The Gentleman's Magazine

P. remarks, "In the Gentleman's Magazine, vol. LXXXIX. pt. i. p. 252, and vol. xc. pt. i. p. 603, I called attention to the removal and destruction of monuments in Maidstone Church. I am happy to hear that the present incumbent evinces a more conservative spirit. In Mr. B. Poste's History of the College of All Saints at Maidstone, at p. 33, there is a description of the arms represented on Wootton's tomb, which present an appearance of false heraldry. In this case, as frequently in others, persons ignorant of the science (such as house-painters) are entrusted with the restoring of arms, after the shields have been so cleaned and scoured that the colours and metals are nearly obliterated. The workman, when instructed to repaint them as they were originally, is much puzzled how to proceed. He finds something like a red or chocolate colour, and that part he endeavours to match. Thus we find a sad jumble and false heraldry is the consequence. I have no doubt that in the shield, which is quarterly, the 2nd and 3rd quarters chequy gules and azure, within a bordure engrailed argent, it should have been or and azure instead of gules and azure. [Abp. Arundel's arms are wellknown; his quarterings were Arundel and Warren, like his brother the Earl.] May I invite antiquaries who may be in the habit of examining ancient monuments and pedigrees, to carefully notice where the vermillion or any reddish colour exists on colours instead of metals. It was the practice of emblazoners to gild on a red ground, to give additional richness and brilliancy to the gold; and I believe now (if the practice has not been lately discontinued) gilders have a preparation of a reddish-brown colour previous to the size being put on. I have myself frequently used vermillion on paper for a ground before laying on the gold, and where that has not been done a poverty in appearance has been the consequence. At Towcester, Sponne's monument has been repainted and the arms blundered. At Spratton, in the same county of Northampton, the monument of Sir John Swinford has been very carefully washed by one of the ma

sons recently employed there, and the arms nearly obliterated. In one of the shields the arms of Swinford, the boar on the fesse gules, appears sable instead of argent, which is very likely to have been painted with a white colour or metal which has changed to black, and thus giving it an appearance of false heraldry."

A. W. having observed a letter in the Gentleman's Magazine of December, 1847, signed W. S. BUTLER, on the subject of Mr. Burke's notice of the Warburton family in the "Landed Gentry," begs to say that the statements in this letter are directly at variance with the official pedigree compiled and signed by Sir William Betham, Ulster King at Arms, which may be seen by any person interested in the subject at the Heralds' College in Dublin, or at No. 10, Serle Street, Lincoln's Inn, by applying to Mr. David Lawrence. -P. S. The best answer, perhaps, to the letter above referred to, will be to say, that the writer of this note has not been able to discover any such person as W. S. Butler in Stephen's Green, the address given in the said letter. Mr. W. D. Butler, who resides in Stephen's Green, denies all knowledge of the said letter, or the subject it refers to.

Ancient Coin Forgers.-The increasing taste for archæological pursuits has sharpened the ingenuity of those knaves who prepare antiquities for the unwary collector. The two forgers, S

and

—, are still in the field with cleverly executed coins, struck from dies engraved on purpose, and they realize sometimes large sums at the expense even of the numismati's, who are thrown off their guard by the devices of these swindlers. At the present moment, there are persons travelling the country in all directions, with small parcels of Greek and Roman coins, chiefly genuine, among which they introduce a few very rare specimens, and call upon collectors, offering the entire lots for sale. They generally succeed by this artifice in realizing a pretty good sum for a worthless batch of coins. Within the present week we have traced these coin pedlars in three counties.-Literary Gazette.

GENTLEMAN'S MAGAZINE.

Memoirs of the Reign of George the Second, from his Accession to the Death of Queen Caroline. By John Lord Hervey, &c. Edited by the Right Hon. John Wilson Croker. 2 vols.

AFTER the repose of more than a century these long-desired Memoirs have at length come to light. They were mentioned in 1757 by Horace Walpole, and in 1788 they were known to Lord Hailes: Mr. Bowles also alludes to them in his Life of Pope. The injunction not to publish them was given, not by Lord Hervey, but in the will of his son Augustus, the third Earl of Bristol; and this injunction, we fully acknowledge, was dictated by a very proper sense of what was due to the memory of his father, and to the characters and feelings of those connected with the various subjects of his Memoirs. But the century that has elapsed during the slumber of these papers in the chests of Ickworth, has altered much the habits, feelings, and opinions of society, so that they appear to us in tone and sentiment, and in the general insight they give into the conduct and behaviour of the persons described, as strange as if the same persons were suddenly to rise up before us in the antiquated dresses and with the obsolete manners of the age they lived in. People wrote and talked very coarsely in those times, as may be seen in the writings of Pope and Swift; and really anything might be said with freedom, and listened to with complacency, on the stage. Language had no need of veils, or masks, or fans, the safe retreats of wounded modesty; and Lord Hervey, though a leading beau of the Court, wrote as coarsely as his contemporaries. To this he added the utmost freedom of opinion, and accordingly his more sensitive or more prudent successors destroyed several parts of the manuscript, particularly the details of the dissensions of the royal family. The present Editor has made a few deviations, he tells us, from the manuscript, only suppressing here and there an indelicate expression, and substituting a more decent equivalent. "The total suppression of such passages would (he says) be an obvious remedy, and the most satisfactory, but for one consideration, the very indelicacies are important items towards the history of general manners and the estimate of individual character, and to omit them altogether, or to smooth down such irregularities to our more decent level, would really be a deception," &c.

Mr. Croker thinks it probable that Horace Walpole had seen these Memoirs, in which we agree;* and perhaps in some degree they have formed a model for his own, though they are more finished and correct in style, and painted with stronger and firmer colours. Those who have leisure may amuse themselves in comparing some of the characters as drawn in the respective works; and some who have been long familiar with the features sketched by the latter writer will often be surprised in seeing them assume a different proportion and new lineaments now developed

* We have seen a volume in which Horace Walpole designed to write a sketch of Lord Hervey's life, but he had proceeded no further than a list of his poetical pieces. -REV.

in the first sitting. We have made a few extracts, and particularly from that portion in which the characters of the more prominent persons are drawn, to us by far the most interesting part of the volumes, and we think also the most permanently valuable.

Mr. Croker has given at the end of his prefatory notice some very judicious observations on the spirit in which this very curious and interesting work is written, and the allowances that must be made by the reader for the personal animosities and political feelings of the writer. He considers that in this narrative the defects of the King's character have been exaggerated, and scanty justice has been done to his good qualities. As regards the Prince, we will take the freedom of quoting his own words :"I also cannot but think that, had he not been so deeply prejudiced against Frederick Prince of Wales, the character of the Queen-the person whom of all others he seems disposed to treat most favourably would have appeared in more amiable colours. Lord Hervey gives us (may I not say?) an odious and unnatural picture of the animosity of a mother against a son, without explaining in any way its original cause, and often I think omitting, perhaps disguising, some recurrence of maternal feeling. In what way Prince

Frederick had at first (and even as it seems before he came to England) alienated the affection of his parents no one has yet guessed; and these Memoirs, which so strongly exhibit the animosity, afford (contrary to Lord Hailes's expectation) nothing like a sufficient reason for it. After he came to England, and fell into the hands of the Opposition, we see abundant causes of estrangement, and yet even then not enough to justify such extreme resentment as the Memoirs ascribe, and no doubt truly, to the parents."

This is true, and certainly there is some mystery yet unexplained in the whole affair; it also must be remarked that the hatred to the Prince was not confined to his parents, but was shared in its full intensity by the princesses his sisters. We once thought that it might have some connexion with the suppression of the old King's will; but, on further observation, we perceive its rise to have been earlier than his death. Whatever might be its source, its long continuance and its malignity appear in most hideous and unnatural colours; and, if it is not exaggerated in Lord Hervey's narrative, and if all the other parts relating to the whole family are given in due proportion and adherence to truth, we must reluctantly conclude that it is in vain to speculate on what may be the waywardness of the conduct, and the intensity of the passions, in people with a very moderate sense of morality, and no established principles of religion. Mr. Croker has pointed out one circumstance which he thinks may have influenced the later stages of the quarrel, and which Lord Hervey does not notice: it relates to a little volume called "Histoire du Prince Titi (Allegorie Royale)." This was published in 1735, and translated the next year, 1736. There the King, the Queen, and the Prince are represented under fictitious names, and there are also portraits of the two Walpoles, and "allusions to the younger brother, and even to the important secret of the design of placing him on the throne, leave no doubt as to what was meant-wherever there is any meaning;" and the application of the term Ginguet to the king, and Tripasse to the queen, were gross personal insults, and, from a combination of circumstances, peculiarly so to the Queen. Mr. Croker adds

"If the King-and above all the Queen -knew of it (and can we doubt that they did?) they must have resented in the highest degree a libel of which the 'stu

pidity and childish absurdity' would not, to them at least, have counterbalanced its indecency and insult. I am surprised at finding no allusion whatsoever to this work * But see our note on this point, p. 18. At the Prince's death, it was said, his debts were very great, and the Hanoverians had lent him large sums. See Walpole's Memoirs of George the Second, vol. i. p. 87.-REV.

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The Gentleman's Magazine, Volúmenes184-185