the Rev. W. Turner , Jun. , MA., Lives of the eminent Unitarians

[128] in the pulpit; and for four years after this time nothing further is known of him, than that he was a member of the congregational church of which Mr. Matthew Clark, a man of some eminence among the Dissenters of that period, was minister. In 1713, he was invited to reside in the house of Lady Treby, widow of Sir George Treby, late Chief Justice of the Common Pleas, as domestic chaplain, and tutor to her youngest son. Though we have no account of the manner in which the preceding years were spent, yet our knowledge of what Mr. Lardner afterwards became forbids us to doubt that, at this period, he was abundantly qualified by his knowledge, judgment, and learning, for the duties he was now called on to fill. After superintending the studies of young Mr. Treby for three years, he accompanied him on an excursion to the Austrian Netherlands and the United Provinces. From a journal which Mr. Lardner kept of this tour, it was evident that he did not lose the opportunity which it afforded of making exact and judicious observations on the manners and customs of the inhabitants whom he saw and visited, and on the edifices and curiosities of the countries through which he passed.

He continued in the family of Lady Treby, in his capacity of chaplain, till the death of that lady, in 1721; by which event he was left without any regular engagement, and in circumstances of some uncertainty and suspense. ‘I am at a loss,’ says he, ‘how to dispose of myself. I can say that I am desirous of being useful in the world. Without this, no external advantages relating to myself will make me happy; and yet ’