298 



NOTES AND QUERIES. 



[2"J S. IX. AriUL 21. '60. 



Lords of the Trea- 

 sury. 



Sea, I took the liberty to send you a petition directed to 

 the hon ble Lords of "the Treasury humbly beging the 

 favour of you to Leye it before the said hon Wcs Lords, and 

 having since endeavour'd to have the honour to speeke to 

 you to receve your andswer, I have found it in ti rely im- 

 possible, which obligeth me to Committ the rudenesse to 

 •write to you a second time to humbly desire you to give 

 me a worde of andswer in the affirmative or in the nega- 

 tive, the thing I propose is good in its nature, and I have 

 propos'd it with all the humblenesse and Submission be- 

 coming a man under my Condition and Sircumstances, 

 So if the thing doe not Succeede I shal not inquare the 

 reasons that may have obstructed it, but shal only think 

 it a great pitty I have Lost the oportunity of "making 

 myself useful to the puplick it being my only view and 

 to be with a profonde respec, 



" Sir, Your most humble and 



most affectionnatt Servant, 

 P. Laurans." 

 " Att M r Williams" 



in Salisbury Street in the 



Strand, Jully y« 27, 1722." 



" The humble petition of Feter Laurans 

 " To the hon w » M r Walpole' 

 " To the hon bl <> Sir Charles Turner 

 " To the lion' 1 ' 5 M r Pel ham 

 " To the hon w « M r Bailie 

 " To the hon' ,lc M r Edgecombe 



" Whereas the petitionner having through Long Study 

 and Labour in his profession attain'd to the knowlege of 

 making a Machine of intire niew Construction and in- 

 falibly proprer for the discovery of the Longitude upon 

 '.'(■a, and the said petitionner having thereby throw'd 

 himself in Low Sircumstances which made him incapa- 

 ble of producing the said Machine to the world in all its 

 perfection, the said Petitionner being inform'd there is 

 a piece of mony loflg'd in your hands, and dessined for 

 the incouragement of any parsone that shal make or pro- 

 duce a Machine tending to that discovery, the said 

 petitionner with all Submission humbly begg your Lord- 

 ships's assistance to produce this thing to the world, 

 which may tende to the general use and beneffitt of the 

 publick it being the petitionner's only and intire view." 



This was read on the 27th July, 1722; but the 

 petitioner was answered that my Lords could not 

 pay any of the money prescribed by the Act until 

 the machine was produced to the Trustees named 

 in the Act and approved by them. 



Laurans, however, was not to be repulsed thus 

 easily : for in the following year he. made another 

 application to the Treasury, and wrote thus to the 

 Secretary, Mr. Lowndes : — 



" Sir, 

 " I take the Liberty to write this lines to you to hum- 

 bly begg the favour of you to reade thpse petition to the 

 hon w " Lords of the Treasury and jou will oblige, 

 " Sir, Your most humble 



and affectionnet Servant, 

 P. Laurans." 

 " Oct" y« 14<h, 1723." 



" The humble Petition of Peter Laurans to the hon ,,le 

 Lords of the Treasury. 

 " Whereas the petitionner having through Long 

 Study and Labour in his profession attained to the know- 

 ledge of making a Machine of intire New Construction 

 and infalibly proper for the discovery of the Longitudes 

 upon Sea, and the said petitioner having for a very con- 

 siderable time endeavour'd to fix his talant in this 



Country, and having through Losse of time and expences 

 plung'd himself in extreme bad sircumstances, in so 

 much that he is destitute of all visible ways of subsisting, 

 the said humble petitionner being inform'd that some 

 Nobles gentlemen in this towne having taken notice of 

 his miserable Condition, out of their goodnesse and Cha- 

 rity have gathered among themselves a sum of mony 

 which sum they have desseigned to releave him in his ne- 

 cessities, the said humble petitionner being also inform'd 

 that the said sum has been Lodged in your Lordships 

 hands for that purpose, the said humble petitionner sup- 

 posing his information wright, with humble respect and 

 submission taketh the Liberty to begg that your Lord- 

 ships may be pleas'd to grant him the said sum, the 

 which sum the humble petitionner shal make use of, so 

 that it may answer the ende for which it shal be granted 

 to him, and the said humble petitionner shal ever pray 

 for those Nobles gentlemen that have Contributed to tho 

 said sum, and for your Lordships preservation and pros- 

 perity." 



This petition, however, fared no better than its 

 predecessor; it was read to my Lords on the 16th 

 October, 1723, when they replied that they could 

 not order any money upon the petition. 



William Henry Hart. 



Folkestone House, Roupell Park, Streatham. 



MRS. ALISON COCKBURN. 



The name of this lady must be familiar to the 

 admirers of the late Sir Walter Scott; but the 

 passing notices of her in his Life and Works are so 

 extremely meagre, that some additional particulars 

 of the amiable authoress of " The Flowers of the 

 Forest" may be acceptable. Mrs. Cockburn of 

 Fairnalie in Selkirkshire was distantly related to 

 the mother of Sir Walter Scott, with whom she 

 had through life been in habits of intimate friend- 

 ship. In the month of November, 1777, when 

 young Walter had reached the age of six years 

 and three months, she was staying at Ravelstone 

 in the vicinity of Edinburgh, a seat of the Keiths 

 of Dunnottar, nearly related to Mrs. Scott, and to 

 herself. With some of that family she spent an 

 evening in Georges Scpiare, and in a letter to Dr. 

 Douglas, written on the following day, thus alludes 

 to the young poet : — 



"I last night supped in Mr. Walter Scott's. He has 

 the most extraordinary genius of a boy lever saw. He 

 was reading a poem to his mother when I went in. I 

 made him read on ; it was the description of a shipwreck. 

 His passion rose with "the storm. . . . When taken to 

 bed last night, he told his aunt he liked that lady. 

 'What lady?' says she. 'Why Mrs. Cockburn; for I 

 think she is a virtuoso like myself.' ' Dear Walter,' says 

 aunt Jenny, 'what is a virtuoso?' 'Don't ye know? 

 Why, it's one who wishes, and will know everything.' 

 The boy has a lame leg, for which he was a year at Bath, 

 and has acquired the perfect English accent, which 

 he has not lost since he came, and he reads like a Gar- 

 rick. You will allow this an uncommon exotic." (Lock- 

 hart's Life of Scott, p. 24., edit. 1815.) 



In Scott's Autobiography are also the following 

 lines by Mrs. Cockburn, which made one among a 



