bounty was equally experienced by all. Notwithstanding his blindness, he performed the service of the church for many years, with the assistance of a person to read the lessons. At his death, the poor of his parish had to lament a most liberal benefactor, who had expended among them nearly the whole of a very handsome private fortune. He died at the Rectoryhouse, at Blaby, in Leicestershire, June, 1796, in the ninety-third year of his age, and the fiftieth of his incumbency."

We believe the above is the only instance on record of any one being ordained, as a clergyman of the Church of England, after having become blind; and although such a practice is said to be contrary to canon law, yet the example of Mr. Stokes shows that admission to the ministry of the Anglican Church of a gentleman who has lost his sight is not impossible.

Sir John Fielding, Knight, Chief Magistrate of Bow Street Police Court, and a Justice of the Peace for the Counties of Middlesex, Essex, Herts, Kent, Surrey, and for the City and Liberty of Westminster.

The eminent lawyer and philanthropist whose name heads this article was the son of General Fielding, and the half-brother of Henry Fielding, the novelist. Although blind from childhood, his parents had him trained for the legal profession, and an amount of success attended their enlightened efforts which will prove a never-failing encouragement to the friends of the blind throughout future generations.

On obtaining the necessary qualifications Fielding became a member of the Home Circuit, and was the life and soul of the convivial meetings of the brethren of the law; and his reputation reached so high a pitch for more solid acquirements, that on the failure of the health of his half-brother, Henry Fielding, he was appointed to succeed him as magistrate at Bow Street

Police Court. This position was, at that time, surrounded by peculiar difficulties, from which the wellpaid and efficiently served administrators of the law are now happily exempt. The chief of these evils arose from the remuneration of the magistrates being derived largely from bribes, administered both by prosecutors and defendants, which laid the action of the courts of justice open to grave suspicion.

This state of things Sir John Fielding determined should cease, and he followed out his resolution with such pertinacity that a bribe soon became a thing which belonged exclusively to past history. In 1761, soon after stipendiary magistrates were appointed for large towns, our blind lawyer was created chief magistrate of the kingdom, and received the honour of knighthood, which distinction has been conferred on each succeeding chief magistrate willing to accept the title. Fielding's acuteness on the magisterial bench may have been equalled, but has never been surpassed. When any one was brought before him, after asking the officer a question or two, the whole history of the prisoner rushed to his mind, all the culprit's aliases, his various larcenies, robberies, cheatings, and tricks came to the aid of the sightless dispenser of justice to show him the proper way to deal with the case; and whenever a crime of more than ordinary atrocity was committed in the metropolis, or the surrounding counties, "blind Fielding the Thief-catcher," as he was called, was consulted by his brother justices, and his sagacity was seldom at fault. But deeds of mercy were more congenial to Sir John's nature than acts of suppression. In the former his soul delighted, but it was necessity alone that caused him to exercise the latter. He was an active and benevolent promoter of the Marine Society and the Magdalen Hospital, and he himself founded, in 1758, the Female Orphan Asylum, Westminster Road, Lambeth, which has now about a hundred inmates, and a capital of £50,000. If

we are not mistaken this orphan asylum was the first establishment of the kind in the kingdom, and it is certain that it was the first in the metropolis.

Fielding's conversational powers were of a very high order, and he excelled particularly in anecdote. A writer in 'Fraser's Magazine' says,-" As a companion Fielding was invariably pleasant and inimitably entertaining. His conversation abounded with anecdotes, of which he had an inexhaustible fund: his great stock was of Irish stories, which he gave with great truth and humour. I have repeatedly heard him say that the lowest class of the Irish had more native humour than any other body of people in the same rank in life. He would then relate, in proof of it, the event of a bet which was made on the subject at one of the club-houses in St. James's Street, which then was crowded with English and Irish chairmen, and which was to be decided by the reply of one of each country to the same question. It was, 'If you were put naked on the top of St. Paul's, what would you be like?' The English chairman was first called in, and the question being put to him, he ran sulky, and refused to give any direct answer, saying they were making fun of him. Pat was then introduced, and the question being propounded to him: What should I be like?' says he; Why like to get could, to be sure, your honours.'-'This,' says he, they call mother-wit; and the most illiterate have a quickness in parrying the effect of a question by an evasive answer. I recollect hearing Sir John Fielding giving an instance of this, in the case of an Irish fellow who was brought before him when sitting as a magistrate at Bow Street. He was desired to give some account of himself, and where he came from. Wishing to pass for an Englishman, he said he came from Chester. This he pronounced with a very rich brogue, which caught the ears of Sir John. Why, were you ever in Chester?' says he. To be sure I was,' said

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Pat; wasn't I born there?-How dare you,' said Sir John Fielding, 'with that brogue pretend to have been born in Chester.'-'I didn't say I was born there,' says he; 'I only asked your honour whether I was or not.'”

Fielding, like other intelligent blind persons, could tell, with tolerable accuracy, the length, breadth, and height of any room he might enter, and could recognize immediately by the voice any one whom he had once known. In his carriage he had a speakingpipe communicating with the coachman, and when an obstruction occurred in the streets, he would ascertain from the coachman the nature of the impediment, and would call out of the carriage window in an authoritative voice to the driver of any particular vehicle to move on, which caused no little surprise to the by-standers, and was the occasion of some enjoyment to the author of the joke.

Sir John undertook the care of the children of his half-brother, Henry Fielding, the novelist, when he left England for Portugal in broken health, and he watched over them with true parental care after the premature death of their father.

The literary productions of this distinguished man

were:

A Plan for Preventing Robberies within Twenty Miles of London, with Advice to Pawnbrokers,'' An Account of the Origin and Effects of a Police, set on foot by his Grace the Duke of Newcastle, in the year 1753, upon a plan presented to his Grace by the late Henry Fielding, Esq. To which is added, a Plan for preserving those deserted Girls in this Town, who become Prostitutes from Necessity, 1768.' This was a small tract, 8vo. Extracts from such of the Penal Laws as particularly relate to the Peace and good Order of the Metropolis,' 1761, 8vo, a larger publication; ‘The Universal Mentor, containing Essays on the most important subjects in life, composed of Ob

servations, Sentiments, and examples of Virtue, selected from the approved Ethic Writers, Biographers, and Historians, both Ancient and Modern,' 1762, 12mo. 'A Charge to the Grand Jury of Westminster,' 1735, 4to, stated to have been published at the unanimous request of the magistrates and jury when Fielding was chairman of Quarter Sessions. 'Another Charge to the Grand Jury on a Similar Occasion,' 1766, 4to. A Brief Description of the Cities of London and Westminster, etc. To which are added some Cautions against the Tricks of Sharpers,' etc., 1777, 12mo.

Sir John Fielding died in the year 1780, regretted by all who knew him, and the blind should never forget that the first chief magistrate of England was without sight from early youth, that he was knighted for his abilities, that he was a scholar and a Christian philanthropist, 'and that in magisterial success he has never been surpassed.

Mr. William Pickard, Solicitor.

The subject of this notice about the year 1808 lost his sight by a gun accident; at the time of the occurrence of the melancholy event, he was under articles as a clerk to a solicitor, and it says much for the courage of the sufferer, and for the kind consideration of the gentleman with whom he was placed, to find that after his blindness he continued to serve out his articles, and that he was duly admitted as an attorney at the Court of Queen's Bench, before Mr. Justice Bayley. Mr. Pickard subsequently commenced to practise as a solicitor at Wakefield; and although he began his career with very slender means, yet such were his business talents that he overcame all the difficulties connected with his position, and succeeded in acquiring a fortune of about £12,000. He was never married, but had two sisters, one of whom was