THE

DEAN OF WESTMINSTER, AND VICAR OF ISLIP, OXON.

[With a List of his Works.]

HE legislators of former times paid great attention to the education of youth, so appropriately designated by one of the Greek poets, as "the vernal blossoms; and the hopes of the spring." To the honour of the present age, this important object has engaged a large share of our attention; and we bid fair to rival, and even to excel, the most polished of the ancient states, in this essential branch of public morals. On the demise of so eminent a man, in this point of view, as the subject of the present memoir, the earliest opportunity is accordingly seized to do justice to his merits, and hold forth the importance of that profession, to which he dedicated the better portion of his life.

The ancestors of Dr. Vincent were seated at Shepey, in the county of Leicester, and acted for many generations as clergymen of the Established Church. They appertained to that class denominated "the High Church party," and some of them appear to have been blindly devoted to the House of Stuart; "being Tories, not to say Jacobites." We are enabled by the indefatigable exertions of Mr. John Nicholls, * F. S. A. assisted by the communications of the deceased himself, to enter somewhat into detail, on this subject:

1. William Vincent, B. A. of Emanuel College, Cambridge; born in 1664, became rector of Bostock; but refusing to take the oaths soon after the Revolution, was ejected as a non-juror. It is reported, that he was nominated by the Pretender to a Bishoprick.

2. George Vincent, M. A. born in 1660; was bred at Emanuel College, and became Rector of the South Mediety of Shepey, in 1686.

3. John Vincent, also of Emanuel, and M. A. was Vicar of Croxton-Kyriel.

4. William Vincent was Rector of Kilworth, in 1705.

5. William Vincent, L. L. B. became Rector of Shepey in 1710. 6. Silvester Vincent, M. A. was Rector of Shepey in 1741. - 7. Richard Vincent, M. A. brother to the last-mentioned William, was a Fellow of Trinity College, Cambridge, and Rector of Donomore, or Castle Caulfield, in the diocese of Armagh.

Such is the line of ancestors whence Dr. Vincent was descended. His father, Mr. Giles Vincent, a younger brother of the two last clergymen, appears to have struck out a new track for himself. The following account is given by his son :

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“He was a most laborious and industrious man, who made a fortune under the Spanish and Portugal merchants, as a packer; but from the ambition of being a Portugal merchant himself, he experienced, first, a great loss by the failure of his principal correspondent at Lisbon. Still, however, intent upon the same subject, he articled his second son, Giles Vincent, to a com

* Literary Anecdotes of the Eighteenth Century, vol. ix. pp. 126, 127.—note.

mercial house in the city, whom he afterwards settled at a small port, about twenty leagues north of Lisbon, called St. Martento.

"The plan was good, and promised success, and my brother a steady man; but he happened to arrive at Lisbon with a remittance for England the very night before the earthquake in 1755, and was killed the next morning. The concern would have been ruined by that circumstance; but, added to this, a vessel which my father had built expressly for this trade, was run away with by the crew, consisting of foreigners; and the master and his son, the only Englishmen on board, murdered. This stroke was fatal. The winding up of the little that was left was committed to the house of Mayne, at Lisbon, who managed it with honour: but, it was not concluded till near three years after, when there was a final remittance of less than 500l. My father went out of business, and died at Hammersmith, September 21, 1764, at the age of seventy or seventyone; but my elder brother stood his ground as a packer, and was the stay of the family. That trade, however, which was one of the best in London, declined so fast, that though he enjoyed the connexion of three or four houses, all centered in him, he died a few years ago, respected and in credit, but never enriched by it.”

Dr. William Vincent, the fifth, and last surviving son of this Mr. Giles Vincent, was born Nov. 2, 1739, most probably in Lime Street Ward, London, of which his father was nominated deputy, during the preceding year. Being designed for the Church, he was entered at Westminster School, of which Dr. Nicholl was then head master, in September, 1748; about seven months after Gibbon the Historian.* In 1793, he asserted, "that he remembered him in the second form; and at Mrs. Porter's house, in 1748; as he lived next door to Hutton the Nonjuror." They were both at that period only nine years old!

After a residence of five years, Mr. William Vincent, in 1753, was admitted on the foundation. He was elected to

* See Gibbon's Miscellaneous Works, vol. iii. p. 669.

Trinity College, Cambridge, in 1757; and while there, was supported by his elder brother, who had continued his original occupation of a packer: for his father's means had been exhausted, as before hinted; and some lands at Loughton, intended for him by a relation and godfather, the Rev. William Thompson, Rector of Cosgrave, had been swept away in the wreck of the family's fortune, after the earthquake at Lisbon.

He took his first degree, that of B. A., in 1761; and in the course of the very next year indeed, we find Mr. Vincent appointed Teacher of Westminster School. From this time he advanced with slow but unerring progress; for in 1764 he became M.A.; in 1771, he was advanced to the place of second Master; in 1776, D. D. and one of His Majesty's Chaplains; in 1788, head Master of Westminster School, and President of Sion College in 1798. By this time he had a family to provide for, as he had married early in life; and his children were now approaching the age of manhood. Situate as he was, with the sons of the prime nobility under his immediate tuition, it would seem likely that the spring-tide of ecclesiastical preferment would have flowed in rapidly on Dr. Vincent. But the contrary is the fact, as will be seen by the following list of benefices, with their respective dates annexed. In 1778, he got the Rectory of Allhallows, which he resigned in 1803 in behalf of his eldest son. In 1777, by the special nomination of Dr. Markham, on being elevated to the see of York, he was made Sub-almoner to the King, an office which he continued to hold until his demise. In 1801, he obtained a prebendal stall in the Collegiate Church of St. Peter, Westminster; and at length, in 1802, he finally became Dean.* In 1807, he presented

* This occurred during the administration, and by the special nomination of Lord Viscount Sidmouth. The following remarks, are transcribed from the biographical account of Mr. Cumberland, p. 50, published by himself, during the life time of both :—

"Vincent, whom I love as a friend, and honour as a scholar, has at length found that station in the deanery of Westminster, which while it relieves him from the drudgery of the schoolmaster, keeps him still attached to the interests of the school, and eminently concerned in the superintendance and protection of it. As boy and man, he has twice made his passage through the forms of Westminster, rising step by step from the very last boy, to the very captain of the school; and again from the junior usher through every gradation to that of second, and ultimately of senior master. Thus, with the in

himself to the rectory of Islip, and nearly at the same time removed some cumbrous monuments that, for a long time, had deformed the nave of the Abbey.

It is an incident not a little remarkable in the life of this learned divine, that he passed twice, with great applause, through Westminster school; first from the lowest form to the highest as a boy, and secondly as an usher. It is also no less singular, that he almost constantly resided within the cincts of the Abbey from his eighth to his seventy-sixth year; that is to say, during the long term of sixty-eight years, with the exception of a short time necessarily spent at Cambridge, in order to obtain a degree.

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Notwithstanding an uniform continuance in a great and busy capital is generally supposed to be but little compatible with a studious life; yet, on a reference to his literary labours, it will be seen that Dr. Vincent was no idie inhabitant of Westminster. It is now thirty-six years since he published " A Letter to Dr. Richard Watson (afterwards Bishop of Llandaff), King's Professor of Divinity in the University of Cambridge." It may be here necessary to observe, that the popular preacher whom on this occasion he attacked, was from his early youth deeply imbued with principles favourable to public liberty. Hissermon, preached before the university of Cambridge, on the anniversary of the Restoration, and afterwards printed under the title of "The Principles of the Revolution vindicated," attracted no little degree of attention; as did also another discourse, "On the Anniversary of His Majesty's (Geo. III.) Accession." These produced a reply, in which the subject of this memoir entered with no small degree of energy. He beheld opinions applauded, on this occasion, that were in entire opposition to the dogmas asserted by his own ancestors; and he thought proper to vindicate the cause of the House of Hanover, nearly on the same grounds, although with more prudence

terval of four years only, devoted to his degree at Cambridge; Westminster has indeed kept possession of his person, but has let the world partake with her in the profit of his researches," &c.