Aldermen of Hull to use their interest with the Duke of Newcastle, or some other nobleman or member of parliament. In his Memorial to their Worships, dated April the 5th, 1701, he writes, “I have almost finish’d and prepared for the press the whole history, antiquitys, and description of Hull, in long folio, containing a successive historical account of its original building, incrcas, and fortune in warre, battels, sieges, revolutions of state and government, &c, from its first building unto this time, which, when published, will be exceedingly to the honour and glory of the town, and the future peace, good, and welfare thereof. I have been at great charges in employing my friends at York, London, Oxford, Cambridge, and other places, in searching records there relating to the same, and in running through almost an infinite fateague, night and day, of continual writeing, reading, searching, compareing, reviewing, and composing of books, records, papers, and deeds, concerning the same, and inserting them into the same.” Through the Dean’s good offices, the Archbishop of York recommended Mr. De la Pryme to the Duke of Devonshire, who presented him in the year 1701 to the living of Thorn, “a markate town a little of of my town of Hatfield,” and he was duly admitted to the parochial charge on 16th October. In the same year, although only thirty years of age, he was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society. But too soon the diarist, Ralph Thoresby of Leeds, had to write the following mournful record:— “1704, June 20. Was much concerned to hear of the death of my kind friend, Mr. Abraham de La Pryme, Minister of Thorne, who, visiting the sick, caught the new distemper or fever, and he died on Monday after, the 12th inst., in the prime of his age; he was a Fellow of the Royal Society, has several letters in the Transactions, had made a great collection of MSS., compiled the History of Hull, in three vols. fol. . . . Lord! sanctify afflictive providences.”[1] The following is the inscription on his gravestone in Hatfield Church:—
Here lies all that was mortal of Abraham de la Pryme, F.R.S., Minister of Thorn, in the county of York, son of Matthew de la Pryme, and Sarah, his mournful relict. He died June the 13th, 1704, in the 34th year of his age.
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Tho' snatch’d away in youth’s fresh bloom, |
A painful priest — a faithful friend — |
IX. Thomas D’Urfey.
Thomas D’Urfey,[2] dramatic and song writer (better known as Tom D’Urfey), was of Huguenot descent. At a much earlier date than the revocation, his parents came from La Rochelle to Exeter, where he was born in 1653. Addison says in the Guardian, No. 67, 28th May 1713:— “I myself remember King Charles II. leaning on Tom D’Urfey’s shoulder more than once and humming over a song with him. It is certain that that monarch was not a little supported by ‘Joy to Great Caesar,’ which gave the Whigs such a blow as they were not able to recover that whole reign. My friend afterwards attacked Popery with the same success, having exposed Bellarmine and Porto-Carrero more than once in short satirical compositions which have been in everybody’s mouth. He has made use of Italian tunes and sonatas to promote the Protestant interest, and turned a considerable part of the pope’s music against himself.” He also satirised the Harley-Bolingbroke ministry, for he took the true refugee view of the Peace of Utrecht, as a bad bargain for Britain and for the Protestant interest:—
“A ballad to their merit may
Most justly then belong,
For, why! they’ve given all (I say)
To Louis for a song.”
The zeal of Dryden for Romanism may be regarded as partly explaining the severity of his criticism upon D’Urfey. I allude to the following recorded dialogue:—
“A gentleman returning from one of D’Urfey’s plays the first night it was acted,
- ↑ Rev. Robert Banks, Vicar of Hull, wrote to Thoresby, December 29, 1707:— “Mr. Prime, a little before he left us, took some pains to collect what he thought remarkable out of the writings and records in the Town Hall, which, after his death, the Mayor and Aldermen purchased of his brother, who lives at Hatfield. As to the rest of his manuscripts, they were about two years since in his brother’s custody, and it may be easily known whether he has disposed of them or no, and to whom.”
- ↑ The original spelling was, perhaps, D’Urfe, or D’Urfy. Abraham De la Fryme would not have approved of this placing of D’Urfey’s memoir so close to his own; for he writes in 1697 thus:— “I was this day with a bookseller at Frigg, who was apprenticed to one who printed that scurrilous pamphlet against Sherlock intitled The Weesels (the author of which was Durfee). He says that he is certain that his master got about £800 for it. He says that Durfee was forced to write an answer to it intitled The Weesel Trapped.”
