July 28. 1855.] 



NOTES AND QUERIES. 



63 



period from 1758 to 1800; and can they furnish 

 any information for the period since 1800, either 

 ■with respect to the writers, or the political cha- 

 racter of the history ? 



A bibliographical account of Dodsley's Annual 

 Hegisler, and of other periodical works of the same 

 character, may be seen in the Penny Cyclopcedia, 

 art. Annuai. Kegisteb. L. 



THE DESTEUCTION OP THE EXCHEQUER RECORDS. 



I observe in Mr. Rawdon Brown's very in- 

 teresting and well-edited Selection of Venetian 

 Despatches in the Reign of Henry VIII. the fol- 

 lowing important note : 



"The carelessness with which our national records 

 have been kept is a subject of deep mortification to the 

 antiquarian. In the year 1838, no less than eight tons 

 weight of curious documents were sold by the then 

 Chancellor of the Exchequer to Mr. Jay, a fishmonger, 

 at the price of 8Z. per ton. Many of these have since been 

 purchased at high prices by the British Museum, and by 

 the government itself." 



Reference is added to Mr. Rodd's Narrative, 

 1855. This I have never seen ; but I know that 

 Mr. Rodd, an excellent judge of books and MSS., 

 rescued many of these rejected treasures from 

 destruction. What I want to know from one of 

 your correspondents is this : Who was this wise 

 Chancellor of the Exchequer ? His name deserves 

 immortality in a work devoted to the preservation 

 of curiosities. At the time when a penny-wise 

 economy allowed the destruction of so many irre- 

 coverable papers for the paltry consideration of 

 64?., a pound-foolish prodigality was expending 

 upwards of 200,000?. for Blue Books, of which 

 more than half are only fit for the grocer and the 

 fishmonger, and of which two-thirds are never 

 read. E. C. H. 



[The sale of Exchequer Records took place in 1838 

 under the following circumstances : 



The attention of Sir John Newport, Comptroller of 

 the Exchequer, was first directed to the documents in 

 question in 1835, and in 1836 they were inspected by 

 Mr. Devon. Upon his report a communication was 

 made to the Treasury by Sir J. Newport, and dir*:tions 

 were given to have them examined ; the examination was 

 entrusted to Mr. Bulley, chief clerk, and to Messrs. Wood- 

 fall and Barrett, clerks in the ofiice of the Comptroller 

 of the Exchequer. Mr. Bulley commenced his examin- 

 ation in the early part of 1838, and " having applied for 

 authority to destroy certain books and papers (the books 

 being purely of account, and appearing to be of no interest 

 or value at the present time ; and the papers, including the 

 warrants of which the books of entry on record are re- 

 tained, being equally valueless)," the documents were 

 sold under an authority from the Treasury to destroy 

 " mere memoranda, or papers of which entries have been 

 been made of record in the books of the Exchequer or 

 the Treasury." 



The Committee of the House of Lords, appointed in 

 1840 to inquire into the subject, observe that many papers 

 of great interest and value were preserved by Mr." Bulley. 



No. 300.] 



and add that " the manner in* which the selection was 

 conducted would lead them to believe that the loss has 

 not been extensive ; " and though the British Museum 

 had purchased some, " it does not appear that any of very 

 great consequence had been recovered in that quarter." 



Sir J. Newport was Comptroller of the Exchequer 

 until succeeded by Lord Monteagle in Sept. 1839. 



Our correspondent has been misinformed as to the 

 sums paid annually for parliamentary printing ; the largest 

 amount for any one year since 1844 is 127,000/., for the 

 year 1848-49 ; but for this year the estimate for printing 

 and stationer}" for the United Kingdom and Colonies was 

 302,362?., which apparently has been erroneously at- 

 tributed to parliamentary printing alone.] 



THE ALCHEMIC TERM "TINCTURE." 



In the Introduction to Theosophy (or Guide to 

 the Mystical Philosophy of Jacob JBohmen, adver- 

 tised in "N. & Q.," Vol.xi., p. 517.), I find re- 

 peated mention made of the word tincture, in con- 

 nexion with the doctrine of Regeneration. And 

 in the work referred to, p. 491. of the same 

 treatise, I also find the word in familiar use ; as, 

 for instance, in the following quotation, which is a 

 postscript of a letter of the date of the year 1742, 

 from the celebrated William Law to the philo- 

 sopher and physician Dr. Cheyne, in answer to his 

 inquiry for the grounds of Mr. Law's published 

 averment, that Newton merely worked with 

 Bohmen's demonstrations and principles, in bring- 

 ing forth his celebrated discoveries : 



" JVom the authority above (writes Mr. Law) I can 

 assure you that Sir Isaac was formerly so deep in J. B., 

 that he, together with one Dr. Newton, his relative, set 

 up furnaces [this was before the discovery of electricity, 

 which is largely treated of in the same treatise, pp. 405 — 

 420.], and for several months were in quest of the tincture, 



purely from what they conceived from him 



No one, from Bohmen, can know anything of the tincture, 

 or the means or possibility of coming at it, without 

 knowing and believing, as 13ohmen does, the ground of 

 universal attraction," 



I also observe, in looking into the published 

 writings of Bohmen, and the MSS. of Freher 

 (British Museum, Add. MSS. 5767—93.), fre- 

 quent use of the same word, but in various modi- 

 fications ; as a pure and holy tincture, a defied and 

 false tincture, an earthly tincture, &c. ; from which 

 I have inferred the word tincture in its highest 

 sense to mean the power or virtue of supernatural 

 light, that is, of the Deity ; which is said by 

 Bohmen to be couched in all living things accord- 

 ing to their kind and degree in the scale of 

 creation, as their most secret essence, and consti- 

 tuting their medicinal, &c. properties ; but espe- 

 cially manifest in the metals and in man. And 

 farther, he asserts, that the tincture, though super- 

 natural and invisible, is yet subject to the mani- 

 pulation of man, provided he be a divi?ie artist, or 

 magus ; that is, be so renewed in the spirit of his 

 mind, or regenerated, that he is become endowed 



