242 



NOTES AND QUEEIES. 



[2nd s. NO 91., Sept. 26. '57, 



What a joke it is to tbink that the above was 

 not ironical. The writer goes on to state that a 

 Socinian book had been publicly burnt at Am- 

 sterdam, probably at the request of the publisher, 

 who forthwith put on a new title-page, stating 

 that it was the book which had been condemned 

 to be burnt by the common executioner. 



7. The Massacre of Glencoe, being a True Nar- 

 rative, London, 1703, 4to. This is little more 

 than the report of the Commissioners, and of the 

 parliamentary proceedings. Macaulay appears 

 not to have known of this publication. The last 

 sentence is, " You know likewise that by the in- 

 fluence of the same persons [persons about the 

 Court] this report was suppressed in King Wil- 

 liam's time, tho' his Majesty's Honour required 

 that it should have been published." The preface 

 is dated Edinburgh, Nov. 1, 1703. 



8. The New Planet no Planet; or, the Earth no 

 vmndrivg Star, except in the wandring Heads of 

 Galileans, by Alex. Rosse, London, 1646, 4to. 

 This is not the book of nearly the same title, 

 which was published some years before in Latin, 

 but is an answer to Bishop Wilkins. I have given 

 some extracts from it in the Companion to the 

 Almanac for 1836. I will add one sentence 

 more : — 



" But I remember what Aristotle saith of some may- 

 bees or possibilities : iivvarov tC ov elcai fl yev4(Tdai, firj 



etvoLi 6t, firjSe i<7t<jOa.i, that which may be, may not be, and 

 never shall be, and so the Earth may be a Planet ; that 

 is, neither is, nor ever shall be, a Planet." 



9. The Philosophicall Touchstone, by Alex. 

 Eoss, London, 1645, 4to. Rosse here spells his 

 name differently. The book is written against Sir 

 Kenelm Digby. Does the notion still exist any- 

 where, that if milk boil over, the cow will get in- 

 flammation in the udder unless salt be thrown on 

 the fire ? Chalmers (or at least Gorton from Chal- 

 mers) mentions neither of these works, though 

 they must be the works which Butler had in his 

 head when he made the well-known allusion in 

 Hudihras. 



10. Dutifull and Eespective* Considerations 

 upon Foure severall Heads of Proof e and Triall in 

 Matters of Religion. Proposed by the High and 

 Mighty Prince James . . . in his late Book of Pre- 

 monition to all Christian Princes. . , . By a late 

 Minister and Preacher in England, s. I., 1609, 

 4to. Written by an English priest who had re- 

 turned to the Roman Church ; and printed abroad 

 for circulation in England. The words Pope, 

 Roman, ^c, are obviously avoided as far as pos- 

 sible ; but Catholic and Heretic are very fre- 

 quently used, being words which were used in both 

 churches. The apparent intention is that the 

 book may He on a table without being immediately 

 perceived to be Popish : and I read a great many 



* " Honest Flaminius ; you are very respectively wel- 

 come. Sir." — Timon of Athens, Act HI. Sc. 1, 



pages before I found out that it was more than a 

 precursor of the Laudlan school. 



11.^ Review of Dr. Bramble, late Bishop of 

 Londenderry, his faire Warning against the Scotes 

 Discipline, by R. B. G., Delf, 1649, 4to. A de- 

 fence of Scotland, Presbyterianism, and John 

 Knocks. 



12. An Inquiry into the Present State of Popu- 

 lation in England and Wales, by W. Wales, Lon- 

 don, 1781. This was Reuben Burrow's copy (1** 

 S. xii, 142.), who has written in it "his vile and 

 most execrable book, 1781." The work is ad- 

 dressed to the question of the supposed decline of 

 population, on which Wales made various inqui- 

 ries, both in person and by letter. Then, as now, 

 there were those who had an idea that to count 

 the population is a sin : but the number in that 

 day was much larger than it is now. Wales 

 says : — 



"My friends in some parts of the country were assailed, 

 not only with persuasion, but by threatenings of every 

 kind ; such as loss of employment, prosecutions, and even 



blows In a large manufacturing town, in the West 



Riding of Yorkshire, I was beset by a crowd of women, 

 who had taken an alarm from the nature of mj* inquiries, 

 and perhaps escaped the fate of Orpheus by whispering 

 one of the good women, who had set upon ua, that his 

 majesty might possibly settle small annuities on every 

 poor man and his wife, who brought up a certain num- 

 ber of children to be useful members of society. The 

 news flew like wildfire, and I met with no further opposi- 

 tion there. 



" I had written on this subject to a very intimate 

 friend, a dissenter of the independent church, without 

 receiving any answer to it ; but on a second application, 

 rather more pressing, he vouchsafed to write as follows : 

 ' Sir, I have received your two letters of the 2nd and 

 15th instant, and in answer to them refer j'ou to 1 Chron. 

 chap. xxi. 1.' It will be readily imagined that I was 

 not long in looking for my answer, nor without surprise, 

 when I read, ' And Satan stood up against Israel, and 

 provoked David to number Israel.' To this laconic epis- 

 tle I replied, that he had not only mistaken persons, but 

 situations; and that he was so far from being in tho 

 situation of David, and I in that of the Devil, as he sup- 

 posed, that I was really David's representative, preparing 

 to stop the sword of the destroying angel which had 

 lately made such a devastation among us. My friend 

 was convinced of his mistake, and has since furnished 

 me with a great variety of the most useful information." 



Surely the answer, though as good as the argu- 

 ment, was no better, Wales ends by saying that 

 the amount of opposition was so great as to con- 

 vince him that he could never carry his inquiries 

 to any extent. 



13. The Bloody Almanac , , . . by that famous 

 astrologer, Mr. John Booker, Being a perfect ab- 

 stract of the prophecies proved out of Scripture, by 

 the noble Napier . . . London, 1643, 4to. This is 

 often attributed to Napier himself. Booker brings 

 out the end of the world for some time between 

 1688 and 1700, 



14. Canonis Trigonometrici Dilucidatio, by T, 

 C. L. Bosse, Helmstadt, 1750, 4to. I notice this 



