on 19 Dec. 1764, aged 56, and, after lying in state in the Jerusalem Chamber, was buried in the north aisle of Westminster Abbey on the 28th of the same month. There is no monument to his memory, and the large marble slab which formerly marked his burial-place has been removed. There is a portrait of Stone by Ramsay in the hall of Christ Church, Oxford.
Stone was an able but somewhat unscrupulous man, with a handsome presence and insinuating manners. His ambition and ostentation were unbounded, and he was much more of a politician than an ecclesiastic. His tact and finesse were alike remarkable. ‘No man,’ says Cumberland, ‘faced difficulties with greater courage, none overcame them with more address; he was formed to hold command over turbulent spirits in tempestuous seasons; for if he could not absolutely rule the passions of men, he could artfully rule men by the medium of their passions’ (Memoirs of Richard Cumberland, 1806, p. 172). According to Horace Walpole, Stone ‘ruined his constitution by indulgence to the style of luxury and drinking established in Ireland, and by conforming to which he had found the means of surmounting the most grievous prejudices, and of gaining popularity, ascendant, power—an instance of abilities seldom to be matched’ (Memoirs of the Reign of King George III, 1894, ii. 27). The appellation of ‘the beauty of holiness,’ which was given to Stone, as previously to Bishop Stillingfleet, on account of his good looks, was not confirmed by any singular excellence of his moral character. But though he did not conform to the decencies of his profession, he was probably innocent of the grosser charges which were brought against him by his numerous enemies. Stone was favourably inclined to the toleration of Roman catholics, and strongly opposed a bill for the registration of priests (Stuart, Memoirs of the City of Armagh, 1819, pp. 438–40). He was one of the very few persons who recognised the merits of Hume's ‘History of England’ on its first appearance (‘Life of David Hume, Esq., written by himself,’ 1777, pp. 17–20). Some satirical verses on Stone will be found in the ‘Twelfth Report of the Historical Manuscripts Commission’ (App. x. pp. 272–273). In ‘Baratariana’ he figures as ‘Cardinal Lapidario’ (Notes and Queries, 2nd ser. viii. 211–12).
Many of Stone's letters to the Duke of Newcastle and others are preserved in the British Museum and the Public Record Office. A copy of verses by him is printed among the Oxford poems on the death of George I (Pietas Univ. Oxon. &c. 1727). Sermons by him were published in 1742, 1751, and 1760 respectively. He is said to have been the author, conjointly with Anthony Malone, of ‘The Representation of the L—s J—s of Ireland, touching the Transmission of a Privy Council Money Bill, previous to the calling of a new Parliament,’ Dublin, 1770, 8vo.
[Authorities quoted in text; Walpole's Memoirs of the Reign of George II, 1846; A Letter from a Prime Serjeant to a High Priest, 1754; Hist. MSS. Comm. 8th Rep. App. i. pp. 175–81 et seq.; Bedford Correspondence, 1842–6, vol. ii. pp. xii–xiv, 348–52, 355–9, 377–82; Chatham Correspondence, 1838–40, i. 158–9, 229–30, ii. 59–67; Coxe's Memoirs of the Pelham Administration, 1829, ii. 284–8; Hardy's Memoirs of the Earl of Charlemont, 1810, pp. 41–2, 44–52, 80, 85–6, 94–9, 102–5; Mrs. Delany's Autobiogr. 1861–2; Lord E. Fitzmaurice's Life of William, Earl of Shelburne, 1875–6, i. 346–8, ii. 81–91; Campbell's Philosophical Survey of the South of Ireland, 1777, pp. 55–6; Curry's Historical and Critical Review of the Civil Wars in Ireland, &c., 1786, ii. 261–2, 270; Mant's Hist. of the Church of Ireland from the Revolution to the Union, 1840, ii. 580, 600–5, 617, 781, 784, 785, 786; O'Flanagan's Lives of the Lord Chancellors of Ireland 1870, ii. 86–7, 101–5, 109–10; Froude's English in Ireland, 1872–4, i. 610–12, 617–22, ii. 39, 197, 449; Addit. MS. Brit. Mus. 5808, f. 232; Alumni Westmon. 1852, pp. 240–1, 270, 275, 278, 286, 290, 294; Chester's Westminster Abbey Registers (Harl. Soc. Publ.), x. 49, 405, 410, 418; Neale's Westminster Abbey, 1818–23, ii. 243; Gent. Mag. 1764, p. 603; Wood's Hist. and Antiquities of the Colleges and Halls in the Univ. of Oxford, pp. 295, 446; Cotton's Fasti Ecclesiæ Hibernicæ, 1848–60, ii. 46, 234, 339–40, 351, iii. 26, 324, 333, v. 200; Foster's Alumni Oxon. 1715–1886, iv. 1359; Liber Munerum Publicorum Hiberniæ, vol. i. pt. ii. pp. 12–13; Halkett and Laing's Dict. of Anon. and Pseudon. Lit. 1882–8, iii. 2181.]
STONE, GILBERT (d. 1417?), mediæval letter-writer, born at Stone in Staffordshire, whence he took his name, is said by Brian Twyne [q. v.] to have been educated at Oxford, where he devoted himself to the study of civil law, to have been made chancellor successively to Robert Wyville (d. 1375), bishop of Salisbury; Ralph Ergham (d. 1400), bishop of Bath and Wells; and to Richard Clifford, bishop of Worcester, who was translated to London in 1407. The defective registers afford no confirmation of these statements, but in 1384 Richard II confirmed Stone in possession of the prebend of Buckland Denham in Wells Cathedral, and early in the fifteenth century he held the prebend of Ynge or Eigne in Hereford Cathedral, which he resigned in 1414. On 9 March 1411–12 he was collated to the prebend of Portpoole in St. Paul's Cathedral, and he
