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and encourage othere in th \ s uecSsg&uy , but some what difficult duty . In tfeat great crisis Ui the religious history tkf our country , when the application to Parliament by a great and respectable body of the clergy of the Ctaareh of England for some change iu the required subscriptioa to make it more congenial to the Protestaut principles of
liberty , of religions n » q « iry , and the sufficiency of Scripture , was rejected by ati overwhelming imparity ; and wbeu , in consequence of it , a benefited clergy * man of this county , of the highest cha ^ racter , gave up . his preferment , withdrew himself from the church , and opened a chapel iu London for public warship on Unitarian principles , Mr . Shore , and
the neighbour and great friend of the family , Mr . Newton , of Norton House , were amongst the first to encourage and assist Mr . Liudsey . That truly conscientious , and truly learned and ex * eel lent man found , indeed , his best friends amongst those who had been trained in the school of Nonconformity . In his journey from Catterick to London * a pil grimage which will be looked upon
with increasing interest as time advances , and brings forth more and move of the consequences of that event , Mr . Lindsey spent a whole week in thia neighbourhood . He was ,, during that time , the guest of his friend , Mr . Mason , who was residing on his rectory of Aston , the biographer of Gray , and one whose taste gave beauty , and poetry celebrity , to that cheerful village .
To Dr . Priestley , a man of a still bolder and more ardent mind , Mr . Shore also extended a friendly patronage ; and Dr . Priestley has inscribed to him his History of the Christian Church , as to one " whose conduct had long proved him to be a steady friend of Christianity , and whose object it had been to preserve it as unmixed as possible with every thing that has a tendency to corrupt and debase it . "
Mr . Shore was not less active in his endeavours to regain for Protestant Dissenters the rights of which they had been deprived in the reign of Charles II ., and which were but imperfectly restored at the Revolution . He not only concurred in all the applications which were made to Parliament , but he exerted to the utmost that high influence which he possessed in the exalted ranks of society . lie lived to witness the success of these
applications ; and some of his latest thoughts were directed upon this gratifying proof of the increased liberality
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of the times , and tme advancement in the general liberty of the subject . Throughout life , Mr . 8 bore looked with solicitude to the popular parts of our well-balanced constitution , which he thought in uu > re dauger of injury than the monarchical or aristocratical
portions c > f it . He looked with anapprebensioii , in wjiieh many great and wise men agreed with him , to an increase of the in&ueuce of the Crown , too great for the safety of the people ; and iu his character of a citizen of this great country , he thought ti his duty to support all measures which tended to maintain , or even to give an increase , correspondent to the increased influence of the Crown .
to the rights and privileges of the commonalty . In bis own county ( Derby ) he was the supporter of the house of Cavendish , because that house was a supporter of the principles which he thought essential to the maintenance of the public weal . And in the county of his birth , though not of his residence , and where he possessed great interests ,
he was the supporter of that public interest of which Sir George Savile might , in his day , be accounted the illustrious representative . When the principles of those who leaned to the monarchical , and of those who leaned to the popular part of the constitution , became posited on the great question of Parliamentary Reform , Mr . Shore was among the foremost of those eminent persons in the county of York who formed the Yorkshire
Association of former times ; and when the great Yorkshire petition for reform was agreed upon , he was one of the deputies to whom the care of it was committed . A list of the members of that Association who met at York is before me ; but few are at this day living . Of the two deputies with Mr . Shore , the Hev . Christopher Wyvill , and Sir James limes , who became afterwards Duke of Roxburgh , both are dead .
Through the period of alarm , Mr . Shore still retained his former principles . He was attached to the political party of which Mr . Fox might be regarded as at that time the representative ; but it was entirely an attachment lying in community of sentiment—an attachment so truly independent , that it might be at once broken when the community of sentiment had disappeared .
In later periods , Mr . Shore has shewn the importance with which he regarded the question of the improvement of our ' representation , and the infusion of a . greater number of really elected mem
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Qbiiuery . ^ Samurt £ kof £ > E&q . 69
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Citation
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Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), Jan. 2, 1829, page 69, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct2568/page/69/
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