July 29. 1854.] 



NOTES AND QUERIES. 



85 



Washington's birthplace. 



Until a recent date, it has been asserted, and 

 admitted without question, that Washington, 

 though descended from an English family of that 

 name, was born in Virginia, in the United States. 

 Within a few years, however, circumstances have 

 come to light which render it probable that Wash- 

 ington was born at Cookham in Berkshire, during 

 the temporary sojourn of his parents in that town, 

 his mother, whose maiden name was Bale, having 

 been a native of that vicinity. All the evidence I 

 possess on the subject at present is of a tradi- 

 tionary nature. It is very circumstantial, and 

 comes through very few hands, and those of per- 

 sons whose veracity is above suspicion ; but if the 

 fact accord with the supposition, there no doubt 

 exist parochial or other records, family letters, or 

 other litera scripts which will place the matter 

 out of doubt. I resort to your pages in the hope 

 that some of your readers may be able and willing 

 to throw light upon this interesting question. It 

 would be curious if it should appear that Wash- 

 ington, who is honoured as one of the greatest 

 men the world ever produced, and who rendered 

 to Britain and America the inestimably valuable 

 service of making them independent of each other, 

 was born in England. Thinks I to Ms self. 



WAS SHAKSPEAKE a ROMAN CATHOLIC ? 



I am not aware that this question has been the 

 subject of that particular investigation and in- 

 quiry which it merits. I am convinced that, 

 should it lead into controversy, the Editor of 

 "N. & Q." would not permit it to be carried on 

 in any unchristian spirit. 'No one would lament 

 such an event more than the Protestant writer of 

 this article, who is proud to say he mixes among 

 Roman Catholic friends and acquaintance, without 

 the slightest breach of friendship, or allusion to 

 any difference on religion which exists between 

 them. Having by chance met with the following 

 quotation in a work of one of the most eminent 

 Roman Catholics for mental and legal attain- 

 ments, and having at an early period of his life 

 been employed as an amanuensis to Mr. Charles 

 Butler, his respect for his high and amiable cha- 

 racter would have deterred him from a discussion 

 in which their religious faith is involved, had he 

 not thought Mr. Butler's belief that Shakspeare 

 was a Roman Catholic, might be entered upon 

 without exciting any acrimonious feeling, and 

 that Mr. Butler's opinion was capable of re- 

 futation. 



In Mr. Butler's Memoirs of the English Ca- i 

 tholics, lie assigns the following reasons as the i 



ground of his belief that Shakspeare was a Roman 

 Catholic : — 



"Many writers," he says, "premise a suspicion, which, 

 from mtemal evidence, he has long entertained, that 

 Shakspeare was a Eoman Catholic. Not one of his works 

 contains the slightest reflections on popery, or any of its 

 practices, or any eulogy on the Reformation. His pane- 

 gyric on Queen Elizabeth is cautiously expressed, whilst 

 Queen Catherine is placed in a state of veneration, and 

 nothing can exceed the skill with which Griffith draws 

 the panegyric of Wolsey. The ecclesiastic is never pre- 

 sented by Shakspeare in a degrading point of view. The 

 jolly Monk, the irregular Nun, never appear in his drama. 

 It is not natural to suppose that the topics on which, at 

 that time, those who criminated popery loved so much to 

 dwell, must have often solicited his notice, and invited 

 him to employ his Muse upon them, as subjects likely to 

 ■engage the favourable attention both of the Sovereign 

 and the subject? Does not his abstinence from them 

 justify a suspicion that a popish feeling withheld him 

 from them. Milton made the Gunpowder conspiracy the 

 theme of a regular poem. Shakspeare i$ altogether silent 

 on it."* 



That the family and father of Shakspeare were 

 Roman Catholics, is very probable. Indeed there 

 cannot be a doubt that they were so, if faith can 

 be placed in the document I am about to describe. 



Mr. Isaac Reed, in his edition of Shakspeare in 

 1793, published a document called The Confession 

 of Faith, or Spiritual Will of John Shakspeare, 

 William Shakspeare's father. It was communi- 

 cated by Mr. Malone to Mr. Reed. It is said to 

 have been discovered about 1770, by Charles 

 Moseley, a master bricklayer, employed to new 

 tile a house, in which Thomas Hart, a descendant 

 of the Shakspeares, lived, and under whose roof 

 our bard is supposed to have been born. It was 

 found between the tiles and rafters of the dwell- 

 ing, and was a manuscript consisting of six pages, 

 stitched together in the form of a small book. 

 The MS. was given to Mr. Peyton, an alderman 

 of Stratford, who presented it to the Rev. Mr. 

 Davenport, the vicar, and by him it was sent to 

 Mr. Malone. It was deficient in the first leaf, 

 which was afterwards supplied by the discovery 

 that Moseley, who had then been two years dead, 

 had copied a portion of it; and from his transcrip- 

 tion the introductory part that was deficient had 

 been supplied. 



Mr. Malone, on its receipt, believed in its au- 

 thenticity, but in his Inquiry relative to the Ire- 

 land papers and forgeries in 1786, changed his 

 opinion. He says : 



" In my conjectures concerning the writer of this paper, 

 I certainly was mistaken, for I have now obtained docu- 

 ments that clearly prove it could not have been the com- 

 position of any one of our poet's family." 



Still it is probable that Shakspeare's father 

 might have been a Roman Catholic, but it by no 

 means follows that his son, though bred up in that 



* The Italics are Mr. Butler's. 



