case. wit.* Bradbury poured on him streams of Barker looked on his sermons as low and coarse; and one brother, writing up from the country, calls him "honest, crazy, confident Mr. Whitfield." But Doddridge regarded him otherwise,† and in this respect seems to have stood almost alone among the leading Nonconformist ministers. He prayed at the Tabernacle, at which good Dr. Watts was much concerned; and when Whitfield visited Northampton, Doddridge gave him the use of his pulpit, in consequence of which he had a very formal and solemn, yet withal discreet and cautious, expostulation from Mr. Coward's trustees.‡ * A curious correspondence between Bradbury and Whitfield arose out of a letter written by the latter to the former on his attending a public dinner. There is a copy of the correspondence among the Wilson MSS., Dr. Williams's Library. + He speaks of him as a flaming servant of Christ." Doddridge replied " I shall always be ready to weigh whatever can be said against Mr. Whitfield as well as against any of the rest; and though I must have actual demonstration before I can admit him to be a dishonest man, and though I shall never be able to think all he has written, and all I have heard from him, nonsense, yet I am not so zealously attached to him, as to be disposed to celebrate him as one of the greatest men of the age, or to think that he is the pillar that bears up the whole interests of religion among us."-Correspondence, vol. iv. p. 292. CHAPTER II. HIS SOCIAL RETIREMENT. WE have seen what Doddridge did-we shall now see more fully what he was. If ever there existed a heart fit for love to nestle in, 'twas his. He was sensitive, yet unsuspicious, candid, and tenderly kind, easy of access, and full of sympathy; abounding, also, in courtesy, which he felicitously terms the "outguard of humanity and friendship." His amiableness sometimes placed him in a false position; and even from a wish to live in peace with all, he occasionally involved himself in misunderstandings with some. Extremes meet, and Doddridge, in trying to be in every instance candid, was suspected of being, in certain instances, insincere. With great talents for conversation, "his discourse not unfrequently rising to the splendid," and with a love of letter-writing which could not be checked by his numerous official engagements, his company was courted, and his correspondence sought, among the richest social privileges. With no mean pretence, no vain parade, but from the abundance of his heart, he declares, "The chief thing I value, next to the enjoyment and service of God, is the love and converse of my dear friends." As a pictorial comment on this beautiful confession, one likes to follow him along that pleasant road from Northampton, to the parsonagehouse at Weston Favel, with its brown stone halls, bay windows, and terraced garden,to hear him there talking, with the freedom of an unbosomed friendship, with the kindredhearted Hervey, perhaps wandering with him "among the tombs," or looking up with him at "the starry heavens." And then we approach the stately halls, as hospitable as they are romantic, of Ashby-de-la-Zouch, and see Doddridge, with the dignity of a gentleman, and the earnestness of a Christian, conversing on the most important of all themes with the good Countess of Huntingdon, and the rest of the pious circle she has gathered round her noble hearth to meet the Doctor; or we accompany him to her Ladyship's town residence, where he preaches in the drawingroom, and the ladies entertain him with their voices and the harpsichord after dinner; and he hears of the blessing that has attended his books to people of "rank and figure," and the noble hostess tells him especially of one Mr. Knight, who has been converted by reading "Colonel Gardiner's Life." Next we travel with him down to Croydon, where Gilbert West meets him with his chariot, and carries him to his classic seat at Wickham,— redolent of the memory of Pitt and Lyttelton,— and there the learned visitor and host spend their time chiefly in religious and philosophical discourse, in one or other of the elegant retreats in the garden; the result of which is, that their hearts are "very much twisted. together, and they are truly sorry to part." During his London visits, he makes "multitudes of new and very obliging friends," so that he is" almost lost in the crowd of them:" he is "feasted and regaled like a prince, from day to day," by people who quarrel for his company. Now he spends some hours with Sir Harry Houghton, who takes him in his Next chariot to see "a mathematical curiosity," and from thence to the Parliament House. he goes to Mr. Halford's, with whom, sitting out the fire, he chats till two or three o'clock in the morning; and another time we find him holding earnest conversation in Latin with four German divines, two of whom are devoted missionaries, and by their simple tales of holy love and labour, they win and carry home the heart of this devoted man. Not less pleasant is it to watch him expressing welcome and affording hospitality to guests at his own abode-hailing, for example, the arrival of the brave and somewhat stern, yet love-fraught Gardiner, when he visits Northampton, and to listen to the experimental conversation between the Scotch colonel in his quaint northern dialect, and the English divine, who gives a rather vehement utterance to the softer speech of the south.* Perhaps the most remarkable I cannot resist the temptation to insert here the following graphic sketch of the Colonel:-"Amongst the visitors at their father's house, at first to the children more formidable than the Doctor (Dr. Stonhouse) and, by and by, the most revered of all, was a Scotch cavalry officer. With his Hessian boots, and their tremendous spurs, sustaining the grandeur of his scarlet coat and powdered queue, there was something to youthful imagination very awful in the tall and stately hussar; and that awe was nowise abated when they got courage to look on his high forehead, with |