Feb. 24. 1855.] 



NOTES AND QUERIES. 



139 



and not with a design to bring it to the sense of 

 any system. How much that has made men wind 

 and twist and pull the text in all the several sects 

 of Christians, I need not tell you. I design to 

 take my religion from the Scripture, and then 

 •whether it suits, or suits not, any other denomin- 

 ation, I am not much concerned : for I think at 

 the last day, it will not be inquired, whether I 

 was of the Church of England or Geneva, but, 

 whether I sought or embraced truth in the love 

 of it. 



The proofs I have set down in my book of one 

 infinite, independent, eternal Being, satisfies me ; 

 and the gentleman that designed others and pre- 

 tended that the next proposition to that of the 

 existence of a self-sufficient being should be this, 

 that such a being is but one, and that he could 

 prove it antecedent to his attributes, viz. infinity, 

 omnipotency, &c., I am since pretty well satisfied, 

 pretended to what he had not. And I trouble not 

 myself any further about the matter. As to what 

 you say on the occasion, I agree with you, that 

 the ideas of modes and actions of substances are 

 usually in our minds before the idea of substance 

 itself; but in this I difier from you, that I do not 

 think the ideas of operations of things are antece- 

 dent to the ideas of their existence ; for they must 

 exist before they can any ways affect us to make 

 ns sensible of their operations, and we must sup- 

 pose them to be before they operate. 



The Essay is going to be printed again ; I wish 

 you were near, that I might show you the several 

 alterations and additions I have made, before they 

 go to the press : the warm weather that begins now 

 with us, makes me hope I shall now speedily get 

 to town. If any business draws you thither this 

 summer, I hope you will order it so, that I may 

 have a good share of your company ; nobody 

 values it more than I, and I have a great many 

 things to talk with you. 



I am, Sir, 

 Your most affectionate humble servant, 



John Locke. 



Oats, May 16, 1699. 



"Timoleon" (Vol. xi., p. 98.). — M. K S., re- 

 ferring to the Town and Country Magazine for 

 1769, asks "what is known of his (Pope's) tragedy 

 of Timoleon?" I think it probable that the 

 magazine has erroneously ascribed to Pope what 

 belongs to another. I have before me " Timoleon, 

 a tragedy, as it is acted at the Theatre Royal, 

 by His Majesty's Servants : London, printed for 

 J. Watts, at the printing-office in Wild Court, 

 near Lincoln's Inn Fields, 1730." The dedication 

 to the king (George II.) is signed by the author, 

 Benjamin Martyn, who states that in the third act 



he has " endeavoured to copy from His Majesty 

 the virtues of a king who is a blessing to his 

 people." 



The play, in blank verse throughout, is coarse 

 and obscene ; the epilogue, spoken by a lady, dis- 

 gustingly so. There is a ghost scene in the fourth 

 act, the idea of which has been made up from the 

 chamber scene in Hamlet and the banquet scene 

 in Macbeth. I may add that the play is hand- 

 somely printed in 8vo., and my copy is sumptu- 

 ously bound in crimson morocco, richly tooled 

 and gilt, evidently of the date of the work. 



L. A. B. W. 



Pope and Warhurton. — The assertion that 

 Warburton published the Ethic epistles of Pope 

 in 1742 (^Literary anecdotes, v. 578.) seems to be 

 contrary to the joint evidence of Pope and War- 

 burton, p. 586. It may be said, however, that he 

 published the Ethic epistles because the Essay 

 on man was formerly entitled Ethic epistles, the 

 first book to H. St. John, L. Bolingbroke. The 

 date only may be erroneous. The very precise 

 statement of Warburton as to the extent of his 

 editorial doings with regard to Pope had been 

 before printed by bishop Hurd. 



Bolton Cobnet. 



ONE OF SPEED THE HISTORIAN S MS. AUTHOHITIES. 



The following remarks relate to a MS. chro- 

 nicle of English history in my possession, some 

 extracts from which were inserted in " N. & Q.," 

 Vol. xi., p. 103. At the time I made those ex- 

 tracts, I thought that the chronicle in question 

 might be a translation, or a copy of some known 

 MS. ; and that others might be able to help me 

 to its source, though I had been unable to trace 

 it myself. 



I think I can now show that it is, as I supposed, 

 neither a translation nor a copy, but an indepen- 

 dent and unknown chronicle. Of course this 

 might be established by sufficient examinations of 

 the MS. ; but I wish to call attention to the fol- 

 lowing interesting fact, which is, that it is quoted 

 by Speed in his History of Great Britain, and 

 always as an independent authority. 



It is well known that Speed was assisted by 

 some of the most eminent literary men of his day, 

 Cotton, Selden, Barkham, &c. ; he enjoyed their 

 friendship, and shared their treasures of know- 

 ledge. And though probably the best use was 

 not always made of the rich materials at com- 

 mand, nor always a right estimation of their value 

 held : yet, when the great historian quotes as from 

 an independent source, his opinion will be allowed 

 to have some considerable weight. His references 

 to the chronicle do not convey much information 

 about it : he calls it " antiq. MS.," " an old MS." 



