family estates was settled in 1617. The 5th earl was Francis’s only son Henry (1591–1643), who was born on the 28th of February 1591, and was educated at Christ Church, Oxford. He was a supporter of Charles I. during his two short wars with the Scots, and also during the Civil War until his death on the 11th of December 1643. He left no sons; his earldom became extinct; his new barony of Clifford, created in 1628, passed to his daughter Elizabeth (1618–1691), wife of Richard Boyle, earl of Cork and Burlington; and the Cumberland estates to his cousin Anne, countess of Dorset and Pembroke.
In 1644 the English title of duke of Cumberland was created in favour of Rupert, son of Frederick V., elector palatine of the Rhine, and nephew of Charles I. Having lapsed on Rupert’s death without legitimate issue in 1682, it was created again in 1689 to give an English title to George, prince of Denmark, who had married the lady who afterwards became Queen Anne. It again became extinct when George died in 1708, but was revived in 1726 in favour of William Augustus, third son of George II. As this duke was never married the title lapsed on his death in 1765, but was revived in the following year in favour of Henry Frederick (1745–1790), son of Frederick, prince of Wales, and brother of George III. Having again become extinct on Henry Frederick’s death, the title of duke of Cumberland was created for the fifth time in favour of Ernest Augustus, who was made duke of Cumberland and Teviotdale in 1799. In 1837 Ernest (q.v.) became king of Hanover, and on his death in 1851 the title descended with the kingdom of Hanover to his son King George V. (q.v.), and on George’s death in 1878 to his grandson Ernest Augustus (b. 1845). In 1866 Hanover was annexed by Prussia, but King George died without renouncing his rights. His son Ernest, while maintaining his claim to the kingdom of Hanover, is generally known by his title of duke of Cumberland.
CUMBERLAND, RICHARD (1632–1718), English philosopher and bishop of Peterborough, the son of a citizen of London, was
born in the parish of St Ann, near Aldersgate. He was educated
in St Paul’s school, and at Magdalene College, Cambridge, where
he obtained a fellowship. He took the degree of B.A. in 1653;
and, having proceeded M.A. in 1656, was next year incorporated
to the same degree in the university of Oxford. For some time
he studied medicine; and although he did not adhere to this
profession, he retained his knowledge of anatomy and medicine.
He took the degree of B.D. in 1663 and that of D.D. in 1680.
Among his contemporaries and intimate friends were Dr Hezekiah
Burton, Sir Samuel Morland, who was distinguished as a mathematician,
Sir Orlando Bridgeman, who became keeper of the
great seal, and Samuel Pepys. To this academical connexion he
appears to have been in a great measure indebted for his advancement
in the Church. When Bridgeman was appointed lord
keeper, he nominated Cumberland and Burton as his chaplains,
nor did he afterwards neglect the interest of either. Cumberland’s
first preferment, bestowed upon him in 1658 by Sir John
Norwich, was the rectory of Brampton in Northamptonshire.
In 1661 he was appointed one of the twelve preachers of the
university. The lord keeper, who obtained his office in 1667,
invited him to London, and soon afterwards bestowed upon him
the rectory of Allhallows at Stamford, where he acquired new
credit by the fidelity with which he discharged his duties. In
addition to his ordinary work he undertook the weekly lecture.
This labour he constantly performed, and in the meantime found
leisure to prosecute his scientific and philological studies.
At the age of forty he published his earliest work, entitled De legibus naturae disquisitio philosophica, in qua earum forma, summa capita, ordo, promulgatio, et obligatio e rerum natura investigantur; quin etiam elementa philosophiae Hobbianae, cum moralis tum civilis, considerantur et refutantur (London, 1672). It is dedicated to Sir Orlando Bridgeman, and is prefaced by an “Alloquium ad Lectorem,” contributed by Dr Burton. It appeared during the same year as Pufendorf’s De jure naturae et gentium, and was highly commended in a subsequent publication by Pufendorf, whose approbation must have had the effect of making it known on the continent. Having thus established a solid reputation, Cumberland next prepared a work on a very different subject—An Essay towards the Recovery of the Jewish Measures and Weights, comprehending their Monies; by help of ancient standards, compared with ours of England: useful also to state many of those of the Greeks and Romans, and the Eastern Nations (London, 1686). This work, dedicated to Pepys, obtained a copious notice from Leclerc, and was translated into French.
About this period he was depressed by apprehensions respecting the growth of Popery; but his fears were dispelled by the Revolution, which brought along with it another material change in his circumstances. One day in 1691 he went, according to his custom on a post-day, to read the newspaper at a coffee-house in Stamford, and there, to his surprise, he read that the king had nominated him to the bishopric of Peterborough. The bishop elect was scarcely known at court, and he had resorted to none of the usual methods of advancing his temporal interest.
“Being then sixty years old,” says his great-grandson, “he was with difficulty persuaded to accept the offer, when it came to him from authority. The persuasion of his friends, particularly Sir Orlando Bridgeman, at length overcame his repugnance; and to that see, though very moderately endowed, he for ever after devoted himself, and resisted every offer of translation, though repeatedly made and earnestly recommended. To such of his friends as pressed an exchange upon him he was accustomed to reply, that Peterborough was his first espoused, and should be his only one.”
He discharged his new duties with energy and kept up his episcopal visitations till his eightieth year. His charges to the clergy are described as plain and unambitious, the earnest breathings of a pious mind. When Dr Wilkins (David Wilke) published the New Testament in Coptic he presented a copy to the bishop, who began to study the language at the age of eighty-three. “At this age,” says his chaplain, “he mastered the language, and went through great part of this version, and would often give me excellent hints and remarks, as he proceeded in reading of it.” He died in 1718, in the eighty-seventh year of his age; he was found sitting in his library, in the attitude of one asleep, and with a book in his hand.[1] His great-grandson was Richard Cumberland, the dramatist.
Bishop Cumberland was distinguished by his gentleness and humility. He could not be roused to anger, and spent his days in unbroken serenity. The basis of his ethical theory is Benevolence, and is the natural outcome of his temperament. He was a man of a sound understanding, improved by extensive learning, and left behind him several monuments of his talents and industry. His favourite motto was that a man had better “wear out than rust out.”
The philosophy of Cumberland is expounded in the treatise De legibus naturae. The merits of the work are almost confined to its speculative theories; its style is destitute of strength and grace, and its reasoning is diffuse and unmethodical. Its main design is to combat the principles which Hobbes had promulgated as to the constitution of man, the nature of morality, and the origin of society, and to prove that self-advantage is not the chief end of man, that force is not the source of personal obligation to moral conduct nor the foundation of social rights, and that the state of nature is not a state of war. The views of Hobbes seem
- ↑ The care of his posthumous publications devolved upon his domestic chaplain and son-in-law, Squier Payne, who soon after the bishop’s death edited “Sanchoniato’s Phoenician History, translated from the first book of Eusebius, De praeparatione evangelica: with a continuation of Sanchoniato’s history of Eratosthenes Cyrenaeus’s Canon, which Dicaearchus connects with the first Olympiad. These authors are illustrated with many historical and chronological remarks, proving them to contain a series of Phoenician and Egyptian chronology, from the first man to the first Olympiad, agreeable to the Scripture accounts” (London, 1720). The preface contains an account of the life, character and writings of the author, which was likewise published in a separate form, and exhibits a pleasing picture of his happy old age. A German translation appeared under the title of Cumberlands phönizische Historie des Sanchoniathons, übersetzt von Joh. Phil. Cassel (Magdeburg, 1755). The sequel to the work was likewise published by Payne—Origines gentium antiquissimae; or Attempts for discovering the Times of the First Planting of Nations: in several Tracts (London, 1724).
