to extort applause. Satisfied, that the rising generation will feel the influence of the benevolent intentions of Mr. Raikes, we have great satisfaction in joining our plaudit to those of the world at large; and without hesitation place him in the same form with those whose active benevolence entitles them to be looked up to with reverence and respect to the latest posterity*.

He was for some years a member of the Court of Assistants of the Stationers Company; and died at Gloucester, April 5, 1811, aged 75.

MR. SAMUEL GOADBY

was the son of Mr. Samuel Goadby, a very worthy and respectable man, who resided in one of the good old houses that were pleasantly situated in Moorfields. He enjoyed a lucrative and respectable place under the City of London; and at his death, Mr. John Goadby, his eldest son, was chosen to succeed his father. The subject of this article was born on St. Matthew's day, in the year 1719; I believe at the house in Moorfields. Mr. Goadby had a large family; and Mr. Samuel was bound apprentice to a Mr. Virtue, a stationer at the Royal Exchange; and either a short time before Mr. Goadby had completed his apprenticeship, or very soon after, Mr. Virtue died, leaving a widow and two daughters. Mr. Goadby, at this early period of life, had conducted himself in so exemplary a manner, that it was thought right to take him into partnership with Mrs. Virtue; he was also so highly esteemed by all that knew him, that he had several offers made of proposed advantage, to entice him to leave the connexion he was engaged in: but his reply was, "I will never forsake the widow and the fatherless." This was not

* A letter from Mr. Raikes, on his plan for establishing Sunday Schools, may be seen in Gent. Mag. vol. LIV. p. 410.

merely

merely a warmth of expression, produced by the feelings of the moment; but a fixed principle, upon which he acted to the close of a long life. The partnership continued for 11 years; and, at the close of that period, the interest of Mrs. Virtue and Mr. Goadby were made one by their marriage. Mrs. Goadby did not live more than 14 years after their union; but, previous to her death, she said, that her marriage with Mr. Goadby was one of the most propitious circumstances of her life. It is hoped, the writer will not be thought too minute; but, if a character is to be held up to the publick as a proper subject for their respect and imitation, domestic and social virtues, piety and benevolence, must form the grand outlines of a proper object of real respect. The Hero, the Statesman, the Poet, or the Painter, demand, and frequently, as such, deserve our admiration; but it is only to the man of domestic worth and social excellence, that the homage of the virtuous heart will ever be offered.

The pious man, the man of universal benevolence, and unwearied assiduity in every good work, is so incalculable a blessing to society, that we are called upon, by every good principle, to appreciate, respect, and emulate. Mr. Goadby was one of the six gentlemen, who, about the year 1750, formed (we believe) the first society in England for the promotion of religious knowledge amongst the poor. He was indefatigable in his endeavours to secure the everlasting and present felicity of his fellow mortals. His expressive countenance would be illumined or be clouded, as the tale you told presented to his view a suffering or happy fellowbeing; but his feelings did not pass off in the vapour of mere external sensibility; he sought the object of distress; and he did not then say, "Be ye warmed, and be ye filled; but gave them not those things that are needful for the body"-No, he warmed, cloathed, and filled them. The Writer of this article has . known him, when near So years of age, ascend

a dark

a dark and dangerous staircase, to visit the abode of sickness and want; and there, with the gentle hand of charity, and the warm heart of a Christian, relieve and soften the sorrows inflicted by poverty and sickness. To feel for misery, and to relieve it, was the business of his life.

Mr. Goadby was also a public-spirited man; never sparing himself or his purse, when properly called upon. In the year 1754, he was one of the warm and active friends of Betty Canning; her story many now living must remember.

Mr. Goadby for many years sent a rich supply of Bibles, Testaments, and pious books, for the poor at Hadleigh, and the villages around; and subscribed fifty pounds to the Patriotic Fund; he was also, for many years, a subscriber to the Lying-in Charity, and to several Dispensaries; and, by his will, left handsome legacies to the institutions he had subscribed to. Mr. Goadby's shop at the Royal Exchange was, for many years, of an evening, the meeting-place of a select party of men of superior abilities, for the purpose of conversation, Mr. John Payne, late Accountant-general of the Bank, the late Mr. John Ryland, Mr. John Cole, and (the Writer believes), the late Dr. Hawkesworth, with many more sensible men, that improved and enlarged their mental powers by the communication of ideas. Those meetings had a very different effect upon the members of this friendly circle, to that produced by convivial meetings, where wine and riot preclude sentiment, and destroy reason. The late Dr. Towers was, at the period of these sentimental meetings, a little lad, under the patronage of Mr. Goadby; being very small, he used to slip into the circle unperceived, listen with great attention to all he heard, and, by treasuring it up in his mind, he then laid the foundation of all his future respectability as a literary man. It will be well for young persons to remember such a circumstance; and to be anxious never to lose an opportunity that offers for enriching VOL. III.

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their

their minds, by attending to the conversation of the good and wise. Mr. Goadby had survived every member of the circle, in which he had for many years enjoyed so much rational satisfaction. How. painful is the reflection, that the lot of all persons living to advanced age must be, to spend many of their solitary hours in a retrospect of past comforts, -comforts, that never, never, can return in this life! What then are the consolations of old age, under all the gloom of solitude, and pressure of infirmity? Nothing short of a well-grounded hope in the prospect of a happy Eternity. The circle they hope to join in a better world, will never be broken in upon by death; nor will their powers of enjoyment ever decrease.

Mr. Goadby had many singularities; he was very nice in his person; dressed very plain; but had made no change in the cut of his coat for near 50 years. He had a particular dislike to the using of a hackney coach on the Sunday; thought it, in general, a profanation of the day; but he lived to be shocked by the rattling of stage-coaches from morning to night on that day, which, when he was a young man, was in this country devoted to rest and Public Worship. If Voltaire could now visit England, he would not say, as he once did, that, in this country, the Sabbath was more strictly observed than in any other he had been acquainted with; but to Voltaire's principles we may, without doubt, attribute the profaneness and dissipation that pervades, more or less, all ranks in society; as the spread of Infidelity will produce every moral evil. Mr. Goadby was a Dissenter from the Ceremonies of the Establishment; but he felt all that cordiality which Christianity inculcates, for every good man, though he might not be able to say Amen to his Creed in every point. The ladies who became his daughters-in-law, by his marriage with their mother, were, for the greatest part of his life, a source of real comfort to him; and the one with whom he resided for many years had the anxious,

thou

though delighful task, of consoling him in his last moments, with all the tenderness of an affectionate child. Mr. Goadby had much perplexity and trouble throughout his long life: but the domestic comfort he enjoyed for the last twenty years was derived from his marriage fifty-nine years ago: he had been a widower forty-two years. His remains were deposited, in the same grave with those of his late wife, in Bunhill-fields burying-ground, on Tuesday, June 22, 1808. Mr. Goadby had for many years attended the ministry of the Rev. Hugh Worthington; and the Funeral Oration was delivered at the grave by that gentleman, with a warmth of expression that evinced how justly he appreciated the excellence of his departed friend.

MR. ROBERT GOADBY

a Printer and Bookseller of Sherborne in Dorsetshire, and author of several useful publications, died August 12, 1778. His "Illustration of the Holy Scriptures," in 3 large folio volumes, is a book that has been very generally read, and widely circulated. He also compiled and printed a useful book, intituled "The Christian's Instructor and Pocket Companion, extracted from the Holy Scriptures;" which had the good fortune to meet with the approbation of Bishop Sherlock, and was very well received by the publick. The "Life of Bamfylde Moore Carew, King of the Beggars," was likewise written by him.

r.723

MR. JAMES HUTTON,

who in the early part of his life had been a Bookseller, was for many years Secretary to the Society of Moravians. He was a well-known character, and