GENTLEMAN'S MAGAZINE. FEBRUARY, 1843. BY SYLVANUS URBAN, GENT. CONTENTS. PAGE 114 115 MINOR CORRESPONDENCE.-Sir Hugh Myddelton-Dr. Dee's Speculum-The .... ...... Norman Piscina and Sedilia in St. Mary's Church, Leicester, (with a Plate) REVIEW OF NEW PUBLICATIONS. Dr. Hook's Sermons, 161; Hull on Calvinism, 165; Good's Outline of the LITERARY AND SCIENTIFIC INTELLIGENCE-New Publications, ...... in London, 190; Roman Pavement at Exeter, 191; Statuary of Wells .... 137 149 155 157 159 182 189 192 194 197 199-214 214 217 Bill of Mortality--Markets--Prices of Shares, 223; Meteorological Diary--Stocks 224 Embellished with Exterior and Interior Views of ST. MARY REDCLIFFE, BRISTOL ; and a View of the NORMAN PISCINA and SEDILIA in ST. MARY'S CHURCH, LEICESTER. MINOR CORRESPONDENCE. A Correspondent in Hoxton Square observes: "Some years ago there appeared in your interesting periodical several communications respecting Sir Hugh Myddelton, but I cannot find therein any mention made of the place or date of his birth. I have seen an extract of his will, in which Huellan, Derbyshire, is the place named, and I should suppose the date to be about 1560. I am inclined to doubt his ever having made so much as Sir John Pettus' work, Fodinæ Regales, states, (20007. monthly,) and his success in mining must have been after the New River had been made, as it appears by the indenture, between Myddelton and King James, that 1,1397. 158. 11d. was all that had been spent up to the date of 24th Aug. 1611, and up to 1st Dec. 1612, from 24th Aug. 1611, 4,4857. 18s. 11d. I have seen Letters Patent granting him the mines in Cardigan, from the Mines Royal Commissioners, for 31 years, and dated 1625; but these could not be the first mines he worked, as in the British Museum MSS. there is an authority for allowing him to alter his arms in consequence of (among other things or works accomplished by Sir H.) his having discovered a rich mine of silver, from which many plates have been coined at the Tower for current money.' This document is dated 1622." Among the Treasures of Strawberry Hill, described in our Dec. Number, p. 603, is the Speculum of Kennel Coal, used to deceive the mob by Dr. Dee," &c. In the British Museum is exhibited the "Black Stone," which was said to have bean used by Dee in his incantations. This is of a different form, being a small crystal globe, about two inches in diameter. It is mentioned by Sir Walter Scott in his Letters on Demonology, addressed to J. G. Lockhart, Esq. 16mo. London, 1830, Family Library, Lett. x. p. 351, in these terms, "His shew stone, or mirror, is still preserved among other curiosities in the British Museum." A description and engraving of Dr. Dee's mirror is in the print which faces the title-page of the work, entitled, "A true and faithful relation of what passed for many years between John Dee and, some Spirits, &c. By Dr. Meric Casaubon," fo. London, 1569, and some account of it is given in the preface, p. 45. It is as there described, a crystal sphere (of a light sepia colour), and not of kennel coal, like that lately at Strawberry Hill. The Museum mirror is said to have come from Sir Hans Sloane. We cannot, at the moment, give a more particular answer to the question put by AN INQUIRER, than to refer him for all that is known concerning the Alfrics, and for further references, to the Essay of Edward Rowe Mores, De Ælfrico Dorobernensi Archiepiscopo, 4to. London, 1789, and to Mr. Wright's Literary Biography of the Anglo-Saxons (Biographia Britannica Literaria, Anglo-Saxon Period), recently published by Royal Society of Literature. the F. G. W. believes the name of Mrs. Charlotte Smith's husband to have been Benjamin, and that he served the office of High Sheriff for Hampshire in 1781; also that Mrs. Charlotte Smith was buried at Stoke next Guildford, Surrey. We find from Brayley's new History of that County, that there is a monument for her in that church; and we shall be glad to receive a copy of the inscription.-The Viscountess Anson was the second, not the third daughter of the late Earl of Leicester, (see Sept. Mag. p. 317), as appears by a monument in Colwich Church, Staffordshire, to the memory of her husband. CYDWELI, in his article on Saint Foix, does not seem aware that the Oracle of that writer, the only play, with the Graces, of his numerous productions now preserved for exhibition, was translated by Mrs. Cibber, wife of Theophilus, the son of Colley Cibber, and represented on our stage. At page 24, second column, for Louis XIV. read Louis XVI.; and at line 6, from bottom, for "as here" (to be effaced) read, " in royal blood;" for, in France, as well as here, though not exactly so in Spain, the title of Duke has pre-eminence, except in royal blood, as the French examples I have cited show. Nor is it otherwise with us; for the title of Earl of Chester in England, or of Baron Arklow in Ireland, and of Baron of Culloden in Scotland, belonging to the Prince of Wales, the Duke of Sussex, and the Duke of Cambridge, would supersede that of Duke borne by other subjects, in these kingdoms. In royal descent, therefore, it is the same here as on the continent, but, with that exception, the title of Duke in France, and with us, is supreme. GENTLEMAN'S MAGAZINE. The Works of the Hon. and Rev. William Herbert, &c. 3 vols. IT is not often that we meet with a writer whose attainments are so various, and at the same time so accurate and profound, as those of the one whose works are now before us; while it has been the lot of few to fill, at various periods, stations in society which are generally reserved for those professionally educated for them alone, and from which they seldom subsequently depart but we have had the pleasure of hearing Mr. Herbert as an orator in the House of Commons, we have heard him as an advocate at the Bar, and we have listened to him as a preacher in the Pulpit. As an author, we have found him in walks of science and literature very remote from each other, not often trodden by the same person; yet always marking his progress by the light he has thrown on his subjects, and, as it appears to us, showing both diligence and accuracy in recording facts, and philosophical discretion in reasoning from them. His remarks on ornithology form, in the shape of notes, the most valuable commentaries that have been made to White's History of Selborne, and show how closely he has attended to the character, habits, instincts, and history of the animals included in that branch of science. By botanists his volume on the plants that are called by the name of "Lily," or "Amaryllis," is highly esteemed; and the preface that accompanies it contains very accurate and important observations on the extensive and difficult subject of botanical arrangement, and the division of the vegetable creation into classes, at once agreeable to nature and useful to scientific inquiry As a classical scholar, he has eminently distinguished himself by the correctness of his compositions in both the learned languages, and by his acute criticisms on the abstruse subject of metre, as connected with accent and quantity, as well as by his researches on the formation and analogy of languages; indeed, his knowledge of modern languages seems unusually copious, extending through all those that have been derived from the parent stocks of the Teutonic and Celtic, while his original compositions in them show that his attainments are not superficial, but deeply grounded in their structure and the principles on which they are formed. Lastly, he has appeared with no inferior powers in the character of the poet; his epic poem of Attila, which we reviewed some time since, shews fine poetical conception, and abounds in passages of animation and eloquence while those in the present volume come with considerable claim to our attention, not only for their own beauty, but as they serve to open to us, almost for the first time, new regions, which will we hope be fruitful of future harvests, which had either been considered beyond the limits of poetical fiction, or which no one had the courage or learning to explore. To confess the truth, the poems founded on the peculiar mythology of the Northern nations, with the exception of the few masterly notes struck out. by Gray, have had few charms for us; those who professed to interpret them to us, as Percy, Johnstone, Cottle, and others, seem themselves to have been but imperfectly acquainted with the language in which they were com : |