xxiv MEMOIR. 



John (rector of Blackburn), Francis, Anne (married to 

 Thomas Barker), and Henry (rector of Fyfield). 



Thomas Holt, the second of the sons who survived 

 their infancy, was born Oct. 15, 1724. He was success- 

 ful in trade, and retired with an ample fortune to follow 

 his favourite pursuits of natural and physical science. 

 He was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society in January 

 1777, and was admitted the same year. He commu- 

 nicated several papers to the Society in conjunction with 

 his brother-in-law, Thomas Barker, Esq., and "was the 

 author of numerous essays in the ' Gentleman's Maga- 

 zine ' between 1780 and 1790, under the signature of 

 T. H. W. Among these, a series of articles on the trees 

 of Great Britain are particularly worthy of notice for the 

 extensive information, good taste, and variety of reading 

 which they display." I cannot refuse to transfer to this 

 notice the interesting account of the son of this gentle- 

 man from Mr. Bennett's preface : " His mantle has 

 descended upon -his son, Thomas Holt White, Esq., of 

 Enfield, in Middlesex. In the ' Notes on Shakspeare,' 

 in which the father sometimes indulged, we find the 

 same spirit which induced the son to inscribe his name 

 on the list of commentators in the variorum Shakspeare 

 of Isaac Reed ; and in his ' Vindication of Milton from 

 the Censure of Dr. Johnson ' is contained the germ of 

 the vigorous and masterly ' Review of Johnson's Criti- 

 cisms on the Style of Milton's English Prose,' and of an 

 edition, truly classical, of the most perfect specimen of 

 that prose, the ' Areopagitica/ in all the purity of its 

 original text, and clothed with all the panoply of critical 

 illustration copious, erudite, and profound " *. 



It is to this gentleman's son, Algernon Holt White, 

 * Preface to Bennett's edition, 1836, page xi. 



