Notes and Queries, Number 203, September 17, 1853

"Why do you follow Hume in representing Raleigh as an infidel? For Heaven's sake, dear Sir, look to his preface to his History of the World; look at his Letters, in a little 18mo., and here, but here only, you will find a tract [entitled The Sceptic], which led Hume to talk of Raleigh as an unbeliever. It is an epitome of the principles of the old sceptics; and to me, who, like Dr. Clarke and Mr. Hume, am a reader of Sextus Empiricus, it is very intelligible. Indeed, Mr. Butler, it is a most ingenious performance. But mark me well: it is a mere lusus ingenii."

Mr. Butler appends this note:

"Mr. Fox assured the Reminiscent, that either he, or Mrs. Fox to him, had read aloud the whole, with a small exception, of Sir Walter Raleigh's History."—Butler's Reminiscences, vol. ii. p. 232.

    Balliolensis.

Curious Advertisement.—The following genuine advertisement is copied from a recent number of the Connecticut Courant, published at Hartford in America:

"Julia, my wife, has grown quite rude,
She has left me in a lonesome mood;
She has left my board,
She has took my bed,
She has gave away my meat and bread,
She has left me in spite of friends and church,
She has carried with her all my shirts.
Now ye who read this paper,
Since she cut this reckless caper,
I will not pay one single fraction
For any debts of her contraction.
Levi Rockwell.
East Windsor, Conn. Aug. 4, 1853."

    G. M. B.

Gravestone Inscription.—I send an inscription on a gravestone in Northill churchyard, Bedfordshire, which is now nearly obliterated, given me by the Rev. John Taddy:

"Life is a city full of crooked streets,
Death is the market-place where all men meets.
If life were merchandise which men could buy,
The rich would only live, the poor would die."

    Julia R. Bockett.
Southcote Lodge.

Monumental Inscription.—

"Here lyeth the body of the most noble Elizabeth, daughter of John of Gaunt, Duke of Lancaster, own sister to King Henry the Fourth, wife of John Holland, Earl of Huntingdon and Duke of Exeter, after married to Sir John Cornwall, Knight of the Garter, and Lord Fanhope. She died the 4th year of Henry the Sixth, Anno Domini 1426."

The above is on a monument in Burford Church, in the county of Salop, and will perhaps be interesting to your correspondent Mr. Hardy.

Burford Church, in which there are several other interesting monuments, is situated in the luxuriant valley of the Teme, about eight miles south-east of Ludlow.

    A Salopian.

Queries

SIR PHILIP WARWICK

"A Discourse of Government, as examined by Reason, Scripture, and the Law of the Land. Written in 1678, small 8vo.: London, 1694."

"Memoirs of the Reign of King Charles I., &c., 8vo.: London, 1702."

To one or the other of these publications there was prefixed a preface which, as giving offence to the government, was suppressed. I agree with Mr. Bindley, who says (writing to Mr. Granger),

"The account you have given in your books of the suppressed preface to Sir Philip Warwick's Memoirs, is an anecdote too curious not to make one wish it authenticated."—Letters to Mr. Granger, p. 389.

The statement of Granger is adopted also by the Edinburgh editor of the Memoirs in 1813 (query, Sir W. Scott?), who says in his preface,

"These Memoirs were first published by the learned Dr. Thomas Smith, a nonjuring divine, distinguished by oriental learning, and his writings concerning the Greek Church. The learned editor added a preface so much marked by his political principles, that he was compelled to alter and retrench it, for fear of a prosecution at the instance of the crown."—Preface, p. ix.

So far as concerns the Memoirs. But in a note prefixed to a copy of the Discourse of Government, now in the Bodleian among Malone's books, and in his handwriting, it is stated,—

"This book was published by Dr. Thomas Smith, the learned writer concerning the Greek Church. The preface, not being agreeable to the Court at the time it was published (the 5th year of William III.), was suppressed by authority, but is found in this and a few other copies. Granger says (vol. iv. p. 60., vol. v. p. 267., new edit.) that this preface by Dr. Smith was prefixed to Sir P. W.'s Memoirs of Charles I.; but this is a mistake. Whether Smith was the editor of the Memoirs I know not.—Edmond Malone."

The obnoxious preface is assigned to the Discourse of Government also, by a writer in the Gentleman's Magazine for 1790, p. 509., where is a portrait of Warwick, and a notice of his life.

The Edinburgh editor of the Memoirs gives the original preface of that work, which presents nothing at which exception could be taken. But as my copy of the Discourse is one of the few which (according to Malone) retains the address of "the publisher to the reader," I transcribe the following passages, which perhaps will sufficiently explain the suppression in 1694:

"As to the disciples and followers of Buchanan, Hobbs and Milton, who have exceeded their masters in downright impudence, scurrility, and lying, and the new modellers of commonwealths, who, under a zealous pretence of securing the rights of a fancied original contract against the encroachments of monarchs, are sowing the seeds of eternal disagreements, confusions, and bloody wars throughout the world (for the influence of evil principles hath no bounds, but, like infectious air, spreads everywhere), the peaceable, sober, truly Christian, and Church-of-England doctrine contained in this book, so directly contrary to their furious, mad, unchristian, and fanatical maxims, it cannot otherwise be expected but that they will soon be alarmed, and betake themselves to their usual arts of slander and reviling, and grow very fierce and clamorous upon it. Whatever shall happen," &c.

Subsequently the author is spoken of as

"A gentlemen of sincere piety, of strict morals, of a great and vast understanding, and of a very solid judgement; a true son of the Church of England, and consequently a zealous asserter and defender of the truly Christian and apostolical doctrine of non-resistance; always loyal and faithful to the king his master in the worst of times," &c.

After these specimens, there will be little difficulty, I think, in determining that Granger was mistaken in describing the preface to the Memoirs as that which was suppressed, and that it was the publisher's "address to the reader" of the Discourse which incurred that sentence. Dr. Thomas Smith appears to have edited both works; and in the same address informs us of other works of Warwick in

"Divinity, philosophy, history, especially that of England, practical devotion, and the like. This I now publish [the Discourse] was written in the year 1678 (and designed as an appendix to his Memoirs of the Reign of King Charles the First, of most blessed memory, which hereafter may see the light, when more auspicious times shall encourage and favour the publication), which he, being very exact and curious in his compositions, did often refine upon," &c.

It may be well to inquire whether any of these theological or philosophical lucubrations are yet extant. Was Sir Philip connected at all with Dr. Smith, or was he descended from Arthur Warwick, author of Spare Minutes?

    Balliolensis.

SEALS OF THE BOROUGH OF GREAT YARMOUTH

I shall be exceedingly obliged by any explanatory remarks on the following list of seals:—

1. Oval (size 2.1 in. by 1.3). The angel Gabriel kneeling before a standing figure of the Virgin, and holding a scroll, on which is inscribed AVE MARIA. Legend:

*

S. HOS * PITALIS * IER * NE * NACH.

Yarmouth was anciently called Gernemutha, or Iernemutha; and Ives attributes this seal to Yarmouth, though both the legend and the workmanship have a decidedly foreign appearance.

Can any more satisfactory locality be assigned it?

2. Circular (1 in. in diameter). Three fishes naiant (the arms of Yarmouth), within a bordure of six cusps. Legend: