42 



NOTES AND QUERIES. 



C2''<» S. No 55., Jan. 17. '57. 



was then publishing. Warburton says, " It is 

 with the utmost concern I see you write that you 



gave a title. The news of his going into 



orders creates a furious scandal here ; and I be- 

 lieved it false till the receipt of your letter." The 

 manner in which he then alludes to Smith's life 

 and morals may be omitted, as " vulgar phrase- 

 ology." Those who can may explain the reason 

 why Warburton, who had distinctly objected to 



having a title, was mollified (p. 23.) by Stuke- 



ley's explanation that he had refused a testimonial, 

 and only given a title, " a matter that relates only 

 to his support, not at all to his morals," 



The account above quoted is the only allusion 

 to the case of Catherine Barton by a member of 

 her family which has yet been produced ; and it 

 does not tend to encourage the confidence with 

 which the accounts of relations are preferred to 

 those of other persons on questions of fact. But 

 this B. Smith seems to have borne a character 

 through his whole life which is entirely incom- 

 patible with his chief residence for nine years 

 having been Newton's house. His friend the pre- 

 bendary, who touches his general character very 

 lightly, states that he despised the habits and 

 poverty of his parishioners, and called them 

 "baptized brutes;" which they returned by all 

 manner of dislike and disrespect. 



Warbur ton's idea of Newton's occupation is 

 worth a Note. Speaking of the work on Daniel, 

 he says, " I never expected great things in this 



kind from a man who spent all his days 



[nights ?] in looking through a telescope." War- 

 burton ought to have known better; but there 

 are many persons who imagine that Newton was 

 an astronomical observer. 



Since I wrote the above, I have received some 

 information from a friend who in early life knew 

 Mr. W. Sheepshanks. To this friend I did not 

 communicate any suspicion of my own as to the 

 contents of the letters, but merely mentioned the 

 alleged fact of their destruction. The following 

 is an extract : 



" I entirely believe everj' syllable of my early conver- 

 sations with' him [VV. S.]; amongst others the account 

 of the burning of some of Newton's private letters to his 

 nephew, the Rev, Benjamin Smith of Linton, near Skep- 

 ton, in Craven. If you refer to Whitaker's History of 

 Craven, you may possibly see this fact recorded by his 

 own hand, but I do not feel sure of it. I say positively, 



however, that I heard him say he did it The 



Rev. B. Smith was one of the worst specimens of his 

 order, even in those wretclied times. He used to com- 

 plain bitterly to [a connexion of W. S.], that all 



his uncle's influence could do nothing better than thrust 

 him into the tub, where he was gaping for a pair of 

 colours. He led a sad immoral life, and had a grand 

 madam for housekeeper, who dressed in an unheard-of 

 fashion, and spoke a language which the simple villagers 

 did not understand. It was of and concerning this madam 

 and other delinquencies [by the date, it must have been 

 some of the others! that Sir Isaac wrote strong remon- 

 strances ; but Mr. Sheepshanks was one of his idolaters. 



and no doubt believed that such matters were not edify- 

 ing to the public, and that they did no particular credit 

 to the author. He always, in speaking of these letters, 



expressed surprise at their extreme coarseness 



I have heard many anecdotes of him [Smith] from 



[the connexion of W. S. above mentioned], all discredit- 

 able ones." 



It appears, then, that my conjecture was cor- 

 rect, and that Newton could not remonstrate 

 with his nephew, any more than Warburton 

 could describe him, in measured and presentable 

 language. Enough is known of Newton's distaste 

 for coarseness of expression to make it certain that 

 he wrote nothing of the kind without good reason. 



It will of course suggest itself that Smith might 

 have believed the scandal against his cousin, and 

 thought a postponement of her birth the easiest 

 way of defending her memory. Had he been a 

 trustworthy person, and one whose assertion that 

 he almost lived in Newton's house was credible, 

 it would have been very difficult to have sup- 

 posed he really meant what he said, and very dif- 

 ficult to have given any reason for his falsification, 

 except the one here supposed possible. As it is, 

 there is really no sufficient reason to trust his 

 story. If we were even to take for granted as 

 much as that he had seen his cousin, we might 

 possibly be wrong. It may have been the truth 

 that Newton would never see him, and never 

 communicated with him, except by the curious 

 letters which Mr. W. Sheepshanks destroyed. 

 There is nothing positive against this : and all 

 that he tells about Newton is no more than any- 

 one, desiring to have it believed that he knew 

 something of Newton, could have found in print. 

 It may, again, have been the truth, that Newton 

 sometimes invited him, but always when Mrs. 

 Conduitt was out of the way. 



I shall notice some other bearings of the facts 

 here brought forward in another communication. 



A. De Moegan. 



PASSAGE OF HORACE WALPOLE. 



Although Horace Walpole's remains are about 

 to be Illustrated by the able editorship of Mr. 

 Peter Cunningham, I am tempted to call the at- 

 tention of the readers of " N. & Q." to a passage 

 In one of his letters to the Countess of Ossory, the 

 meaning of which is not obvious, and which is not 

 explained by the editor. The passage to which I 

 allude is in a letter of Aug. 4, 1783, written at 

 Stx*awberry Hill : 



"I must tell 3'ou an excellent reply of a person your 

 Ladyship scarce knows, and I not at all. Lord Lewisham 

 lately gave a dinner to a certain electoral prince, who is 

 in England, and at which, a la mode de son pays, they 

 drank very hard. The conversation turned on matri- 

 mony: the foreign altesse said he envied the Dukes of 

 Devon and Rutland, who, though high and mighty princes 

 too, had been at liberty to wed two charming women 



