HISTORY OF STAFFORDSHIRE. 151 



JLucretia, the daughter of Jonas Astley, of Wood Eaton, was born 

 March 16, 1690, and received the rudiments of his educational 

 Trentham. On the 13th of March, 1709, he was entered of St. 

 John's College, Cambridge, and was admitted scholar in 1710. After 

 passing through several gradations, he took the degree of M. A. in 

 1717. He entered into orders, and preached at Wolverhampton, and 

 for sometime at Stow, near Chartley ; but in consequence of being 

 disappointed in his expectation of preferment, he retired from the 

 Church, and began to practise physic at Wolverhampton in the 

 year 1720. On the 24th of June, 1725, he married Miss Rachael 

 Manlove, of Lees-hill, near Abbots-Bromley, with whom he had a 

 handsome fortune. He then retired from Wolverhampton, and re- 

 turned to his natal mansion at Willenhall, where he became very 

 eminent in his profession. He published a Treatise on the Dropsy; 

 and during the time a destructive distemper raged among the 

 horned cattle in Staffordshire, he published a pamphlet entitled, 

 "A Letter to the Gentlemen, Farmers, and Graziers of the County 

 of Stafford/' on the subject of the prevention and cure of that 

 disorder. 



In the year 1747, during his recovery from a severe fit of illness, 

 he amused himself with writing his own epitaph, which he calls a 

 true picture from the life. It is rather to be admired for the origi* 

 nality and independence of the sentiments, than its poetic beauties, 

 and is as follows : 



" Here reader stand awhile, and know 

 Whose carcase 'tis that rots below. 

 A man's who work'd by reason's rule, 

 Yet sometimes err'd and play'd the fool j 

 A man sincere in all his ways, 

 And full of the Creator's praise ; 

 Who laugh'd at priestcraft, pride, and strife, 

 And all the little tricks of life j 

 Who lov'd his King, his Country more, 

 And dreadful party rage forbore, 

 He told nobility the truth, 

 And wirik'd at hasty slips of youth. 

 The honest poor man's steady friend, 

 The rillain's scourge, in hopes to mend ; 

 His father, mother, children, wife, 

 His riches, honours, length of life, 

 Concern not thee; observe what's here, 

 He rests in hope, and not in fear." 



His wife died in 1756, and in October the same year, he married 

 Mrs. Frances Bendish, who died in 1798, at a very advanced age. 



