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importation of Merino rams as a cross to the offspring of their ancestors.

The subject appears to me worthy of serious investigation; and I have not a doubt that many useful communications may be produced, by the above extract from that faithful chronicler, honest John Stowe." Your's, &c.

J. C. RANKIN.

To the Editor of the Monthly Magazine.

SIR,

N the Quarterly Review for Novem

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To the Editor of the Monthly Magazine.

SIR,

T was with satisfaction that I observed

The other satis, in your Magazine for November, the letter of your correspondent I. L. P. on the forgery of Bank Notes. The lamentable waste of human life which results from the prevalence of this crime, inust be a subject of deep regret to every humane and reficcting person. To the unfortunate men, six in number, whom I. L. P. mentions as

a been capitally

recently-published travels of Mr. Ker Porter, in Russia, in which the Reviewers, after stating the unnecessary introduction of the whole story of Hamlet into the work, remark, that the "unfortunate prince is murdered over again by a vile translation from the vile Latin of Saxo-Grammaticus." Now, without entering upon any discussion concerning the vileness of the translation, which must be left to shift for itself against the critic's insinuations (and these are, alas! too just,) I shall merely attempt to parry the blow aimed at the original author of the Danish story, or rather against his Latinity, by opposing a shield borrowed on the occasion, from a very celebrated champion in the field of literature, and probably at least as good a judge of Latinity as the Quarterly Reviewers. It is constructed of the follow. ing words: "Dama nobis dedit Saxonem Grammaticum, qui suæ gentis historiam splendidè magnificèque contexuit: probo vividum et ardens ingenium, orationem nusquam remissam aut dormitantem, tam miram verborum copiam, sententias crebras, et figurarum admirabilem varietatem, ut satis admirari non queam, unde illâ ætate homini Dano tanta vis eloquendi suppetierit."-Erasmus, in Ciceroniano. If this will not protect the Dane against the critic's lance, let us try another mode of defence in the words of Vossius: "Quod ad Saxonis dictionem, tanta hujus est elegantia, ut ætatis illius captum planè excedat, inò cum antiquiorum et nostri sæculi plurimis certet." De Histor. Lat. lib. ii. cap. lv. The celebrated Pontanus has compared the style of Saxo to that of Valerius Maximus. This may serve as a lesson to Reviewers of all kinds, how they hazard dashing inconsiderate opinions, which, generally speaking, they are much too apt to do. January 9, 1810. Your's, &c

CASTIGATOR.

last assizes for Lancaster, and who have since been executed, he might have added, that at the preceding springassizes, there were eleven persons found guilty of a similar offence, of whom seven were executed, and four transported. And though in the newspapers these men were said to have been punished for forgery on the Bank of England, the truth is, that they were found guilty, not of forgery properly so called, but of uttering Bank Notes, knowing them to be forged; different crimes, certainly, but confounded toge ther in one common punishment by a late act of parliament, by one clause of which, persons having any forged notes in their possession, are made liable to transportation.

If that superior mode of engraving, recommended by your correspondent, should be found ineffectual to prevent the evil complained of, there is another which he does not touch upon, that would cer tainly have the desired effect. It is only in the small notes, for one and two pounds, that forgery to any extent exists. To forge the larger notes would not answer the purpose: the parties could not introduce them into circulation; such notes are not wanted for every-day payments; they do not often get into the hands of ignorant people; and when taken, they are naturally subject to a closer scrutiny, in proportion to their increased value. To confirm these remarks, I may appeal to fact. How rare, comparatively, were executions for forgery, before the small Bank Notes appeared!

If then the evil arises from the circulation of these small notes, it is natural to ask, Are they necessary? I reply without hesitation, No. There cannot be a question, that a supply of cash in their place would soon be found when wanted. At present, the notes have

driven the cash out of circulation, be- his Majesty's reign, the peers of England cause it could be more profitably and Leland have been doubled, and the employed. There is a gain on the baronets have never been so numerous exportation of gold to the continent; as they at present are; those of England and much, no doubt, has gone out of the amount to five hundred and sixty-one, kingdom: but let the small notes be those of Scotland one hundred and forty called in, and gold enough will return to eight, and of Ireland one hundred and fill up the vacuum. It is, like any other three: in all eight hundred and twelve. commodity that is permitted to cir- This statement, one would think, either culate freely, certain to find its way to argued amazing magnanimity and talent the best market; and (unlike some in our countrymen, (thus to be able to commodities) it is almost impossible swell our list of worthies) or afforded a to prevent its circulating freely, so convincing proof of their excessive easily is it smuggled. Those, therefore, if vanity. When we look candidly into such there be, who think that if the small the cause, we shall indeed find it highly notes were abolished, we should want a creditable to our country; for we shall medium to carry on the daily commerce observe that at least one-half of this hoof life, may rest assured they are much norable body is composed of men reanistaken. To annihilate the whole, warded for their merits; and that to the understood to be above four millions other half, the motive of vanity is falsely in amount, would indeed produce a and invidiously ascribed. temporary inconvenience. But this is neither necessary, nor, dispersed as the notes are over the country, would it be practicable. Let them be gradually called in, and no inconvenience whatever to the public would result.

To prevent then the prevalence of these lamentable crimes, and their cruel consequences, if nothing else will do, there can be no hesitation in saving that the small notes should be altogether done away. Severe methods have been tried too long. The keeper of Lancaster castle, a good and humane man, is, I am told, grieved and shocked with the numerous executions that have taken place there of late. To pass sentence on the criminals must no doubt have been very painful to the mild and venerable judge who usually presides in the court; and a strong, though perhaps unfounded, opinion, that these awful examples are necessary to the support of public credit, can, I presume, be the only reason why the individuals have not been recommended to the royal mercy.

It is scarcely necessary to observe,
that the measure above recommended,
would not interfere with the Bank-re-
striction law. The Bank might be pro-
hibited from issuing notes under 51. va-
Jue; and yet privileged not to pay its
notes in cash, as long as parliament inay
think proper.
Your's, &c.
T. F.

Der. 19, 1809.
To the Editor of the Monthly Magazine.

SIR,

DE for obtaining titles and

The people of this country, Sir, have of late been gradually refining; or, if I may so term it, the lower orders have been trying to reduce to the same level with themselves the well-born, the welleducated, and the affluent; and accordingly all kinds of fraud and corruption are exercised in order to enable them to effect this by the aid of dress, and every species of imitation. Hence is it to be wondered at, that the man whose family has enjoyed for many generations hereditary possessions, should feel himself somewhat mortified at the upstart pride I have alluded to? IIe seeks title therefore not from vanity, not from a wish of having additional superiority, but only from the honest desire of maintaining that which nature has allotted to him. How is the wife of a man of fortune to be distinguished now? Are not those persons who are most decidedly her interiors addressed by the same appellation? Who is there that is not now dubbed an esquire and a gentleman?

From the time of William the Conqueror to the days of James I. we find every man possessing a certain tenure, a knight; and now that knighthood is rendered an inferior order by the introduction of baronetage, it certainly should be the aim of every man to get himself enrolled in this respectable order, who possesses upwards of a thousand à-year in landed property. I am far from including other men, even did their incomes amount to double or treble this sum; it would be hard to say what sort of a medley we might then have! Landed

Thereditary distinctions, has of late property should alone be included; for,

years increased astonishingly. During

this devolving inalienably to the heirs

through

through successive ages, leaves the rank never unsupported. The possessors of this are far more respectable than other persons, since it gives them a sort of prescriptive right over their tenants, which money cannot purchase: it is by the landed interest that a man can be fairly and honorably returned to parliament: it is by the landed interest that that most useful body the militia of the kingdom is at once raised, headed, and maintained; and services of this latter nature are so well understood, that the ministerial papers have announced the intention of creating several gentlemen of Ireland baronets, on this very account. I hope I have now shown that the acquirement of an bereditary distinction is to be sought by, and will be given to, those who have any way benetited their country; and that the attainment of it even without the claim of reward, may not in every case proceed from vanity. Aug. 20th

To the Editor of the Monthly Magazine.

SIR,

THE

HE attention of the legislature having recently been called to the number of licences, granted under the toleration act, you will have in remembrance, that when Lord Sidinouth made his motion on the subject, his Grace of Canterbury remarked, that "from his own experience, in two dioceses, he was induced to believe the dissenters had increased very much, particularly in the last few years: one cause he conceived to be, the want of churches to contain the people; for the fact was, our population had far outgrown our machinery."

Now, Sir, will you insert the following fact? On Sunday afternoon, the 3d of this month, I went into one of the central churches of the metropolis, and in this large handsome pile, no more than three women, myself, and another individual in the aisle, formed the congregation. The respectable minister was in his sermon, and, from what I heard, I thought it deseived a better and larger audience. But even one of these three women was fast asleep!

A minister went one day to a certain church in the city, to officiate for the lecturer. After a walk of two miles, he entered the church a few minutes before the time, and was surprised not to see an individual in the church except the boy who was tolling the bell, with the surplice on his arm. He went into the vestry, and had just sat down, when a MONTHLY MAG. No. 196.

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man in black opened the door, and walking up, addressed him with a very consequential air, "Pray, sir, who may you be?" "Who am I? Such a one,

and come to preach for your lecturer this afternoon." "There was nobody here. last Sunday," said the man," and I see nobody to-day." Upon which, taking up his hat, he stalked off with dignity, saying, “Let us depart in peace ;" and left the clergyman overwhelmed with indignation. Your's, &c.

Woburn, Bedford.. Sept. 13, 1809.

M. CASTLEDEN.

To the Editor of the Monthly Magazine.

SIR,

N looking over the other day, an Ex

planation of the Church Catechisin, published in London, lately, by the booksellers to the Society for the Propagation of Christian Knowledge, and taught in many of the most respectable schools and academies about London; in page 16 of the thirty-eighth and last edition, I find, immediately following the question, "What is meant by renouncing him?" (meaning the devil) this answer: "The renouncing all familiarity and contracts with the Devil, whereof witches, and conjurers, and such as resort to them, are guilty."

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!

There seems to me, Mr. Editor, some thing extremely improper in this answer; as it tends to make children believe in the existence of witches, a doctrine which, except by a few low and ignorant people, is now universally exploded. It is but of small importance, that the reverend author, Mr. Lewes, minister of Margate, Kent, and the publishers, can quote the history of the witch of Endor, in support of this doctrine. For that passage, it is well known, having puzzled our best' biblical critics, is to this day not well understood. However, this much is certain respecting it: that the term, there translated witch, does not call up to the mind of one, in the least acquainted with the original, that catalogue of crimes for which poor old women in this country, till about a century ago, used to be con demmed to the flames. The truth is, were those, who quote and drag in Scrip ture in support of this, that, and the other doctrine, to study, even with a moderate degree of care, the language of Scripture, and to pay any degree of attention to the laws, customs, manners, and mode of thinking, to which the sacred writers not unfrequently refer, they would find, that, instead of support ing

their

their peculiar notions, these passages often militate against them, and are cal culated to support doctrines of an opposite tendency. Did people, for instance, attend to this, that in the third chapter of the book of Genesis, the original word translated sewed, means to fix, tie, or fasten together in general, be it by a pin of wood, or in any other way; they would not, as is often done, ask that ridiculous question, Where Adam found the needles

and thread, with which he sewed the leaves together? And, did they attend to this, that there was a small window in the temple at Jerusalem, commonly called the Needle's Eye, and well known to the Jews by that name, they would not be so apt to find fault with the expression of our Saviour, when he tells us, that "It is easier for a camel to pass through the needle's eye, than for a rich man, by means of his riches, to enter into the kingdom of God." So that, though, for some time before as well as after the days of James VI., who wrote a treatise on witchcraft, the doctrine was believed, yet if the reverend author and publishers of the above Catechism can bring no other proof than they have done, or than is generally known, for the existence of witches, they would have evinced a more rational piety, have shown themselves better pneumaticians, and better. acquainted with the Christian system, had they saved themselves the trouble of warning people against resorting to them. A book published with a view of being put into the hands of children, tending to a belief in the existence of witches, however valuable in other respects,comes, in my opinion, with a very bad grace from any connected with the Society for the Propagation of Christian Knowledge. Not doubting that this will find a place in some corner or other of your valu able Miscellany,

I am,
Your's, &c.

187, St. Martin's-lane.

JAMES HALL.

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BSERVING in your intelligent Miscellany, for September, an account of the rare and beautiful manuscripts of Esther Inglis in the Bodleian library, library of Christ Church, Oxford, and the British Museum, I think it may not be uninteresting to your readers to be informed that another is in my possession, comprisIng eighteen specimens in different hands of the Proverbs of Solomon, in English, decorated with head-pieces, and entitled

"A New Yeers Gvift for the Right Honorable and Vertvous Lord, my Lord Sidnay, of the Hand-Writing and Limming of mee Esther Inglis, the First of Ianvar, 1606."

Greenwich,
October 9, 1809.

Your's &c.

JOHN CALDECOTT.

To the Editor of the Monthly Magazine.

SIR,

absurdities which at no very remote AMONG the numerous superstitious period prevailed even among the learned, but which reason and good sense have now happily banished, none was more ridiculous than that of the scrofula, or king's-evil, being cured by the royal touch. Whether our monarchs themselves believed they possessed this miraculous power of healing, or whether they spread this deception to dupe the people into a belief of their divine right, they universally laid claim to it from Edward the Confessor down to the last of the race of Stuart. It does not appear that any of the house of Brunswick have asserted this royal function; at least it has never been.publicly announced, as was formerly the practice; but were his present majesty to resume it, such faith is yet put in the assertion of a king,, that all the courtiers, and the great body of the ignorant multitude, would not hesitate to believe its infallibility. The last sovereign who appears to have exercised this miraculous gift was Queen Anne. In the Royal Gazette of March 12, 1712, appears the following public notice:

"It being her majesty's royal intention to touch publicly for the evil the 17th of this instant March, and so to continue for some time, it is her majesty's command, that tickets be delivered the day before at Whitehall, and that all persons bring a certificate, signed by the minister and church- wardens of their respective parishes, that they never received the royal touch."

Wiseman, serjeant-surgeon to Charles II. gives, in a inost reputable work on surgery, a treatise on the king's evil, in which he speaks of the royal touch in the following terms: "I have myself been a frequent eye-witness of many hundreds of cures performed by his majesty's touch alone, without the assistance of chirurgery, and those many of them such as had tired out the endeavours of able chirurgeons before they came thither. It were endless to relate what I myself have seen, and what I have received ac knowledgments of by letter, not only from the several parts of this nation, but

also

also from Ireland, Scotland, Jersey, and Germany." It was the office of Mr. Wiseman, as serjeant-surgeon, to select such afflicted objects as were proper to be presented for the royal touch. In the history of the disease, when describing its various states and appearances, he says: "Those which we present to his majesty are chiefly such as have this sort of tumour about the musculus mastoideus or neck, with whatever circumstances they are accompanied; nor are we difficult in admitting the thick-chapped up. per lips, and eyes afflicted with a lippitudo. In other cases we give our judgments more warily." Serjeant-surgeon Wiseman says, elsewhere: "In case of the king's touch, the resolution doth often happen where our endeavours have signified nothing; yea, the very gummata; insomuch that I am cautious in predict ing concerning them, although they appear never so bad, until fourteen days be over."

Sceptics deny their belief to miracles, from their not being duly attested; but is it possible to desire a more satisfactory testimony of these miraculous cures, than that of a man of science and respec. tability, under whose immediate inspection they were performed, and who has "himself been a frequent eye-witness of many hundreds of cures performed by his majesty's touch alone?"

The Honorable Daines Barrington, in his Observations on the more Ancient Statutes, inserts what he heard from an gid man, a witness in a cause, with regard to this miraculous power of healing. The following are Judge Barrington's

words:

"He had, by his evidence, fixed the time of a fact, by Queen Anne's having been at Oxford, and touched him whilst a child for the evil. When he had fi nished his evidence, I had an opportunity of asking him, Whether he was really cured? Upon which he observed, with a significant smile, that he believed himself never to have had a complaint that deserved to be considered as the evil; but that his parents were poor, and had no objection to the bit of gold!'

"It seems to me, that this piece of gold which was given to those who were touched, accounts for the great resort ou this occasion, and the supposed afterwards miraculous cures."

Gemelli, the famous traveller, gives

at the ceremony; and says, the words used were "Le Roy te touche, Dieu te guerisse." Every Frenchman received fifteen sous, and every foreigner thirty. To some of the supposed patients the king said, Etes-vous malade aussi?

This power of healing by the kings of France, occasioned great resort to Francis I. while prisoner at Madrid, by the Spaniards, who had not such faith in the efficacy of their own king's touch.

It appears, by a proclaination of James I. March 25, 1617, that the kings of England would not permit any resort to them for these miraculous cures in the summer-time. By another proclamation, of the 18th of June, 1626, it is ordered that no one shall apply for this purpose, who does not bring a proper certificate that he has never been touched before; and the same, it has already been seen, were the terms on which Queen Anne granted her royal touch. This regulation undoubtedly must have arisen from some supposed patients who had attempted to receive the bit of gold more than once.

In a prayer-book printed in the year 1708, is a form of the church-service for the occasion of the royal touch. After the Lord's Prayer, it is stated, "Then shall the infirm persons, one by one, be presented to the queen; and while the queen is laying her hands upon them, and is putting the gold about their necks, the chaplain that officiates, turning himself to her majesty, shall say these words following:- God give a blessing to this work! and grant that these sick persons on whom the queen lays her hands may recover, through Jesus Christ our Lord!' -After some other prayers, the chaplain, standing with his face towards them that come to be healed, shall say: 'The Almighty God, who is a most strong tower to all them that put their trust in him, to whom all things in heaven, in earth, and under the earth, do bow and obey, be evermore your defence; and make you know and feel that there is none other name under heaven given to man, and through whom you may receive health and salvation, but only the name of our Lord Jesus Christ! Amen.' Your's, &c.

September 12, 1809. J. BANNANTINE,

To the Editor of the Monthly Magazine.

SIR,

Ο

an account of 1600 persons offering "No species of writing," says Dr.

'themselves to be cured of the evil by Louis XIV. on Easter Sunday, in the year 1686. Gemelli himself was present

Johnson, " 'seems more worthy of cultivation than biography, since none can be more delightful or useful."

This sentiment, together with the idea

that

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