2«>d s, N9 82., July 25. '67.] 



KOTES AND QUERIES. 



79 



the possessor presumes to mean Mary Queen of Scots, and 

 if so, it is historicallj' valuable for a variety of reasons, 

 chiefly as determining the disputed point of her likeness. 

 This point arose from the confusion engendered by the 

 rage at one period prevalent amongst the French, and 

 subsequently the Scotch ladies, for being painted a la 

 Marie Stuart, — a circumstance that produced so many 

 * originals,' that it is now nearly impossible to tell what 

 Mary Queen of Scots was like. Two authentic portraits 

 alone are pointed out ; one is in the hall of the Douay 

 College in France, and another in possession of that 

 eminent antiquary, Lord James Stuart, at Moray House, 

 Fifeshire. Supposing that when Henry VHI. hanged 

 Nicholas Heath, the last of the priors, high as Haman 

 over the archway of his own abbey at Lenton, the rage of 

 the English Reformation stimulated at the same time the 

 destruction of the monastery, we should be at a loss to ac- 

 count for a coin of his daughter Mary turning up amidst 

 the ruins, her coins bearing, moreover, the double like- 

 nesses of • Philip and Mary.' But long as this English 

 Mary's unfortunate cousin was detained in that vicinity 

 under the husband of Bess of Hardwicke, Countess of Sa- 

 lisbury, it is by no means so improbable that her friends, 

 visitors, or secret supporters, may have had some of her 

 coins in their possession. Blended also as the neigh- 

 bourhood is with associations relating to the Babingtons 

 (whose arms remained in Thoroton's time impaled in a 

 chamber window of an old house at Chilwell), could this 

 coin, it may be inquired, have had any relation to the 

 Babington conspiracy? On that head, as well as on the 

 subject of Mary's veritable profile, we happen to possess a 

 curious electrotyped cast of the forged medal produced 

 against the imprisoned Queen at her trial for participating 

 in Babington's conspiracy. It affects to bear the bastard 

 Latin inscription, Maria Stovvar regi Scoti Angli, 

 with a large bust of Mary, which it is supposed must of 

 necessity have been like, in order to render plausible the 

 forgery which made her thus appear to pretend a right to 

 Elizabeth's throne. The coin is very small, rude, and not 

 intrinsically valuable, being composed of a silver alloy." 



You will see that the i-eason assumed for consi- 

 dering this likeness a good one, was very likely to 

 occasion its exclusion from the recent exhibition ; 

 and I do not in fact know whether it was included 

 in it, not having the catalogue by me. 



Sholto MacDuff. 



JAMES HOWELL AND THE " EPISTOLiE HO-ELIANiE." 



(2»'> S. iv. 10.) 



The following extract, from Lloyd's Bibliotheca 

 Biographia, will, I think, afford satisfaction to 

 some of your correspondents as respects the dates 

 and the most important events in Mr. Howell's 

 life : — 



•♦ Mr. Jas. Howell was bora at Abernant, in Carmar- 

 thenshire, where his father was minister in 1594, After 

 he was educated in grammar learning in the Free School 

 of Hereford, he was sent in 1610 to Jesus College, where 

 he took a degree in Arts. He then travelled for three 

 years into several countries, where he improved himself 

 in various languages. After his return, the reputation of 

 his parts was so great, that he was made choice of to be 

 sent into Spain to recover of the Spanish monarch a rich 

 English ship seized by the Viceroy of Sardinia for his 

 master's service, upon some pretence of prohibited goods 

 being found in it. During his absence, he was elected 



Fellow of Jesus College (1623). And upon his retnra, 

 being patronized by Emmanuel, Lord Scroop, Lord Presi- 

 dent of the North, was made by him his Secretary. And 

 while he resided in York, he was chosen by the Mayor 

 and Aldermen of Richmond a Burgess for their corpora- 

 tion to sit in the Parliament which began in 1627. Four 

 years after which he went Secretary to Robert, Earl of 

 Leicester, Embassador Extraordinary from England to 

 the King of Denmark, before whom he made several 

 Latin speeches, shewing the occasion of the embassy, viz. 

 to condole on the death of Sophia, Queen Dowager of 

 Denmark, grandmother to Charles I., King of England. 



" Mr. Howell enjoyed many beneficial employments, 

 and at length was made one of the Clerks of the Council. 

 But when the King and the Parliament quarrelled, and 

 the royal interest declined, Mr. Howell was arrested by 

 order of one of the Parliament's Committees, and carried 

 to the Fleet, where, having nothing to depend on but his 

 wits, he was obliged to write and translate Books for his 

 subsistence. He is one of the first persons who may be 

 said to have made a trade of authorship, having written 

 no less than forty-nine books on diflferent subjects. 



" At the Restoration, Mr. Howell was made King's 

 Historiographer, and is said to have been the first in 

 England who bore that title. 



" He had a great knowledge in modern Histories, espe- 

 cially in those of the countries in which he had travelled ; 

 and he seems by his writings to have been no contempti- 

 ble politician. His poetry also was smoother and more 

 harmonious than was very common with the bards of his 

 time. He died in 1666, and was buried on the north side 

 ofthe Temple Church." 



Amongst the works Mr. Howell published 

 was — 



" Finetti Philoxenis ; some Choice Observations of Sir 

 John Finett, Knight, and Master of the Ceremonies to 

 the two last Kings, touching the Reception and Prece- 

 dence, the Treatment and Audience, the Punctilios and 

 Contests of Foreign Ambassadors in England. ' Legati 

 ligunt mundum.' 1656." 



Mr. Howell also published the Diary of Sir 

 John Finett, a most curious volume, quite pre- 

 Raphaelite in its exactness, and throwing a very 

 considerable light upon the events of the period. 



Of Mr. Howell's royalist tendencies there is no 

 doubt : he took up the pen at an early period in 

 the disputes between the King and his Parliament, 

 and in one of the several pamphlets which he 

 wrote, entitled The Land of Ire, he says : — 



" I pray that these grand refiners of Religion prove not 

 quack salvers at last, that these upstart politicians prove 

 not imperious tj'rants. I have heard of some things 

 which they have done, that if Machiavel himself were 

 alive he would be reputed a Saint in comparison of them. 

 The Roman ten, and the Athenian thirty tyrants, were 

 mere babies to them ; nay, the Spanish Inquisition, and 

 the Council of Blood which the Duke d'Alva erected in 

 Flanders, when he said that he would drown the Hol- 

 landers in their butter-tubs, was nothing to this, when I 

 consider the prodigious power they have assumed to 

 themselves, and its daily exercise over the bodies, the 

 estates, and the souls of men," 



There are some curious things to be found in 

 Howell's Instructions and Directions for Foreign 

 Travel, 1650. In this book he relates that, about 

 a century before, a race of savage men were dis- 

 covered in central Spain — Pythagorean, Troglo- 



