ons of his health and the education of his
children--partly at Westleigh on the mouth of the Torridge, a few miles
off. In which intervening year he established himself at Great
Torrington is not known.

Meanwhile, he had made two further marriages: in 1739 to Margaret,
daughter of the Rev. Robert Ham and widow of John Ham of Widhays, who
died in 1744; and in 1745 to Honour, daughter of Sir Thomas Bury and
widow of the Rev. George Bussell, who died at Great Torrington in 1750.
Both these later marriages were childless.

Hooper Morrison followed his father into the Church and became Rector of
Atherington near Barnstaple. In 1769 he bought the property of Yeo Vale,
some five miles from Great Torrington. Eleanora Morrison, who never
married and seems to have lived with her father until his death, sat to
Reynolds in her younger days; the portrait then painted, which was
formerly at Yeo Vale, shows her in profile and wearing a blue velvet
mantle edged with ermine.

There was also among the portraits at Yeo Vale a three-quarter length of
an agreeable-looking man, apparently between thirty and forty years of
age, shown wearing a red velvet cap and an unusual coat, like a
full-skirted cassock made of blue satin; this portrait, the work of
Hudson, was believed to represent Thomas Morrison.

Coming now to the letters, the earliest of these, written in February,
1753, is from Morrison to the Bishop of Exeter, Dr. Lavington, who two
years before had published the third part of his book, _The Enthusiasm
of Methodists and Papists Compared_. The letter is inscribed on the
outside "Mr. Morrison's Ode," and must have been returned to its writer
after the Bishop's death in 1762.

My Lord,

Since I had the honour of being with your Lordship in Exeter I
have with great pleasure read over the third part of the
Enthusiasm of Methodists and Papists compar'd, and as by having my
Boy at present under my own Care I have been oblig'd to renew my
acquaintance a little with the Classicks, I have endeavour'd to
express my Sentiments of your Lordship's learned and acute
performance in the following Ode, which if it should afford you a
Quarter of an Hours Amusement will be no little pleasure to
me--that your Lordship may read it with the more Indulgence think
that the Scribbler of it has not attempted to write Latin verse
for above twenty years, and believe me to be with the Highest
Respect,