her begett a sonn. Thomas educated his sonn; at sixteen years he went into the warrs, and neer did return for five years. His mother was married to a Knight, and bare a daughter, then sixteen, who was seen and lov'd by Thomas, son of Thomas, and married to him unknown to her mother, by Ralph de Mesching, of the minister, who invited, as custom was, two of his brothers, Thomas de Blunderville and John Heschamme. Thomas, nevertheless, had not seen his son for five years, kennd him instauntly, and learning the name of the bryde, toke him a syde and disclosd to him that he was his sonn, and was weded to his own sister.-Young Thomas toke on so that he was shorne."

Common fame may satisfy common minds; and a little sufficeth him who is content to trust to posterity for the posthumous gift. Horace Walpole thought otherwise, and ambition laboured for immediate exaltation. What way so easy as by the parsimonious distribution of a poem, the injunctions of secrecy, and the favourable whisper of friends? Or to disappoint the half-excited curiosity of the public by pertinaciously suppressing even two specimens of this "first-rate curiosity," selected for its amusement. "The sensibility of the author, (says Mr. Reed), would be wounded by such an exhibition." O, what a mockery is here! This man, or let truth speak, automaton of sensibility, is to stand extolled and admired, while industriously undermining the public opinion by such little arts! and which were also adopted in the publishing of the Castle of Otranto. Nay, at the very period he was practising this vanity of authorship, this trick to evade criticism,

we are to believe his cold frigid conduct was justifiable in not countenancing, what? Why, a similar piece of chicanery attempted by his superior in genius; I mean the forgeries of that unprincipled boy, CHATTERTON!-

If the length of this article requires apology, the best I can offer is the fact. It was to prove by investigation, that however the copies of this fatal Tale may not stand altogether upon fabulous origin, yet, in the variations to excite public notice, they are all branches of one stem.

J. H.

BIOGRAPHICAL NOTICES.

ART. DCCCLXXIX. LORD BACON.

SIR HENRY WOTTON has, in "Reliquiæ Wottonianæ," assigned one of the poems to Francis Lord Bacon, upon what authority I know not. O. G. G.

ART. DGCCLXXX. HENRY WOTTON.

I HAVE in my possession an uncommonly scarce volume with the following quaint title: "A Courtlie controversie of Cupid's Cautels, containing five tragicall Historyes by three Gentlemen and two Gentlewomen, translated out of French by Henry Wotton, B. L. Impr. by John Caldock and Henry Bynneman, 1578: in which are many "songes,' some of them by no means inelegant for the time when they were written: I will transcribe part of one as a specimen.

What hard mishap doth hamper youth,
When cursed Cupid list to frown;
And yet he will not credite truth

Till hard mishap doth throw him down ;
He hath the power in his distresse
To see what may his smart redresse.

Must hoarie hairs needs make us wise
Discovering naked treason's hooke?
Whose glittering hue by sleight devise,
Doth make them blind that thereon looke,
And till into the trap they slide,
Believe that reason is their guide.

Pa. 127.

Of this book, by the bye, I think Herbert had but an imperfect knowledge, and perhaps adopted the title from Bagfield's MS. Bibl. Sloan. In a translation of Cranmer's "Confutation of unwritten verities, &c." b. l. by E. P. without date or printer's name, is a metrical address of "the boke to the reader," of equal value with many similar compositions which mister Ritson has fortunately "retrieved from latent obscurity." O. G. G.

ART. DCCCLXXXI.

THOMAS CAREW.

From Oldys's MS. notes.

"THE first edition of Carew's Poems was in 1640; the second in 1642; the third in 1651. Among Sir Richard Fanshaw's Poems are two of Carew's Sonnets, translated into Latin, Carew's Sonnets were more in request than any poet's of his time; that is, between 1630, and 1640. They were many of them set to music by the two famous

composers, Henry, and William Lawes, and other eminent masters, and sung at court in their masques,

&c.

"He was present at the dispute between Mrs. Crofts and Thomas Killegrew; and perhaps umpire between them. And this is the dispute which was finely painted by Sir Anthony Vandyke, and is now” (continues Oldys) " in the possession of the Prince of Wales. I cannot understand that the Prince is acquainted with the subject of this picture. Mrs. Crofts afterwards married him (qu. Killigrew ?) See Tho. Carew's Poems, 8vo. 1640, p. 135. I think she is not in the picture."

ART. DCCCLXXXII. George Withers' Patent.

"JAMES by the Grace of God, &c. To all and singular Printers and Booksellers, &c. Whereas our well-beloved subject George Withers, Gentleman, by his great industry and diligent study hath gathered and composed a book, intituled "Hymns and Songs of the Church" by him faithfully and briefly translated into lyric verse, which said book being esteemed worthy and profitable to be inserted in convenient manner and in due place into every English Psalm-book, in metre; We give full licence, power, and privilege unto the said George Withers, his executors, to imprint or cause to be imprinted the said book for the term of fifty years. Witness ourself at Westminster, the 17th day of February, Regni 20, Anno 1622."

Rymer's Acta Publica, Tom. XVII. p. 454, cited in Kennett's Register, p. 649.