the mask, and in the most direct manner, against my will, has written against my friend Dr. Middleton. . . . I have forbid him my house' (Letters, ii. 216). Cole (MS. Athenæ) mentions that Ashton owed his Eton fellowship to Walpole's influence. In 1759 Ashton took the degree of D.D.; in December 1760 he married a Miss Amyand; and in May 1762 was elected preacher at Lincoln's Inn, which office he resigned in 1764. He died on 1 March 1775, after 'having for some years survived a severe attack of the palsy.'
Ashton was the author of a number of sermons, among which may be mentioned 'A Sermon on the Rebellion,' 1745; a 'Thanksgiving Sermon' on the close of it in 1746; a 'Sermon preached before the House of Commons' on 30 Jan. 1762; a 'Spital Sermon' at St. Bride's on Easter Wednesday of the same year. These, with others, were collected in a volume of 'Sermons on several Occasions,' 1770, 8vo. Prefixed to this volume is a mezzotint portrait of Ashton from a painting by Sir Joshua Reynolds. In 1754 he had an altercation with a methodist minister of the name of Jones, to whom he addressed 'A Letter to the Rev. Thomas Jones, intended as a rational and candid answer to his sermon preached at St. Botolph, Bishopsgate.' He also wrote some pamphlets against the admission of aliens to Eton fellowships.
[Nichols's Literary Anecdotes, iii. 88-90; Walpole's Letters, ed. Cunningham, i. 161, 184, ii. 216-17; Cole's MS. Athenæ.]
ASHURST, HENRY (1614?–1680), a wealthy and benevolent merchant of London, noted for his gifts of money to pious or charitable purposes, the founder of the family of Ashurst or Ashhurst of Waterstock, Oxfordshire, was descended from an old Lancashire family, seated at Ashurst, in the township of Dalton and parish of Wigan, distant five miles north-west of that town. His father, Henry, a justice of the peace, is described as a wise and pious gentleman, zealous for the reformed religion in a part of the country where Roman catholics abounded. His mother was one of the Bradshaws of Bradshaw, near Bolton. Of the sons of this marriage William engaged in politics, becoming M.P. for Newton, Lancashire, in 1641, and for the county in 1654; John became a colonel in the civil war; and Henry, born about 1614, entered into trade; all being very zealous in the interests of the parliamentarians and presbyterians. A daughter, Mary, became the wife of Dr. Theophilus Howorth, of Manchester. Henry was apprenticed at the age of fifteen to a London draper; and his prospects were much advanced by a loan of 300l. from the Rev. James Hiet, of Croston, Lancashire, and by his marriage with Judith Reresby. He became a successful merchant, entered the common council, and, though ejected in 1662, subsequently became an alderman. In 1667 he was living at Lauderdale House, but at the time of his death, which occurred in November 1680, he is called of Hackney. He had the intimate acquaintance of Henry Newcome, of Manchester, Richard Baxter, who preached his funeral sermon, Matthew and Philip Henry, and others; and the writings of all these divines abound in references to him. His charities to his Lancashire countrymen were very extensive: he allowed needy ejected ministers in that county 100l. per annum, and liberally relieved the widows of ministers. He was deeply interested in Elliot's missionary efforts in North America, and that apostle to the Indians termed him his worthy and true friend. Ashurst acted as treasurer for the Society for the Propagation of the Gospel, was a trustee of Boyle's Lecture, and was a great patron of religious literature. Baxter describes him as 'the most exemplary person for eminent sobriety, self-denial, piety, and charity that London could glory of, as far as public observation, and fame, and his most intimate friends could testify.' His son Henry, also a tried friend of Baxter's, became a baronet; he was the builder of Waterstock. The second son, William, was knighted in 1689, and was lord mayor of London in 1693. Each brother received 20l. by bequest of Robert Boyle.
[Dugdale's Visitation of Lancashire, p. 9; Burke's Visitation of Seats, ii. 11; Baxter's Funeral Sermon, London, 1681, 4to; Sylvester's Reliquiæ Baxterianæ, ii. 290, iii. 17, 189; Le Neve's Knights, 414; Newcome's Autobiography and Diary; Matthew Henry's Life; Life of Antony à Wood, 8vo, 157-8.]
ASHURST, JAMES (d. 1679), divine, whose christian name was unknown to Calamy and Palmer, was vicar of Arlesey, in Bedfordshire, and had been episcopally ordained, but he could not comply with the new impositions of the Act of Uniformity, and hence quitted his living. He was very old, and his vicarage slender. Samuel Browne, the judge [q. v.], was one of his parishioners, and a great friend. 'The whole parish,' says Palmer (after Calamy), 'was well affected towards him for his worthy behaviour amongst them, and was entirely under the influence of the judge . . . and so, though he was legally silenced, he continued in his church a non-conformist. He read part of the morning and
