April 10. 1852.] 



NOTES AND QUERIES. 



351 



1051., which the Prince Regent immediately for- 

 warded. 



I once found Bowyer drawing at a table, a wig 

 placed on a stick before him, and he was taking 

 the likeness of a very old friend, who was dead and 

 gone, from memory. In this attempt he entirely 

 succeeded, even to the surprise of all who knew 

 the deceased. 



About ten years ago a little book, called 

 Henry VIII. and his Contemporaries, by B. Bens- 

 ley, contained, concerning the earlier impressions 

 of the Bible, the following note : — 



" I trust to be pardoned for introducing a little anec- 

 dote relative to the Bible, exactly three hundred years 

 after the period about which I am writing, that is not 

 the less appropriate for being likewise illustrative of 

 episcopal shrewdness. [The text is recording an instance 

 of the then Bishop of London being bitten in an ar- 

 rangement with a bookseller.] The most splendid 

 Bible ever issued was that published by Macklin, 

 printed by my late father, and the execution of which, 

 even his son may say, would alone hand down his 

 name to posterity. Bouyer, publisher of another great 

 national work — the folio edition of Hume's History of 

 England, also a splendid specimen of my father's typo- 

 graphy — had a copy of Macklin's Bible, which he 

 employed his leisure during many years to illustrate, 

 having the best opportunities, from his pursuits as an 

 artist, publisher of prints, &c. On the completion of 

 his labours, he valued the massy product, consisting of 

 an immense number of prints, at 25001. ; and, after 

 unsuccessful efforts to procure a purchaser, he put it 

 up to be raffled for, issuing proposals to the nobility 

 and gentry, &c. Among others, an aged bishop sent his 

 name as a subscriber to this kind of lottery, and shortly 

 after called at the rooms in Pall Mall to pay the two 

 guineas ; but, before he did so, he drew Mr. Bowyer 

 apart, and gravely told him he could not quite make 

 out how, by paying that sum, he could ensure posses- 

 sion of the great work. Upon its being explained to 

 his lordship, that he could only take a chance with 

 1249 others, he expressed surprise and vexation, and 

 declined to pay two guineas for the chance, which he 

 then, probably, saw was objectionable in a moral point 

 of view, as a species of gambling ! The parties are all 

 long since dead." 



B. B. 

 Pembroke. 



aicplic^ to j^tiior ^ntxitS. 



Exeter Controversy (Vol. v., p. 126.). — Your 

 correspondent A. N. will find, probably, that the 

 *' Exeter Controversy," to which Gilford alludes, 

 was lliat between John Agate, of St. Mary Arches 

 Church, in Exeter, and John Withers, a Presby- 

 terian. The controversy commenced in 1707, and 

 was carried on with great violence till 1715. 

 The tracts are numerous, but many very scarce. 

 Agate's chief tract was entitled Plain Truth, and 

 is in three parts, Exon, 1708. Withers replied in 



a work of three parts also : Truth Try'd, or Mr. 

 Agate's pretended Plain 2'ruth proved an Untruth, 

 Exon, 1708-9-10. This of course called forth a 

 rejoinder, and so on. Although carried on with 

 great personalities, the controversy shows consi- 

 derable ability on both sides. I possess almost all 

 the tracts, and shall be happy to send a list to 

 A. N., if required. Withers, Trosse, and Pierce 

 are all well-known Dissenting names in the history 

 of Exeter at the beginning of last century, whea 

 that city was the stronghold of Arianism. 



RiCHAED Hooper. 



Coleridge's ''Friend" (Vol. v., p. 297.).— The 

 passage quoted by your correspondent J. M. can 

 refer to one man only, viz. Thomas Wedg^wood. 

 His introduction to that gentleman, and his brother . ' 

 Josiah, is related by Cottle. (^Recollections of Cole- 

 ridge, 1837, vol. i. p. 305.) Coleridge might well 

 call the former his "munificent co-patron;" for 

 we learn from Cottle that these brothers, soon after 

 making the poet's acquaintance, settled upon him 

 1501. per annum, in order to prevent him sinking 

 the man of letters in the Unitarian minister. 

 Cottle adds : 



" Mr. C. was oppressed with grateful emotions to 

 these his liberal benefactors. He always spok«, in par- 

 ticular, of the late Mr. Thomas Wedgewood as being 

 one of the best talkers, and as possessing one of the 

 acutest minds of any man he had known." 



The following details, which J. M. will not find 

 in any book, may be interesting to him : — 

 Joseph Wedgawood, the illustrious potter, lived 

 at JEtruria, in Staffordshire ; for such was the ap- 

 propriate name of the house he built for himself. 

 He had six children, — three sons, John, Thomas, 

 and Josiah; and three daughters, Sarah, Catherine, 

 and ***=*. John married a Miss Allen (one of 

 four Devonshire lasses), who was accounted one of ^/ 

 the most accomplished and excellent ladies in the 

 county. Joshua married another of the sisters. 

 Thomas never married. He was indisposed, both 

 from ill health and taste, towards the pottery busi- 

 ness, and took to philosophy. He was endowed 

 with a rare genius, and enjoyed the society of the 

 first literati of his day. But he died while he was 

 still a man of promise. 



Of his sisters, Sarah was an accomplished lady 

 with a strong intellect, which captivated Basil 

 Montagu, without reciprocity. Catherine was a 

 first-rate horse-woman. The third daughter mar- ^^ 

 ried the celebrated Dr. Darwin, of Shrewsbury. 

 All of them, I believe, are dead. 



C. Mansfield Inglebt. 



Birmingham. 



Praying to the Devil (Vol. v., p. 273.). — Bishop 

 Hall, in his Cases of Conscience (Decade iii. Case 2. 

 Lond. 1654), alludes to the fact of Satanic com- 

 pacts, as indeed do many others of our old divines. 



