60 



NOTES AND QUERIES. 



[20'JS. N055., Jan. 17. '67. 



in that Arabick Lecture he hath served those remote 

 Eastern parts of the world, upon which account (at the 

 desire of the Kev. Master Wheelock, now with God), he 

 was at the charge of printing the Persian Gospels, and 

 transmitting them into those parts ; yea, by these waj's 

 he endeavoured to serve the Lord Christ, promoting the 

 Christian religion, and (to use his own language) throw- 

 incf a stone at the forehead of Mahomet, that grand im- 

 postor." Among Baker's MSS. in the British Museum 

 (Harl. MS. 7041.) are twenty-six letters from Sir Thomas 

 Adams to Abraham Wheelock ; three of which have been 

 printed bv the Camden Society in Original Letters of 

 Eminent Literary Men, edited by Sir Henry Ellis. We 

 have given an extended notice of this worthy patron of 

 literature, as we find his name is omitted in the biography 

 of Knight's English Ci/clopadia, the last " Dictionary of 

 Universal Knowledge."] 



Huntingdon Earldom. — In the reign of Ed- 

 ward I., the descendants of the three daughters of 

 David, Earl of Huntingdon, claimed the crown of 

 Scotland, Whence did this earl derive his title ? 

 Was it from the shire of that name in England? 

 and if so, why ? Or is there a Huntingdon in 

 Scotland? G. R. B. 



Boston, Mass. 



[This earldom is connected with the English countj^ 

 and from the year 1068 to 1237 more or less appertained 

 to the crown of Scotland. Waltheof, son of Siward, hav- 

 ing married Judith, William the Conqueror's niece, was 

 made by that monarch Earl of Huntingdon. The earl- 

 dom was successively conferred on Simon de St. Liz, and 

 David, Prince (afterwards king) of Scotland, who married 

 Maud or Matilda, daughter of Waltheof. The earldom 

 and estates thereof continued in the royal family of Scot- 

 land, until seized by the kings of England in the wars 

 occasioned by the contests of the Bruce and Baliol families 

 for the crown of Scotland. In 1337, the earldom was con- 

 ferred by Edward HI. on William Baron Clinton, and 

 after passing through various families was conferred, 

 Dec. 8, 1529, by Henry VIH. on George, third Baron 

 Hastings. See, for further information. The Historic 

 Peerage of England, lately published by Murray.] 



Boohs and Bookselling. — When did James 

 Lackington, the bookseller, die, and what became 

 of his celebrated business ? Are there any works 

 written upon the bookselling trade, more particu- 

 larly as relates to old and second-hand books ? 



J. R. 



[Mr. James Lackington died at Budleigh Sulterton, in 

 Devonshire, Nov. 22, 1815 ; leaving Mr. George Lacking- 

 ton, his nephew, at the head of the firm, Lackington, 

 Allen, and Harding, at the Temple of the Muses. For 

 information respecting second-hand books our correspond- 

 ent had better consult Lowndes's Bibliographer'' s 3Ianual; 

 Goodhugh's Library Manual; and Dibdin's Library Com- 

 panion,^ 



JEsthetic, JEsthetical. — When, and by whom, 

 and on what occasion, was this word first intro- 

 duced ? Geokge. 



[Richardson, in his Supplement, has the following re- 

 marks on this word: "Esthetic, Gr. aXtretiriKo^, that 

 can or may feel (aio-flov-to-flai) — which is contradistin- 

 guished by Greek philosophers from NorjTiitbs, that can or 

 may understand; as the ra voTjra — things perceptible to 

 the understanding — are by mathematicians from ra <fX<rOy)To. 



— sensible things. And thus the usage of this neotei'ic by 

 Alex. Baumgarten, who gave the title of yEsthetica to a 

 work published by him at Frankfort in 1750-58, is, ety- 

 mologically, of doubtful propriety ; yet it is established 

 in this and other countries as well as in Germany. Its 

 opposite An-^sthetic, that can or may destroy sensi- 

 bility — (sc. during surgical operations) — is of very 

 recent introduction."] 



Curliana. — In a list of Curll's publications, 1718, 

 is 2'Ae Earl of Mar Marrd, a Tragico- comical 

 Farce, by Mr. Philips. 



This is not noticed in the Biographia Drama- 

 tica. Was Mr. Philips a real person, or a phan- 

 tom to pass for Ambrose Philips ? H. 



[There were three farces published by Curll with the 

 name of John Phillips : 1. The Earl 'of Mar Marr'd, 



1715. 2. The Pretender's Flight, or a Mock Coronation, 



1716. 3. The Inquisition, 1717. Giles Jacobs speaks of 

 the author as a young gentleman living in 1719, without 

 any hint that the name was fictitious. Mr. Chetwood 

 states, that the author received a handsome present from 

 the government, in consideration of the first two. But 

 the compiler of Whincop's List of Dramatic Poets, p. 276., 

 seems to surmise that this name of Phillips was not a 

 real, but only an assumed one ; and Curll, in an adver- 

 tisement to Taverner's play of T/ie Maid the Mistress, 

 12mo., 1732, ascribes them to Dr. Sewell. " But on what 

 ground this supposition and assertion are built," says 

 Baker, in his Biog. Dramatica, " I know not, as I can see 

 no reason why an author, who only wrote in contempt of 

 an unjustifiable rebellion, and in ridicule of the professed 

 or detected enemies of a just and an amiable monarch, 

 should either be afraid or ashamed of as openly declaring 

 his name as his opinions." Here is clearly some mystifi- 

 cation by Curll.] 



THE SENSE OF PKE-EXISTENCE. 



(2°'' S. ii. 517.) 



The curious problem in mental psychology, 

 which Sir Walter Scott, in the extract given by 

 F., designates as " the sense of pre-existence," I 

 can venture to confirm, not only from my own 

 experience, but from the recorded testimony of a 

 number of eminent persons, some portion of which 

 (as this appears to be an interesting subject of 

 speculation) I subjoin. 



The earliest distinct mention of this singular 

 mental affection that I am acquainted with, is 

 that by Sir Walter himself, in one of the most 

 charming of his prose fictions, where the hero of 

 the story, unconscio^^of his name and lineage, 

 revisiting his own anwRral mansion, after an ab- 

 sence from childhood, exclaims : 



" Why is it, that some scenes awaken thoughts which 

 belong, as it were, to dreams of early and shadowy recol- 

 lection, such as my old Bramin Moonshie would have as- 

 cribed to a state of previous existence? . . . How 

 often do we find ourselves in society which we have never 

 before met, and yet feel impressed with a mysterious and 

 ill-defined consciousness, that neither the scene, the 

 speakers, nor the subject, are entirely new ; nay, feel as if 



