently declared his pains were so excruciating, that unless some relief could be procured he thought it would be impossible for human nature to support them long. Yet he bore them for upwards of six months with astonishing patience and fortitude; sat up generally the greater part of the day, admitted his particular friends to see him, mixed with his family at the usual hours, sometimes with his usual cheerfulness; and, except some very slight defects of memory, retained all his faculties and senses in their full vigour till within a few days of his death. He was buried, pur

suant

Secker, suant to his own directions, in a covered passage, leadSecond. ing from a private door of the palace to the north door of Lambeth church; and he forbade any monument or epitaph to be placed over him.

By his will he appointed the Rev. Dr Daniel Burton, canon of Christ-church, and Mrs Catherine Talbot, already mentioned in the course of these memoirs, his executors; and left 13,000l. in trust to the Drs Porteous and Stinton, his chaplains; to pay the interest thereof to Mrs Talbot and her daughter during their joint lives, or the life of the survivor; and after the decease of both those ladies, 11,000l. of the said 13,000l. are to be transferred to charitable purposes; amongst which are 1000l. to the Society for the Propagation of the Gospel, and 1000l. to the same society for a bishop or bishops in the king's dominions in America.

The following description is given of his person: He was tall and comely; in the early part of his life slender, and rather consumptive; but as he advanced in years his constitution gained strength, and his size increased, yet never to a degree of corpulency that was disproportionate or troublesome.

The dignity of his form corresponded with the greatness of his mind, and inspired at all times respect and awe; but peculiarly so when he was engaged in any of the more solemn functions of religion, into which he entered with such devout earnestness and warmth, with so just a consciousness of the place he was in, and the business he was about, as seemed to raise him above himself, and added new life and spirit to the natural gracefulness of his appearance.

His countenance was open, ingenuous, and expressive of every thing right. It varied easily with his spirits and his feelings, so as to be a faithful interpreter of his mind, which was incapable of the least dissimulation. It could speak dejection, and, on occasion, anger, very strongly; but when it meant to show pleasure or approbation, it softened into a most gracious smile, and diffused over all his features the most benevolent and reviving complacency that can be imagined.

SECOND, in Geometry, Chronology, &c. the 60th part of a prime or minute, whether of a degree or of an

hour.

SECOND, in Music, one of the musical intervals; being only the difference between any sound and the next nearest sound, whether above or below it.

SECOND Major, in Music. See INTERVAL. SECOND Minor, in Music. See INTERVAL. SECOND Sight, in Erse called Taisch, is a mode of seeing superadded to that which nature generally bestows. This gift or faculty, which is neither voluntary nor constant, is in general rather troublesome than agreeable to the possessors of it, who are chiefly found among the inhabitants of the highlands of Scotland, those of the Western isles, of the isle of Man, and of Ireland. It is an impression made either by the mind upon the eye, or by the eye upon the mind, by which things distant or future are perceived, and seen as if they were present. A man on a journey far from home falls from his horse; another, who is perhaps at work about the house, sees bim bleeding on the ground, commonly with a landscape of the place where the accident befals him. Another seer, driving home his cattle, or wandering in idleness, or musing in the sunshine, is suddenly surprised by the ap

pearance of a bridal ceremony, or funeral procession, Second, and counts the mourners or attendants, of whom, if he knows them, he relates the names; if he knows them not, he can describe the dresses. Things distant are seen at the instant they happen.

Of things future, Johnson says that he knows no rule pretended to for determining the time between the sight and the event; but we are informed by Mr Grose, that in general the time of accomplishment bears some relation to the time of the day in which the impressions are received. Thus visions seen early in the morning (which seldom happens) will be much sooner accomplished than those appearing at noon; and those seen at noon will take place in a much shorter time than those happening at night; sometimes the accomplishment of the last does not fall out within a year or more.

These visions are not confined to solemn or important events: nor is it true, as is commonly reported, that to the second sight nothing is presented but phantoms of evil. The future visit of a mountebank, or piper; a plentiful draught of fish; the arrival of common travellers; or, if possible, still more trifling matters than these,

are foreseen by the seers. A gentleman told Dr Johnson, that when he had once gone far from his own island, one of his labouring servants predicted his return, and described the livery of his attendant, which he had ne ver worn at home; and which had been, without any previous design, occasionally given him.

As many men eminent for science and literature have admitted the reality of this apparently useless gift, we shall, without interposing our own opinion, give the reflections of two of the first characters of the age upon it, and leave our readers to form their own judgment. By Dr Beattie of Aberdeen it is thus accounted for.

The Highlands of Scotland are a picturesque but a melancholy country. Long tracts of mountainous desert, covered with dark heath, and often obscured by misty weather; narrow valleys, thinly inhabited, and bounded by precipices resounding with the fall of torrents; a soil so rugged, and a climate so dreary, as in many parts to admit neither the amusements of pasturage nor the labours of agriculture; the mournful dashing of waves along the friths and lakes that intersect the country; the portentous noises which every change of the wind and every increase or diminution of the waters is apt to raise in a lonely region full of echoes and rocks and caverns; the grotesque and ghastly appearance of such a landscape by the light of the moon objects like these diffuse a gloom over the fancy, which may be compatible enough with occasional and social merriment, but cannot fail to tincture the thoughts of a native in the hour of silence and solitude. If these people, notwithstanding their reformation in religion, and more frequent intercourse with strangers, do still retain many of their old superstitions, we need not doubt but in former times they must have been much more enslaved to the horrors of imagination, when beset with the bugbears of Popery and Paganism. Most of their superstitions are of a melancholy cast. That of second sight, by which some are still supposed to be haunted, is considered by themselves as a misfortune, on account of the many dreadful images it is said to obtrude upon the fancy. It is said that some of the Alpine regions do likewise lay claim to a sort of second sight.