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Embellished with Exterior and Interior Views of Wakefield Bridge CHAPEL, and
with a Representation of an ANCIENT FIRE-PLACE AT THE DEANERY, LINCOLN.

2

MINOR CORRESPONDENCE.

WE have to express our sincere regret at a mis-statement made in our last Magazine, at p. 626, where, among the recent failures of leading commercial houses, the name was introduced "of an East India director, Henry Alexander, esq." This misapprehension must have arisen from the stoppage of the house of Lesley Alexander and Co. merchants, which has been much before the public in the newspapers.

We have also to contradict the supposed death of the Rev. J. C. Meadows, in our Nov. number, p. 549. It appears that the Rev. gentleman was married on the 14th July (as duly recorded in p. 422 of last volume); and his name has been erroneously inserted among the Deaths, first in the Ecclesiastical Gazette, and thence in other publications.

"In the Magazine for July, 1841, pp. 23, 24, there is an account by A GLEANER of the family of Sancroft; in which the writer supposes that Mr. James Sancroft of Yarmouth, then lately deceased, may have been descended from Dr. Wm. Sancroft, Master of Emanuel coll. Camb. who died in 1637. This, however, could not have been the case; for it appears from the court books of the manor of Shelton Hall in Stradbrook, Suffolk, that on the 24th Oct. 1637, the death of Dr. Sancroft was presented by the Homage, who at the same time found that his brother, Francis Sancroft, esq. was his next heir, and as such was admitted to the lands which Dr. S. held of the manor. Dr. Sancroft certainly had a son William, who was six years old in 1627; but he, as appears from the above court books, must have died before his father."-D. A. Y.

Can any of our readers inform us where the letters of Dr. Bentley to Professor Sike, printed in vol. ix. p. 323 of Nichols's Literary Anecdotes, are now deposited?

Mr. BRITTON solicits information on the following subjects:-1. LIEUTENANTCOLONEL ISAAC BARRE. If this gentleWho were his execu: man left any will? tors, or immediate descendants? To whom did he leave his personal and other property? He left a large sum to the Marchioness Townshend. He was a violent partisan in the House of Commons from 1761 to 1784, when he retired from all public occupation, and died in London in 1802, aged 76. 2. WILLIAM GREATRAKES, who died at Hungerford in Berkshire in 1781, and was

buried in the churchyard, where his friend Captain Stopford raised a head-stone to his memory; and after his name, age, &c. is the motto from the title to Junius's Letters "STAT. NOMINIS UMBRA.” A trunk was packed up at Hungerford, and directed to a sister of the said William Greatrakes at or near Cork; and in the "Cork Mercantile Chronicle" of April, 1803, was a letter describing the contents of that trunk. I have made inquiry without success for a copy of that paper, or if there be any relatives or immediate descendants of the said Mr. Greatrakes.

The communication of any hints or facts relating to the private lives, property, or letters of either Barré or Greatrakes would greatly oblige Mr. Britton, who is printing "An Elucidation of the Authorship of the Letters of Junius," and is enabled to show that the two persons above named were intimately concerned in the mysterious correspondence with "The Public Advertiser."

If any of our readers will point out at what period the Sovereigns ceased to exercise their ecclesiastical patronage without the advice of their Ecclesiastical Council, and in what work any account of it can be found-for it is certain in former times their political adviser did not presume to interfere-it will oblige a VERY OLD SUB

SCRIBER.

Finding that the Table of Mortality in the Metropolis given in our Magazine was capable of some improvement, we have taken the opportunity afforded by the commencement of a new volume to make the required change. Instead of the aggregate deaths in four weeks, the result of each week will now be separately given. The weekly fluctuations will thus be more clearly indicated, and means afforded for a comparison of the relative mortality in particular seasons of the year. The interest attaching to these returns during the prevalence of epidemics, and in times of unusual mortality, entitles them not only to temporary attention, but to the advantage of being put fairly on record in our pages, in which, if we mistake not, the consecutive details of the old bills have been, since the fire at the Parish Clerks' Hall, almost exclusively preserved. Of the recent mortality some report will be found under the head of Domestic News in our present Number.

THE

GENTLEMAN'S MAGAZINE.

Literary and Historical Memorials of London. By J. H. Jesse. 2 vols.

AS Mr. Jesse is a young author, and as we, perhaps, may claim the privilege, by possessing the experience of age, of giving counsel without offence to our juniors, we venture to observe, in the first place, that in such works as the present extreme accuracy is as necessary as in books of science, when dealing with particulars, with dates, numbers, places, times; so that at once curiosity may be excited by the interest of the anecdote, and confidence secured by the fidelity of the narrative.* Secondly, such books as the present should be as brief and compact as possible: we therefore in a future edition advise all the quotations from Horace Walpole, Shakspere, and all familiar and well-known anecdotes, to be altogether omitted; in the same way we speak of the History of Westminster Abbey and the Tower, so much of which we have lately had in full detail in the popular pages of Miss Strickland and others, as for instance the narrative of Anne Boleyn's trial and condemnation, and of the Scotch lords. Thirdly, we could wish that Mr. Jesse's opinions on the character of some persons who come before him were expressed in more careful and modified language, and with something of a softer and kinder feeling to their memory. historian like Tacitus or Clarendon may be called on to support the dignity of history, and to vindicate the majesty of truth, by painting in strong colours the character of those who have disturbed the peace or injured the happiness of society by immoral or criminal conduct. It is perhaps a necessary, but must be a most painful part of their duty, and such as no good and generous mind could dwell on with delight; but in books of light literature like the present no such afflicting task is required of the writer: we therefore hope in another edition to see such terms as "the voluptuary George the Fourth;"" the Butcher of Culloden," + applied to the Duke of Cum

An

*We see some of the errors of these volumes pointed out in the Athenæum (Aug. 21st) by some one well acquainted with his subject.-REV.

"His Royal Highness had strong parts, great military abilities, undoubted courage, and had gained the victory of Culloden, which saved this country. But his popularity ended with the Rebellion: his services were immediately forgot, and he became the object of fear and jealousy. As I had opportunities of knowing him, I will risk my opinion concerning him, endeavouring, as far as I am able, to avoid partiality. His Royal Highness's judgment would be equal to his parts were it not too much guided by his passions, which are often violent and ungovernable. He has abilities to perform things which are difficult, but sometimes loves an impossibility. In his military capacity he appears greatly superior to any man in this country; and I have frequently wished that he had confined himself to that department, without entering into party disputes, or interfering in the affairs of civil government-the first of which is below his dignity, and for the latter he is not qualified. His notions of honour and generosity are worthy of a prince. That he is ambitious is not to be doubted; and had his Majesty died during the Prince of Wales' minority, he would

berland, the allusion to "the Duke of York being regretted by no one but his creditors," and many others, altogether omitted at the suggestion of a kinder feeling and an improved taste. It is a good rule in writing never to be violent without warmth, or strained without power. Lastly, we should recommend some improvement as relates to the subject-matter; too great a space, we think, is filled with allusions to those over whose lesser frailties, or more repulsive crimes, the veil of oblivion might be more wisely drawn. Let Mr. Jesse infuse some richer and nobler blood into the veius of his living portraiture. Let us have more of the statesman, and the scholar, and the soldier; and less of the courtezan, the actress, and the mistress, with their train of profligate paramours, and thoughtless admirers, Let George the First's "hideous seraglio of German prostifutes" be covered from observation with the decent veil of silence; and among the rest lot Nell Gwynne, who has so provokingly, and pertinarionely, and perpetually, kept herself in our presence, repose where we are en glad at last to find her laid, in the churchyard of St. Martin's, whence we trust neither in body or in spirit will she be again evoked into the upper air. It seems something like cruelty to call up the spectres of long-committed crimes to rise, and shriek, and gibber over the graves of the poor deluded victims below, who, if they still retain any sense of mortality, or are permitted to see the "shadows of their former life" pass in review before them, must be now weeping in anguish, and bitterness, and repentance, and mourning over the possession of those fatal gifts once too fondly loved, too unwisely used, and too reluctantly resigned. Such an alteration, we are sure, will give a more manly and better tone to these pages, and such as will be approved by all whose good opinion is worth possessing. Mr. Jesse has entitled his volumes literary and historical; but as a general remark, and without any allusion whatever to him (of whom we have reason to believe far better things), we may say that neither literature nor history will be improved by mixing up with their solid and splendid materials the tinsel and varnish from the wardrobe of the theatre, the ball-room, or

most reasonably have expected to have become the young King's general; or if he could have formed a party in Parliament strong enough to have repealed the Act of Regency, the Princess of Wales's authority might have suffered great diminution. But that he had even the most distant design of a more criminal nature-that he meant anything hurtful to his nephew, or dangerous to the public-the insinuation was base an i villamons." "The severe treatment of Scotland after the defeat of the rebels Was luputed to his cruel and sanguinary disposition. All his good qualities are overloubed, all his faults are aggravated. False facts are advanced against him, and false Conclusiona drawn from them; whilst the late Prince of Wales gave too much counIsmum to this met malignant and groundless accusations, by shewing favour to every man why deptised his brother's character," &c. This is the language of a contempimary, and of a good and upright man, a statesman, and a minister.-REV.

* We believe that no prince ever left behind him a band of friends more respectable in themacives, and more attached to him, than the late Duke of York. We speak thus from bowledge Hev.

We hope the following paragraph will be omitted in the next edition :-" Sprat, Dean of Westminster, a churchman whose fortune had been made by being admitted to the puffynfa parties of Charles the Second." And this man was the friend of the pond and victims Cowley!! Rev.

1 There me at p. 156 of Vol. 1. a few words which, of course, are only intended for * joke, but which at first made us look a little grave. "To decapitate a monarch, or to hang a demagogue once on twice in a century, may perhaps be for the general advan tage of mankind We must take this, as it is probably intended, to be in Swift's vein of humour, and as a misture of grave hrony, of the ridiculum acri," in which that great and singular man loved to indulge. Rev.

the bagnio. We do not want to be acquainted with persons whose lives were passed, without dignity, without duty, and even without decency. If men are profligate and women licentious, do not recall them to notice unless upon necessity, and, above all, be always mindful that the mere annexation of a word of dispraise to their names, does not in any degree remove the mischief of having made them known for the first time to some, and recalled them to the unwilling recollection of others. We trust that we never shall be found among those who would use the language of unkindness or reproach towards them whose lives have been shaded by too dark an error, or who have squandered in thoughtless prodigality those rare and precious gifts, whether of person or of mind, which Nature has reserved for her few and favourite children; but, at the same time, we have no desire unnecessarily to recall the half forgotten histories of guilty love, or to mix up with graver and weightier subjects anecdotes too often repeated, and too gracefully told, of the fatal caresses and seductive fascinations of venal beauty. Let us endeavour to confine to such shameless and slanderous pages as those of Grammont or Grimm the pictures of profligate courtiers and their criminal paramours, without a wish to unveil the dark and loathsome recesses of their private lives; or, if the justice of history ever calls them to her public tribunal, let us mention them in the language they deserve, in spite of all the boasted graces of their persons, and the enchanting allurements of their address. But let us seek in the Recollections of London materials of a higher and nobler kind. Let us find in the lives of the unblemished patriot, the uncorrupted statesman, the devoted soldier, and the patient and unwearied scholar,—in the purity of the bishop's lawn, and the unspotted honour of the judge's ermine,-better subjects for the instruction and delight of the public mind. Let us endeavour to do justice to those who, by well-directed labour and honourable ambition, have raised themselves from the obscurity of their birth, and found in their professional success the best acknowledgment of their merit; or of those who, showing themselves worthy of the ancestral honours they have inherited, have added to their rich and emblazoned scutcheon an additional trophy of renown. The history of an ancient and august Metropolis, like ours, must be written in a manner consistent with the importance of the materials and the dignity of the subject; kept carefully apart from all that lower species of composition which delights in romantic adventures, frivolous details, fantastic humours, and fatal intrigues. It must occasionally assume even a loftier and severer tone; for it has to relate high records of as honourable ambition, patient courage, suffering virtue, and Christian self-denial as ever adorned and ennobled the annals of a country; and we must no more permit the amours of the lewd and the licentious to be found mingled with the statesman's dignity or the matron's virtue in the same page of history, than we would let them invade with their polluting presence those sanctities of domestic intercourse which are so wisely, so tenderly, and so judiciously guarded, as the home of all the gentler virtues, and the safe and honoured asylum for the protection of the pure, the duteous, and the good.

We will also observe that, widely spread as is the current of modern literature, and numerous as are the books and readers of the present day, it is necessary for an author who wishes either to instruct or amuse to send down a deep shaft for the ore he is to bring up; to recollect that all the strata above have been worked over and over again; or, to drop the figurative, that the common materials of history and anecdotes of lite

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