was obliged to take up three hundred and fifty pounds on
interest towards this last work, whereof I still owe two hundred
pounds, and two hundred more for the printing; the whole expense
arising to about one thousand pounds. I have lived in the
university above thirty years, fellow of a college now above forty
years' standing, and fifty-eight years of age; am bachelor of
divinity, and have preached before kings; but am now your honour's
suppliant, and would fain retire from the study of humane
learning, which has been so little beneficial to me, if I might
have a little prebend, or sufficient anchor to lay hold on; only I
have two or three matters ready for the press--an ecclesiastical
history, Latin; an heroic poem of the Black Prince, Latin; another
of Queen Anne, English, finished; a treatise of Columnes, Latin;
and an accurate treatise about Homer, Greek, Latin, &c. I would
fain be permitted the honour to make use of your name in some one,
or most of these, and to be, &c.,

"JOSHUA BARNES."[72]

He died nine months afterwards. Homer did not improve in sale; and the
sweets of patronage were not even tasted. This, then, is the history
of a man of great learning, of the most pertinacious industry, but
somewhat allied to the family of the _Scribleri_.

FOOTNOTES:

[66] Kennett was characterised throughout life by a strong party
feeling, which he took care to display on every occasion. He
was born at Dover in 1660, and his first publication, at the
age of twenty, gave great offence to the Whig party; it was in
the form of a letter from a Student at Oxford to a friend in
the country, concerning the approaching parliament. He
scarcely ever published a sermon without so far mixing party
matters in it as to obtain replies and rejoinders; the rector
of Whitechapel employed an artist to place his head on Judas's
shoulders in the picture of the Last Supper done for that
church, and to make the figure unmistakeable, placed the
_patch_ on the forehead which Kennett wore, to conceal a scar
he got by the bursting of a gun. His diligence and application
through life was extraordinary. He assisted Anthony Wood in
collecting materials for his "Athenae Oxonienses;" and, like
Oldys, was continually employed in noting books, or in forming
manuscript collections on va