Nov. 30. 1850.] 



NOTES AND QUERIES. 



445 



of it ill the Christian Magazine of 1761. This 

 account was again republished, with additions, in 

 1837, entitled Brief Memorials of Nicholas Ferrar, 

 Founder of a Protestant Religious Establishment at 

 Little Gidding, in Huntingdonshire ; by the Rev. 

 T. M. Macdonogh, Vicar of Bovingdon. Some 

 further particulars of this family may be found 

 in Barnabas Oley's preface to Herbert's Country 

 Parson, and in Bishop Racket's Life of Arch- 

 bishop Williams. In JBakers MSS. (vol. xxxv. 

 p. 389.) in the Public Library of Cambridge, is an 

 article entitled " Large Materials for writing; the 

 Life of Mr. Nicholas Ferrar." Isaac; Walton, in 

 his Life of George Herbert, also notices Ferrar, 

 and describes minutely his mode of life at Little 

 Gidding. From an advertisement at the end of 

 Francis Peck's Memoirs of Cromwell, it appears 

 that Peck had prepared for publication a Life of 

 Mr. Nicholas Ferrar, no doubt the manuscript 

 collections noticed by Mb. Rimbault (p. 407.) : 



" Little Gidding," it has been observed, " was in 

 England what Port Royal was in Fiance. Ardent 

 devotion to the Redeemer characterised both. In each, 

 peace, charity, good order, and love to the souls and 

 bodies of men, were eminently exliil>ited ; upon each 

 tlie hand of persecution fell with unrelenting severity. 

 Port Royal was destroyed by the Jesuits; Little Gid- 

 ding by the Puritans." 



J.Y. 



Hoxton. 



Arminian Nunnery in Huntingdonshii'e (Vol. ii., 

 p. 407.). — Allow me to refer Dr. RiMnACLx to 

 Hacket's Life of Archbishop Williams, Part ii. 

 p. 50. ; Izaak Walton's Z//e of George Herbert ; 

 Peter Langloft's ChroJiicle, ed. Ilearne, Preface, 

 sect, xi.. Appendix to Preface, Nos. IX. and X. ; 

 Caii Vindicice Antiquitutis Academics Oxoniensis, 

 ed. Ilearne, vol. ii. p. 683. 693. 697. 702. 713. ; 

 and Memoirs of the Life of Mr. Nicholas Ferrar, 

 by Peter Peckard, D.D., Cambridge, 8vo., 1790 

 (which is reprinted with adilitions fram a manu- 

 script in the archicpiscopal library at Laml)eth, in 

 Dr. Wordsworth's Ecclesiastical Biography). In 

 Dr. Peckard's Preface will be found somewiiat re- 

 specting "the loss (probably the unjust deten- 

 timi)" of Francis Peck's manuscript life of Nicho- 

 las Ferrar, apparently the same manuscript which 

 Dk. Ri.mbault states he has seen. 



C. II. Cooper. 



Cambridge, November IG. 1850. 



Ill Nichols's Litterary Anecdotes, vol. ii. p. 519., 

 it is stated that " a capital account of the family 

 of Ferrar was compiled by Mr. Goiigh for the sixth 

 volinne of the second edition of the Biogruphica 

 Britannica." Of the only two copies known to 

 exist of the printed p(;itioii of this si.xth volume 

 Mr. Chalmers possessed one, and lie seems to have 

 used it in the ])re()aration of tiie life of Ferrar fm- 

 his Biographical Dictionary. John J. Dredge. 



Dr. R1MBATJI.T will find many interesting par- 

 ticulars relating to the so-called "Arminian Nun- 

 nery," and the family of Ferrars, together with an 

 account of the present state of the place, in a paper 

 by C. Colson, B.A., Fellow of St. John's College, 

 entitled " An Account of a Visit to Little Gidding, 

 on the Feast of S. Andrew, 1840," published in the 

 first part of the Transactions of the Cambridge 

 Camden Society, Stevenson, Cambridge, 1841. 



E. V. 



Dr. Peckard appears to have had the use of 

 sorfle of Peck's MSS. (perhaps those referred to 

 by Dr. Rimbaui-t), but he regrets the loss of a 

 MS. which he had lent to the Rev. Mr. Jones, of 

 Sheephall, being a Life of Nicholas Ferrar, by 

 Peck, prepared for the press, but which, after near 

 twenty years' inquiry, he had been unable to re- 

 cover. This suggests the Query, Has it ever yet 

 been recovered ? Dr. Rimbault's inquiry re- 

 garding Thomas Ilearne has been answered by 

 Dr. Dibdin {^Bibliomania, London, 1811, p. 381.) 

 who informs Dr. Peckard, Dr. Wordsworth, and 

 his Quarterly Reviewer (p. 93.), that Hearne, in 

 the Supplement to his Thorn. Caii Vind. Ant. Oxon., 

 1730, 8vo., vol. ii., "had previously published 

 a copious and curious account of the monastery at 

 Little Gidding," which he says " does not appear 

 to have been known to this latter editor," meaning 

 Dr. Wordsworth. I have not Hearne's work to 

 refer to; but Dr. Dibdin versus Dr. Wordsworth 

 and his Reviewer, as to ignorance of what so well- 

 known an author as Tom Ilearne has written, is 

 a little curious. The word " Arminian," in Dr. 

 Rtmbault's Query, requites a remark. On read- 

 ing the Memoir which Dr. Wordsworth has edited, 

 he will find (Ajipendix, p. 247.) that the Ferrars 

 complained of " a libellous pamphlet, entitled the 

 Arminian Nunneri/ at Little Gidding in Hunting- 

 donshire," and that they repudiated " Arminianism 

 and other fopperies." This suggests a further 

 Query : Is Db. Rimbault possessed of that pam- 

 phlet? The attachment to books manifested by 

 the Ferrars family entitles them, I humbly think, 

 to as much space as your " Notes and Queries " 

 can aflbrd them. J. D. N. N. 



Renfrewshire. 



If Dr. Rimbaui.t or any of your correspondents 

 could furnish a reply to any of the Queries in- 

 serted by you in Vol. ii., p. 119., relative to the 

 memoir published by Peckard, and other matters 

 connected therewith, I should feel obliged. 



Materre. 



Mr. Heniing of Ilillingdcn, a descendant of the 

 Ferrar family, through his great-uncle, Dr. John 

 Ma[)lctot't, (see Ward's Lives (f the Grc.\hum Pro- 

 fessors'), who was the groat- nephew of N icholas Fer- 

 rar, possessed one of the three curious volumes ar- 

 ranged by members of the family, viz. : — A Digest 



