468 



NOTES AND QUERIES. 



[Dec. 15. 1855. 



estate of 3001. a year was to pay 301. for his poll- 

 tax ; and if he had no such estate, he was to be 

 " charged 20s. in respect of his title." If this 

 mode of taxation had continued, Query, Should 

 we have had so many gentlemen as we have now ? 



Henbt Walter. 



" THE CHRISTIAN CONVERT." 



In a Note anent book-burning (Vol. x., p. 525.) 

 I inquired for the author of this work, who has 

 embellished it with his very remarkable portrait, 

 but without success. 



Continuing my own desultory delvings over the 

 extensive field of forgotten English literature, I 

 have turned up the illustrious oiscure, who styles 

 himself in this, and some other books of a kindred 

 class, " Theophilus Philantrophus," and now beg to 

 present him to your readers as Robert Poole, M.D., 

 who must have been well known in the middle of 

 the last century for his religious eccentricities. 



Poole first presents himself to us in his own 

 name, as the author of two thick volumes, entitled 

 Travels through France and Holland, or the Tra- 

 veller s Vade-Mecum, printed in 1742, in double 

 columns, octavo, and full of incongruities. The 

 object of the author seems to have been profes- 

 sional in this journey, and he does not spare his 

 readers medical details. At Paris, he uplifts his 

 diploma, and the dreamy Poole drifts into intermin- 

 able theological musings, from which the reader's 

 attention is recalled by an entire lecture upon mid- 

 wifeiy, remarkable to non-medicals only for its 

 technicalities. Again, the author heads his chap- 

 ters with atmospherical notations, and occasionally 

 an abstract of the London bills of mortality — 

 n'importe whether he is writing from London, 

 Paris, or Antwerp ! — and gets up a pretty 

 quarrel with the British chaplain at Paris for 

 withholding the sacrament from him, on the 

 ground that the usual period for administering it 

 had not arrived ; the doctor, in the fervency of 

 his spiritual cravings, maintaining that nothing 

 but the Primitive Christian's practice of commu- 

 nicating daily would satisfy him. Another, and 

 perhaps a more interesting book of Dr. Poole's, is 

 the Benejicient Bee, 1753, which details occur- 

 rences during the author's voyage from London 

 to the West Indian islands, abounding in much 

 curious matter, but interlaced, in his peculiar way, 

 with an undue amount of spiritual application. 

 Dr. P. may have belonged to the staff of St. 

 Thomas's Hospital, and published, at least, one 

 medical book — A Physicians Vade-Mecum, con- 

 taining an account of that establishment. As a 

 religious enthusiast, the doctor laboured in the 

 field with his " dear friend, Mr. Whitfield," and 

 his peculiar views are set forth in the following 

 books, bearing his " aZi«5 Theophilus Philantro- 



No. 320.] 



pos : " The Christian Convert ; The Christian 

 Muse ; A Token of Christian Love ; Seraphic 

 Love ; and A Friendly Caution ; — these, he says, 

 being designed solely for the " honour of God 

 and the publick good, are offered for the price of 

 the binding, say 3^d. each, for a neatly stitch'd 

 book with a beautiful frontispiece." I may here 

 add that, besides the picture of the " Seraphic Pool 

 in the Odour of Sanctity," which forms the subject 

 of said frontispiece, there is a fine portrait of him 

 in the Journey, representing a most agreeable- 

 looking person, set. thirty-five, in 1743, not, I 

 think, noticed by Granger. By the conclusion of 

 the Bee, we are left in doubt whether the author 

 recovered from a serious fever which attacked 

 him in one of the West India islands, wliich doubt 

 is augmented by " the reader " being told, among 

 other things of the author, that 



" As he had nothing so much at heart as the good of 

 mankind, so he never esteemed himself so happy as 

 when he could render them any assistance. In short, the 

 present and eternal happiness of his fellow- creatures was 

 his principal concern ; and he spent his fortune, his 

 health, nay, even his life, in order to promote it." 



The inference from this is, that the work was 

 posthumous, in which case, Dr. Poole deceased 

 prematurely. J. O. 



ifflinnr liotesf. 



Weeping Image. — The following anecdote of 

 Peter the Great, narrated by Mr. Staehlin, on 

 the authority of M. Cormidon, Intendant of the 

 Court, in his Original Anecdotes, &c., may interest 

 some of your readers, throwing light as it doea 

 upon the character and skill of the Czar, and the 

 events of our own days. A report had become 

 prevalent that an image of the Virgin Mary, in a 

 church in the then new city of St. Petersburgh, 

 had been seen to shed tears — an announcement 

 which, spread abroad, doubtless, by the political 

 opponents of the Czar's reforms, occasioned no 

 little dismay among the Russians, as it seemed to 

 be an intimation of^ the displeasure of the Blessed 

 Mother at their choice of a site for the new city. 

 Peter determined to investigate the mystery, and 

 for that purpose had the image taken down from 

 its place in the church and brought to him at his 

 palace. By a careful scrutiny of all parts of the 

 image, which was entirely covered with paint and 

 a very thick varnish — 



" He soon found some very small holes in the corners 

 of the eyes, which the shade produced by the hollow 

 that terminated them rendered almost imperceptible. He 

 turned the image round, took away the upper part of the 

 frame, stripped off with his own hands the second cloth 

 that covered it behind, and then discovering the source of 

 the image's fallacious tears, enjoyed the pleasure of seeing 

 his suspicions realised. There was a little cavity near the 

 eyes hollowed out in the plank, still containing several 



