310 



with her seems to have altogether ended in 1779, while Dr. Haweis, 

 his brother-in-law, remained one of her chaplains till her death. 



Mr. Warner relates that in after life he rarely adverted to this 

 season of his zeal, or to the adventures and circumstances connected 

 with it ; but one day at a dinner party Dr. Shepherd, who still 

 continued to hold Calvinistic notions, and was a little sore at 

 Townsend's desertion, took occasion to rally him on his apostacy. 



" He begged to recall to his brother clerk's rememhrance the particulars of 

 their former ministerial career, describing with irresistible comicality the 

 various adventures, strange occurrences, and hair-breadth escapes they had 

 experienced in holding forth from market crosses, in bams and fields. 

 Townsend's solemn face flushed at times with indignation, ever and anon 

 struggling with an unwilling smUe, compelled by the Doctor's exquisite 

 drollery to degenerate into a hearty laugh." * 



It has been supposed that Mr. Townsend was the original 

 from which the late Rev. R. Graves, of Claverton, sketched 

 the character of Timothy Wildgoose in his satire, " The Spiritual 

 Quixote ;" and the " Gentleman's Magazine," the " Annual 

 Register," and the " Annual Biography," definitely stated, " he fell 

 tinder the lash of the late Rev. R. Graves." But the Rev. F. 

 Kilvert, in a paper which he read before the Bath Literary Club, 

 12th December, 1857, at page 108, says, 



" The character of "Wildgoose has by some been considered as a fiction, and 

 by others as representing either Sir Harry Trelawney or the Rev. Joseph 

 Townsend, former Rector of Pewsey, WUts ; but I have some suspicion that 

 the true original may be found in Mr. Graves' brothers. Perhaps it is a 

 composition containing features taken from different individuals." 



Ao^ain Mr. Warner also doubts the correctness of this supposition. 

 He writes — 



" It is generally asserted, but I know not with what truth, that the hero of 

 ' The Spiritual Quixote,' Timothy Wildgoose, was sketched from a then living , 

 character; an estimable divino with whom I was afterwards intimately 

 acquainted, the Rev. Joseph Townsend, Rector of Pewsey, WUtshiro. He 

 had certainly in early life afforded some food for satire by the exercise of a 

 sincere but injudicious zeal in his profession, a spirit which evaporated under 

 the influence of maturer years, a wider experience, and soberer views of 

 religious truth ; but it has always been my opinion that the prototype of 

 Mr. Graves's Timothy Wildgoose is not to be sought in the person of Mr. 



• Lit. Rec, vol. ii., p. 96. 



