104 Dr. Moyes.-MS. Copy of Lucan.- Knox against Walpole. pany, I remarked that he continued fome time filent. The found directed him to judge of the dimenfions of the room, and the different voices of the number of perfons that were prefent. His diftinction in thefe refpects was very accurate, and his memory fo retentive, that he feldom was mistaken. I have known him inftantly recognize a perfon, on first hearing him fpeak, though more than two years had elapfed fince their lat niceting. He determined, pretty nearly, the ftature of thofe he was fpeaking with by the direction of their voices; and he made tolerable conjectures refpecting their tempers and difpofitions, by the manner in which they conducted their converfation. It must be observed, that this gentleman's eyes were not totally infenfible to intenfe light. The rays refracted thro' a prifm, when fufficiently vivid, produced certain diftinguishable effects on them. The red gave them a difagreeable fenfation, which he compared to the touch of a faw. As the colours declined in violence, the harfhnefs leffened, until the green afforded a fenfation that was highly pleafing to him, and which he defcribed as conveying an idea fimilar to what he felt in running his hand over imooth polished furfaces. Polifhed fur faces, meandering treams, and gentle declivities, were the figures by which he expreffed his ideas of beauty. Rugged rocks, irregular points, and boisterous elements, furnished him with expreffions for terror and disgust. He excelled in the charms of converfation; was happy in his allufions to vifual objects; and dif. conried on the nature, compofition, and beauty of colours, with pertinence and precifion. Doctor Moyes was a ftriking inftance of the power the human foul poflefies of finding refources of fatisfaction even under the moft rigorous calamities. Tho' involved in ever- during darkness, " and excluded from the charming views of filent or animated nature; though dependent on an undertaking for the means of his fubfiftence, the fuccefs of which was very precarious; in short, though *The above ingenious writer confiders this learned and comparatively young philofopher in the preterperfect tenfe, as if he were not living, whereas he is, we hope, in North America, lecturing and improving that great continent, to which he accompanied Mrs. Hayley. A few extracts from fome of his lectures at Philadelphia appeared in the papers. EDIT. deftitute of other fupport than his genius, and under the mercenary protection of a perfon whose integrity he fuf pected-fill Dr. Moyes was generally chearful, and apparently happy. Two Original Letters of Mr. TICKELL. (From Birch's MSS. 4163.13.) 1713, Nov. 17. Queen's Coll. Oxf• SIR, I AM informed by Dr. Chartlet, that there is, in my lord Treafurer's library, a MS. copy of Lucan, which hath never been collated. He tells me, that you think it would be of use to me in the edition which I am concerned in, and that you are well difpofed to befriend me in procuring the loan of it for that purpose. 1713, Jan. 6. From Oxford. I DEFERRED my thanks for your very obliging letter till I had done with my Lord Treasurer's MS. I have had fo little to do with work of this kind, that I can give you but an imperfect account of the book: I fhall content myfelf with telling you, that though it be not an accurate copy, (for there are many tokens of its being written by a fcribe ignorant of metre, and fometimes of grammar,) yet I found many readings therein which confiderably add to the elegance of expreflion and beauty of thought in the poet. MR. URBAN, MR. Knox, in his Effay on the Poit a question whether Mr. Walpole's neglect of Chatterton arofe from mistake lence; infinuating at the fame time, that or inadvertence, or from pride and infothis neglect (from whatever caufe it arofe) hurried this unfortunate youth to his deplorable end. ems attributed to Rowley +, makes Knox's Ellays, this imputation on Mr. Ellayift to that fpirited and fatisfactory T. I. S. + Vol. II. Effay 144, fourth edit. I MR. URBAN, Skeleton of Henry the First doubted. HAVE carefully perufed the account Mr. Pigott gave in your Magazine of November laft, and must confefs was prejudiced in favour of the opinion that gentleman entertained of the fkeleton acknowledged to be found at Reading; nor am I now convinced, by any thing your anonymous correfpondent has faid, that it was not the king's. Mr. Pigott never went fo far as to fay it was. He tranfmitted fuch an account as he had received of the finding the skeleton, and indulged the opinion that it might be that of Henry the Firft; at the fame time he modeftly declined faying it was infallibly fo; for it will be a matter, in my opinion, no one can for a certainty speak to. Mr. Pigott concluded by faying, "no account having appeared of the finding fuch a skeleton, he communicated fuch account, hoping it might induce others to fay more on the fubject, and who might be better able to investigate the fact." Your anchymous correfpondent contends there was no vault. He fays, "there was a chaẩm not more than two feet in breadth, but no appearance of a vault." Does not a chafm, fo impaired, rather imprefs the idea of its being the king's At least it fuggefts to the mind an idea of its ftill greater antiquity. So many years might in a great meafure impair the vault, and yet not totally. A perfect, unimpaired vault, would not have made it fo probable, in my opinion, as fuch a chafm which your correfpondent mentions. In any thing Mr. Pigott afferted it did not appear, that its being a vault adduced the argument of its being the king's; nor do I conclude, fuppofing it was not a vault, that it confequently was not the king's. The ftate in which the king was buried is, in my opinion, no argument that this fkeleton was not the king's. I agree in fuppofing it might originally have been depofited in a vault. But what firengthens my opinion the more that it was the king's, is, its not being found in that ftately vault. When the demolition of the abbey took place, fome Spicer, fome Dugdale, or a Goftling, might have privately conveyed away the king's body, and re-depofited it in a place where it was less likely to be diftinguifhed. As to the objection of its being buried in a church, the queftion, arifes, whether, in the priftine fate of the abbey, there was a chapel and a GENT. MAG. Feb. 1786. 105 church? For your anonymous correfpondent cannot mean that it was interred in a parish church. No; he admits from authority, that his body was conveyed into England, and buried at Reading within the abbey church which he had founded. It was even underftood, that Henry was buried in the collegiate church of the abbey which he had founded. Your anonymous writer fays, "he was buried before the altar in that collegiate church." Granting he was bu ried in the abbey, he might neverthelefs be removed. Divers doubts have arifen, whether Charles the First was abfolutely buried at Windfor; and many to this day doubt it. The best evidences of these matters leave us generally in doubt. Sir Henry Englefield's plan of the church may be accurate. If we are to credit your anonymous corre fpondent, thefe remains were found 240 feet diftance from the church. It will become a neceffary enquiry, before we can believe the account of the leather being only a flipper, how long it is fince the demolition of the abbey; how long it may be fuppofed to be fince any perfon of exalted rank might have been there interred; and how it happened that any body of the confequence this coffin befpeaks fhould be buried out of the church. I confefs, I reafonably conclude, that it might be the king's body, conveyed to a difiance for its prevention from the threatened deftruction of it. But, is it poflible to conceive, from fo long a distance of time, a flipper, or the ftitches of a flipper, fhould remain ? is it not more natural to indulge an opinion, that the tooth of time had reduced the oxen hide to the crumbled pieces which Juvenis fpeaks of? It will be neceffary alfo to attend to the fashion of the coffin, which was about feet long, and to confider in what days coffins were made with roofs. Abroad, where the king died, I believe they were always roofed, and continue to be fo to this day; another very corroborating circumstance that this was the king's coffin. The ridge, your correfpondent fays, was fluted, and remarkably thick with lead. Had it not been fo, time must have reduced that alfo to the fame crumbles the flipper was reduced to. Further, do not the fuds, in form of diamonds, proclaim a princely perfon's remais to have 106 Remains of Henry the First, difcovered at Reading, genuine. have been contained in it? The initial letters we are not favoured with. You perhaps, Mr. Urban, as the Antiquarian Society is poffeffed of them, may poffibly get at them *. It is a circumftance very remarkable, that the plumber, or perfons who thought them a prefent worthy the Royal Society, did not fet them down in their memories, or on paper. Here furely we must regret the lofs of Mr. Spicer, or regret that Mr. Pigott was not on the fpot. The furgeon, who examined the fkull, concluded, your anonymous correfpondent fays, "that it was a young perfon, under 30." How he formed this judgement, it is beyond me to determine; but probably from the circumftance Mr. Pi gott gives, there being fixteen perfect teeth in the lower jaw. Are we to infer, there being a perfect fet of teeth, that the perfon was not aged? In contradiction, I affert, that a lady, 82 years of age, never loft but one tooth; of this lofs he is faid to have died, as fhe vifibly declined fome time, though the never divulged it; but, after her death, the tooth was found in her pocket. As to the plumber's idea, that it was not the coffin of Henry the First; it remains a question, how far that plumber might be a competent judge, or we muft give up our own judgements to his. The roofed coffin, the fragments of leather (for it is prepofterous to fuppofe the flipper, or the ftitches of the flipper, can contradict it), ftill encourage me to think it was the king's. Is there an antiquary in the kingdom can inform us when roofed coffins were ufed in England? can the intelligent plumber tell us? can it be denied but they were ever used in France, and are fo to this day? Mr. Pigott, in deploring what he calls a facrilege, does no more than has been generally done; he received the jaw-bone with concern; I was prefent when he took its he deplored it immediately; nor do I believe he would confider it lefs a facrilege, fhould it be proved to him not to have been the king's. Mr. Pigott fays nothing to induce us to fuppofe there were not many in Reading who could have preferved them. His mention of Spicer feems to be a mere tribute to the memory of a man he loved. I am willing to give every credit to the mayor of Reading, and fhall make my vifit there, to view We thould readily communicate them, if lavoured with a drawing. EDIT. the fpot where the collected remains lie, fo bigoted am I in the opinion that they are the king's remains: and, as a correfpondent, I wish, Mr. Urban, you could give us a further account what bones were collected, and where they were abfolutely re-depofited. Perhaps there may be no real ufe, no particular end anfwered, by fearching into matters of this nature; yet there is an infatiable avarice after them in the minds of fome. Mr. Pigott frequently indulges himself in thefe pursuits; he communicates liberally: he, perhaps, has a vanity in it, giving it its worst name; but he gratifies every body; and I would by no means check him in his defire of pleafing, which your anonymous correfpondent seems difpofed to do. I must mention one thing to his honour the impropriation of Banbury is his, the chancel there is confequently his own: the beauty of that chancel is owing to his munificence; there is not a monument therein which he has not repaired and beautified; the altar has been raised ftome steps; the pavement, near the communion table entirely new, and moftly of marble; the picture over the communion table is his gift; and, under an arch on the left-hand fide of the altar, he has erected an elegant monument to his ancestor Dr. Pelling. In fhort, there is not a chancel in Oxfordshire which is beautified and kept as this is; and for which he has received the bishop's thanks. There is fcarcely a memorial in the chancel or church which he has not preserved, and which he means at future times to give to the public. But to return, after this short digreffion: whether the remains are thofe of King Henry or not, is not the question; we are equally obliged to Mr. Pigott, who has not fent them anonymously, nor fhould they have been traduced anonymoufly. To afcertain them to be fo for a certainty, is beyond the power of one writer, or the other to negative. Let each, and as many others as find a difpofition, conjecture how they may, they ftill will remain in the state, as Mr. Walpole fays, of hiftoric doubts. Elizabeth, daughter of Edward the Fourth, wife to Henry the Seventh, v. "Antiquarian Repertory," vol. IV. p. 241, was not buried in a roofed coffin: confequently, it is to be presumed that coffin was of ftill greater antiquity, and time might have devoured the leather. AN ANTIQUARY. MR. |