416 



NOTES AND QUERIES. 



[No. 157. 



by tlie editors of tbe Biographia Britannica, in 

 note L to the life of Sir Thomas Roe, that tbe 

 publication — 



" Was to be comprised in Jiee volumes. But the 

 undertakers not meeting with sufficient encouragement, 

 dropped this useful design. But only the volume 

 mentioned above was published in 1740. But the 

 most curious and interesting part of his papers still 

 remains in manuscript." 



The original letters and documents from which 

 the published volume was printed, and bound up 

 in the order in which they stand in the printed 

 volume, are in the library of Trinity College, 

 Dublin. 



Can any of your correspondents furnish inform- 

 ation respecting the unpublished MSS., whether 

 they are still in existence ; and if so, in whose 

 possession ? Ttko. 



Dublin. 



[The British Museum contains the following docu- 

 ments : — Additional MSS., No. 6115., Journal of Sir 

 Thomas Roe's Embassy to the Great Mogul, with 

 liCtters, Despatches, Accounts, Sec, 1615, 1616. No. 

 6394. Letter to Sir T. Roe, from Sir W. Boswell, 

 1643. Nos. 6190. 621 1. Letters, &c. of Thomas Carte 

 and others, respecting tbe Publication of Sir T. Roe's 

 Papers, 1737. No. 6190. Notice of a Volume of his 

 Letters, belonging to the Earl of Oxford. No. 5238. 

 Drawings by Sir T. Roe. — Lansdown MSS. No, 211. 

 Sir T. Roe's Argument against Brass Money. No. 

 1054. A Political Letter from Sir T. Roe, Ambassador 

 at Constantinople, Sept. 1624. See also the Index to 

 the Harleian Collection.] 



THE BRITISH APOLLO. 



(Vol. vi., pp. 148. 230.) 



As the replies to the Query of E. H. Y. respect- 

 ing this curious periodical are not very accurate, 

 and as Mr. Thackeray has recently drawn atten- 

 tion to it by a humorous notice in his Lectures on 

 Steele and Addison, it may be worth while again 

 to revert to the subject, the British Apollo com- 

 menced on the 13th February, 1708. It was pub- 

 lished in a folio size on Wednesdays and Fridays, 

 and the editors promise to — 



" Endeavour to answer all questions in divinity, philo- 

 sophy, the mathematics, and other arts and sciences ; 

 also insert poems on various subjects and occasions, 

 both serious and comical, composed now purposely for 

 the paper : which shall be delivered at all persons' 

 houses within the bills of mortality who shall require 

 it at two shillings a quarter, not to be paid till the end 

 of the quarter, and to be relinquished at pleasure ; and 

 such as shall take it within the quarter, a proportion- 

 able deduction shall be made on the following quarter 

 day. Advertisements will be taken at balf-a-crown a 

 piece (if of moderate length), those from quacks ex- 

 cepted, by W. Keble in Westminster Hall," &c. 



Three folio volumes were published, but it did 

 not terminate with these. I have Nos. 1. to 20. 

 of a fourth vol., and here it appears to have closed. 

 The 20th No. is expressed to be from May 9th to 

 May 11th, 1711. The first vol. was reprinted in 

 a thick Svo. for J. Ivlayo, 1711, with a Dedication 

 to the Duke of Beaufort from the editor who signs 

 himself " Marshal Smith," after which various- 

 commendatory verses follow. This reprint, which 

 never went further than the first vol., appears to 

 contain all that is in the first vol., in folio, except 

 the news and advertisements. In the Prefoce to 

 the third vol. (folio), there is an amusing state- 

 ment as to the manifold truths and perplexities 

 under which the editors of the "Notes and Queries" 

 of 1710 laboured : 



" The truth is, the importunity of our querists, 

 especially such as called themselves our subscribers, 

 who therefore claimed a preference from us before 

 others, having obliged us sometimes to answer ques- 

 tions that had been answered before, and often to insert 

 such as far less deserved a place in our papers than 

 thousands of others from all parts of England, which, 

 for want of room, we have been forced wholly to sup- 

 press, we have been lately induced to alter our first 

 design, and not to publish this paper any longer by 

 subscription, but to let it try its fortune in the world 

 as others do. The general encouragement it has 

 already met with forbids us to doubt whether this 

 alteration may not somewhat damp its success ; but we 

 rather have reason to expect still greater encourage- 

 ment, since we have this advantage by it, that we are 

 now free from all temptations of partiality, and are at 

 liberty to prefer those questions that we find most 

 rational and ingenious ; and rather to study how ta 

 entertain our curious reader, than how to silence the 

 clamour of an importunate subscriber." 



The alteration of plan does not seem to have 

 answered, judging by the shortness of the subse- 

 quent career of The British Apollo. From its 

 multitudinous collection of " questions and an- 

 swers," a very entertaining specimen of absurdi- 

 ties might be produced, but it must not be 

 supposed that the matter which it contains is 

 altogether worthless. On the contrary, it is on 

 many accounts well worth examination, and as % 

 proof that it is so I may refer to the " Opinion 

 on Charity Schools" (printed in a separate sheet in 

 the first vol. folio), which I have always highly 

 admired, and which on again recurring to it, I 

 hesitate not to say, is, as a fine and eloquent com- 

 position, unsurpassed by any'of the sermons, essays, 

 and speeches which have been printed or delivered 

 on the subject from that day to this. 



The reprint of the first vol., in 8vo., was after- 

 wards republished in three vols., of which I have 

 the fourth edition printed in 1740, which I think 

 was the last. There has been no reprint of the 

 second and third, and portion of the fourth vols, 

 originally published in folio, which can only be 

 met with in that form, J. Ckosslet. 



