240 



Memoirs of J. Biuyjield, Esq. 



[April 1, 



mously atp-eed to adopt ; an interval of 

 Bume inijiutL's clapMcd. When he had ut- 

 tered a few words, in his kind and affec- 

 tionate manner, approvintf a suo;fjpstion 

 which I had taken the liln-rty to oti'er on 

 the principle of the bill, his head declined 

 on his bosom, sud he instantaneously ex- 

 pired. " May I die the death of the righte- 

 ous, and my last end be like his !", 



If it were possible for him now to know 

 the respect that has been paid to his me- 

 mory by his concfregation — by the body of 

 ministers of the three denominations, many 

 of whom attended his funeral — by his pu- 

 pils — by jT^ntlemen disfinsjnished for their 

 rank and eminence in the several profes- 

 sions to which they belonji:, some of them 

 difFerinff from himself in theolofjical and 

 political opinions, and others holding' prin- 

 ciples coupon iai to his own — and by an 

 immense mnltitude of other persons who 

 assembled to pay a tribute of respect to his 

 memory, and to profit by the appropriate 

 reflections that were pronounced audibly, 

 -and with a gravity and animation suited to 

 their imjiortance, over his remains when 

 deposited in the tomb •, — reflections which 

 were received with a serious attention by 

 some hundreds of persons that were capa- 

 ble of hearing them, an attention honour- 

 able to the speaker, and indicating a salu- 

 tary impression on the minds of the au- 

 ditors (may the impression be deep and 

 lasting !) ; — 1 say, that if he had witnessed 

 this interesting scene, it must have made, 

 I was almost going to say, an accession 

 to the felicity which he enjoys. 



J. J. BRAYriELD, ESQ. 



The vicissitudes of this person's life 

 have not been few. Born of decent pa- 

 rents, his early love of reading was checked 

 by his apprenticeship to a business which, 

 not suiting his inclination, he alternately 

 became a weaver, a watch-maker, a watch- 

 man, abookscller, an author,asoldier,&c.&c. 

 In his early progress throncrh these various 

 situations, he seldom missed attending the 

 execution of criminals before Newgate and 

 elsewhere, and Mas generally so well ac- 

 »|uainted vrith their history, that he might 

 have been successfully applied to as a kind 

 of Old Bailey chronicle. He was also an 

 attendant upon all the fairs, races, bosing- 

 matches, and diversions of every kind, from 

 the matches made by the first-rate encou- 

 rs^ers of pugilism, down to the weekly 

 badger-baiting in Black Boy Alley. From 

 the observations made in the indulgence of 

 these habits, he was first convinced of the 

 want of a Sporting Mai,azine, which idea 

 being submitted by a friend of his to the 

 late Mr. John Wheble, that gentleman per- 

 fected his plan, and, in return, alloAve.d Mr. 

 E. an adequate remuneration for his subse- 

 quent contributions, beyond the period of 

 his actual want of it, observing " that 

 (Mr. B.'s) fortune was not yet equal to the 



Duke of Bedford's." One of Mr. B.'s pe- 

 culiarities was to enter every occurrence 

 relative to himself in a kind of daily jour- 

 nal, recording evei^ those faults and follies 

 which people in general are most anxious 

 to conceal. 



Watchmaking, in which Mr. B. Wcis ul- 

 timately engaged, received such injury 

 from the tax laid on' it by Mr. Pitt, that the 

 former, though in the prime of life, wag 

 obliged to take up the office of watchman, 

 orpatrole, in the parish of St. Luke, and 

 afterwards that of book-keeper to a scaven- 

 ger in the vicinity, whose parsimony fre- 

 quently added to Mr. B.'s daily avocations 

 the superintendance of his more disagreea- 

 ble operations by night. From these degrad- 

 ing situations, after some time, Mr. B. wag 

 enabled to emerge, by the unexpected arri- 

 val of a maternal uncle from India, after 

 thirty years absence, with a considerable 

 fortune. From what this gentleman had 

 heard of his nephew's attachment to books, 

 &c. he enabled him to open a small shop in 

 the City-road, where not succeeding, and 

 being unwilling to apply for a renewal of 

 his stock, his next resource was to enlist in 

 the Middlesex militia, with which he was 

 embodied a considerable period, in the 

 counties of Kent and .Sussex. However, 

 the property finally left to him and his mo- 

 ther, at his uncle's disease in 1708, not only- 

 enabled to purchase his discharge from this 

 regiment, but also placed him in a situation 

 to indulge his passion for what he termed 

 "seeing life" to the fullest extent. After 

 spendingsome months in Devonshire, where 

 his uncle died, finding the comparative 

 still life of such a town as Barnstaple not 

 agreeable to his pursuits, he returned to 

 town. 



At lengtb,however, all that native good hu- 

 mour and communicative disposition, which, 

 with his inexhaustible fund of anecdote, 

 made his company a general desideratum, 

 was suddenly interrupted by an afl'ection 

 of the brain. His recovery, however, left 

 him in a state of reserve and suspicion ; and, 

 to exclude himself from his acquaintance in 

 general, he retired with his mother to Cara- 

 berwell, where they lived in comparative 

 solitude till the decease of both parties. 



Though not above a versifier himself, no 

 person had a more correct taste for poetry 

 than Mr. B. 'With the finest passages of 

 our best poets he was well acquainted, and 

 he had carried a copy of Thomson's Seasons 

 in his pocket till it was nearly worn to 

 pieces. Under difterent signatures he had 

 been a communicator to almost every Ma- 

 gazine of his time, and even since his re- 

 tirement at Caraberwell, he carried his pen- 

 chant so far as to furnish some of Mr. Car- 

 lisle's Anti-Christian publications, with 

 articles under his real signature, professing 

 to admire liim for the open avowal of his 

 gentiments. 



- 'BARONESS 



