the imagination. You and P- will be amused at the idea of my having Madame de Staël here as a lioness. It was not so, but very near it. Ward was going to give her a letter to me; but thinking, very justly, that it might be more plague than pleasure, he abstained. Sir James Macintosh I have become acquainted with, through the same introduction, and find all that has been said of his wonderful powers, especially in conversation, not beyond the truth. He is the readiest and the most pleasing talker I know-perfectly unassuming, free from pedantry, and, what is a still rarer virtue, free from the apprehension of being thought a pedant, so that his conversation is enriched by all the stores of his reading, without stiffness and without ostentation. My friends in the West, about whom you kindly inquire, are all pretty well; one great and irreparable loss you know we have sustained.* My mother will, I fear, never quite recover from the effects of it. Adieu; possibly I may see you before I hear from you. Yours affectionately, E. COPLESTON. 1802-4. During this and the two following years, Mr. Copleston employed much of his leisure time in genealogical inquiries relating to his own family; nor was it among the least proofs of his vigorous mind, that, amidst a variety of intellectual occupations, a subject like this, of nice and often tedious. investigation, was to him matter of pure relaxa *He refers to the death of his brother, William James, Lieutenant of Artillery, who perished on his way out to Gibraltar. It is supposed the ship in which he sailed foundered in the open sea, as it was never heard of, nor any of the crew. tion.* His particular object was to trace up his own line of descent through a junior branch to the ancient stock of Copleston, of Copleston, in the county of Devon;† and for this purpose he made during these years various searches at the Tower, the Rolls Chapel, and Doctors' Commons, hunting between whiles over parish registers, and monuments in different parish churches. The fruit of this diligence, exercised in his horæ subseciva, appears in a large collection of papers, some of them not a little curious, and among them a pedigree of his own branch, worked out by himself, and ascending up to the year 1574, where it commences with the grandfather of John Copleston, D.D., provost of King's College, Cambridge, 'from whose younger brother William,' says the bishop, in his memoranda concerning this provost, 'I am myself descended.' 'His epitaph,' it is added, 'which is on a floor-stone in King's College Chapel, but still in * Izaac Walton, of Bishop Sanderson :- But though he would not be always loaden with these knotty points and distinctions, yet the study of old records, genealogies, and heraldry, were a recreation, and so pleasing, that he would say they gave rest to his mind.' Sir William Pole, who died 1635, in his County History, written about the year 1616, p. 225, has the following notice: 'Copleston, which gave the name to an emynent family in this shire lyeth in this Parish [Colbrooke] whose name I first find in the deede of Grant of Hugh de Sancto Vedasto made unto Mathew de Wodeton before named, unto which William de Coplestona is sett downe as a witness betwixt him and Richard Copleston, in Kinge Edw. ii. tyme. But afterward they grew unto greatness, and albeit they had great marriages in lands, yet hath not any of that famyly bine knighted, and therefore they received the name of Silver Spurr, and for their great revenue were called the Great Copleston.' good preservation, states that he was born-Antiquâ stirpe et honesto loco in agro Dorsettiensi.' The MS. memoir before me, in the bishop's handwriting, gives proof that this first Provost Copleston was an author as well as a scholar; nor do I think it will be a tedious diversion if I produce it here. 'On the 29th May, 1661, he preached a sermon at the cathedral church of Exeter, which he afterwards published, entitled, Moses next to God and Aaron next to Moses subordinate and subservient. In the title-page he is styled 'John Copleston, M.A., sometime Fellow of King's College in Cambridge, now Vicar of Broad Clyste, Devon, and Prebend of St. Peter's, Exon.' 'The sermon is a good argument on the divine institution of government. One passage is peculiarly animated, which I will transcribe. After having reasoned at some length upon the absurdity and inconsistency of founding government on social compact, he proceeds : : Away, then, with that irreligious and dangerous tenet, so frequent in the mouths and pens of some men in these days, that all power is from the people, interpreting, I know not by what authority, Dei Minister, the people's servant; that magistrates, yea, even the supreme magistrate, is trusted by the people, and if he be not faithful, that is, if he satisfie not their giddy humours (which, in prudence and conscience, he is bound not to do), then they may assert their native rights, and re-assume the trust reposed in him. Thus does this pernicious error pretend to a law of nature for the violation of all the laws, both of God and man. A doctrine big with rebellion and confusion, whose teeming womb never brings forth any other issue but blood and fire, and pillars of smoak.'' Doubtless, with all due respect for his loyal ancestor, but yet with a little quiet satire, the bishop adds, after giving this extract- What share this sermon had in his promotion I know not, but on the 26th June, 1669, he was admitted canon.' Further on, the future Provost of Oriel records the honours of his ancestor in these words:-' He was elected provost of his College by the unanimous suffrage of the Society on the 24th August, 1681, and continued there till his death, August 24, 1689, having presided over the College exactly eight years, and (if his epitaph is to be credited) with the greatest prudence and dignity.' I gather from the interesting family relic, of which a fac-simile is here given, that this last expression of the epitaph is intended to be more than ordinarily significant. In what degree the Provost of King's was related to the distinguished personage whose autograph lies before me, I have not been able to discover; but a 'kinsman,' in any sense, of Monk, duke of Albemarle, was no doubt a right worshipful person in his day. A silver-gilt cup, presented to this Dr. Copleston, as vice-chancellor of Cambridge, by King Charles II., is still preserved in the family. It seems, from the specimens given in the Bishop's MS. memoir, and which are also to be found, I believe, in the Musa Cantabrigienses of that date, that the Provost of King's wrote Latin verses as well as sermons; but I shall not withhold any special gratification from my readers though I produce none of them. It is quite certain that if his descendant, the Provost of Oriel, had not, as an |