Person declining to enter into holy orders, as the statute of his
college required he should do, lost his fellowship at Trinity, after
he had enjoyed it ten years; "on which heart-rending occasion," says
his friend and admirer, Dr. Kidd, "he used to observe, with his usual
good humour (for nothing could depress him,) that he was _a gentleman
living in London without a sixpence in his pocket_." Two years
afterwards his friends procured his election to the Regius
Professorship of Greek, on the death of Professor Cooke, the sudden
news of which event, he says, in a letter printed in Parriana,
addressed to the then Master of Trinity, the learned Dr.
Postlethwaite, all his ambition of that sort having been long ago laid
asleep, "put me in mind of poor Jacob, who, having served seven years
in hope of being rewarded with Rachel, awoke, and behold it was Leah."
He had seven years previously projected a course of lectures in Greek,
which most unaccountably were not patronised by the Senate.
* * * * *