The Bishop of 'Winchester (Dr. Wilberforce) died this day week
an awfully sudden, though in many respects a happy death. He was going down with Lord Granville to Mr. Leveson Gower's, at Holmbury, near Dorking, to meet Mr. Gladstone. Horses met them at Leatherhead, and after riding over Ran- more Common, they went by the bridle road to Leith Hill, over what is called the Evershed Roughs, where the grass was very smooth and leveL Suddenly Lord Granville heard a heavy thud behind him, and turning, found that the Bishop's horse had fallen, and that the Bishop was lying motionless on the turf. It appears from the evidence of the groom that the horse slipped at a sudden hollow in the track, and fell on his knees, throwing the Bishop over his head. Dr. Wilberforce must have turned something like a somersault, and fallen heavily on the back of his head, thereby dislocating his neck. He never moved again. Lord Granville gave evidence that he had never seen the Bishop in hap- pier spirits, and that, but a minute or two before, Dr. Wilberforce remarked that he could never get tired of riding such a horse as that on which he was mounted in such scenery. It was a horse of Lord Granville's own, frequently used by Lady Gran- ville, and according to the groom, had not been known to stumble before. The Bishop's body was removed to Abinger Hall (Mr. Farrer's), the nearest residence to the place of the accident, and thence to Lavington, in Sussex, where the funeral took place yesterday. A burial in 'Westminster Abbey was offered, in consequence of the former connection of the Bishop with the Abbey-,—he was Dean of Westminster for a part of the year 1815, just before he became Bishop of Oxford,—but declined by the family, on the ground that the Bishop had expressed his wish to lie at Lavington. The chief evidence of the Bishop's intellectual energy is the enthusiasm with which the clergy of both his dioceses speak of his memory. Even in Winchester, where he had been so short a time, his influence was already very wide. His failings and his virtues were all of them indeed eminently the failings and virtues of a man of influence.
