buckler, and which he would not have exchanged could the world have been laid at his feet,” old Romaine educated his son. “He was a steady member of the Church of England, a constant attender upon her services, and so exact an observer of the Sabbath-day, that he never suffered any of his family to go out upon it except to church, and spent the remainder of it with them in reading the Scriptures and other devout exercises at home. In this manner he lived to the age of eighty-five, and to the year of our Lord 1757.” William was M.A. of Oxford, and a very learned Hebraist. He had completed four folio volumes, and a seven years’ task, and was on his way to the vessel in which he meant to return home, when he was recognised by a stranger through his personal likeness to his father, and by that gentleman’s advice he applied for the ecclesiastical appointment which established him as a London minister. Accordingly the Gentleman’s Magazine for November 1748 informs us that Mr. Romaine, editor of Calasio’s Dictionary, was chosen Lecturer of the united parishes of St. George’s, Botolph Lane, and St. Botolph’s, Billingsgate. In 1766 he was finally settled as Rector of St. Andrew Wardrobe and St. Ann’s, Blackfriars. To write another detailed memoir of the author of “The Life, Walk, and Triumph of Faith,” and of such an eminent and popular clergyman, is unnecessary. It is to be regretted that Haag had not read his Sermons before the University of Oxford (which were worthy of their theme, “The Lord our Righteousness”), instead of characterising them upon hearsay as rigid or austere.
An interesting “Life of Romaine,” by Rev. Thomas Haweis, LL.B. and M.D., rector of All Saints, Aldwinkle, and chaplain to the late Countess of Huntingdon (London, 1797), contains graphic details, some of which I now quote.
“It is now more than forty years since my first acquaintance with Mr. Romaine commenced. . . . His stature was of the middling size, his visage thin and marked; the lines of his face were strong; and, as he advanced in age, deeply furrowed; his eye was quick and keen, yet his aspect benign, and frequently smiling; his manners were plain; I thought his address rather rough than polished; he dressed in a way peculiar to himself; he wore a suit of blue cloth always, a grey wig without powder; his stockings were coarse and blue as his clothes."
“He rose during the last fifty years at five o’clock, breakfasted at six, dined at one on some plain dish, and often (as I have seen) on cold meat and a pudding, drank little or no wine, supped at eight, and retired at nine.”
“His elocution was free and easy; his voice, though not sonorous, clear; and his articulation distinct. His sermons were neither so long, nor delivered with the same exertions, as those of many of his brethren; and I impute to this a measure of his uncommon health, as his bodily health was by this means less impaired. . . . Towards the end of his life I thought his voice somewhat lower, but he was exceedingly well heard to the last — preserved his teeth, spoke as distinctly as ever; his intellect and memory appeared not the least impaired, and except the wrinkles of his face, his body bore no mark of infirmity; he walked faster and more vigorously than I could.”
In his younger days he had been unfriendly to dissenters; but maturer consideration, though it did not change his own opinions, made him respectful to theirs. “Sir,” said he to a dissenting minister of Bristol, “I have been very high-church in the former years of my life, but the Lord has brought me down; and now I can rejoice in, and wish well to, the ministers of my Master, of whatever denomination.”
In the New Annual Register I find a memorandum of a ceremonial which may interest some of my readers:— “May 2nd, 1781. Yesterday was holden at Sion College the anniversary meeting of the London clergy, when a Latin sermon was preached in St. Alphage Church, by their president, the Rev. James Waller, D.D., after which the following gentlemen were elected officers for the year ensuing — the Rev. John Douglas, D.D., president; Peter Whalley, LL.B., and William Romaine, M.A., deans; Thomas Weales, D.D., Samuel Carr, M.A., George Stinton, D.D., and Henry Whitfield, D.D., assistants.”
A portion of his “Essay on Psalmody” is so Huguenot in sentiment that I must quote a few sentences:—
