Page:Notes and Queries - Series 11 - Volume 10.djvu/111

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11 S. X. AUG. 8, 1914.]


NOTES AND QUERIES.


105


CANON HAIG BROWN.

Godalming. In front of the chapel of the Charterhouse School is placed a statue ol Canon Haig Brown. It was set up by the subscriptions of past and present Carthusian.* during the Canon's lifetime. The beloved head master is represented seated c'ad in his academic gown, and holding in his right hand a small model of the school chapel. The pedestal contains the following inscription :

William Haig Brown Head master 1864-1897. Sapientia aedificabitur

Domus et prudentia roborabitur.

JOHN T. PAGE.

Long Itchington, Warwickshire.

(To be continued.)


HUGH PETERS: POST-RESTORATION SATIRES AND PORTRAITS.

(See 11 S. vi. 221, 263, 301, 463 ; vii. 4, 33, 45, 84, 123, 163 ; viii. 430, 461.)

THE post -Rest oration satires about Peters have^ been the subject of much hostile comment, a great deal of which is justified ; but the hitherto received inference, that they were uniformly the work of Peters's enemies, is erroneous. With the exception of satirical ballads, they were all the work of Peters's quondam supporters, and were published partly in order to prove a loyalty that was more than doubtful ; and, in one case at least, to divert the attention of those sent to search for the fraudulent ' Speeches and Prayers ' and other seditious tracts which the same publishers were secretly dispersing to another class of customer.

The most important of these satirical books is the ' Tales and Jests of Mr. Hugh I't-triN,' a copy of the first edition of which is in the Dyce and Forster Library at South Kensington Museum. The title-page of this edition runs :

" The Tales and Jests of Mr. Hugh Peters. Collected into one volume. Published by one that hath formerly been conversant with the author in his life time, and dedicated to Mr. John Goodwin and Phillip Nye. Together with his sentence and the manner of his execution. Lon- don. Piinted for S. D., and are to be sold by most of the booksellers in London. 1660."

^dication is also initialled " S. D."

Tho hook contains 59 tales, and consists of

- ]']>. .Many of the tales have been taken

haphazard from Royalist Mercuries and

satires, and all are most inaccurately told.


The rest consist of mere gossip, but I do not think there is one in the book that can be traced to any ancient jest-book. In later editions of this book (' Mr. Peters, his Figaryes,' &c.) ' Scoggin's Jests' and other outside sources were freely drawn upon in order to increase the number of tales, with the result that the book became even more worthless.

" S. D." was the Simon Dover of ' Speeches and Prayers ' fame, and it is tolerably clear that the book was published by him in order to divert attention from himself as the printer of that fraud.

In like manner George Horton, the pub- lisher of the various Anabaptist " Scouts ' which attacked Cromwell, issued on 2 Sept. 1660, ' The Speech and Confession of Hugh Peters,' &c., and many similar tracts of the same class. This contained the first bio- graphy of Peters, and was merely abusive fiction from end to end.

There are at South Kensington two portraits of Peters which I believe to be unique. The first is prefixed to but no part of the Dyce and Forster copy of the ' Speeches and Prayers,' and is a half- length engraving of Peters, clad on one side in full armour, in reference to his share in the Irish massacres, and on the other in a gown, as a preacher. He carries a standard with " L. L. L." on it (Lords, Lawyers, and Levites the three classes he would have had destroyed). The following inscription is underneath :

" Magister Hugo Peters, Clericus, Olivero Cromwellio a consiliis tarn Ecclesiasticis quam civilibus intimis, religionis et Ecclesise Anglicanre persecutor, Caroli I. Regis Proditpr, Anabap- bistarum, Quackerorum, Tndependentium, Chilias- tarum, eorumdeniq. dogmatum patronus. Vir Insignis Malitise et Atheus." The probable date is 1660. It may be Dutch. There is another engraving in the same volume depicting Peters presenting some Dutch petitioners to Thurloe.

The same volume also contains (among all other and better-known satirical portraits) a small half-length engraving of Peters, with the printer's name " Peter Cole " at $ the Foot, and the legend '"^Et. 57.' This, therefore, seems to have been published n 1656, and may have been prefixed to-

he " recantation " Peters was said to be

about to publish with regard to the scanda- lous events of that year. It is the original of the engraving of Peters prefixed to the 'Dying Father's Legacy' in 1660, on which the legend runs : " JEt&tis suae 61." I believe this copy (which is accompanied