Jan. 6. 1855.] 



NOTES AND QUERIES. 



confesse it in several parts of y' Essay. Y" cannot 

 employ y"" thoughts on a more necessary or usefuU 

 subject. The country gent., who is most con- 

 cerned in a right ordering of trade, both in duty 

 and interest, is of all others the most remote from 

 any true notions of it, or sense of his stake in it. 

 'Tis high time somebody should awaken and In- 

 forme him, that he may, in his place, looke a 

 little after it. I know noebody so able to doe it 

 as y". I see noe party or interest y" contend for 

 but that of truth and y'' country. Such a man 

 carrys authority and evidence in what he says, 

 and those that will not take the pains to under- 

 stand him thoroughly, cannot refuse to believe 

 him, and therefor I hope the same reasons that 

 first set y" on worke will have force to make y" 

 goe on. 



Y" make apologies in y" of the 17 Apr. for the 

 freedom y" tooke in shewing me a mistake in my 

 booke, and take it as a kinde of obligation that I 

 excuse it. But I tell y" I doe not excuse it: 

 that were to suppose that it needed an excuse. 

 Now, I assure y", I thanke y" for it, and whether 

 it were mine or the printer's slip, I take it for a 

 great marke of y"^ good will and friendship to me, 

 y* y" advised me of it, and I have given order to 

 have it mended. Will y" give me leave with the 

 same candor to offer two places to y" to be alterd 

 in the next edition of y"" booke ; the one is in the 

 last page of y' dedication to the king, where I 

 thinke it is more for the advantage of y'^ argument 

 that y" should say all his dominions rather than 

 Judsea. For he and his father David had extended 

 their conquests as far as the Great River, i. e. Eu- 

 phrates, and the Scripture tells us that Solomon 

 built Tadmor, w"^** was a great town in a pleasant 

 and fruitfuU plain a great way in Arabia deserta. 

 The other I guesse is a slip of the printer, and is 

 of noe consequence to y'^ argum', and that is Inter 

 Hades, p. 56., w*^^ I conceive should rather be In 

 Hades or Hadou, w*^** signifies the state of the dead, 

 and possibly y" will think may be as well expressed 

 by amongst the shades, or some such other English 

 words. I take this liberty only to shew y" that I 

 in earnest covet a familiar acquaintance with y", 

 and am, without a complem*, 



s^ 



Your most humble servant, 



John Locke. 

 Rec^MayStn, 

 Answ. y« 9*^ J ^^' 



For Mr. John Gary, Merchant, in Bristol. 



Gary replied 'with a promise to call on Locke 

 the first time he came to London ; but the acquaint- 

 ance made no progress. Other letters of Gary's 

 may be seen in Mr. Rix's excellent volume of the 

 Diary of Edmund Bohun. Locke's last letter 

 speaks for itself. The kindness, conscientiousness, 

 and precision, which were such marked charac- 



teristics of our eminent philosopher, are here 

 written distinctly ; nor is there wanting that tinge 

 of formality which was equally conspicuous in the 

 man himself. John Bruce. 



THOMAS GOFFE THE DRAMATIST. 



" (Test la hibliograplde qui fournit a Vhistoire litteraire 

 les elemens les plus positifs, et qui peut lui donner une exacti- 

 tude rigoureuse." — Pierre-Claude-Fran9ois Daunou, 1831. 



No one can travel far in the walks of English 

 history without discovering some new facts, or 

 rectifications of current statements ; some par- 

 ticulars which, if rejected as discoveries by the 

 Bruces, the Colliers, the Dyces, the Singers, would 

 certainly be hailed as such by those who are ac- 

 customed to confide in the ordinary sources of 

 information on the respective subjects. 



As an exemplification of this remark I shall 

 give the result of an inquiry into the dramatic 

 history of Thomas Goffe, M.A., student of Christ- 

 church, Oxford; afterwards B.D. and rector of 

 East Clandon, Surrey. Of the various reports of 

 his proceedings, I shall transcribe and comment 

 on two of the earliest and two of the latest : 



" Thomas Goff, the author of the Courageous Turk, 

 Selimus, Orestes, tragedies ; The careless sheapherdess, 

 a tragi-comedy ; and Cupid^s whirligig, a comedy." — 

 Edward Philips, 1675. 



« Thomas Goff.— He writ several pieces on several sub- 

 jects, amongst which are reckon'd five plays, viz. The 

 careless shepherdess, 1656, 4». — The courageous Turk, 

 1656, 80.— Orestes, 1656, 8".— The raging Turk, 1656, 8°, 

 Seliinus, 1638, 4°."— Gerard Langbaine, 1691. 



" Thomas Goff. — He wrote several tragedies; but these 

 do no honour to his memory, being full of the most ridi- 

 culous bombast ; and one comedy, which is not without 

 merit." — William Gifford, 1813. 



"Thomas Gouffe. — He wrote five tragedies, but none 

 of them printed in his life-time. In the latter part of his 

 life he wrote some comedies, published in the year in 

 which he died."— Owen Manning and William Bbay» 

 1814. 



Thomas Goffe wrote three tragedies while a 

 student of Christ-church. We may consider 

 them as his college exercises, and they were not 

 published in his life-time. The raging Tvrke was 

 dedicated to sir Richard Tichbourne by Richard 

 Meighen, one of the proprietors of the second 

 folio Shakspere, in 1631 ; The covragiovs Tvrke 

 was dedicated to sir Walter Tichbourne by the 

 same person in 1632 ; and The tragedy of Orestes 

 was published by Mr. Meighen, without any de- 

 dication, in 1633. This was the utmost extent of 

 his dramatic writings. 



Philips was an ingenious critic, but a very care- 

 less bibliographer. If he had examined The 

 raging Tvrke he could have had no doubt as to 

 its authorship. If he had examined the Selimus 

 of 1594, he could not have ascribed it to Goffe, 

 who did not leave Westminster-school till 1609. 



