468 Memoir of the late Right Rev: Beilby Porteous. [June 1, 
: ‘ 
since been considered as models. In 
the course of the same year, his lordship 
preached before the Society for propa- 
gating the Gospel in foreign Parts; and 
he’ seized that occasion, to piead the 
eause of the unhappy negroes, whose 
cisims have been lately advocated with 
uncommen success, and whose sufferings 
have been in part vindicated and re- 
dressed. 
Another laudable subject that engaged 
much of his attention, was also pro- 
moted by his recommendation, and lor- 
warded by his zeal. Accordingly with 
this view, he published a “ Letter to the 
Clergy of the Diocese of Chester, con- 
cermug Sanday Schools.” 
In 1787, a considerable change took 
place in his life, and the scese of his 
labours was not a little extended ; for on 
the death of the amiable, and learned 
Bishop Lowth, Dr. Porteus was trans- 
Jated to the see of London. This event 
gave entire satisfaction to every descrip- 
tion of christians within the kingdom. 
Instead ef relaxing from his labours, 
his lordship now appears to have been 
invigorated in his career; for after de- 
livering and publishing a charge to the 
clergy ‘of his new diocese, at the primary 
visitation, he once more turned his at- 
tention tewards the unhappy situation of 
the oppressed Africans, who, after having 
been forcibly taken from their native 
country, chiefly by fraud, treachery, or 
force, were treated with ‘an uncommon 
degree of harshness, not to say cruelty, 
by their task-masters in the colonies. 
“This good prelate, imagining that chris- 
tianity might soften their lot, in 1792, 
assisted to found a society for their 
conversion. 
Meanwhile, lest the inhabitants of his 
very populous diocese should relapse 
into infidelity, he commenced a series of 
lectures, at St. James’s church, in the 
eity of Westminster. 
livered every Friday, to crowded and 
gentee! audiences, composed of persons 
of all persuasions, and had. for their ob- 
ject todemonstrate the truth of the gos- 
pel history, and the divinity of Christ’s 
mission. It was on this occasion that, 
towards the latter end of his life, he ac- 
guired the character of an accomplished 
orator ; for his language was. chaste, his 
manner impressive, and his eloquence 
captivating. Nor shouid it be here 
omitted, that his address was peculiarly 
impressive, he seemed to speak from 
conviction, and fully persuaded himself 
of the truth of those doctrines, so ear- 
These were de-- 
nestly recommended by him, he more 
easily succeeded in persuading others. 
In point of private character, the late 
Bishop of London has ever heseln, sumbens 
ceptionable. Affable, amiable, easy of 
access, priinitive in respect to maituers, 
uaspotted in regard to morals, he has 
been always heid up as aa example 
worthy of the pristine times of. chris- 
tianity. Adaicted during the whole of 
his long lite to literary pursuits, and 
exceiling, in the early part of it, in poetry, 
he became the friend of Mrs. Hanwah 
Moore, the correspondeut of Mrs.Carter, - 
and the patron of all those who to a 
taste for composition added a fervent 
piety, approaching to something like 
evangelical purity. 
As to his creed, however, he was not 
perhaps originally very strict, tor his 
patron, Secker, was educated at Tewkes« 
bury, among the dissenters, and it was 
not, until he had obtained the degree of 
doctor of medicine, at Leyden, that he 
aspired to the diynities of tne,church of ~ 
England. We believe also, that Dr. 
Porteus, at an early period “of his hie, 
not only objected to some of the Thirty- 
nine Articles of the church of England, 
but also asserted at the meeting, at the 
Feathers Tavern, when a petition with 
many respectable signatures was pre- 
sented to parliament, praying to be re~ 
lieved from subscription. 
Notwithstanding this, in 1807, the’ 
apparitor of his lordship, as Bishap ef 
London, summoned. the Rer. Francis 
Stone, M.A. F.S.A, and rector of Cold 
Norton, i in the county of Essex, to an- 
Swear in the spiritual court to a charge, 
“of having revolted from; impugned, 
and depraved some one or more of the 
Thirty-nine Articles of the church of En- 
gland, in opposition to the 39th of Fli- 
zabeth.” This produced a very impolitic, 
and ill-formed reply, consisting of a 
“ Letter to the Right Honourable “Beilby 
Porteus, Lord Bishop of London, on the 
subject of his citation, on an unfounded ~ 
charge, respecting certain doctrines con- 
tained in his Visitation Discourse,preached 
before Dr. Gretton, Archdeacon of’ Essex, 
at Danbury, July 8, 1806, by Francis 
Stone, &c.” The author, who has a very 
numerous family, wholly unprovided for, 
has been since deprived of his living by a- 
sentence of the ecclesiastical court, and _ 
which was confirmed on appeal: but we” 
believe, that, in consequence of the hu- 
manity of the bishop, he was never Te- 
jected from the temporalities. 
With the Rev. Henry Bate Duidlex; 
now 
