Part 23

6. _Charles Phelpes_. In point of time he ought to have been placed before the last, being his senior, by near twenty years. But as the former was supposed to be the son of the preceding, it was thought proper to let his name immediately follow. The subject of this article, if not a relation, was yet an intimate friend of the elder Horne, and perhaps an occasional assistant to him in the ministry; but of this there is no clear proof. Nor is it at all certain that he afterwards ever officiated in the congregation as a public teacher. {1002a} All we know of him is, that he was a person eminently distinguished here in his day for his religious knowledge, his benevolence, and his piety, which he strove unweariedly to promote by his example, his conversation, and his writings. {1002b} In short, he was a blessing to the town, and one of that sort of men that may not improperly be called the “salt of the earth,” to whose benevolent and pious exertions we owe almost every thing truly good and valuable that is to be found amongst us. He was therefore clearly entitled to a place in this list, or biographical sketch. He died on 3rd of January 1711 in the 85th. year of his age, as we learn from his grave stone to St. Nicholas’ Church yard, over against the great South door, where it is said, and said truly no doubt, that he was “a person of exemplary piety and goodness.” We have heard that he was great uncle to the late vicar of South Lynn of the same name, who, though of inferior worth, was yet far from being one of the worst sort of clergymen.

7. _Guybon Goddard_. We hear of him first as _Deputy Recorder_ of this borough, in 1645, under the memorable Miles Corbet, who had been chosen Recorder the preceding year. Goddard continued his deputy till 1650, or rather till the beginning of the ensuing year, when he succeeded to the recordership, as appears from the following passage in the Hall-books. “Jan. 31. 1650, 51; This day Mr. Mayor and aldermen have elected and chosen in the place of Miles Corbet, Esq. (called by the Parliament to the service of Ireland) _Guybon Goddard_ Esq. Recorder, provided always, that he, accepting of the place, shall come and inhabit in this town, for the better assistance of the succeeding mayors with his advice and councell.” It may be supposed that he took up his residence here accordingly. However that might be, it seems he retained the place over after, and executed the duties, attached to it with much credit to himself, and to the satisfaction of the body corporate and the rest the community. He was doubtless very good lawyer, but more distinguished perhaps as an antiquary, to which pursuit he was much devoted, in which his acquirements we supposed to have been very considerable. His brother-in-law, _Sir William Dugdale_, and _Parkin_ also, make honourable mention of his antiquarian attainments, {1003} and is such a case they must have been very competent judges. To archaiological objects in the adjacent and surrounding country he paid much attention, and still more to those that appertained to this town, his collection for a history of which is supposed to have been very complete, and excited for a long while very high expectation among his cotemporaries. But they were all sadly disappointed; for it was never suffered to see the light: and though the corporation, after his decease, endeavoured to procure it from his son, and offered for it what must have been at that time a handsome gratuity; yet it does not appear that they were able to obtain it. What became of it afterwards no one can tell: but it is most probable that it has long ago been irretrievably lost. Had it been preserved, and fallen into the present writer’s hands, it might (as was hinted at p. 821,) have rendered this work far more worthy than it now is of the public patronage. In Parkin’s History of Freebridge (p. 293,) the death of Goddard is placed in 1671, which we suspect to be a mistake for 1677, as the application to his son was made about the beginning of the next year; and it is not likely it would have been deferred for so long a time as seven years. However that was Guybon Goddard seems clearly entitled to have his name enrolled among the memorable men of Lynn.

8. _William Falkner_, _D.D._—He came to this town in 1658, recommended by Dr. Arrowsmith and Dr. Tuckney, and was engaged as an assistant to Mr. Hoogan, who had succeeded Dr. A. as senior or principal minister of St. Nicholas’ Chapel. Falkner was then Fellow of Peter-house in Cambridge; so that there is no reason to suppose him the same as that _William Falconer_, _M.A. of Aberdeen_, whom, according to _Granger_, _Wood_ in his Fasti mentions, under 1671, as incorporated into the University of Oxford, and one of the first exhibitioners at Baliol College. At the death or removal of Mr. Hoogan, F. appears to have succeeded him as chief minister, and in that situation he is supposed to have continued ever after; though, considering the prominent appearance he made among his brethren, it is not likely that he was left without other preferments. His residence here was about 24 years. He died April, 9. 1682: nor does it appear that he was then an old man; about 50, perhaps, or very little more. We have not been able to learn the character of his public ministry and pastoral labours, or how far he therein resembled Horne, or Arrowsmith. But, as a scholar and writer, he must have stood high among the Lynn clergy, and even among those of the whole diocese; for he was very learned, and his writings for the most part, were well calculated to render him famous among his brethren, and gain him the approbation and applause of the highest dignitaries of the church, and the chief functionaries of the state, or civil government. For passive obedience and non-resistance, and the whole tory system, then the darling doctrine of the clergy and the court, he was a warm and able advocate. Nor was he less so for the church of England, against the Romanists, on the one hand, and our protestant sectaries, on the other. How he would have stood, had he lived a few years longer, or till the eve of the revolution, it is impossible to say. But it is certain that many, who were to the full as torified as he in the reign of Charles, changed their minds and their tones greatly during that of his successor, so as to caress as friends and brethren, those very sectaries and schismatics, as they used to call them, whom they had before endeavoured with all their might to distress and crush. That Dr. F. would have done the same, had he lived so long, is more than we are warranted to affirm, through we would fain hope that such would have been the case.—Among the books of which he was the author were several pieces of divinity, which first perhaps appeared separately, but were in 1684, two years after his death, printed together in a quarto volume. As it has never fallen in our way, we can say nothing of its merits. But his principal publications seem to be the following; 1. _Libertas Ecclesiastica_, an english octavo volume, published in 1674, and spoken of, by Granger, as a book of merit. 2. A _vindication of Liturgies_, or set forms of prayer: printed in London in 1680. This was animadverted upon and answered by the memorable _Dr. Collinges_ of Norwich, an eminent ejected Minister, _first_ in a piece entitled, “A reasonable account of the judgment of nonconforming ministers, as to prescribed forms of prayer; with a supplement in Answer to Dr. Falkner of Liturgies;” and afterwards in another piece, entitled, “The vindication of Liturgies, lately published by Dr. Falkner, proved no vindication, &c.” 3. _Christian Loyalty_: or a discourse, wherein is asserted that just Royal Authority and Eminency which in this Church and Realm of _England_ is yielded to the KING. Especially concerning _supremacy_ in _Causes Ecclesiastical_. Together with the disclaiming of all _Foreign Jurisdictions_ and the unlawfulness of Subjects TAKING ARMS against the KING. This is a most notable production, and it seems not a little unaccountable that it did not immediately procure him a mitre. It is much in the way of Sir Robert Filmer, and the rest of our great Tory-writers, and scarcely inferior to the very best of them. It was printed in London in 1679, and again, it seems, in 1684, which shews that it was well approved of and sought for. Dr. Falkner dying, as was said, in 1682, was succeeded at St. Nicholas’ by a _Mr. Killeingbeck_, of whom we have heard nothing further.

SECTION XI.

_Biographical Sketches continued—Littel—Pyle—Hepburn—Rastrick—Browne—Keene—&c._

9. _Thomas Littel_, _D.D._ He is supposed to have settled here, as one of our officiating clergy, pretty soon after the revolution; but whether as vicar and principal minister of the town, or as Lecturer, or in an inferior station as the Vicar’s curate, we cannot positively say. It is certain however that he soon succeeded as vicar or chief minister of the town, and continued in that situation for a great many years. Though a Doctor in Divinity, he is supposed not to have stood high among his brethren and contemporaries as a scholar, a preacher, or as a divine; but there were traits in his character that were of no unamiable cast, especially in regard to his attention to the edification of the common people. In more recent times he would probably have been deemed a methodistical clergyman, which is not mentioned here as dishonourable to his memory, but rather the contrary, as it is the opinion of the present writer, that if a _reasonable portion_ of methodism were imbibed by the clergy, it would render their ministry more popular, and prove of material advantage to the lower orders of their auditors. In Dr. Littel’s time, a great many of his hearers, of the poorer classes, as it would seem, became desirous of improving themselves in religious knowledge; and the course that appeared to them most likely, or the best for attaining that object was to establish private meetings for free discussion, or serious conference. Whether they had been led to this from something of the kind that existed among their dissenting neighbours here, we are not able to say; but it is certain that such exercises are much more common among dissenters than among churchmen. However that was, it seems they were not disposed to put the plan in practice without consulting Dr. Littel, who was then vicar of St. Margaret’s and chief minister of the town: and it does not appear that he urged any material objection, or gave them any serious discouragement. But he was aware that it would not be safe or proper for him to countenance such a measure without the privity and permission of his diocesan. He accordingly applied to _Dr. Moore_, who then filled the see of Norwich, and who, in his answer, dated September 10. 1697, appeared no way hostile to the measure, provided it were properly conducted; though he said, however friendly he might be to the design, yet he did not find he had any power by law to constitute and authorize such assemblies. Nevertheless he consented to allow the experiment to be here tried, under certain regulations. This episcopal letter is on the whole a very curious document, and not dishonourable to his lordship’s memory; but it is too long for insertion here. He cautioned them to avoid all discussions about state affairs, and whatever might tend to give umbrage to government; and he advised them to meet in small rather than large companies: which advice was probably adhered to. However that was, the intended measure was soon put in practice. For six or seven years the meetings seem to have been kept in private houses, under certain general regulations. But in 1704 the plan was further matured, new rules of conference were drawn up, {1010} and the meetings afterwards were generally if not constantly kept in the Vestry of St. Margaret’s Church, till the death of Dr. Littel, which happened in 1732. The Society then languished and dwindled away, so that in the year 1744 it was reduced to six members, whose names were Colins Banister, James Cowell, Joshua Edwards senr. Adam Holditch, John Lee, and William Rayns: It appears to have been dissolved soon after, having existed about fifty years; and for a long time no memorial of it remained, except in some old papers which fell into the present writer’s hands accidentally. This Society had formed a library, a catalogue of which it also in this writer’s possession. What became of the books at last, does not appear. We know of nothing more creditable to the memory of Dr Littel, than the countenance he afforded to those serious people. It is supposed that his successor in the Vicarage of St. Margaret did not also succeed him as the patron of this Institution.

10. _Thomas Pyle M.A._ Of the birth-place and the early part of the life of the rev. T. Pyle, whose name is still mentioned with veneration by the few who remember him as a preacher, we have not been able to obtain any account. So rapid is the neglect or the forgetfulness of oral tradition! From his epitaph we learn indeed that he was born in 1674. About the year 1698, he was examined for ordination, at Norwich, by the celebrated and truly honest William Whiston, at that time chaplain to bishop Moore, who has stated in the interesting Memoirs of his Life, that Dr. Sydal and Mr. Pyle were the best scholars among the many candidates whom it was his office to examine. It is probable that he was ordained upon the title of one of the curacies of St Margaret’s parish, as he married, in 1701, a Mrs Mary Rolfe of an affluent and respectable family in Lynn, and in the same year he was appointed by the Corporation to be minister or preacher of St. Nicholas’ Chapel. He published some political Sermons in the years 1706, 1707. and especially in the year 1715. In these discourses he vindicated and enforced those principles to which we are indebted for the expulsion of the Stuarts, and for the elevation of the Brunswick family to the throne. About the same period he became generally known as the author of a very useful Paraphrase on the Historical Books of the Old Testament, and another on the Acts, the Epistles and the Revelation of the New Testament. Soon afterwards he enlisted himself as a writer in the Bangorian Controversy, and was a strenuous and able advocate of the civil and religious principles of Bp. Hoadly. He appears to have been on terms of particular friendship with some of the greatest and best men in the Church of England, such as Dr. Sam. Clarke, Mr. Jackson of Leicester, Dr. Sykes, Bp. Hoadly, Dr. Herring, afterwards abp. of Canterbury; and equally so with some eminent dissenting ministers, particularly Dr. Sam. Chandler and Mr. Rastrick of Lynn. Many years after his death his youngest son, the rev. Philip Pyle, published several volumes of his “Sermons on plain and practical Subjects.” His writings are characterised by a perspicuity and manly sense, rather than by any elevation of style, or by a graceful negligence; and yet in the delivery of his sermons, so impressive was his elocution, that both in the metropolis and in the country, he was one of the most admired preachers of his time. The flowing lines were sent to him on his Sermon preached at Lincoln’s Inn, May 4th. 1735, on Gen. III, 19.

What sounds are these! What energy divine, What master-strokes in every precept shine! While from thy lips the warm expression breaks, What heart but melteth as the preacher speaks! Thy voice is nature, and thy diction clear, It strikes like music on the listening ear. —“Vain foolish man to murmur at thy fate, The bounteous hand of heaven still leaves thee great; Still makes thee first of beings here below, Still gives thee more of happiness than woe. To lazy indolence this world may seem A barron wilderness; an idle dream; Thistles and brambles to the slothful eye, But roses to the hand of industry. ’Tis sordid avaries, with her sneaking train, Ambition, who torments herself in vain, Th’ unnumbered lusts that prey upon the mind, Fix the primeval curse on human kind. By their brow’s sweat their bread the labourers earn, But then no passions in their bosoms burn: Soon as the evening shade the day-light close, Unbroken slumbers crown their soft repose; And when the morning dawn salutes their eyes, Anteus-like, with double vigour rise. No stings of conscience! no remorse from sin! They feel the noblest paradise within; Content serene, that sunshine of the soul, With her warm beam invigorates the whole; Her blossom, health! her fruit, untainted joy! Nor pain nor death her relish can destroy; In unpolluted streams her pleasures flow, No weedy passions in her bosom grow.” —Thus faintly have I sketch’d thy glorious plan; Which fills, improves, adorns the inward man. Still urge thy generous task, to cleanse the mind, Till from the dregs of passion ’tis refin’d; To prune each vice, each folly of the age, Each wild excrescence of this earthly stage. Tho’ old in goodness, to the world resign’d, Still want thy heaven to give it to mankind. Religion’s friend! and virtue’s strongest guard! That heaven alone such merit can reward, Its joys approach no tongue but thine can tell; Doubt not to taste what thou describ’st so well.

With such talents, and with such connections, it cannot easily be accounted for, that Mr. Pyle should remain during so long a life in a situation of comparative obscurity. Sir Robert Walpole was the member for Lynn; and both the political and religious opinions of Mr. Pyle were calculated to recommend him to queen Caroline, who then impartially dispensed the dignities of the Church. Perhaps the spirit of the man was not thought sufficiently accommodating for an introduction to a court; or, like the late Dr. Ogden of Cambridge, from some deficiency of external polish, he might be deemed not producible. A passage in Abp. Herring’s Correspondence with Mr. Duncombe seems to be decisive on this point. “Tom Pyle is a learned and worthy, as well as a lively and entertaining man. To be sure his success has not been equal to his merit, which yet, perhaps, is in some measure owing to himself; for that very impetuosity of spirit, which, under proper government, renders him the agreeable creature he is, has, in some circumstances of life, got the better of him, and hurt his views.” {1015a} From whatever cause, with the exception of a Prebend of Salisbury, which he received from Bp. Hoadly, he was only in succession Lecturer and Minister of Lynn St. Margaret, and vicar of Lynn All-saints—all truly but a poor and paltry pittance for such a man, and from a church which had such immense abundance of good things to bestow; most of which too were actually bestowed on far unworthier objects.—The following Letters which passed between Mr. Pyle and Abp. Herring are highly characteristic and interesting.

“My Lord,

In the universal acclamation of joy for your Grace’s promotion to the Primacy of all England, may the feeble voice of an old man be heard, the short remainder of whose life, will pass off with a pleasure that nothing could have given, but seeing at the head of the Church, a Prelate so affectionately attached to the interests of Truth, Virtue, and Liberty.

I am, my Lord, your Grace’s most dutiful Servant. THO: PYLE.”

* * * * *

“Dear Sir,

Your kind wishes for me give me spirit, and make my heart glad, for in good faith, I have been teazed and terrified with this exaltation; and thus much I will venture to say for myself, it sha’nt make me proud, it sha’nt make me covetous, it sha’nt make me ungrateful or unmindful of my Friends, but it frights me, and I fear has robbed me of the most precious thing in life, which is Liberty, but I will assert as much of it as I can, and not be for ever bound to the trammels of a long tail and ceremony, which my soul abhors.

I saw S—. Ch—r the other day. I really affect and honour the man, and wish with all my soul that the Church of England had him, for his spirit and learning are certainly of the first class; and I regard him the more because he resembles you and your manner. You talk of age and all that, but if I may judge from your letter, your eyes are good, your hand is steady, and I am sure your heart is warm for your friends, and those good things you mention, Truth, and Virtue, and Liberty, but that sort of warmth will certainly go to the grave with you and beyond it.

I am, Dear Sir, your affectionate Friend, Tho: CANTUAR.” {1017}

Kensington. 17. Dec. 1747.

From the part which Mr. P. took in the Bangorian Controversy, and the terms of particular friendship on which he was known to live with Bp. Hoadly, we may be very sure that there subsisted between them a frequent correspondence. Copies of two of the letters that passed between them are now in the hands of the present writer. He has no reason to suppose that they ever have been published, or are likely to be so, unless they appear on this occasion. Thinking it highly probable that a sight of them cannot fail of gratifying many of his readers, he takes the liberty without further ceremony to introduce them in this place; not at all apprehensive that their contents will any way disparage the memory of either of the memorable personages by whom they were originally written,

“My Lord,

You may remember that when by your kind aid the affair of M—m was concluded in my Son’s favour, I presented my humble (and said it should be my last) petition to you, begging of you to be pleased to bestow on him a living that might consist with M—m, and that you were so good as to promise to give him any living you had not then engaged to dispose of otherways.—An incident has lately arisen of such a nature, as, I am sure will excuse my repeating the above-named request to your Lordship, with the utmost earnestness.—My Lord, Mrs. Bilk the D. of N—ch’s W. with her husband’s good liking, and out of the esteem she has long had for me and mine, and especially for my son Ph—. has been pleased to propose him as a H. for her niece, the only child of Mr. Arrowsmith: such a proposal from one who can and will make a considerable addition to the very good fortune that the young lady’s father can give her, is a great proof of her esteem for my son, who has been much with her from his childhood: and what she requires on my part is that I use my interest in your lordship, and mention her as joining with me to beg of you to confer a handsome living on my Son. This will crown all the instances of your beneficence towards me.—I want words to express the joy with which a happy success in this affair would carry me thro’ the small remainder of my life, and make me yield it up to its bounteous Author; or to describe the tearing anxiety that would accompany a disappointment from your refusing what I humbly ask.—Wherefore I beg of your lordship to make me feel the beginning of that satisfaction I have already in view by such a reply to this petition as may be pleasing to the excellent friends I am herein concerned with, and so highly obliged to, and to the heart of an old servant who has loved you all his life, and served you as well as he could (would to God it had been better) & will love you till death and beyond it. I am,

my Lord, yours &c. T. P.”

* * * * *

“Dear Sir,

6. Feb. 1752,