retired from practice to his seat in
Buckinghamshire, and who, having no children of his own, adopted his
nephew. At an early age he was sent to Eton, where, among his
schoolfellows and associates, were Gray, West, Jacob Bryant, the Earl
of Orford, and others eminent for wit or learning. Here he contracted
not only a literary taste and habits of study, but that preference for
the quiet amusements of a country life, which afterwards formed a part
of his character. In 1734 he was removed from Eton to Oxford, and
admitted a gentleman commoner of St. John's College. On the marriage of
the Prince of Wales, two years after, he contributed some verses to the
Congratulatory Poems from that University. A ludicrous picture, which he
draws of academical festivity, betrays the future author of the
Scribleriad:--

In flowing robes and squared caps advance,
Pallas their guide, her ever-favour'd band;
As they approach they join in mystic dance,
Large scrolls of paper waving in their hand;
Nearer they come, I heard them sweetly sing.

He left the University without taking a degree, and in 1737 became a
member of Lincoln's Inn. In four years after he married the second
daughter of George Trenchard, Esq. of Woolverton, in Dorsetshire, who
was Member of Parliament for Poole, and son of Sir John Trenchard,
Secretary of State to King William. Retiring to his family mansion of
Whitminster, in Gloucestershire, on the banks of the Stroud, he employed
himself in making that stream navigable to its junction with the Severn,
in improving his buildings, and in ornamenting his grounds, which lay
pleasantly in the rich vale of Berkeley. Here his happiness was
interrupted by the death of one among his former playmates at Eton, whom
he had most distinguished by his affection. This was Captain Berkeley,
an officer, who in those happy times, when military men were not yet
educated apart from scholars, had added to his other accomplishments a
love of letters, and who fell in the battle of Fontenoy. This affliction
discouraged him from proceeding in a poem on Society, which he had
intended as a memorial of their friendship. The opening does not promise
well enough to make us regret its discontinuance.

At Whitminster he had the honour of entertaining the Prince of Wales,
with his consort, and their daughter the late Duchess Dowager of
Brunswick, then on a visit to Lord Bathurst at Cirencester. The royal
guests were feasted in a vessel of his