ple, on the resignation and through the influence of his father. So high and important a station, with all the jealousy and prejudices that it excited, would have borne down most men at that early age; but Sherlock's vigorous and elastic character raised him above all difficulties: having already laid up vast stores of knowlege, having his judgment ripe, and an ambition equal to his abilities, he soon surpassed the most eminent preachers of the day in true pulpit oratory. For his variety of matter and judicious arrangement of it, for the strength and solidity of his reasoning, for his force of language, for his flow of natural and manly eloquence, we may safely appeal to those admirable Discourses which have long ministered delight and consolation to the Christian: they hold no secondary rank among the writings of our Divines. Nor was it only in the weight of his words and argument that his preaching was with power, but also in the force and energy with which it was delivered for though his voice was not melodious, but accompanied rather with a thickness of speech, yet were his words uttered with so much propriety, and with such strength and vehemence, that he never failed to take possession of his whole audience and secure their attention. This powerful delivery of words so weighty and important as his always were, made a strong impression on the minds of his hearers, and was not soon forgot.** His station at the Temple was held by Sherlock through the different stages of his preferment, almost to the close of life he greatly enjoyed the society to which it introduced him,

* Extract from his Funeral Sermon by Dr. Nicolls.-Gent. Mag. 1762. p. 23.

+ Almost all his letters that I have met with are dated from his house at the Temple.

was extremely intimate with the most eminent lawyers of the day, and was universally beloved and esteemed among them: he always preached at their church during termtime, and to the early and constant necessity of addressing so polished and acute an audience, may be ascribed in great measure that high tone both of composition and of argument which distinguishes his sermons.*

In 1707 he must have resigned his fellowship, for he then entered into the marriage state with Miss Judith Fountaine,† a lady descended from a good family in

* The following is the opinion of an able writer in the Quarterly Review on Sherlock's pulpit eloquence: the calm and dispassionate disquisition on some text of Scripture, or the discussion of some theological question, henceforward to be the exclusive object of an English sermon, was carried by Sherlock to a perfection rarely rivalled, unless by Smalridge, nearly his own contemporary, and by Horsley in more recent times. The question is clearly stated and limited; every objection anticipated; and the language is uniformly manly and vigorous. Sherlock, indeed, occasionally. breaks out in passages of greater warmth and earnestness,' &c. For Pope's sentiments with regard to his powers of oratory, see Dunciad, B. iii. 203.

'Still break the benches, Henley! with thy strain,

While Sherlock, Hare, and Gibson preach in vain.’

On which passage Warton remarks, that in former editions Kennet was named, not Sherlock' the latter was then no great favorite with Pope, under the lash of whose satire he fell more than once. 'The sermons of Sherlock,' Warton goes on to say, ' though censured by Mr. Church, are master-pieces of argument and eloquence. His Discourses on Prophecy, and Trial of the Witnesses, are perhaps the best defences of Christianity in our language.'

+ From the monumental inscription. She was related to the Chesters of Cockenhatch, in Hertfordshire.-Nichols's Lit. Anec. Vol. i. p. 556.

Yorkshire, with whom he enjoyed a great portion of happiness: her character is slightly touched by Cumberland in his Memoirs, where he observes, that she was a truly respectable woman, and his mother enjoyed much of her society, till the Bishop's death brought a successor in his place.' It was probably owing to this connexion that Cumberland's father was permitted to exchange the living of Stanwick for that of Fulham, and was collated by the Bishop to a small prebend in St. Paul's, the only one that became vacant within his time.*

But neither the bands of matrimony, nor his active and useful employment at the Temple, detained Sherlock long from the service of Alma Mater. The value of his character was well known to his college, by the Society of which he was recalled in 1714, having been unanimously elected Master, on the resignation of Sir William Dawes. In the same year also he took his degree of D. D., after having held a public disputation at the commencement with the celebrated Waterland, who had also just been nominated to the headship of his own college. This theological disputation,' says Dean Monk,+ excited an uncommon sensation, not confined to the University: the subject was the question of Arian Subscriptions; Waterland being the respondent, and Sherlock the opponent. The unusual circumstance of a public debate between two heads of houses, the general interest of the topic, and still more, the learning, ingenuity, and fluency of the combatants, made a great and lasting impression. They were both young men, distinguished by talent and erudition, and they exhibited, on their elevation, great aptitude for

*Memoirs p. 136-138.

+ Life of Bentley, p. 291.

business and discretion as well as activity, which speedily gave them influence and authority in the body.' * This eulogy was shown to be richly deserved by each in his conduct as vice-chancellor. Sherlock was first elected to that dignified office, and exhibited an example of fidelity, acuteness, and diligence in the discharge of its duties,

* The circumstance is thus alluded to by Mr. Seed: 'In the year 1714, at the commencement, he (Waterland) kept a Divinity Act for his Bachelor of Divinity's degree. His first question was, whether Arian Subscription was lawful; a question worthy of him, who had the integrity to abhor, with a generous scorn, all prevarication; and the capacity to see through and detect those evasive arts by which some would palliate their disingenuity. When Dr. James, the Professor, had endeavored to answer his Thesis, and embarrass the question with the dexterity of a person long practised in all the arts of a subtle disputant; he immediately replied, in an extempore discourse of above half-an-hour long, with such an easy flow of proper and significant words, and such an undisturbed presence of mind, as if he had been reading, what he has since printed, The case of Arian Subscription considered, and the Supplement to it. He unravelled the Professor's fallacies, reinforced his own reasonings, and showed himself so perfect a master of the language, the subject, and himself, that all agreed no one ever appeared to greater advantage. There were several members of the University of Oxford there, who remember the great applauses he received, and the uncommon satisfaction which he gave. He was happy in a first opponent, one of the greatest ornaments of the church and finest writers of the age, who gave full play to his abilities, and called forth all that strength of reason of which he was master.' This opponent, says Bishop Van Mildert, was Dr. Thomas Sherlock, afterwards Bishop of London. It has been observed, that probably the account of this performance having reached Dr. Clarke's ears, gave occasion to his omitting in the second edition of his Scripture Doctrine of the Trinity, the passage in his first edition respecting Subscription to the Articles, which had given offence.-Life of Waterland, p. 13.

which has probably never been surpassed. Finding the public archives in a state of great confusion through the neglect of former ages, he set himself with ardor and perseverance to arrange them in a compact and regular digest; by which means he acquired such a knowlege of the constitution of the University, that in subsequent parts of his life he was appealed to as a kind of oracle, when doubts and difficulties occasionally arose with regard to its jurisdiction and government. Indeed he was very soon called on to exercise his judgment in a very important case of this kind.

Already had the celebrated Bentley, that glory and disgrace of literature, begun to distract the University by those dissensions which his arrogant, selfish, and tyrannical conduct protracted almost to the latest period of his existence. This extraordinary personage having been appointed by Bishop Patrick to the Archdeaconry of Ely, had empowered his official, Dr. Brookbank, to grant probates of wills and administrations of effects to the heirs of members of the University; a right which was considered as belonging to the Academical Court. On this ground, when Bentley was, in the ordinary course of things, approaching to a second year of the vice-chancellor's office, a grace passed unanimously through the Senate, Oct. 10, 1712, enacting, that in future no archdeacon of Ely, or his official, even though he might be head of a house,

* Dr. Sherlock, (says Dean Monk, in a note to his Life of Bentley, p. 292.) during his year of office, compiled a ms. book on the property, rights, privileges, and customs of the University. This valuable document is said to have been lost by a vice-chancellor some years ago: a copy of it however is preserved in Cole's Mss. vol. xxi. p. 237.

+ Biogr. Brit. Sup. p. 230.