Duchesne, from p. 84 to p. 90, gives some indications by which to distinguish these objects; stating, that the largest do not exceed four inches, and for the most part they are of smaller dimensions; that the grounds are generally black, although not always so; that an inscription on a Paper Niello, in the body of the work, should read from right to left: in short, the general rules as regards a Niello in silver, appear to me to be, that it should be of the period, coupled with a self-evident proof that it was made as an object of art for itself, and not destined for the purpose of printing engravings from, or, to use his own more comprehensive and authoritative words, "qu'elle n'était destinée à fournir des Epreuves:" see also his Table générale des Matières, p. 373, for a list of those with a white ground.

pas

Duchesne, at p. 24, quoting preceding authors, gives a list of the articles for which works in Niello were made to ornament; from the substantial sword-handle, similar to that, the solitary Niello in the Ashmolean Museum at Oxford, to the more delicate inlayings by compartments, of the ebony cabinets, which in Italy, according to the wealth of the husband, he states, were destined as marriage presents to the wife: but it is very singular, that, although he specifies thus particularly these ebony cabinets and their uses, yet, in his catalogue, not one does he describe; and it is clear he knows only that they have existed: doubtless, series of 12 medallions with the life of our Saviour above mentioned, together with those with the History of Adam in sulphur,-and of Abraham in paper, described by him from 129 to p. 135 in his work, were confirmatory to him, of the statement of the authors he quotes.

the

p.

Some of the extraordinary prices paid for these small objects of art, measuring merely inches and portions of an inch, beautiful though they certainly are, have already been incidentally cited. Duchesne in a note, at p. 114, is of opinion, that the original silver at the Museum of Florence, of the sulphur Niello now in the British Museum, would have sold at the time he wrote, for more

than twice the value of the sulphur, which had then, he writes, been sold for 2500 francs :-a mistake, for it had when he wrote, as he previously states, been sold to the Duke of Buckingham for £250, which is 6,000 francs : again, a Niello in paper, smaller than the Pax at Florence, or that in paper in the collection of the Archduke Charles at Vienna, has sold for 300 guineas and a smaller one in silver, 3 inches by 2 inches, has sold for 315 guineas.

Having thus, with your permission, stated these particulars, you and your readers will now be the better enabled to appreciate my discovery and purchase, scarcely less extraordinary, after the general ransacking of the last half century, than would be the picking up a pendant to the Transfiguration of Raphael, by a similar hazard; no less than three of these ebony cabinets, inlaid with silver Nielli in their original states, which, as I have before stated, were quite unknown to have been spared by time, even to Duchesne.

The collection 1 have, consists altogether of 33 original Nielli in silver, 28 inlaid in the cabinets, the compliment being 5 by Marc Antonio in a book bound in silver in original state, brought from a convent near Ancona : forming, if I may rely on the work of the learned Duchesne, the largest and finest collection, of these most scarce works, that is yet known in the world; all of them too, of the most delicate kind, made to be regarded by the eye, and not of that more substantial sort, made for use and handling, of which the great majority of those in silver preserved, saved from their little, or non use, consists.

The cabinets or caskets, covered with an age of dirt, were said to have formed part of a consignment, of the clearing out of cinque-cento chairs, picture frames, and furniture, from a palace at Venice; and curious enough, at the same time, I bought a Florentine cabinet in Pietra dura, on the door of which is a representation of a palace at Venice, which may, or may not be, the palace, from whence the Nielli were sold and ejected, as so much antique rubbish, to feed the auction rooms in London.

I am expecting shortly the arrival

of a distinguished connoisseur, who has kindly promised to catalogue them, in a proper manner; and I shall ask you at a future opportunity, to favour me, by inserting it in the Gentleman's Magazine, as one of the surest ways of making these Nielli known, to those who interest themselves in this, not unimportant, link in the history of the

arts.

MR. URBAN,

Norfolk, May 18. YOUR correspondent ROUGEDRAGON, in his notice of the family of Archbishop Sancroft, contained in your May number, does not seem to be aware of the pedigree contained in Doyly's Life of that eminent Prelate, compiled from authentic documents in the hands of the representatives of the family, and by which the descent of the Archbishop is deduced from William de Sandcrofte, who was living temp. Hen. III. It is there stated that by a charter without date about the time of Hen. III. or Edw. I. Adam le Bavent, (not Wavent), son of Roger le Bavent, granted lands in Fressingfield, in the hamlet of Chepenhall, to Henry, son of William de Sandcrofte, and Margery his wife. If this was only a confirmation of an earlier grant made by the deed referred to by Mr. King, perhaps he would have the kindness to favour me with an extract from the abstract of it to which he alludes.

I subjoin a continuation of Doyly's

I cannot conclude without offering my thanks to Monsieur Duchesne, from whose interesting work, aided by seeing other collections, I have gathered all I know on the subject; and also to Mr. Dominic Colnaghi, for the present of the work of Duchesne, which he most kindly gave me, on my first acquiring my collection.

Yours, &c. S. P. Cox.

pedigree, shewing the lineal descent from Thomas Sancroft the elder, and, I believe, only brother of the Archbishop; but it is not improbable that there were descendants of his uncle Dr. William Sancroft, Master of Emmanuel, who has doubtless been confounded with the Archbishop, and from whom the James Sancroft of Yarmouth, whose obituary has called forth Mr. King's communication, may have been descended. That there were other branches of the family is certain; and by a deed dated in 1703, by which William Sancroft, in compliance with a request of the late Archbishop, granted a rent-charge out of lands in Fressingfield, for the benefit of the poor of that parish, a Mr. Charles Sancroft is, with Thomas Sancroft and others, constituted a trustee. This Charles Sancroft was a linen-draper in London, and living in 1735, which is all I able to state respecting him.

MR. URBAN,

AS you have already allowed some space to communications relating to Dr. Donne, the account of his descendants, by Mr. Steinman, some years ago, and that of his Welsh ancestors by a later correspondent, perhaps the following notes, made during and in consequence of a reading of Mr. Alford's late publication,* may be found suitable for your Magazine. They chiefly show how entirely the helps towards the biography of the Dean which are contained in his own writings have hitherto been overlooked. They do not pretend to be more than a specimen of what has been left undiscovered; a person with stronger motives for inquiry, and with a better access to books than I have usually had, might easily find out much more. It is certainly a very unpoetical work to set Isaak Walton right in his chronology and facts; but surely no one will maintain, that, because a man has had the good fortune to find a very pleasing biographer, the facts of his life must never be accurately looked into. Such a doctrine would equally forbid all inquiry into the real history of persons who have been made to figure in historical plays or romances. The references are according to Mr. Alford's edition.

The first point which I shall touch on, is the religion of Donne's youth. Mr. Southey (British Poets, p. 714) tells us that he was "educated as a Papist," and speaks of his "conversion to the Protestant faith." On the other hand, Donne himself, when Dean of St. Paul's, writes, (Letter 74,) "My tenets are always for the preservation of the religion I was born in ;" and he elsewhere (vol. iv. p. 420) speaks of himself as having received his baptism in the English church. The explanation of this seems to be, that in those days the laws recognised no religious body but the Reformed English Church; that Donne's parents yielded outward

conformity, notwithstanding theirbeing Romanists in heart; that he himself made no distinct profession in his youth; and that, when at length he embraced the Anglican opinions, he only became in reality, and declared himself to be, what the law had always considered him to be. (Comp. vol. vi. p. 146.) In a letter to Sir G. More, (Kempe's Loseley MSS. No. 135) he shows great eagerness to clear himself of an imputation of "loving a corrupt religion."

There cannot be any reasonable doubt of Donne's honesty in the choice of his religion; but there is no force in two of Mr. Alford's reasons for supposing him honest, viz. that he could not have been influenced by interest, as "at that time he had no design of taking orders," and that the Romish Church's "approval of that ascetic sanctity of which the seeds were even now sown in himself, must have formed a powerful recommendation in her favour." If, to use his own words, his "irresolution retarded his fortune" as a layman, a resolution in favour of the Romish side would not have retarded it less; and it is very certain that he never had any love for that peculiar sort of "ascetic sanctity" by which the practical teaching of the Romish Church is distinguished from that of our own. In proof of this see vol. i. p. 375; vol. ii. 142, 307, 410, 480; vol. iv. 524, 573; vol. v. 83, 289.

"

In 1596 Donne accompanied the Earl of Essex to Cadiz, and in 1597 he sailed with him on "the Island voyage." Walton tells us that he then spent some years" in Italy and Spain, and that on his return he obtained the place of secretary to the Lord Chancellor, which he had held "five years," when he lost it in consequence of his marriage. Mr. Alford supposes that we have no trace of him from the time of his return with Essex in 1597 until Elizabeth's death, in March 1603, when, as Sermon 153

GENT. MAG. VOL. XVI.

E

shows, he was in London. "About that same time," according to the editor, "he was appointed secretary to the Chancellor, and his marriage took place in 1603 or 1604."

some

The real time of the marriage is ascertained by a letter in the Loseley MSS., which is dated Feb. 2, 1601, and in which Donne says that it took place "about three weeks before Christmas" [1601.] Thus Walton's " years "abroad and five years" with the Chancellor must have been comprised between Oct. 1597, when Essex's fleet returned,* and December 1601. In another of the Loseley letters, Donne writes to the Chancellor, "I was four years your Lordship's secretary;" he must, therefore, have been appointed almost immediately after his return from the Azores. His travels in Italy and Spain, if he ever travelled in those countries at all, must have been performed before he joined the Cadiz expedition.

The Loseley MSS. also enable us to know that Donne obtained the secretaryship through the Chancellor's "good son," (No. 139,) i. e. Sir Francis Woolley, whose mother was then his Lordship's wife. Whether Walton was altogether right in speaking of Mrs. Donne's " competent years as an excuse for the rashness of the marriage, may be differently determined by different persons, as Mr. Kempe informs us, (p. 321,) that her age was then

seventeen.

Sir F. Woolley gave Donne and his wife an asylum in his house; where, according to the biographers, they remained until his death; they then lived at Mitcham; and thence," after the year 1607," according to Mr. Alford, they removed to Drury house. As it appears that Sir Francis did not die until 1610, there is strange confusion here. Moreover, in attempting to fix the dates of Donne's letters, Mr. Alford seems to assume that the family continued at Mitcham until 1609, when, as he supposes, Donne went to Paris with Lord Hay.

A close examination of the Letters

might do something towards clearing away the difficulties which occur in this part of the history; but I shall not attempt the task of such an inquiry.

It does not seem to have been noticed, that Donne had obtained some place about Lincoln's Inn in or before the year 1607. On Dec. 22 he speaks (Letter 11) of his service there as "ended for next term." This place was most probably the same which he mentions in Letter 22 as given him by the Master of the Rolls.

I am following in general, as to the order of my observations, Walton's Life of Donne, but the order of time seems to point out this as the proper place for noticing his account of Donne's acquaintance with the Herbert family, which is to be found, not in the life of Donne, but in that of G. Herbert. He tells us, that the mother of the Herberts, being left a widow, took up her abode at Oxford, that she might watch over the education of her son Edward, afterwards Lord Herbert of Cherbury; † and that during the four years which she spent there, she became acquainted with Donne, who was then nearly forty years of age, and had a wife and seven children dependent on him.

It appears from Lord Herbert's autobiography, that his mother's residence with him at Oxford began after his marriage, which took place in Feb. 1598-9, and ended in 1600 or 1601, when they removed to London. If, then, Donne knew Lady Danvers (as she afterwards was called), while she resided at Oxford with her son, it must have been before his own marriage, as that did not take place until December 1601, and when his age was at least a dozen years short of forty. If the acquaintance was formed at a later time, it may have been brought about through Mrs. Donne's family, as her father obtained from the Crown the wardship of Edward Herbert. (Kempe's Loseley MSS.) The letter from Donne "to the Lady Magdalene Herbert," given by Walton, is dated July 11, 1607.

Walton tells us that Lord Hay was sent on an embassy to Henry IV.;