526 



NOTES AND QUERIES. 



[No. 270. 



two in purple robes, and saluted with a ' Hail, King !' 

 but the usual ornaments of majesty were his customary 

 apparel." 



After some debate, the House resolved " That 

 in the said sermon there are several expressions 

 that give just scandal and offence to all Christian 

 people ;" and upon the proposal thnt the sermon 

 be burnt, it was carried in the negative, so that 

 Dr. Binks got off with a censure, narrowly escaping 

 going to the same fire with his animadverter. 

 (Hist. Reign Queen Anne, first year, 1703.) 



The Archbishop of Dublin, writing to Swift, 

 says, " We likewise burned Mr. Houghton's sermon, 

 prejfched at Christ Church some years ago ; and 

 =ihe House (Irish Parliament) voted the thanks for 

 j)rosecuting the author." It appears from Boyer's 

 Political State, vol. ii. p. 639., that this sermon had 

 been preached on the 30th January, 1705-6, at the 

 above church, Dublin, and that it was burnt by 

 the hands of the common hangman on the 9th Xov. 

 1711, six years after, by which time one would 

 bave thought its treason or schism would have 

 evaporated without this archiepiscopal device of 

 reviving it, for which he merited censure rather 

 than praise. The archbishop, in the same letter 

 to Swift, complacently adds, as if it was the Dub- 

 lin hangman reporting progress to his brother 

 functionary in London, " After this we burned Mr. 

 Boyse's book of a Scripture Bishop and some Ob- 

 servutors." The first of these bore for title The 

 ■Office of a Christian Bishop, and being according 

 to Timothy's prescription (chap. iii. v. 10.), was 

 probably too humiliating for the lawn sleeves of 

 the reign of Queen Anne. The author, an English- 

 man, was at the period an eminent dissenting 

 minister in Dublin. The second consignment to the 

 flames alluded to in the above extract, were papers 

 published under that title by the famous John 

 Tutchin, the L'Estrange of the Whigs, who bore 

 upon his person some remembrance of the Tories, 

 acquired in their test of the pillory. It has already 

 been seen that The Memorial of the Church of Eng- 

 land was presented as a libel to the grand jury of 

 London, and burnt by the hangman ; the same 

 zealous Archbishop of Dublin acquaints his gossip 

 Swift that this libel was reprinted in the Irish 

 capital, impudently dedicated to the Lord Lieu- 

 tenant, and there went a second time to the fire, 

 under the same conduct, on the prosecution of the 

 same church dignitary. (Swift's Worhs, vol. xiv. 

 p. 201., 12th edit., Dublin, 1762.) Examples have 

 already been given of the disposition of Episcopacy 

 towards Presbytery in the burning of the cove- 

 nant, &c., in London ; this was resented by the 

 latter, who, we are told, retaliated by burning the 

 Acts of Supremacy, Declaration, and the Act 

 necessary for the burning of the Covenant. (See 

 The Hind let loose, 1687, a violent Presbyterian 

 advocate, which most likely shared the fate of the 

 Coyenant, and its own deserts, according to Ma- 



caulay, History of England, vol. i. p. 556.) The 

 ill usage the Scots met with in the matter of their 

 Darien Scheme has also been recorded ; and as it 

 is one of the least defensible of the old Scots 

 grievances, I would add a farther illustration of 

 the national indignation drawn forth by the libel 

 of Herries: 



" When the Parliament (Scots) met," says Arnot, " the 

 first symptom of their displeasure at the enemies of the 

 African company was to pass an order for burning by 

 the common hangman a pamphlet entitled A Defence of 

 the Scots abdicating Darien, an(i requiring the Lords of the 

 Treasury to pay a reward of 6000/. Scots (500Z. sterling) 

 to any person- who would apprehend Walter Herries, the 

 alleged author, and bring him before a magistrate." — 

 Ciiminal Trials, Edin. 1785. 



To show the similarity of feeling upon this sore 

 subject on the southern side of the Tweed, Wil- 

 liam III., by proclamation dated 20th Jan. 1 669 (see 

 . , ^ ,, 12. E.L.SOO. 



it mB. M. ~ ), offers 50Ql. for the appre- 



o 



hension of the author of a libel entitled An En- 

 quiry into the Cause of the Miscarriage of the Scots 

 Colony at Darien ; which said book, purporting to 

 be an answer to the renegade Herries, with a 

 Glasgow imprint, went to the fire in London, as 

 before noted. 



The fanatic Muggleton furnished employment 

 for the executioner, and fuel for his fire. " His 

 books," says Granger, " for which he was pil- 

 loried and imprisoned, were burnt by the com- 

 mon hangman." Lhave already shown that the 

 state left the eradication of the weeds of the press 

 sometimes to the Church; another example is that 

 recorded in Herbert's Ames, p. 1735., under date 

 June 1, 1572, when Ovid's Elegies, translated by 

 Marlowe, was seized and burnt at Stationers' Hall, 

 by order of the Archbishop of Canterbury and 

 Bishop of London. 



Parishes, too, set themselves up as public censors. 

 A poor enthusiast, who writes a book entitled 

 The Christian Convert, or the Third Gift of 

 Theophilus and Philantropos, Student in Physic, 

 London, 1740, tells his patron, when publishing 

 this his second edition, that It was doubtless matter 

 of pleasure to the Enemy of all Righteousness to 

 procure one of them to be committed to the flames, 

 as was publicly done in St. Ann's ward, on April 

 21st, 1739, "which I am well assured," says he, 

 " afforded matter of great rejoicing." This book 

 appears to have grappled. too closely with the sin- 

 ners of St. Ann's ward, and gives a picture of the 

 debased condition of the Londoners, from which 

 this moralist would reclaim them, and from whose 

 methodistical tendencies " another whose office is 

 to minister about holy things !" would shield them 

 by burning the record of their misdeeds. The 

 lover of old cuts, which do not mince the matter, 

 would be gratified with those our enthusiast has 

 prefixed, the pains of the damned being pretty 



