Contents of the fikst volume

in this work.

His discourses partook largely of the peculiarities already noticed in his other works: they had the same

fire, the same strength and fluency of language, the same acuteness of reasoning and originality of illustration.

the same happy use of ornament; but they were also so perfectly simple, and intelligible to the humblest of

his auditors, and delivered with eloquence so natural and impressive, that, though far from courting popularity,

he never failed to attract overflowing congregations.
But the principles which regulated his whole conduct as a Clergyman cannot be better expressed than in

his own words: "The dispensation of the Gospel has been committed to me within a certain district, and

under certain forms and limitations. I owe, under the most solemn obligations, obedience to my immediate

superiors in the Church, and conformity to all its established rules: here I have no option; I eat my bread on

that condition; if I transgress it, I am a dishonest man. I see, indeed, the genuine doctrines of my own

Church entirely neglected by some of its ministers, and mingled with fanaticism, democracy, and other

poisonous combinations, by others ; nevertheless, I know them to be the word of truth. I will, by God's

grace, not reject, but separate them from these admixtures ; preach them boldly, yet rationally ; and if, in so

doing, my motives are mistaken, my principals decried, and myself am classed with a sect to which I do not

belong, I will bear my cross in patience." These observations occur in a note to the History of Whalley,

p. 389, the whole of which is well deserving the attention of all friends of the Establishment, and merits a

more general circulation than the particular object of the work is likely to afford. It has, I believe, seldom

happened, that men so gifted for the pulpit and the press, have as successfully interchanged the retirement of

the study for the more active walks of life; but with all the aversion to minute calculation, and the detail of

mechanical arrangement, which the most abstracted student could have expressed, no man could more

practically weigh the merits of an extended plan ; and with nerves that shrunk at the very shadow of trivial

and imaginary danger, none could more firmly encounter its real form, when duty led the way. Composition,

also, with him required little or no effort; and while he could dictate his most finished descriptions on the

spot, or lay up in the solitude of a morning walk abundant employment for the too tardy pen, many a tract

was recovered from the encroachments of time, which his activity never allowed to remain long uncultured.

Hence he was no less busily employed in the preservation of old and the erection of new churches, through-

out his parishes, than in providing for the furtherance of the great objects to which they were dedicated ; nor

1 See the Gentleman's Magazine, 1820, vol. xc. part ii. p. 402. The more remarkable passages have been

already extracted in p. xv.

xlviii

BIOGRAPHICAL MEMOIRS OF

could the trustees of the parliamentary fund, lately applied to those purposes, have selected a more active and

useful associate. Blessed early in life with the possession of a patrimonial estate, to which he was ever

enthusiastically attached, he became a planter and improver on no narrow scale, and in this profitable and

patriotic pursuit received the gold medal of the Society of Arts, while more than half a million of trees,

rising gradually beneath his hand, gave grace and dignity to the rugged scenery around him. To watch their

growth and beauty was the frequent solace of his lighter hours; and when, at his last visit to the Holme,

declining health admonished him that he should see them no more, he calmly selected one of the comeliest of

his own planting to be the depositary of his mortal remains.
In a district where the non-residence or extinction of the ancient gentry had much weakened the

civilizing influence of polished manners on the humbler classes of society, and even the restraints of law were

but feebly exerted, the office of a magistrate, for which his education and pursuits had so well qualified him,

was accepted as a duty, and at Holme might have been exercised with unmixed pleasure to himself, and

advantage to others ; but, transplanted into the midst of a manufacturing population, at a time when sedition

and blasphemy were unusually prevalent, and the poison of a system, whose evils he had from the first

foretold and resisted, was fermented to its utmost height of malignity, the conscientious discharge of his duty,

rewarded as it was by the approbation of his sovereign, and the warm thanks of his neighbours and country-

men, was attended with sacrifices which his friends and the lovers of literature may be excused for thinking

almost too great even in the best of causes the suspension of those calmer studies in which he delighted;

and, as it may be feared, the introduction of that distressing disorder to which he fell a victim.
Adorned with these accomplishments, as an author, a clergyman, a subject, a man, and endowed by

nature and age with a commanding person, a venerable and expressive countenance, and a peculiarly

animated eye, he seemed to possess the faculty of impressing his own image on the mind no less vividly than

the features of landscape were depicted by his pen. An image which no one who has once beheld him in the

pulpit, amidst the trophies of antiquity, or the peaceful seclusion of domestic life, will ever be able to efface

from recollection.

One material feature of Dr. Wkitaker's manners Mr. Allen has omitted. This is sup-

plied by his friend the Rev. William Parker, the Vicar of Waddington, in a tribute to

Dr. "Whitaker's memory (under the signature P. W.) communicated to the Leeds Intelli-

gencer. After remarking that "Among strangers Dr. Whitaker was silent and reserved,"

Mr. Parker afterwards adds, " In the company of a few select friends, his conversation was

of a very superior cast ; full of acute remarks, of argument, or of anecdote. Modo tristi,

sapc jocoso. To affectation, to disguise, or hypocrisy his heart was a stranger. He was

sometimes accused of severity. But piety and modest worth ever found in him a protector

and a friend. The vanity of ignorance, or the presumption of the upstart, he held in equal

contempt. If he were severe, he was, to use his own words, sola in vitia asper."

I have great pleasure in being allowed to add in this place the following interesting

reminiscences of the historian's daily habits, from the authentic information of his son the

present Vicar of Whalley. " Dr. Whitaker was an early riser : he breakfasted before eight

o'clock, and immediately went into his study, where he at once occupied himself in writing.

The study at Holme was a pleasant room up-stairs, and the window near which he wrote

looked directly upon a noble yew-tree, called Dean Nowell's Yew, because it was tradi-

tionally said to have been planted by the Dean in his boyhood. Dr. Whitaker always wrote

upon a volume of Tacitus, resting upon an easel or stand of yew. He scarcely ever omitted

THOMAS DUNHAM WHITAKER.

xlix

to read a page or two of Tacitus every day, excepting on a Saturday, when he read one of

the Fathers, preferring Chrysostom ; this was preparatory to his extempore sermon on the

following day, 1 when one of the great charms of his discourse would be the introduction of

historical notices and anecdotes taken from the Fathers. But Tacitus in prose, Juvenal in

verse, were his favourite authors. He remained in the study writing, or arranging papers

to he copied by his amanuensis Mr. Allen, who sat in a room below, until he went out

about noon to his workmen in the woods, and it was among his favourite plantations that

the most admired and beautiful portions of his writings were composed, for subsequent

transference to paper. The great delight of Ids life was planting, and the beautiful woods

and demesnes at the Holme are the result of his wise expenditure and forethought. He

came into the possession of a tree-denuded estate, when there were not above six or seven

acres of wood upon it, and he left it covered with thriving plantations of all sizes, and trees

of various growth. It was the finest larch in the Old Clough, planted by himself, that was

felled to form his coffin, which was hewn out from its bulk like a canoe, according to his

own directions given to his bailiff William Edrnundson. 2 Addison asserts, in his Spectator,

1 " His extempore eloquence in the pulpit was rapid, energetic and impressive. His language was so terse, so

correct, and, at the same time, so elegant, that the most learned and polished audience could not but admire it." Eev

William Parker, (P. W.) in the Leeds Intelligencer.

2 By the kindness of Mrs. Crossley of Scaitcliffe, I am able to append the following letter addressed to her

late husband's father.

Mr. William Edmundson to John Crossley, Esq. F.S.A.
SIR, Knowing you have a valuable collection of ancient and curious documents, and an anxious desire to extend

the same, I beg leave to hand you a few very memorable particulars of the last days of the learned Thomas Dunham

Whitaker, LL.D. which will be the more esteemed by you, because of your particular friendship with the Doctor.
On the 21st August, 1821, the Doctor sent for me from the hay-field, to go with him into the wood and when

we got there, he walked to the side of a larch tree, and said, " William, I planted this tree with my own hands,

and intend to have my coffin made of it; have you your two-foot in your pocket ?" I said I had, " Then (says he,)

measure it." Afterwards he turned his back to the said tree, closed his arms up, and said, " Will it hold my body when

it is hollowed out of the solid ?" I replied, " It will be little enough;" and he immediately observed, " The tree is

growing bigger, and I am growing less."

On the 17th of October following, he sent his servant with a letter, (sealed with black wax, and with his own

seal of arms,) directed to me, as follows:

" Mr. W. EDMUNDSON, Cliviger.
" To be opened and read as soon as I am dead. T. D. W."
A copy of which Letter I also beg to hand you, viz.
" I, Thomas Dunham Whitaker, Clerk, LL.D. do hereby direct my body to be interred in the Chapel under the

old pulpit, as it now stands, and on the north side of the body of my father ; and I also direct that as soon as I am dead

two graves, one beneath the other, be made for the reception of my own body and that of my dear wife, both bricked,

and each covered and bottomed with flags, one upon the other.

" And as soon as I am dead, I also direct, that a Larch Tree planted by me A.D. 1786, and now standing at the

entrance of the Old Clough, be cut down and be hollowed out into one excavation for my body, after which it is to be

lined with lead for my interment; and I desire these directions may be fully and literally complied with.
" T. D. WHITAKER."
This larch tree had been planted about 35 years, and was 63 feet long, and contained 31J feet of wood, and

1

BIOGRAPHICAL MEMOIRS OF

that ' The love of woods, of fields, of flowers, of rivers, and waterfalls seems to be a pas-

sion implanted in our nature the most early of any, and is one not unbecoming of serious

thought.' This "Whitaker fully enjoyed. The waterfalls in Dodbottom and at the Earl's

Bower, a spot which he has noticed in his description of Cliviger, attracted him by their

beauty. Among these woods he remained with his workmen until three o'clock, and

he liked to have two greyhounds with him, as he was fond of dogs, and they were as fond of

him, and awaited his coming out in the morning. Neither the distinguished honour with

which the first edition of his History of Whalley was received by the public, nor the com-

plimentary letters addressed to him by his literary contemporaries and friends, by Marsh,

Bishop of Peterborough, his old and intimate friend at St. John's ; by Richard Heber

of Hodnet ; by Archdeacon Churton ; or George Law, Bishop of Chester, and others ; not

even his appointment to his favourite church of "Whalley so flatteringly made. by Arch-

bishop Manners Sutton, none of them carried with them half the delight that he derived

from the love of his plantations, and walks in them, and the improvements which he was

continually making in them. He received the gold medal of the Society of Arts ' (which is

now at the Holme,) for the greatest number of larch trees planted in one year ; and his

example and that set on a still larger scale by Mr. Towneley, were afterwards followed by

many of his friends, to the great benefit of their estates, in the vallies of the Calder and

Rlbble, by Mr. Taylor of Moreton, by Colonel Hargreaves of Ormerod, by Colonel Clayton

of Carr Hall, by Mr. Lister Parker, and others.
" He returned from his walks to dinner at three ; and from dinner to six, or half-past,

he did little. At that time we had tea ; after which, he went up to the study, and read

or wrote, until half past seven. His family then joined him, and one of his sons read

aloud, whilst the ladies worked, from such authors as Clarendon, Robertson, Southey, &c.

and, above all, each of Sir Walter Scott's novels, as they came out, which were sent by Mr.

Murray, in the box with books to be reviewed in the Quarterly. One evening, while we

were so engaged, he was called down stairs to see a gold chain, which it was said the

ploughman had just found. The plough had turned over, but not broken, a very beautiful

gold torques on his own land. The gold glittered in the furrow, and hence it was dis-

covered; and it remains at the house still, the celebrated Holme Torques."

after 22 inches of the bottom of the tree was cut off, a proper length was obtained for his coffin. The piece pre-

sented to you was cut off the same tree about 14 feet from the bottom, which I cut off myself with a handsaw, on the

13th April 1822.
I am, Sir, &c. &c.
WILLIAM EDMUNDSON.

Cliviger, April 15, 1822.

1 It was in their Session of 1794 that the Society of Arts adjudged their Gold Medal to the Rev. Thomas Dunham

Whitaker, of Holme, in Cliviger, in Lancashire, for having planted 64,135 larches between June 1790 and June

1791 ; and at the same time their Silver Medal to Mr. Thomas Gaitskell, of Little Braithwait, in Cumberland, for

having planted 43,300 larches between 1st February and 1st April 1791.

THOMAS DUNHAM WHITAKER.

li

To these anecdotes may be added one which appeared first in the Gentleman's Magazine

for Feb. 1822 : " In the year 1809, on the occasion of the consecration of Grindleton

Chapel, a party consisting of the Rev. Thomas Starkie, the Rev. Thomas "Wilson, Dr.

Watson the Bishop of Landaff, and Dr. "Whitaker, met at Browsholme Hall, the hospitable

seat of Thomas Lister Parker, esq. The Bishop, whose powers of conversation and retentive

memory were conspicuous on all occasions, was so forcibly struck with Dr. "Whitaker's

profound learning in divinity, that he afterwards observed to Mr. Parker : ' Though I have

so long filled the Professor's chair, yet I was obliged yesterday to go to my fourth, nay

even to my fifth shelf, to cope with the Doctor's knowledge of the old and learned authors

in Divinity.' "

Another writer, signing P. W., and who we have reason to know was Mr. Lister

Parker's brother, the Rev. William Parker before named, soon after l made some comments

on this anecdote, to the following effect :
Not long after this visit, Dr. Whitaker gave me a particular account of the conversation which he had

with Bishop Watson. His Lordship having advanced some doctrine a little heterodoxical, the Doctor thought

himself bound to confute his assertion, by adducing various passages from the Fathers and Orthodox Divines of

the Church of England. So forcible and appropriate were the Doctor's arguments, that the Bishop was

absolutely posed, and though he might have recourse to the fourth or fifth shelf, he was unable to cope with

the Doctor, but gently took him by the hand, and jocosely though artfully waved the argument by saying,

"My good friend, when you come to see me at Calgarth I shall be happy to resume the subject." Notwith-

standing Dr. Watson's excessive vanity, he was a most pleasant companion. I will now, said Dr. Whitaker,

give you one example of it. " I never," remarked his Lordship, " expect to rise higher in the Church, though

all the world knows it is not for want of abilities."

In accordance with directions left by Dr. Whitaker in his will, a vault was formed for

the reception of his coffin, and that of his wife, in his own pew in the chapel at Holme,

"as nearly as possible under the place where the old pulpit now stands," and, also by

his testamentary desire, a slab of black Kendal marble was placed over the spot bearing

this inscription :
DEPOSITUM
THOMjE D. WHITAKER, LL. D. S. R. ET S. A.

VJCARII DE WHALLEY ET BLACKBURN

QUI DIEM OBI1T SUPREMUM
XV CAL. JAN. A. S. MDCCCXXI.
IN SPE BEAT^E RESURRECTIONIS
PER SOLA CHRISTI MERITA.
NECNON LUCI^E CONJUGIS
FORM^E PARITER AC INDOLIS ELEGANTISSIM^E
IV NON. FEB. MDCCCXXXVII.

QUORUM E PROGENIE DORMUERUNT IN XTO

MARIA CARALOTA XIII CAL. MA. MDCCCXVI.
1 Gentleman's Magazine, April 1822, p. 312.

Hi BIOGRAPHICAL MEMOIRS OF

THOS. THORESBEIUS M. A. IV CAL. SEP. MDCCCXVII.

GULIELMUS IX TD. AUG. MDCCCXXXV.

LUCIA XVI CAL. JUN. MDCOCXXXVIII.

CONSORS THO* STARKEI A. M. DE TWISDEN (i.e. TWISTON)

CONS1LIAR. DOM. REG. AD LEGEM

ET COL. DOWN. CANTAB. LEGU5I PROFESS.

JOHANNES RICHARDUS VII NO. AP. SIDCCCXL.
There are two Portraits of Dr. Whitaker : one by W. D. Fryer of Knaresborough, 1

from which the engraving prefixed to this work is taken ; the other (at the age of 56) by

John Northcote, R.A. 2 of which there is an engraving (W. Holl sc.) in the Loidis and

Elmete, and a smaller copy (P. Audinet sc.) in the Gentleman's Magazine for Feb. 1822,

and also in Nichols's Literary Illustrations of the Eighteenth Century. The former is

prefei-red by his family as being the most characteristic likeness, for Northcote's is heavy

and wants animation.
A monument to the memory of Dr. Whitaker was prepared by subscription of his

friends, and placed on the north side of the chancel at Whalley in the year 1842. It was

designed by Anthony Salvin, esq. F.S.A. and is of Caen stone, in the form of an altar-tomb,

upon which rests a cumbent effigy of the deceased, from the chisel of Mr. C. Smith of

London.
The following inscription was supplied by the Rev. Dr. Cardwell, Principal of St.

Alban's hall, Oxford, and Camden Professor of Ancient History :

THOMAS DUNHAM WHITAKER, LL.D., R.S. et A.S. Sodalis,

Paroecliiarum de Whalley et Blackburn Vicarius,

ex antiqua littcratorum liominum stirpe oriundus,
ipse litteratissimus,
vixit annos LXII menses VI dies X.
et mortuus est decimo quinto cal. Januar.
anno sacro MDCCCXXII.
Inerant in hoc viro sensus
ad excogitandum acris et subtilis, ad ornandum ferax et profluens,
ingenium doctrinarum capax atque avidum,

animique ardor vehemens ille quidem sed assiduus et indefessus.

Hue accesserunt
in omni litterarura genere copiosa et limata eruditio,

in explorandis histories et philosophise fontibus,

1 Of this there is one painting at the Holme, and another in the possession of Mrs. Power, Dr. Whitaker's grand-

daughter, at Dublin. The name of " Mr. Fryer, Portrait Painter, Knaresborough," is in the list of Subscribers to the

History of Craven 1805, and he is noticed in the Preface to that volume as " a rising artist in Knaresborough, of whom

it is sufficient praise to say that he drew the wild cattle at Gisburne Park " engraved in two plates in the same volume.

His name is also attached to the views of Sallay Abbey, Hallifield Peel, and Broughton Hall, and to some plates of

monuments.

g Northcote's picture is at the Vicarage, Whalley.

THOMAS DUNHAM WHITAKER. liii

quam in artem se penitus demittebat,
curiosa sollertia,
et mirifica turn in loquendo turn in orando turn in scribendo eloquentia,
qua nihil enucleatius, nihil gravius aut distinctius,
nihil autem ubertate ac splendore speciosius.
Prsecipue vero in eo elucebant

indoles quasi -ruris et nemorum dulcedine perfusa,

voluntas ad instituta majorum propensissima,
mores intimo gravitatis ct sanctitatis studio firmati,
sincera erga Ecclcsiam Anglicanam pietas,
fides unice in Christo posita,

quaeque omnibus animi motibus erat eadem origo et terminus,

summa Dei veneratio.

Ut in iis potissimum locis,

quos eruditis cujusquc famaj scriptis commendaveret,

et oratione et exemplo implcverat ipse mira sui reverentia,

tanti viri consisteret atque commoraretur memoria,

hoc monumentum collata pecunia posuerunt amici ejus superstites.

The likeness of Dr. "Whitaker in his sepulchral effigy is considered to he excellent.

The features were derived from a hust by Macdoiiald (which is now at the Holme), with

some advice from his surviving relatives.
Dr. Whitaker's lihrary was sold hy Mr. Sothehy in a sale of three days, Jan. 23 25,

1823, and produced the sum of 814Z. From the priced Catalogue (now preserved in the

British Museum) the following items may he extracted as more immediately connected

with his own studies :

85 Crosley's Funeral Discourse on the Death of L. Britliffe, 1743, with an interesting MS. note by Dr.
Whitaker: bought by Mr. Ormerod for 8s.
87 Dallaway on English Architecture, 1806, with MS. notes by Dr. Whitaker. 16s. (Priestley and Weale.)

164 Evelyn's Sylva, printed at York, 1776, with numerous MS. notes by Dr. Whitaker. 11. 7s. (Heber.)

233 Lord Clarendon's History of the Kebellion, 1707, illustrated with drawings and engravings, in 3 vols
large paper. 111. 6s. 6d. (J. Taylor.)

253 Examinations, &c. of persons concerned in the noted Plot at Farnley Wood; 1 transcribed from the

originals by Thomas Wilson. 31. 10s. (Triphook.)
266 Gisborne's Moral Philosophy, 1789, with MS. notes by Dr. Whitaker. 6s. Gd. (Burn.)

235 Milton's Poems, edited by Thomas Warton, 1785, with MS. notes by Dr. Whitaker. 13s. (Burn.)

378 Gray's Poems, and Memoirs by Mason, 1775, with MS. notes by Dr. Whitaker. (Heber.)