. Cockburn, his son, soon after
his marriage with our author, had the donative of Nayland in Sussex,
where he settled in the same year 1708; but returned afterwards from
thence to London, to be curate of St. Dunstan's in Fleet-street, where
he continued 'till the accession of his late majesty to the throne, when
falling into a scruple about the oath of abjuration, though he always
prayed for the King and Royal Family by name, he was obliged to quit
that station, and for ten or twelve years following was reduced to great
difficulties in the support of his family; during which time he
instructed the youth of the academy in Chancery-Lane, in the Latin
tongue. At last, in 1726, by consulting the lord chancellor King and his
own father, upon the sense and intent of that oath, and by reading some
papers put into his hands, with relation to it, he was reconciled to the
taking of it. In consequence of this, being the year following invited
to be minister of the Episcopal congregation at Aberdeen in Scotland, he
qualified himself conformably to the law, and, on the day of his present
Majesty's accession, preached a sermon there on the duty and benefit of
praying for the government. This sermon being printed and animadverted
upon, he published a reply to the remarks on it, with some papers
relating to the oath of abjuration, which have been much esteemed. Soon
after his settlement at Aberdeen, the lord chancellor presented him to
the living of Long-Horsely, near Morpeth in Northumberland, as a means
of enabling him to support and educate his family; for which purpose he
was allowed to continue his function at Aberdeen, 'till the negligence
and ill-behaviour of the curates, whom he employed at Long Horsely,
occasioned Dr. Chandler, the late bishop of Durham, to call him to
residence on that living, 1737; by which means he was forced to quit his
station at Aberdeen, to the no small diminution of his income. He was a
man of considerable learning; and besides his sermon abovementioned, and
the vindication of it, he published, in the Weekly Miscellany, A Defence
of Prime Ministers, in the Character of Joseph; and a Treatise of the
Mosaic Design, published since his death.

Mrs. Cockburn, after her marriage, was entirely diverted from her
studies for many years, by attending tending upon the duties of a wife
and a mother, and by the ordinary cares of an encreasing family, and the
additional ones arising from the reduced circumstances of