And now, dear Sir, begging pardon for detaining you so long, I assure you that I am, with the utmost esteem and

respect,

Your much obliged and affectionate humble Servant, H. BAKER.

P. S. I communicated your account of the singing lady to the Royal Society: it is judged a very extraordinary case, and I was ordered to thank you for it in the Society's name, which I do with all my heart.*

FROM THE HON. MRS. SCAWEN.†

Maidwell, December the 1st, 1747.

IT has been a real concern to me that I could not have one visit from you, my good and dear friend, in this awful dispensation.

* I find the matter alluded to related as follows, in the Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society, for the year 1747.

Postscript of a Letter, from the Rev. Dr. Doddridge at Northampton, to Mr. Henry Baker, F.R.S.—Read, Nov. 12, 1747.

"I hardly know whether it be worth while to mention a little event that happened in our neighbourhood some time ago, which yet appeared to me something singular in its kind.

“A clergyman's lady (whose husband is of some eminence in the learned world) in a frenzy, after a lying-in, which was quickly removed, found, during its continuance, such an alteration in the state and tone of her nerves, that, whereas she never had before or since any ear for music, nor any voice, she was then capable of singing, to the admiration of all about her, several fine tunes, which her sister had learned in her presence some time before, but of which she had not then seemed to take any notice."

66 Northampton, Nov. 3, 1747."

+ It is impossible to read this pathetic letter without deploring the existence of religious feelings so far perverted, that the only fountain of

It is, indeed, a great breach, and a grievous blow on the head of our fat valleys; and at first I was so overwhelmed with surprise and confusion, that I freely own that I pronounced a harsh conclusion on the departed spirit of my deceased child, by the original sin he was corrupted with from us, &c. but since his decease my eldest daughter has acquainted me with several alleviating circumstances, and his great delight in reading the 130th and 139th Psalms, and one thing I must add, that my daughters have heard him often repeat the third letter wrote by Mrs. Rowe To the Countess

from her son, who died when he was but two years old;' and my dear Tommy used to wish he was capable to write such a one to comfort me, and those who mourned for him. His death was very sudden; and though my fears were great, yet Dr. Stonhouse, giving me assurances that he was in no danger, gave me hope, to make the shock the more severe. Oh! Sir, the pangs I bore in bringing him and the other children into the world, were nothing to be compared to what I felt for my child when he lay on his dying bed, and when I heard his expiring groans:—but my tears prevent me.

I beg the continuance of your prayers for a right frame of spirit under this rod, and a sanctification of it to all

comfort, in the moment of parental bereavement, nearly became the source of hopeless anguish.

The pernicious influence of those severe and discouraging attributes, with which the Calvinistic scheme disguises the benevolent religion of Christ, hardly admits of a more signal illustration.

We have before us a lady of valuable character, and who enjoyed every means of information, on the point of believing that her deceased child was an outcast from the mercy of its God, at an age when the laws of her country, and the common sense of mankind, would agree in viewing it as an inefficient agent from intellectual immaturity.

How strongly are such sentiments contrasted with the beautiful language of the Messiah, "Suffer little children to come unto me,-for of such is the kingdom of heaven."

concerned; and that our only surviving son and my three fine daughters may be spared in mercy to us. And now I can acquaint you, that we shall be glad to see you when it best suits your conveniency and the weather is more favourable, so as not to endanger your health.

I WROTE Sometime ago concerning the scurrilous letter addressed to you, and see, by your last, that you received a copy of that libel before it was possible for my letter to reach you.

* Mr. Orton has given so satisfactory an explanation of the facts alluded to in Mr. Webster's letter, that I have thought it best to subjoin the whole of his note on the subject.

"Two pamphlets were published, one at London, the other at Edinburgh, containing remarks on the "Life of Colonel Gardiner." The first, which bears the name of John Kennedy, is too trifling to deserve farther notice. The second is a very short one.

"The Writer's principal design is to charge our Author with great want of candour and integrity; and the passage to which he thinks that charge applicable is this,-"The most plausible objection that I ever heard to Colonel Gardiner's character, is, that he was too much attached to some religious principles, established, indeed, in the churches both of England and Scotland; but which have of late years, been much disputed, and from which it is at least generally supposed, that not a few in both have thought proper to depart; whatever expedient they may have found to quiet their consciences in subscribing those Formularies, in which they are plainly taught. His zeal was especially apparent in opposition to those doctrines which seemed to derogate from the divine honours of the Son and Spirit of God; and from the freedom of Divine Grace, or the Reality and Necessity of its Operations in the conversion and salvation of sinners.

6

"By being too much attached to some religious principles, &c.' it appears, from what he adds afterwards, and by what I have heard him intimate,

The attack made upon me, and the other defenders of the divine operations in the West, gave me no pain; and it affords me sensible pleasure to understand, that you likewise despise all that such enemies of the Grace of God can say: I have long ago felt them to be but stingless insects.

I would have inserted your answer in the Evening Courant, but as it seems a very delicate point, and as you are pleased to ask my advice, I have delayed publishing it until I hear from you again; and shall take the liberty to observe, that every sober minded man here, and even those who do not approve of what you have said, judge the Letter writer entirely beneath your notice: besides, it appears to me, that your answer places your suspicions (which by the by are too well grounded) of several of the Scots clergy, in a plainer and stronger light than the passage excepted

that he only meant that the Colonel expressed himself with too much displeasure against some ministers who denied these principles; especially such as had most solemnly professed to believe, and engaged to teach them; and he might, in the warmth of his zeal, drop some words which might be injurious to them on that account."

"But the passage which this writer most highly resents is what follows, concerning some ministers departing from these principles. He calls this ' a murdering stroke ;'-' a murdering stroke indeed, if the traducing them as arrant knaves may be reckoned so; representing them as a set of men who subscribe that they believe doctrines (from which they have thought proper to depart) to be agreeable to the Word of God, and founded thereupon (for in those terms does the subscription of the ministers of the Church of Scotland run), and then are employed in finding out expedients (which you cannot so much as guess at) to quiet their consciences in so doing.' He represents this to be an insinuation as grossly false, as it is maliciously and artfully thrown out. He denies this to be the case in the Church of Scotland, with the clergy of which he saith he hath a pretty general acquaintance; and asserts, that there is a regular and strict discipline in that Church, which would soon pass sentence of deprivation on any one who should, by overt-acts or declarations in words, show that he was departed from any of their established principles." "It is sufficient to say, in answer to this charge, that our Author grounded his supposition on what the Colonel himself had informed him, from his own observations, of the artful manner in which tenets, contradicting the established formularies, had been maintained and insinuated by

VOL. V.

D

against, and may tend to fix the charge more against them, and so cannot be supposed to satisfy those who have taken offence on that account; but on the contrary, will probably increase their spleen and ill humour. I have also a great doubt as to the expediency of the method proposed for justifying your assertion :—for suppose the author of the scurrilous letter refuse to publish his name, and cannot find six men to declare as you require, he may answer-that his name is of no consequence in the present question—that the character of the Ministers of the Church of Scotland does not need the testimony of any set of men-that the conduct of her judicatures, in not prosecuting any of her members, is a declaration that the plurality of the Church esteems the whole as adhering to their subscriptions—that you have demanded what you have no right to, and that the

some ministers of that church; or what he had heard from other persons of judgment and integrity, who were either Ministers in Scotland, or had spent some time at the Universities there; and on what he had personally known of, and heard from, some divines of that communion; and, indeed, this writer allows it to be a supposition made by some among themselves! That it has been, and is the case with many divines of the Church of England, their writings evidently show. To which I may add, that some writers of both communions fix the charge upon some of their brethren, and blame their dissimulation and hypocrisy for such a departure, though the reader will allow that our author speaks very tenderly of them for it. He greatly lamented those unhappy terms of admission into the Ministry in both Churches, which exposed men to the danger of prevarication and falsehood, or led them to such quieting Expedients, as he could not but fear sat uneasy on their Consciences. He thought these were 'fetters, under the weight and straitness of which, however they may be gilded over, the worthiest persons who wear them must secretly groan."

"The candid reader will see from these few remarks on this letter, why our author chose to take no public notice of it. The affair was too delicate to have been canvassed in print, especially as the characters of some persons might be concerned for whom he had a great esteem: to which may be added, that some of his friends in Scotland, and some too who did not quite approve of the passage objected to, advised him to take no notice of this piece, as it had met with the general contempt there which it deserved on account of its virulency."-Memoirs of the Life of Dr. Doddridge, p. 134, 5, 6.