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    merit was with the congregation in Mitre Lane * Maidstone , Kent , where he remained for about the space of ten years ; during which time he enjoyed the acquaintance of the Rev * Dr . Caleb Fleming , of London ; of the Rev . Mr . Bourn , of Norwich ; of Thomas Viney , Esq ., of

    Tenterden , where he several times had the happiness to meet with , and enjoy the society of the great Dr . Franklin . From Maidstone he removed , in the year 1780 , to the charge of a congregation at Bandon , in the county of Cork , Ireland , where he continued three years , during which time ( as he had always shewn himself a zealous advocate for American

    independence ) he exerted himself in behalf of the American prisoners confined at Kinsale near that town ; and his man ty exposure in the public prints , of the wanton cruelties exercised towards them by the soldiery , produced a considerable amelioration of their condition . On the

    conclusion of the war with America , he removed from Bandon to New York , with his wife and family , where he arrived in May , 1783 , and soon proceeded to Philadelphia ; and on his way to that city , the Assembly of the States General for New Jersey , then sitting at Burlington , sent a deputation to invite him to

    preach before them , with which he complied . At Philadelphia he stayed fifteen mouths , and besides preaching occasionally at various places of worship there , he delivered , during the winter , in the College , a course of lectures on the Evidences of Christianity , which were Exceedingly well attended and received . From Philadelphia he w *» nt by invitation to preach to a congregation at Boston ; but a report of his heterodox principles arriving before him , prevented a settlemeat among them . Mr . Hazlitt ' s visit to this town was not , however , in vain ; for in & short time he had the satisfaction Of being chiefly instrumental in forming the first Unitarian Church in Boston , and thus laying the foundation of the present flourishing state of Unitarianism in that place . While in Boston , the University there offered to confer upon him the degree of Doctor of Divinity , but

    which he declined ; and during his stay in that plcjjse * which was about four years and a half , » he published various tracts In support of Unitarian principles ; and after having thus prepared the way for the subsequent exertions of Dr . Priestley , ( whose acquaintance he enjoyed , and

    by whom he was presented , at different times , with copies of his works on Electricity , and some other of his valuable productions , ) he returned with his family to England , and became pastor of the Presbyteriau congregation at Wcm , in

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    Shropshire , where he resided for upwards of 26 years ; during which time he pub- ' lished three volumes of Sermons , with which , from their rapid and extensive r sale , the Unitarian public must be too well acquainted to need any description . In the middle of the year 1813 he retired from Wem , and , through indisposition ,

    from the ministry ; and resided some time at Addlestone iu Surrey , afterwards at Bath , and finally at Crediton in Devonshire , where , after a residence of ten months , he was released from the cumbrous load of mortality , and his remains were interred in the parish burial ground of Crediton : and the following Sunday , the circumstance of his death was

    improved in a sermon delivered in the Unitarian chapel in that town by the writer of this memoir , from Job vii . 1 : * ' Is there not an appointed time for man upon earth ? Are not his days also like the days of an hireling ? " In closing my account of this excellent and venerable

    man , I cannot , perhaps , sum up his chaacter better than by referring to a striking portrait of religious excellence drawn by one ( well known to the literary world ) to whom his memory will ever be most dear , I mean the son of our departed

    friend , in his Political Essays , p . 284 ; in which , though put in the plural number , I have undoubted reason to believe he had his venerable parent expressly in view . The passage is as follows :

    ** But we have known some such in happier days ; who had been brought up and lived from youth to age in the one constant belief of God and of his Christ , and who thought all other things but dross , compared with the glory hereafter to be revealed . Their youthful hopes and vajiiity had been mortified in them , even i ^ i their boyish days , by the neglect and supercilious regards of the world ; and they turned to look into their own minds for something else to build their hopes and confidence upon . They were true priests . They set up an image in their own minds , it was truth : they worshiped

    an idol there , it was justice . They looked on man as their brother , and only bowed the knee to the Highest . Separate from the world , they walked humbly with their God , and lived , in thought , with those who had borne testimony of a good

    conscience ; with the , spirits of just men in all ages . They saw Moses when he slew the Egyptian , and the prophets who overturned the brazen images ; and those who were stoned and sawn asunder .

    They were with Daniel in the lions' den , and with the three children who passed through the fiery furnace , IVJeshech , Shadrach and Abednego ; tjiey did not crucify Christ twice over , or deny him in their

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    678 Obituary . — Rev . William Hazlitt .

• Citation
  • Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), Nov. 2, 1820, page 678, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct2494/page/50/