Mary, followed by his being rewarded with ecclesiastical promotion. Sherlock had written book upon the Trinity, in which there were expressions which appeared to his old allies to savour of Tritheism and laid him open to the denunciations of the Athanasian Creed upon those who divide the substance. The books in this controversy were many; the attacks of the wits about town still more numerous. Pittis had a hand in these latter. He fell foul not only of Sherlock, but also of Thomas Burnet, a theologian, fearless but somewhat rash, with more imagination than philosophy. He had published in 1694 his Theoria Telluris Sacra, which he afterwards translated into English. Burnet,' says Hallam (Hist. of Literature, vol. iv. p. 369), 'gives the reins to his imagination more than any other writer on that, which, if not argued upon by inductive reasoning, must be the dream of one man little better in reality, though it may be more amusing, than the dream of another.' Burnet's theory was opposed by several, amongst others by Hooke, the son of the rector of Freshwater, Isle of Wight, who, with his usual sagacity, saw that the common theory of explaining marine fossils by the Mosaic deluge would not suffice, and perceived that at some time or other a part of the earth's crust must have been elevated and another part depressed by some subterraneous agency. Pittis flippantly accused Burnet of asserting that • All the books of Moses In a manuscript interlineation in this copy of The Castle Builders, it is recorded that the Rev. Thomas Pittis, of St. Botolph's London, died on December 28, 1687, leaving four children, Thomas, William, Catherine, and Elizabeth, by his wife Elizabeth, daughter of Sir William Stephens. What became of his eldest son, Thomas, the New College Fellow and man about town, does not appear. One of his sisters was married to Dr. Isham, rector of Bishopsgate, and lecturer of Allhallows in Lombard-street. In a notice of the Pittis family last week it was stated that an ancestor of Sir Francis was some two centuries ago vicar of Brading. We have made some inquiries on the subject, and now learn that in the year 1666 Dr. Richard Pittis-he was a Doctor of Medicine as well as a Master of Arts of the University of Oxford-was inducted to the vicarage of Brading, and a record of the induction is contained in the parish Registry Book. August 20, 1887. THE EARL OF CADOGAN, GOVERNOR OF THE ISLE OF WIGHT, A. D. 1715-1726. WILLIAM CADOGAN, a general officer in the army and companion in the achievements and glory of the Duke of Marlborough, succeeded his comrade in arms General John Richmond Webb as Governor of the Isle of Wight and Captain of Carisbrooke Castle in 1715 (2 George I). Readers of Mr. Thackeray's Esmond will remember how Marlborough was blamed for having in his dispatches given the credit of the battle of Wynendaal to his favourite Cadogan, and tried to wrest it from General Webb, who had borne the burden and heat of that gallant action which led to the surrender of the fortress of Lille. Cadogan, who afterwards became the best divisional general in Marlborough's English army, had served with. distinction under William III. Personally he was a big, burly Anglo-Irishman. A portrait of him in a light-coloured wig and a suit of silver armour over his scarlet uniform is to be found in the National Portrait Gallery in London. His grandfather, William Cadogan, born at Cardiff in Wales, was an officer in the army, and settling in Ireland distinguished himself by his gallant defence of the Castle of Trim, in the Civil Wars, when Sir Charles Coote, Lord President of Connaught, the Cromwellian General, was killed, as it was supposed, by a ball from the musket of one of his own troopers. His grandson, the Governor of the Isle of Wight, was made a Colonel in 1694, a Brigadier-General in 1704, a Major-General in 1707, a Lieutenant-General in 1709. After his appointment to the Governorship of the Isle of Wight he was raised to the peerage in 1716 as Baron Cadogan of Reading in Berks, and created in 1718 Baron Cadogan of Oakley in Bucks (remainder in default of his own male issue to his brother Charles Cadogan), Viscount Caversham of Oxfordshire, and Earl Cadogan. Cadogan was a violent and vehement partisan of the Whigs, who came into power with the accession of George I. When Atterbury, bishop of Rochester, became in 1722 the victim of his restless character and implacable disaffection to the House of Hanover, many hot-headed members of the Whig party were eager to follow the precedent which had been set in the well-known case of Sir John Fenwick, and to pass an Act for cutting off the bishop's head. During the debates the headstrong Cadogan is said to have exclaimed with great violence, Fling him to the lions in the Tower.' But the wiser and more humane Walpole was unwilling to shed blood, and his influence prevailed. The British lion did not care to crunch the bones of a bishop, and with a growl deprived him of all ecclesiastical preferments and sent him into perpetual exile. Atterbury had his revenge on his fierce and savage persecutor in the following sarcastic lines on Cadogan: Ungrateful to the ungrateful men he grew by, A big, bad, bold, blustering, bloody, blundering booby." In the latter days of the reign of Queen Anne his political opponents had removed the great Duke of Marlborough from his military command. This hard measure was envenomed by their malignity with a charge of peculation, which really appears to have been unfounded. Before the storm thus raised against him Marlborough withdrew to the Continent, where he remained till just previous to the death of Queen Anne. George I immediately on his accession restored Marlborough to his military offices of Captain-General and Master of the Ordnance, and in the undisturbed enjoyment of these dignities the illustrious victor of Blenheim and of Ramillies passed the eight remaining years of his life. In the interval two paralytic strokes shook his strength, but without at all seriously impairing his faculties, so that Dr. Johnson's often-quoted lines, 'From Marlborough's eyes the streams of dotage flow,' are at least a poetical exaggeration, for he continued to attend his Parliamentary and official duties until a few months before his death. When in June, 1722, Marlborough died, in the 72nd year of his age, Cadogan's conduct at the funeral is said to have been unbecoming. Whether this charge be true or no, Cadogan succeeded his illustrious chief in the command of the army, and was made Master of the Ordnance and Knight of the Thistle. Cadogan was certainly bound to be grateful to Marlborough, who had made him Quartermaster-General to the army, and who had reposed such confidence in his favourite subordinate officer as to employ him in negotiations with the confederate Princes and States, and had also used his influence that Cadogan should be sent as Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary to the United Provinces. Not long before the accession of George I Marlborough, who was staying at Ostend, watching the game that was playing with the intention of striking in at the decisive round, sent Cadogan as his emissary to England. Cadogan was on the occasion of the Earl of Oxford's dismissal along with Robert Walpole and other chiefs of the Whig party one of the guests at the dinner party which the arch-intriguer, Bolingbroke, after tripping up the heels of his rival, gave at his house in Golden-square, when drawing up his scheme for the new Cabinet. Cadogan played the cards so well for his own game that Bothmar, who was made the medium of communication between the competitors for ministerial office and the new king at Hanover, recommended that while Marlborough and his son-in-law Sunderland should be satisfied,' Cadogan and Stanhope should be provided for.' Cadogan was accordingly soon afterwards provided for' by the easy, honourable, and then lucrative office of the Governorship of the Isle of Wight. 6 Soon after this appointment the undoubted military abilities of Cadogan were required for serious work in North Britain. Many Scottish gentlemen came out at the Earl of Mar's summons, mounted the white cockade, and rallied round the standard of James Francis-the Old Pretender as he was called. At Sheriffmuir Mar's Jacobite army was engaged by John Campbell, Duke of Argyll, in what must be considered a drawn battle, if we place credit in the old Scotch ballad, which says: 'There's some say that we wan, Some say that they wan, Some say that nane wan at a', man; That at Sheriffmuir A battle there was, which I saw, man.' The English Government began to be alarmed. George I and his hideous German mistresses might have to pack up the plate, and perhaps the Crown jewels, and set off to Hanover and its delights among the linden trees of the great Herrenhausen Avenue. Cadogan was sent to quicken Argyll. Cadogan's troops had not been accustomed, even under the great Marlborough and in climates less severe than that of Scotland, to make campaigns in winter. The snow was very deep, and there happened a fresh and heavy fall. Beyond a certain point were narrow and deep defiles completely blocked up with snow, and not a roof, not a bit of thatch, not a naked tree to give shelter to the soldiers of the Royal army. Nevertheless the Duke of Argyll and Cadogan advanced in person to survey the roads leading to Perth, and to direct the labours of the soldiers and country people in clearing the roads from snow. On the last day of January, as Argyll was advancing with his main body, Perth was evacuated, and the Pretender and his Highlanders defiled across the deep, broad, and rapid river Tay, which was then frozen over with ice strong enough to bear both horse and foot. Cadogan was dispatched towards Montrose, and when he had got as far as Arbroath received advice that the Pretender was gone to France the evening before. With this paltry flight the rebellion collapsed, though hundreds and thousands of Englishmen and Scots had to pay a severe penalty for their rash doings. But though Derwentwater, Nithsdale, and Forster were put down in Northumberland, and the clans in Scotland had King George's soldiers quartered upon them, there was still a strong Jacobite feeling |