57e 



NOTES AND QUERIES, 



[No, 189. 



self to an opinion of its inferiority or superiority 

 to that of our forefothers. I beg also to protest 

 against Mr. Keightley's wish to banish mythical 

 from our vocabulary. It may be hybrid, but 

 equally so are critical, gi-ammatical, musical, phy- 

 sical, poetical, with a long string of et ceteras. 



Charles Thikiold. 



** INQDIRY INTO THE STATE OF THE UNION, BY 

 THE WEDNESDAY CLUB IN FRIDAY STREET." 



(Vol. vil., pp. 261. 409.) 



This very able and valuable work, as to which 

 your correspondent inquires, was written by Wm. 

 Paterson, the projector of the Bank of England 

 and the Darien scheme; a great and memorable 

 •■name, but which, to the discredit of British bio- 

 "graphy, will be sought for in vain in Chalmers's 

 or our other biographical dictionaries. The 

 ■"book above noticed appears to be a continuation 

 '■of another tract by the same author, entitled 

 ^71 Inquiry into the Reasonableness and Conse- 

 quences of an Union unth Scotland, containing a 

 brief Deduction of what hath been done, designed, 

 or pj'oposed in the Matter of the Union during the 

 last Age, a Scheme of an Union as accommodated to 

 the present Circumstances of the two Nations, also 

 States of the respective Revenues, Debts, Weights, 

 Measures, Taxes, and Impositions, and of other 

 Facts of moment : with Observations thereupon, 

 as communicated to Laurence Philips, Esq., near 

 York : London, printed and sold by R. Bragg, 

 1706, 8vo., 160 pages. This was preceded by an 

 earlier tract by the same author : Conferences on 

 the Public Debts, by the Wednesday s Club in Friday 

 Street: London, 1695, 4to. _ The last is noticed, 

 with a short account of the author, by Mr. M'Cul- 

 loch (i«Z>. of Political Economy, p. 159.), but he 

 has not mentioned the two other works previously 

 adverted to. In all of them the author adopts the 

 form of a report of the proceedings of a club ; but, 

 without attempting to deny the actual existence of 

 a Wednesday's club in Friday Street (the desig- 

 nation he assumes for it), nothing can be more 

 clear to any one who reads the three tracts than 

 that the conversations, proceedings, and person- 

 ages mentioned are all the creatures of his own 

 fertile invention, and made use of, more conve- 

 niently to bring out his facts, arguments, and 

 statements. The dramatic form he gives them 

 makes even the dry details of finance amusing; 

 and abounding, as they do, in information and 

 thought, these works may always be consulted with 

 profit and pleasure. The Inquiry info the State 

 of the Union, 1717, 8vo., for which Walpole is said 

 to have furnished some of the materials, was 

 answered, but rather feebly, in an anonymous 

 pamphlet entitled Wednesday Club Law ; or the 

 Injustice, Dishonour, and III Policy of breaking into 



Parliamentani Contracts for public Debts : London, 

 printed for fe. Smith, 'l717, 8vo., pp. 38. The 

 author of this pamphlet appears to have been a 

 Mr. Broome. Those who would wish to see one 

 of the financial questions discussed in the Inquiry 

 treated with equal force and ability, and with 

 similar views, by a great cotemporary of Paterson, 

 whose pamphlet came out simultaneously, may 

 read Fair Payment no Spunge ; or some Consider- 

 ations on the Unreasonableness of refusing to re- 

 ceive back Money lent on public Securities, and the 

 Necessity of setting the Nation free from the unsup- 

 portable Burthen of Debt and Taxes, with a View 

 of the great Advantage and Benefit which will arise 

 to Trade and to the Landed Interest, as well as to 

 the Poor, by having these heavy Grievances taken 

 off: London, printed and sold by Brotherton : 

 Meadows and Roberts, 1717, 8vo., pp. 79. This 

 is one of the pamphlets which, though it has been 

 sometimes erroneously assigned to Paterson, both 

 on external and internal evidence may be confi- 

 dently attributed to Defoe, but which has unac- 

 countably escaped the notice of all his biographers. 



James Crossley. 



UNPUBLISHED EPIGRAM BY SIR W. SCOTT (?). 



(Vol. vii., p. 498.) 



The lines which your correspondent R. Vincent 

 attributes to Sir Walter Scott are part of an old 

 English inscription which Longfellow quotes in 

 Ouiremer, p. 66., and thus describes in a note : 



" I subjoin tills relic of old Enjjlish verse entire. . . 

 It is copied from a book whose title I have forgotten, 

 and of which I have but a single leaf, containing the 

 poem. In describing the antiquities of the church of 

 Stratford-upon-Avon, the writer gives the following 

 account of a very old painting upon the wall, and of 

 the poem which served *s its motto. The painting is 

 no longer visible, having been effaced in repairing the 

 church : 



" ' Against the west wall of the nave, on the south 

 side of the arch, was painted the martyrdom of Thomas 

 a Becket, while kneeling at the altar of St. Benedict, 

 in Canterbury Cathedral. Below this was the figure 

 of an angel, probably St. Micl)ael, supporting a long 

 scroll, upon which were seven stanzas in old English, 

 being an allegory of mortality.' " 



The lines given at p. 498. of "N. & Q." seemto 

 be taken from the two following stanzas, which 

 stand third and fourth in the old inscription : 

 " Erth apon erth iL'ynnys casteUys and towrys. 



Then seth erth unto erth thys ys all owrys. 



When erth apon erth hath bylde hys bowrys, 



Then schall erth for erth sulfur many hard schowrys. 



" Ertli goth apon erth as man apon mowld, 

 Lvke as erth apon erth never goo schold, 

 Erth aoth apon erth as gelsteryng gold, 

 And i/et schall erth unto erth rather than he wold." 



