ADDITIONS TO THE EARLY MEMBERS OF THE
STATIONERS COMPANY.

RICHARD WATERSON, an early member of the Company of Stationers, and an eminent Bookseller at the corner of St. Paul's Church-yard, was thus noticed on a tablet placed by his son in St. Faith's Church: "Neer to this Pillar lyeth the body of Richard Waterson, Citizen and Stationer of London; who died the xviii of September, 1563. Simon Waterson his Son placed this heer the 1st of January 1599."

The Son, who had been left an infant, took up his freedom by his father's copy in 1583; and came on the Livery in 1592. He was twice Master of the Company, in 1607 and 1621; was chosen a Common Councilman in 1608, and next year a Governor of two of the Royal Hospitals. He married Frances, daughter of Thomas Legat, esq. of Essex; by whom he had seven daughters and three sons; died March 16, 1634; and was buried in St. Faith's church, with the following inscription on his tomb : "Quâ fide resurrectionem carnis crediderit unusquisquis,

in gloriam resurgat.

Epitaphium M. sacrum, et more antiquo ascriptum, Simonis Waterson (Richardi filii, Biliopoli Stationarii Londinensis); Civis probi, justi, ac honesti, qui bis in Præfecturam Sodalitatis suæ adscitus, et munia fœliciter omnia ejus ac hujus parochiæ functus, in plebeium sive commune consilium Civitatis exinde electus, anno Millesimo Sexcentesimo octavo, Decembris vicesimo primo, necnon anno sequenti duorum Hospitalium præfectură decoratus et consignatus: tota quæ omnia integerrimè perfunctus summâ cum famâ ac fide, usque ad plenam senectutem, et numerosam annorum seriem, gessit. Uxorem unicam habuit, Franciscam, Thomæ Legati, in agro Estsexiæ armigeri, filiam; quæ illi decimam prolem peperit; scilicet, septem filias et tres filios; quorum superstites junior, Joannes, Hæres et Executor, hoc monumentum mærens ac piè posuit. Obiit anno Salutis MDCXXXIV. Mar. D. 16, ætatis suæ 72."

Mr. THOMAS BENNET was a first-rate Bookseller in St. Paul's Church-yard, particularly noticed by the Established Clergy of that period, and by the leading men at Oxford, as appears by the controversy of Mr. Boyle with Dr. Bentley. He was, in consequence, patronized by Dr. Atterbury, who frequently mentions him in his "Epistolary Correspondence;" and, in a Funeral Sermon, thus ably pourtrays his character:

"It will not be unsuitable to my design, if I close these reflections with some account of the person deceased, who really lived like one that had his hope in another life; a life which he hath now entered upon, having exchanged hope for sight, desire for enjoyment. I know such accounts are looked upon as a tribute due to the memory of those only who have moved in a

high sphere, and have out-shone the rest of the world by their rank, as well as their virtues. However, the characters of men placed in lower stations of life, though less usually insisted upon, are yet more useful, as being imitable by greater numbers, and not so liable to be suspected of flattery or design. Several of this auditory were, perhaps, entire strangers to the person whose death we now lament; and the greatest part of you who were not had, for that reason, so just an esteem of him, that it will not be unwelcome to you, I presume, to be put in mind of those good qualities which you observed in him: And therefore I shall, in as few words as I can, comprise what twenty years experience hath enabled me justly to say of him.

"He was a serious, sincere Christian; of an innocent, irreproachable, nay, exemplary life; which was led, not only at a great distance from any foul vice, but also in the even and uniform practice of many virtues; such as were suitable to a life of great application and business, such as became and adorned the state and profession to which it pleased God to call him.

"He highly valued and heartily loved that Church wherein he was baptized and educated; of which he gave the best proofs, by being a constant frequenter of its worship, and, in the latter part of his life, a never-failing monthly communicant; I add also, and by adhering steadily to its interest; two things which ought never to be separated.

"Nor was his attendance on divine offices a matter of formality and custom, but of conscience, as appeared by his composed and serious behaviour during the service. It was such as shewed him to be in earnest, and truly affected with what he was doing,

"His religion did not spend itself all in public; the private duties of the closet were equally his care; with these he began each morning, and to these he repaired as often as he entered upon any business of consequence (I speak knowingly); and his family were every evening summoned by him to common devotions; and in these too his regard for the public service of the Church appeared, for they were expressed always in her language.

"Indeed he was a very singular instance of all those domestic virtues that relate to the good and discreet government of a family. He had great natural prudence, which experience had much improved; he was of a sweet temper, and a mighty lover of regularity and order; and, by the happy mixture of these good qualities, managed all his affairs (particularly those within doors) with the utmost exactness; and yet with as much quiet and ease to himself and others as was possible.

"Those about him grew insensibly active and industrious by his example and encouragement; and he had such a gentle me thod of reproving their faults, that they were not so much afraid as ashamed to repeat them. He took the surest way to be obeyed, by being loved and respected; for he was free from any of those rough, ungovernable passions, which hurry men on to say and do very hard and offensive things. He had, indeed, a certain quickness of apprehension, which inclined him a little to kindle into

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the first motions of anger upon some particular occasions; but this part of his disposition he had so far conquered, that, for a long time before he died, no one who had occasion to receive his orders did, I believe, hear an intemperate or harsh word proceed from him; or see any thing in his behaviour, that betrayed any misbecoming degree of inward concern.

"He took care to season the minds of his servants with religious instructions; and, for that end, did himself often read discourses to them on the Lord's-day, of which he was always a very strict and solemn observer. And what they thus learned from him in one way, they did not unlearn again in another; for he was a man, not only sincerely pious, but of the nicest sobriety and temperance, and remarkably punctual and just in all his dealings with others. I see many authentic witnesses of this particular branch of his character.

"He abounded in all the truest signs of an affectionate tenderness towards his wife and children; and yet did so prudently moderate and temper his passions of this kind, as that none of them got the better of his reason, or made him wanting in any of the other offices of life, which it behoved or became him to perform; and therefore, though he appeared to relish these blessings as much as any man, yet he bore the loss of them, when it happened, with great composure and evenness of mind.

"He did also, in a very just and fitting manner, proportion his respects to all others that were any way related to him, either by blood or affinity; and was very observant of some of them, even where he could not be determined by any views of interest, and had manifestly no other obligations but those of duty and decency to sway him.

"In what manner he lived with those who were of his neighbourhood and acquaintance, how obliging his carriage was to them, what kind offices he did, and was always ready to do them, I forbear particularly to say; not that I judge it a slight, but because I take it to be a confessed part of his character, which even his enemies (if there were any such) cannot but allow: for, however in matters where his judgement led him to oppose men on a public account, he would do it vigorously and heartily; yet the oppositions ended there, without souring his private conversation, which was, to use the words of a great Writer," soft and easy, as his principles were stubborn."

In a word, whether we consider him as an husband, a parent, a master, relation, or neighbour, his character was, in all these respects, highly fit to be recommended to men; and, I verily think, as complete as any that ever fell under my observation. And all this religion and virtue sat easily, naturally, and gracefully upon him; without any of that stiffness and constraint, any of those forbidding appearances, which sometimes disparage the actions of men sincerely pious, and hinder real goodness from spreading its interest far and wide into the hearts of beholders.

"There

"There was not the least tang of religious (which is indeed the worst sort of) affectation in any thing he said or did; nor any endeavours to recommend himself to others, by appearing to be even what he really was: he was faulty on the other side, being led, by an excess of modesty, to conceal (as much as might be) some of his chief virtues, which therefore were scarce known to any but those who very nearly observed him, though every day of his life almost was a witness to the practice of them, "I need not say how perfect a master he was of all the business of that useful profession wherein he had engaged himself; you know it well; and the great success his endeavours met with sufficlently proves it. Nor could the event well be otherwise; for his natural abilities were very good, and his industry exceeding great, and the evenness and probity of his temper not inferior to

either of them.

"Besides, he had one peculiar felicity (which carried in it some resemblance of a great Christian perfection), that he was entirely contented and pleased with his lot; loving his employ ment for its own sake, as he hath often said, and so as to be willing to spend the rest of his life in it, though he were not, if that could be supposed, to reap any further advantages from it. "Not but that the powers of his mind were equal to much greater tasks; and therefore when, in his later years, he was called up to some public offices and stations, he distinguished himself in all of them by his penetration and dexterity in the dispatch of that business which belonged to them, by a winning behaviour and some degree even of a smooth and popular eloquence which Nature gave him. But his own inclinations were rather to confine himself to his own business, and be serviceable to Religion and Learning in the way to which God's Providence had seemed more particularly to direct him, and in which it had so remarkably blessed him.

"When riches flowed in upon him, they made no change in his mind or manner of living. This may be imputed to an eager desire of heaping up wealth; but it was really owing to another principle: he had a great indifference to the pleasures of life, and an aversion to the pomps of it; and therefore his appetites being no way increased by his fortune, he had no occasion to enlarge the scene of his enjoyments.

"He was so far from over-valuing any of the appendages of life, that the thoughts even of life itself did not seem to affect him. Of its loss he spake often, in full health, with great unconcern; and, when his late distemper attacked him (which from the beginning he judged fatal), after the first surprize of that sad stroke was over, he submitted to it with great meekness and resignation, as became a good man and a good Christian.

"Though he had a long illness, considering the great heat with which it raged, yet his intervals of sense being few and short, left but little room for the offices of devotion; at which he was the less concerned, because, as he himself then said, he had not been wanting in those duties while he had strength to

perform

perform them. Indeed, on the Lord's-day which immediately preceded this illness, he had received the Sacrament; and was, therefore, we have reason to believe, when the Master of the House soon afterwards came, prepared and ready to receive him, "As the blessings of God upon his honest industry had been great, so he was not without intentions of making suitable returns to Him in acts of mercy and charity. Something of this kind he hath taken care of in his will, drawn up at a time while his family was as numerous as it is now, and his circumstances not so plentiful. One part of the benefactions there directed was worthy of him, being the expression of a generous and grateful mind towards the persons who had most obliged him, and of a pious regard to the place of his education. More he would probably have done, had not the disease, of which he died, seized him with that violence, as to render him incapable of executing whatever of this kind his heart might have intended.

"He is now gone, and his works have followed him: let us imitate his example, that, when we also depart this life, we may share his heavenly reward, and be as well spoken of by those who survive us!"

John Dunton says, "Mr. Thomas Bennet, a man very neat in his dress, very much devoted to the Church, has a considerable trade in Oxford, and prints for Doctor South, and the most eminent Conformists. I was partner with him in Mr. Lecrose's Works of the Learned; and I must say he acted like a man of conscience and honesty."-The following epitaph is in St. Faith's church:

"Here lyeth the body of Mr. Thomas Bennet, Citizen and Stationer of London, who married Mrs. Elizabeth Whitewrong, eldest daughter of James Whitewrong of Rothavastead, in the County of Hertford, esq; by whom he had one son and two daughters; and departed this life August the 26th, in the Year of our Lord 1706, and in the 42d year of his age."

AWNSHAM and JOHN CHURCHILL, two of the most considerable Booksellers at the beginning of the Eighteenth Century, have been noticed in vol. I. pp. 149–151. See also Bp. Atterbury's Epistolary Correspondence, vol. I. p. 315; and Archbishop Nicolson's, vol. I. p. 227.—Awnsham Churchill died April 24, 1728; and is said by Granger to have been the greatest Bookseller and Stationer of his time. An original letter, dated April 30, 1728, observes, "I hear that your great Bookseller, Awnsham Churchill, is dead: he had a great stock, and printed many books; and I hope the sale of his effects will throw a plenty of books on the City of London, and reduce their present high price." Gent. Mag. vol. LIII. p. 832.-Mr. Awnsham Churchill, by Sarah, daughter of John Lowndes, esq. had three sons; of whom the eldest, William Churchill, esq. married, first, 1770, LouisaAugusta Greville, daughter of Francis first Earl Brooke and Earl of Warwick, by whom he had one son, William, the present possessor of Henbury. He married, secondly, Eliza, widow of Fre derick Thomas, third Earl of Strafford.