Hinton Charterhouse, near Bath.

I owe the knowledge of this curious chart (observes Mr. Hunter) to the Collections of Sir Thomas Phillipps, a gentleman who with the spirit of a Bodley, a Cotton, or a Harley, and deserving, like these illustrious men, the respect and gratitude of his country, has brought together a collection of the manuscripts of the Middle Ages, such as never before was assembled in private hands. It is far from being improbable that amongst the thousands (for thousands there are) of the manuscripts which he has brought to our shores, may be some of the contents of those ship-loads' mentioned by Bale, which were sent abroad on the suppression of the English monasteries."

PART 11.] United Twins.-Junius and Lachlan M'Lean.

of Buckingham; and "like a false hypocrite" had induced the Duke to the treason with his "false forged prophecies." He was one of the witnesses at the trial in 1521, and full particulars of the Duke's consultations with him, will be seen in Holinshed's account of that proceeding.

Collinson says, that in the church of Norton St. Philip's (also called Norton Comitis), "under an arch in the south aile, lies the effigy of one of the religious of Hinton Abbey, who is supposed to have rebuilt the church. Her hands are uplifted in a suppliant posture, and at her feet is a dog." Collinson does not explain how a female could have been one of the members of a religious foundation for males. The paragraph which next follows may be worth adding, as mentioning a supposed instance of united twins, -a subject which, from the public exhibition of living individuals so circumstanced, has recently attracted much attention.

"In the floor of the nave are the mutilated portraitures in stone of two females close to each other, and called by the inhabitants the fair maidens of Fosscot, or Fosstoke, a neighbouring hamlet now depopulated. There is a tradition that the persons they represent were twins, whose bodies were at their birth conjoined together; that they arrived at a state of maturity; and that one of them dying, the survivor was constrained to drag about her lifeless companion, till death released her of her horrid burden."

This account (which comes in bad company with the female monk of Hinton,) is perhaps nothing more than a sexton's tale, like that of the lady in Westminster Abbey, who died from a prick of her finger, or numberless others which are rife throughout the country. It may, however, be remarked that the history of these "fair maids of Foxcot" bears a strong resemblance to that of the maids of Biddenden in Kent; whose remembrance is annually renewed by cakes stamped with their figures, which are distributed at Eas

ter.

(See Hasted's Kent, and Hone's The Every-Day Book for 1827.) Biddenden maids lived so early as 1100; and, from the mention of a depopulated hamlet, these appear to claim an early æra.-But an examination of the stone figures by a more judicious eye than Collinson's, might tend to show whether the story has any claims to regard. J.G. N.

579

Mr. URBAN, Thetford, Dec. 31.

WITH the termination of the old

WITH

year I transmit a few literary notices relative to Junius, Lachlan M'Lean, Sir Philip Francis, and Lord Temple. But, in the first place, I beg to extract the following passage from Galt's Life of Benjamin West, published in 1820. After noticing the intimacy which Mr. West enjoyed with many literary characters, that writer adds,

"An incident of a curious nature has

brought him to be a party in some degree with [to] the singular question respecting the mysterious author of the celebrated Letters of Junius. On the morning that the first of these famous invectives appeared, his friend Governor Hamilton happened to call, and inquiring the news, Mr. West informed him of that bold and daring epis tle ringing for his servant at the same time, he desired the newspaper to be brought in. Hamilton read it over with great attention, and when he had done, laid it on his knees, in a manner that particularly attracted the notice of the painter, who was standing at his easel. This Letter,' said Hamilton, in a tone of vehement feeling, is by that damned scoundrel, M'Lean.' What M'Lean?' enquired Mr. West. The surgeon of Otway's regiment; the fellow, who attacked me so vehemently in the Philadelphian newspaper, on account of the part I felt it my duty to take against one of the officers, a captain, for a scandalous breach of the privileges of hospitality, in seducing the wife of very respectable man. This Letter is by him. I know these very words;

'He

may well remember them,' and he read over several phrases and sentences which M'Lean had employed against him. Mr. West then informed the Governor that M'Lean was in this country, and that he was personally acquainted with him. came over,' said Mr. West, with Colonel Barry (Barré?), by whom he was introduced to Lord Shelburne, afterwards Marquis of Lansdowne, and is at present private secretary to his Lordship.' Throughout the progress of the controversy with Junius, Hamilton remained firm in his opinion, that the author was no other than the same Lachlan M'Lean; but at the Literary Club the general opinion ascribed the Letters for some time to Samuel Dyer [who died in 1772, before Junius expired; for there are communications from him subsequent to the death of Dyer. Sir James Mackintosh, in the Edinburgh Review, advocated the pretensions of Sam. Dyer, unconscious of the anachronism involved in his argument. See my Letters on the Authorship of Junius's Letters. E.H.B.] The sequel of this anec

580

Junius, and Sir Philip Francis.

dote is curious. M'Lean, owing to a great
impediment in his utterance, never made
any figure in conversation; and passed with
most people as a person of no particular at-
tainments. But when Lord Shelburne came
into office, he was appointed Under Secre-
tary of State, and subsequently nominated
to a Governorship India; a rapidity of
promotion to a man without family or par-
liamentary interest, that can only be ex-
plained by a profound conviction, on the
part of his patron, of his superior talents,
and perhaps also from a strong sense of
some peculiar obligation. M'Lean sailed
for India in the Aurora frigate, and was lost
in the wreck of that ship on the coast of
Africa. That the Letters of Junius were
not ascribed to him by any party, is not
surprising; for his literary talents were un-
known to the public. But the general opi-
nion of all men at the time was that they
were the production of some person in con-
nection with Lord Shelburne."-Vol. II.
p. 57.

1. Mr. Galt speaks with too much
confidence, and in direct opposition to
the fact, when he states that "it was
the general opinion of all men at the
time," (though general and all cannot
be, grammatically or logically, thus
united in the same sentence,) "that
they were the production of some per-
son in connection with Lord Shel-
burne." For the general opinion of
the contemporaries was in favour of
if
Burke, as I could easily prove, space
were allowed to me.

2. The story told by Mr. Galt about Governor Hamilton and Mr. Lachlan M'Lean, may be applied to a very important purpose connected with Junius. The great argument urged by Mr. John Taylor and other Franciscans, is that the sudden and extraordinary promotion of Sir Philip Francis to a high appointment in India, can only be accounted for on the supposition that he was the author of the Letters of Junius. This kind of argument, which its promulgators regard as decisive, rests in truth on this dangerous foundation,—that no other instance can be found of a man similarly exalted without family or parliamentary interest;' and such is the delicacy of the argument, that a single authentic instance is sufficient to overturn it. The history of Lachlan M'Lean supplies the instance required, and the Franciscans must strike their colours!

3. Some notices of Lachlan M'Lean occur in the Gent. Mag. April, 1830, p. 293, and from them it appears that

[VOL. C.

a correspondent had a few years since made inquiry about this personage, and a reply was given at the time, but there is no reference to guide me to the numbers containing the queries and the answers, or to the subjects discussed in them.

4. Mr. Galt tells a curious anecdote in p. 65, which I will transcribe :

"Dr. Francis, the father of Sir Philip, had been long before mentioned, but for what reason I have never been able to ascertain. The answer of Sir Philip himself on the subject is, however, curiously equivocal : at least it so strikes me; although it is generally considered as a decided denial. It is as follows:- The great civility of your letter induces me to answer it, which, with reference merely to its subject-matter, I should have declined. Whether you will assist in giving currency to a silly, malignant falsehood, is a question for your own discretion; to me it is a matter of perfect indifference.' But notwithstanding all this, an amusingly mysterious circumstance has, I am informed, transpired since the death of Sir Philip. In a box, it is said, which he carefully deposited with (at) his banker's, and which was not to be opened till after his death, a copy of the publication ‘Junius Identified,' with a common copy of the 'Letters of Junius,' were found. I shall offer no comment on this occurrence; for even granting that it was true, it might have been but a playful trick, if Sir Philip Francis was, in any respect, a humorist."

In my

"Letters on the Authorship of Junius's Letters," I have stated a fact communicated to me by my excellent friend the Rev. Dr. Fellowes, that after the death of Sir Philip he examined his library, with a view to the very question of the authorship of these Letters, and he found one copy of Junius containing some marginal notes of a very ordinary description, and not likely to have been made by Junius himself.

5. One of the identities of expres sion noticed by the ingenious Mr. John Tavlor as remarkable in Junius and Sir Philip Francis, is the phrase so far forth. In the book above cited, I have commented on this remark. If the phrase were confined to these two writers, then Mr. Taylor might be justified in laying great stress on the fact; but without an universal knowledge of English authors of every age, and without a memory equal to that knowledge, Mr. Taylor cannot reasonably take on himself to say that no other writer has used the expression;

PART II.]

Lord Temple the presumed Author of Junius.

and if any other writer has used it, then Mr. Taylor's argument falls to the ground.

Now quatenus is translated by Ains worth, "So far forth as." And in the Rev. Nath. Carpenter's very beautiful composition, entitled "Achitophel, or the Picture of a Wicked Politician," London 1638, 12mo. I find these three instances:-1. "The former concurrence of our assent, or at least submission to such extremities, we finde warranted not onely by permission but commands, so farre forth as the justice of the cause conspiring with a regulated conscience imports necessity." 2. "An obedience we justly owe to our superiours, both active and passive, so far forth as it may stand with the right of nature, and God's honour, as that which God expressly commands, and no community can want." 3. "Neverthelesse, so farre forth as the infinite power of God may dispence with man's inquiry, wee may reduce the manner of his working to certain heads."

6. Some of your readers may be amused by the perusal of the following article, extracted from a letter addressed to me by my enlightened friend John Pickering, Esq. and dated Boston, U. S., Aug. 16, 1830:-" I enclose an extract from one of our newspapers on the Junius-controversy, as to the point whether Lord Temple was the author, as lately contended in England. The writer of this piece takes the negative of the question. But it is a little remarkable that as much as ten or twelve years ago, an acquaintance of mine came to the conclusion that Lord Temple was the author; and he had marked in his copy of Junius all the passages and allusions which, he thought, indicated Lord Temple to be author. I expect to have the use of that copy shortly."

From the New-England Palladium :-"Ever and anon we have reports flying from England to America, that the author of the celebrated letters under the signature of Junius, is actually discovered. This has been said so often, and vanished again into thin air, that the very mention of it associates the disagreeable idea of a hoax, and diminishes, in the minds of readers, the real importance of that great question, to the solution of which is annexed valuable history. The New York papers now say that

581

the late Earl Temple, brother to the Right Hon. Geo. Grenville, the putative father of our notorious Stamp-act, was the writer of Junius; but it is difficult to believe it.

"Lord Temple was a man of abilities and education, a staunch Whig, and a very honest man. He was a generous champion of the people's rights, in the famous question of general warrants; and patronized and sustained Wilkes when prosecuted for writing the North Briton,' No. 45. Had he not taken that celebrated demagogue under his special protection, the name of John Wilkes would have sunk below the horizon in obscurity. It was generally believed that Lord Temple was the author of several Numbers in the North Briton,' and not unlikely of that Number fathered by Wilkes. But, respectable as he was as a writer, and illustrious as a nobleman of the revolutionary stock, and distinguished for his whigism and well-known independent spirit, we can hardly suppose him to have been the author of the best compositions in our language. To write better than Bolingbroke, Swift, or Johnson, is an elevation which none of the Grenvilles, clever as they were, ever rose to.

"Lord Temple was a stern man, of stern principles and rigid honour, and so little of a courtier, that the late King more than once complained to those about him of the uncourtly be haviour of Temple-as a Privy Councillor, and in the course of business. Now his Lordship had spirit enough, venom enough, and resentment enough; but he had not talent enough to crowd so much thought into so few words, and those few so elegant as has Junius. It is, however, remarkable that Junius never once mentions the name of Lord Temple; and whenever he mentions his brother-in-law, Lord Chatham, it is evidently with great caution and hesitancy; and it is alike remarkable that this illustrious nobleman never mentions, in any of his fine speeches, the name of Junius.

"The authorship of Junius is a great problem, and its solution may mark an epoch in British history. The character of the long reign of George III. turns upon it,-our own history is connected with it, and the French Revolution grew out of the principles of that unknown writer. George III. told General De-s, while riding with

582

Spelsbury, co. Oxford.-Sir Henry Lee.

him, that he knew the author of Junius; but after that, Queen Charlotte told her son, the Duke of Sussex, that the King was ignorant of the author, which anecdote comes from the Duke's librarian.

"The public have till now looked too low for the author. They have hunted among the grass and weeds, instead of looking up among the deeprooted, wide-spreading oaks of old England, the pride and glory of their soil. He will be found among the Burleighs, the Sullies, and Richelieus; and the mention of Lord Temple is giving a better direction to the searchers after truth, and we hope they may be able to exclaim, Templa quàm dilecta !'"

On the anecdotes respecting George III. and the Duke of Sussex, (the latter was first promulgated by me), and for particulars connected with the claims of the Grenville family, I refer the reader to my book for ample information.

Yours, &c. E. H. BARKER. MR. URBAN,

N

1817 and

[VOL. C.

a monument to the memory of Sir
Henry Lee. It consists of an altar-
tomb of black and white marble, sur-
mounted by a canopy of the same ma-
terials; the pedestals and capitals of
the columns which support it are
white, and the shafts of black marble,
and ornamented with roses, cherubs,
obelisks, &c.
Above the canopy

are well executed figures of Time,
Death, and two Hymens with reversed
torches; also an Archangel sounding
two trumpets, in front of whom is a
shield, helmet, and the family crest,
an eagle upon a column, whose head
is a ducal coronet, but no shield of
arms. Beneath the canopy are the
cumbent figures of Sir Henry Lee and
his lady; he is represented in armour,
bareheaded, peaked beard, Vandyke
frill, and trunk hose; she in a close
gown, with large drawn sleeves, tied
in the middle with ribbons, her hair
much frized, and covered with a veil;
their hands are elevated in prayer, and
their heads rest on richly embroidered
cushions. At the head of the tomb
are smaller figures of a son and a
daughter, both kneeling; the youth is
dressed as the father, with loose straight

In Your Magazines for notices of hair, his right knee, the ground, the

Sir Henry Lee, of Quarendon, in Buckinghamshire, and of Quarendon Chapel, the burial place of his family.* The following Church notes, taken in 1795, commemorate the subsequent members of the same noble family.

Spelsbury is a village in Oxfordshire, at about a mile distant from Charlbury, and consists of but very few houses, yet is an extensive parish, having three hamlets within it, viz. Dean, Toston, and Fulwell; and Ditchleyhouse, once the noble seat of the Earls of Lichfield, from whom it has descended to Lord Viscount Dillon.

The Church appears to be smaller than it originally was, great part of it, as well as the tower, having been taken down, and rebuilt. It is neatly, pewed, and consists of a pinnacled tower, nave, two side ailes and chancel, and has a handsome altar-piece.

In this Church lies buried the witty but profligate Earl of Rochester, but without any memorial.

On the north side of the chancel is

They are inserted as follows:-vol. LXXXVI. i. 504; ii. pp. 105-108, 115, 290, 489 (with two views of Quarendon Chapel), 602; vol. LXXXVIII. i. pp. 116

120.

right hand on the left breast, and the
left hand holding a book turned down
upon his left knee; the daughter is
dressed as the mother, but with the
addition of laced lappets, for her head-
dress. At the foot of the tomb are two
other of their daughters, habited in the
same manner, the hands of all three
in the attitude of prayer. By the side
of Sir Henry are three smaller figures
of children in cumbent positions, one
of which is covered with a mantle,
and appears to have died soon after its
birth. On the border of the tomb,
"TO THE HAPPIE MEMORIE OF SIR HENRY

LEE, KNIGHT AND BARONETT.”
And beneath, on two smaller tablets,
in capitals,

"They whose inglorious undeserving dayes
Of life, deserve noe memorie, noe prayse
Of future and succeeding Ages: these
Have need of marble tombes, pyramides
To keep alive their names and fame; but he
Whose sacred ashes here intombed be,
Needs noe such oratours to speak his prayse,
Noe lying epitaphs. Eternall bayes
Which nere shall wither, are the just desert
Of his rare vertues, which transcend the art
Of all expression. This tombe's sole intent
Shewes he deserves, but needs noe monu-

ment.