MEMOIRS

OF

JOHN BACON, Esq. R. A.

WITH

REFLECTIONS

DRAWN FROM A REVIEW OF HIS MORAL AND RELIGIOUS CHARACTER.

Non sine ratione, sacra est magnarum virtutum memoria: et esse plures bonos juvat, si gratia bonorum no cum ipsis cadat.

SENECA.

ADVERTISEMENT.

SOON after the death of the late Mr. Bacon, his family requested the Author of the present publication to insert a few memorials of their invaluable relative in the Gentleman's Magazine for Sept. 1799. They have again requested him to publish them in the present form. They wish to preserve, by every means, a memory so revered and beloved, not only by themselves, but also by many who were happy in his acquaintance: they also feel, that the high cause of Religion and Morality may be served by the knowledge and remembrance of such a cha

racter.

A request at once so rational and pious would have been attended to sooner, had not a long course of painful infirmity and disease rendered even a a small undertaking difficult to the Writer.

Some additional facts and anecdotes furnished by the family enable the Author to enlarge the former brief narrative: he has also inserted whatever he could recollect of Mr. B.'s habits in society,

turn of thinking, manner of expression, &c. This addition will not only more distinctly mark his character, but afford a gratification to his friends.

The scantiness of his other materials has allowed the Author to dwell longer on that part of his friend's character which is decidedly the most important; and to add those observations at the conclusion on the nature and effect of true religion, which receive from it so striking an exemplifica

tion.

MEMOIRS,

&c.

To encourage real genius, struggling against

early disadvantages; to prove the solid benefits of a steady probity; and, above all, to exemplify the divine maxim, that Wisdom is justified of all her children, the following short Memoirs of the late JOHN BACON, Esq. are presented to the public.

This celebrated sculptor was descended from an ancient family in Somersetshire: his grandfather, John Bacon, was the son of William Bacon, who possessed a considerable estate near Wincanton, in that county. His father, Thomas Bacon, was a cloth-worker in Southwark, where Mr. Bacon was born November 24th, 1740.

Providence seems to have peculiarly favoured his infancy; for when he was about five years of age, he fell into the pit of a soap-boiler, and would have perished, if a man, who then entered the yard, had not discovered the top of his head, and immediately drawn him out. About the same time he fell before a cart, the wheel of which went