Feb. 3. 1855.] 



NOTES AND QUERIES. 



89 



which many people have to sit down to table with 

 thirteen guests. Dr. Jamieson says, he cannot 

 account for so strange a prejudice ; but I need 

 hardly say, that it alludes, not to any supposed 

 "Devil's dozen," but to the very contrary — a 

 supper where there were a dozen righteous per- 

 sons, and one only the Devil's, Judas Iscariot. C. 



COWLBT ON SHAKSPEABI:;. 



(Vol. xi., p. 48.) 



For the satisfaction of J. O. H., I copy from an 

 old edition of Cowley in my possession, printed by 

 Herringman in 1680, the passage to which I sup- 

 pose he refers. It occurs in the preface to bis 

 Poems, in which he complains of a publication of 

 his verses without his concurrence, full of errors 

 and interpolations. He then proceeds : 



" From this which has happened to myself, I began to 

 reflect on the fortune of almost all writers, and especially 

 poets, whose works (commonly printed after their deaths') 

 we find stuffed out, either with counterfeit pieces, or with 

 such which, though of their own coin, they would have 

 called in themselves, for the baseness of the alloy; 

 whether this proceed from the indiscretion of their friends, 

 or by the unworthy avarice of some stationers, who are 

 content to diminish the value of the author, so they may 

 increase the price of the book. This hath been the case 

 with Shakspeare, Fletcher, Johnson, and many others, 

 part of whose poems I should take the boldness to pnme 

 aad lop awaj', if the care of replanting them in print did 

 belong to me," &c. 



While on the subject of Shakspeare, may I be 

 excused for noticing an allusion to one of his cha- 

 racters which I have just met with, written some 

 thirty years previous to this preface, and by no 

 less a person than Chillingworth ? It is in his 

 first answer to " Charity Maintained," and is as 

 follows : 



" So that, as a foolish fellow, who gave a knight the 

 lie, desiring withal leave of him to set his knighthood 

 aside, was answered by him, that he would not sufier 

 anything to be set aside that belonged unto him," &c. 



This seems clearly to refer to the scene between 

 Falstaff and the Lord Chief Justice, where the 

 attendant says, — 



"I pray you, Sir, then set your knighthood aside, and 

 give me leave to tell you, you lie in your throat," &c. 



To which the knight replies, — 



" I give thee leave to tell me so ! I lay aside that 

 which grows to me ! If thou get'st any leave of me, 

 hang me," &c. 



I hope Cowley would not have " pruned and 

 lopped away " this passage. F. White. 



SIB THOMAS FBKNDEBGAST. 



(Vol. xi., p. 12.) 



I have extracted (literally so) the following page 

 from my Memoir of the Campaign of 1708, by 

 John Marshall Deane, privately printed in 1846 : 

 and I send it to you as an answer to Mr. G. Tay- 

 LOB of Reading, who (Vol. xi., p. 12.) wishes to 

 know the particulars of the story of Sir Thos. 

 Prendergast's dream or vision. 



" Sir Thomas Prendergast was Colonel of the Twenty- 

 second Regiment in 1709, when he fell at Malplaquet under 

 very extraordinary circumstances, as testified by the fol- 

 lowing extract from Boswell's Life of Dr. Johnson, vol. iii. 

 c viii. p. 220. 12mo. 1835. 



" ' General Oglethorpe told us that Prendergast, an oflBicer 

 of the Duke of Marlborough's army, had mentioned to 

 many of his friends, that he should die on a particular 

 day ; that on that day a battle took place with the French ; 

 that after it was over, and Prendergast still alive, his 

 brother officers, while they were yet in the field, jestingly 

 asked him, ' Where was his prophecy now ? ' Prendergast 

 gravely answered, ' I shall die notwithstanding what you 

 see.' Soon afterwards there came a shot from a French 

 battery to which orders for a cessation of arms had not yet 

 reached, and he was killed on the spot. Colonel Cecil, who 

 took possession of his efiects, found in his pocket-book the 



following solemn entry : — [Here the date] * Dreamt 



or * Sir John Friend meets me. '^ [here the very 



day on which he was killed was mentioned.] 



" 'Prendergast had been connected with Sir John Friend, 

 who had been executed for high treason [by William the 

 Third]. General Oglethorpe said he was with Colonel 

 Cecil when Pope came and inquired into the truth of this 

 story, which made a great noise at the time, and was then 

 confirmed by the colonel.' 



" Such is this remarkable story. Mr. Croker endeavours 

 to throw doubt upon it : ' Colonel Sir Thomas Prender- 

 gast, of the Twenty-second Foot, was killed at Malplaquet, 

 Aug. 31, 1709 ; but no trace can be foimd of any Colonel 

 Cecil in the army at that period. Colonel Wm. Cecil, the 

 Jacobite, sent to the Tower in 1744, could hardly have 

 been, in 1709, of the age, rank, and station which Ogle- 

 thorpe's anecdote seems to imply.' 



" But General Oglethorpe does not say that Cecil was a 

 Colonel in 1709 : he might only have been a subaltern at 

 that time, and a colonel when spoken of in the above con- 

 versation. If he was a relative of Sir Thomas Prender- 

 gast, he would probably administer to his property and 

 take charge of his papers, as he is reported to have done. 

 It is at all events clear, that Friend, Prendergast, and 

 Colonel Cecil, were of the same political party. Whatever 

 then may be the measure of our credulity in respect of 

 apparitions of spirits, or premonitions of death, this ex- 

 planation, or rather objection, by Mr. Croker, has not, in 

 mj' mind, cleared away the difficulties of the direct nar- 

 rative." 



J. B. Deane. 



Bath. 



* Note by Boswell. — "Here was a blank which may 

 be filled up thus, or was fold by an apparition." 



