10 s. YIII. DEC. 28,. 1907.] NOTES AND QUERIES.
503'
the Wesley Historical Society has been
drawn to a noteworthy statement of Wesley's
in his ' Journal,' in connexion with a painful
conference between him and the leaders
of what by that time " had become a Mora-
vian Society " (James Hutton, in Benham,
p. 54). It is clear that this conference was
being held in the old chapel of Mr. Rawlin.
In the course of discussion, " one asked,"
says Wesley, " whether they would suffer
Mr. Wesley to preach at Fetter Lane.
After a short debate, it was answered, ' No :
This place is taken forlthe "Germans."
The date is 16 July, 1740. (Wesley finally
quitted the Fetter Lane Society Jon the
following Sunday.) The words " is taken"
have not till lately attracted the attention
of Methodist historical students. But it
is a fact that a lease of the building now
the official head-quarters of English Mora-
vianism had been taken by James Hutton
at the Lady Day preceding. Wesley's
' Journal ' pretty clearly carries back the
occupation to at least 2 July. But where
did the Fetter Lane Society, thus slowly
being modified in its character, meet between
(say) the middle of May, 1738, and Lady
Day, 1740 ? Mr. J. F. Pemsel, the steward
of the congregation at 32, Fetter Lane,
obliges me with two sentences from the
official diary of the Church :
"In the year 1738 we hired a room in Fetter Lane for our Society to meet in."
' ' 1740, The great meeting-house in Fetter Lane was taken."
I confess that these suggest to me distinct places of meeting ; but the simple explana- tion of Mr. Pemsel may after all be the fact that on the migration from Hutton's house, the Society at first simply rented the vacated meeting-house, until at Lady Day they took it upon lease^ as already stated. It may be so ; but to both the Moravian and Methodist communities, and quite apart from any ancient and unhappy controversies, the events of the interval between May, 1738, and Lady Day, 1740 are of such supreme religious and historic interest, that certainty as to the place oi their occurrence would be most welcome if it could be had ; and I solicit any help your pages may afford me.
Does Wilson's report of an occupation of the Elim which up to 1790 preceded thi building recently destroyed by fire preserve by chance any grain of interesting and helpfu fact ? Is it some imperfect and distortec reminiscence of the interval between Maj 1738, and March, 1740, when the Societ; met somewhere in \Fetter Lane indeed
>ut not certainly in Mr. Rawlin's old chapel..
)oes any reader of ' N. & Q.' know whether-
he firm of printers' engineers who were
using the dismantled Elim of 1790 when I
ast saw it have deeds of the property going
- >ack to the early eighteenth century ?
I may add that MB. W ATKINSON (ante,. Ill) so condenses Wilson's paragraphs iii. 420 sq.) as to do injustice to Wilson,, not to say to Peter Bohler and the history, before the Moravian Chapel passes from discussion in your columns, the following paragraphs from the official booklet-guide- nay deserve transferring to your pages, tfone of your correspondents mentions the acts. Towards the end of their lease
" It was found that it would be better to rebuild
letter Lane Chapel ' rather than only to repair
t, because the difference in the cost would only be - from 20/. to 30J.' On April 8th, 1748, the landlord
planted the Brethren a new lease , and agreed to
contribute 15QI. towards the cost of rebuilding, and x> advance 100. on yearly interest. When the preliminaries were all settled the work of rebuilding ivas vigorously carried on. The diary tells us that
- he pulling down of the old meeting-house was
commenced on the 3rd of April, and that on the 26th of June following the new chapel was
opened In all probability the new one was built
on the lines, if not on the very foundations, of the old one ; and we may safely assume that some of the old fittings were retained in it. It is pretty certain too, though there is no direct mention of it, that the east wall of the chapel that between it and the Goldsmiths' Hall [now removed] was not then rebuilt, for an entry in the diary dated October 31st, 1752, tells us that ' The wall of the chapel being old, and the chapel and hallwall not being very firm, two butresses were fixed against it.' When the chapel was rebuilt, the entrance from Nevill's Court was constructed It is still in use."
Southport.
HENRY J. FOSTEB.
SHAKESPEARIANA.
1 TEMPEST,' I. ii. 175 :
Heavens thank you for 't ! And now, I pray you, .
sir.
In the only copy of the Oxford facsimile of the First Folio which I have been privileged i to examine this line begins with " Heuen." The width of the space between " Heuen " and "thank" and the whiteness of the paper would indicate that the missing s has been lost, either through erasure in the original or owing to some obstruction in printing. I should be glad to know the - cause of this textual variation. Liddell (' Elizabethan Shakspere ') says :
" Hevens. The plural as well as the singular form of the word seems to have been used in El. E. without the article, though no instances are given >
