DOI Page / Citation link:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.61480#0189
BISHOP HOADLY.
This portrait of Dr. Benjamin Hoadly, Bishop of Winchester, was first engraved by
Baron, from a portrait, in a grand style, by Hogarth.
Few writers of eminence have been so frequently or so illiberally traduced as Dr.
Hoadly; yet fewer still have had the felicity of " living till a Nation became his con-
verts," and knowing " that sons have blushed that their fathers had been their foes."
This great Divine was born November 4, 1676 ; educated at Catherine Hall, Cambridge;
was elected lecturer of St. Mildred, Poultry, 1701 ; was rector of St. Peter le Poor in 1704,
and of Streatham in 1710; King's Chaplain, February 16, 1715-16 ; Bishop of Bangor,
March 18 following; translated to Hereford in 1721, to Salisbury in 1723, and to
Winchester in 1734, which he held nearly twenty-seven years; till on April 17, 1761,
at his house at Chelsea, in the same calm that he had enjoyed amidst all the storms that
blew around him, he died, full of years and honours, beloved and regretted by all good
men, in the eighty-fifth year of his age. His useful labours, which will ever be esteemed
by all lovers of the natural, civil, and religious rights of Englishmen, were collected
into three large volumes in folio, 1773, by his son, Dr. John Hoadly, (then Chancellor
of Winchester, and the only surviving male of a numerous and respectable family,)
who prefixed to them a short account of the Bishop's life.
Concerning this portrait of Bishop Hoadly, Dr. John Hoadly wrote the following
whimsical epistle to the artist.
" To William Hogarth.
" Dear Billy,
" You were so kind as to say you would touch up the Doctor, if I would send him
to town. Lo ! it is here.—I am at Alresford for a day or two, to shear my flock and to
feed 'em ; (money you know is the sinews of war ;) and having this morning taken down
all my pictures, in order to have my room painted, I thought I might as well pack up
Dr. Benjamin, and send him packing to London. My love to him, and desire him, when
46
This portrait of Dr. Benjamin Hoadly, Bishop of Winchester, was first engraved by
Baron, from a portrait, in a grand style, by Hogarth.
Few writers of eminence have been so frequently or so illiberally traduced as Dr.
Hoadly; yet fewer still have had the felicity of " living till a Nation became his con-
verts," and knowing " that sons have blushed that their fathers had been their foes."
This great Divine was born November 4, 1676 ; educated at Catherine Hall, Cambridge;
was elected lecturer of St. Mildred, Poultry, 1701 ; was rector of St. Peter le Poor in 1704,
and of Streatham in 1710; King's Chaplain, February 16, 1715-16 ; Bishop of Bangor,
March 18 following; translated to Hereford in 1721, to Salisbury in 1723, and to
Winchester in 1734, which he held nearly twenty-seven years; till on April 17, 1761,
at his house at Chelsea, in the same calm that he had enjoyed amidst all the storms that
blew around him, he died, full of years and honours, beloved and regretted by all good
men, in the eighty-fifth year of his age. His useful labours, which will ever be esteemed
by all lovers of the natural, civil, and religious rights of Englishmen, were collected
into three large volumes in folio, 1773, by his son, Dr. John Hoadly, (then Chancellor
of Winchester, and the only surviving male of a numerous and respectable family,)
who prefixed to them a short account of the Bishop's life.
Concerning this portrait of Bishop Hoadly, Dr. John Hoadly wrote the following
whimsical epistle to the artist.
" To William Hogarth.
" Dear Billy,
" You were so kind as to say you would touch up the Doctor, if I would send him
to town. Lo ! it is here.—I am at Alresford for a day or two, to shear my flock and to
feed 'em ; (money you know is the sinews of war ;) and having this morning taken down
all my pictures, in order to have my room painted, I thought I might as well pack up
Dr. Benjamin, and send him packing to London. My love to him, and desire him, when
46