2«d s. Vli. June 25. '69.] 



NOTES AND QUERIES. 



509 



LONDON, SATURDAY, JUNE 25. 1859. 



No 182.— CONTENTS. 



KoTEs ! - l^age 



Biahop Burnet's Residence in Clerkenwell, by W. J. Pinks - 509 



Book Notes and Inncriptions, by O. L. Chambers, &c. - - 510 



Late Duke of Wellington's Correspondence, by W.J.Fitz-Patrick 511 



MiNOH Ndtfs ; — Curious Comment on the "Camel and the 

 Needle's Eye" — Fetter Lane — Voters called Smokers — Long 

 Incumbency — Old Father Thames - - - - - 512 



QUERTRS : — 



Queries respecting Robert Nelson, by Rev. C. F. Secretan - 512 



Are there any Shakspeare 1\ISS. in Sussex? by W. Sawyer, &c. - 513 



Minor Queriks : _ Dr. Bliss's Athenae Oxon. — .ilex. Gordon — 

 Mence or Mense Family — Fresco Painting in Westminster 

 Abbey — Old ChapelinDonnybrook Parish Church, &c. - - 514 



Minor Qcphies with Answers : — Catalogue of Lords who have 

 compounded — Lateen Sails— Grist-Mills— Works on Geome- 

 trical Drawing - - - - - - - -516 



Rrpiies:- 



" Sans-Culottes," by Dr. Doran - - - - - 517 



Kniu'hts created by Oliver Cromwell, by Dr. Doran - - 518 



Sir Thomas Rowe, by C. J. Robinson. &c. - - - - 518 



TutenaE : Tooth and Eg?, by Sir J. E. Tennent, &c. - - 519 



The Billad of Sir Andrew Barton, by Rev. Thomas Boys, &o. - 620 



AbbreviatedNamesof Towns, by John Gough Nichols - - 521 



RKruEs TO Minor QoERiBsi—Darknessat Mid-day — Parliamen- 

 tary Representation— The Tin Trade of Antiquity— Two Brothers 

 of the same Christian Name — Cockade, &o. - - - 522 



Monthly Feuilleton on French Books - - - - 526 



BISHOP BUBNET's residence IN CLERKENWELL. 



The original mansion of Dr. Gilbert Burnet, 

 Bishop of Salisbury, is still standing, and the house 

 (now divided) forms Nos. 43. and 44. St. John's 

 Square, Clerkenwell. Five or six years before his 

 death, as we learn from the memoirs of this eminent 

 prelate written by his son, Burnet, tired of the 

 political strife of opposing factions, and desiring 

 to be more abstracted from the world, as well as 

 to avoid those formal visits fronl a host of syco- 

 phants to which a man in his high position was 

 particularly subject, sought retirement by set- 

 tling in " St. John's Court ; " i. e. " Square," then 

 a spacious pleasant place (Hatton, 1708). Here, 

 on the west side, he lived in a state of domestic 

 tranquillity, employing his pen on the third volume 

 of his History of the Reformation, in writing the 

 History of his Own Time, and on one or two of his 

 minor productions. He now maintained an inter- 

 course only with his more intimate friends, such 

 as the Duke and Duchess of Marlborough, the 

 Duke of Newcastle, the Dukes of Montrose and 

 Roxburgh ; Earls Godulphin, Cowper, and Hali- 

 fax ; Lord Somers, Lord Townshend, Lord King, 

 Lord Chief Justice Eyre, and the Master of the 

 Rolls, Sir Joseph Jekyll, — truly noble associates 

 for a man of genius and refinement.* 



The celebrated Ralf)h Thoresby of Leeds once 

 paid him a visit in Clerkenwell, and has recorded 

 in his Diary that on the 4th June, 1712, he 



"Walked to St. John's, beyond Smithfield, to visit 



* On Sunday evenings Burnet usual^' had a lecture 

 here upon some select jassage of Scripture, to which many 

 persons of distinction resorted, though at fir.'it it Avas in- 

 tended only for the spiritual comfort of his family. 



the learned and pious Bishop of Sarum, who entertained 

 me affectionatelj' and agreeably, but had a melancholy 

 prospect of public affairs. The Lord direct therein ! " 



Early in the year 1710, Burnet's peace was 

 disturbed by a riotous mob, the partisans of Dr. 

 Sacheverell, — 



" A bold insolent man," says Burnet, " with a very small 

 measure of religion, virtue, or good sense, [who had made 

 himself popular by his railings at dissenters and low 

 churchmen]. The word upon which all shouted was The 

 Church and Dr. Sacheverell, and such as joined not in the 

 shout were insulted and knocked down before my own 

 doors: one with a spade deft the skull of another who 

 would not shout as he did. There happened to be a 

 meeting-house * near me, out of which they drew every- 

 thing that was in it, and burned it before the door of the 

 house. They threatened (continued Burnet) to do the 

 like execution on my house, but the noise of the riot 

 coming to court, orders were sent to the guards to go 

 about and disperse the multitudes, and secure the public 

 peace, and as the guards advanced . the people ran 

 away." f 



Two years after this emeute the venerable pre- 

 late lay stretched upon a bed of sickness : his 

 friend Dr. Cheyne attended him ; and in the last 

 extremity, Sir Hans Sloane and Dr. Mead were 

 sent for ; but their skilful efforts to avert his 

 destiny were unavailing ; he succumbed to the 

 malady from which he was suffering, a pleuritic 

 fever, and expired on the 17th March, 1715, in the 

 73rd year of his age. 



On the night of the 22nd his remains were 

 buried near the communion-table in the old 

 church of St. James's, Clerkenw.ell, to which, 

 says a journal of the time (^The Old Whig), he 

 was carried in a hearse attended by mourning 

 coaches from his house in St. John's Square. As 

 the corpse was being conveyed to church the rab- 

 ble flung dirt and stones at the hearse, and broke 

 the glasses of the coach that immediately fol- 

 lowed it. 



Some time after Burnet's removal from St. 

 John's Square by death, the mansion he occupied 

 became the residence of the eminent Dr. Towers % 

 of political celebrity, who, for a new edition of 

 the Biographia Britannica, edited by Dr. Kippis, 

 compiled upwards of fifty articles, to which his 

 initial " T." is appended. He died in this house 

 on the 23rd May, 1799, in the 63rd year of his 

 age. The old mansion has undergone many 

 changes since the bishop and his family were its 

 occupants. Its forecourt, now a waste, was then 

 adorned with trees and shrubs ; and what was 

 formerly an imposing entrance portico is now a 

 mean open-bricked passage through the house 

 leading to Ledbury Place, a double row of small 

 tenements built upon what was the bishop's gar- 



* Aylesbury Chapel, then a Presbyterian meeting-house, 

 now St. John's Church. 



•f Burnet's Hist, of his Own Time, ed. 1822, vol. v. p. 

 430. 



J Brayley's Londinianu. 



