The Gentleman's Magazine

We have received a letter from Mr. WEEVER, the author of "Monumenta Antiqua," defending his "Druid's Hermitage," and the inscriptions which were criticised by our Reviewer in p. 277. (He says, that QUEM in line 1 is a misprint for QUE.) There can, however, be no doubt that the inscriptions are the work of some hermit of comparatively modern times. The first will be found towards the end of Cicero de Senectute, and the second is probably a quotation from Varro de Re Rustica.

J. R. remarks: "In reply to your Correspondent Strabo's extract from Page's Five Letters (page 472), and his invitation for me to read Mendham's Literary Policy of the Church of Rome, relative to Bosuet's Exposition of the Roman Catholic Faith, I beg to refer him to Beausset's Life of Bossuet, book iii. sections xiv, xv. with the justificatory documents in the appendix, where the whole controversy is fully elucidated. The Pope's explicit approval, and the sanction of the highest theologians, which are prefixed to the volume, sufficiently, we may suppose, authenticate its doctrine, which is additionally attested by the impression of the Irish translation, a most accurate one, at the Propaganda in Rome-equivalent in authority to the insertion of a royal proclamation, order of Council, or Act of Parliament in the London Gazette." R. A. remarks: "Your editorial note respecting the boar and mullets on the ceiling at the Black Boy Inn at Chelmsford, engraved in p. 470, no doubt correctly explains that they were intended for the insignia of the Veres Earls of Oxford, whose castle at Hedingham is in the neighbourhood, as well as their priory of Colne. I take this opportunity of appropriating the arms on a pavement tile engraved in the Gentleman's Magazine for Oct. 1818, which appears to have been found in Essex. The arms are described as Three crowns quartering mullets. They are the arms of Robert de Vere, Earl of Oxford, who was the favourite of Richard II. and by him created Marquess of Dublin and Duke of Ireland, On which occasion the King gave him for his arms: 'Az. three crowns or, within a border arg.' quartered with his own coat of De Vere, "Quarterly gules and or, in the first quarter a mullet argent.' He died without issue 16th Richard II., and was the only member of his family who bore this quartering of the three crowns. His arms are so remaining now, beautifully carved in stone, on the porch of the church at Lavenham in Suffolk."

As another example of the royal arms

appearing on the monument of a servant of the Royal Household, may be mentioned (in addition to those in p. 142) that of Richard Burton, esquire, chief cook to Henry the Sixth, at Twickenham, Middlesex : "Hic jacet Ric'us Burton' Armiger nuper Capitalis cocus d'ni Regis et Agnes uxor ejus, qui obiit xxiiiio die Julii A° do M° cccc° xliii. q°r' ai'ab3 propicietur deus." Above this inscription is a royal shield of France and England quar terly. Lysons (Environs of London) has spoilt this memorial by printing" Majr" "coc3."

J. P. inquires for information respecting the history of a Proclamation of Josiah Martin, Governor, &c. of the Province of North Carolina, which Proclamation is dated, "On board his Majesty's ship Cruiser, now lying in the Cape Fear river this 8th day of August, A. D. 1775," signed "Jo. Martin," and countersigned "J. Biggleston, D. Secretary." It was printed and freely distributed over the Province, and a printed copy is now lying before me. It doubtless was transmitted to the British ministry, and deposited in some one of the numerous offices in which this country abounds.

This Proclamation is curious as containing evidence of a declaration of independence by some citizens of one of the counties in North Carolina, fifteen months prior to the "Declaration of Independence" of the 4th of July 1776.

ARTIFEX inquires, "Where he can find the best memoir or account of John Thurston, a very eminent artist. He was a native of Scarborough, and died at Holloway, in the parish of Islington, Middlesex, in the year 1821." We can only refer him to a brief notice of Mr. Thurston in Jackson's History of Wood Engraving, p. 613.

Sir Thomas Warner, the Founder of the Colonies in the Leeward Islands in the West Indies, married his second wife Rebecca Payne, daughter of Thomas Payne, of Surrey, in, or a short previously, to 1629. He died March 1648, in the West Indies, leaving a wife and young children behind him. D. F. W. wishes to ascertain, whether his second wife survived him, or whether he married a third.

ERRATA. P. 220, a. lines 2 and 3 from bottom, for Benton read Benson.

P. 326, b. line 6 from bottom, read the Rev. Isaac Nicholson; he was in his 70th year.

P. 491, line 3, for Edward read Ed

mond.

P. 495, line 21, read years after.
P. 496, line 1, for order of President
Bradshawe, read autograph.

THE

GENTLEMAN'S

MAGAZINE.

Correspondence of William Pitt, Earl of Chatham. Vol. I.—IV.

NO History of Lord Chatham, worthy of the greatness of his character and his mind, has appeared; and had a writer equal to the subject been desirous to engage in it, he would have had to lament the very scanty and imperfect materials from which his work was to be formed. Those splendid specimens of oratory which have been likened to the most finished speeches of Demosthenes and Tully, have passed away with the voice that uttered them; and of the private life of the great statesman in his hours of retirement, few memorials were preserved, except in the recollection of his family and friends. The sketches which we possess, brief and unsatisfactory as they are, come from no friendly pens; and the portraits that are drawn by Waldegrave* and Walpole must be compared and

* As Lord Waldegrave's Memoirs are not in the hands of all our readers, we shall extract his character of Mr. Pitt:

"Mr. Pitt has the finest genius, improved by study, and all the ornamental parts of classical learning. He came early into the House of Commons, where he soon distinguished himself, lost a cornetcy of horse which was his only subsistence, and in less than 20 years had raised himself to be first Minister, and the most powerful subject in this country. He has a peculiar clearness and facility of expression, and has an eye as significant as his words; he is not always a fair or conclusive reasoner, but commands the passions with sovereign authority, and to inflame or captivate a popular assembly, is a consummate orator. He has courage of every sort, cool or impetuous, active or deliberate; at present (1758) he is the guide and champion of the people, whether he will long continue their friend, seems somewhat doubtful; but if we may judge from his natural disposition, as it has hitherto shown itself, his popularity and zeal for public liberty will have the same period; for he is imperious, violent, and implacable, impatient even of the slightest contradiction, and, under the mask of patriotism, has the despotic spirit of a tyrant. However, though his political sins are black and dangerous, his private character is irreproachable; he is incapable of a treacherous ungenerous action, and in the common offices of life is justly esteemed a man of veracity, and a man of honour. He mixes little in company, confining his

† Hence, how absurd to attribute to Lord Chatham the Letters of Junius, in which great ability and utter want of principle, honour, and of gentlemanly feeling are alike conspicuous. We consider the Letters of Junius to have been composed by a small knot of clever and factious men, probably connected with the Grenville party, of whom Sir P. Francis was one, perhaps Barré, Dunning and others; and that Mr. Calcraft was in their secret, and assisted them. These Letters could not have been written by a man of high character or exalted station; the malignity, baseness, and scurrility of the Letters to the Dukes of Bedford and Grafton forbid this: they would not have been written by underlings or men who had no fortune or power, unsupported and unassisted by higher influence, for they would not have had courage or determination. Had they been the production of any one man, before this time vanity or some other light motive would have opened the lock of the secret; but who was to derive fame from being one only of a confederation? A single individual is master of his own secret, to retain or to divulge it at will, but the pledge of fidelity in a party might be required to be sacred and inviolable, and might have been secured by means, all but impossible to defeat, The Letters differ exceedingly, not only in merit but in

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