2'" 1 S. IX. Jam. 7. 'CO.] 



NOTES AND QUERIES. 



15 



The 



found in Jones's Life of Bishop Home, 

 latter, as we Lave seen, was Mr. W.'s pupil, and 

 was so delighted with his tutor that he remained 

 an entire vacation in Oxford in order that he 

 might prosecute his studies under one who is 

 described as " so complete a scholar, as great a 

 divine, as good a man, and as polite a gentleman, 

 as the present age can boast of." 



Jones states that Mr. Watson never published 

 any large work, and will be known to posterity 

 only by some occasional pieces which he printed 

 in his lifetime. He notices a sermon preached 

 before the University of Oxford on the 29th 

 May, " An Admonition to the Church of Eng- 

 land," and a fourth sermon " On the Divine Ap- 

 pearance in Gen. xviii." This last sermon, Jones 

 adds, " was furiously shot at by the Bushfighters 

 of that time in the Monthly Review." To this at- 

 tack Mr. Watson returned a reply, so able, in 

 Jones's opinion, that if he wished to contrast Mr. 

 Watson with his reviewers, he would put the letter 

 into any reader's hand, of which he supposes " no 

 copies are now to be found, but in the possession of 

 some of his surviving friends." Dr. Delany made 

 honourable mention of this reply in the third 

 volume of his Revelation examined with Candour. 

 From the foregoing remark Watson may have 

 printed his sermons and other works solely as 

 gifts to his friends, and which will account for 

 their scarcity. 



He probably induced both his young friends, 

 Jones and Home, to adopt the opinions of Mr. 

 Hutchinson. 



These opinions, we know, were embraced by 

 other excellent men ; the Lord President Forbes 

 (pronounced by Warburton " one of the greatest 

 men which ever Scotland bred"), Parkhurst, and 

 Mr. W. Stevens were in the list, but the number 

 was small, as the system was obscure, and some- 

 what unattractive. "As the followers of Hut- 

 chinson did not form a distinct Church or Society, 

 and continued to belong to the Church with which 

 they were formerly connected, they did not so far 

 give way to schism as to compose a sect."* 



No men could have been less inclined than 

 Hutchinson's friends to constitute themselves a 

 party, "that bad thing in itself;" and though they 

 were spoken of with contempt and acrimony, they 

 could have replied with Hooker, "to your railing 

 we say nothing, to your reasons we say what 

 follows." At the early age of nineteen Home 

 sat down to attack the Newtonian system, and at 

 twenty-one he unwisely published his work ; it 

 was entitled, — 



" The Theology and Philosophy in Cicero's Soranium 

 Scipionis explained, or a brief Attempt to demonstrate 

 that the Newtonian System is perfectly agreeable to the 

 Xotions of the wisest Ancients, and Uiat Mathematical 

 Principles are the only sure ones. London, 1751." 

 8vo. Pp. 56. 



* Mosheim's Ecc. Hist. vi. 304. note. 



A copy of this rare tract was lent me by my 

 late valued friend Mr. Barnwell of the British 

 Museum in 1830. I have never seen a second. 



Home's friends were sensible of its faults : so 

 was the author, who doubtless used his best en- 

 deavours to suppress it. It appeared afterwards 

 in another and unexceptionable form. Amongst 

 the comments passed upon it there is a bitter one 

 by Warburton, who tells his friend Hurd, "there 

 is one book, and that no large one, which I would 

 recommend to your perusal, it is indeed the ne 

 plus ultra of Hutchinsonianism." * 



We must not take leave of Bp. Home without 

 adverting to one of the most exquisite works in 

 our language, his Commentary on the Psalms. 

 He had drank deeply of that " celestial fountain," 

 as the Book of Psalms has been well called, and 

 he tells us that whilst pursuing his daily task, 

 "food and rest were not preferred before it." 

 The result was the production of a work, prized 

 by both the young and the old, described as "a 

 book of elegant and pathetic devotion," but which 

 deserves the far higher epithet of evangelical. 



Walpole, in 1753, speaks of the Hutchinsonian 

 system as " a delightful fantastic one," and some- 

 what rashly concludes that it has superseded 

 Methodism, quite decayed in Oxford, its cradle !f 

 "One seldom hears anything about it, in town," he 

 adds; and certainly it was not likely to engage 

 Walpole's attention beyond that of furnishing 

 matter of ridicule for his pen. 



Hutchinson's own writings were given to the 

 world in 1749 — 1765, in thirteen octavo volumes. 

 Their slumber for years on book- shelves must 

 have been deep and undisturbed. A short but 

 masterly notice of the author will be found in 

 Whitaker's Richmondshire, i. 364. 



J. H. Markxaxd. 



GEOPvGE GASCOIGNE THE POET. 

 (2 nd S. viii. 453.) 

 I may take upon me to answer the question 

 put by G. H. K. to the authors of the Athena 

 Cantab., as I believe the only documentary evi- 

 dence " relative to the George Gascoigne who 

 was in trouble in 1548," is a passage that has 

 recently passed under my editorial review in a 

 volume (entitled Narratives of the Reformation) 

 prepared for the Camden Society, but not yet 

 issued to its members. It occurs in the Auto- 

 biographical Anecdotes of Edward Underbill (for- 

 merly in part published by Strype) and is as 

 follows : — 



*' I caused also mr. Gastone the lawyare, who was also 

 a greate dicer, to be aprehendid ; in whose bowse Alene 

 (the prophecyer) was mouche, and hadde a chamber ther, 



* Warburton's Correspondence, p. 86. 

 f Correspondence, vol. ii. 257. 



