Merciariorum Præfecto.

Accedunt Viri Cl. D.

1710, with improvements. In 1711 his famous edition of Horace made its appearance, Typis J. L.; of which a second edition was finished by him but a few days before his death, and published by his son John, under this title: "Q. Horatii Flacci Ecloga, unà cum Scholiis perpetuis, tam veteribus quam novis. Adjecit etiam, ubi visum est, et sua, textumque ipsum plurimis locis vel corruptum vel turbatum restituit Willielmus Baxter, 1725." Dr. Harwood, in his View of the Classics, calls Mr. Baxter's Anacreon an excellent edition; and with regard to his Horace, expresses himself in the following strong terms: "This second edition of Horace, in 1725, is by far the best edition of Horace ever published *. I have read it many times through, and know its singular worth. England has not produced a more elegant and judicious critic than Mr. Baxter." It has actually continued in such esteem abroad, that the learned Gesner gave a new edition of it in 1752 at Leipsick, with additional notes; and it has been again printed in the same place in 1772 and 1778. In 1719 his Dictionary of the British Antiquities, &c. (the book above noticed) was published by the Rev. Moses Williams. His Glossary, or Dictionary of the Roman Antiquities, which goes no farther than the letter A, was published in 1726, by the Rev. Moses Williams, under the title of " Reliquiæ Baxterianæ, sive Willielmi Baxteri Opera Posthuma. Præmittitur eruditi Autoris Vitæ à seipso conscriptae Fragmentum. Londini, ex Officinâ G. Bowyer, Sumptibus Editoris." And in 1731 this new title was printed for 50 remaining copies: “Glossarium Antiquitatum Romanarum, à Willielmo Baxter, Cornavio, Scholæ Merciariorum Præfecto. Accedunt eruditi Autoris Vitæ à seipso conscriptæ Fragmentum, et selectæ quædam ejusdem Epistolæ." To this work Mr. Williams added an Index of all the words occasionally explained in it, as he had done before in the Glôssary; and, in 1731, he put out proposals for printing “ Gulielmi Baxteri quæ supersunt Enarratio et Notæ in D. Junii Juvenalis Satyras. Accedit Rerum et Verborum Observatione digniorum, quæ in iisdem occurrunt, Index locupletissimus. Accurante

Gulielmo Mose, A. M. R. S. Soc." Mr. Baxter had also a share in the English translation of Plutarch by several hands. He was a great master of the antient British and Irish tongues, and well skilled in the Latin and Greek, as well as the Northern and Eastern languages; and kept a correspondence with most of the learned men of his time, especially with the famous antiquary Edward Lhwyd. Some of Mr. Baxter's letters to him are published in his " Glossarium Antiquitatum Romanarum." There are likewise in the Philosophical Transactions two letters of his to Dr. Harwood, one concerning the town of Veroconium, or Wroxeter, in Shropshire, No. 306; the other concerning the Hypocausta, or sweating-houses of the Antients, No. 401; and another to Dr. Hans Sloane, secretary to the Royal Society, *Of Baxter's Horace, see farther under the year 1725.

containing

Edvardi Luidii *, Cimeliarchæ Ashmol. Oxon. de

containing an abstract of Mr. Lhwyd's Archæologia Britannica, No. 311. In the first volume of the Archæologia are four Latin letters, written by Mr. Baxter to the late Dr. Geekie (who had been his scholar), when first entered at Cambridge. In these letters, the learned critic shews how entirely his attention was devoted to etymological and philological inquiries. From the fourth letter it appears, that Mr. Baxter was solicited to give a new edition of the writers De Re Rustica; but that he declined it, on account of his age, and the difficulty of the undertaking. Mr. Baxter spent most of his life in educating youth: for some years he kept a boarding-school at Tottenham High-cross in Middlesex, where he remained till he was chosen master of the Mercers-school in London. In this situation he continued above 20 years, but resigned before his death.. He married a woman without a fortune, but of a very good character, named Sarah Carturit, by whom he had three sons and three daughters, all born at Tottenham: Rose, 1681; John, 1683; Joseph, 1689; Anne, 1695; John, 1697; and Sarah, 1700. He died May 31, 1723, in his 73d year, and was buried June 4, at Islington. He wrote his own life, a transcript of which was in the library of the late Mr. Tutet, under this title, "Vitæ D. Gulielmi Baxteri, sive Popidii, à seipso conseriptæ Fragmen tum; ex ipsius schedis manu propriâ exaratis erutum, Dec. 26o, 1721, W. T."-W. T. means William Thomas, esq. who wrote an English draught of (1) a Dedication to Dr. Mead of the "Glossarium Antiquitatum Britannicarum," which he then (2) trans lated into Latin; afterwards (3) a different one, which was turned into (4) Latin by Mr. Timothy Thomas; and this last, after many corrections, was put into Dr. Mead's hands, who, with Mr. Maittaire, altered it to what it appears in print, except some few passages corrected by Mr. William Thomas and the Rev. Moses Williams. The papers marked 1, 2, 3, and 4, Mr. Tutet possessed; and the remainder of the information is in a note written by Mr. William Thomas, who also wrote the printed preface to Lhuyd's "Adversaria Posthuma," subjoined to the "Glossarium Antiquitatum Britannicarum," but Mr. Tutet had a different one in his own hand-writing. Mr. Thomas revised the whole before it went to the press.

* Of Jesus College, Oxford; and successor to Dr. Plott as keeper of the Ashmolean Museum. With incessant labour and great exactness he employed a considerable part of his life in searching into the Welsh Antiquities; and had perused or collected a great deal of antient and valuable matter from their MSS transcribed all the old charters of their monasteries that he could meet with; travelled several times over Wales, Cornwall, Scotland, Ireland, Armoric Bretagne, countries inhabited by the same people; compared their antiquities, and made observations on the whole; but died in 1709, before he had digested them into the form of a discourse on the antient inhabitants of this island. For want of proper encouragement, he did very little towards

under

Fluviorum, Montium, Urbium, &c. in Britanniâ

understanding the British bards, having seen but one of those of the sixth century, and not being able to procure access to two of the principal libraries in the country. He communicated many observations to Mr. Gibson, whose edition of the Britannia he revised; and published Archæologia Britannica, giving some account additional to what has been hitherto published of the languages, histories, and customs of the original inhabitants of Great Britain, from collections and observations in travels through Wales, Cornwall, Bas Bretagne, Ireland, and Scotland. Vol. I. Glossography. Oxford, 1707." fol. He left in MS. a Scottish or Irish-English dictionary, proposed to be published in 1732 by subscription, by Mr. David Malcolme, a minister of the church of Scotland, with additions; as also the elements of the said language, with necessary and useful informations for propagating more effectually the English language, and for promoting the knowledge of the antient Scottish or Irish, and very many branches of useful and curious learning. Lhwyd, at the end of his preface to his Archæologia, promises an historical dictionary of British persons and places mentioned in antient records. It seems to have been ready for press, though he could not set the time of publication. His collections for a second volume, which was to give an account of the antiquities, monuments, &c. in the Principality of Wales, were numerous and well chosen; but, on account of a quarrel between him and Dr. Wynne, then Fellow, afterwards Principal of the College, and bishop of St. Asaph, he refused to buy them; and they were purchased by Sir Thomas Sebright, of Beechwood in Hertfordshire, in whose library the greatest part still remain, but so indigested, and written with so many abbreviations, that nobody can undertake to publish them. They consist of about 40 volumes in folio, 10 in 4to. and above 100 smaller, all relative to Irish and Welsh antiquities, and chiefly in those languages. Mr. T. Carte made extracts from them about or before 1736; but those were chiefly historical. His account of some Roman, French, and Irish inscriptions, and antiquities found in Scotland and Ireland, many of them inserted in Camden, are printed in Phil. Trans. No 269; and further observations on his Travels through Wales and Scotland, in No 337. By a letter of his to Ray, it appears that he took a catalogue of the books, medals, and pictures, in the Ashmolean Museum; a collection, which, it is to be lamented, was for several years kept in the most negligent manner. The Librarian, being one of the heads, put in a scholar for 5 1. who made a perquisite of shewing the curiosities, which lay in the utmost confusion. Lhwyd's fossils were tumbled out of their papers; and nobody regarded or understood them till his catalogue of them was republished by Mr. Huddesford, the late librarian. See Gough's British Topography, vol. II. pp. 134, 479, 486. In Ballard's Collection of MS Letters in the Bodleian Library, liii. 68, it appears that Mr. Lhwyd's MSS. were offered to sale; that

Mr.

Nominibus Adversaria Posthuma *." Dedicated to Dr. Mead. Prefixed to this work is a fine head of the author by Vertue, from a picture by Highmore, when Baxter was in the 69th year of his age; in some of the earliest impressions of which. the painter's name is spelt Hymore.

"Memoirs of Mons. L. M. D. L. F. translated by Mr. Bedford §."

Mr. Hearne saw them, Feb. 7, 1715, and thought them worth 50 or 60 pounds; and recommended the purchase of them to the University. Among them he saw Fitz Stephens's Life of Thomas à Beckett, No 70. Before it was his "Description of London," the second copy Hearne had ever seen; the first was a MS. in the Bodleian Library, which he printed in Leland's Itinerary.

* Mr. Gough, speaking of this work (Brit. Top. I. 9.) observes, that Mr. Baxter, from his skill in the old British language, attempted to determine the geography by etymology; a method the most uncertain, and which too often misled Camden before, and others since.

+ Reprinted in 1733, with a new inscription to Dr. Mead, signed Joannes Baxter, Auctoris Filius," and an additional leaf, called "Notæ breves, per virum reverendum Gul. Stukeley, R.S.S." which may be seen in Mr. Bowyer's Miscellaneous Tracts, 4to, p. 57.

This picture was painted for a club-room, where Mr. Baxter presided, in the Old Jewry; but the landlord, removing, took it away with him, and it has never been heard of since. Mr. Highmore enquired after it a few years ago in vain.

The name of Bedford will occur so frequently in these volumes, that it becomes necessary to give some account of the family. Hilkiah Bedford, of Sibsey, in Lincolnshire, a Quaker, came to London, and settled there as a stationer, between the years 1600 and 1625. He married a daughter of William Plat of Highgate, by whom he had a son Hilkiah, a mathematical instrument-maker in Hosier-lane, near West Smithfield. In this house (which was afterwards burnt in the great fire of London 1666) was born the famous Hilkiah, July 23, 1663; who in 1679 was admitted of St. John's college, Cambridge, the first scholar on the foundation of his maternal grandfather William Plat. Hilkiah was afterwards elected fellow of his college, and patronized by Heneage Finch earl of Winchelsea, but deprived of his preferment (the rectory of Wittering in Northamptonshire) for refusing to take the oaths at the Revolution; and afterwards kept a boarding-house for the Westminster scholars. In 1714, being tried in the Court of King's Bench, he was fined 1000 marks, and imprisoned three years, for writing, printing, and publishing, "The Hereditary Right of the Crown of England asserted," 1713, folio; the real author of which was George

Harbin,

Law's "Third Letter to the Bishop of Bangor;" two editions.

Harbin, a Nonjuring clergyman, who wrote a remarkable epitaph on Sir Isaac Newton, and was harboured by Lord Weymouth, who, not knowing that he was the author of the book on Hereditary Right, gave him 100l. to carry to Mr. Bedford, who pocketed it without ceremony. Though not the author of the book, he submitted to be thought so, from zeal to the cause, and from affection for the real author. Perhaps the pocketing of the 100%. required no ceremony; for Bedford "was prosecuted, and suffered imprisonment for fathering" the book; which notorious fact, known to Lord Weymouth and all the world, might sufficiently account for the benefaction to Bedford, whether he were looked upon to be the author of the book, or not. But the strange part of the story is, that Harbin, the author of the book, should carry the money to him as the real author. The late James West, esq. had a copy of this book, which was once the property of Bishop Kennett, (now in the possession of Mr. Gough,) who had written MS notes in it. In the beginning of the book, Mr. West left the following account of the author : "Upon shewing the above notes wrote by Bp. Kennett to Mr. Harbin, he told me he was the author of the annexed book; and immediately produced the original copy of the same, together with three large volumes of original documents, from whence the same was compiled. He was chaplain to Dr. Ken bishop of Bath and Wells, and was the head of the Clergy of the Nonjuring persuasion at that time, ann. 1742.-A man of infinite knowledge and reading; but of a weak, prejudiced, and bigoted judgment."-Besides the Latin Life of Dr. Barwick, which he afterwards translated into English, Mr. Bedford published a translation of "Fontenelle's History of Oracles." He died Nov. 26, 1724; and was buried in the church-yard of St. Margaret at Westminster, with the following epitaph;