Notes and Queries, Number 189, June 11, 1853 | Page 6

Freeholders of the county of Middlesex, signed
Atticus, in our next. The Printer thinks it his duty to acquaint his
readers that this letter is not by the same hand as some letters in this
paper a little time since, under the signature Atticus."--Pub. Ad., March
19, 1769.
The printer took the like course when writers attempted to "impose
upon the public" by using the signatures Lucius and C., and then freely
inserted their letters; but when the same trick was tried with Junius, the
printer did not scruple to alter the signature, or reject the contribution

as spurious.
The genuine Letters of Atticus have had a narrow escape lately of being
laughed out of their celebrity by writers in some of our most
respectable periodicals. The authenticity of these letters up to the 19th
October, 1768, is now fully established. The undecided question of the
authorship of Junius requires that every statement should be carefully
examined, and (as far as possible) only well-authenticated facts be
admitted as evidence in future.
WILLIAM CRAMP.
* * * * *
Minor Notes.
Irish Bishops as English Suffragans.--In compliance with the
suggestion of J. M. D. in your last volume, p. 385., I abridge from The
Record of March 17th the following particulars:
"At a recent meeting of the Archæolgical Society the Rev. W. Gunner
stated that from a research among the archives of the bishops and of the
college of Winchester, he had found that many Irish bishops, during the
fourteenth and fifteenth centuries, were merely titular bishops, bearing
the titles of sees in Ireland, while they acted as suffragans to bishops in
England. A Bishop of Achonry, for instance, appeared to have been
frequently deputed by William of Wykeham to consecrate churches,
and to perform other episcopal duties, in his diocese; and the Bishops
of Achonry seemed frequently to have been suffragans of those of
Winchester. No see exhibits more instances of this expatriation than
Dromore, lying as it did in an unsettled and tumultuous country.
Richard Messing, who succeeded to Dromore bishopric in 1408, was
suffragan to the Archbishop of York; and so died at {570} York within
a year after his appointment. His successor John became a suffragan to
the Archbishop of Canterbury, and died such in 1420. Thomas Scrope,
a divine from Leicestershire, was appointed by the Pope to this see in
1430: he could not live in peace with the Irish, and therefore became
vicar-general to the Bishop of Norwich. Thomas Radcliffe, his

successor, never lived in Ireland: 'the profits of his see did not extend to
30l. sterling, and for its extreme poverty it is void and desolate, and
almost extincted, in so much as none will own the same, or abide
therein.' Dr. Radcliffe was therefore obliged to become a suffragan to
the Bishop of Durham. William, who followed him in the Dromore
succession in 1500, lived in York, and was suffragan to its archbishop;
and it would seem his successors were also suffragans in England, until
the plantation of Ulster improved the circumstances of that province."
AN OXFORD B. C. L.
Pope and Buchanan.--I beg to suggest as a Query, whether Pope did
not borrow the opening of his Essay on Man from that of the second
book of Buchanan's Latin poem De Sphærâ. Let us compare them.
Buchanan:
"Jam mihi Timoleon, animo majora capaci Concipe; nec terras semper
mirare jacentes; Excute degeneres circum mortalia curas, Et mecum
ingentes coeli spatiare per auras."
Pope:
"Awake, my St. John, leave all meaner things To low ambition and the
pride of kings; Let us, since life can little more supply Than just to look
about us and to die, Expatiate free o'er all this scene of man."
I do not remember the comparison to have been made before.
WM. EWART.
University Club.
Scarce MSS. in the British Museum.--In Cotton MSS., Titus, B 1., will
be found a curious and valuable collection of papers entitled
"Cromwell's Remembrances." These comprise:
1. A period from about the death of Anne Boleyn to his attainder.

2. They are very miscellaneous, consisting of memoranda of subjects
for conference with the king. Notices of persons to be remembered for
offices. Sale of lands. Diplomacy, and various other particulars. Notes
relative to the dissolution of monasteries; their riches, revenues, and
pensions to abbots, &c. The reception of Anne Cleves, and the
alteration of the royal household thereupon. Privy council and
parliamentary notes. Foreign alliances. Scotch and Irish affairs,
consequent on the dissolution of abbeys, &c.
These curious materials for history are in the rough and confused state
in which they were left by their author, and, to render them available,
would require an index to the whole.
The "Remembrances" are in some degree illustrated by Harl. MS. 604.,
which is a very curious volume of monastic