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Camifis――Pbilo-dramaticus—Five Letters——Anonymos-Lincolpienfis —— Eumenes ———T. B.———W. W. R. and several others, are received.

As foon as the trial of Mr. Haflings is fufpended, and the Parliament adjourned, we shall be able to attend to the numerous favours of our Correspondents which have been postponed. Such of our Correspondents who favour us with any of their neformances, are folicited to withhold them unless they chufe we should have them exclufively. Two pieces intended for this moth are laid aside on account of their being sent to other publications. The Philofophical News in our next.

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For the EUROPEAN MAGAZINE.

An ACCOUNT of the RIGHT HON. CHARLES PRATT, EARL CAMDEN, LORD PRESIDENT of the COUNCIL.

[With a PORTRAIT of Him. ]

CH HARLES PRATT, EARL CAMDEN, is the 8th fon of Sir John Pratt, Lord Chief Justice of the Court of King's Bench in the reign of George the Firft, by his fecond lady Elizabeth. His father died in the year 1724, when this his fon was an infant; and being of a numerous family, he appears to have had but the flender provifion of a younger brother. He received his education at Eton, and from thence, at the ufual age, was, on the election in 1731, fent to King's College, Cambridge, of which Society he became a Fellow. In the year 1735, he took the degree of Bachelor of Arts, and in 1739 that of Maiter; and determining on the law for his profeffion, be entered himself a member of Lincoln's Inn. In due time he was called to the bar; but his fuccefs there was rather calculated to forbid despondency than to excite hope. For many years he gave his attendance in Weftminster-Hall, unnoticed and unknown; and, if popular report is to be relied on, he, without the means of preventing the evil, faw his fmall fortune gradually moulder away with little profpect of retrieving himself by any diligence or exertion. It is even afferted, that the encouragement he met with was fo inadequate to his expectations, that he at one period refolved to relinquith his profeffion and abandon his country. At this juncture one of his brothers was in the East Indies, and it is imagined he meditated to fol. low him there. Fortunately, however, we may fay for the public as well as himself, fo hafty a measure was not

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carried into execution; and the event will hold out a leffon to thofe who, under the fame circumftances, are too apt precipitately to give up in despair advantages, of which perfeverance would most probably infure them the poffeflion. It may be conjectured, that at this juncture his fchool-fellow and collegiate friend Dr. Sneyd Davies wrote his poetical epiftle to him, in which, after painting the pleafures of their youth, the transition from that period of life to manhood, and the then change in their purfuits, he encouraged him with the examples of Cowper, Talbot, Sommers, Yorke, who at the bar

Pleaded their way to glory's chair supreme, And worthy fill'd it. Let not those great

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yet

To noon-day luftre kindled, had their dawn.
Proceed familiar to the gate of Fame,
Nor think the task fevere, the prize too high
Of toil and honour, for thy father's fon.

His diligence and application, however, at length were noticed, and he obtained, what his talents entitled him to, a confiderable thare of practice; in which he deported himself with great attention to the intereft of his clients, and at the fame time to the liberty of the fubject. When Mr. Owen was tried for publishing the cafe of Alexander Murray in 1752, Mr. Pratt was one of his counsel, and fignalized himself by a very able conftitu

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tional argument on that occafion. At the ge eral election of 1754, he was chofen Member for Downton; and on a bill being proposed in the House of Commons to extend the benefits of the Habeas Corpus Act, which failed, he is faid to have written a pamphlet, entitled, "An Enquiry into the Na ure and Effect of the Habeas Corpus Act. 8vo. 1758 *."

From this period Mr. Pratt might be confidered as the moft rifing advocate at the bar, and at a time when some of the ableft men then living were exercising their abilities on the fame ground. A friendship between him and Lord Chatham, then Mr. Pitt, had taken place, and through his means it may be prefumed Mr. Pratt was chofen Recorder of Bath in 1759 and in the fame year he was appointed at once, without the ufual gradation, Attorney-general, on the advancement of Lord Northington to be Keeper of the Great Seal. At the general elcation in 1760, he was chofen Member for Bath; and in December 1761, was conftituted Chief-Justice of the CommonPleas, on the death of Sir John Willes: at the fame time he received the honour of knighthood.

It was during the time he prefided in this court that the cafe of Mr. Wilkes in various fhapes came before him to be determined; and the refolutions which the court came to on these occafions contributed greatly to increase the popularity of the Chief Justice, and to afford fatif

faction to the people at large. In July 1765, he was advanced to the dignity of a Peer of Great-Britain by the title of Lord Camden, Baron of Camden, in the county of Kent. On the 30th of July 1766, he was named Lord High Chancellor of Great Britain, a poft he held with great honour to himself, and fatif faction to the fuitors and practicers of the court, until the year 1770, when difapproving the measures refpecting America, he no longer held himself at li berty to continue in office.

He accordingly refigned the Seals, and became an able, a warm, and a determined enemy to the fyftem which continued to be fatally pursued during the adminiftration of Lord North. He alfo oppofed, in the Houfe of Lords, fome legal opinions pronounced by the Court of King's-Bench on the doctrine of libels and on other conftitutional fubjects. In most of thefe he was fupported by the affiftance of his former friend Lord Chatham, with whom he appears to have continued on terms of intimacy during his life. On the 27th of March 1782, he was appointed Prefident of the Council, a poft which he refigned in March 1783, but which he has fince refumed, and now continues to hold.

His Lordship married Oct. 5, 1749, Mifs Jefferys, who died Dec. 1779, by whom he had several children," some of whom are still living.

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To the EDITOR of the EUROPEAN MAGAZINE. SIR, In looking over the papers of a Welsh family the other day, I found an old paper (of which I inclofe you a copy), which is entitled, " A Copy of a very remarkable Inftance of old Age, and numerous Offspring, taken out of an old Registry belonging to the Parth of Tregaian, which is a Part of the Rectory of Llangefui, "and tranfcribed into this Regiftry for the Satisfaction of Pofterity." If you think it worthy a place in your Magazine, it is much at your fervice. Yours, &c. T. B. HERE died an old man, in the pa- Griffith ap William, aged two years and rish of Tregaian, in the county of a half, now living and the difference Anglefea, named William ap Howel ap between the two brothers is 81 years and David ap Jerwerth, aged 105. a half; for the eldeft was that age when the youngest was born. His eldest daughter was called Alice ych William, aged 72. She hath been thrice married, and hath a numerous offspring in the faid parish. And at his funeral there was computed to be about 300 perfons defcending from him. The faid old man was of middle ftature, of good complexion, never troubled with colic, gout, or tone, feldom fick, of a moderate diet, lived by tillage, exercifed himfeif much in fishing and fowling, and had his knowledge to his lalt day.

He had been thrice married: his first wife was Ellin ych William; by her he had 32 children. His fecond wife was Catharine ych Richard; by her he had 10 children. His third wife was Ellin ych William; by her he had 4 children. He had alfo two concubines: one was Jenet ych William; by her he had 2 children and the other was Leeky Lloyd, and by her he had 5 children. His eldelt fon was Griffhap William, now living in the faid parith, aged 34 years. He had children's children to the fourth generation in abundance. His youngest fon was alfo called

This is a,ferred on the authority of the catalogue of the library of James Weft, Efq.

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