present Lord Bolton, was called to the House of Peers, in consequence of the demise of his father, Sir John Orde succeeded him in the representation of the Borough of Yarmouth, in the Isle of Wight.

In 1814, he was appointed Admiral of the White.

He married first, Feb. 8, 1781, at Charlestown, Margaret, daughter and heiress of Richard Stephens, Esq. of St Helena, in South Carolina; she died in 1789, leaving no surviving is sue; secondly, in December, 1793, Jane, eldest daughter of John Frere of Finningham, county of Suffolk, Esq. by whom he had two children; the eldest succeeds him.

MARQUIS OF TITCHFIELD.

March 5.-At Portland House, in St James's Square, in his 28th year, the Most Noble William Henry Cavendish Bentinck, Marquis of Titchfield, eldest son of William Henry, present Duke of Portland, by Henrietta, eldest daughter and co-heiress of the late General Scott of Balcomie, county of Fife, N. B. He was born August 28, 1796, and after a domes tic education under the ablest instructors, was sent, at Easter in 1815, to Christ Church College, Oxford, and there placed under the tuition of that elegant and accomplished scholar, Dr Edmund Goodenough, the present learned head master of Westminster School, whose father, the venerable Bishop of Carlisle, had fulfilled the duties of the same office to the father and family of this lamented noble

man.

At the public examinations at Michaelmas, 1818, the name of the Marquis appeared in the second class of those who had distinguished themselves for superior proficiency in classical literature; after this honourable tribute to his abilities and industry,

he quitted the university, where his correct and exemplary deportment, during a three years' residence, gained the lasting attachment of every member with whom he was connected. Respected by his seniors, beloved by his contemporaries, few men entered the "world's great stage" with brighter prospects before them. His character, thus eminent and unsullied at the place of his education, was afterwards destined to display itself with no less brilliancy in the senate of his country, to which an honourable ambition incited him to display the talents, so useful and conspicuous, with which nature and application had endowed him.

Accordingly, in 1819, he was elec ted M.P. for Blechingley, in Surrey, on Matthew Russel, Esq. vacating his seat for that borough; and in 1821, on Sir Martin Foulkes's retirement, for King's Lynn, which he continued to represent up to the period of his decease. If his speeches in the House of Commons were not embellished with the sublimer flights of eloquence, imagination, and oratory, they manifested no inconsiderable portion of judgment, accuracy, and good sense. With a diffidence of manner which conciliated his hearers, though nearly connected by his mother with a leading member of Administration, his opinions were perfectly independent, and the votes he gave showed sentiments superior to party or personal considerations. The disorder which carried off thus prematurely one of such fair promise, was occasioned by an abscess on the brain, the acute suffering of which he bore with manly fortitude. His remains, on March 13, were interred in a vault formerly belonging to the family of Faucet, (anciently Lords of Mary-le-bone,) in the old parish church; where also the late Duke and Duchess of Portland, and several

branches of the families of Coates, Greville, and Bentinck, have been buried.

REV. THOMAS MAURICE.

March 30.-At his apartments in the British Museum, after a long and painful illness, in his 70th year, the Rev. Thomas Maurice, M. A. Assistant Keeper of the MSS. in that Institution; and Vicar of Cudham, Kent, and Wormleighton, Warwickshire.

The family of Maurice is of high Cambrian origin, and allied to the ancient princes of Powis. The pedigree of Maurice shows their descent in a regular line from the celebrated chief Einion, who ranks at the head of one of the five royal tribes of Wales. That branch from which our author descended settled at Whittington in Shropshire. His grandfather, Thomas Maurice, Esq. was the younger brother of Edward Maurice, Esq. of Lloran and Pen-y-bont. This Thomas Maurice having received the fortune of a younger brother, and having increased it by a marriage with the daughter of John Trevor, Esq. of Oswestry, towards the close of the 17th century, settled as a merchant in London, but was ruined in the South Sea Bubble, in 1721. He had three children, Thomas, (father of our author,) brought up to succeed him in his own line, Peter, and John.

On the death of his father, the subject of this memoir was first sent to Christ's Hospital; but his health declining, he was removed in about a year and a half, to an academy at Ealing, then kept by Mr Pearse, and now flourishing under the superintendance of the Rev. Dr Nicholas. Thence he was removed, in consequence of his mother's attachment to methodism, to the "Athens of Wesleyan literature, in the neighbourhood of Bristol." His next preceptor was

Mr Bradley, a learned orthodox clergyman, near London. His original destination, the Church, being now considered impracticable, he was placed in the chambers of Mr Brown, of the Inner Temple, preparatory to the study of the law. But instead of writing notes on Coke and Blackstone, he was engaged in the study of Ovid and Tibullus, or Shakespeare and Milton.

Circumstances now placed him under the tuition of Dr Parr, who benevolently received Mr Maurice under his protection, directed his studies, with what success will subsequently appear, and supported him, though with slender appearances of receiving an adequate remuneration. The affection between these learned men continued till death divided them. Dr Parr ever considered T. Maurice as his admired pupil and highly-esteemed friend; and Mr Maurice ever entertained for the Doctor (as we have above seen) the deepest gratitude and sincerest affection.

At the age of 19, Mr Maurice was entered at St John's College, Oxford; and in about a year afterwards removed to University College, under the tuition of the present Lord Stowell.

Whilst at the university, he cultivated his poetic talents:" I began my career in life," says Mr M. as a Poet, and my publications in that line were honoured with no inconsiderable share of the public approbation; the literary public I mean; as of my principal work, the translation of the noblest tragedy of Sophocles, they alone could be competent judges. The history of their composition forms, indeed, an essential part of the history of my own life, with which, in its early periods, they are inseparably connected."-" The warm commendations of a Johnson, a Parr, and a Jones, with which my translation of

the Edipus Tyrannus was honoured, have excited in me hopes that it will not wholly be doomed to oblivion."

The first idea of Mr Maurice's becoming a historian (but of what he had not a conception) was suggested by the composition of historical exercises, at the seminary of Dr Parr, and the commendations bestowed on one of those exercises. This spark was fanned into a flame when he attended the incomparable lectures on history by his respected tutor at University College, the present Lord Stowell.

About 1783 he first began to meditate a History of India, drawn up in a popular way, from the era of the invasion of that country by Alexander, down to the time that Mr Orme's work commences. To detail the history of 2000 years was no trifling concern; but Mr M. applied himself resolutely to the task, devoting at least three or four hours a-day for five years to perusing, translating, revising, and arranging his materials.

In 1785, finding the weekly duty of an extensive parish like Woodford incompatible with his studies, he relinquished that curacy for the chapel of Epping, where only attendance on Sundays was required.

The first public step taken by him appeared in 1790, in a "Letter to the Court of Directors of the East. India Company, containing proposals for printing the History of the revolutions of the Empire of Hindostan, from the earliest ages to the present, with a Sketch of the Plan on which the work will be conducted; a concise account of the authors who will be consulted; and a short retrospect of the general history."

Mr Maurice had nearly completed his arduous task, when the French Revolution broke out; and neither his conviction, the result of education and reflection, nor his profession,

would permit him to publish anything respecting India, without an effort at least to refute the argument and subvert the hypothesis of the atheists of the day, who had taken their stand to endeavour to root out Christianity, and demoralize the world. His nearly finished work was therefore laid aside, and an ample field was to be traversed. New books were to be procured, and toilsome vigils endured. Three more years were therefore consumed in this investigation; and at length, in 1791, his two first volumes appeared under the title of " Indian Antiquities, or dissertations relative to the ancient geographical divisions, the pure system of primæval theology, the grand code of civil laws, the original form of government, and the va rious and profound literature of Hindostan, compared throughout with the religion, laws, government, and literature, of Persia, Egypt, and Greece; the whole intended as introductory to the History of Hindostan, upon a comprehensive scale; 8vo, with plates."-This work was written with great labour, perspicuity, and talent, and it embraced a multitude of important objects. The various and complicated subjects in the dissertation on the Indian theology may be judged of by the summary of their contents prefixed to these volumes. A third volume was produced in the following year, in which not only the rites practised within the pagodas, but the singular style of architecture of Indian pagodas themselves, was exten sively discussed.-A fourth appeared in 1794, in which, at great length, he enforced and illustrated the doctrine of the Trinity, from the universal prevalence, in Asia, of the doctrine of divine Triads.-A fifth volume followed shortly after, in which that important subject was resumed; while the concluding portion of it contained strictures relative to the almost

incredible excruciating penances of the Hindoos, and the Indian metempsychosis. A considerable pause in the publication here ensued, occasioned by impaired health, and exhausted funds; but in 1796, chiefly through the princely liberality of the late Honourable and Reverend Ro bert, fourth Earl of Harborough, a sixth volume was published, divided into two parts, of which Part I. contained a Dissertation on the peculiar Superstitions of the Sect of Buddha, compared with those of the Druids of Europe, whose reverence for rocks and stones of enormous dimensions seems to have been congenial; and Part II. a Dissertation on the Commerce carried on by the Phoenicians and ancient Greeks with the British Islands for Tin.-The seventh and final volume contained discourses on the immense treasures in gems and bullion possessed by the ancient Indian monarchs; and the arts and manufactures of India, which were, in a great degree, the sources of those treasures. An analysis of the institutions of Menu, their celebrated law-giver; and extensive strictures on the ancient form of government established among that celebrated people, concluded the work.

On bidding adieu to this subject, he expresses a fervent hope that "his humble essays (as he is pleased to call them) on the antiquities of India may be the forerunner of some grander effort, more fully and effectually to display them; since (adds he) my mind is eternally impressed with the conviction that every additional research into their early annals and history, will ultimately tend to strengthen and support the Mosaic and Christian codes, and consequently the highest and best interests of man."

In 1795 appeared the first volume of his "History of Hindostan;" its Arts and its Sciences, as

connected with the history of the other great empires of Asia, during the most ancient periods of the world; with numerous illustrative Engravings," 4to. In this volume Mr Maurice discusses the curious and important topics of Indian Cosmogony; the four Yugs, or grand astronomical periods; the longevity of the primitive race, &c. The second volume of this work followed in 1798; and the third and final Part in 1799.

About 1796, he first became acquainted with that truly benevolent character, the late Dr, John Coakley Lettsom. Under his hospitable roof at Grove Hill, a great portion of his Indian Antiquities was written, and some of his happiest hours were passed. As a return for the accumulated favours of many years, Mr M. composed his descriptive poem of "Grove Hill," which he published in 1799, accompanied with an "Ode to Mithra."

In 1798 he published "Sanscrit Fragments, or Extracts from the several Books of the Brahmins, on subjects important to the British Isles," 8vo.

In 1802 he published the first volume of his "Modern History of Hindostan," and in 1804 the second volume. In this work Mr Maurice undertook to collect together, into one body, the fragments of historical information respecting India, which are to be found in the early classical, as well as Moslem writers, and to illustrate both by such additional documents as are afforded by the Ayeen Akbery, the Asiatic Researches, and other authentic publications; and his intention was to bring down the Indian history, collecting, as he descended, and incorporating together, the various accounts given by Arabian, Venetian, Portuguese, and British writers, in the successive centuries in which they flourished, to the close of the 18th century.

In 1804, on the death of the Rev. Samuel Ayscough, he was presented by the Lord Chancellor, to the vicarage of Cudham, in Kent.

In 1812, he published "Brahminical Fraud Detected, in a series of Letters to the Episcopal Bench," &c. in which the attempts of the Sacerdotal tribe of India, to invest their fabulous deity Crishna, with the honour and attributes of the Christian Messiah, known to them through the medium of the Evangelium Infantiæ, or what is vulgarly called St Thomas's Gospel, are examined, exposed, and defeated. This investigation proved laborious, extending over a wide and little explored field. The pamphlet traces to their true source the origin of all the spurious Gospels, as well as the mode by which they reached India and Persia.

In 1816, he published " Observations connected with Astronomy and Ancient History, sacred and profane, on the Ruins of Babylon, as recently visited and described by Claudius James Rich, Esq." 4to; and in 1818, "Observations on the Remains of Ancient Egyptian Grandeur and Superstition, as connected with those of Assyria: forming the Appendix to Observations on the Ruins of Babylon, with illustrative Engravings," 4to. In 1821, he reprinted his "History of Ancient India," after it had been many years out of print, with all the original plates, the Avatars, Zodiacs, &c. Many corrections and improvements distinguish this new edition. This republication gave unfeigned pleasure to the worthy author, as being so appropriate, in his opinion, to that period, when Anarchy and Infidelity were again endeavouring to rear their blood-stained standards in this country.

One of the last literary occupations of Mr Maurice, was the writing of his own" Memoirs; comprehending the

History of the Progress of Indian Literature, and Anecdotes of Literary Characters in Britain, during a period of 30 years." Part I. was printed in 1819, and a second edition in 1821. The second part of the "Memoirs" followed in 1820; including a Tour in 1775, to Derbyshire, Westmoreland, and Cumberland; and the third part was published in 1822. This brings down Mr Maurice's History to about the year 1796; but the fourth, or what was to be the final part, we regret to say, was never published.

This is a most amusing piece of auto-biography. The author does not conceal his own indiscretions, but the pleasant way he narrates them, and the evident goodness of his heart, induce the reader to pity and to forgive. But what renders the work truly delightful, are the numerous interesting anecdotes of the eminent contemporaries with whose acquaintance and friendship Mr Maurice was honoured.

The death of this learned and esteemed man may be considered as a most desirable release from helplessness and hopeless misery. He was a man of great genius, lively, instructive, and good-humoured. His talents, attainments, and virtues, amply expiated his singularities and his infirmities.

BARON MASERES.

May 19.-At Reigate, Surrey, in his 93d year, Francis Maseres, Esq. M.A. F.R.S. F.S.A. Cursitor Baron of the Exchequer. This literary veteran was born in London, 15th December 1731, of a family originally French, but settled here on the revo cation of the Edict of Nantes. His grandfather was one of five brothers, who were unequally divided, when the call was made on them for an