Clarke rightly observed on this occasion) ever imputed obscurity to Euclid's Elements. Difficulties they may have, but difficulties soon mastered by the degree of attention which such subjects require.Mr. Secker gave his friend the same assistance in the discourse prefixed to the second edition, and also in that noble work, which he afterwards published, The Analogy of Religion, Natural and Revealed, to the Constitution and Course of Nature.

He now gave up all the time he possibly could to his residence at Houghton. He applied himself with alacrity to all the duties of a country clergyman, and supported that useful and respectable character throughout with the strictest propriety. He omitted nothing which he thought could be of use to the souls and bodies of the people entrusted to his care. He brought down his conversation and his sermons to the level of their understandings; he visited them in private, he catechised the young and ignorant, he received his country neighbours and tenants kindly and hospitably, and was of great service to the poorer sort of them by his skill in physic, which was the only use he ever made of it. Though this place was in a very remote part of the world, yet the solitude of it perfectly suited his studious disposition, and the income arising from it bounded his ambition. Here he would have been content to live and die; here, as he has often been heard to declare, he spent some of the happiest hours of his life; and it was no thought or choice of his own that removed him to a higher and more public sphere. But Mrs. Secker's

health, which began now to be very bad, and was thought to have been injured by the dampness of the situation, obliged him to think of exchanging it for a more healthy one. And Dr. Finney, Prebendary of Durham, and Rector of Ryton, being old and

infirm, Mr. Benson requested the Bishop, through Dr. Rundle, that Mr. Secker might succeed him, and resign Houghton. This meeting with difficulties, Mr. Benson, in order to remove them, very generously gave up his prebend of Sarum, to accommodate the person for whom Ryton was designed, and then Mr. Secker was allowed to make the exchange abovementioned. He went up to London, and was instituted to Ryton and the prebend, June 3, 1727, and for the two following years lived chiefly at Durham, going over every week to officiate at Ryton, and spending there two or three months together in the summer.

In July, 1732, the Duke of Grafton then Lord Chamberlain, appointed him chaplain to the King. For this favour he was indebted to Dr. Sherlock, who having heard him preach at Bath, had conceived the highest opinion of his abilities, and thought them well worthy of being brought forward into public notice. From that time an intimacy commenced betwixt them, and he received from that great prelate many solid proofs of esteem and friendship.

His month of waiting at St. James's happened to be August, and on Sunday the 27th of that month he preached before the Queen, the King being then abroad. A few days after, her Majesty sent for him into her closet, and held a long and gracious conversation with him. In the course of it he took an opportunity of mentioning to her his friend Mr. Butler. The Queen said, she thought he had been dead. Mr. Secker assured her he was not. Yet her majesty afterwards asked Archbishop Blackburn if he was not dead? His answer was; No, Madam, but he is buried. And indeed the retirement of Stanhope, where he spent almost his whole time, was too solitary for his disposition, which had in it a natural

cast of gloominess. And though these recluse hours were by no means lost either to private improvement or public utility, yet he felt at times, very painfully, the want of that select society of friends, to which he had been accustomed, and which could inspire him with the greatest chearfulness. Mr. Secker, who knew this, was extremely anxious to draw him out into a more active and conspicuous scene, and omitted no opportunity of expressing this desire to such as he thought capable of promoting it. And not long after this, on Mr. Talbot's being made Lord Chancellor, he found means to have Mr. Butler recommended to him for his chaplain. His lordship accepted and sent for him. This promotion bring

ing him back into the world, the Queen very soon appointed him her Clerk of the Closet, from whence he rose, as his talents became more known, to those high dignities which he afterwards enjoyed.

Mr. Secker now began to have a public character, and stood high in the estimation of those who were allowed to be the best judges of erit. He had already given proofs of abilities that plainly indicated the eminence to which he must one day rise, as a preacher and a divine; and it was not long before an opportunity offered of placing him in an advantageous point of vie 19.Dr. Tyrwhit, who succeeded Dr. Clarke as Rool si' S.. James's in 1729, found that preaching in s a church endangered theref re, his father-in

his health. Bishop Gibs

law, proposed to the croi that he should be made residentiary of St. Paul's, and that Mr. Secker should succeed him in the rectory. This arrangement was so acceptable to those in power, that it took place without any difficulty. Mr. Secker was instituted rector the 18th of May, 1733, and in the beginning of July went to Oxford to take his degree of Doctor

of Laws, not being of sufficient standing for that of Divinity. On this occasion it was that he preached his celebrated Act Sermon on the advantages and the duties of academical education, which was universally allowed to be a masterpiece of sound reasoning and just composition. It was printed at the desire of the heads of houses, and quickly passed through several editions. It is now to be found in the second collection of his Occasional Sermons, published by himself in 1766.

He was censured in a paper called The Weekly Miscellany for not quoting texts of Scripture in this sermon. The only notice he took of that censure was by contributing very liberally for many years towards supporting the author of it.

At his next waiting, at Hampton-court, the Queen again sent for him, and said very obliging things to him of this Sermon. And it was thought that the reputation he had acquired by it contributed not a little towards that promotion which very soon followed its pub..cation. For in December, 1734, he received a very unexpected notice, by letter, from Bishop Gibson, that the King had fixed on him to be Bishop of Bristol. Dr. Rundle had a little before this been proposed by the for the see of Glouces imprudences of pee.. Mr. Venn, the Bisho nation, and with much Benson to accept that

Lord Chancellor Talbot but on account of some rged on the Doctor by ndon opposed this nomificulty prevailed on Dr. gnity. Dr. Fleming was about the same time promoted to the see of Carlisle ; and the three new Bishops were all consecrated together in Lambeth-chapel, Jan. 19th, 1734-5, the consecration sermon being preached by Dr. Thomas, late Bishop of Winchester.

The honours to which Dr. Secker was thus raised

in the prime of life, did not in the least abate his diligence and attention to business; for which indeed there was now more occasion than ever. He immediately set about the visitation of his Diocese, confirmed in a great number of places, preached in several Churches, sometimes twice a day, and, from the informations received in his progress, laid the foundation of a parochial account of his diocese, for the benefit of his successors. Finding, at the same time, the affairs of his parish of St. James's in great disorder, he took the trouble, in concert with a few others, to put the accounts of the several officers into a regular method, drew up a set of excellent rules to direct them better for the future, and, by the large share which he always took in the management of the poor, and the regulation of many other parochial concerns, was of signal service to his parishioners, even in a temporal view. But it was their spiritual welfare which engaged, as it ought to do, his chief attention. As far as the circumstances of the times and the populousness of that polite part of the metropolis allowed, he omitted not even those private admonitions and personal applications which are often attended with the happiest effects. Not being able, however, to do so much in this way as he wished, he was peculiarly assiduous in giving and promoting every kind of public instruction. He allowed out of his own income a salary for reading early and late prayers, which had formerly been paid out of the offertory money. He held a Confirmation once every year, and examined and instructed the candidates several weeks before in the vestry, and gave them religious tracts, which he also distributed, at other times, very liberally to those that needed them. He drew up for the use of his parishioners that admirable course of Lectures on the Church Catechism, which