Sept. 29. 1855.] 



NOTES AND QUERIES. 



255 



their departure late ; a friend having seen a 

 cuckoo on Sept. 5, 1855. E. G. E.. 



Hixtory of the Post Office (Vol. xii., p. 185,). — 

 The best book on this subject is the First Annual 

 Report, signed by Lord Canning and Mr. Rowland 

 Hill, issued by Eyre & Spottiswoode in February, 

 1855, 102 octavo pages. There is a long extract 

 from this work in iny Official Guide to the Book 

 Post, and Newspaper Act and Orders, I believe it 

 is not generally known, that a continuous and 

 perfect series of documents in reference to the 

 origin of postal communication, and its progress 

 and development down to the present time, exists 

 in. the cellars under the General Post Office. It 

 is a most luminous and valuable collection of his- 

 torical, statistical, and official documents ; and, I 

 doubt not, would be accessible on proper appli- 

 cation to Mr. Rowland Hill. James Gilbert. 



49. Paternoster Row. 



" The Life of David'' (Vol. xii., p. 204.).— 

 The writer of this Note does not wish to be known, 

 but you may rely on the accuracy of his informa- 

 tion. 



Mb. Bates inquires about the author of the 

 book entitled The History of the Man after God's 

 own Heart. He will find an account of the book 

 in Nichols's Literary Anecdotes (vol. viii. p. 227.). 

 Mr. Godwin, in a letter to Mr. Hutchins, dated 

 Jan., 1762, says that the impudent pamphlet is 

 supposed to have been written by Dodwell. That 

 is a mistake. The real author was Archibald 

 Campbell, eldest son of Dr. Archibald Campbell, 

 professor of Church History at St. Andrews. The 

 same Archibald Campbell published in the same 

 year (1762) a letter to the Kev. Dr. Chandler, 

 from the writer of T'he History of the Man after 

 God's own Heart. He was also the author of Lexi- 

 phanes, a book written in ridicule of Dr. Johnson, 

 and of some other light, or rather very immoral 

 productions. His father's history was a singular 

 one. He was not considered in his own country an 

 orthodox writer ; but an English divine obtained 

 much credit from a work which he stole word for 

 word from Dr. Campbell. S. T. P. 



Edinburgh. 



'■'■ Hermippus Redivivus" {ante). — In a copy of 

 this work, which I picked up the other day at a 

 book-stall, is the following MS. note: 



" The person whom Dr. Campbell, the author of the 

 following work, meant to represent under the character of 

 Hermippus Redivivus was Mr. Calverley, a celebrated 

 dancing master, whose sister for many years kept a well- 

 known school in Queen's Square, London, where likewise 

 he himself lived. There is now a picture of him in the 

 dancing school there, drawn at the great age of ninetv- 

 one, May 28th, 1784." & & j 



On the title-page in the same hand — 

 " By John Campbell, LL.D." 



J. K. 

 No, 309.] 



Grants from Queen Elizabeth (Vol. xii., p. 185.). 

 — The grant in question will be certainly found at 

 the Record Office, Carlton Ride, or the Tower. 



L. B. L. 



NOTES ON BOOKS, ETC. 



The Camden Society has just issued The Roll of the 

 Household Expenses of Richard de Swinfield, Bishop of 

 Hereford, during part of the Years 1289 and 1290 ; Ab' 

 stract. Illustrations, Glossarij, and Index, edited by the 

 Rev. John Webb, INI.A.S. When the Roll itself was issued, 

 we felt that no adequate opinion of the real value of this 

 publication could be formed until its completion. That 

 has now been accomplished; and many a reader, who, 

 unpractised in the almost hieroglyphical mysteries of an 

 ancient abbreviated Roll, turned from the original text 

 with a mingled feeling of wonder and disappointment, 

 will, we are sure, upon reading the amusing and instruc- 

 tive abstract which now sees the light, not on\j thank 

 the Camden Council for the publication of the original 

 documents, but feel grateful to Mr. Webb for showing the 

 importance and value of the Roll; for extracting so much 

 amusement and instruction from a record apparenth' so 

 obscure and insigniiicant, so much sterling metal lYom 

 what at first seemed biit a mass of dull useless earth. 

 Mr. Webb is a scholar, and a ripe one ; his reading is 

 various and extensive, and using the entries of the record 

 as pegs for much agreeable illustration, he has given us a 

 picture of the daily life of the prelate, his clerks, his 

 squires, and the retinue of his household — as quaint, 

 minute, and brilliant as an illuminated miniature. In 

 conclusion, we must express a hope that Mr. Webb will soon 

 furnish the Camden Society, and the antiquarian world, 

 with some fresh specimen of his skill as a careful, con- 

 scientious, and accomplished editor. 



Lord Londesborough has accepted the Presidentship of 

 the Middlesex Archjeological Society. Whether we re- 

 gard Lord Londesborougli as a nobleman who has paid 

 much attention to the subject of our national antiquities, 

 as a judicious and liberal collector of them, or look to his 

 experience as President of the Numismatic Society, &c., 

 his acceptance of this oflSce argues well for the Society, 

 which seems, indeed, to be in favour with antiquaries and 

 journalists. Our cotemporarj'. The Athenmim, has well 

 pointed out the specialities in the metropolitan county 

 which is to find work for this new offshoot of the old 

 Society at Somerset House. " For example," says The 

 Athenceum, " there is the Tower. Of all the monuments 

 of past times in England, the Tower of London is first in 

 interest. Indeed, it has no competitor. Its story is the 

 history of England — a history of its court and of its 

 people, of its best men and most beautiful women — of its 

 wars, its pageants, its insurrections, its conquests, its 

 reverses — of its manners, its arts, its arms, its laws, its 

 religion, almost of its literature. Every room in the 

 Tower is a record, every stone is monumental. Yet in 

 our own day parts of this precious edifice have been dug 

 up, thrown down, carted away, and rebuilt — walls have 

 been scraped and inscriptions removed by ignorant men, 

 without a word of protest, so far as we kiiow, from these 

 learned bodies. Care of the Tower would alone justify 

 the establishment of a Middlesex Archaeological Society. 

 Then, there are — Brentford, a world in itself for the an- 

 tiquary — Crosby Hall — the old prisons — Westminster 

 Abbey — Old London Bridge — Old Change — Old St. 

 Paul's — St. John's Gate — The Charterhouse — and a 

 hundred others equally curious and important, most of 



