the author; and, if they could really do this, the advantages that would refult from them are obvious; but if a man can be known to his most intimate acquaintance only by his words and actions, and these all liable to be misunderstood, imperfectly seen, or imperfectly remembered; how difficult will it be to give a just idea of him, after his death, to a ftranger! To place any object in the exact point of view, where it can be most clearly feen, requires skill; but what skill or fagacity is equal to this, when mind is the object? It would be in vain to attempt, or to require, fo much. It will, however, be eafy, if opportunities of knowing them have not been wanting, to give a plain and faithful account of a man's fituation in life, and to mention fome particulars of his behaviour both in public and private, which is all that is here attempted. This is indeed too little, but it will ferve to guard against mistakes, and prevent the reception of a borrowed or fictitious character. The family of HAY is antient, and that branch of it from which the Author of these Volumes defcended was very early fettled in Suffex, and formerly poffeffed large property in that county; which having been much di 3 minished 7 minished in the course of some centuries, Herbert Hay*, in the year 1618, removed to Glynbourn, in the fame county, which had been purchased for him by his guardian, during his minority; at which place his fon John‡, and his grandson William §, refided; and where his great grandson William was born Aug. 21, 1695, whose father died in the fame year, and in the 24th of his age (leaving no children but this fon, and one daughter). His mother died in 1700, and his grandfather, who was his guardian, very soon aster; as did his grandmother in the beginning of the year 1706, who had fucceeded to the guardianship on the death of her husband. Thus, in the beginning of his life, he feemed to have loft all the na * Herbert, born Dec. 21, 1591, M. P. for Arundel in 1642 and 1648. In an ordinance of Parliament, April 29, 1643, for feizing and fequeftring the real and perfonal eftates of delinquents, the name of Herbert Hay, Eiq. appears in the lift of fequeftrators for Suffex; and in a lift of members of the Houfe of Commons fecluded by the army fince April 5, 1648, declaring the king's conceffions a ground for fettling the peace of the king. dom. See Parliamentary Hiftory, vol. ix. p. 6, vol. xii. p. 235. His uncle Herbert Morley, Efq. of Glynd. M. P. for Rye, and one of the members for Suffex, 1654. M. P. for Seaford, 1692. Sir John Stapley, mentioned in Clarendon's Hiftory of the Rebellion, vol. iii. p. 483-486, fol. edit. tural protectors of infancy. The eldest furviving fifter of his mother was entrusted with the care of him. He was in 1705 fent to school at the little village of Newick, about feven miles from Lewes; in 1710 to a somewhat larger school in that town, whence, in 1711-12, he went to Oxford*, where he remained till 1715, when he removed to the Temple†, and studied the law till obliged to relinquish the profecution of that study, on his fight having been much injured by the small-pox, which he had in fo terrible a manner, that his life was despaired of, but was probably faved by Dr. Mead's having ventured on what was then thought a desperate experiment, though it has fince become a common practice. In 1718 he made an excurfion into many parts of England and Scotland, during which, fome remaining memorandums of his fhew how much his attention was turned towards useful knowledge at that early period of of his life; for, in a journey of more than a thousand *Gul. Hay, de Glyne, in com. Suffex, ætat. 16, armigeri filius. Vide Matriculation Book, Bodleian copy. The certificate of William Hay, of the Middle Temple, Efq. taking the oaths to King George in the court of King's Bench, Nov. 19, 1723. miles, not only the face of the country in its more commonly observed features of houses, towns, and profpects, but the varieties of foil, and its produce, the ftate of the roads, of manufactures, and population, were noticed by him; and often fome things added from hiftory or antiquities, by which the past and present state of places might be compared. In 1720 he travelled into France, Germany, and Holland, when the weakness of his eyes confined his written remarks to a few things useful to a traveller, particularly to the exchange of money, and the forts of coin then current in the different places he vifited. After his return to England, he for fome years refided at his house in the country. In 1731, he married Elizabeth, second daughter of Thomas Pelham, Efq. of Catsfield in Suffex, by whom he had feveral children. In 1733-4 he was chofen M. P. for the town of Scaford, which place he continued to reprefent during the remainder of his life. In May 1738 he was appointed a commiffioner of the Victualling-office, in which he continued, and regularly attended the bufinefs of it, till it became inconfiftent with his feat in parliament. In 1753 he was appointed keeper of the records in the Tower; and it has been re marked, marked, that "his attention and affiduity, during the fhort remainder of his life, were eminently ferviceable to his fucceffors in that office." The feveral pieces here collected were written at different intervals, and fome of them a confiderable time before their publication. In 1728 Mr. Hay published his Effay on Civil Government; 1730, the Poem intituled, Mount Caburn; 1735, his Remarks on the Laws relating to the Poor, with Propofals for their better Relief and Employment; in 1751, a fecond edition of his Remarks on the Laws relating to the Poor, with a Preface and Appendix, containing the Refolutions of the House of Commons on the fame Subject in 1735, and the Subftance of two Bills fince brought into Parliament; 1753, Religio Philofophi ; 1754, his Effay on Deformity; and, in the fame year, his tranflation of Mr. Hawkins Browne's Poem De Animi Immortalitate; 1755, his Tranflations and Imitations of Select Epigrams of Martial. But it is not merely as a man of letters that Mr. Hay should be remembered; as an English gentleman, the |