during the present and preceding centuries. Bred a tradesman, he pursued for long the even tenor of his way, and was much respected for honesty and punctuality. By industry and economy he bestowed on his sons a liberal education, which enabled them to shape their course creditably in society, and assist their father in his old age. His own parentthe hero of Sir Walter Scott in "The Tales of my Landlord," and whose vocation and appellation he inherited, he of course remembered well; but from innate modesty was shy of speaking of him in the company of strangers. Latterly, "Old Mortality," familiar from his youth upward with the chisel and mallet, devoted himself entirely to monumental masonry, some grave-yard, for the most part, his workshop. In this favourite vocation he frequently threaded the most inaccessible spots in Dumfries, Galloway, and Ayrshire, in the pursuit of his employment. It was from the deceased that Mr. Joseph Train received the mell and chisel used by "Old Mortality," and which, with his permission, Mr. Currie employed in giving some of his last touches to the fine figures, commemorative of himself, now deposited in the Dumfries Observatory. Lately. At Edinburgh, the Chevalier de Soire, Knight of the Legion of Honour, French Consul. May 22. Jemima-Louisa-Henies, fourth dau. of B. C. Urquhart, esq. of Meldrum and Byth, Aberdeenshire. IRELAND.-May 31. At Stephen's Green, Dublin, aged 78, Francis Prendergast, esq. Registrar of the Court of Chancery in Ireland. Lately. At Rathgar Villa, Dublin, aged 78, Adam O'Shea, esq. architect, late of the Ordnance Department, Limerick. June 4. At Kilkenny, Sarah-Ann, widow of Major Charles Mosse, Royal Art. EAST INDIES.-Jan. 22. At Royapooram, aged 44, Lieut. Terence C. Corley, 1st N. V. B., and Deputy Assistant Commissary of Ordnance, Fort St. George. March 9. At Mercara, East Indies, Mary Lucy, wife of R. D. Parker, esq., M.C.S., and dau. of the Rev. T. Bartlett. March 14. At Nukteel, aged 27, Lieut.George Willes Ommaney, 33rd Madras Native Inf. March 21. At Adamancottah, Capt. J. W. Rumsey, of the 44th N.I., eldest son of the late Rev. J. Rumsey, of Trellick, Monmouthshire. TABLE OF MORTALITY IN THE METROPOLIS. DEATHS REGISTERED from May 23, to JUNE 20, 1846, (5 weeks.) Sussex Pockets, 5l. 48. to 67. 10s.-Kent Pockets, 51. 58. to 91. 58. PRICE OF HAY AND STRAW AT SMITHFIELD, June 26. Hay, 31. Os. to 41. Os.-Straw, 17. 12s. to 17. 14s.-Clover, 41. 58. to 5l. 158. SMITHFIELD, June 26. To sink the Offal-per stone of 8lbs. Beef............ ................ .2s. 4d. to 3s. .2s. 8d. to 4s. 6d. ..3s. 4d. to 48. 4d. 6d. Mutton..... ........... Pork......................................... ..38. 4d. to 4s. 10d. Head of Cattle at Market, June 22. COAL MARKET, June 26. Walls Ends, from 13s. 6d. to 15s. 6d. per ton. Other sorts from 13s. Od. to 15s. Od. TALLOW, per cwt.-Town Tallow, 42s. Od. Yellow Russia, 43s. 6d. CANDLES, 7s. Od. per doz. Moulds, 9s. 6d. METEOROLOGICAL DIARY, BY W. CARY, STRAND. Fahrenheit's Therm. The Thermometer has been 90° in the neighbourhood of London. J. B. NICHOLS AND SON, PRINters, 25, parLIAMENT-STREET. GENTLEMAN'S MAGAZINE. AUGUST, 1846. BY SYLVANUS URBAN, GENT. CONTENTS. MINOR CORRESPONDENCE.-Andrea Ferara-Capt. Cox's Coventry Romances ...... PAGE. 114 RYLAND'S LIFE AND CORRESPONDENCE OF JOHN FOSTER.-Crowe's Lewes- Roodloft in Sparham Church, Norfolk-Account of Sparham Church (with a ... ...... ORIGINAL LETTERS, NO. I.-Halliwell's Letters of the Kings of England, 137; 135 144 149 153 ib. 154 155 ... 157 158 159 POETRY.-Sonnets, by C. S........ REVIEW OF NEW PUBLICATIONS. Mrs. Thomson's Memoirs of the Jacobites, 161; Mignet's Antonio Perez and LITERARY AND SCIENTIFIC INTELLIGENCE.-University of Oxford, ARCHITECTURE. Oxford Architectural Society - Institute of British ANTIQUARIAN RESEARCHES.-Society of Antiquaries HISTORICAL CHRONICLE.-Proceedings in Parliament, 188; Foreign Promotions and Preferments, 193; Births and Marriages.. Clergy deceased...... DEATHS, arranged in Counties 177 180 181 182 190 195 199-214 214 216 224 Registrar-General's Returns of Mortality in the Metropolis-Markets, 223; Embellished with a Representation of some ANCIENT PAINTINGS at SPARHAM CHURCH, NORFOLK, MINOR CORRESPONDENCE. Laneham, in his description of the Festivities at Kenilworth Castle, in 1575, exhibited before Queen Elizabeth by the Earl of Leicester, describes one of the principal performers, a Captain Cox, of Coventry, as possessed of a curious library consisting of 62 romances and ballads. Of these 43 are ascertained to be still in existence, but the remaining 19 have hitherto eluded all search. W. R. in quires whether any of our Correspondents can state where they are to be found, either in print or MS. viz.-Frederick of Geneva -Lucrece and Euryalus-The Castle of Ladies Garguantua-The Sack full of News-Daniel's Dreams-The Book of Fortune-The Budget of Demands-The Book of Riddles The Seven Sorrows of Women-The Chapman of a Pennyworth of Wit-Youth and Charity-NugizeeImpatient Poverty-So woe is me begone, trolly lo-Over a Whinny Meg-Bonny Lass upon a Green-My bonny one gave me a beck and Nostradamus of France. Henry Bourne, the Newcastle Antiquary, who died 1733.-Any information respecting him or his family will be thankfully received by the Rev. E. H. Adamson, High Heworth, Gateshead. H. P. would thank any of the Correspondents in the Gentleman's Magazine who could inform him whether the crest of the Mansell family (a cap of mainte nance inflamed on the top proper) alludes to any particular event in their history. It was our intention to have given in our present number some account of the sale of Mr. Upcott's collection of MSS. Though deferred, it shall not be neglected; as many of the documents which were dis persed on this occasion were of considerable importance, not from their mere curiosity as autographs, but from their historical value. We have reason to believe that many of them have found their way into the national stores at the British Museum; but of this we hope to give an accurate report in our next. ONE WHO CALLS HIMSELF AN ANTIQUARY is certainly right in the orthography of that designation. Need he doubt it, when the institution incorporated by royal charter for the study of antiquities is called The Society of Antiquaries?" But if he goes to the President of the 64 still probably find himself called an antiArchæological Association," he may quarian. Sir Walter Scott, though he made many mistakes in the course of his semi-antiquarian writings, still avoided this impropriety in the title of one of his best Novels. for a reference to the first edition of Hart's We have to thank two Correspondents Ecclesiastical Records (see Mag. for July, P. 68). It was published, it seems, at Cambridge, in 1836, by subscription; which, probably, accounts for our never having seen it. It is very strange that after a lapse of ten years between the first and the second edition, and those ten years of unexampled attention to ecclesiastical antiquities, the author should not have been able to correct a few more of his many errors. ARCHBISHOP PARKER. We beg to direct attention to an advertisement of a meditated collection of the letters of this columns under the title of the Parker prelate, which appears in our advertising Society. Mr. Bruce, the editor of the projected work, will be very much obliged by the communication of any information respecting the archbishop. GENTLEMAN'S MAGAZINE. Life and Correspondence of John Foster. By J. E. Ryland. 2 vols. "NO part of History," says a writer, who himself has left us some admirable specimens of his skill in this branch of writing, " is more instructive and delightful than the lives of great and worthy men; the shortness of them invites many readers, and there are such little and yet remarkable passages in them, too inconsiderable to be put in a general history of the age in which they lived, that all people are very desirous to know them. This makes Plutarch's Lives to be more generally read than any of all the books which the ancient Greeks or Romans writ." Thus far Bishop Burnet writes in his preface to the Life of Sir Matthew Hale; and then, after mentioning these circumstances, which, attending the biography of great and illustrious characters, make them belong rather to general than particular history, he adds, "But the lives of private men, though they seldom entertain the reader with such a variety of passages as the others do, yet certainly they offer him things that are more imitable, and do present wisdom and virtue to him, not only in a few ideas, which is often looked on as a piece of the invention or fancy of the writer, but in such plain and familiar instances as do both direct him better and persuade him more; and there are not such temptations to bias those who write them, so that we may generally depend more on the truth of such relations as are given in them."* Of Mr. Foster, whose life is now brought before our readers, it may be sufficient to say, that, as a writer, he must be allowed to stand in the first rank of those who in the present age have been distinguished for originality of conception and elegance of language. We could without difficulty express the delight we have experienced, and the benefit we have received from repeated perusal of his "Essays;" but it will be more suitable and more satisfactory to show how they have been estimated by persons who must be acknowledged to be competent judges of literary merit, and who, though differing from each other widely in moral feeling, in religious sentiments, and intellectual habits and discipline, have all united in affording their testimony to the high merits of these writings. Sir James Mackintosh writes from India-" I have read with the greatest admiration the Essays of Mr. Foster, whom perhaps you know. He is one of the most profound and elegant writers that England has produced." The late Bishop Jebb wrote to his friend Mr. A. Knox-" I have been much struck, much gratified, and set not a little a thinking by a re-perusal of Foster's Essays. That man is surely of a very peculiar mental frame." Again,"I am so pleased with Foster's Essays, that I have commissioned a friend to buy them for me." &c. Mr. Robert Hall, in a review of this work, has expatiated at greater length on the various powers and attain *Preface to the Life of Sir Matthew Hale, by Bishop Burnet, p. iii. &c. Oxford Ed, 1806,-REY, |