REMAINS OF THE HONOURABLE AND REVEREND SOMERVILLE HAY, A.M., SOMETIME VICAR OF NETHERBURY AND BEAMINSTER, COMPRISING SERMONS, TRACTS, AND LETTERS. WITH AN INTRODUCTORY MEMOIR, BY THOMAS J. GRAHAM, M.D. "Before honour is humility."- PROV. XV. 33. LONDON: PUBLISHED BY SIMPKIN, MARSHALL, & CO., STATIONERS' PRICE SIX SHILLINGS. 1854. 210.4.2/2. *** If any profits arise from this publication, part of them will be devoted to the relief of the Widows and Orphans of our Soldiers and Sailors recently fallen in battle. J. DAVY and SONS, Printers, 137, Long Acre, London. TO THE HONBLE FRANCES ELIZTH. G. CALTHORPE. MY DEAR FRIEND, KNOWING you to be a sincere admirer of the character of him, whose lovely disposition is pourtrayed, however feebly, in the following pages; permit me the gratification of inscribing these sheets to you, in token of the sense I entertain of your great and invariable kindness, and your Christian indulgence to myself, through a long series of years. That those streams of richest mercy which were so evidently vouchsafed to Mr. SOMERVILLE HAY, may likewise be your own portion now and for ever, is the sincere desire and prayer of Your affectionate And much obliged friend, THE EDITOR. PREFACE. It is expedient to remark that some of the letters introduced into the following Memoir did not reach the Editor until a considerable portion of the other MSS. had been sent to press; otherwise the arrangement of the series would have been different. We regret also that in noticing the family of Lady Alicia Hay, we overlooked, till it was too late for insertion in its proper place, one of the most distinguished of all its members; and since this gentleman shone as brightly in private as in public life, we are reluctant that the volume should be published without some notice of him. This was the Hon. Henry Erskine, the father of the present Earl of Buchan, and grandfather of Lady Alicia Hay. He was LordAdvocate in Scotland during the administrations of Lord Rockingham and Mr. Fox; and was a person not only of the most transcendent talents, but of such uncommon virtues, that he was described, by one who knew his character well, as CC a man to choose for a superior, to trust as a friend, and to love as a brother." It is a well-authenticated fact, that an attorney in a distant part of Scotland, representing to an oppressed and needy tacksman, who had applied to him for advice, the futility of entering into a lawsuit with a wealthy neighbour, having, himself, no means of |