whether, unconscious of its origin, he received it from one of his clerical attendants, the offence seems to have been of a very pardonable nature, and certainly undeserving the harsh treatment which he has experienced from his adversary." With this censure of his favorite, the learned doctor has decidedly given it as his opinion that Dr. Gauden, Bishop of Exeter, compiled the Exa Baotian, agreeing with Milton in denying to the memory of Charles I. any credit of the work; and adding, "The disproportionate severity with which Milton has arraigned this petty inadvertence rather than offence, has exposed him to the charge of having been its author in the first instance, that he might subsequently be its censurer:" and to put a stop to the severe charge on Milton, (which, by the by, sir, is the same charge Mr. J. H. has brought against the Ed. Rev. namely, of forging a passage and then criticising the same) Dr. Syinmons adds, in a note, p. 329, "I have now in my possession the first edition of the Icon Basilike, printed in 1649 (for R. Royston, at the Angel in Ivy-lane), to which the prayer called A Prayer in Captivity' is attached."

I beg leave, sir, through your valuable pages, to note that I have a prior edition of all the works of Charles I. " Reliquia Sacræ Carolina," printed at the Hague, by Samuel Browne, M. DC XLVIII. There are not less than four title-pages. The date is affixed in the second to the Icon. The disputed prayer is not printed with the Icon, but after a Finis, the pages proceeding (though there is a new title-page, called the second part, con. taining "matters sacred.") "A Prayer in time of Captivity" occurs at p. 373, the Icon ending at p. 242.

Without entering into further particulars, I think, sir, it is conclusive, 1st, That Charles I. never claimed the prayer as his own composition. 2dly, That the charge of forgery against Milton cannot on any ground be supported, because the prayer was published among the king's before Milton could have seen his Majesty's works printed; and I think also it might be proved, that the Icon was compiled from his Majesty's papers, though the quaintness of the Stewart style is logically dilated; and that, there fore, while Dr. Gauden was the editor and preparer for the press, the original notes came from his Majesty's closet. I mean that from the king's daily memo

PERH

ERHAPS some of your numerous correspondents may inform me in what estimation the Rev. John Bowles' edition of Don Quixote, in Spanish, is held for its correctness. It was publish ed in the year 1781, in 3 vols. 4to. the last volume containing notes, annotations, and various readings of this author. I perhaps may also be informed, through the same medium, whether the following repetition is found in the best editions of Don Quixote. Cap. iv. p. 24, John Bowles' edition, "Andres se partió algo mohino jurando de ir á buscar á su juez para que executase la pronunciada sentencia. Andres se partió algo mohino jurando de ir á buscar al valeraso Don Quixote de la Mancha, &c. On which, in his notes, Bowles makes the following remark, p. 23, (Jurando de ir a buscar á su juez)"emadense a quiestas palabras porque dixo cintes Andres, (pp. 23, 24) de Don Quixote segun es de valeraso ejbuen Juez." Si sea pecado esta por cartu de mas. Sola una otra se hallara eR toda la obra y esperase que esta sera agradable á todas, sien do necessario. Manchester, Aug. 16, 1813.

BUSCADOR..

To the Editor of the Monthly Magazine.

SIR,

tion of those of your readers who BEG leave to state, for the informamay be desirous of obtaining good carp, that if they will be at the trouble of ra king the mud round the outside of the pond, about the month of April, when the waters are low, and sow some hay seeds thereon, in the winter, when flooded, the produce will afford excellent food for the carp, and likewise make them very fat: a friend of mine informs me he takes this method every year, and by that means obtains excellent fish.

JOHN CHERRY, jun. Birmingham, Sept, 1, 1813. T

To the Editor of the Monthly Magazine.

IT

SIR,

T must create some surprise and suspicion when such a question comes dated from Cambridge as, what is the meaning of terminus ad quem. Its correlative terminus à quo, will illustrate and explain it.

If I go from Cambridge to London, Cambridge is the terminus quo, the initial boundary; London, terminus ad quem tendo, the final boundary of my journey. These two comprehend "le point d'où on part, and le BUT où on veut arriver. The several parts of the road which I take between the two, are the medii termini between the proposition and its conclusion. For instance, that which is to be performed, or the problem is-There is a journey to be taken from Cambridge to London. The major proposition in every journey, then, is a way, or road, to be taken.

The minor, But Hockerell, &c. &c. are on that road which leads from Cambridge on to the point required.

Conclusion-Ergo, by passing through Hockerell, &c. &c. I shall arrive from Cambridge at London.†

On the Increase of Crimes of the first

Atrocity.

I fear that the proposition cannot be denied, that crimes of the first atrocity have increased beyond example: meaning by this remark, such crimes as humanity and reason most condemn; those of deliberate and extreme cruelty, combined with treachery.

These are of the essence of crime: whatever else is criminal vanishes when compared, and sinks into an infinitely secondary and subordinate degree.

Within three years, instances of this kind towards human beings, or towards harmless and useful animals, have exceeded in number, and in dreadful circumstances, any which the history of our own, or I believe of any other, nation can supply; unless within a vastly greater period.

This cannot be very much ascribed to

De la Litterature: par Mad. de Staël Holstein. T. 1.

The law adopts this expression on road indictments: but in logic, in private ethics, and in politics, which should be public ethics, its application is very extensive. Unless we know whence we tend, whither we tend, and through what we tend, we shall have neither a just commencement, object, or direction.

MONTHLY MAG, No. 246.

our long and widely extended war. On the contrary, when an army and navy have attained to so high a character, their discipline, and the sense of individual and collective dignity, oppose a considerable barrier against base and horrid crimes; and the brave are equally feeling.

The criminals have been not only men but women. They have not been, when men, in one particular business, or employment, or class of life. They have been in various and remote parts of the island.

They have not been of the habitually poor or distressed classes.

There have been among them, persons far from a state of gross ignorance, in general: and perhaps few of them, if any, have been in the lowest state of ignorance.

Infidelity, or irreligion, does not seem strikingly or generally characteristic of these offenders. Avarice, passion, revenge, seem comparatively to have been but little concerned, as causes of these enormities. The influx of foreigners is diminished rather than increased; and besides, scarcely any of them have been foreigners.

In general, a hardened and astonishing insensibility to the horrors which they have perpetrated, seems to have been observable in most of them. Con sidering the circumstances and habits of the times, and the sentiments and habits, situation and behaviour of the prisoners, I should apprehend that fanaticism, or regarding religion with superstitious and enthusiastic reliance on its forms, rather than being influenced by it as a moral principle; gambling in its most comprehensive sense; drunkenness by the excessive use of ardent spirits; may be taken as the principal causes of these horrible violations of the law, and outrages against the common feelings of our nature. And the last of these causes, which, more than any other, induces a state of ungovernable and furious malignity, may be taken as most probably ac counting for these numerous and dreadful offences. CAPEL LOFFT.

July 21, 1813.

Mr. Warton, from whose elegant [istory of English Poetry the above account of Lydgate is extracted, further informs us, that he translated Macaber's Dance of Death from the French, at the request of the chapter of St. Paul's, to be in scribed under the painting of that subject in their cloyster; but it appears from the verses themselves, that he undertook the translation at the instance of a French clerk. Lydgate's Poem is neither a literal nor complete translation of the French version from Macaber and this he himself confesses:

"Out of the French I drongh it of intent, Not word by word, but following in substance."

the Dance of Death, the tombs and monuments, was begun to be pulled down by command of the Duke of Somerset, so that nothing thereof was left but the bare plot of ground which was afterwards converted into a garden for the petty canons.

All the ancient Dances of Death, though evidently to be deduced from one original, differed very materially in the number and design of the characters; they uniformly appear to have been accom panied with Macaber's verses, or more probably with imitations of them. Bristol, May 2, 1813. E. F.

To the Editor of the Monthly Magazine. SIR,

HE allegation that Mr. Burke was

Lydgate is much less than in the French, being only thirty-five, whilst the other contains seventy-six; and he has not only omitted several, but supplied their places with others: so that if these lines were inscribed under the painting at St. Paul's, it must have differed materially from that at St. Innocents, at Paris. Stowe, upon whose sole authority all the information concerning this painting depends, says, that on the north side of St. Paul's church was a great cloister, environing a plot of ground, of old time called Pardon Church Yard, whereof Thomas More, dean of St. Paul's, was either the first builder, or a great benefactor, and was buried there. About this cloister was artificially and richly painted, the Dance of Machabraye, a Dance of Death, commonly called the Dance of Paul's: the like whereof was painted about St. Innocents cloister, at Paris. The me tres, or poetry of this Dance, were translated out of the French into English, by. John Lydgate, monk of Bury. He adds, that this was done at the expence of Jenken Carpenter, in the reign of Henry VI. so that the poem and painting appear to have been finished about the same time.

In the year 1519, on the 10th of April, the whole of this cloister, together with

This French translation has been erroneously given to Michael Marot, who was not born at the time when it was first printed. See De Bure Bibliog. instruct. No. 3109, and Warton's Correct, and Add. to vol. II, of Hist. of Engl. Poetry.

that I wonder Mr. Roche should, on no better grounds than those stated, have revived the hypothesis.

Ile says that Y. Z. is C. or Junius, in a letter written many months before the author of Junius assumed that signature. But how does Mr. Woodfall know that Y. Z. was Junius? Is it likely that Burke would, as a writer whose secret was to perish with him, have so committed himself to all Mr. Woodfall's printing-office? The speech was known to be Burke's; and if Y. Z. spoke it, and Y. Z. was Ju nius, it required little exertion of Mr.W.'s logic to know that Burke was Junius! Y. Z. therefore was any body but Junius; or, if Junius, he was not the speaker of a speech which every body knew to be Burke's. Nor would Burke so commit himself as to have sent the letter of Y. Z. He was known to have made such a speech, and is it likely he would, as the speaker, have sent so flippant a note as that signed Y. Z. describing it too as being the communication of the speaker himself? No doubt the printed commu nication of Y. Z. was one of those fictions of the press practised every day when an editor wishes to avoid the direct responsibility of an article; or perhaps it was sent by some third person, even by Junius himself, but least of all by Burke the speaker, who in continuity of correspondence afterwards, according to Mr. Roche, became the inscrutable Junius!

The Burke-hypothesis has therefore no probable basis. Bath, Sept. 5. W. STURMY. @ D 2

Ta

To the Editor of the Monthly Magazine.

I

SIR,

WAS very much surprised at the remark of your correspondent I. B page 298, of your last volume, that "of any thing done or doing effectually" (for the establishment of public education) we see no appearance." I cannot ima gine how I. B. can remain in ignorance respecting the great and unremitting efforts that have been made, particularly within these two or three years, for the accomplishment of this great end; the number of notices in the provincial papers, of meetings and subscriptions for this purpose, is one evidence; and almost in every town of note, the public schools are open to the inspection of

strangers.

When journeying, and opportunity presents itself, I make a point of visiting these places, from a feeling of satisfaction I have in beholding so many children who would otherwise be objects of pity, dirty about the streets, ranged in order, with their clothes mended, their skin washed and hair combed, learning

their duty to God, their neighbour and themselves; the sight has often given me real pleasure. In Bristol, (in addition to the numerous other charity schools) is an extensive one on the Lancasterian plan. In 1811 I visited one at Hull; lately one on Dr. Bell's system, at Portsmouth, which is extremely well managed and attended by the subscribers and conductors, without any clerical assistance; there is also one at Poole, in Dorsetshire, and various others which I could enumerate; but as I am no bigot, nor have ever entered into an examination of the different systems of Mr. Lancaster and Dr. Bell, I have rarely enquired which was pursueri; my entrance would neither have been forwarded or retarded by one or the other.

It is much to be wished that the subscribers to these schools were in general more frequent visitors, and that they would at the same time, as they encou rage cleanliness and neatness, discourage a love of paltry finery, which prevails very much amongst the lower order. Bristol, Aug. 5. G.