Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 45.djvu/85

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Kingdom, with the discovery of two great Plots against the Parliament of England,’ 1646, 4to. 12. ‘A Word for the Army and Two Words for the Kingdom,’ 1647, 4to; reprinted in the ‘Harleian Miscellany,’ ed. Park, v. 607. 13. ‘Good Work for a good Magistrate, or a short cut to great quiet, by honest, homely, plain English hints given from Scripture, reason, and experience for the regulating of most cases in this Commonwealth,’ by H. P., 12mo, 1651. 14. A preface to ‘The Little Horn's Doom and Downfall,’ by Mary Cary, 12mo, 1651. 15. ‘Æternitati sacrum Terrenum quod habuit sub hoc pulvere deposuit Henricus Ireton,’ Latin verses on Henry Ireton's death, fol. [1650]. 16. Dedication to ‘Operum Gulielmi Amesii volumen primum,’ Amsterdam, 12mo, 1658. 17. ‘A Dying Father's Last Legacy to an only Child, or Mr. Hugh Peter's advice to his daughter, written by his own hand during his late imprisonment,’ 12mo, 1660. 18. ‘The Case of Mr. Hugh Peters impartially communicated to the view and censure of the whole world, written by his own hand,’ 4to, 1660. 19. ‘A Sermon by Hugh Peters preached before his death, as it was taken by a faithful hand, and now published for public information,’ London, printed by John Best, 4to, 1660.

A number of speeches, confessions, sermons, &c., attributed to Peters, are merely political squibs and satirical attacks. A list of these is given in ‘Bibliotheca Cornubiensis.’ There are also attributed to Peters: 1. ‘The Nonesuch Charles his character,’ 8vo, 1651. This was probably written by Sir Balthazar Gerbier [q. v.], who after the Restoration asserted that Peters was its author (Cal. State Papers, Dom. 1661–2, p. 79). 2. ‘The Way to the Peace and Settlement of these Nations. … By Peter Cornelius van Zurick-Zee,’ 4to, 1659; reprinted in the ‘Somers Tracts,’ ed. Scott, vi. 487. 3. ‘A Way propounded to make the poor in these and other nations happy. By Peter Cornelius van Zurick-Zee,’ 4to, 1659. A note in the copy of the latter in Thomason's Collection in the British Museum, says: ‘I believe this pamphlet was made by Mr. Hugh Peters, who hath a man named Cornelius Glover.’

[An almost exhaustive list of the materials for the life of Peters is given in Boase and Courtney's Bibliotheca Cornubiensis, i. 465, iii. 1310. The earliest life of Peters is that by William Yonge, M.D.—England's Shame, or the unmasking of a politic Atheist, being a full and faithful relation of the life and death of that grand impostor Hugh Peters, 12mo, 1663. This is a scurrilous collection of fabrications. The first attempt at an impartial biography was an historical and critical account of Hugh Peters after the manner of Mr. Bayle, published anonymously by Dr. William Harris in 1751, 4to, reprinted, in 1814, in his Historical and Critical Account of the Lives of James I, Charles I, &c., 5 vols, 8vo. This was followed in 1807 by the Life of Hugh Peters, by the Rev. Samuel Peters, LL.D., New York, 8vo. Both were superseded by the Rev. J. B. Felt's Memoir and Defence of Hugh Peters, Boston, 1851, 8vo; thirty-five letters by Hugh Peters are printed in the Collections of the Massachusetts Historical Society, 4th ser. vi. 91–117, vii. 199–204; a list of other letters is given in Bibliotheca Cornubiensis. Peters gives an account of his own life in his Last Legacy, pp. 97–115, which should be compared with the autobiographical statements contained in his Last Report of the English Wars, 1646, the petition addressed by him to the House of Lords in 1660 (Hist. MSS. Comm. 7th Rep. i. 115), and the statements made by him during his trial.]

C. H. F.

PETERS, Mrs. MARY (1813–1856), hymn-writer, daughter of Richard Bowly and his wife, Mary Bowly, was born at Cirencester in Gloucestershire on 17 April 1813. While very young she married John McWilliam Peters, sometime rector of Quenington in the same county, and afterwards vicar of Langford in Oxfordshire. The death of her husband in 1834 left her a widow at the age of twenty-one. She found solace in the writing of hymns and other literary pursuits. She wrote a work in seven volumes, called ‘The World's History from the Creation to the Accession of Queen Victoria.’ It is, however, as a hymn-writer that Mrs. Peters will be best remembered. She contributed hymns to the Plymouth Brethren's ‘Psalms, Hymns, and Spiritual Songs,’ London, 1842, 8vo. Her poetical pieces, fifty-eight in number, appeared in 1847 under the title ‘Hymns intended to help the Communion of Saints’ (London). Selections from this volume are found in various hymnals both of the established and nonconformist churches, such as ‘The Hymnal Companion,’ Snepp's ‘Songs of Grace and Glory,’ Windle's ‘Church and Home Psalter and Hymnal,’ ‘The General Hymnary,’ &c. Among her most admired hymns are those beginning: ‘Around Thy table, Holy Lord,’ ‘Holy Father, we address Thee,’ ‘Jesus, how much Thy name unfolds!’ and ‘Through the love of God our Saviour.’ The first and last named are in very general use.

Mrs. Peters died at Clifton, Bristol, on 29 July 1856.

[Julian's Dict. of Hymnology, and private sources.]

W. B. L.