820 Ample Encouragement given to the Fisheries in Ireland. his offering to add 20,000l. of his own property, abont two years fince, if the parliament would grant an equal fum, for encouraging the fisheries, his propofal was complied with, and the parliament of Ireland granted him 20,000l. vefted in trustees for the purposes mentioned. The fame parliament, laft fefhion, granted 10,000l. for the fisheries to certain gentlemen in the county of Donegal, fo foon as they fhould fubfcribe 10,000l. more, of their own pro perty. Therefore Obfervator inuft acknowledge that public encouragement has not been withheld, at leaft in Ireland. This large capital is to be expended in building villages and conveniences of all kinds for curing and packing the fish, and accommodating the fishermen. Mr. Conyngham has already begun a town in the moft eligible fituation on the island of Rofses. It is called Rutland, in honour of the prefent chief governor of Ireland. When all thofe works are completed, which may be in a fhort time, it may be reafonably expected the fisheries will foon arrive at their ne plus ultra of profperity and perfection. Now that fo much has been done at public coft, it is much to be wished, that here public bounty may ftop; otherwife it will defeat its own purpoles. The people concerned, inftead of attending to their true bufinefs, and fhing for herrings in the Northern Seas, will be fishing for grants of money in the House of Commons, in either or both kingdoms. Befides, parliamentary grants produce public debts; debts beget taxes; they enhance labour and then the market is loft. Many other arguments might be urged againit the frequent grants of public money. Another material caution to be obferved is, not to attempt carrying on the fisheries by companies of merchants. Many companies, for this purpofe, have been formed within the last 50 yearsand they have all failed. What, therefore, has proved without exception un fuccefsful, one is warranted to prefume, must be radically wrong. Companies of merchants refiding in London, Dublin, Corke, Glafgow, are at fuch a diftance from the icene of bufinefs, that their fuperintendance is impoffible;they are obliged to employ clerks and agents. Thefe fort of people, being fresh-water failors, can be of little ufe or authority, fuppofing them always honek. But however, when fo far out of reach, and out ef fight, they will, in the very prime hour of going out to fea, in the lucky moment for the fishery, frequently be found rambling about the country in pursuit of amusements; and, when the merchant at home hopes his capital is well employed, the certain opportunity of making him a profitable return is irrecoverably loft. Befides, the native fishermen and country people on the coafts are all jealous of ftrangers; they will not fuffer the bufinefs to be taken out of their own hands. You must either employ them, and be at their mercy. or they will thwart and ruin every thing that is attempted. It has been found imprac ticable to do without, or guard againsft, them; and if they oppofe your scheme, you must abandon it. Some perfons may inftance the Dutch in contradiction to this; but there is the great mistake. It has been fhewn before, that their fishery is far lefs confiderable than has been generally imagined, and they do not carry it on by companies. Every fisherman, every failor in their buffes, is himself a proprietor, and carries it on for his own account. It may often happen, that a merchant of Amfterdam or Rotterdam fhall advance a fum of money; but in this cafe he is rather to be looked upon as a lender than a partner; the fishermen and failors theinfelves are the true and real proprietors; all the gain and the profit centers in them, and therefore the bufinefs is fharply and diligently conducted. It is a great error, yet the common one, to fuppofe that the Dutch carry on their fifheries on our coafts. The natives of the coafts would not permit them. They carry them on, under many hardships, between Shetland and Norway, and cure the herrings on board their veffels;-fo that, though we have been in the habit, time out of mind, to worry the Dab, and abufe Government, on this fubject, it has always been at the expence of both reafon and juftice. Mr. Conyngham, the fummer before laft, made a journey into Holland for the purpose of obtaining information refpecting the management of the fifheries. Nothing could equal the diligence, fagacity, and exactnefs of his enquiries, except the generous compli ance, and ready afliitance, which he found amongst the Durch themfelves. He collected all thefe books written on the 822 Cromwell's Halfpenny.-Jabez Hughes.-Diftich at Sardon. which all the windows round about, and which furrounded the area, are finely painted. I had not left that convent ten minutes before the Emperor's officers entered it to difmifs the holy inhabitants; and I hope they found the ufe of their tongues of more importance to their happiness than the lofs of their cells, for theirs was a filent meeting, and they feemed all quaking with cold. MR. URBAN, IT UЯ. 20. Tis far from being my temper invidioufly to decry or depreciate any cimelion which gentlemen may have in their poffeffion; on the contrary, I would rather, when it is in my power, contribute to enhance its value. After this declaration, which I affure you is moft fincere, the candour of your N. T. (p. 752), will pardon me, I truft, in believing the piece there engraved to be no real halfpenny of Oliver Cromwell. I take the cafe to be this; that as the monnoyeurs would fometimes, out of wantonnefs, ftrike off a piece in fuperior or bafer metal from a die then in hand, fo Mr. T's halfpenny, as it is called, is only a piece of copper minted from the die of Oliver's fhilling. Shilings, we know, were coined in the year 16:8; and I wish Mr. T. would weigh his piece, and compare it with one of them, making allowance for the flip on the die which he mentions. I wish to add, that the piece, whether genuine or not, retains fome curiofity; and, if Mr. T. be a collector, he certainly will choose to keep it; but, if not, it will be in danger of being loft; and he had better give it to his friend, Mr. White, who will know how to value it, and give it a place in his rich cabinet. Yours, &c. T. Row. Where was the preceptory of Gratenon? It occurs not in Tanner's Notitia, or Spelman's Villare? The phonix appears on one of Eilzabeth's medals in Evelyn. You might have faid, that the "Elegy on a Family Tomb" was written by Mr Brundith, fellow of Caius coll. Cambridge, who, alas! himfelf died, in the prime of life, in May laft. His father is a clergyman (1 believe) of Bury. T. R. younger brother, who was likewife a votary of the Mufes, and a good fcholar. He published, in 1714, a tranflation of the Rape of Proferpine from Claudian, and of the story of Sextus and Erictho from Lucan's Pherfalia, lib. VI. 8vo. He likewife tranflated feveral novels from the Spanish of Cervantes. A pofthumous volume of his Mifcellanies, in verfe and profe, was publifhed in octavo in 1737. He died in the 46th year of his age, January 17, 1731. His Tranflation of Suetonius is in 12mo; the Tranflation of the fame author, by feveral hands, was published in 1704, in 8vo. MR. URBAN, OBS J. DELVER. Margate, June 13. BSERVATOR, in your May Mag. P. 409, defcribing the Four Crofs Inn at Sardon Magna, in Staffordshire, fays, "I cannot omit a moral sentence, deeply cut in one of the wooden lintels over the door of this houfe on the out fide, Fleres fi fcires," &c. which he truly calls "a very good monition, though perhaps little attended to, or underfood, by most of the travellers that way."We are certainly obliged to your ingenious correfpondent for the tranfcript; but he has left it, as he found it, in fo uncouth and abbreviated a form, that it cannot be intelligible to any but a lite rate traveller. To fupply the deficiency, I fubjoin the diftich in its proper fhape, with a manufcript tranflation, which I lately met with on the blank leaf of a very fmall old edition of Thomas à Kempis, De Imitatione Chrifti, now in my poffeffion. Fleres, fi feires Unum tua Tempora Menfem; Rides, cum non fit forfitan una Dies. You'd weep and cry, If fure to die, Before one Month were paft: Yours, &c. REVISOR. Letters for and against the HOWARDIAN Plan. ready been communicated through your Magazine for the advancement of this benevolent plan, permit me, thro' the fame channel, to fuggeft, that-if a benefit could be ANNUALLY procured for the Howardian Fund, from one or both of our theatres-royal, its bleffings might be more extenfively diffufed. If the theatres are engaged on the fide of Virtue, what nobler homage can they offer at her fhrine, and what weightier argument can they ufe with a grateful and difcerning Public, to fub fcribe liberally to the benefits for the Theatrical Fund, than by standing forth with a generous emulation in this noble caufe! a caufe that would roufe with rival ardour the energy of dramatic excellence, and grace the abilities of a Siddons, tranfcendent as they are. If fuch a fund could be established on a permanent bafis, we fhould have the pleasure of tranfmitting to future ages, not a cold image of the man, whofe glowing humanity has called on the excellent of society to unite in erect ing his Statue, whilst be yet lives, going about doing good; but warm and faithful impreffions of that spirit, which delighted in vifiting the prifoner, and gleaming confolation through the dun geon's drearieft gloom, that fpirit fhall fpeak through the Howardian Fund, and the children of captivity fhall with rapture exclaim, "though HE be dead, yet HE fpeaketh!" Yours, &c. J. F. MR. URBAN, T OЯ. 2. O the number of fuggeftions which have been offered respecting the fituation of the monument (by whatever title or form) propofed to be erected to commemorate the virtues of Mr. Howard, and the full fenfe the public entertain of them, permit me to add the following: That it fhall form a general center, from which all the public roads in this kingdom fhall branch, and be denominated. On this account, St. George's Fields would be, I conceive, the most proper place; and the objection of one of your correfpondents, should it be deemed of fufficient force, that it would foon encourage, and be concealed by neighbouring buildings, may be eafily remedied. Many new roads have been made of late years, and I believe feveral of the old ones have pot been very accurately measured. A tour too, which I have happened to make this fummer through the greatest 823 part of England, has shown me that the prefent milliary ftones, through neglect. and wanton defacure, are totally ufelefs. I could with therefore, that an entire new menfuration of the roads fhould take place, and new milliary, ftones be erected, bearing for the first index in capital figures, not liable to cafual erafure, the diftance from Howard's Column (or whatever it be intituled); thefe ones either' to be of an uniform kind, or at the difcretion of the refpective counties, who, I truft, would chearfully contribute to erect fuch small, but grateful, memorials. As every means fhould be employed to make this undertaking as extensively diftinguished and ufeful as poffible, it ftrikes me that this plan, carried into effect, would contribute to promote thofe confequences. Every traveller has experienced the fatisfaction derived from procuring the information_conveyed to him by a mile-ftone. Every eye, foreign as well as native, which paffes our roads, the admiration of all Europe will be directed to the name, which has fo greatly honoured our nation, of Howard: curiofity will be excited to enquire the caufe of its being fo peculiarly diftinguished by a whole nation intent to difcover, and to reward, defert; and furely it is no unreasonable hope to indulge, that fome may be thereby induced "To go and do likewife." Yours, &c. E. R. R. To the HOWARDIAN COMMITTEE. "GENTLEMEN, Oxon. 08. 4. THE noble plan, and the very libe ral fubfcription, fo honourable to the public, as well as to Mr. Howard, for the purpose of perpetuating the memory of his fuperlatively tranfcendent virtue, demand from the friends of humanity every fort of encouragement and fupport. It is in the power of the univerfities, and has long been the practice of the university of Oxford, to confer various honours, not merely of a temporary, but of a lafting nature, on highly meritorious objects: it is alfo in their power to raife or promote fub. fcriptions. That they will be negligent upon the prefent great occafion in the performance of either of these two things, is not to be imagined: and, with refpe&t to the latter, whenever the fuperiors of this place, as is proper, fhall fet the example, or even without 824 Letters for and against the HOWARDIAN Plan. gazine, my idea of a fuitable infcrip I cannot fuppofe that either history or tradition will be filent about this great man; and therefore to them { would leave it to relate particularly his merits towards mankind; and I would only fay, JOANNI HOWARD, Populus Britannicus D. I would not add even the date of the year, as abating fomewhat of dignity. Yours, &c. their authority, if it can be fuppofed Qui fpectes, fcias hæc. Intravi ergafula terra S. P. MR. URBAN, Bourdeaux, Sept. 20. D'S ISTRESSED by unrelenting indigence, I never felt the want of fortune more eagerly than at an occafion, opened by Great Britain, to tafte the moft fublime pleafure by honouring a matchlefs and yet unrivalled virtue. I humbly hope pardon for this way I dare devife to share a delight dear to every human heart;-without imagining thefe inclofed lines worthy to be placed at the foot of his ftatue who is prefenting to the earth fo illuftrious an image of the Divinity, I am, with refpect, Mr. Urban, your moft humble fervant, NICHOLAS GEORGE AGANDER, fellow at the University of Upfal. His faltem accumulem donis et fungar inani VIRG. Munere "Diviniori ingenio fpretis orbis Europæi deliciolis, carceralium ubique clauftrorum horrorem luftrando et illuftrando, ingemifcentium vinculis publicis miferorum armas fublevanti HOWARD crefcentis omni ævo famæ primitias pendidit tali cive beata Britannorum infula.” W. L. an humble admirer of the virtues of Mr. HOWARD, hopes his character, fo eminently diftinguished as it is from mankind in general, may in fome degree ferve to eradicate ingratitude," the blackeft fpot in the human heart, and the foundation, in one fenfe, of almoft every other vice. W. L. laments, he fays, the being deprived, by it, of the great pleasure of more amply fubfcribiug to the above benevolent man's merit, and confèquently to the cause of virtue. |