but upon enquiry you will find them to be trifling exceptions against our Ordinal, and no way to relate to the fact of Parker's Consecration, which was not disputed till a long time after. Beside the Writers mentioned in my last Letter, you may see a faithful account of all the steps of this Consecration, and other things relating thereto, in Archbishop Parker's Life published by Mr. Strype. I hear also a good character of the book lately published at Paris in defence of our Orders. The author of it is said to be a Benedictine, and Keeper of the Library at St. Genevieve's, but it is no wonder if he hath concealed his name in a Popish Country. Those who have wrote the Civil History of England, are so very inaccurate, and indeed knew so little of Ecclesiastical affairs, that I should not in the least wonder if any of them hath mistaken the day or any other circumstance of Parker's Election; but the very original Letters Patents of Queen Elizabeth for the Confirmation, Consecration, &c. are still preserved, and you may see copies of them in Rymer's Fœdera, lately published. The account in short is this:-The Conge d'Elire for Parker's Election was made Aug. 1; he yielded his assent to his Election, Aug. 6; had the Queen's Letters for Confirmation and Consecration, dated at Redgrave, Sept. 9th: but these not taking effect by reason of some accidents, the Queen issued second Letters Patent for the same purpose, Dec. 6th, in obedience to which he was confirmed at St. Mary-le-Bow, Dec. 9, and consecrated in the Chapel at Lambeth, Dec. 17. It is very possible, that Stow or others might be led to say that Parker was elected on Sept. 9, because the Queen's first Letters for Consecration were dated on that day; neither is it to be wondered, that those who are unacquainted with our forms of electing, confirming, consecrating, &c. might mistake the one for the other. But whatever becomes of these or the like disagreements as to small circumstances, if there really be any such, for I have looked into Stow, &c. I doubt not but that whenever you have leisure to read all, or but some of the authors now and before mentioned, you will find the fact of Parker's Consecration so well attested and proved from undoubted records, as that you will never entertain the least suspicion about it. I shall therefore no farther trouble you at this time in replying to the little exceptions mentioned in your letter, because the matter-of-fact once being fully established, they must all of course fall to the ground; and the forementioned books will afford plain and full answers to them. I am sorry your Convert or any other person should be induced to remain in the Communion of Papists, because they are so uncharitable as to condemn all those who are not of their own mind: but the unreasonableness of this practice hath been so fully exposed in one of Archbishop Tillotson's Sermons (to say nothing of other Writers), that I hope it would be needless for me to add any thing farther about it, and therefore shall conclude, with my hearty wishes for the divine blessing on your endeavours; who am, Sir, "Your affectionate friend and servant, Jo. OXFORD." Rev. JOHN WHITAKER to Dr. DUCAREL. Manchester, June 13, 1772. "MY WORTHY FRIEND, "I am much obliged to you for both your kind letters. They both fouud me at this place, after a long journey of nearly three weeks from London; and I have been so busily employed ever since my arrival at this place, that I have not been able till this week to write a single letter. Had I, your kindness would have merited, and my friendship would have given, the preference to you before all my London friends. "When I left London, my first object was Coway-stakes, you know, and Cæsar's passage over the Thames there. I saw the place where the stakes were, gleaned all the information I could concerning them, and then rode to St. George's Hill, to see the supposed camp of Cæsar. I viewed it round, rode down for Shepperton Ferry, and, meeting with a sensible intelligent waterman, sent my horses and servant over the river, but took myself a second walk with my conductor to the Coway stakes. This completed my first scheme. My second was, to fix the place of Boadicea's famous battle with the Romans. This I had done in my own mind, from reasonings upon the history, and I wanted to see if the nature of the ground would justify my opinion. It does, and I think that I have satisfactorily settled this historical point. I shall, however, next summer pay the place one more visit, in order to perfect my acquaintance with it. "Another great object was, to see the two famous hills near Dorchester, commonly called Mother Dunch's Buttocks, and the celebrated Dyke-hills. And here I was remarkably happy in finding my notions of both so coincident with the nature of both, and both so finely taking the place which I had assigned them. In the History of the Roman Conquests,' Dr. Stukeley has made the Dyke-hills into a British race-ground; but the very site of them directly refutes the supposition, and they are evidently military entrenchments. Here, at Dorchester, I met with a very surprising person in the clerk of the parish, a man that, in the low occupation of a joiner, shews a wonderful genius for Antiquities, pointed out to me many curious notices relating to this Roman town, and has even collected six or seven hundred Roman coins. Amongst these he has two or three that are certainly British, and one or two more that are conjecturally so; and he shewed me a small Roman curiosity, in copper, which he called an ink-horn, but which I found to be a lamp. "Abury, in Wiltshire, I rode into, in full expectation of being highly gratified; and I was. I expected the Bath road to have gone through it; so it did in Stukeley's time; but it now goes a mile to the South of it. I turned off, therefore, to the right, rode along what I immediately found to be one of Stukeley's avenues to the Temple, and remarked with pleasure the obvious * The very learned Historian of Manchester; of whom see the "Literary Anecdotes," vol. III. p. 101; vol. VII. pp. 464, 710. serpentine serpentine turn of it. When I reached the village, the whole Temple burst upon me at once, but all in confusion. I immediately enquired for the little inn at which Stukeley continued during his residence here; but, alas! it had been long since shut up, and no other had succeeded in its room. There was none nearer than Beckhampton, above a mile distant, and in the Bath road. Uncertain how to act, as I had rode 45 miles that day, and had not much of the afternoon remaining, I enquired for Reuben Horsall, or any of his family, the honest parish clerk here in Stukeley's time, and his great companion and ciceroni in these parts. Reuben, I found, had been long dead; and even John, his successor in the Clerkship, was also dead; but I was referred to the Schoolmaster, as the properest person to inform me of every thing I wanted to know. To him I went, and he proved a very useful man. He remembered Dr. Stukeley's visits here. He had got his book; and he told me that the wooden cut of Reuben was a very great likeness. Tom Robinson, the Herostratus of Abury (as Stukeley calls him), was, it seems, a silly ideotish Dissenter, and was dead before Stukeley gave the profile of him. I was a little curious to pick up some accounts of these two worthies, whose faces, as well as memories, Dr. Stukeley has thought proper to perpetuate. The Doctor laments the destruction made in his time; but there has been still greater destruction since: and yet, after all, there remains enough to justify the Doctor's account, and to prove it, however extraordinary, to be generally correct. "I was greatly delighted with the sight of Old Sarum; and, as I staid near four days at Salisbury, I had an opportunity of examining it with great attention. Since my return, I have drawn up an account of the town, its size, and the reasons of the migration from it, which will make a much fuller account than has hitherto appeared. But one of the four days I spent in an excursion to Stonehenge. This is exactly in the condition in which Stukeley described it. The colony of rabbits, from which he apprehended ruin to these venerable remains, is totally extirpated, I believe, as I saw no appearances of them; and his plans and descriptions, I believe, are the only just ones. They are obviously just and right, as far as the eye can determine, only he has omitted one or two remarkable particulars, which struck me. "My journey to Salisbury was luckily timed, as it enabled me to retrieve the memorials of a remarkable battle that was fought near it betwixt the Britons and the Saxons. I wanted to fix the scene of that battle; but I enquired in vain. One evening, however, the Hon. Mr. Howard, in answer to a lady's enquiry, gave an account of some discoveries that had been lately found, and I immediately saw they were the very memorials I wanted. 1 waited the next morning upon Penruddock Wyndham, Esq. who was the person that had made the discoveries, and had the helmets, swords, &c. in his possession. From the likeness of the helmets helmets to an helmet of Rufus in Speed, he had fixed the remains to the reign of that monarch; and, having wrote his opinion, and inserted it in the Salisbury paper, I found great difficulty in convincing him to the contrary; and should certainly have failed, had he not incidentally mentioned a coin of Constantine, as discovered with the other things; and had not he produced at last, as equally discovered with all, what he called a latch, but what was in reality the stock of a Roman ...... (word torn). "I thank you for your recommendation to Mr. Barrett, of Bristol. He is really a more respectable man than you and I apprehended. He is but young yet in the pursuit of Antiquities; and his business allows not much application to the study. He shewed me some of Rowley's MS. and particularly a part which exhibited, in Rowley's drawing, several Roman and inscribed stones, that Rowley says were found in and about Bristol. But the very inspection of them was sufficient to me, to prove them errant forgeries. Three or four of them were plainly Roman altars by their shape, and were inscribed CAER BRITTO, meaning Bristol; as if Bristol was in being during the time of the Romans, or as if the Romans would call it Caer Britto, if it was; and one of them had below this inscription, these letters, Vict. P. Ostor.' to import that Ostorius reduced Caer Brito. If Rowley was an honest man, he was very ignorant to be so imposed upon; and, if he was a knave (which I suspect, for who would be at the trouble to fabricate monuments for him?), he was but a poor one. I saw the representation of the twapenny in the same company, and I suppose it was of the same original. Mr. Barrett kindly rode to St. Vincent's rocks, to shew me what he called three Roman camps, all together. That, I told him, was impossible; and, on inspection, I found them to be one Roman camp, and a Roman town. They are what I went to Bristol to find, the Abone of the Romans, and the Mother of Bristol; and I am now able to clear up that confused part in Richard's and Atonine's Itineraries, which relates to this point of the country. I intend to write to Mr. Barrett in a few days, and hope to get some fresh matter from him. "I am much obliged, my good friend, by your friendly letter relating to the Secretaryship of our Society. It is a place, that, if it could be properly gained, I could not, in my present unpreferred situation, but willingly accept; and I could wish that, as occasions offer, you would try such of the Council as you are acquainted with, but without any notice that I am privy to it. I know not who the Council are at present, and therefore I must leave it entirely in your hands: I could not leave it in better. I am glad to hear that your health is much better: you must be careful of your eyes. I hope they will still grow better; and your excursion to Canterbury, I hope, will be of service to you. I am, my dear Friend, with great regard, J. WHITAKER." "Yours affectionately, Rev. JOSEPH WHITE, D. D. This very eminent Orientalist (whom, during nearly forty years of his chequered life, I was in habits of great personal friendship), was born at Stroud in Gloucestershire; baptized Feb. 19, 1745-6. His parents were in low circumstances near Gloucester, where his father was a journeyman-weaver, and brought up his son to the same business. Being, however, a sensible man, he gave him what little learning was in his power at one of the Charty-Schools in Gloucester. This excited a thirst for greater acquisitions in the young man, who employed all the time he could spare in the study of such books as fell in his way. His attainments at length attracted the notice of a neighbouring gentleman of fortune, who sent him to the University of Oxford, where he was admitted Commoner of Wadham College, June 6, 1765. He was elected Scholar of that College on the 30th of the same month; and he very soon afterwards wrote the following pathetic Letter: "To my worthy Patrons and Benefactors, the following lines are "I think it is my indispensible duty, as well as the highest pleasure and satisfaction, to return that debt of gratitude on my entrance at the University, due for the many favours received at school; and to solicit the continuance of that generosity in the prosecution of more important studies at Oxford, which you so kindly shewed me during my stay at Gloucester. You know, Gentlemen, the immediate transition from the apron to the gown (even supposing it not wholly impracticable) would have been too great a change to have been experienced with pleasure; and excellent truly was the expedient your sagacity suggested-an expedient which at once initiated into life, to which I was before a stranger, refined my grammatical speculations, and in short, opened the way to all classical attainments. "At Ruscomb I commenced a dry application, but it was at Gloucester 1 first tasted the sweets of literature, under the direction of a gentleman whose profound knowledge and penetration, accompanied with the warmest affection, will ever claim my admiration and gratitude. There, likewise, I saw how ill-founded were my former sentiments of life, and what prejudices my situation and retirement had led me to embrace. Letters were guarded by no frightful thorns, and humanity widely extended its acts of benevolence. Every thing was calm and serene; the business of the school my greatest pleasure; and the satisfaction of my friends my highest wishes. What farther improvement then was my happiness capable of receiving? that which arises from solid academic pursuits, and those studies which corroborate the judgment, expand the faculties, and exalt the nature of man. Logic, Mathematics, and the other arts subservient to Theology, afford both the greatest utility, and the sublimest pleasure. |