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Inkster, George Alexander, of Tiverton and formerly of Underwood, at South Bruce Grey Health Centre-Kincardine, on Friday, January 4, 2013 in his 85th year. Beloved husband of Evelyn Inkster (née Molyneaux). Dear step-father of Keith (Eileen) Sutherland of Tillsonburg and Bonnie (Henry) Watson of Drayton Valley, Alberta. Loving step-grandfather of Glen and Neil Sutherland and Ben and Jessica Watson. Predeceased by his sisters Jeanetta Campbell, Ellen Leggett and Marie Inkster and his brothers Campbell, Jim and Bert Inkster. Visitation will be held at the Davey-Linklater Funeral Home, Kincardine at Sunday, January 6, from 7-9 p.m. where the funeral service will be held on Monday, January 7, at 1:00 p.m., with Rev. Don Harry officiating. Interment, Kincardine Cemetery. Memorial donations to the Canadian Cancer Society would be appreciated as expressions of sympathy.⁵

DEATHS.
Rudd--Jan 12, at 5 Dunville-avenue, Rathmines, Isabella Louisa, third daughter of the late Rev Richard Rudd, of Inverin, county Galway, aged 18 years. "Asleep in Jesus."¹

RUDD Isabella Louisa. Effects under £200. 24 April. Letters of Administration of the personal estate of Isabella Louisa Rudd late of 5 Dunville-avenue Rathmines County Dublin, Spinster, deceased who died 12 January 1879 at same place were granted at the Principal Registry to Lousia Rudd of said place Widow the Mother of said deceased.²

MARRIED.
On the 12th inst., at St. Peter's Church, Melbourne, Edwin, eldest son of Mr. Thomas Birch, formerly of Maidstone, Kent, England, to Mary Ann, second daughter of the late Mr. Abraham Bennett, formerly of Highgate, Middlesex, England.⁶

Bonnycastle, John (1751-1821) was a friend of the popular painter-writer Henry Fuseli (1741-1825) and of William Godwin and Joseph Johnson. He was a mathematician and a former General Baptist turned Unitarian and sceptic whose successor at the Royal Military College at Woolwich was Olinthus Gregory (1774-1841), a Particular Baptist layman and biographer of Robert Hall. Bonnycastle was baptized at the General Baptist meeting in St. Paul’s Alley, Barbican, in the spring of 1773. Through his friendships with Joseph Johnson, Joseph Priestley, William Godwin, and Henry Fuseli, however, he moved into Unitarianism and eventually scepticism by 1800, remaining so to his death, despite many earnest discussions about faith with Gregory. See Barbican Church Minute Book (later Worship Street), 1695-1851, Angus Library, Regent’s Park College, Oxford; ‘Infidels Think Sometimes’, The Friend. A Religious and Literary Journal 8 (1835), 404.⁷

Marriages: "Mr. Bonnycastle, of the Royal Academy at Woolwich, and author of some valuable publications, to Miss Newell, of Lewisham.¹⁵

Woolwich Common, Oct 24, 1807.
Dear Sir,--Being from home when your kind letter, with a copy of your Poems, arrived, I had no opportunity of answering it sooner, as I should certainly otherwise have done. The pleasure of hearing from you, after a silence of more than twenty-eight years, made me little solicitous to inquire how it has happened that two persons, who have always mutually esteemed each other, should have no intercourse whatever for so long a period. It is sufficient that you are well and happy, and that you have not forgot your old friend; who, you may be assured, has never ceased to cherish the same friendly remembrance of you.--You are as well known in my family as you are pleased to say I am in yours; and whenever you may find it convenient to come to this part of the world, both you and yours may depend upon the most sincere and cordial reception. I have a daughter nearly twenty, a son upon the point of becoming an officer in the engineers, and two younger boys, who at this moment are deeply engaged in your poems, and highly desirous of seeing the author, of whom they have so often heard me speak. They are, of course, no great critics; but all beg me to say, that they are much pleased with your beautiful verses, which I promised to read to them again when they have done; having conceded to their eagerness the prémices of the treat. It affords me the greatest gratification to find that, in this world of chances, you are so comfortably and honourably established in your profession, and I sincerely hope your sons may be as well provided for. I spent a few days at Cambridge a short time since, and had I known they had been there, I should not have failed making myself known to them, as an old friend of their father's. For myself, I have had little to complain of, except the anxiety and fatigue attending the duties of my calling; but as I have lately succeeded to the place of Dr Hutton, who has resigned the attendance at the academy, this has made it more easy, and my situation as respectable and pleasant as I could have any reason to expect. Life, as my friend Fuseli constantly repeats, is very short, therefore do not delay coming to see us any longer than you can possibly help. Be assured we shall all rejoice at the event. In the mean time, believe me, my dear Sir, your truly sincere friend, J. Bonnycastle.¹⁰

London. July 9.
It is the custom of some of the London booksellers to give weekly dinners to their literary and other friends. Hence you sometimes find at the same table, characters who would never have met except under the auspices of roast beef and Madeira wine. It was these which brought together "Jack Wilkes and the venerable Samuel Johnson."

A bookseller's dinner is doubly a treat to his guests. It offers an indirect but agreeable compliment, by telling them their own fame has enabled him to treat them so sumptuously.

The republic of letters is never more respectable than on those occasions of good humor and liberal mirth, when all the arts and sciences find themselves encircled round the festive board. The man who is in the habit of associating with his enemy will frequently finish by esteeming him. Mr. Malthus, who, in opposition to the " Political Justice," has written an essay on the " Principle of Population," a work of some fame, was lately seated at a bookseller's dinner next to Mr. Godwin.

Yesterday, I found myself at Mr. Johnson's, the bookseller, in St. Paul's Churchyard, where, among those to whom I was introduced, was Fuseli the painter, and a Scotch gentleman who is publishing in Scotland a new edition of Ossian in the original language."

The English don't say much at the table till the first course is finished ; but their manner of eating soon throws them into a gentle fever which invites to sociability when they have sufficient confidence in the company. Mr. Bonnycastle contributed not a little to the entertainment ; though remarkably merry, I suspect he is a mathematician, for he remarked that "the ball on the top of St. Paul's would appear ten times larger if placed on the ground at the same distance." The difference in the medium of vision was concluded to be the cause of this ; but one of the company, who thought it much easier to be certain of a thing than to ascertain its truth, proposed to Mr. Bonnycastle to go and measure the circumference of the ball and then make the experiment.¹⁸

Mr. Bonnycastle, the Professor of Mathematics to the Royal Military College at Woolwich, died this year (1821), in the seventieth year of his age;[58] he had been for more than forty years the intimate friend, occasional companion, and always a great admirer of the talents of Fuseli. Bonnycastle was a mathematician of celebrity, independently of which he had a fine taste for poetry and English literature[324] in general; his memory was retentive, his knowledge extensive, and he was ever ready to communicate what he knew. His conversational talents were of the first order, and he occasionally enlivened his remarks with apposite anecdotes. As he was the friend of my youth, I feel much satisfaction in recording here my gratitude for instruction and many acts of kindness received from this amiable man.

The following anecdote will afford a proof of the delicacy and feeling of Bonnycastle's mind, and also of his excellent disposition. When his "Introduction to Astronomy" was published, it was reviewed with a considerable degree of asperity in a popular work of the day. Several of his scientific friends, and Reuben Burrow in particular, considered that it had not been fairly dealt with by the reviewer, and they determined to discover the writer: they at length found out that it was Mr. Wales, Mathematical Master of the School of Christ's Church Hospital. Burrow, who was a man of quick sensibility, and an excellent mathematician, was determined to avenge the cause of his friend, and constantly expressed anxiety for the appearance of some new book by Wales; at length one was published, upon "The Method of Finding the Longitude at Sea by Chronometers."[325] Burrow procured a copy of this work, had it interleaved, and wrote numerous remarks on, and confutations of many parts of it, which he carried to Bonnycastle, and said, "As you have a more polished pen than myself, use these observations of mine, and make up a sharp review of this paltry book for the public." Bonnycastle lost no time in doing this, and was on his road to London, with the review in his pocket for publication, when he accidentally met Wales, who was then in so bad a state of health that he appeared to be in the last stage of a consumption. This affected the mind of Bonnycastle so strongly that, on his arrival in London, he immediately burnt the manuscript review, being determined not to hurt the feelings of a man labouring under disease, and thus perhaps to accelerate his death