RIDDELLS OF GRANTON, SCOTLAND.
93
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England, to a scholarship at Oxford. As an under-graduate he was be-
loved both by his seniors and contemporaries for gentleness of manner
and great amiability of disposition, and the heads of the college consid-
ered him one of the best and most promising scholars that Balliol ever
reared. Having obtained a first class in classics, he took his degree and
was made fellow of his college, taking holy orders. Shortly after, he
was appointed one of the teachers, and in this sphere he was much re-
spected by his pupils; he was also made a public examiner, and in addi-
tion held other honorable appointments connected with the university,
including a seat at the Hebdomadal Council, the governing body. He
was also for one year a select preacher at St. Mary's, and in 1864 was ap-
pointed one of the Whitehall preachers, both positions being alike hon-
orable; he was nominated to the latter by the Bishop of London. He
left Oxford at the beginning of a vacation in his usual health, never
very robust, and went to Sherburn, Dorcestershire, joined his family at
a temporary residence at Tunbridge Wells, where his health, perhaps un-
favorably acted upon by intense application to study for so many years,
gave way, and alarming symptoms suddenly appeared, which ended in his
death on the 14th of September, 1866; his remains were interred at
Tunbridge Wells. His loss was greatly felt, not only among old Shrews-
bury and Balliol men, but throughout the university and at Leamington,
where he and his family had long resided. He enjoyed the reputation of
being one of the best, -some say the best, -Greek scholars of his day,
but it is a melancholy pleasure to his old friends to recall the fact of his
singular goodness, innocence, and purity; and his former pupils will ever
bear testimony to the loving industry and patience he brought to bear on
his college labors for nearly twenty years. His published translations of
Greek and Latin verses showed the high rank he took in such composi-
tions, and it is not a little singular that the last production of his pen
was a Latin translation of Watts' well-known hymn:-
"There is a land of pure delight,
Where saints immortal reign;
Infinite day excludes the night,
And pleasures banish pain;
There everlasting spring abides,
And never-withering flowers;
Death, like a narrow sea, divides
That heavenly land from ours."
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The Rev. Canon Liddon says, "The salient features of his character,
-his courage, his purity, his tenderness, his delicate and far-reaching con-
scientiousness, were sufficiently obvious to all who knew him; but to
show the relation of these virtues to his great intellectual life, and to
mark the finer shades which would have to be distinguished, is, I fear, be-
yond anything that I could at present, if ever, attempt." See the por-
trait in this book.
John Riddell (7), second son of James (1), was married in 1860 to
Jane Peppercorn, daughter of William Peppercorn, Esq., and is supposed
to have a family of children, but I have no records.
Charlotte-Dorothy Riddell (1), eldest daughter of James (1), I have
no particulars of; her name stands in the printed pedigree.
Anne Riddell (1), second daughter of James (1), was married in 1862
to the Rev. Edward-Trevelyan Smith, M. A., late scholar of St. John's Col-
lege, Cambridge, and now (1862) incumbent of St. Paul's Church, Warwick.
