th Johnson remarked of him--'that Beauclerk's
talents were those which he had felt himself more disposed to envy, than
those of any whom he had known.'[84] His conversational powers were
evidently of a very high order, for Dr. Barnard, Bishop of Limerick, in
his well-known lines on Dr. Johnson, writes of him:

'If I have thoughts, and can't express 'em,
Gibbon shall teach me how to dress 'em
In terms select and terse;
Jones teach me modesty and Greek;
Smith, how to think; Burke, how to speak;
And Beauclerk to converse.'

Beauclerk married on the 12th of March 1768 Lady Diana Spencer, eldest
daughter of the second Duke of Marlborough, two days after her divorce
from Lord Bolingbroke and St. John. He died at Great Russell Street,
Bloomsbury, on the 11th of March 1780, leaving one son and two
daughters.

Beauclerk possessed a fine library of upwards of thirty thousand
volumes, which he kept at his residence at Muswell Hill, near London,
stored, as Horace Walpole informs us, 'in a building that reaches
half-way to Highgate.' It did not contain many rare books, but it was
rich in works relating to natural history, voyages and travels, and
English and French plays; and Dibdin says that it was also valuable to
the general scholar, and to the collector of English antiquities and
history. It also possessed a few curious and choice manuscripts. Some of
the books appear to have belonged to Mr. Topham, but most of them were
collected by Beauclerk. After his death they were sold by auction by Mr.
Paterson 'at the Great Room, heretofore held by the Society for the
Encouragement of Arts and Manufactures, opposite Beaufort Buildings, in
the Strand, London,' on Monday, April 9th, 1781, and the forty-nine
following days. A priced copy of the catalogue is in the British Museum.

Beauclerk, who was a Fellow of the Royal Society, was a collector of
natural curiosities, as well as books, and botany was one of his
favourite studies. He had also an observatory at Muswell Hill.

FOOTNOTES:

[Footnote 84: Boswell, _Life of Johnson_ (London, 1811), vol. iii. p.
460.]

REV. BENJAMIN HEATH, D.D., 1739-1817

[Illustration: REV. BENJAMIN HEATH, D.D.]

The Rev. Benjamin Heath, D.D., one of the sons to whom Mr. Benjamin
Heath gave a part of his books, was born on the 29th of September 1739.
He was educated at Eton and at King's College, Cambridge, of which
College he became a Fellow. After leaving the University he was