re, another physician of
note, and, like Mapletoft, most zealous in all plans for doing good, but
whose unlucky taste for writing dull verses brought down upon him the
unmerciful castigation of the wits; John Johnson of Cranbrook, with
whose writings on the Eucharistic Sacrifice Nelson most warmly
sympathised; Edmund Halley, the mathematician, his school playmate and
life-long friend; Ralph Thoresby, an antiquarian of high repute, a
moderate Dissenter in earlier life, a thoughtful and earnest Churchman
in later years, but who throughout life maintained warm and intimate
relations with many leading members of either communion; Dr. Charlett,
Master of University College, Oxford; Dr. Cave, the well-known writer of
early Church History, to whose literary help he was frequently indebted;
John Evelyn; Samuel, father of John and Charles Wesley, whose verses,
written on the fly-leaf of his copy of the 'Festivals and Fasts,'
commemorative of his attachment to Nelson and of his reverence for his
virtues, used to be prefixed to some editions of his friend's works; nor
should the list be closed without the addition of the name of the
eminent Gallican bishop Bossuet, with whom he had become acquainted in
France, and had kept up the interesting correspondence already noticed
in connection with Bishop Bull.

The group composed of Nelson and his friends, of whom he had many, and
never lost one, would be pleasant to contemplate, if for no other
reason, yet as the picture of a set of earnest men, united in common
attachment to one central figure, varying much on some points of
opinion, but each endeavouring to live worthily of the Christian faith.
From one point of view the features of dissimilarity among his friends
are more interesting than those of resemblance. A Churchman, with whom
Jurors and Nonjurors met on terms of equal cordiality, who was intimate
alike with Tillotson and Hickes--whose love for Ken was nowise
incompatible with much esteem for Kidder, the 'uncanonical usurper' of
his see--and who consulted for the advancement of Christian knowledge as
readily with Burnet, Patrick, and Fowler, as with Bull, Beveridge, and
Sharp--represents a sort of character which every national Church ought
to produce in abundance, but which stands out in grateful relief from
the contentions which embittered the first years of the century and the
spiritual dulness which set in soon afterwards.

Yet, though Robert Nelson had too warm a heart to