the public would have gained had he quietly followed his wine-bibbing instead of publishing the mischievous trash before us. But should not the reverend gentleman who saved our author from the bottle have carried his instructions a little further? Should he not have explained to him that he belonged to another temperance society which he entered by baptism? That the rules of this society extend beyond the mere regulation of the appetites, and teach that those things which proceed from man defile him? Truly, the reverend gentleman performed but a small part of his duty, and left his disciple a striking proof, if any were wanting, of the absurdity of the theory of some of the extreme teetotallers, that the pledge is the panacea for all moral disease and infirmity. We do not think it necessary to apologise for devoting so large a space to a book which belongs to a class which it is generally better to pass by in silence. The name of Barnum has struck the public ear, the book is published in the cheapest form, and will probably be read by thousands. will no doubt speedily be forgotten, but we fear that the great doctrines of Mr. Barnum's faith, that cheating is smartness, that lies are innocent figures of speech, and that a great number of It transactions to which harsher names might be applied at the Old Bailey are to be classed under the easy name of Humbug, will remain on the minds of many when the practical jokes and wonderful stories of Mr. Barnum's friends, and his own vapid attempts at wit, are forgotten. The man who is the subject of a biography becomes a hero worthy of imitation to the unthinking vulgar, though that book be little more than a forestalling of those recitals which are generally kept for a last dying speech and confession. To others success is the criterion of merit. We would suggest to these a cause for such success in the words of Lord Bacon, who says, "that mixture of falsehood in man's nature is like alloy in coin of gold and silver, which may make the metal work the better, but it embaseth it." In conclusion, we must express our regret that this book has appeared in the cheap literature of the day. These publications are engines of enormous force for good or evil; they have great influence on the public mind of the present day, and may be expected to go far towards forming the opinions of a great part of the rising generation. Such books as the present "trouble the silver spring where England drinks," and are equally disgraceful to the author and publisher. LETTER OF SARAH DUCHESS OF MARLBOROUGH. WE are enabled to present our readers with a curious and very characteristic epistle of Sarah Duchess of Marlborough, hitherto we believe unpublished. It relates to her town residence in Pall Mall, still known as Marlborough House. That mansion had been erected in the years 1709 and 1710, upon a site in close proximity to the palace of St. James's. We have her Grace's own assertion in the letter before us * Mr. Cunningham, in his Hand-Book of London, has quoted a Treasury Docquet of the 10th June, 1709, as showing that Marlborough House was built on ground which had been previously used for keeping the royal pheasants, &c. and on a garden which had belonged to Mr. Secretary Boyle; and Mr. Timbs, in his recent "Curiosities of London," repeats this statement, with others evidently copied from Mr. Cunningham's book. But on consulting the document in question we find that its import was somewhat mistaken by Mr. Cunningham. The house was not built on the site of the Pheasantry, which had been granted for the purpose in Oct. 1708, but which was in fact surrendered to the Crown in June 1709; when the Duchess of Marlborough's trustees, in consideration of the sum of 2,000l. paid to the trustees of her late Majesty Queen Catharine, for their surrender of a lease, and of a covenant on their own part to lay out 8,000/. in new buildings, received a fresh grant of "All that house, yards, gardens, curtilages, ground, and buildings, and other the premises, which were demised by the late King Charles the Second in trust for Queen Catharine," to hold for the term of fifty years, at the old rent of 5s. yearly; and at the same time a grant of "that March 17th. SONNET ON THE OBITUARY. (FOR THE GENTLEMAN'S MAGAZINE.) THESE are the thrillings of the mind's repose- Or bounding freely from the guiding arms, Widely around there still hath been bereaving Here shew, as passing now before the eye, C. V. L. G. CORRESPONDENCE OF SYLVANUS URBAN. Comments on the Biography of Jeremy Taylor-The Complutensian Polyglot-The Stanley Memorial Window in Norwich Cathedral-House Drainage in Early Domestic Architecture-Memorial Buffetings; Norman Privilege of Retractation, and Character for Uncertainty; Custom of Smiting a Jew at Easter-Touthill, or Totehill, Tothill Fields-Mile End; Huscarl's Manor at Stepney and Mile End-St. Armill's Chapel, Westminster. COMMENTS ON THE BIOGRAPHY OF JEREMY TAYLOR. MR. URBAN,-In the following pages I purpose to offer some comments upon a portion of the elaborate biography of Jeremy Taylor written by Bishop Heber, and lately re-edited by the Rev. C. Page Eden. The life as well as the writings of Taylor must be of interest to all lovers of English literature. Not only are we glad to meet with any notices of him during the troublous years in which he wrote the greater number of his works, but we are also curious to learn something more than is generally known of his manner of life during his early days at school and college, in which the foundations of his future greatness must have been laid. And if we cannot see him as a school-boy and an undergraduate, we shall not deem it lost time to learn only the dates of the turning points in his life. That Jeremy Taylor was born in Cambridge, that he was at school and at college there, are facts well known; but as to the date of his birth and the time he passed within the walls of Caius College, his biographers are not agreed. Bishop Heber speaks with hesitation, and his recent editor has added very little to our information on these points. For the little we have learnt since Heber wrote we are indebted to the elegant biography by Mr. Willmott, which is quoted by Mr. Eden, and which had been enriched from sources of information supplied by Mr. Smart Hughes's research -sources to which the latest editor appears not to have resorted. 1. Bishop Heber, in the Life by him (p. xi. Ed. Eden, 1854), states that "Jeremy, third son of Nathaniel and Mary Taylor, was born in Trinity parish, Cambridge, and baptised on the 15th of August, 1613." In what parish he was born will be doubtful till it can be determined in which of two houses his father and mother lived at the time. According to tradition (and on such a point tradition may be worthy of trust), he was born in the house which is now the Wrestlers' Inn, though this does not stand in Trinity parish, but in St. Andrew's. But, not to spend time and space upon discussing this question, In the Rev. J. J. Smith's Cambridge Portfolio, 4to. 1840, is an interesting article on the Old Houses, and particularly the old Inns, of Cambridge, written by the Editor. we may make one of two suppositions, either that Jeremy Taylor was born in the Wrestlers' Inn, and baptised in the neighbouring church, where his grandfather had been warden and his parents were married, and that at a subsequent period before 1621 his parents moved to Trinity parish, occupying the house which was the Black Bear (not the Bull, as the biographers have it), and in which, perhaps, his grandfather Edmond Taylor had resided; or we may suppose that he was born in the parish in the church of which he was baptised, and that some years afterwards: (after 1621) his parents went to live in the house now the Wrestlers' Inn, and that after Jeremy had become famous people began to point out the house in which his parents had dwelt and died as the place of his birth. However this question may be settled, we must pass on to one of more personal interest, and this is the date of Jeremy's birth. 2. Towards the determination of this question there exist : I. The documentary evidence of his baptism in the register of Trinity parish, which is given correctly in note (A) to Heber's biography. From this we learn that he was baptised on 15th August, 1613, his brother Nathaniel having been baptised on 8th December, 1611, and his brother Thomas on 21st July, 1616. II. The no less authentic document of his admission to Gonville and Caius col lege, which is given correctly in a note on pp. 3, 4 of Bonney's Life.† 46 This document is not to be confounded, as it has been by Heber (p. xiv.) with the memorandum inserted on a page of the Annales Collegii. The volume containing Caius' Annals," with the continuations of William Moore and others, is quite different from the "Admission Book," or, as it is commonly called, the " Matriculation Book," which has been continued regularly by the successive registrars of the college to the present day. The memorandum in the Annals may be inaccurate in another of its statements; but the evidence of Jeremy Taylor's age does not rest upon such a document, for it is the formal and authentic entry in the admission book that we have now to consider. In this entry it is stated that he was admitted 18th August, 1626, anno ætatis suæ 15°;" that is, he was fourteen years old, but not fifteen. According to this statement, the date of his birth will be after 18th Aug. 1611, and before 18th Aug. 1612: hence, at his baptism (15th Aug. 1613), he may have been a year old, or nearly two. This statement well agrees with the suggestion given by Mr. Eden in his note (h) to p. xiii. Bishop. Heber, supposing him to have been baptised shortly after his birth, goes on to state that-" At three years of age, Jeremy Taylor is said to have been sent to the grammar school then The Wrestlers' Inn stands in the street called the Petty Cury, and was built in 1634. The street front has fallen a victim to the modern taste for plain brick and mortar : but the adjoining house is still one of the most interesting examples of domestic architecture in Cambridge,"If the observer penetrate beyond the surface, in the Inn Yard he might imagine himself living in another age of building. Here he beholds portions advanced like oriels, and rising aloft, having the whole breadth of each face occupied by windows, and terminating in pediments which are either surmounted with minarets of wood carved in some fantastic shape, or support, at the vertical angle, pendants of similar character. On another side a gallery runs between the basement and upper story, into which all the rooms of this floor open, The front is intersected by beams, and presents a surface of plaister worked in a hexagonal ́pattern. Between these timber studs the bricks, when first they were brought into use, were laid obliquely, as may be seen in this and a few other cases in Cambridge and the neighbourhood. The undefended staircase invites the curious to investigate the internal distribution of this antiquated structure; but there is nothing within to gratify his expectation.". The spirited etching of The Wrestlers' Inn which we have now the pleasure to present to our readers, was made by a very talented young artist, the late Mr. John Barak Swaine, from his own drawing: and, whether the tradition that Jeremy Taylor was born within its walls be well founded or not, we consider it will be acceptable as a specimen of the ancient architecture of Cambridge. EDIT. *But he does not note that "Postea Episc. D." is in another hand, an omission which might allow the inference that the entry was of a date long subsequent to that of the admission. GENT. MAG. VOL. XLIII. 3 C |