103 



GILPIN, BERNARD. 



GILPIN, REV. WILLIAM. 



106 



engraving. His great faculty was the burlesque ; his works however 

 often contaiu much wholesome satire. Social abuses and absurd con- 

 ventionalisms were often the subject of his ridicule ; but his pencil 

 was more frequently directed against political abuses ; the doings and 

 enactments of the Tory ministries aud the events of the great war were 

 his favourite themes. His first political satire was published in 1782, 

 and in allusion to Fox and Lord Rodney's victory. The last of his 

 caricatures appeared in 1 809 : it represented ' a barber's shop in 

 assize-time," and was from a design by H. \V. Bunbury, who designed 

 several other of the caricatures which were engraved by Gillray. 

 This last plate was executed at intervals between fits of mental 

 aberration, which terminated shortly afterwards in a total suspension 

 of the intellectual faculties, in which state he remained until his death 

 on the 1st of June 1815. His works appeared singly: but they have 

 been published in sets, genuine, and spurious or copies. An * Illus- 

 trative Description/ with a complete set of his genuine works in 304 

 sheets, was published by McLean, London, in 1830. Many of them 

 exceed the bounds of the burlesque, and are far in the province of 

 the gross and absurd ; he also frequently took great personal liberties. 

 Gillray's caricatures, to be thoroughly understood, require a familiarity 

 with the party history of the time ; they are mostly mere works of 

 the day. 



GILPIN', BERNARD, is one of those persons who, without having 

 been placed in stations which afforded the opportunity for the display 

 of extraordinary intellectual powers, or having had the course of their 

 lives marked by very unusual and extraordinary incidents, yet occupy 

 no inconsiderable space in the eye of their countrymen, and are 

 regarded with affection and respect, as ornaments of their time and 

 an honour to the nation to which they belong. This is owing in part 

 to the popular character of his virtues, and in part to his having had 

 in Bishop Carleton a contemporary biographer, who has given a 

 pleasing and no doubt faithful account of his life and manners. In 

 later times, one of his own family, the Rev. William Gilpin, of Boldre 

 (of whom in a following article), prepared a larger and no less inter- 

 esting account of this venerable character. 



Bernard Gilpin was born at Kentmire, Westmoreland, in 1517, of a 

 genteel family; was entered on the foundation of Queen's College, 

 Oxford, in 1533 ; became distinguished in the schools, and acquired 

 an unusual knowledge of Greek and Hebrew; in March 1541 pro- 

 ceeded M.A., and was elected fellow of his college. So high did he 

 stand as a scholar at Oxford, that he was selected as one of the first 

 masters on the foundation of Chris tohurch College by Henry VIII. 

 He had in opening manhood been a warm adherent of the papacy, 

 but early became a convert to Protestantism, in which he never 

 subsequently wavered. Having taken holy orders, he in 1552 received 

 the gift of the vicarage of Norton, in the diocese of Durham, and 

 preached a sermon at Greenwich before Edward VI. Early in the 

 reign of Queen Mary he resigned his living, and went abroad, as did 

 many others who had been favourers of the Reformation in the days 

 of King Edward. He was absent three years. He ventured to return 

 while Queen Mary was alive ; and was cordially received by Tunstoll, 

 who was related to him on his mother's fide, and who made him 

 archdeacon of Durham and rector of Houghton-le-Spriug. His 

 preaching at this period was remarkably bold. He inveighed against 

 popular vices in the spirit of an enthusiastic reformer; and when 

 this brought upon him much odium from persons who wore touched 

 by him, and he was accused to the Bishop of Durham, the bishop 

 protected him so effectually, that his accusers brought their charges 

 before the notorious Bonner, bishop of London. This led to a 

 remarkable incident. Gilpin obeyed the summons of this unpitying 

 prelate. Full of the expectation of nothing less than to suffer at the 

 take, " Give me," said he, before he set out, to bis house-steward, 

 " a long garment, that I may die with decency." As he journeyed 

 with the ministers of the bishop, an accident happened to him which 

 occasioned a delay. It is said that his leg was broken. While he lay 

 without the possibility of proceeding, intelligence came that the 



Sieen was dead. Gilpin returned in peace to his parishioners at 

 oughton. 



The only other incident in his life which requires notice is, that 

 the bishopric of Carlisle was offered to him by Queen Elizabeth. This 

 offer he declined, and continued to his death the rector of Houghton, 

 residing constantly in his parish, except when he visited the ruder 

 parts of the county of Northumberland, into which he appears to 

 have introduced more of regular habits of life and more of Christian 

 influences than had resulted from the labours of any previous 

 Christian instructor who had lived amongst them. 



The parts of Kedendale and Tynedale, debateable land on the 

 Marches, are particularly named as the scenes of his labours. The 

 people there, living on the borders of the two countries, had long led 

 a lawlets life, subsisting mostly on plunder. Gilpin went fearlessly 

 amongst them, holding forth the commands and the sanctions of 

 Cbrutianity, and did much to change the character of the country. 

 Hence it was that he was commonly called the Northern Apostle, and 



.ime for generations was repeated with reverence. 



HU own parish of Houghtou, which included within it fourteen 



Tillages, however was the chief scene of his labours. It yielded him 



in ample income, for Hougbton was then, as now, one of the richest 



benefices in the north. He was lunuelf a bachelor. In hospitality 



he was like what is said or fabled of the primitive bishops. Every 

 fortnight, we are told, forty bushels of corn, twenty bushels of malt 

 and a whole ox, were consumed in his house, besides ample supplies 

 of provisions of many other kinds. A good portion of this hospitablo 

 provision was no doubt consumed by his parishioners, it being his 

 custom, having " a large and wide parish and a great multitude of 

 people, to keep a table for them every Sunday from Michaelmas to 

 Easter." But the rectory-house was also open to all travellers, and 

 so great was the reverence which surrounded the master, that his 

 liberality was rarely abused; even the most wicked being awed 

 by it. 



His skill in according differences was scarcely leas famed than his 

 hospitality and his preaching ; and when to this we add that his 

 benevolence took the wise direction of providing instruction for the 

 young, and that he was assiduous in his attention to the sick and to 

 the poor, we have touched upon all the points which can be prominent 

 in the life of a good pastor. His zeal for education was manifested 

 at once in the education of the poor children in his pariah in homely 

 learning, and in patronising promising youth in their studies in the 

 universities. Of these, his scholars, " he kept full four-and-twenty in 

 his own house, the greater number being poor men's eons, upon whom 

 he bestowed meat, drink, and cloth, and education in learning ; " and 

 out of these scholars, and from the grammar-school which he founded, 

 we are told that "ho supplied the Church of England with great 

 store of learned men." Of his scholars he always maintained at his 

 own expense at least six at the universities, and when they had com- 

 pleted their studies charged himself with the care of their settlement. 

 Bishop Carleton, who wrote his life, was one of these scholars. 

 Bernard Gilpin was sometimes called the Father of the Poor, as well 

 as the Apostle of the North. 



QILPIN, SAWREY, R.A., was born at Carlisle in 1733, and was a 

 brother of the Rev. William Gilpin, the subject of the following 

 article. From his father, a military officer, he learnt to draw with 

 readiness and skill, and early evinced the wish to become a painter. 

 He was placed with Mr. Scott, then a noted marine painter in London ; 

 but his own inclination led him to paint animals, and especially 

 horses ; and some of his pictures having been shown to the Duke of 

 Cumberland, a great patron of horse-racing, the duke employed him 

 to paint the portraits of his favourite horses. Gilpin soon found 

 abundant employment of a similar kind, and became the recognised 

 head of that branch of art in England. Well acquainted with animal 

 anatomy, his animals are almost always correctly as well as boldly 

 drawn, and their positions are true as well as free. Though best 

 known as a painter of horses, some of his pictures of tigers and other 

 wild animals were thought to bo of superior merit: but he was 

 deficient as a colouriat and in other of the higher technical qualities. 

 As an artist, consequently, Sawrey Gilpin does not take any elevated 

 rank, though he made several attempts in the more ambitious walk 

 of historical art ; but, as a vigorous and spirited painter of portraits 

 of horses, he far excelled any of his contemporaries or immediate 

 predecessors, and has not been greatly excelled by more recent animal 

 painters. He died March 8, 1S07. The etchings of animals in his 

 brother's works were executed by Sawrey Gilpin. 



GILPIN, REV. WILLIAM, was born in 1724. Having taken 

 orders, he lived for some time on a curacy in the north, among his 

 relations; but having only a small fortune, and marrying a young 

 lady, his cousin, whose fortune also waa small, aud having but little 

 hope of patronage in the church, he removed into the neighbourhood 

 of London, and took a school at Cheam, in Surrey, which he conducted 

 skilfully and successfully for many years. Some of his pupils acquired 

 distiuction, among them were Viscount Sidmouth, Lord Bexley, and 

 Mitford, the author of the ' History of Greece.' 



Mr. Gilpin is said, by the friend who has drawn a very pleasing 

 picture of his life and manners, to have resolved to retire from the 

 duties of a schoolmaster whenever he had realised 10,0001.; and 

 having at length succeeded in this, it fortunately happened for him 

 that about the same time his former pupil, Colonel Mitford, presented 

 him to the living of Boldre, on the borders of the New Forest, Hamp- 

 shire. To this village Mr. Gilpin retired, and there he spent the 

 remainder of his life, scarcely ever leaving it, in the active discharge 

 of the duties of a village pastor, and being, like his venerable 

 ancestor, a blessing to the place. He died at Boldre, April 5, 1804. 



Mr. Gilpin however is not to be regarded only in his private 

 character of a good schoolmaster and an excellent parish pastor ; ho 

 has enriched the literature of his country with several valuable 

 writings in various departments. His first work was a 'Life of 

 Bernard Gilpin,' and it was soon succeeded by a ' Life of Latimer,' 

 who bore some resemblance to Gilpin. At a later period of life he 

 published lives of Cranmer, Wicliff, Huss, Jerome of Prague, and 

 Zisca. He was the author also of a body of ' Lectures on the Church 

 Catechism,' an 'Exposition on the New Testament,' a 'Treatise on 

 the Amusements of Clergymen,' and ' Sermons for Country Congre- 

 gations.' These works are all written in a style of simplicity which is 

 singularly engaging. 



But Mr. Gilpin was a person of a remarkably refined taste, as is 

 evinced by writings of his of a class entirely distinct from those we 

 have enumerated. These are his volumes in which he has illus- 

 trated, both by his pencil and his pen, the picturesque beauty of 



