CHARLES BALGUY, M.D. 17 
books and his fondness for natural science, must have heard and 
remembered many of these. Though his life was mostly spent in 
the flat fens of Northamptonshire he could not forget the loveli- 
ness of the Derbyshire valleys, and the poetry which lingered 
there.* 
In his boyhood members of his family had espoused the cause 
of James Stuart, the Pretender.t Had he lived in our time, he 
might have forsaken the older scholarship and written a good 
novel or two. As it was, he practised physic, and contented 
himself with translating the ‘‘ Decameron.” In 1741 the modern 
novel had hardly been “invented.” Richardson, himself a 
Derbyshire man, had only published the first part of his 
“Pamela” in 1740, at the very time when Balguy was engaged 
in turning the most famous collection of novels in the world into 
English prose. Fielding had published nothing but pamphlets 
and essays. Smollett was a surgeon’s mate on board a ship of 
the line, and did not publish his first novel till 1748, nor his 
translation of Don Quixote till 1755. The modern novel was 
really begun by Addison’s “ Roger de Coverley,” and besides that 
there was nothing to read in 1741 but old volumes of romances, 
printed in folio, and often inexpressibly dull and tedious. 
My own copy of Balguy’s translation was described by Mr. 
* The making of ballads, and sometimes of lampoons, could not have been 
uncommon in the Peak district. In 1742 a reference was held before Joseph 
Hall, of Bamford, touching. ‘the making, singing, and publishing a song.” 
An action for libel had been brought in the Exchequer.—*‘ Local Notes and 
Queries” of Sheffield and Rotherham independent. 
+ See some letters written in 1717 by Philippa Balguy, fourth daughter of 
Henry Balguy. Esq., of Hope Hall, to a young Mr. Heaton, in Sheffield, who 
supplied her with news about politics and the movements of the Pretender. 
She writes to him of the birth of a Royal Prince as ‘‘ the birth of a Royal 
whelp.” In one of her letters she says, ‘‘ You had better by half send me a 
lover, or put me in a way to get one, for they are very scarce in the Peak.” 
(Religuary xxii. 44). . Heaton seems to have admired her eldest sister, Frances, 
whom she describes to him as “killing Mistriss Fanny,” ‘‘ resplendent 
Mistriss Fanny,” etc. Frances did not marry him, but the Rev. W. Lucy, 
D.1)., Rector of Hampton Lucy. The Heatons seem to have lived near the 
Charity School, Sheffield, for on the 2nd Feb., 1726, Thomas Heaton, iron- 
monger, leased to John Balguy, then of Sheffield, clerk, part of his garden 
near the Charity School to build a house upon,—L. N. & Q. of Sheffield 
_ Lndependent (15th March, 1877). 
4 
