1st of March, 1741, in the
seventy-third year of his age.

He was a man of moderate stature, of great strength and activity,
which he preserved by temperate diet, without medical exactness, and
by allotting proportions of his time to relaxation and amusement, not
suffering his studies to exhaust his strength, but relieving them by
frequent intermissions; a practice consistent with the most exemplary
diligence, and which he that omits will find at last, that time may be
lost, like money, by unseasonable avarice.

In his hours of relaxation he was gay, and sometimes gave way so far
to his temper, naturally satirical, that he drew upon himself the
ill-will of those who had been unfortunately the subjects of his
mirth; but enemies so provoked, he thought it beneath him to regard or
to pacify; for he was fiery, but not malicious, disdained
dissimulation, and in his gay or serious hours, preserved a settled
detestation of falsehood. So that he was an open and undisguised
friend or enemy, entirely unacquainted with the artifices of
flatterers, but so judicious in the choice of friends, and so constant
in his affection to them, that those with whom he had contracted
familiarity in his youth, had, for the greatest part, his confidence
in his old age.

His abilities, which would probably have enabled him to have excelled
in any kind of learning, were chiefly employed, as his station
required, on polite literature, in which he arrived at very uncommon
knowledge; which, however, appears rather from judicious compilations,
than original productions. His style is lively and masculine, but not
without harshness and constraint, nor, perhaps, always polished to
that purity, which some writers have attained. He was at least
instrumental to the instruction of mankind, by the publication of many
valuable performances, which lay neglected by the greatest part of the
learned world; and, if reputation be estimated by usefulness, he may
claim a higher degree in the ranks of learning, than some others of
happier elocution, or more vigorous imagination.

The malice or suspicion of those who either did not know, or did not
love him, had given rise to some doubts about his religion, which he
took an opportunity of removing on his death-bed, by a voluntary
declaration of his faith, his hope of everlasting salvation from the
revealed promises of God, and his confidence in the merits of our
Redeemer, of the sincerity of which declaration his who