TO SYLVANUS URBAN, GENT. ON COMPLETING THE FIRST PART OF HIS XCth VOLUME. Monarchs should from their envied greatness flee, To live in Fame, SYLVANUS, great as thee. But Jove forbids, and I the task forbear; A grateful task, which greater well might share, His deathless pages must record his praise, Himself alone must his own trophies raise; Yet not alone, fair Science and her train Of lesser Aits, or equals of her reign, With pride shail own SYLVANUS' fostring hand, And bid to latest time his memory stand. Methinks, thro' ages yet to come, I see Admiring Genii bend green minds to thee; Each virgin Muse lead on, with hand un 154807 JAS. GRIMES. PREFACE. We have once more to thank our Readers for the encouragement which we continue to receive, and to congratulate them and ourselves, under reasonable hopes of improving Times: and, if the prompt operation of Law has suppressed the danger of turbulent spirits, Literature has had labours of great difficulty, in the check which it has been obliged to oppose to restless innovations, founded upon the most controvertible principles. Persons who are somewhat elevated beyond the vulgar, by moderate education and accomplishment, are often desirous of distinguishing themselves; and commence Authors, not with the view of instruction or public benefit, but for reputation only. Each one has a favourite topick, a professional view of every subject; and public institutions are to veer, like weathercocks, in order to be suited to the plans of this or that Pamphleteer or Projector. Tell them that their plans are serious infringements of the Wisdom of Experience; and affect both person and property; that there is a science, attached to business, not to be acquired, but by habituation and practice; and that, if they themselves were put into the situations, which they represent as the most fit and proper, and obliged to act upon the ideas which they suggest as the only perfect ones, they would find them impracticable; and that if, as one man has an equal right with another to attention, they were permitted to occupy the time of our public men, persons intentionally or unintentionally dangerous, would acquire unmerited consequence; add, that as nine pamphlets out of ten are written from private motives, to please a party, religious or political, or to gain a name ; and that every one has a right, if he so pleases, to refuse reading or hearing them, yet nothing will appease them short of a dictatorship over the minds of mankind. Now it is of infinite importance to the interests of Society, that there should be Periodical Journals of the form of our own, were it only in this view, of acting as Clerks of the Market, to prevent the Literary Public Stomach from being seriously injured by eating unwholesome food. The high utility of such Journals may be illustrated by an apposite instance. Not many years ago some of our leading Reviews were in the hands of able, but prejudiced Sectaries, who were in the habits of viewing all subjects in their own partial light; but, since the establishment of the great Quarterly Journals, every subject of any moment to the Publick is sure to be most elaborately discussed, in a proper scientific techni cal form, by men of rank in life, and high acquisitions, who are above dependance on their professional situations; and the result is, that they abhor and check rash and foolish innovations, while they place real and safe improvements in a luminous view, and warmly recommend them. Things of this very high character can only be executed by persons resident in large cities, and who can have access, upon particular subjects, to documents, not of a general kind; nor will many of our best Scholars, who have large works in hand, sacrifice the time and labour (as it is very considerable) which is required for such elaborate essays. But they are many of them equally capable, and most of them equally patriotic in the promotion of public good, and prevention of public mischief, to whom, the open form of such Journals as our own, is favourable for the promulgation of their valuable opinions; and thus many a huge and alarming project, which undetected might even harass the Senate, is discovered and exploded by exposure only to the Publick, in the most fair and impartial manner. Factions are founded upon private interests; and therefore have in reality no claim upon Legislation, which, in first principles, implies rejection of every topick for consideration, which has not a bearing upon the good of the whole. Nor would it be possible by means of the Parliamentary Debates, mere Quarterly Reviews, or Newspapers, unaided by the Monthly Journals, to have a full and complete view of the different and multifarious subjects which are of import to the Publick, in relation especially to various sciences and professions; for it is the plan of these Tribunals to notice nothing, to which a previous public interest has not been attached. Upon grounds then of Literary Utility, we have ventured thus to " plead our cause, and to say more would be improper. We have only spoken in vindication of our plan, that of discussing public questions, or matters of utility, and preserving valuable matters of very perishing structure. June 30, 1820. MINOR CORRESPONDENCE. The Rev. Egerton Leigh, Archdeacon of Salop, and Rector of Upton on Severn, died at Bath in 1760. The dates of his preferments, his epitaph, and any biographical notices, would much oblige N. S. PHILOGLUPHIST laments that in our public buildings some of the columns, enrichments, &c. seem to be injudiciously introduced; not from appearing beautiful in an architectural drawing of the elevation, but from the objects when finished (by the best artists), being commonly seen from the ground or pavement, by which they appear too much foreshortened and imperfect. This remark may apply to Statuary in many instances, - the female figures in the Cupola of the Bank Rotunda, the pillars in the New Reduced Office, &c. S. R. H. S. suggests, "that in the opinion of some very intelligent friends; several of the Life-boats throughout Eng land are at present very much neglected, and unless some effort be made at several of our ports, the advantages of that admirable invention will be lost!"-We hope this is not very general. E. remarks, in reference to a passage in our last Volume, p. 304, that the earliest mention of a windmill he has met with, is the grant from Odo de Dammartin to the Priory of Tanrigge, Surrey. This is supposed to be about the time of Richard I. i. e. between 1189 and 1199. One is mentioned in Walton on the Hill, Surrey, 25 Edw. I. 1295. A CORRESPONDENT says, "In your Obituary, vol. LXXXIX. ii. p. 378, you style the Rev. K. Davis late Rector of St. Saviour's, Southwark. That church never was a rectory. The two officiating Clergymen are styled Chaplains. If the deceased ever officiated there, it must have been as Curate, as he certainly was not a Chaplain. The present respectable gentlémen of the church, the Rev. W. Mann and Dr. Harrison, have filled these stations for several years past." W. P. communicates the following fact relative to the cure of cancers: "A lady in years above 50, of a very full habit, yet ever moderate in diet, and of a mild quiet disposition, married, and only once a mother, was about 20 months ago considered by superior surgical opinion, affected in the breasts with incurable cancer. -She is now perfectly well,-the enlargement gone, and her natural cheerfulness seen again in every feature. The remedy has been a decoction of Dandelion Root: it is very bitter, and was taken in such quantity as the stomach would bear: the roots were not scraped." F. I. would be glad to learn "what became of the daughters of Lucy, second daughter of John Knyvett of Norwich, esq. by her two husbands Thomas Holt and John Field: by the first she had Elizabeth- Anne, and by the second Lucy, and Catherine.-Did any of them marry, or leave issue?" A. Z. observes, "I find it stated in your Obituary for Dec. 1814, that the first Lord Coleraine purchased the estates of Driffield and Kemsford, co. Gloucester. This is a mistake. In Bigland's. Gloucester is the following mention : John or George D'Oungier, or Honger, a merchant in London, purchased the manerial estate (of Dreffield), extending over the whole parish, of Sir John Pretyman of Lodington, in the reign of Charles the First, in 1651.' Sir R. Atkyns says, in his Hist. of Gloucester, p. 212, 'There is an Inscription in the Church (of Dreffield) for John Honger of London, merchant, who died 1654; another for George Henger in 1688; the burial of John Honger in 1654, is the first entry of the name of Honger in the Dreffield Register. The present Lord thereof (the manor of Dreffield) is Sir Seorge Honger, &c. He was High Sheriff for Gloucestershire in 1693 or 1695, and Justice of the Peace in the time of Queen Anne.' It is probable that John and George Honger, both being Turkey merchants, purchased this estate jointly; and the death of John happening so soon after, may have occasioned the doubt whether John or George was the purchaser." - G. C. B. asks, - "Have all persons crests and mottos; and if they have, can they change them to any other without giving notice, or receiving a grant from the Heralds' College ?-What family of the Chesworths bore per pale Gu. and Ar. a pale engrailed (another plain) Or,' and what crest and motto did they bear? -In history we frequently read of illegitimate children assuming their father's name; though more frequently their mother's,-can they assume either?" Mr. T. Wilberforce is evidently, from his query, no adept in judicial astrology. We are obliged to Mr. GRIMES for his communication, which came too late to be used in the place intended. It shall be reserved for some future opportunity. A Memoir of the late Mr. Richard Miles, the eminent numismatic Antiquary, in our next; with Mr. Trevelyan's Poem on the Ten Commandments, &e. &c. |
