Notes and Queries | Page 5

these Tracts were written by the excellent Author (whom he makes to be one and the same person) at severall times, as y'e exigence of the Church, and the benefit of soules directed y'r composures; and that he (the Author) did likewise publish them apart, in the same order as they were made. The last, it seems (w'ch is _The Lively Oracles_), came out in 1678, the very year Dr. Woodhead died. Had the Author liv'd longer, we should have had his Tract _Of the Government of the Thoughts_, a work he had undertaken; and certainly (as Bp. Fell hath told us), had this work been finished, 'twould have equall'd, if not excelled, whatever that inimitable hand had formerly wrote. Withall it may be observ'd, that the Author of these Tracts speaks of the great Pestilence, and of the great Fire of London, both w'ch happen'd after the Restoration, whereas Bp. Chappell died in 1649. And further, in sect. vii. of the _Lively Oracles_, n. 2., are these words, w'ch I think cannot agree to Bp. Chappell [and less to Mr. Woodhead]. _I would not be hasty in charging Idolatry upon the Church of Rome, or all in her Communion; but that their Image-Worship is a most futall snare, in w'ch vast numbers of unhappy Souls are taken, no Man can doubt, who hath with any Regard travailed in Popish Countries: I myself, and thousands of others, whom the late troubles, or other occasions, sent abroad, are, and have been witnesses thereof_. {293} These words seem to have been spoke by one that had been at Rome, and was forced into those Countries after the troubles broke out here. But as for Chappell, he never was at Rome, nor in any of those Countries.
"As for Archbp. Stern, no Man will believe him to have any just Title to any of these Tracts. [The last Passage concerning idolatry, will not agree with Mr. Woodhead, nor the rest with Lady Packington.]
"In a letter from Mr. Hearne, dat. Oxon, Mar. 27, 1733, said by Dr. Clavering, Bp. of Petr. to be wrote by one Mr. Basket, a Clergyman of Worcestershire. See Dr. Hamond's Letters published by Mr. Peck, et ultra Qu?re."
On so disputed a point as the authorship of the _Whole Duty of Man_, your readers will probably welcome any discussion by one so competent to form an opinion in such matters as Hearne.
The letter above given was unknown to the editor of Mr. Pickering's edition.
J.E.B. MAYOR.
Marlborough College.
[Footnote 2: The printed copy has Trinity College.]
* * * * *
MISTAKE ABOUT GEORGE WITHER.
In Campbell's Notices of the British Poets (edit. 1848 p. 234.) is the following, passage from the short memoir of George Wither:--
"He was even afraid of being put to some mechanical trade, when he contrived to get to London, and with great simplicity had proposed to try his fortune at court. To his astonishment, however, he found that it was necessary to flatter in order to be a courtier. To show his independence, he therefore wrote his _Abuses Whipt and Stript_, and, instead of rising at court, was committed for some months to the Marshalsea."
The author adds a note to this passage, to which Mr. Peter Cunningham (the editor of the edition to which I refer) appends the remark inclosed between brackets:--
"He was imprisoned for his _Abuses Whipt and Stript_; yet this could not have been his first offence, as an allusion is made to a former accusation. [It was for The Scourge (1615) that his first known imprisonment took place.]"
I cannot discover upon any authority sufficient ground for Mr. Campbell's note resecting a former accusation against Wither. He was undoubtedly imprisoned for his _Abuses Whipt and Stript_, which first appeared in print in 1613, but I do not think an earlier offence can be proved against him. It has been supposed, upon the authority of a passage in the _Warning Piece to London_, that the first edition of this curious work appeared in 1611; but I am inclined to think that the lines,--
"In sixteen hundred ten and one, I notice took of public crimes,"
refers to the period at which the "Satirical Essays" were composed. Mr. Willmott, however (_Lives of the Sacred Poets_, p. 72.), thinks that they point to an earlier publication. But it is not likely that Wither would so soon again have committed himself by the publication of the Abuses in 1613, if he had suffered for his "liberty of speech" so shortly before.
Mr. Cunningham's addition to Mr. Campbell's note is incorrect. The Scourge is part of the Abuses Whipt and Stript printed in 1613 (a copy of which is now before me), to which it forms a postscript. Wood, who had never seen it, speaks of it as a separate publication; but Mr. Willmott has corrected this error,