2"^ S. No 96., Oct. 31. '57.] 



NOTES AND QITERIES. 



343 



already made the same statement, where he con- 

 trasts Pope's "six years' Retirement from all 

 pleasurable avocations" — of which The Dun- 

 CI AD was the result — and the "few hours snatched 

 out of less than six weeks clog'd and interspersed 

 with variety of Interruptions," during which he 

 had written "Durgen" : — 



« Durgen's sweet Pen, we know, the World admires, 

 He's bless'd with a kind Muse that never tires ; 

 Skill'd in all antient Tongues, and modern Arts, 

 A prodigy in Person, and in Parts ; 

 A half-bred Deity, made up of Thought, 

 A something, but no mortal Man knows what ; 

 A living Chaos, whose prolifick Brain, 

 Does e'ery thing in miniature contain ; 

 Has Wit at Will, and is, without dispute, 

 A wondrous Creature, neither Man nor Brute ; 

 Who, to delight himself, and vex the Town, 

 Spent twice three Years in writing one Lampoon ; 

 And, if no Rival does his Scheme defeat, 

 Will waste six more to make the work compleat ; 

 A task, that when it's finish'd, must command 

 Laudative Poems from each skilful Hand, 

 Especially each poor neglected Muse, 

 His gen'rous Satyr does so kindly use, 

 Forgetful of the hard unhappy fate 

 Of Poets more sublime, and Wits more great. 

 Than those that wrong the Mem'ry of the Dead, 

 And stifle Conscience for the sake of Bread, 

 Slander the living, with a spightful Pen, 

 And prostitute the Fame of worthj^ Men. 

 So the proud Cit, possessed of an Estate, 

 For nothing good, tho' worshipfully Great, 

 Triumphs o'er Dealers of a low Degree, 

 More honest, tho' less prosperous than he." 



And here I leave "Durgen" for the illustra- 

 tion of abler hands than D. P. S. 



Pope's Half-sister, Mrs. Rackett (2""^ S. lii. 462.) 

 — In reply to P. F.'s inquiry about Robert and 

 George Rackett, I regret to say that I can find no 

 trace whatever of any individuals of that name 

 resident in this city at the period referred to 

 (1779). Seven years afterwards, I find a Mrs. 

 Racketta advertising herself as landlady of the 

 " Coach and Horses Inn," in Northgate Street, 

 a house at that time of considerable standing, and 

 a lodge-room of the ancient Order of Freemasons. 

 Posgibly this lady may have been one of the 

 family inquired after. 



I find, on reference to the Assembly Books of 

 the Corporation of Chester, that " Charles Rackett, 

 innholder, was made free of the city, June 17, 

 1776." The Mrs. Racketta named was, therefore, 

 no doubt, his widow. T. Hughes. 



Chester. 



Dr. Stephen Hales. — Dr. Stephen Hales, or 

 " plain parson Hale," Rector of Teddington, has 

 been immortalised by a single line in Pope, rather 

 than by the scientific works he himself published. 

 He seems to have been an amiable man, content 

 to do his duty in his quiet little village, and find 



recreation in the pursuit of natural and expe- 

 rimental philosophy, somewhat to the horror of 

 Pope, who told Spence, — 



" I shall be very glad to see Dr. Hales, and always love 

 to see him, he is so worthy and good a man. Yes, he is a 

 very good man ; only Pm sorry he has his hands so much 

 imbrued in blood. What, he cuts up rats? Aj', and 

 dogs too ! [with what emphasis and concern he spoke it !] 

 Indeed he commits most of those barbarities, with the 

 thought of being of use to man ! but how do we know 

 that we have a right to kill creatures that we are so little 

 above as dogs, for our curiosity, or even for some use to 

 us; they had reason as well as we." 



Hales, I fear, had his troubles as others have. 

 He was, I suspect, a brother, or very near relation, 

 to William Hales, who was tried and found guilty 

 in 1728 on four or five different indictments tor 

 forgery, and, as part of his sentence, twice stood 

 in the pillory. 



William Hales had been in partnership with 

 Sir Stephen Evans, but the firm failed. His 

 brother Robert Hales, Clerk of the Privy Council, 

 was apprehended on the charge of confederating 

 with William Hales, and subsequently tried and 

 found guilty. William Hales published a paper 

 wherein he set forth and stated circumstances in 

 proof that his brother was innocent. I infer that 

 Dr. Stephen Hales was intimately related, because 

 when Robert was apprehended, " the Rev. Mr. 

 Hales of Teddington" was one of his bail. L. L. 



Ethic Epistles. — I submit to the amateurs of 

 Pope and Popiana the following Note and Query. 

 I happen to possess a printed sheet (four pages, 53, 

 54, 55, 56.) of a small edition of the first of Pope's 

 Moral Essays on the Characters of Men; on this 

 printed sheet there have been made several cor- 

 rections and transpositions, bringing the original 

 to pretty much the state in which we now have it. 

 But I cannot ascertain to what edition my printed 

 sheet may have belonged ; its first page is 53, and 

 the first line of that page, 



" There's some peculiar in each leaf and grain," 



is the fifteenth line of the poem : and the last of 

 my four printed pages is 56, and the last line, — 



" Friendly at Acton, faithless at Whitehall," 

 is the 135th of the poem. What I am desirous of 

 inquiring from the contributors to " N. & Q." is, 

 whether they can point out to what edition of 

 Pope this sheet belonged. The question is of very 

 great importance to the history of the Moral 

 Essays, arid is narrowed to this simple point — 

 in what edition does the 53rd page begin with the 

 15 th line of the poem ? It is not so in any that I 

 have ever seen. C 



rThe above is the last communication forwarded to 

 ",N. & Q." by the late Rt. Hon. John Wilson Croker. It 

 reached us a week or two before his death, and had 

 scarcely been put into type when we were enabled to in- 

 form him, that the edition of which he was in search was 



