112 Defcription of a fingular Water-fpout near Nottingham. river, and moving flowly towards it. What first particularly attracted his notice, was, that the branches of the trees, over which it paffed, bent downwards to the ground. As the cloud came nearer to the river, it appeared to be ftrongly attracted by it, and, when it croffed it, did not feem more than 30 or 40 feet from the furface; which was violently agitated, and thrown up to a great height, in every direction; infomuch, that a barge which was coming up the river was obliged to make to the fide for fafety. Some perfons who faw it from the bridge over the Trent, about 300 yards diftant, miftook it, at firft. for a column of thick fmoak, arifing from a warehoufe by the Trent fide, which they fuppofed had been on fire; but the cloud continuing its progrefs forward, they were foon undeceived, and beheld, with aftonishment, a large black inverted cone, terminating in a point, in which they perceived a whirling fpiral motion; and a perfon in the warehoufe heard a rumbling noife, like thunder at a diftance. The middle of the cone appeared nearly 20 feet in diameter, After paffing the river, it afcended flowly and majestically, in a N. E. direction; and nothing coming within the fphere of its action, till it came over Sneinton, a village fituated half a mile to the Eaft of Notttingham, upon a rock, it there took off the thatch from feveral barns and cottages, tore up fome large apple and pear trees, one 4 feet in circumference; it broke off near the bottom of the ftem, and carried both body and branches feveral yards; a barn, near 30 yards long, it intirely levelled with the ground; it unroofed, and much shattered, the adjacent houfe; tore up a fycamore tree in the yard, which measured Lear 2 yards in circumference; in short, nothing could refift the impetuofity of its action; and the rain falling heavily at the time, joined to the roaring noife from the fpout, produced a fcene of terror and confufion not eafy to be defcribed. At a tavern on the outfide of the village, it tore off part of the roof, and the people within were ftruck aimoit all of them with an unusual pain in the head, which lafted fome hours; the windows of the house were at the fame time cover ed with mud. The fpout, in paling over the adjoining clofe, where a number of people were collected, it being the fatute for hiring fervants, afforded rather a comic fcene, where huck fters, ftails, bafkets, &c. were all whirled into the air, and hurled with great violence, nullo dif crimine, against the fides of the hedge which encompaffed the clofe: one boy, about 14 years of age, was actually carried over it into an adjacent field; but without receiving the leaft hurt. Some flashes of light were observed in paffing the fields, and as the cloud paffed over the hill facing the tavern, the fpout was feen to contract and expand, as if it had been attracted and repelled by fome extraneous force, and two men ploughing near where it paffed were thrown down by it. It was feen, from first to laft, about 20 minutes. Yours, &c. A. BAKEWELL, We are forry our limits will not admit of our Correfpondent's theory, which is rather too prolix. Bath, Feb. 3. A following cafes has, perhaps, never been brought to a legal decifion, though, as you will find, it has been more than once intended, or at least talked of; I fhall be obliged, if any of your numerous readers, properly qualified, will give an opinion, in your Magazine, concerning it. S the point of law contained in the Copy of a Letter from the Earl of Cardigan to the Archbishop of Canterbury (Dr. Wake). My Lord, Feb. 22, 1726. 7. IT is out of duty and refpect to your Grace, that I give you this trouble, to acquaint you, that the Earl of Caftlehaven, who is a peer of this realm by the title of Lord Audley, has, at my request, granted his qualification to Mr. Richards, who has made application at Lambeth for your Grace's difpeniation, and has received a flat denial from your fecretary, which, I am apt to believe, muft proceed from fome mistake; for I cannot imagine, that your Original Letters on the Chaplains of Roman Catholic Peers. your Grace fhould give fuch orders, when it is manifeft, by the acts of Henry VIII. that the peers of this realm have an undoubted right to qualify fuch a number of chaplains, which right belongs to them as they are peers, and not as they are lords of parliament. I have fent a stated cafe by my chaplain, for your Grace's perufal; by which you will find, that there is no law in being to debar a Roman Catholic peer of any privilege but that of a feat in parliament. If your grace perfifts in de nying Mr. Richards your difpenfation upon the fingle account of Lord Caftlehaven's being a Papift, as a very near relation to his lordship, I fhall be obliged to prefent his petition for redress to the Houfe of Lords-a ftep I did not care to take, without first making it known to your Grace, being, with the utmost regard, my Lord, your Grace's most obedient and faithful humble fervant, CARDIGAN." Copy of a letter from Ditto to Ditto. "My Lord, March 3, 1726-7. BY the difcourfe I had with your Grace in the Houfe of Lords, I found you lo averfe to admit of a qualification from a Roman Catholick, that I imme. diately determined with myfelf not to infift upon a thing so disagreeable to a perfon for whom I had fo great a regard; but took the first opportunity of procuring another. I am very much obliged to your Grace for the trouble you have taken in ordering your fecretary to fearch the Faculty-office, which may be of fervice to fome worthy clergyman. I have now provided for Mr. Richards. I am, with great fincerity, my lord, your Grace's moft obedient and faithful humble fervant, CARDIGAN." N. B. The originals of the above letters are in the hands of a friend of mine. In the year 1759, lord S. a Roman Catholic peer of this realm, who had married a first coufin of a clergyman of the church of England, made him an offer of appointing him his chaplain; in hopes that fuch an appointment might be admitted as a qualification for a difpenfa tion to hold a second living, which was expected to be foon vacant. On confulting with his friends, the clergyman was advifed by all means to accept of the appointment; and to offer it at the Facultyoffice to be registered like the appoints ments of Proteftant peers. His friend, GENT. MAG. February, 1786. 113 who tendered it, wrote him, that the officers there informed him, "that, though lord S. had equal right with the Proteftant peers to appoint a chaplain, and that fuch chaplain was entitled to wear his fcarf, even without regiftering the appointment, yet, if application fhould ever be made to the archbishop to obtain a Fiat for a difpenation to hold a fecond living, it was next to a certainty, that he would refufe it: and, therefore, the regifteding it would, in all probability, be an ufelefs expence." Lord S. at the time of figning the apopinion, with refpect to fuch an appointpointment, defired, that the archbishop's ment, might, if poffible, be obtained and whether he would admit it as a qualification for a difpenfation-and to acquaint him with the archbishop's answer. The clergyman, having a friend who was intimately acquainted with the archbifhop's brother, defired him to beg the favour of him to found his brother on the point. The answer, which the archbishop gave, was, "I have never heard a chaplainship to a Popith lord mentioned as a qualification. If it ever hath been allowed, I think it should not; and the acceptance of it by a clergyman would not recommend him to me." Lord S. on being made acquainted with it, applied to an eminent lawyer for his opinion; which was as follows: "My Lord, "I have looked into the ftatute against pluralities, in which there is an exception for licensed clergymen; it is 21 Hen. VIII. cap. 13. The 15th fection is what particularly relates to the cafe you mentioned; the words of that fection are→→→ And that every Marquis and Earl may have five chaplains, whereof every one hall and may purchase licence or difpenfation, and take, receive, and keep, two parfonages or benefices with cure of fouls.' The words of this ftatute give your lordship a right to retain that number of chaplains. I have looked into the fubfequent difabling ftatutes. I do not find in any of them any exprefs contradiction or reftraint on this right. There are feveral ftatutes against Roman Catholicks prefenting to a benefice; but I think it is not neceffarily to be inferred from thence, that he may not retain a chap-, lain: it may be neceffary for his family, though he be himfelf a Papift: it may be neceifary for himself, if he should be dif pofed to be infru&ed. A peer, though an 114 Chaplains to Roman Catholic Peers.Unclaimed Stock in the Bank. an infant, may retain a chaplain. I do not know whether the Roman Catholick peers of England are fond of exerting that right; but I think, the ftatute of Hen. VIII. above mentioned, gives them the right, and I know of no ftatute, that has taken it from them. I am, with great refpect, my lord, &c. July 13, 1759." If there be any portion of truth in this article of intelligence, may not the propriety and juftice of keeping the effects of others locked up unadvertised, and therefore unclaimed, be reasonably queftioned? Most ignorant individuals (ignorant I mean refpecting the property of their relations thus concealed) derive no benefit but through the channel of chance or improper information ? Leaving, however, this matter to be weighed at leifure, permit me, fir, to inform fociety at large, without being how this lapfe of ftock has been hitherthought an impertinent individual of it, to in general occafioned; fo, that if nohing be restored to ourfelves, we may check, at leaft, an accumulating lofs to pofterity. Let us fuppofe then that Thomas Smith, a perfon of whatever defcription, dies poffeffed of 1000l. ftock, and his fon, or his nephew, John Smith, is appointed his fole executor. Lord S. on receiving this opinion, immediately wrote to his kinfman, and earntftly defired that he would not procure any other chaplainship; but that he would tender his to the archbishop; and that, if he fhould refufe to accept of it, he would get a friend, a peer of parliament, to move the Houfe of Lords against his Grace, to compel him to accept of it. However his lordship died before the expected fecond living becaine vacant, and, confequently, the point was not difputed. In addition to the above opinion, it may not be amifs to remark, that the peers of Scotland, though they be of the kirk, do appoint chaplains, who, is without doubt or difficulty, are thereby permitted to obtain a difpenfation,-in order to fhew, that, even in the view of law, it is not neceffary that a peer muft be a member of the church of England, in order to be enabled to appoint chap lains, who fhall thereby be qualified to purchafe licence or difpenfation to hold two livings. The will ed by the executor as fuch, who, in the proved, and the dividend duly receiv courie of his own life, buys 1000l. ftock himfelf, and dying inteftate, his bro-. ther, or next of kin, takes out Letters of Adminiftration, and repairing to the Bank, in fearch of his effects, finding 100cl. ftock in the name of John Smith, defcribed of the place in which he died, receives the dividend, as adminiftrator, Your correfpondent does not prefume and is fatisfied with the Clerk's decla to align the realons of the governors of ration that it is all the ftock he poffeffed. our church, for not admitting a chap. We will fuppofe this relation's name to be William Smith, who soon after lainfhip from a Roman Catholic peer, as a qualification for a difpenfation, on the dies, and leaves a young family, apone hand; nor, on the other, to contro- pointing his widow fole executrix, and two friends, as trustees, to execute the vert their policy, in oppofing the liberality of a Roman Catholic peer, who may purposes of his will; but before his be difpofed to have a Proteftant clergy-death he alfo had been able to purchase man to be his chaplain. I am, fir, your humble fervant, A. B. N. B. The archbishop alluded to in the last inflance, was Dr. Secker. FROM THE LONDON CHRONICLE. Recollect to have lately read in one 1000l. ftock; which being found there, other, Interefting Thoughts on the Unclaimed Stock remaining in the Bank. 115 other, to acquaint their wives and families with the particulars of their affairs; the loofe manner alfo in which many men, even in business, keep their private accounts; and what numbers there are who keep no account at allin this one inftance, then, it is obvious that 2000l. ftock, principal and intereft; that is to fay, 1oool. remaining in the name of John Smith deceased, and the other in that of Thomas Smith deceafed, are actually dead to the widow and children of William Smith, who was heir to both; but how are his reprefentatives to know it? Who is to acquaint them? So that here is 2000l. lapfe, never likely to be recovered fairly, but by public advertisement, when the children of this William Smith could easily fubftantiate their claims; for every thing would unravel itself. I will now fuggeft another cafe, that another man has retired from London with 20 or 30,000l. in the different funds. After his retirement he fhall purchase 2 or 3000l. in fome new ftock; or, which is the fame thing, in a ftock in which he had no property before. In this purchafe his broker, probably by his principal's order, fhall defcribe him according to his refidence in the country, while his former property befpoke him of some street in London, The fuppofition then is not vague; but rather, for the reafons I have before mentioned, I think probable, it is however poffible, that his reprefentatives, on his deceafe, fhall know nothing of this new purchase, but readily finding the other stock, fhare it among themfelves, by the affiftance of the clerk at the book, as fome old will of the deceafed fhall direct, and, fatisfied with more money than they expected, enquire no farther. But even admitting the fearch through the offices, the proprietor himself never having had occafion to fell, and being accustomed to receive his own dividend, felt no inconvenience from thefe different dhfcriptions; and his chriftian and furname being common, perhaps, to hundreds, how were the clerks to devine that a man of a particular and profeflional defcription in London. and the fquire of a village, an hundred miles from it, was one and the fame perion? I take upon me to fay that both thefe examples are in point; they may even unite in one family: the lofs will, of courte, be then the greater to the branches of it, and thefe are the fources to which may be traced the amazing increase of lapfed stock, and in what the Bank call their clearing books and exchequer accounts. Yours, MONITOR. MR. URBAN, THA Feb. 2. HAT bold affertion and hardy declamation are talents poffeffed in an eminent degree by the editor of "Antient Scotish Poems," in 2 vols. 8vo. can be doubted by none who has read a collection of "Letters" univerfally afcribed to him, or the prefatory ellay prefixed to his avowed edition of the faid antient Scotifh poiems. The fame fpirit pervades both works; the fame afcription of pre-eminence in poetry to Mr. Gray; the fame determination to decry every compofition or history that bears the name of Scripture. 1 If cool reafon, or even probable conjecture, could be permitted a fair hearing in Mr. P's court of judicature, one might plead that the Jews were older than the Celts, confequently than the Britons, Picts, or Scots; that Judæa was not a province of Syria till a period when Syrian hiftory itself commenced, now almoft annihilated, or reduced to a few fragments, preferved in Jewish or other writers; that Bayle's authority, like that of Voltaire, is inadmiffible to thofe who read with care and attention; that the Chriftian religion is founded on the Jewish; that the Jews were chofen by God as the people, at the time of fuch election, best calculated to preferve his oracles and inftitutions pure, though not more infallible than other furrounding nations whom they were employed to extirpate, and whole vices they, like other nations who think themfelves more enlightened and civilized, copied to their ruin. The God of the Jews, under thefe circumftances, was authorifed both to extirpate the corrupt nations round his choten people, and to reject that people alfo when they fell into the fame corruptions: nor is there any authority, but an improper tranflation or corrupted text, to make that Being the author or abettor of human facritices, any more than to conclude the Hebrews under barbarifm, or make the true God a demon. are too glaring abfurdities, too palpable contradictions, too felf-evident alte hoods, for the moft pofitive and daring declamation to impole on any man ever fo little vetted in the history of the Thete 116 Remarks on the Essay prefixed to Ancient Scotish Poems. world, or poffeffed of the smallest grain of candour and reflection; and it should further be obferved, that they are lugged by head and shoulders into the place they here occupy. But, to fhew the uncertainty of fuch point-blank and confident affertions, we need only examine the hypothefis which is to overturn the generally-received one of all nations having one common father. We are nevertheless to believe, that all Europeans, and many Afiatics, have one common origin; that Greeks fprung from Afiatics; Britons from Gauls; Welth, Scots, and Irish, from Britons; and that the Scots know as little about their origin and antiquities as the Jews did: for the antient name of Scotland was Cumbria, and the derivation of the names of its town and cities is Welb, and the Picts, or Pits (for they are not allowed a c in their original name), are deduced from phechton, Teutonic to fight, as if they were fighters, xal oxy, as much as the Scythians were booters; and the Caledonians, whofe name is a general epithet for the Britons even of the South, from their dwelling in woods, notwithstanding the fylva Caledonia must have been fome one fpecific foreft, were of a diftin&t race from the other Britons. Thus then are we as fhockingly deceived by profane or modern hiftorians, as if we truft to Scripture for the origin of men or na tions. "The Pits appear to have been Yet quite without the ufe of letters." they had a language, and that the Gothic, which had been a written language from the time of Ovid, who himself wrote in it. But the Picts were too warlike and rude a people to have any thing but oral poetry; and as ry is a moft fallacious engine, and will often deceive a man grofsly," how can we expect now to meet with any fpecimens of it? Their language, however, "remains almoft pure in Buchan." memo Etymology, it should feem, is not a better guide. It is not to this day determined which of the Celtic dialects is the most antient; and, by our author's partiality to that language, he certainly gives it pre-eminence to all others in the world. "The Hebrew is, in all probability, only a late dialect of the Syro-phoenician." What then is the Syro-phoenician is it radical, aborigi nal, or derived? The fourteent century, Mr. P. fays, forms almoft the utmolt bound of anti ent Scotish literature. Mr. P. forgets how applicable to himself is his obfervation of Mr. Mac pherfon, that "he fays his theory is new, and ought to have known of courfe that it is falfe. It would be quite new to affert that Xerxes never exifted, and for this we have only hiftory as well as for the origin of the Scots" may we not add of the world itfelf? and is not Mofes, as the author of his history, at least as credible an hiftorian as Herodotus, or Diodorus Siculus; Higden, or other compilers of univerfal hiftory; or as Thucydides, Xenophon, Livy, Tacitus, Beda, William of Malmesbury, Matthew Paris, or other hiftorians of particular æras or people? and why not allow Mofes as much credit as Geoffrey of Monmouth, whofe work is certainly full of fables? But it requires prodigious credulity to believe it wholly a fable. By what common teft fhall we try their respective merits? by the philofophy of biflory, which is to admirably exploded by a writer, who, in this editor's opinion, “deferves the highest praise for his labours in Scotifh hiftory?" Yet, as Lord Hales's "Remarks on the History of Scotland" may not be in every one's hands, I fhall make no apology for tranfcribing the paffage : "Next to the paffions of man, I know not any thing which has fo fatally checked the growth and progrefs of truth, as that prejudice, which tries every fact and custom related in history by the ftandard of our own manners. When we read of facts or customs diffimilar from what we fee every day, we generally pronounce them to be fictions. This is the brief decifion of ignorance. But, if we chance to know any thing of the laws of evidence, we pronounce them to be abfurd. By this ftandard the laws of Lycurgus, of the Decemvirs, and even of Mofes, have been tried. By it the Greeks judged of Afiatic cuftoms, the French of the Greek theatre. By it, I doubt not, our approved European manners will be re-tried, whenever the Hottentots fhall have imbibed a flight tincture of the belles-lettres." "It is in Mr. P. has a stricter teft. vain," he fays, "for a man to put the * Does Mr. P. forget that one of his own countrymen lately brought the Grecian hiftory into question because he could not find its facts in the Perfian hiftory? Mr. P. would say, it was because the Perfians defpined the Greeks. fpectacles |