dertake the very important Curacy of Paddington. This was a situation peculiarly adapted to his pursuits and talents. It afforded him an opportunity of receiving into his family a limited number of pupils; gave him access to public libraries and literary conversation, restored to him several of his academical friends, and enabled him to form new and valuable connexions. But the object nearest his heart was the performance of his professional duties; and here was presented an occasion for the exercise of an active and superior mind.

The old Church of Paddington was much too small for the accommodation of so populous a parish: and in a condition so ruinous as to endanger the lives of the few who could attend it. Mr. Shepherd proposed building a new one. The plan being laid before a vestry was respectably supported; but on the other hand a strong and even violent opposition was excited against the measure. Under such circumstances, to allay petty jealousies, to remove idle prejudices, to reconcile jarring interests, and to overcome the influence of opposed wealth and power, was the work of energy, conduct, disinterestedness and perseverance.

Undismayed by difficulties, and regardless of obloquy and misrepresentation, Mr. Shepherd finally succeeded. An Act was passed in the Twenty-eighth year of the King for rebuilding Paddington Church. The foundation was laid in the autumn of 1788 under the superintendance of the architect Mr. Plaw; and in 1791 the present commodious and elegant edifice, together with a considerable portion of new burialground was consecrated by the Lord Bishop of London.

* Amongst these were the Rev. John Parkhurst, of Epsom; the Rev. Jonathan Boucher, and many others whom he survived. Sir William Garrow, the Rev. Dr. Glasse, of Wanstead, the Rev. Dr. Barrow, Mrs. Anne Deane, a lady of superior endowments and virtues; and the Rev. John Bristow, Vicar of St. Mary's, Nottingham, who, during the short period that he survived Mr. Shepherd, testified the kindest zeal and an almost paternal affection for the welfare of his children.

Having accomplished this arduous and important object, at the expence of much personal invidiousness and pecuniary inconvenience, Mr. Shepherd next projected the publication of the following volumes. A treatise on the Liturgy was still a desideratum. Wheatley's "Illustration," though a learned and valuable book, was considered as not only in many respects defective, but as containing erroneous opinions, especially on points of ecclesiastical Law.

Perceiving therefore the necessity of a corrected and improved work on the subject, he was encouraged to undertake it. To the able assistance of his early friends, the Rev. Dr. Barrow and the Rev. Joseph Golding †, he was ever ready to acknowledge great obligation; and it was only in compliance with their express desire, that he forbore to make mention of it in his Introduction to the first volume, published in 1797.

with

The complimentary and congratulatory letters which he was honoured from men on whose judgment he could rely and the general expression of approbation that met his first appearance as an Author, was the chief, if not the only reward of his labor. Habitual inattention to pecuniary concerns, and the too great liberality with which he gave away nearly as many copies as were sold, precluded the possibility of much emolument.

So rapidly was the first edition disposed of, that he immediately prepared another, which was published in the following year.

Mr. Shepherd then resumed the task of composing a second volume, with as much expedition as circumstances would

• Prebendary of Southwell. His Bampton Lectures, and his Treatise on Education, are too well known and too highly valued to require any comment here.

↑ Vicar of Newbold Pacy in Warwickshire. To this gentleman's most kind and able assistance are owing various improvements now made in the Elucidation.

Among these was an encouraging and gratifying Letter from the Lord Bishop of Lincoln, who was personally unknown to the Author.

permit. A family of thirteen children, the education of several pupils, and a very large and populous parish, requiring not only constant professional attendance, but great care and decision in the management and protection of its various interests, these together with a due preparation for the pulpit, could not allow much literary leisure. Still amidst interruptions so numerous, increased as they were by accumulating difficulties of a pecuniary nature, the work proceeded; and was nearly ready for the press, when an event occurred, which in the first instance delayed the publication, and ultimately led to consequences fatal to the welfare of the Author and his family.-In December 1799 Archdeacon Hayter, the incumbent of Paddington, died. Mr. Shepherd made an early application for the preferment; but it was already disposed of. A very earnest petition, signed by almost all the respectable parishioners in behalf of their Curate, was then addressed to the Patron; and, though too late for that purpose, it so much interested the Bishop of London, that he promised to take the earliest occasion of collating him to a vacant benefice.

Accordingly in the course of the summer of 1801, Mr. Shepherd was appointed to the perpetual Curacy of Pattiswick in Essex. His Lordship spoke of it as unequal to the demands of his family, presented him with a sum of money to defray the expences of removal; and recommending him to proceed immediately with his work, intimated an intention of shortly adding something more to the preferment.

The benevolent reader will, perhaps, sympathize in Mr. Shepherd's feelings, on the occasion of his being obliged to quit Paddington. For though the case is one to which of

*This was by no means a solitary instance of Bishop Porteus' liberality to the Author: and from the hour his death became known, his Lordship evinced the kindest solicitude for the welfare of his widow and family; who are desirous of recording in this place their grateful sense of the active beneficence of this distinguished Prelate.

course every Curate is liable, one which a cool and calculating mind might have considered as probable, yet to a man of sanguine temper and ardent imagination, it was a case of extreme disappointment. Delighted with success, and conscious of merit, he had flattered himself that Paddington would be the reward, as it had been the scene of his labors. This confidence may be deemed presumptuous; but the failure was not the less bitterly felt. He was to leave a place endeared to him by a residence of more than sixteen years, where he was surrounded by friends, where he enjoyed every advantage essential to the education of his children, and every facility of social and literary communication. He was to leave that Church which afforded him the conscious pleasure of reflecting that all he saw before him, and about him, was in some degree his own creation. He was to leave a people to whose benefit he had devoted the flower of his life, and the vigor of his talents; and who acknowledged his faithful services with gratitude, esteem, and affection.

The Parsonage-house at Pattiswick scarcely deserved the name; it was extremely small, and almost in ruins: Mr. Shepherd therefore took up a temporary abode in the adjoining parish of Coggeshall. He now finished his second volume, which was published in the following spring, and met with a very favorable reception. He had also made some progress in the composition of a third; when in order to be nearer his Church, he was once more obliged to remove into the village of Stisted. His constitution, perhaps always delicate and liable to feverish affections, was now suffering severely from the climate. Two of the healthiest of his daughters, aged twelve and fourteen years, had already fallen victims to it. His affairs became daily more and more embarrassed; his treatment of himself was injudicious, and, at last, his spirits and health sunk together.

Early in the spring of 1805 he caught a severe cold, which settled on his lungs, and terminated fatally on the

2nd of May; he had just entered his 47th year. From the first he was fully aware of his danger; bore his sufferings with exemplary fortitude and resignation; and expressed no desire to live except for the sake of his family. He spoke confidently of kindness being extended to them after his removal; and his last thoughts and words committed them to that Providence, to whom alone they were to look, not only for grounds of consolation, but for the means of daily subsistence. During his illness, he experienced the supporting and consoling benevolence of a friend, who had, for nearly twenty years honoured his family with unremitting attention and unbounded zeal for their welfare. To this Lady he addressed a letter, a very short time before his dissolution, expressive of his desire to be buried at Paddington, a wish prompted not more by attachment to the place, than by considerations for the future welfare of his family. Accordingly his body was privately removed to Paddington, and deposited in the new Church-yard, near the remains of two of his most intimate friends, and two of his children who had died during his Ministry in that parish. No monumental stone points out his grave; nó tablet records his memory—

Mr. Shepherd's person was of middle stature. With handsome features and an agreeable countenance, he possessed a most pleasing voice. His address, though rather reserved, was gentle, and unaffectedly courteous. His conversation, if not brilliant, was animated, easy and cheerful; displaying the feelings of an ingenuous mind, with a fund of good sense and general information. Though eminently formed to please in society, he was more inclined to avoid than to seek any other than the company of a few particular friends and literary acquaintance; but he felt highly gratified by marks of esteem and consideration from persons of superior talent or merit. A stranger to every sort of dissimulation, and averse from all that could bear the sem