 zeal for the Protestant faith in some extravagant proceeding
which was the delight of its enemies; and saving, besides, that he was formally
excommunicated by the Archbishop of Canterbury, for refusing to appear as a
witness in the Ecclesiastical Court when cited for that purpose. In the year
1788 he was stimulated by some new insanity to write and publish an injurious
pamphlet, reflecting on the Queen of France, in very violent terms. Being
indicted for the libel, and (after various strange demonstrations in court)
found guilty, he fled into Holland in place of appearing to receive sentence:
from whence, as the quiet burgomasters of Amsterdam had no relish for his
company, he was sent home again with all speed. Arriving in the month of July at
Harwich, and going thence to Birmingham, he made in the latter place, in August,
a public profession of the Jewish religion; and figured there as a Jew until he
was arrested, and brought back to London to receive the sentence he had evaded.
By virtue of this sentence he was, in the month of December, cast into Newgate
for five years and ten months, and required besides to pay a large fine, and to
furnish heavy securities for his future good behaviour.
    After addressing, in the midsummer of the following year, an appeal to the
commiseration of the National Assembly of France, which the English minister
refused to sanction, he composed himself to undergo his full term of punishment;
and suffering his beard to grow nearly to his waist, and conforming in all
respects to the ceremonies of his new religion, he applied himself to the study
of history, and occasionally to the art of painting, in which, in his younger
days, he had shown some skill. Deserted by his former friends, and treated in
all respects like the worst criminal in the jail, he lingered on, quite cheerful
and resigned, until the 1st of November, 1793, when he died in his cell, being
then only three-and-forty years of age.
    Many men with fewer sympathies for the distressed and needy, with less
abilities and harder hearts, have made a shining figure and left a brilliant
fame. He had his mourners. The prisoners bemoaned his loss, and missed him; for
though his means were not large, his charity was great, and in bestowing alms
among them he considered the necessities of all alike, and knew no distinction
of sect or creed. There are wise men in the highways of the world who may learn
something, even from this poor crazy lord who died in Newgate.
    To the last, he
