2'"> S. VI. 156., Dec. 25. '58.] 



NOTES AND QUERIES. 



533 



" Very well," replied the lady ; " Christmas pie, if you 

 prefer it. When may we begin ? " 



" Doctor. Look into your Prayerbook Calendar for 

 Dethember, and you will there find ' Thapienthia.' 

 Then Chrithmath pie; not before." 



" Doctqr, shall I help you to some hashed mutton? " 



" Yeth, if you pleathe. Give me all the thippet-th." 



Medi^evus. 



CHATTEETON AND COLI-INS. 



(•2°d S. vi. 430.) 



Since ray last communication, Mr. Kerslake, the 

 bookseller of Bristol, has kindly furnished me with 

 a pamphlet which may help to settle the question, 

 ■whether the sneers of Chatterton were directed 

 against William Collins, the author of the Oriental 

 Eclogue, or, as suggested by your correspondent 

 G. H. A., against some obscure Bristol verse- 

 writer of that name. The pamphlet shows, at 

 least, that there was a Collins at Bristol, near the 

 time of Chatterton, who wrote verses. It is in 

 small quarto, and its title is as follows : — 



" Miscellanies in Prose and Verse, consisting of Essays, 

 Abstracts, Original Poems, Letters, Tales, Translations, 

 Panegyricks, Epigrams, and Epitaphs. 

 * Sunt bona, sunt quasdam mediocria, sunt mala plura, 

 Quae legis, hie aliter non fit Avite, liber.' 



By Emanuel Collins, A. B., late of Wadbam College, 

 Oxon. Bristol. Printed by E. Farley in Small Street, 

 1762." 



It is certainly possible, or even probable, that 

 Emanuel Collins was the poet whom Chatterton 

 referred to in connexion with the howling of 

 " midnight cats," though his verses are, I think, at 

 least equal to the average of provincial bards of 

 a century ago. The Bristol Collins must have 

 been much older than Chatterton ; for he ad- 

 dresses, in 1762, poems to his daughter-in-law, 

 and there is no mention of his name among all 

 the Bristol celebrities mentioned by Chatterton 

 in his Letters. Chatterton, however, must have 

 known something of him ; and he appears to have 

 been intimate with the Catcotts. He tells us he 

 was: — 



" Happy enough to be educated in the Grammar School 

 in Bristol, under Mr. Catcott, a gentleman quite equal to 

 the business ; for his capacity was great, and his labor 

 equal to it." 



And he adds : — 



" I thought myself in a p.irticular manner obliged to 

 him : this affection and respect as I grew up increased, 

 and after my first trip to Oxford I ran eagerly to visit 

 him." 



This " Catcott " was no doubt a relative of the 

 literary pewterer George Catcott, and his brother 

 the Rev. Alexander Catcott, author of the work 

 on the Deluge; and Emanuel Collins was, there- 

 I fore, probably acquainted with them also. This 

 ' alone might have furnished Chatterton with a 

 motive for attacking him. I have thus stated, as 



far as I am able, the pro and con of the matter, 

 which must still remain doubtful, unless the dis- 

 cussion in "N. & Q." should fortunately bring out 

 some farther information. W. Mot Thomas. 



It is very probable that your correspondent 

 G. H. A. is right in his conjecture : for there ivas 

 a Bristol Collins, who was a "verse-writer," and a 

 contemporary of Chatterton's. Evans, in his Out- 

 lines of the History of Bristol, states that — 



" The Rev. Emanuel Collins, A.M., was of Wadhani 

 College, Oxford, for which he had probationised at the 

 Bristol Grammar School, under the Kev. A. S. Catcott, 

 and was vicar of Bedminster, where he kept a public- 

 hovse, and performed the marriage ceremony in it, at a 

 crown a couple." 



I have often had a thin pot 4to. of Miscellanies 

 in Prose and Verse, written by him, and " printed 

 by E. Farley in 1762." The reverend " publican" 

 appears to have been a man of some ability ; but 

 Evans states, " he was nothing loth to employ his 

 lively talent in lampooning his neighbours," which 

 sometimes brought him into difficulty. There is 

 an oval mezzotinto portrait of him, in canonicals, 

 with four verses under it, which I have seen but 

 once, and then it was folded to form a frontispiece 

 to his Miscellanies. The latter is scarce, but the 

 former is very rare. W. George. 



Bristol. 



Sicyltcsi ta Minav €iunieg. 



Wallace's Orkney Islands (2"'^ S. v. 89.) — Al- 

 though the Query regarding Mr. Wallace has 

 already been answered to a certain extent, yet as 

 reference is made to his curious work, for in- 

 formation on the points alluded to by J. M., a 

 few notes on the subject of inquiry may perhaps 

 be still deserving of a place in the pages of " N. 

 & Q." as the Description of the Isles of Orkney is 

 now a scarce work. 



Mr. James Wallace was instituted to the minis- 

 terial charge of the parish of Kirkwall, by the 

 Bishop of Orkney, on November 16, 1672, and 

 he was also collated to the Prebendary of St. 

 John, in the cathedral church of St. Magnus the 

 Martyr, at Kirkwall, October 16, 1678, by Bishop 

 Mackenzie. He was " deprived by the Council ' 

 of his ecclesiastical preferments, for his adherence 

 to the episcopal form of church government, at 

 the Revolution of 1688-89, and must have died 

 about the same period, according to the biograph- 

 ical notice given by his son. Dr. James Wallace, 

 F.R.S. The first edition of Mr. Wallace's work 

 was published by his son at Edinburgh in 8vo. 

 1693; and the second, enlarged and reprinted in 

 Dr. Wallace's own name, at London, in 8vo, 1700. 

 It appears that An Account from Orkney, by Mr. 

 James Wallace, larger than what has been printed 



