1074 
age of 74, entirely dependent upon 
_the exercise of his declining talents 
for the support of his age. We 
shall extract from these memoirs 
some interesting passages, relative to 
the private life of Dr. Richard 
Bentley, Mr. Cumberland’s mater- 
nal grandfather, whose character 
has been misrepresented by Pope 
and the wits of his day, and 
part of a.narrative of his journey 
through Spain, at the conclusion of 
a negociation in which he was en- 
ployed to bring about a separate 
peace with that country, in 1780, 
but in which he failed. 
Weshall make no comments upon 
what we may think the occasional 
imbecilities of an aged writer whom 
we respect, but our readers will 
judge whether his age is not yet 
green and vigorous, as far as it 
respects his literary talents, and his 
powers of pleasing and instructing 
by the narrative of past times, con- 
cerning which it is the part of age to 
be somewhat garrulous. 
‘¢ Of doctor Richard Bentley, my 
maternal grandfather, I shal) next 
take leave to speak. Of him I have 
perfect recollection. His person, 
his dignity, his language, and his 
_love, fixed my early attention, and 
stamped beth his image and his 
words upon my memory. His lite, 
rary works are known to all, his 
private character is still misunder- 
stood by many ; to that I shall con. 
fine myself, and, putting aside the 
enthusiasm of a descendant, I can 
assert with the veracity of a biogra- 
pher, that he was neither cynical, 
as some have represented him, nor 
overbearing and fastidious in the 
degree as he has been described by 
many. Swift, when he foisted him 
into his vulgar Battle of the Books, 
neither lowers Bentley’s Mane nor 
2 - 
ANNUAL REGISTER, 
1806. 
elevates his own; and the petulant ~ 
poet, who thought he had hit his 
manner, when he made him haugh- 
tily call to Walker for his hat, gave 
a copy as little like the character of 
Bentley, as his translation is like 
the original of tomer. ‘hat doctor 
Walker, vice-master of Trinity-Col- 
lege, was the friend of my grand- — 
father, and a frequent guest at his 
table, is true; but it was not in 
doctor Bentley’s nature, to treat 
him with contempt, nor did his 
harmless character inspire it. As 
for the hat, 1 must acknowledge it 
was of formidable dimensions, yet I 
was accustomed to treat it with 
great familiarity, and if it had ever 
been further from the hand of its 
owner, than the peg upon the back 
of his great arm-chair, 1 might have 
been dispatched to fetch it, for he 
was disabled by the palsy in his 
latter days; but the hat never 
strayed from its place, and Pope 
found an office for Walker, that I 
cau well believe he was never com. 
missioned to in his life. 
‘¢ Thad a sister somewhat elder 
than myself. Had there been any of 
that sternness in my grandfather, 
which is so falsely imputed to him, 
it may well be supposed we should 
have been awed into silence in his 
presence, to which we were ad- 
mitted every day. Nothing can 
be further from the truth; he was 
the unwearied patron and promoter 
of all our childish sports and sallies ; 
at all times ready to detach himself 
from any topic of conversation to 
take an interest and bear his part in 
our amusements. ‘The eager cu- 
riosity natural to our age, and the 
questionsit gave birth to, so teazing 
to many parents, he, on the con- 
trary, attended to and encouraged, 
as the claims of infant reason never ° 
to 
