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about with him , gained him universal respect , and then he was seldom or never seen abroad like others of his profession ; for , indeed , he knew verylittle of mankind , and could not bear
freedom , much less contradiction , which I take to be the reason why he kept no company and used no diversion , and why he conversed with none but such as were bigots to him , and over whose faith and consciences he
had got the ascendant . His conversation generally turned on spiritual things , or on some disputed point in divinity , and if any indifferent things were talked of , he seemed always
uneasy , was constantly sighing , and lifting his eyes and hands to heaven . In the midst of all this holiness , he was very inquisitive after other people ' s secrets , and it is well known that he
encouraged gossips and women of intelligence , whose stories and scandal he would hear very contentedly . All his knowledge and piety never got the better of his natural temper ; for he
was naturally proud , impatient of contradiction , and governed with great haughtiness and tyranny in his family . The menaces he gave his only son on his falling into the Unitarian scheme , and drivinc him out of the kincdom . and driving him out of the kingdom
, will be always a standing proof of his furious bigotry , and the barbarity of his temper . But after all these imperfections , which perhaps he never knew or considered as such , it must be allowed that he was a man of singular piety towards God , and who may be said to have lived as much above the
world as any of his profession that ever lived in it . His heart was certainly in his work , and I believe he thought it was his duty to live in that retired and abstracted manner which he always delighted in . And though his notions
of Deity and the Christian Religion were for the most part very ungenerous aud eiithusiastical , he certainly believed them to be the truth , and from that principle only vindicated and de-Feaded them .
I can't say he was much given to what the world call hospitality , which was a virtue somewhat inconsistent with his recluse and methodical life ; but then he was always very generous to the poor , and a warm advocate for them upon all public and private occasions . Upon the whole , considering his education , principles and profes-
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sion , it must be « dl 0 wed that lie dig , charged his duty fftitliftrily , that he gave an excellent example to his brethren of the Separation , and thnat , with all his infirmities and mistakes , he lived and died an honest man .
He died February 23 , 1743 , after having lived here near 54 years , of a long but gentle decay . He retained his senses to the last , and was incessantly lifting up hb hands when he could not speak ; so that it is probable he died praying , as , in one sense , he always lived .
Mr . JACOB SANDERCOCK . This gentleman was by marriage some relation to my mother , and was always very intimate in my grandfather Brett ' s family , and afterwards in my father ' s , where he always lodged whenever he came to Plymouth . I can remember him almost as far back as
any passage in my life . There was always a good acquaintance and a good opinion subsisting between our families au the while I was young * , and I had always the best notion t > f him as a Dissenting Minister , because I had not that fear and dread of cousin
Sandercock wlrich I had of most of his profession and years that used our house . He was born in Cornwall , of parents very obscure and mean , and incapable of affording him the education he had . I lived two years with his mother , when I boarded with him in Tavistock .
He was obliged to maintain her , she having nothing of her own , and no friend that could do it . She was an honest old creature , made up fcf devotion , superstition , bigotry and
ignorance . 1 remember she was so very holy , so nasty , and stunk so much of tobacco , that I always hated her . Her daughter came once to see her while I was there . She seemed a true Cornish
woman , about the degree of a common farmer ' s wife , and to have sense enoug h for it . Upon the whole , his family was as I have represented it , very mean and very poor . I can't say by whom Mr . Sandercock was m aintained at the Grammar-school , but I am pretty sure he was supported by the Fund at the Academy . He was bred under the old Mr- Warren , of Yaunton , whose school at that time was the most celebrated ift all the West , and which sent out men of the best sense and figur e
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258 Mr . John Fox ' s Biographical Sketches of some of his Contemporaries
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Citation
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Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), May 2, 1821, page 258, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct2500/page/2/
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