accumulated and accumulating calamities of his country; spared, however, the murder of his Sovereign, he at last sunk under them;

"And to add greater honours to his age

Than man could give him, he died, fearing God."

As his gifts, like those of the Primitive Christians, had ever been in common, he died poor-poor in worldly goods, but rich in blessing; his richest legacies were his precepts and his example; his best monument the hearts of his people. And as his goods were in common, so was his house a common sanctuary; numbers fled to it for protection against the persecuting spirit of the ComHe gathered non-conformists and recusants under his wings as a hen gathers her chickens, and they were as safe in person, as free in conscience. His wife lost in him one of the best of husbands; his servants one of the best of masters; the orphan a father; the widow a friend; the poor and needy a comforter; the persecuted and oppressed a protector.

mons.

He died at his lodgings in Covent Garden, in January 1642, and was buried in St. Paul's Church, Covent Garden, where the monument erected to his memory was, with the sacred edifice, destroyed by fire in 1795.

Until the hand of Charity, or the generosity of

his fellow-countrymen, put up some storied urn or animated bust to mark his resting place, let this serve as his Epitaph and Elegy—

Robert Dawson*.

BISHOP OF CLONFERT, DEAN OF DOWN, PREBENDARY

OF DONOUGHMORE.

1589-1643.

"Semita certê

Tranquillæ per virtutem patet unica vitæ."

HE bulk of mankind are either knaves or

fools, and, like the fly in the fable, are never so much pleased, nor yet so much admired, as when the wheel of life is spinning round, and they fancy they are the prime movers of the dust that envelopes them. The void is filled up by the good, who (ordained by Providence as a compensating

*See Mant's Hist. of the Irish Church, 237 (London, 1840.) Wood's Ath. Oxon. in Life of Dr. Wm. Bayley, his successor in the See of Clonfert. Cotton's Fasti. Eccl. Hib. Eicke's Eccl.. Reg. Nicolson's Annals of Kendal.

power) perform like Nature's self the great offices of life without noise or tumult.

Robert Dawson falls within the latter species of the genus Man. With half the ambition of Baynbrigg, or apostacy of Curwen,-with a tythe of the vanity of Watson,-he might in the drama of life have played the lion with success, and left his impression on the womb of Time. But as he performed the great offices of life without noise or tumult, governing his actions by the rules of virtue, and regulating his thoughts by those of reason, this memoir can have no attraction but for those who derive enjoyment from the contemplation of Virtue, and of a life spent in her service.

He was born at Kendal in 1589. He was of a highly-respectable family, holding, from the first incorporation of the borough to the beginning of the present century, the highest municipal offices. On a monument to the wife of Jacob Dawson-one of the family-is written the fulsome trash "who by a free and cheerful resignation of herself, even in the midst of this world's affluence, has left us just grounds to hope she is now happy:" and hence arose the well-known Kendal toast,-" May we live as Jacob Dawson's died."

As he was on Dr. Lupton's foundation in St. John's College, Cambridge, the presumption is, that he was educated at Sedbergh School. The

first entry in the College books is of the date of Nov. 8, 1604, and is as follows: "Ego Robertus Dawson, Westmorlandiensis, admissus sum in discipulum hujus Collegii pro Doctore Lupton," -" non juratus." The other entry is of the 5th April, 1609: "Ego Robertus Dawson, Westmorlandiensis, admissus sum in perpetuum socium hujus Collegii pro Doctore Lupton." From the words non juratus in the first entry, it is pretty clear that he had not then completed his sixteenth year; because the scholars before that period were not required to take the oath of admission. We are indebted for this suggestion about age to the present obliging and gifted President of St. John's, Dr. Tatham. The Baptismal Register at Kendal had misled us many years. There is no record of his first entry as a member of the College, but we shall not be far wrong in supposing it to be on or about the date of the first entry above referred to. On Dr. Lupton's Foundation, he became Scholar and Fellow. He graduated in

Divinity.

In 1624 he was made Prebendary of Donoughmore, and in the same year Dean of Down. In 1626 he was consecrated to the See of Clonfert. Here he remained until the Irish rebellion broke out, when he made his escape, and retired to his father's house in Kendal, where he died in 1643. He was buried in the Chancel of Kendal