With such talents, and with such connections, it cannot easily be accounted for, that Mr. Pyle should remain during so long a life in a situation of comparative obscurity. Sir Robert Walpole was the member for Lynn; and both the political and religious opinions of Mr. Pyle were calculated to recommend him to queen Caroline, who then impartially dispensed the dignities of the Church. Perhaps the spirit of the man was not thought sufficiently accommodating for an introduction to a court; or, like the late Dr. Ogden of Cambridge, from some deficiency of external polish, he might be deemed not producible. A passage in Abp. Herring’s Correspondence with Mr. Duncombe seems to be decisive on this point. “Tom Pyle is a learned and worthy, as well as a lively and entertaining man. To be sure his success has not been equal to his merit, which yet, perhaps, is in some measure owing to himself; for that very impetuosity of spirit, which, under proper government, renders him the agreeable creature he is, has, in some circumstances of life, got the better of him, and hurt his views.” {1015a} From whatever cause, with the exception of a Prebend of Salisbury, which he received from Bp. Hoadly, he was only in succession Lecturer and Minister of Lynn St. Margaret, and vicar of Lynn All-saints—all truly but a poor and paltry pittance for such a man, and from a church which had such immense abundance of good things to bestow; most of which too were actually bestowed on far unworthier objects.—The following Letters which passed between Mr. Pyle and Abp. Herring are highly characteristic and interesting. “My Lord, In the universal acclamation of joy for your Grace’s promotion to the Primacy of all England, may the feeble voice of an old man be heard, the short remainder of whose life, will pass off with a pleasure that nothing could have given, but seeing at the head of the Church, a Prelate so affectionately attached to the interests of Truth, Virtue, and Liberty. I am, my Lord, your Grace’s most dutiful Servant. THO: PYLE.” * * * * * “Dear Sir, Your kind wishes for me give me spirit, and make my heart glad, for in good faith, I have been teazed and terrified with this exaltation; and thus much I will venture to say for myself, it sha’nt make me proud, it sha’nt make me covetous, it sha’nt make me ungrateful or unmindful of my Friends, but it frights me, and I fear has robbed me of the most precious thing in life, which is Liberty, but I will assert as much of it as I can, and not be for ever bound to the trammels of a long tail and ceremony, which my soul abhors.