from rank and station to a condition little removed from that of labourers. George Lee is enrolled as Thomas Lee's third son on the Heralds' College document; but the aforesaid register expressly shows him to have been the second, thus: "1637. Georgius filius secundus Thomæ Lee Junioris, Domini de Hartwell, baptizatus fuit in ecclesia parochiali de Hartwell, 21° die Februarii ;" and George's sister, who was also christened at the same font in January 1639,* is Latinized into Maria for Mary. Again the eldest daughter of Sir Thomas Lee, the first Baronet, and Anne his wife, is called Frances by the genealogist, but is named Elizabeth in the record of her baptism on the 28th of July, Anno Servatoris 1662. Among the minutia of the genealogical table which I drew up, it may be observed that Anne daughter of the third Baronet became the second wife of Lord Vernon; from which union arose the compound relationships between the Lees, the Harcourts, and the Ansons, occasioning no small trouble and expense after the death of the Rev. Sir George Lee. It is true that that marriage strengthened the ties resulting from other espousals with branches of the Harcourt family; so that the first mother-in-law of Sir George Anson, the Hartwellian claimant, became aunt to the late Sir George Lee's father, and her second mother-in-law became aunt to his mother; but neither of these connexions afforded consanguinity to Sir George Anson with the family of Lee, he being merely the son of Vernon's daughter Mary (by his first * The registers afford evidence that the papal innovations in the Church by the inhuman Laud and other prelates as to postures, victuals, vestments, and the like, were taking root about that time : "Wheras by reason of notorious sickness and infirmity of body, Thomas Carter, Vicar of Dinton, in ye county of Bucks, and Mrs. Jane Carter, his wife, with two of their children, William and Jane, may not use a fish diet without prejudice to their health: I, therefore, William Braig, curatt of Stone in the said county of Bucks, do grant unto the said Mr. Thomas Carter, his wife, and their two children, William and Jane, license to eat flesh this Lent season, during the continuance of their sickness and weakness, for the better recovery of their health, according to the purport and true meaning of the statutes in that case provided. In witness whereof I have hereunto subscribed my name this second day of March, An'o Dom' 1635." The obligation to fast during Lent survived the Reformation, and was even renewed, though certainly not to a very oppressive extent, since some of the dispensations were granted not only to weak-stomached men, but also to their invited guests! Χ marriage) and her husband, George Anson, Esq. Anne died in September 1742, s. p. as stated in the table; and in 1744 Lord Vernon married thirdly Martha a sister of the first Earl Harcourt, and consequently aunt to his daughter Elizabeth, who was united to Sir William Lee, Bart. Lord Vernon by his third wife had issue Elizabeth, who increased the kin-entanglement by marrying George Simon, second Earl Harcourt, her maternal cousin. My esteemed friend T. Tyringham Bernard, Esq. of Winchendon Priory, the present M.P. for Aylesbury, related to me in what manner the Lees forfeited the inheritance of the Nuneham property in Oxfordshire. The Rev. Mr. Baker, Rector of that parish, told him that George Simon Harcourt, Viscount Nuneham, in conversation with his sister's husband, Sir William Lee, observed that, as neither himself nor his brother Field Marshal Lord Harcourt had any children, the Nuneham estates should descend to Sir William and his sons on condition of their taking the name of Harcourt. For this offer Sir William expressed many thanks, and no doubt sincere ones; but he sharply questioned the propriety of surrendering the appellative, Lee, for that of Harcourt, since the former was of far greater consideration. Offended at this remark, his lordship broke off the conversation; but very soon afterwards made a will cutting off his sister, Lady Elizabeth Lee, and her children, from all right of succession, not even leaving her a legacy, nor did he bequeath to his brother the Field Marshal more than a life-interest in his property. When he could no longer retain the family estates he left them to the Archbishop of York, Dr. Vernon, who was a relation of his wife's, and who appended the name of Harcourt to that of Vernon with becoming alacrity. Surprised at the contents of this will, the Field Marshal and Sir William Lee are stated by Mr. John Rose, the family solicitor, to have taken legal advice, but found that they could not set the testament aside. They, however, broke off all communication with the Vernonite widow of the testator, as she incurred the suspicion of being privy to the alienation of the property. Meantime the Field Marshal cordially patronized his eldest nephew William and obtained a commission for him in his own regiment, in which they fought side by side during the harassing campaigns in Flanders, and the behaviour of the nephew was much to the satisfaction of the uncle, as shown by his letters to Sir William Lee. He testified great esteem for his younger nephew (George) also, by appointing him one of his executors, and bequeathing to him a mortgage which he held on the Hartwell estate for 20,000l. But the Rev. Sir George Lee died two years before his uncle, or he would have inherited other property also, according to some letters written to him by Lady Harcourt. Sir George, however, in terms of warm kindness left his noble uncle some legacies, which his lordship claimed and received, but soon afterwards he joined Sir William Anson in filing a bill in Chancery against Dr. Lee for winning possession of the manor of Hartwell! The right thus put forth was but a cobweb affair, yet the suit was so strenuously and continuously persevered in, that the defendant under advice of counsel submitted to a compromise, which, including costs, amounted to nearly 8,0007.; and so the Harcourt, Lee, Nuneham, and Anson ties were dissevered. There is still an error or two more to notice in this portion of the Edes. In the foot-note at page 65 of that volume, it should have been stated that the patriarchal William Lee of Abingdon died in the year 1637, not 1737. His blazon was, Azure, two bends argent under a bend compony gules, in the centre chief a crescent argent for difference. There is moreover a misconception on page 37 of the same work, where it is stated that Sir William Lee presented the living of Little Marlow to the Rev. Thomas Martyn, but my informant must have been thinking of Edgware, for Martyn had been preferred to Little Marlow on the 23rd of December 1776, by his grateful pupil Admiral Sir John Borlase Warren, that is, six years before the purchase of the estate for Mr. Lee Antonie. Finally, there is an oversight on page 122 of the Ædes, where-speaking of Demosthenes's throwing away his shield and cutting off from the conflict of Charonea that event is erroneously printed as having occurred 1200 years ago, instead of 2200. Regarding the Hudibrastic couplet, which forms the gist of that inquiry-and which had been assigned to Butler or Sir John Mennis-Mr. J. Yeowell gives the authorship to Goldsmith, and apparently with reason. In a work published in 1762 by John Newbery, The Art of Poetry on a New Plan, while admiring Ralpho's prudence in advising a timely flight, the popular bard of Longford amplified and paraphrased the couplet in question: And therefore I, with reason, chose This stratagem t'amuse our foes, To make an hon'rable retreat, And waive a total sure defeat: FOR HE WHO FIGHTS AND RUNS AWAY BUT HE WHO IS IN BATTLE SLAIN Hence timely running's no mean part Of conduct in the martial art. Here a curious fact occurs as to memory, whether regarded merely as that faculty of mind by which it retains the knowledge of past events, or the power of applicable remembrance by which such events are recalled to our thoughts for use. While pursuing the inquiry made in 1850 as to the authorship of "He who fights, &c." (see Edes, pages 119 to 122), though there were faint scintillations of a former acquaintance with the subject, my particular conception of it must have been dormant. For on seeing Mr. Yeowell's contribution to "Notes and Queries" (July 25th, 1863,) the mental impression was at once restored, and it immediately recurred that I had often-very often-repeated the above verses in my boyhood. Ohimé! memory, imagination, recollection, idea, and reminiscence-through all their varieties—are liable to lamentable fits of inertia ! While, however, we admit of Goldsmith's claim, the original conception of the idea is as open to discussion as ever; and even the expansion of Butler's couplet was given in a foreign language upwards of half a century before Oliver's appeared. For in his edition of Hudibras, Dr. Zachary Grey notes |