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.

should be capable of acting as vice-chancellor, or even as his deputy.*

The Master of Trinity College remained thus under the ban of the University about two years, until Sherlock became vice-chancellor; when the official, with the principal's concurrence, submitted to his arbitration the whole matter in dispute, to be by him equitably and amicably decided: accordingly,' says Bentley's learned biographer, the vice-chancellor, after an examination of the charters, records, and registers, drew up a distinct statement of the different descriptions of persons, to the probates of whose wills the University was entitled : whereupon the official subscribed an engagement never to interfere with those claims; and the archdeacon ratified the concessions, in the name of himself and his successors. Those documents being published to the Senate in a convocation, were immediately followed by a grace, cancelling and annulling the late resolution; and the repeal was next day voted by the body, with the same unanimity as the censure.' +

On the 4th of the following month the sense which the University entertained of Bentley's superlative merits in the cause of revealed religion, was testified by its public expression of thanks for the admirable work which he had published against Collins, under the assumed name of Phileleutherus Lipsiensis.§ As some people asserted that the University had been taken by surprise in this instance, and the grace had

* Dean Monk's Life of Bentley, p. 262. + Page 292.

Ibid.

The grace on this occasion was drawn up by his friend and supporter Waterland.-Bishop Van Mildert's Life of Waterland, p. 13.

been clandestinely passed through the Senate at a single congregation,* Dean Monk has taken some pains to vindicate the great Aristarchus and his friends from this charge of artifice and collusion: he observes that the motion was made with unusual pomp,' and that 'the person answerable for the management, had there been any, was Sherlock, the vice-chancellor, who can never be reckoned among the friends of the Master of Trinity.'†

In truth it redounds greatly to the credit of the subject of this Memoir, that he was not numbered among those friends. I am inclined to think that the sound sense, the accurate legal knowlege, and the strict integrity of Sherlock's character, would never have allowed him to encourage the scandalous acts of that extraordinary personage, who seemed as if he took delight in stirring up the waves of strife around him, just as one might imagine some powerful enchanter to raise the foaming billows of the ocean, that he might plunge amidst their furrows, and defy their rage. But that Sherlock became one of Bentley's most determined opponents, was probably owing, not so much to his detestation of the other's tyranny, as to the different view he took of politics, and to the associates with whom he was accustomed to act; one of whom was connected with him by nearer ties than those of friendship: a similarity however of opinion in ecclesiastical matters, (for Bentley, though he was a Whig in politics,

*This actually gave rise to a decree which passed soon afterwards, declaring, 'that no public business should be completed except in two congregations.'-Life of Bentley, p. 293.

+ Page 293.

Dr. Gooch, Master of Caius College, whom Bentley designated as the empty Gotch of Caius,' in whose vice-chancellorship the Master of Trinity was degraded, and who was the leader