tions and reflections. Wherein are many secrets. never before made public: as also a more impartial account of the Civil Wars in England, than has yet been given. By Roger Coke, Esq. The fourth edition, continued through the reigns of King William and Queen Mary, and to the death of Queen Anne. In three volumes. London, Printed for J. Brotherton and W. Meadows, at the Black Bull in Cornhill. 1719. 8vo. First printed in 2 vols. 1697.

ART. XIII. The Secret History of White-hall, from

the Restoration of Charles II. down to the abdication of the late K. James. Writ at the request of a noble Lord, and conveyed to him in letters, by lale Secretary-Interpreter to the Marquess of Louvois, who by that means had the perusal of all the private minutes between England and France for many years. The whole consisting of Secret Memoirs, which have hitherto lain con cealed, as not being discoverable by any other hand. Publish'd from the original papers. By D. Jones, Gent. London. Printed and are to be sold by R. Baldwin, near the Oxford Arms Inn in Warwick Lane, 1697. 8vp. 2 vols in one, pp. 144 and 110.

James Welwood, M. D. was born at Edinburgh 1652, and educated at Glasgow; after which he spent some years at Leyden in the study of physic, and came over with King William at the Revolution. He then settled at Edinburgh, being appointed one of the King's Physicians for Scotland. He died 1716. He was strongly attached to republican principles, as suf

ficiently

ficiently appears in his Memoirs, which are otherwise well written.* Roger Coke was grandson of Lord Chief Justice Sir Edward Coke, by his fourth son. He had his education at Cambridge, became well versed in several parts of learning, and wrote a Treatise against Hobbs's Leviathan. He afterwards engaged in commerce, but excelled more in the theory than the practice; for he fell into distresses; and retained little more for his support than an annuity of an hundred pounds a year paid out of the family estate; so that he lived for some years within the rules of the Fleet, and died single about the 77th year of his age. †

It has been remarked, that Coke's and Daniel Jones's volumes contain "a sort of secret history, engaging to an Englishman, naturally inquisitive, curious, and greedy of scandal."‡

ART. XIV. Modern Heraldry.

TO THE EDITOR OF CENSURA LITERARIA.

I heartily agree with you in reprobating that miserable want of judgment in heraldry, which is discovered in most of the arms invented of late years. It was in the reign of Henry the Eighth, when new families began to spring up like mushrooms, that the ancient simplicity of armorial ensigns began to be disregarded by the heralds, and numerous colours and

Biogr. Dict. XV. 233.

Apology to the Reader be ore the 4th Edit. of his Detection.

Du Fresnay's Method of study.n, History, by Rawlinson, II. 4;6.

charges

charges were first blended together in the same shield with ingenious intricacy. But it has been reserved for the present venerable head of the College of Arms to introduce landscape and seascape into the shields designed to commemorate deeds of valour and heroism; and he has done it with most admired success. Indeed few heralds have displayed greater variety of fancy, and a more coquettish temper in armoury, than that gentleman: who (if I am not misinformed) has changed his own coat two or three times, in humble hope, no doubt, of inspiring a similar restlessness of humour in others, and of thereby bringing an additional quantity of grist to his mill.

I also agree with you in reprobating the effrontery, with which the heralds have maintained, and continue to maintain, that no arms are of authority which have not been registered amongst their own archives. If this doctrine were just, the consequence would be that arms, of comparatively modern invention, are of better authority than those which a man and his ancestors have borne, from time before the existence of the College of Arms, and for time immemorial, supported by the evidence of ancient seals, funeral monuments, and other authentic documents. Surely this is grossly absurd, and the more absurd if we consider that the heralds seem originally not to have been instituted for the manufacturing of armorial ensigns, but for the recording those ensigns, which had been borne by men of honourable lineage, and which might therefore be borne by their posterity.

Perhaps it would not be too much to presume that it will be found, on inquiry, that there are no grants of arins by the English heralds of any very high antiquity,

and

and that the most ancient which can be produced, either in the original, or in well authenticated copies, are of a date when the general use of seals of arms, circumscribed with the names and titles of the bearers, was wearing away. And it may, I think, very fairly be asked, by what rule of law or reason a note taken by the heralds, in the sixteenth century, of the arms which a man's ancestor bore in the time of King Edward the First, should be a better title for his descendant to bear those arms, than the ancient seal or monument would be from which such note was taken.

I am told there are instances in which arms have been denied to a family at one visitation of the heralds, and allowed to the same family at a subsequent visitation, without any intermediate grant of arms to such family from the office. This, if true, would decidedly prove that the heralds are not infallible in these mat

ters.

Before I conclude, you will permit me to notice a practice amongst the heralds in the time of James the First, of reciting in the patents of arms that they had searched their office for the arms of the family of A. B. and found that he might lawfully bear argent a bend gules, (or otherwise as the case might be) but there being no crest to the said arms, the said A. B. had requested them to confirm the said arms and to grant him a crest, and that therefore, and for other causes therein specified, they granted and confirmed to the said A. B. such arms and crest. This practice was, in some instances, highly reprehensible, because such recitals were made in cases where the heralds had not found the arms, which were so confirmed, amongst the records

of

of their office prior to such confirmation; and because such confirmations, not grounded on prior evidence, were, in fact, original grants.

July 26, 1806.

S. E.

ART. XV. The Legend of Humphrey Duke of Glocester, By Chr. Middleton. London. Printed for Nicholas Ling, and are to be solde at his shop at the west doore of St. Paules Church. 1600. 4to.

This metrical legend consisting of one hundred and eighty four stanzas, which is evidently written on the plan of the Mirror for Magistrates, and is inferior to none in that favourite collection, is dedicated to Sir Jarvis Clifton, Knight; from which circumstance in the obscurity of his biography one might be tempted to conjecture that he was a Bedfordshire man: the sources of information being silent respecting him, we may fairly conclude that he was one of the numerous poets who, in the words of Roger Ascham, "lived men knew not how, and died obscure, men marked not when." But though "clouds and darkness rest upon" the history of his life, caret quia vate, that of his writings has preserved itself. He wrote A short introduction to the Art of Swimming,' translated from Sir Everard Digby, "De arte natandi."

"The Historie of Heaven: containing the poetical fictions of all the starres of the Firmament, gathered from amongst all the poets." 4to. 1598, and

"The legend of (the good) Duke Humphrey," which is the subject of the present paper.

It is preceded by an Ilexasticon by Rob. Allott, a

sonnet