^"d S. No 93., Oct. 10. '67.] 



NOTES AND QUERIES. 



291 



article in Connecticut Evan. Magazine, to •which 

 Dr. Murdock " especially " sends his readers, it 

 might prove interesting. A. A. D. 



[The two societies were entirely distinct, as the pu- 

 ritan one continued its operations for above twenty years 

 after the establishment of the Propagation Society founded 

 by Dr. Bray and others in 1701. We have before us 

 The Connecticut Evangelical Magazine, vol. iv., which 

 states that " Mr. Boyle was for a long time governor of 

 ' The Society for the Pioj)agation of the Gospel in New 

 England and the parts adjacent in America.' On his 

 decease in 1C92, Robert Thompson was elected as his suc- 

 cessor ; and after his decease, Sir William Ashurst, knight 

 and alderman of London, was chosen to succeed. In 1726, 

 William Thompson, Esq, was governor. Since the separ- 

 ation of the colonies from Great Britain, the corporation 

 have withheld their exhibitions, and by advice have 

 turned their attention to the province of Canada. The 

 whole revenue of the society never exceeded 500/. or 600Z. 

 per annum." The missionaries seem for the most part to 

 have been deprived clergymen of the Church of England ; 

 and, indeed, Neal names seventy who, on account of their 

 nonconformitj-, transported themselves to New England 

 before the year 1641. Among these were the celebrated 

 John Eliot, and the notorious Hugh Peters ! The au- 

 thor of A General History of Connecticut, published in 

 1781, thus distinguishes the operations of the two so- 

 cieties: "I cannot forbear to notice the abuse of the 

 charter [of the first society]. Notwithstanding it con- 

 fines the views of the Company to New-England, j'et they 

 and their Committee of correspondence in Boston, have of 

 late years vouchsafed to send most of their missionaries 

 out of New-England among the Six-Nations, and the un- 

 sanctified episcopalians in the southern colonics, where 

 was a competent number of church clergymen. When- 

 ever this work of supererogation has met with its deserved 

 animadversion, their answer has been, that though Crom- 

 well limited them to New-England, yet Christ had ex- 

 tended their bounds from sea to sea! With what little 

 reason do they complain of King William's charter to the 

 Societv for the Propagation of the Gospel in Foreign 

 Parts?"] 



James Men'ick. — Can any correspondent give 

 me any particulars of Mr. Meyrick, or INIerrick, 

 ■who was the author of a metrical Version of the 

 Psalms. Some of these compositions are to be 

 found in the Collection of Anthems edited by 

 William Marshall, Mus. Doc, jate organist of Ch. 

 Ch. Cathedral, and of St. John's College, Oxford. 

 I have frequently heard them sung at the services 

 at New College and Magdalen Chapels. 



OXONIENSIS. 



[James Merrick was born Jan. 8, 1719-20, and educated 

 at Beading school, and entered at Trinity College, Ox- 

 ford, April 14, 17,36; B.A. 1739; M.A. 1742; chosen pro- 

 bationer fellow, 1744. He entered into orders, but never 

 engaged in any parochial duty. As a translator of the 

 Psalms, he brought to the task the accomplishments of 

 the scholar, the poet, and the Christian ; so that Bishop 

 Lowth has characterised him as " one of the best of men, 

 and most eminent of scholars." His life chiefly passed in 

 study and literary correspondence, and he was early an au- 

 thor. In 1734, while yet at school, he publishedilfessza/i, 

 a Divine Essay ; and in April, 1739, before he was twenty 

 years of age, was engaged in a correspondence with the 

 learned Keimarus; and many letters to him from Dr. 

 John Ward of Gresham College, and one from Bernard 

 de Montfaucon concerning a MS. of Tryphiodorus, are 



among the Addit. MSS. in British Museum. Merrick 

 occasionally composed several small poems, inserted in 

 Dodsley's Collection; and some of his classical effusions 

 are printed among the Oxford gratulatory poems of 1761 

 and 1762. In the second volume of Dodsley's Museum is 

 the Benedicite paraphrased by him. His celebrated 

 work. The Psalms translated, or Paraphrased in English 

 Verse, Reading, 1765, 4to. ; 1766, 12mo., is esteemed the 

 best poetical version; but from not being divided into 

 stanzas, it could not be set to music for parochial use. 

 The defect has since been removed by the Rev. W. D. 

 Tattersall, who published three editions properly divided. 

 Mr. Merrick departed this life, after a short illness, on 

 Jan. 5, 1769, and was buried in Caversham church. For 

 other particulars, and a list of his works, see Coates's 

 Hist, of Reading, 4to., 1802, pp. 436—441. ; Darling's Cy- 

 clopcedia Bihliog. ; and Holland's Psalmists of Britain, ii. 

 209. In one of the MS. note-books of Dr. Ward, the 

 Gresham professor, are the following beautiful lines by 

 Mr. Merrick, which probably have never been printed : 



" Upon the Thatched House in the wood of Sanderson 

 Millar, Esq., at Radway in Warwickshire : 

 " Stay, passenger, and though within 

 Nor gold, nor sparkling gem be seen, 



To strike the dazzled ej'e ; 

 Yet enter, and thy raptur'd mind 

 Beneath this humble roof shall find 

 What gold could never buy. 

 " Within this solitary cell 

 Calm thought and sweet contentment dwell. 



Parents of bliss sincere ; 

 Peace spreads around her balmy wings, 

 And banish'd from the courts of kings. 

 Has fixed her mansion here."] 

 Marquis of Montrose. — What is the name of 

 the place where Montrose was defeated after his 

 return from the Orkneys, a few weeks before his 

 execution ? The battle was fought on April 29, 

 1650. E. M. B. 



[Montrose had just reached^ place called Corbiesdale, 

 near the pass of Invercarron, and the river Oikel, when 

 he fell into an ambuscade very adroitly planned, and was 

 instantly overwhelmed by an irresistible force of cavalry 

 under Colonel Strachan, followed up bj' the greatly su- 

 perior forces of David Leslie, Gen. Holbourn, and the 

 Earl of Sutherland. The ground where the battle was 

 fought, and which . lies in the parish of Kincardine, Ross, 

 took its present name, Craigcaoineadhan, or the Rock of 

 Lamentation, from the event of that memorable day. — 

 Napier's Life of Montrose, ii. 745, and Statistical Account 

 q/'iS'co^/and, Ross, p. 407.] ; 



Vinegar Bible. — Wanted some account of the 

 Vinegar Bibles, the date of their publication, or if 

 the word vinegar instead of vineyard is only a 

 mistake, or whether it can be traced to any cause, 

 or where any of the copies are at present ? One 

 of them is, I believe, in the library of Winchester 

 College. Any information on this subject would 

 greatly oblige B. O. E. 



[The onlj' edition of the Bible with this singular 

 blunder, is the beautiful one printed with head and tail- 

 pieces at the Clarendon press, Oxford, 1717. It is in two 

 volumes folio, usually bound in one. The error is not in 

 the text (Luke xxii.), but in the running head- line ; and 

 whether made by design or bj* accident has never been'dis- 

 covered. There is a splendid copj' on vellum in the Bodleian 

 library. It is not considered scarce, and may occasionally 



