by analytics, and so much of algebra as teaches to draw consequences and detect parallogisms and fallacies, which were the true use of logic, and which you give hopes our universities are now designing. To this I would add the improvement of the more ornate and graceful manner of speaking upon occasion. The fruit of such an education would not only grace and furnish the bar with excellent lawyers, but the nation with able persons fit for any honourable employment, to serve and speak in Parliaments and in councils; give us good magistrates and justices for reference at home in the country; able ambassadors and orators abroad; in a word, qualified patriots and pillars of state, in which this age does not, I fear, abound. In the meantime what preference may be given to our constitutions I dare not determine; but as I believe ethics and the civil law were the natural mother of all good laws, so I have been told that the best lawyers of England were heretofore wont to mix their studies together with them, but which are at present so rarely cultivated, that those who pass forsooth for great sages and oracles therein are not only shamefully defective, but even in the feudal and our own. You are speaking, Sir, of records, but who are they among this multitude even of the coif, who either study or vouchsafe to defile their fingers with any dust, save what is yellow? or know anything of records save what, upon occasion, they lap out of Sir Edward Coke's basin, and some few others? The thirst of gain takes up their whole man like our English painters, who, greedy of getting present money for their work, seldom arrive at any farther excellency in the art than face-painting, and have no skill in perspective, symmetry, the principles of design, or dare undertake to paint history. Upon all these considerations, then, I cannot but presage the great advantage your excellent book, and such an history, may produce, when our young gentlemen shall ripen their studies by those excellent methods. At least there will not likely appear such swarms and regions of obstreperous lawyers as yearly emerge out of our London seminaries, omnium doctorum indoctissimum genus (for the most part) as Erasmus truly styles them. Concerning the Paper Office, I wish those instruments and state arcana had been as faithfully and constantly transmitted to that useful magazine as they ought; but though Sir Joseph Williamson took pains to reduce things into some order, so miserably had they been neglected and rifled during the Rebellion, that, at the Restoration of Charles II., such were the defects, that they were as far to seek for precedents, authentic and original treaties, negotiations, and other transactions formerly made with. foreign states and princes, despatches and instructions to ambassadors, as if there had never before been any correspondence abroad. How that office stands at present I know not; but this I do know, that the abundance of those despatches and papers you mention, and which ought to centre there, have been carried away both by the secretaries of state themselves (when either dismissed or dying, and by ambassadors and other ministers when recalled) into the country, and left to their heirs as honourable marks of their ancestors' employments. Of this sort I had formerly divers considerable bundles concerning transactions of state during the ministry of the great Earl of Leicester, all the reign of Queen Elizabeth, containing divers original letters from the Queen herself, from Mary Queen of Scots, Charles IX. and Henry IV. of France, Maximilian the second Emperor, Duke of Norfolk, James Stewart, Regent of Scotland, Marquis of Montrose, Sir William Throckmorton, Randolfe, Sir Francis Walsingham (whom you mention), Secretary Cecil, Mr. Barnaby, Sir J. Hawkins, Drake, Fenton, Matthew Parker, Archbishop of Canterbury, Edwin, Bishop of London, the Bishop of Winchester, Bishop Hooper, &c. From abroad-Tremelius and other Protestant Divines; Parquiou, Spinola, Ubaldino, and other commanders, with divers Italian princes. And of ladies-the Lady Mary Grey, Cecilia, Princess of Sweden, Ann, Countess of Oldenburgh, the Duchess of Somerset, and a world more. But what most of all, and still afflicts me, those letters and the Queen of Scots, originals and written with her own hand to Queen Elizabeth and Earl of Leicester, before and during her imprisonment, which I furnished to Dr. Burnet (now Bishop of Salisbury), some of which being printed in his "History of the Reformation," those, and others with them, are pretended to have been lost at the press, papers of which has been a quarrel between me and his lordship, who lays the fault on Chiswell,* but so as between them I have lost the originals, which had now been safe records as you will find in that history. The rest I have named I lent to his countryman, the late Duke of Lauderdale, who, honouring me with his presence in the country, and after dinner discoursing of a Maitland (ancestor of his) of whom I had several letters impaqueted with many others, desired I would trust him with them for a few days: it is now more than a few years past, that, being put off from time to time, till the death of his Grace, when his library was selling, my letters and papers could no where be found or recovered; so as by this treachery my collection being broken, I bestowed the remainder on a worthy and curious friend † of mine, who is not likely to trust a S-- with any thing he values. But, Sir, I quite tire you with a rhapsody of impertinencies, beg your pardon, and remain, &c. Among the errata of the Numismata, but of which I immediately gave an account in the Philosophical Transactions, the following were thus to have been read: p. 22. 1. n. 22-mixted as well as obrized ‡ sort, in the margin; for such a metal is mentioned by Aldus (of Valentinian) with CONOв which he reads,-Constantinopoli Obrizatum, belonging, he says, to Count Landus: vide Aldus Manut. Notar: Exp'ta, p. 802. Venet. c1.1.XCI. and p. 51. 1. q. r. Etiminius: Spanheim indeed is suspicious of this medal, but I was unwilling to degrade our metropolis of the honour. P. 202, in margin, r. Regulbium (with innumerable more). SIR, I know not whether Sir Jo. Hoskins, Sir R. Southwell, Mr. Waller, and Dr. Harwood (who is concerned in what I have said of Taille Douce), and the rest (on whom I have obtruded books), would have the patience of Mr. Hill, to read my letter, when you meet at the learned Coffee-Club, after they are gone from Gresham. * Bishop Burnet's printer or publisher. Qu. Mr. Pepys ? "Obryzum signifies gold of the most exalted purity." J. E. The Reverend Joshua Walker to John Evelyn. HONOURED SIR, Great Billing, near Northampton, 7th Feb. 1700-1. I give you many thanks for your kind letter. Your acceptance of those few papers I sent you has encouraged me to send more. I desired a neighbour of mine who has had great experience in setting willows, to give me an account of his way of setting them, and also of his way of planting and fencing quickset-hedges. I have here sent you his papers; here is also a table, a great part of which I heretofore collected for my own use; if I had had more books of planting, I might have added more to it. I think it would be a considerable benefit to the inhabitants of champaign countries in England, where timber, fuel, fruit, and shelter are much wanting, if a statute were made, giving leave that any one who has land worth five pounds, and in common fields, may, if he please, inclose part of it not exceeding one rood; and he that has four cows'-gates upon any common, may likewise inclose not exceeding one rood, or what quantity the parliament shall think fit; and so proportionably for more, provided he plant those enclosed parts all over with wood, and likewise giving leave to enclose some proportions for the planting of fruit-trees, as you suggest in your Pomona, p. 358. Probably more trees would be planted without any damage to any one, if commoners had leave by statute to plant trees upon the waste for their own use as well as Lords of Manors, a due proportion being allotted to each of them. I think you would do a very good work if you would be pleased to use your interest to procure such a statute. Many Members of Parliament would sooner hearken to you than to any other person in matters of this nature, being sensible how much good you have done to this nation. That it would please Almighty God to bless you with long life and happiness, and reward you for the great pains you have taken for the benefit of your country, is the prayer of, Sir, Your most obliged humble servant, Archdeacon Nicolson to John Evelyn. HONOURED SIR, March 25th, 1701. It has long been my custom to clear accounts (as far as I am able) with all my creditors on the first day of every new year. Where I am non-solvent I make an honest acknowledgment, and that is my case with you. Give me leave therefore to make this return of my humble thanks for the kind letter I had from you last week; and to let you know that (since you are pleased to invite me to it) I am very ready to run farther on the score with you. Your MS. life of S. Cuthbert is, I perceive, the legend written by R. Hegge, who was Fellow of Corpus Christi where that treatise was deposited. There is indeed a very faulty copy of it printed, and I have often endeavoured to procure a transcript from the author's original, but in vain. You generously offer this, and my brother will wait on you for it, and convey it to me. If I live to publish my history of the Saxon Northumberland, I shall pay a grateful respect to my benefactor. I am troubled to hear of Mr. Pepys's indisposition. I heartily wish his recovery and the continuance of his restored health. When I was a servant to Mr. Secretary Williamson (above twenty years ago), I often waited upon him at his house at Westminster; but I was then, as I still am, too inconsiderable to be remembered by him. Besides an account of the author (if known) of his MS. life of Mary Queen of Scots, I very much desire to know whether there be any very valuable matters, relating to the history of Scotland, amongst Sir R. Maitland's collections of Scotch Poems. I observe that in the same volume with Balfour's Pratiques (or reports as we call them), he has a manuscript of the old Sea-Law of Scotland. I would beg to be informed whether this last treatise be not the same with the Leges Portuum; which, though quoted by Sir John Skene under that Latin title, is written in the Scotch language, and is only a list of the customs of goods imported and exported. If I may (through your kind intercession) have the favour of transcribing anything for |