GENTLEMAN'S MAGAZINE. FEBRUARY, 1842. BY SYLVANUS URBAN, Gent. CONTENTS. MINOR CORRESPONDENCE.-Roman Pottery forged at Cirencester-The Merry Marlborough, William III. and James II.-Personal and official authority of the Memoirs of Jean Barbier D'Aucour and C. R. Dufresny FAGE 122 123 139 142 144 Popes.-Archbishop Dillon.-Trial of Galileo, &c. 145 149 Three days' Conversation with King James I. in 1603.-Sir Walter Ralegh's 152 Description of SHERBOURNE CHURCH, Dorsetshire (with a View). ROYAL CHRISTENINGS.-King Edward the Sixth, 161. King Charles the Second 165 166 168 Schulz's Essay on Welsh Literature, 169; Scrivenor's History of the Iron Trade, 174; Ward's De Clifford, 175; Capt. Gerard's Account of Koonacour, 178; Sermons by the Rev. T. Tunstall Smith, 179; Knight's London, 181; and Miscellaneous Reviews.. 187 191 197 199 LITERARY AND SCIENTIFIC INTELLIGENCE. - New Publications, Bill of Mortality-Markets-Prices of Shares, 231; Meteorological Diary-Stocks 232 Embellished with Views of SHERBOURNE CHURCH, Dorsetshire; and of the proposed MINOR CORRESPONDENCE. B. Z. requests us to call the attention of antiquaries to some extensive forgeries of Roman Pottery, pretended to have been found at Cirencester. He states that on visiting that town six vases were shown to him of various sizes, composed of coarse ware and very heavy,-one proof of their being spurious. The surfaces of some of them are engraved with elaborate figures in outline, representing combats of warriors on horseback, with accoutrements not worn till many centuries after the Romans departed from our shores. In one instance there is even a series of perspective views in Rome (copied from some Italian guide-book). Others of the pots are carved out in relief, with an intention of imitating the Samian ware. Though these articles would not impose on any experienced eye, our correspondent desires us to notice the operations of this crafty and very industrious forger, hoping that he will meet with the fate of the now well-known Birmingham coin forger, an excellent likeness of whom has been etched and freely circulated with good effect by an able and learned antiquary of the city of London, with the following information:" You see they are marked by Pinkerton, RRR.; but I know nothing about them myself." CYDWELI says, Is Mr. Dyke correct in calling the horse's head Merry Lewid? Merrick Llwyd. Query, Was there ever such a personage, who may be thus commemorated? There was a custom attending it, that the bearers spoke in Welsh at the door where they stopped, and the inmates answered them in that tongue; but if they could not keep up the talk in it, they were bound to open the door and admit the bearers to their supper. This, however, I believe, is wearing out; at least many persons do not choose to be be troubled with it.-To come to a more serious subject, J. R. has not mentioned that Gobel, the apostate bishop of Paris, happily came to feel remorse for his conduct, and renounced his error. His mind, though perverted, was not entirely corrupted. My authority is the additional article Constitutionnels, in the Besançon edition of the Dictionnaire des Hérésies, 1817. Mr. RICHARD SAINTHILL, of Cork, acknowledges the receipt from C. W. Loscombe, esq. of the Penny of Eadred, coined at Exeter, which he inquired for in our pages. He has since discovered a Harthcnut, of the Exeter Mint. These dale hoard has afforded pennies of Aelfred, Eadgar, with the head, Stephen, and would therefore feel extremely obliged to any gentleman who may have any of these coins, if he will send by post, unpaid, impressions in sealing wax, on card, or tin: the latter is the safest, as it resists the pressure of the letter-bag. We are not aware that any account of the Cock Tavern, Fleet-street, near Temple-bar, or of its carved chimney-piece, mentioned by a Subscriber, has been published. P. B. B. asks where the following line occurs, which, when Sir Walter Scott was asked to supply a legend for a medal of himself (taken from Sir F. Chantrey's bust) he suggested, it appears, in allusion to his collection of the Scottish Minstrelsy" Bardorum citharas patrio qui reddidit Istro." It is probably from some modern Latin poet, but we do not know the author-perhaps Buchanan. H. G. solicits of our correspondents an explanatory description of the badge or crest of" Walys" (Wales) which accompanies the portraiture of King Richard the Third, in Dallaway's Heraldic Inquiries, p. 133, derived from an illuminated Roll of the Earls of Warwick, in the College of Arms. Several communications are unavoidably deferred. The series of papers on the History of King Arthur will be acceptable, and shall be commenced in our next. In our last Obituary, p. 117, it is mentioned that Mrs. Wright was relict of Dr. Geddes, "the Scotch poet and biblical philologist." This must be erroneous, as Dr. G. was a priest in the Romish Church. Probably he is confounded with some other person of that name. P. 97. The Countess of Harewood died GENTLEMAN'S MAGAZINE. THE AUTHOR OF THE PURSUITS OF LITERATURE. IN that long and crowded gallery, on the walls of which are suspended the portraits of those authors whose names are emblazoned in characters of fadeless lustre, and enrolled for ever in their country's history, there is one frame to be seen, from which the dark and mystic veil that originally covered it has never been removed; the name of Junius is indeed written under it, but no one has yet seen the authentic features of the original; and time, that for the most part discloses all secret things, has long failed in dissipating the obscurity which surrounds this. On this subject, however, it is not necessary for us to deliver any opinion at the present time, as only a few months have elapsed since we considered the amount of the evidence that existed, and the probable correctness of some new conjectures that had been formed. But there also exists another work, certainly of far inferior fame, as of later date, that once excited in the learned world almost as much curiosity and surprise as Junius did in the political, and which, like its illustrious predecessor, appeared without the authority and sanction of a name. The sharp arrows of its satire were shot by an unseen hand; they fell promiscuously over the whole field of literature; names the most venerable and illustrious were attacked equally with the obscure and unknown; and the wounded victims knew not in what quarter to look for the lurking place of their foe. Gradually, however, rumour sprung up, which pointed more and more decidedly to a cer * On the question of the authorship of Junius, as relates to Sir Philip Francis, see the review of Gleig's Life of Warren Hastings in the Edinburgh Review, Oct. 1841, No. 149, p. 183, in addition to what we had observed in the Gent. Mag. March, 1841. "As to the position, pursuits, and connexions of Junius, the following are the most important facts which can be considered as clearly proved:-1. That he was acquainted with the technical forms of the Secretary of State's office; 2. That he was intimately acquainted with the business of the War Office; 3. That he, during the year 1770, attended debates in the House of Lords, and took notes of speeches, particularly of the speeches of Lord Chatham; 4. That he bitterly resented the appointment of Mr. Chamier to the place of Deputy Secretary of War; 5. That he was bound by some strong tie to the first Lord Holland. Now, Francis passed some years in the Secretary of State's office. He was subsequently chief clerk of the War Office. He repeatedly mentioned that he had himself, in 1770, heard speeches of Lord Chatham, and some of those speeches are entirely printed from his notes. He resigned his clerkship of the War Office from resentment at the appointment of Mr. Chamier. It was by Lord Holland that he was first introduced into the public service. Now here are five marks all of which ought to be found in Junius; they are all five found in Francis. We do not believe that more than two of them can be found in any other person whatever. If this argument does not settle the question, there is an end of all reasoning on circumstantial evidence. The internal evidence points the same way. The style of Francis bears a strong resemblance to that of Junius; nor are we disposed to admit, what is generally supposed, that the acknowledged compositions of Francis are very decidedly inferior to the anonymous Letters,', &c. We beg leave in addition to observe, that the handwriting of Francis and Junius correspond; and lastly, that Francis never denied the authorship, though he never would own it. We may also add, that a friend, whose name stands in the foremost ranks of literary fame, and who is, supra omnes, distinguished for the delicacy of his taste, informed us, in a late conversation on the subject, that the style of one of Francis's pamphlets strongly reminded him of Junius: thus strengthening the opinion of the reviewer on this branch of the tain qarter; the vanity of successful authorship, perhaps, led the writer to put off the " immunities of invisibility," and emerge from his concealment, and at length it seemed gradually admitted as a truth, which no one cared to dispute, that John James Mathias was the author of the Pursuits of Literature. We were, therefore, not a little surprised when the inquiry of a correspondent showed us how much uncertainty still remained on his mind connected with the subject of this satire; and how widely his speculations appeared to us to wander from the truth.* It is now long since we opened a volume that we remember in our boyhood so strongly engaged the curiosity of the public, and excited the fears or awakened the anxiety of most of the popular writers of the day, who suddenly found their wellearned laurels drooping on their brows, and their claims to public gratitude or admiration examined, disputed, or overthrown. We had only a faint and general recollection of the series of tableaux vivants that appeared in it; we remembered that, to our taste, its prose was somewhat more studied and ambitious than we liked; it had an artificial and elaborate verbo· sity; while its poetry was neither so finely tempered nor so highly polished as what we had been used to in the pages of Dryden and Pope; that it was wanting in compactness and elegance, in suppleness and ease; in that point and finish we expect in such compositions; and that it did not confide in its own powers of attraction, but was rather auxiliary and subsidiary to the notes below it; like those light troops and skirmishers, in military evolutions, which can only effectually act, when supported by the presence and proximity of the heavy brigade of infantry in the rear. Satire, we considered, which had glowed with such intense force and brilliancy in the poems of Pope, and which threw out some brilliant but irregular corruscations in the contemporary pages of Young, had, after a long interval, appeared with a faint reflection and dying gleam in the Heroic Epistle of Masou; for we thought Mr. Gifford's poems much wanting in variety of subject and lightness of handling; we objected to the meanness and obscurity of the productions that were animadverted on; and we disliked the furious and angry spirit with which he seized in his crooked talons a flock of poor harmless singing birds, male and female, who were cooing and warbling their amorous ditties amid the Tuscan groves. The subject was not worthy of the effort: it was like breaking a butterfly on a wheel; erecting a battery to destroy an ant-hill; calling out a regiment of grenadiers to bring a girl's boarding-school to submission. The Pursuits of Literature was more popular than the Baviad and Mæviad, though certainly inferior in poetical merit, because its subject *"Mr. Urban,-That the poem of the Pursuits of Literature was written by the late Mr. Mathias, is, I believe, an indisputable fact; for, though he may not have publicly acknowledged it, yet he tacitly admitted it by not contradicting the report. But an ingenious friend of mine has persuaded himself, and by the pains he has taken in col. lating some passages and arranging dates, would fain persuade others, that the verses were written by Edmund Burke, and the notes by his brother Richard, though it is well known that some were supplied by Dr. Mansel, the Master of Trinity College, Cambridge, and Dr. Rennell, the Dean of Winchester. The very strong and flashy eulogium of Edmund Burke, he contends, was only a ruse to conceal the real author. As it is not easy to eradicate the "mentis gratissimus error" of this gentleman, I shall be obliged to you to communicate in your Minor Correspondence, in answer to this note, whatever is particularly known respecting the claim of Mathias, that some satisfactory evidence may convince my friend that his conjecture is erroneous and his labour use. |