of Meath, but protracted litigation ensued as to the right of patronage (Erck, Ecclesiastical Register, Dublin, 1830, App. p. 275). When in 1717 the case was decided in the crown and Hort's favour, on appeal to the British House of Lords, Hort resigned his English benefice. In 1718 he became dean of Cloyne and rector of Louth, in 1720 dean of Ardagh, and early in 1721 bishop of Ferns and Leighlin (Mant, Hist. of the Church of Ireland, ii. 375–9, London, 1840). Archbishop King of Dublin refused to take part in Hort's consecration as bishop, because Hort, in his letters patent, was erroneously styled D.D. He, however, issued a commission for the purpose. Archbishop King's action gave rise to the rumour that Hort had never received holy orders in the church of England. According to Bishop Henry Downes, it was rumoured at the time that the Archbishops of Armagh, Dublin, and Tuam petitioned the king to recall Hort's nomination, probably on account of his early connection with nonconformists (Archbishop Nicolson, Correspondence, ed. John Nichols, London, 1809). Hort was translated to the united sees of Kilmore and Ardagh in 1727, and, retaining Ardagh in commendam, to the archiepiscopal see of Tuam in 1742. About 1738 his voice failed from over-exertion, and he was disabled from preaching (pref. to Sermons, 1738). Contemptuous reference is made to him in Swift's ‘Great Storm of Christmas 1722.’ He is said to have been the last magnate who ate his dinner from a wooden trencher. The archbishop died on 14 Dec. 1751, and was interred in St. George's Chapel, Dublin. He married in 1725 Elizabeth, daughter of the Hon. William Fitzmaurice, brother of the twentieth Lord Kerry, and uncle of the twenty-first Lord and first Earl of Kerry. Hort had two sons and four daughters. John Hort, his second son, was appointed English consul-general at Lisbon in 1767, was created a baronet in the same year, and died on 23 Oct. 1807, being succeeded by his son, Josiah William, whose grandson, Fenton Josiah, is the present baronet.
In 1738 Hort published at Dublin a volume consisting of sixteen sermons, which reached a second edition. His ‘Charge to the Clergy of Kilmore’ was published in 1729. Another ‘Charge,’ delivered at his primary visitation of the diocese of Tuam, first issued in 1742, was republished in the ‘Clergyman's Instructor,’ Oxford, 1807. Many of Hort's sermons were also printed separately.
[Cotton's Fasti Eccl. Hib. passim; Memoir in the Clergyman's Instructor, 6th edit. pp. 333 seq., Oxford, 1855; Monthly Mag. (1803), xv. 144, where Hort's christian name is wrongly given as John; Ware's Bishops, ed. Harris, ii. 451; notes kindly supplied by the Rev. Alexander Gordon.]
HORTON, CHRISTIANA (1696?–1756?), actress, belonged to a Wiltshire family; married when very young a musician, who ill-treated her; joined while still in her youth a company of strolling players under a manager called Booker; and in the summer of 1713 at Windsor played Marcia in ‘Cato’ with a wretched company. Barton Booth [q. v.] saw her in 1714 play in Southwark fair the part of Cupid in a droll called ‘Cupid and Psyche,’ and took her to Drury Lane, where she appeared during the season of 1714–15 as Melinda in the ‘Recruiting Officer.’ She remained at Drury Lane until the season of 1734–5, when she went to Covent Garden. She practically quitted the stage in 1750, retiring on a small pension, but reappeared at Drury Lane 20 April 1752 at a performance partly for her benefit given by Garrick and Lacy, and played Queen Elizabeth in the ‘Unhappy Favourite’ of Banks. Her thanks to her friends were published in an advertisement. She died about 1756. Of cold temperament, of good character, and of admirable beauty, Mrs. Horton played at one or other house the leading parts in tragedy and comedy. She was the original Mariana in the ‘Miser’ of Fielding, Drury Lane, 17 Feb. 1733. Her characters included Lady Lurewell, Mrs. Sullen, Marcia in ‘Cato,’ Olivia in the ‘Plain Dealer,’ Belinda in the ‘Old Bachelor,’ Queen Katherine, Lady Macbeth, Belvidera, Cleopatra, Hermione, Cordelia, Jane Shore, Lady Betty Modish, Mrs. Ford, Angelica in ‘Love for Love,’ and innumerable others. Barton Booth and Wilks declared her the best successor to Mrs. Oldfield. Steele complimented her highly on her performance of Lady Brumpton in the ‘Funeral;’ Victor specially praises her Millamant in ‘The Way of the World,’ and Davies, who says that in this part she was held to have eclipsed Mrs. Oldfield, commends her Belinda. The author of ‘Betterton's History of the Stage’ says in 1741 that in comedy she is without a rival, asserts that in the meridian of life she retained her beauty and some of her bloom, and ‘is by far the best figure on either stage’ (p. 165). Late in life she grew stout. Refusing angrily a reduced salary of four pounds a week offered her in good nature by Rich, she was unable to obtain a further engagement. On one occasion, by a display of spirit, she won to approval a refractory audience. She was extremely vain, and on the verge of sixty dressed like a young girl, laced herself until her figure was distorted, and simpered and ogled to the last.
