Page:Notes and Queries - Series 2 - Volume 1.djvu/120

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NOTES AND QUERIES

112


NOTES AND QUERIES.


[2nd s. N 6., FEB. 9.


have been remotely, for legal inquiries under

Martin's will did not begin till after Paoli's death.

J. F. Y. Kennington.

Life Peerage. 1 !. The recent elevation to the peerage of an eminent judge, threatens to give rise to much discussion. It was advanced on the opening of parliament, by a noble lord, that the prerogative had not been thus exercised for 200 or 300 years. If during that period no peer for life has been created, a peeress has; for, according to N. Harris Nicolas (Synopsis of the Peerage, p. 349.)

" Erengard tie Schulemberg, Duchess of Munster, in Ireland, was created, April 30, 1719, Bareness Glaston- bury, Countess of Faversham, and Duchess of Kendal, for life.'"

TEE BEE.

Pimlico.

Woolleit. Extempore on reading the humble gravestone of Woollett in St. Pancras church- yard :

" Here Woollett rests, contented to be saved ; Who engraved well but is not well en-graved.

S. C. 1791." R. W. HACKWOOD.

Curious Epitaph. On passing through the churchyard of Dinton, Wilts, I was struck with the following epitaph, to the meaning of which, on inquiry, I could obtain no clue :

" Here lyes dear John, his parents' love and joy, That most pretty and ingenious boy. His matchless soul is not yet forgotten, Though here the lovely body dead and rotten. Ages to come may wonder at his fame, And here his death by shameful malice came. How spiteful some did use him, and how rude, Grief will not let me write : but now conclude. To God for ever all praise be given, Since we liope he is with Him in Heaven. J. A. ob. 23 Dec., 1716."

There is also an inscription to James Ashe, who died 28 April, 1728, set. 61. MAQDALENENSIS.


KINO EDWARD VI.'s TREATISE AGAINST THE POPES SUPREMACY.

In the Public Library at Cambridge (Dd. 12. 59.) is preserved a small volume of fifty paper leaves, containing a " Petit Traite a 1'encontre de la primaute du Pape," prefaced by a letter, in which King Edward VI. addresses the work to his uncle, the Duke of Somerset. This letter is dated " De mon palais de Ouestmester lez Londres, ce penultime jour d'Aoust, 1549." In the British Museum (MS. Addit. 5664.) is a book wholly in the handwriting of the same royal penman, of


which the first page is headed, " Alencontre les abus du monde, 13 De. 1548 ;" and the last page is dated, also by his own hand, " 14 Mars, 1549." Having procured a transcript of the former volume, for the purpose of including it, in the collection of the Literary Remains of King Edward VI., which I am now editing for the Roxburghe Club, I find that the contents of both these books are alike ; that the copy in the British Museum is the king's manuscript, corrected throughout by the hand of his French master, Belmaine ; and that the copy in the Public Library at Cambridge is the fair transcript made for presentation to his uncle, the Duke of Somerset. It is one of three books of the s;ime description, which are all still preserved. The first being a collection of pas- sages of Scripture against Idolatry, which is in Trinity College library at Cambridge ; the second, a similar collection upon Faith, which is in the British Museum (MS. Addit. 9000.); and the third, this upon the Supremacy of the Pope. When the essay was first commenced, in Dec. 1548, it appears that the king proposed to himself another subject, " Les abus du monde." And from that title having remained upon his manu- script, it has been so described in the Catalogues of the Museum ; and it has happened that I have been the first to discover that this book is really the original of his essay against the Pope's Supre- macy.

In the year 1682 was published, in a small octavo volume :

" King Edward the VI th . his own Arguments against the Pope's Supremacy, translated out of the Original written with the King's own Hand in French, and still preserved."

It is stated, in the preparatory address of the publisher to the reader, that the

" Autographon of the Treatise against the Papacy now published, was found in the French tongue, in the library of one of the most eminently learned men of the last age ; and is here presented as 'twas faithfully translated by a person of very great quality in this."

I am anxious to ascertain who this " person of very great quality" may have been. The book also contains " Some remarks upon King Edward's life and reign, in vindication of his memory from Dr. Heylin's severe and unjust censure." These were written by the translator of the treatise, but he gives no intimation of his own identity. He quoted Burnet, and Stillingileet on the Idolatry of the Church of Rome. 1 do not find the book men- tioned in the Rev. J. C. Robertson's edition of Heylin's History, printed for the Ecclesiastical History Society, in 1849. In Lowndes's Biblio- graphers Manual, is mentioned a book entitled :

" Declaration against the Pope's Supremacy. Wrote

bv his Majesty Edward VI. in the year 1549. Repub-

lished and dedicated to his Majesty George III. By the liev. John Duncan, LL.D., F.S.A., 1811."