ship in which he sailed, behaved towards him with the utmost incivility and barbarous rudeness. The feelings of the Doctor were probed and goaded to the last degree. During this expedition also, the vessel in which he was, was boarded by a French privateer: for some time he was in their hands, and they rifled him of his property. While he was on the continent, it was agreed between him and the American Conference, that after revisiting England, and gaining the consent of the Conference there, he should return and spend the remainder of his days in America. This awakened the affection and attachment of the English preachers to him, and they urged him not to forsake them, and as a proof of their regard, as well as a pledge of more respect being shewn to him in future, he was for the first time chosen President of the English Conference, in 1797, though that was the seventh Conference after the death of Mr. Wesley. Mr. Thompson, Mr. Mather, Mr. Rawson. Mr. Hanby, Mr. Bradford, and Mr. Thomas Taylor, were all called to the presidental chair before him. The reasons for this delay in his elevation will be easily gathered from what has been before mentioned. But the Doctor bore slights and humiliations as a christian ought. "Nor plaintive words, Nor murmur, from his lips were heard." Meantime, he willingly and diligently did every act and drudgery belonging to the Connexion, whether at the Conferences, or at other times. And that in which he was the greatest and most abject slave, was, his begging from house to house, through England and Ireland, for the support of the missions among the poor slaves in the WestIndies. No fatigue, nor any rebuff or insult, could induce him to refrain from this. And though a man of a a soft and yielding spirit in some things, in this business, he 66 "Set as a flint his steady face, and "Harden'd to adamant his brow." No house, however forbidding, nor man, however great, and doubtful his disposition, could prevent him, if he could get the opportunity for telling his uniform and interesting tale, how he had stepped forth in the behalf of the Heathen;" what missionaries the Methodists had in the West Indies; what success had attended their labours; but what a call there was for pecuniary aid, &c. And tens upon tens of thousands of pounds did he collect in this way, in the course of between twenty and thirty years. His person being very agreeable, his voice soft and pleasing, and being withal a very accomplished gentleman, the very essence and perfection of good-breeding and politeness, he often succeeded where many others would have been sent empty away. Mr. Wesley said, "I used to be able to do a little, with money or without, but Dr. Coke has overshot me seven times with my own bow." His heart melted and yearned, when he thought upon the poor negroes and as a recent production eloquently says, "for years he stooped to the very drudgery of charity, and gratuitously pleaded the cause of a perishing world, from door to door." And though he attached no merit either to this or any other thing which he did, yet the reflection upon this part of his labours of love afforded him satisfaction, when he had, in a sense, done with the world, when he was embarked on shipboard for India, and out of which he never got to set his foot upon land, but remained there, till after a confinement of four months, which terminated in a death so sudden and unexpected; his fellow-passengers committed his body to the deep, there to remain till the sea shall give up the dead that are in her. After he had embarked, he wrote in his journal, "I have a most charming study-I have two large windows that open from the stern to the sea-Here I employ almost all my time, and nearly the whole of it, in reading and writing Portuguese, excepting my hours of meditation, which, indeed, I can hardly except: for my chief study is my Portuguese bible. O how sweet is the word of God! I have loved since I came into this ship more than I ever did before: "Jesus gives me, in his word, "Food and medicine, shield and sword." I now feel, I think, more than ever, the value of retirement, silence, and tranquillity of mind; and can say of my God what Virgil did of his Augustus: "God himself has favoured me with these leisure hours." And yet I cannot repent of the thousands of hours which I have spent in the most vile-the most glorious drudgery of begging from house to house. The tens of thousands of pounds which I have raised for the missions, and the beneficial effects thereof, form an ample compensation for the labour. The whole was of God." This drudgery of collecting, notwithstanding, could not but be a great interruption to his studies: and the consequences of being so much from his retirement were sometimes visible in his sermons. It contributed to make his discourses, on the week days, less rich and pleasing, as well as induced him to preach more frequently from the same text than otherwise he would have done. But as he was a man of incessant industry, he still contrived to employ much time in reading and writing. Of this we have abundant evidence. 66 in the numerous and voluminous publications with which he favoured the world during the last quarter of his life. The earliest and largest of these was his Commentary on the Holy Bible," and on "The New Testament," in six thick quarto volumes. This work was published in numbers, and was several years in coming out. It met with general approbation, and by many was, and is, much prized. But a few years ago, and when a great part of the first edition had been disposed of, a celebrated commentator informed the public, that Dr. Coke's publication, was in the main a re-print of the commentary of the unfortunate Dr. Dodd. This tended to lower the value of it in the estimation of many, and contributed, no doubt, to prevent a second edition, which Dr. Coke was then meditating. But if persons had simply attended to the merits of the work, they would not thus suddenly have fallen out of love with it. Nay, had they duly considered and credited all that the public informer said upon the subject, they must have been confirmed in their good opinion of the commentary. For just before he told them that Dr. Coke's commentary was in the main a re-print of Dr. Dodd's, he had given it as his opinion, that Dr. Dodd's commentary was the best that ever was published. If so, and if Dr. Coke's was little more than a new edition, then Dr. Coke's commentary might be allowed to be as good at least as any that ever was published. But Dr. Coke said, his was not a mere re-print of Dr. Dodd's, and as a manifest proof of this, it was much larger. He did not deny that he had made a large use of Dr. Dodd's work: but he assigned as one reason for not acknowledging this in print, that he had learnt from Dr. Maclaine, (when he went to Holland, to apply to the Dutch government, in behalf of religious liberty in the island of St. Eustatius,) that Dr. Dodd had borrowed a great part of his commentary from one published by Dr. Maclaine's father-in-law. We may add to this, Dr. Coke might justly conceive that it would be no recommendation of his publication, to tell serious readers, that a great part of that commentary on the holy scriptures, had been written by a man who was hanged for forgery, June the 27th, 1777; many could not have relished the idea of seeking for religious and saving truth in a book written by a man ignominiously executed for fraud. Dr. Coke's commentary is a most valuable treasury. The Conference purchased the Doctor's stock in that and all his other publications before his departure for India; and, I suppose in order to raise the purchase money, the book committee reduced the price, but I can hardly think it will long continue so low. The Old Testament, four large quarto volumes, published at £9. 10s. Od. are now offered to the public for £6. 6s. Od. and the commentary on the New Testament, containing between two and three thousand large quarto pages, sold by the Doctor, in boards, for £4. 4s. Od. will now be sold at £2. 2s. Od. I do seriously advise my readers, as I have done other persons, who have not this work, and want a commentary, to apply for it immediately, especially that on the New Testament, before it be all sold off, or the price be greatly advanced. Dr. Coke, a few years before his death, became a very extensive publisher, I believe from the best of motives, but certainly to his own great pecuniary loss. His publications were so numerous, and certain circumstances were so untoward, the stars in their courses fighting against him; his vent was so contracted and unproduc |