458 



NOTES AND QUERIES. 



[No. 133. 



These arc the only notices of Sclater which 

 have fallen in my way.* I should remark, that his 

 Original Draught is anonymous. He merely styles 

 biuiself " a Presbyter of the Church of England." 



Of another "William Sclater I find two notices 

 in Miscellanies of Divinitie divided into three Books, 

 hij Edward Kellet, Doctour of Divinitie, and one 

 of the Canons of the Cathedrall Church of Exon, 

 fol. Cambridge, 1635 : 



" Melchisedec was a figure of Christ, and tithes by 

 an everlasting law were due to the priesthood of Mel- 

 chisedec, as is unanswerably proved by my reverend 

 friend (now a blessed saint, Doctor Sclater), against 

 all sacrilegious church-robbers." — 13. i. c. v. p. 83. 



Again : 



" When that man of happy memory, the late right 

 Reverend, now most blessed Saint, Arthur Lake, Lord 

 Bishop of Bath and Wells [from 1616 to 1626], ap- 

 pointed Doctour Sclater (now also a saint in Heaven, 

 then my most loving friend, and sometime fellow- 

 collegian in the two royall colledges at Eaton and 

 Cambridge) with myself to confer with an Anabap- 

 tisticall woman, we heard her determine great Depths 

 of Divinitie as confidently as ever St. Paul did, though 

 lie was taught by Christ himself, and as nimbly as ever 

 an ape crackt nuts," &c. — Ibid. c. viii. p. 151. 



[* We have met with two other accounts of the 

 Chancellor's conversion, both varying in a few particu- 

 lars with the extracts given by our correspondent. 

 Archdeacon Daubeny, in his work on Schism, p. 235., 

 says, " Lord Chancellor King was at one time of his 

 life so determined an advocate for Presbyterianism, and 

 considered himself so perfectly acquainted with the 

 merits of that subject, that he published a book upon 

 it. To this book an answer was written by one Sclater, 

 a clergyman, under the title of A Draught of the Pri- 

 mitive Church, which brought the point at issue within a 

 short compass, and decided it in the most satisfactory 

 manner. This book the author did not live to publish. 

 It happened, however, that the author's manuscript, 

 after his death, came into the hands of the Lord Chan- 

 cellor, who was so perfectly satisfied with its contents, 

 that he published Sclater's maimscript at his own ex- 

 pense, as the strongest proof that could be given to the 

 ■world of the alteration of his own views on the subject 

 in question." The other version occurs in the Gentle- 

 man's Mag. for Oct. 1792, p. 910. : — "There is a cir- 

 cumstance relating to Lord King's book, and Mr. 

 Sclater's answer to it, very little known, but which to 

 me comes vouched with unquestionable authenticity. 

 Before Mr. Sclater's book was published, it was read 

 in manuscript by Lord King himself, it having been 

 seized, among other papers, in the house of Mr. Na- 

 thanael Spinkes, a Nonjuring bishop, and carried to 

 Lord King, then Chancellor, who very politely returned 

 it, confessing that it was a very sufficient confutation 

 of those parts of his book which it undertook to answer; 

 that it was written with equal Christian temper and 

 moderation, and unanswerable strength of argument ; 

 and desiring or consenting that it might be published." 

 —Ed.] 



This Dr. William Sclater, then, was of Eton, 

 and Fellow of King's College ; was author of a 

 work on Tithes; and probably beneficed in the 

 diocese of Bath and Wells during the episcopate 

 of Lake, who preceded Laud in that see. To him 

 also we may probably ascribe The Exposition on 

 the first three Chapters of Bonians, published by a 

 person of this name in 1611. As in 1635 he is 

 spoken of as dead, he could, if connected at all 

 with the author of The Original Draught, hardly 

 have been his father. He may have been his 

 grandfather. 



There is another Sclater, who may have been 

 father of Lord King's opponent, — Dr. Edward 

 Sclater, who in 1686 published Consensus Veterum; 

 or the Reasons for his Conversion to the Catholic 

 Faith. He was incumbent of Esher and of Putney, 

 and, as such, obtained a curious dispensation from 

 all pains, penalties, and forfeitures of non-residence 

 on his benefices, accompanied by a license to keep 

 a school, and to take " boarders, tablers, or so- 

 journers," direct from the king, James II. This 

 document may be found in Gutch's Collectanea 

 Cwn'o^a, No. 36., vol. i. p. 290.; and the concurrence 

 of its date (May 3, 1686) with that of the Reasons 

 for his Conversion is of ominous signiflcancy. In 

 1687 he published another work, entitled The 

 Primitive Fathers no Protestants; to which Edward 

 Gee replied in his Primitive Fathers no Papists, in 

 1688. Several other tracts, addressed by Gee to 

 this convert to the religion of the sovereign, show 

 that there must have been a smart and long-con- 

 tinued controversy between them.* 



Plaving contributed all that I can collect re- 

 specting the Sclaters, I should be obliged to any 

 of your correspondents who may be able to add 

 any further notices, or to show whether they were 

 connected or not as members of the same family. 



Dr. Edward Kellet is mentioned by Wood, in 

 Fasti Oxonienses, anno 1616, as rector of Rag- 

 borough and Croscombe, in Somersetshire. There 

 is no place in Somersetshire of the former name, 

 but there is one which bears the latter. I con- 

 ceive, therefore, this to be a misprint for Bag- 

 borough and Crowcombe, parishes nearly contigu- 

 ous in the western part of the county. 



The Gentleman s Magazine for February 1841 

 contains a notice of a work by Edward Kellet, 

 entitled Triccenium Christi in node proditionis suce : 

 The Threefold Supper of Christ, &c. : folio, Lond. 

 1641. His antipathy to tobacco must have been 

 worthy of that of good King James himself; for, 



[* On the 5th of May, 1689, being Rogation Sun- 

 day, Dr. Edward Sclater made a public recantation of 

 the Romish religion, and was readmitted into the 

 bosom of the English Church, in the chapel at the 

 Savoy. The sermon was preached by Burnet, the 

 newly-consecrated Bishop of Salisbury. (Wood's 

 AthencB, vol. iv. p. 700. (Bliss.) — Ed.] 



