THE IMPERIAL MAGAZINE.

MAY, 1831.

MEMOIR OF THE VENERABLE FRANCIS WRANGHAM, M.A. F.R.S. ARCHDEACON OF THE EAST RIDING OF THE COUNTY OF YORK, ETC.

(With a Portrait.)

THE subject of this memoir is descended from a very respectable family. A note in the "British Plutarch"* informs us, that a Mr. Wraynham or Wrangham, one of his ancestors, suffered heavily through the instrumentality of Lord Bacon

"That greatest, wisest, meanest of mankind."

and the odious court of the Star-Chamber. In documents to be found at the Herald's College, it is also recorded, that in the county of Durham "before 21 Eliz., John Wrangham purchased the manor of Blackburn of Marmaduke Thirkeld, esq., and died in 22 Eliz., leaving William his son and heir; who, in the following year, left two coheiresses, Jane Emerson and Joan Wrangham." (Surtees' Durham, ii. 387.) From this it is evident that the family was once distinguished; as, likewise, from the circumstance, that in an old marriage-contract mention is made of Wrangham, esq. of Wrangham, a place no longer known to be in existence.

The name, also, occurs in the first year of the register of Langton near Malton, in the county of York, where the Wranghams appear to have possessed landed property, as some fields in that parish still bear the appellation.

The father of the Archdeacon was Mr. George Wrangham, who in the latter part of his life occupied the beautiful farm of Raisthorpe near Malton, a farm subsequently let for upward of one thousand pounds per ann. He likewise rented the moiety of another farm at Titchwell near Wells, in Norfolk, very little inferior in value. For his personal worth, and natural talents, he was highly respected by those who could appreciate his merits.

His only son Francis, whose biography we are now handing down to posterity, was born June 11, 1769. From his seventh until his eleventh year, he was under the tuition of the Rev. Stephen Thirlwell, at West Heslerton, a village near Malton. It is not unworthy of remark, that Mr. Thirlwell himself received his own quota of learning at a small free-school in Cumberland, and wrought afterwards as a bricklayer at or near Tadcaster. In the course of the ensuing sexannium, Mr. Wrangham spent two summers under the Rev. John Robinson, (who subsequently became master of the free grammarschool at York,) and passed nearly two years with the Rev. Joseph Milner at Hull.

In October, 1786, he entered upon his residence at Magdalene College, Cambridge; and, during his first year there, sat as a candidate for an University-scholarship, and gained Sir William Browne's gold medal for his Greek and Latin epigrams on the subject,

“ Ου το μεγα εν, το δε εν μεγα.”

* II. 461. See also the State Trials, vii. 102, &c.

2D. SERIES, NO. 5.-VOL. I.

2 c

149.-VOL. XIII.

*

In October, 1787, on the invitation of Dr. Jowett, Regius Professor of Civil Law, he migrated to Trinity Hall; and at a subsequent period, he removed to Trinity College. On his final examination in January, 1790, for his bachelor's degree he became Third Wrangler, and gained not only Dr. Smith's second Mathematical Prize, but also the chancellor's first Classical Medal-the highly gifted person who obtained the other, being the late much lamented Mr. Tweddell. He afterwards took pupils for some time during his residence in college; on leaving which, he was appointed tutor to the late right hon. Lord Frederick Montagu, only brother of his Grace the Duke of Manchester. He subsequently entered into holy orders, and served the curacy of Cobham, in Surrey, during the years 1794 and 1795.

Church-preferment, which in many cases is the result of family-interest or of purchase, did not flow to Mr. Wrangham through these channels. Toward the close of 1795, Humphrey Osbaldeston, esq. presented him to the vicarage of Hunmanby, and the perpetual curacy of Muston; and, through the recommendation of the same gentleman, he obtained at the same time the vicarage of Folkton.

In 1799, he married Miss Agnes Creyke, fifth daughter of Ralph Creyke, esq. of Marton near Bridlington, and had the misfortune to lose her on her first confinement. Her daughter survived the calamity. His present wife was Miss Dorothy Cayley, second daughter of the Rev. Digby Cayley, and, in right of her mother one of the coheiresses and representatives of the ancient family of Strangeways, descended lineally from Sir James Strangeways, who, in the reign of Henry VI. married the elder of the two coheiresses of the Lord Darcy Meinhill.

By her, he has had five children. Of these, Philadelphia, the eldest, married the late Rev. E. W. Barnard, of Brantinghamthorpe; George Walter, M.A. of Magdalene College, Cambridge, is now rector of Thorpe Bassett, and vicar of Ampleforth, Yorkshire; and Digby Cayley, after taking a double first-class degree at Brazenoze, Oxford, and having for two years been Private Secretary to the Earls of Dudley and Aberdeen, as Secretaries for Foreign Affairs, has recently married Amelia, second daughter of the late Walter Fawkes, esq. of Farnley Hall, who in 1806 was elected M.P. for Yorkshire.

In 1808, Mr. Wrangham was appointed Chaplain of Assize to W. J. Denison, esq. High Sheriff of Yorkshire, and now M.P. for the county of Surrey; and, in compliance with the requests of two Grand Juries of that year, printed both his Discourses. The same office, and the same double mark of respect, awaited him in 1814, when Sir Francis Lindley Wood, bart. was High Sheriff for the county; and a third time, in 1823, under the appointment of his intimate friend Walter Fawkes, esq. No similar instance, it is believed,

of a triple chaplainship ever before occurred.

In 1814, the Archbishop of York appointed him his Examining Chaplain at Bishopthorpe; an office which he has ever since exclusively filled.

Through a lapse which devolved to his Grace in 1819, Mr. Wrangham was enabled to exchange the vicarage of Folkton for the rectory of Thorpe Basset and by the same high patronage he was, in 1820, appointed Archdeacon of Cleveland. This archdeaconry he resigned in 1828, upon being appointed to that of the East Riding of Yorkshire. He received, likewise, from his Grace in 1823, the stall of Ampleforth in the cathedral of York; and a prebend of Chester, two years afterward, as an option. In right of the latter, he is now Rector of Dodleston in that county; where he has

"Thebes did his rude unknowing youth engage;

He chooses Athens in his riper age."

MEMOIR OF ARCHDEACON WRANGHAM.

203

recently caused to be erected a monument to the memory of the lord chancellor Ellesmere, who had discreditably lain for upwards of two centuries under a nameless stone.*

Mr. Wrangham is a member of the Roxburghe and Bannatyne clubs; and, as honorary adjunct, of several philosophical and literary societies.

We now proceed to give a list of his numerous publications.

He is said to have published anonymously, in 1792, an anti-radical parody on part of a comedy of Aristophanes, with critical notes, entitled "Reform, a Farce," 8vo.

In 1794, he sent to the press "The Restoration of the Jews," a Seaton prize poem, 4to.

In 1795, "The Destruction of Babylon," a poem, 4to.- And a volume of Poems, 8vo. ; to a few copies of the latter of which he attached, as a Preface, a brief account of his academical history, beginning;-" Dryden obtained, whatever was the reason, no fellowship in the college. Why he was excluded cannot now be known, and it is in vain to guess: had he thought himself injured, he knew how to complain." (Johnson.) This Preface distinctly, and effectively, protests against-what might otherwise perhaps have been uncandidly inferred from Mr. Wrangham's silence-the consciousness of having deserved exclusion from a fellowship.

In 1798, "Rome is Fallen!" a Visitation Sermon preached at Scarborough, 4to.

In 1800,"The Holy Land," a Seaton prize poem, 4to.

In 1801, "Practical Sermons, founded on Doddridge's Rise and Progress of Religion in the Soul." Another set, having for their basis, "Baxter's Saint's Everlasting Rest," appeared for the first time in 1816; when a selection of his various fugitive pieces was published in three vols. 8vo.

In 1802, "Leslie's Short and Easy Method with the Deists, and the Truth of Christianity Demonstrated, with Four additional Marks," 8vo. In 1803, "The Raising of Jaïrus' Daughter," a poem, 8vo. And "The Advantages of Diffused Knowledge," a Charity School Sermon, 4to.

In 1808, "A Dissertation on the best means of Civilizing the Subjects of the British Empire in India, and of diffusing the Light of the Christian Religion throughout the Eastern World," 4to.-And, in the same year, "The Restoration of Learning in the East," a poem, 4to. This was published at the express desire of the three judges, appointed by the University of Cambridge to award Mr. Buchanan's prizes.

In 1808, "The corrected edition of Langhorne's Plutarch's Lives, with many notes," 6 vols. 8vo.-And two Assize Sermons, 4to.

In 1809, "A Sermon preached at Scarborough, at the Primary Visitation of the Archbishop of York," 4to.

The inscription, from the pen of the Archdeacon, is as follows:-
Marjorum gloria posteris quasi lumen est.
Subtus jacet,
Quicquid mortale fuit

THOMÆ, BARONIS DE ELLESMERE

et Vicecomitis de Brackley,

viri antiquâ, virtute ac fide,
per viginti plus annos
regni Angliæ
Cancellarii,

scientià, scriptis, facundiâ, spectatissimi.
Hominibus exemptus est
iv. id. April.

Anno Sacro M.DC.XVII.
Æt. circiter LXVII.

Orimur, morimur.

Sequentur, qui non præcesserint.

In 1811, "The Sufferings of the Primitive Martyrs," a Seaton prize poem, 4to.

In 1812, 66

Joseph made known to his Brethren," a Seaton prize poem, 4to. In 1813, "The Death of Saul and Jonathan,” a poem, 8vo.

In 1814, two Assize Sermons, 4to.

In 1816, "The British Plutarch," in six vols. 8vo.

In 1817," Forty Sonnets from Petrarch," printed (with every advantage of typography) by Sir S. Egerton Brydges, Bart. at his private press, Lee Priory, Kent.

In 1820, "Dr. Zouch's Works collected, with a Prefatory Memoir," in two vols. 8vo. And a Collection of Archbishop Markham's Carmina Quadragesimalia, &c. in 4to and 8vo, for private circulation.

In 1821, "A Charge delivered to the Clergy of the Archdeaconry of Cleveland," 8vo.-And "The Lyrics of Horace, being a translation of the first Four Books of his Odes," 8vo.

In 1822, “A second Charge, delivered to the Clergy of the Archdeaconry of Cleveland, 8vo.

In 1823, Two Assize Sermons, 8vo. And a third Charge, delivered to the Clergy of the Archdeaconry of Cleveland, 8vo.

In 1824, “Sertum Cantabrigiense;" or, the Cambridge Garland, 8vo. In 1828," Bp. Walton's Prolegomena to the Polyglott Bible, with copious annotations," in two vols. 8vo., under the sanction of the University of Cambridge; which, with her accustomed munificence, defrayed the expense of the publication.

"The Pleiad," or Evidences of Christianity, forming the twenty-sixth volume of Constable's Miscellany.

In 1829, a " Letter to the Clergy of the Archdeaconry of the East Riding of Yorkshire," on the Roman Catholic Claims; of which Mr. Wrangham had, for upwards of thirty years, been the firm but temperate advocate.

He has occasionally employed his leisure by printing (for private circulation exclusively)" Centuria Mirabilis," and "The Savings-Bank," 4to. ; "The Doom of the Wicked," a Sermon founded upon Baxter, and “ The Virtuous Woman," a Funeral Discourse on the Death of the Right Hon. Lady Anne Hudson, 8vo. and a few copies of a Catalogue of the English portion of his voluminous library, which, with characters of the subjects, authors, or editions, exceeds six hundred pages, 8vo.

One of his latest brochures has been also of a private nature, intitled Psyche, or rhymed Latin versions of Mr. Baylis's elegant "Songs on Butterflies." And he has recently printed a limited impression of exquisite Translations from M. A. Flaminio, by his late son-in-law, the Rev. E. W. Barnard.

Numerous Dedications* attest his promptitude in giving assistance to his literary acquaintance, or the respect shewn to him in many instances by personal strangers. His charges, beside vindicating the clergy from the indifference or inactivity imputed to them by their enemies, have chiefly been occupied in asserting the doctrines of the Established Church against the Socinians, or advocating the uses and value of human learning.

Among these, may be enumerated (in addition to the publications of the late Mr. Hornsey, Mr. Cole, and other Scarborough authors, and Visitation and Ordination Sermons by Pellew, Wyld, C. Barker, Courtney, Hett, &c.) Mr. Bell's Stream of Time, Nesbit's Land-Surveying, Ellis' Latin Exercises, Poole's Classical Collector's Vade Mecum, Bigland's Yorkshire in "The Beauties of England and Wales," Neville's Leisure Moments, Browne's York Legends, Greene's Poetical Sketches of Scarborough Rankin's Translation of one of Bp. Bull's invaluable Tracts, Oxlad's Protestant Examiner, in answer to Cobbett's virulent" History of the Reformation," Wasse's Notes on the Gospel and Acts of the Apostles, in three volumes, Ralegh Trevelyan's Greek Ode on the Sorrows of Switzerland, and his Elegy on the Death of the Princess Charlotte, Eastmead's Historia Rievallensis, Basil Montagu's Private Tutor, and a Volume of Essays, Hett's Death of Absalom, &c. &c. &c.

ORIGIN OF MORAL EVIL.

SELECTIONS FROM THE ORACLES OF GOD, unavoidable, "Well done, good and faithful servant, thou hast been faithful over a few things, I will make thee ruler over many things ; enter thou into the joy of thy Lord.” Hence, we infer, that these angelic beings were in a probationary state, as man also is;-a circumstance which evinces not only the exuberance of the divine goodness, but also the wisdom and condescension of God, in causing us to feel that the perpetuity and confirmation of our bliss, is a gracious reward for our affectionate and steadfast adherence to him; a reward, attainable by every created intelligence in a state of probation.