"It can hardly be new to you, that the Primates and Prelates had a few days since a meeting at Lambeth-house, in order to take into consideration what ought to be the conduct of the Clergy in this arming period; but you may not have heard, that my Diocesan * was singular in his opinion at first, and zealous in maintaining it, that his Brethren ought forthwith to be trained to the use of arms, and that he was with dignity answered by the Archbishop of York, and a resolution in course adopted unanimously, That it would not conduce, in any considerable degree, to the defence and safety of the kingdom, and would interfere with the proper duties of the profession, if the Clergy were to accept commissions in the army, be enrolled in any military corps, or be trained to the use of arms. Certainly it was high time for our ecclesiastical rulers to check the arming influenza of their inferior brethren; for, in the vicinity of Maidstone, there were four who were to be recruiting Captains, with cockades instead of roses in their beavers, viz. the Right Hon. Lord George Murray, Rector of Hutton†; the Hon. Charles Marsham, Prebendary of Rochester; Robert Foote, another Prebendary of the same Cathedral; the Rev. William Horne (brother of the late Prelate of Norwich), Rector of Otham; and to these four may be added one Clerk from East Kent, viz. Edward Tymewell Brydges, Master Urban's correspondent. Circular letters are issued from the several Bishops to the Clergy of their respective Dioceses; and upon this point the Bishop of Rochester declares he means to speak out his own mind very plainly, and that he desires to be fully and clearly understood." It is, that in a dangerous crisis his country will have a right to his best services, in any and in every way, even if the best service to be performed by him should be to level the musket or trail the pike. Happy, however, is the Vicar of Wilmington to find, that it is not now expected of him to accept a military commission, or to submit to be drilled in the ranks ! "Robert Foote, clerk ‡, above mentioned, was a few months Dr. Horsley. ✦ Afterwards Bishop of St. David's, and father of the present Bishop of Rochester. The Rev. Robert Foote was the second son of the Rev. Francis Hender Foote, Rector of Boughton-Malherb in Kent, who died Jan. 27, 1773, by Catharine, daughter of Robert Mann, of Linton, Esq. and sister to the celebrated Sir Horace Mann, K. B. and first Baronet of that name; and was consequently uncle to the present Robert Foote, of Charlton-place, near Canterbury, Esq. (who married Charlotte-Augusta, daughter of the Hon, and Right Rev. Frederick Keppel, Bishop of Exeter, and was Sheriff of Kent in 1816); and elder brother to the present Vice-Admiral Edward James Foote. He was of University-college, Oxford, M. A. 1782; his preferments are mostly mentioned by Mr. Denne above; and the living to which he afterwards succeeded (as Mr. Denne anticipated) through the patronage of the Dean and Chapter of Rochester, was the Vicarage of Shorne. He married Anne, daughter of Robert Dobbin Yates, Esq.; but died without issue at Boughton-Malherb, Oct. 21, 1804, greatly lamented by all bis acquaintance. since a Canon Residentiary of Lichfield Cathedral, but translated to Rochester by exchange with Mr. Woodhouse, for their mutual benefit in point of situation, Mr. Woodhouse having two parochial benefices on the confines of Staffordshire, and Mr. Foote the Rectory of Boughton-Malherb, and the Vicarage of Linton in Kent, and not many miles from Maidstone. Concerning this change, Archdeacon Law thus expresses himself: 'Your ideas of the relative value of the Prebends of Lichfield and Rochester were entirely consistent with mine. An Act of Parliament, obtained within these three or four years, has much augmented the former, by annihilating some of the Prebends, and adding their produce to the income of the Residentiaries. If I recollect rightly, the number of the Residentiaries is increased to six. From Mr. Foote's report, the difference in the produce of the Prebends is very inconsiderable. He has left behind him, indeed, a very good house, and succeeds to a wretched one here, as you well know.' And well also is it known to S. Denne, that almost all the livings in the patronage of the Dean and Chapter of Rochester, are within the statutable distance of the Rectory of Boughton; and that of course in due time Mr. Foote will have the option of a living more advantageous than the Vicarage of Linton, which does not produce more than 100 per year. I remain, dear Sir, yours truly, S. DENNE." "Extracts of a Letter from Mr. Charles Clarke to Rev. Samuel Denne, March 27, 1798. "DEAR SIR, "I am now convinced Earl Rivers never brought Le Puy across the channel with him from his pilgrimage, although centuries before his time it came that way; that it is not derived from Preuse, nor has any relation in sense to Piete della Picta, &c. either in shape of substantive or adjective. In consequence I wish my strictures on its name and thing withdrawn, and trust so much indulgence may be obtained, for it appears very far from evident that it was ever dedicated to the Virgin of Pity. Strype is the only authority who calls it Pity of the Pieu; and Mr. Gough's citation from Froissart is of too much consequence not to have a place and consideration in the body of its history. "If we were in Westminster hall, I could take you through an alley of Chainbre's beautiful cloister, under and over Pontem Reginæ; its screen or front is delineated slightly in Carter's St. Stephen's; and at the entrance of the passage leading to (I think) the Cotton-garden, where stands a venerable scrap of the twelfth century by Becket when Chancellor, the Queen's painted chambers, and facing the arches of this bridge is a stair up to the Court of Requests, &c. It was long before I could comprehend a bridge not over a water, so closely has habit enlinked certain ideas; yet I fancy such a passage was usually so named. I find about the same time an Abbess of Soisson making a bridge across the street from her Monastery to the hospital. "But what is there in the notion of a closet which should occasion a suspicion the present elegant kitchen appendage was not the Chapel in question of le Pieu. Might it not be so named from its small size? Might there not have been an adjoining tribune for the royal family so named; and the jewels, &c. have been stolen from the famous image of the Virgin. Such were annexed to Churches, and those adjoining the Chapel of the temporary Palace for the interview of Henry VIII. and Francis I. described by Holinshed, are curious instances, and may be deemed in point; but whatever remained of that edifice is gone. The present is placed within the secular part of the Palace, as I judge. Its vaulted roof with me renders it highly probable that it may be the successor of one destroyed by the flames." 86. "DEAR Sir, Wilmington, June.., 1798. "On the 12th I had a sheet from Mr. Clarke, from which [ make these extracts, As I find there will be no Archæologia this year, there will be ample time for doing my best, such as it is, since my vanity induces a supposition, that Messrs. the Council will think it worthy a place in their thirteenth volume*. Such was the effect of Mr. Wrighte's second notion, that, had not a well made itself manifest, I should with pleasure have subscribed to it; and that as much from a desire to rest conjecture somewhere, as owing to the merit of the supposition.' "Notwithstanding a sturdy veteran Peer (my old school-fellow Thurlow) averred in the House of Lords, that the Memoirs of Sir Robert Walpole is a miserable stupid book, I rather wish to have the perusal of it, as well because I am told the volumes contain much original matter, as that it will bring to my remembrance the sentiments of persons, whose memory I revere, on the merits of that truly great Minister, who kept his country at peace for a number of years; for Archbishop Herring and my father were staunch Walpolians, and of course not well affected to Pulteney and the Tory party, who drove the Minister into a war. I remain, dear Sir, truly yours, S. DENNE." 87. "DEAR SIR, Wilmington, June 12, 1798. "Highly pleased was I with the perusal of your late tour, which, as you say, was fraught with pleasures unalloyed; and much obliged am I to you for your circumstantial detail of what you saw and heard at Cambridge, Chesterton, Peterborough, • No article on the subject ever appeared in the Archæologia. Barkway, &c. &c. These particulars were the more grateful to me at present, because, in the too many elopements I am under a necessity of making from home, there is, unhappily, a very large portion of solicitude, perplexity, and distress of mind, on account of the state of the dear and near relation whom I am so frequently called to visit in his affliction. "It was a satisfaction to me to be assured, that our old Fellow-collegian Fisher, of Barkway, enjoys so many domestic comforts. Very near forty years have passed since we saw each other, for, to the best of my recollection, the last interview we had was on the day after the King's Coronation, in September 1761. "Your copious extracts, relative to Arabic numerals, shall be duly attended to, and deposited with your other notes upon the same subject; and perhaps the time may yet come, when I shall be more at liberty than I now am, to digest and apply them; but I must beg leave to remind you, that the slow progress in England, in the use of these vulgar figures, was my principal pursuit; and that I never presumed to flatter myself that I should be able to ascertain the origin of these inestimable characters. In the cursory chat we had lately at Cicero's Head, I hinted to you, that Dr. Robertson, in his Disquisition concerning India, had a pertinent remark upon this long agitated question; and, to save you the trouble of turning to the book, I inclose a copy of the paragraph alluded to: "In all the sciences which contribute towards extending our knowledge of nature in mathematics, mechanics, and astronomy, arithmetic is of elementary use. In whatever country then we find that such attention has been paid to the improvement of arithmetic, as to render its operation most easy and correct, we may presume that the sciences depending upon it have attained a superior degree of perfection. Such improvement of this science we find in India; while among the Greeks and Romans the only method used for the notation of numbers was by the letters of the alphabet, which necessarily rendered arithmetical calculation extremely tedious and operose. The Indians had, for time immemorial, employed for the same purpose the ten cyphers, or figures, now universally known; and by means of them performed every operation in arithmetic with the greatest facility and expedition. By the happy invention of giving a different value to each figure, according to its change of place, no more than ten figures are needed in calculations the most complex, and of any given extent; and arithmetic is the most perfect of all the sciences. The Arabians, not long after their settlement in Spain, introduced this mode of notation into Europe; and were candid enough to acknowledge that they had derived the knowledge of it from the Indians. Though the advantages of this mode of notation are obvious and great, yet so slowly do mankind adopt new inventions, that the use of it was for some time confined to science; by degrees, however, men of business relinquished the former cumbersome method of computation by letters, and the Indian arithmetic came into general use throughout Europe *. It is now so familiar and simple, that the ingenuity of the people, to whom we are indebted for this invention, is less observed, and less celebrated than it merits †.' "It is here explicitly averred, that the Arabians, who introduced this mode of notation into Spain, were so candid as to acknowledge that their countrymen borrowed it from the Indians; and the main point to be considered is, whether Montucla had competent authority for this fact. Of the early use of these characters by the Arabians themselves, we cannot have better evidence than what is to be procured from MSS. in that language; and therefore it were to be wished, that the very few who are conversant in it would give themselves the trouble of examining these MSS. of which there must be in the libraries at Oxford and Cambridge, particularly in the former, several that are unquestionably very antient. In the London Chronicle of Oct. 27-30, 1764, which I accidentally met with in one of my brother's drawers, was this article of literary intelligence. The King of Denmark has received a mail from the Society of learned men, whom he sent into Arabia. This mail contains five hundred volumes, extremely antient, all wrote in Arabic; and amongst them are several Bibles, one of which was written above 1000 years ago.' Supposing this to be true, and supposing the Arabians, above a thousand years ago, to have had the use of these cyphers, it will be strange indeed, should they not occur in divers verses of the Bible; but to whom can one apply with the hope of a satisfactory answer to the question, whether these suppositions be well founded? "Architect Alexander, agreeably to his plan and his engagement, has already made the passage over Rochester-bridge much more commodious; and a resolution is lately taken by the Warden and Assistants, to make only one arch of the fifth and sixth arches, one of which had within it the old draw-bridge. The following advertisements, relative to this improvement, are from the Maidstone Journal, May 15, 1798: "Notice. A Meeting of the persons interested in the Navigation of the River Medway, is appointed for Saturday next, the 19th instant, at the Town-hall in Maidstone, at eleven o'clock in the forenoon, to take into consideration the proposals of the Noblemen, Gentlemen, and Bridgewardens of Rochester-bridge, for taking down the fifth and sixth arches of the said bridge, and converting the same into one; and for returning an answer to the said proposals on or before the 31st instant. "May 14, 1798. J. ROFFE.' "The second advertisement from the same Journal: Maidstone, May 19.-At a Meeting this day, holden by • Montucla's Hist. des Mathemat. tom. I. p. 360.' Robertson's Disquisition concerning Antient India, Appendix, p. 301. |