Page:Notes and Queries - Series 2 - Volume 1.djvu/42

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34


NOTES AND QUERIES.


S. N 2., JAN. 12. '56.


Temple, who by will, Nov. 24, 1684, gave lands to Sion College. Also those of the Rev. Edw. Waple, D.D., vicar of St. Sepulchre, resident of the said college, 1704. W. DENTON.


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IS Abbe Primi. Lord Preston, the English ambassador, in letters to Secretary Jenkins (Dal- rymple, vol. i. Appendix), speaks of an " insolent book" just published in Paris (1682) by L'Abbe Primi, in which reference is made to the secret negociations between Louis and Charles II. The author, he says, has been sent to the Bastile, and the work so rigidly suppressed, that he can only obtain a copy of the French translation, which " is not near so full as the original." What work was referred to ? and was it ever translated into En- glish ? If so, when, and under what title was it published ? L. P.

[The French translation of this work is entitled Histoire de la Guerre de Hollands, Paris, 1682, 12mo. A bibliogra- phical notice of it is given by the continuators of Le Long, Bibliolheque Historique de la France, torn. ii. No. 23,996., who state, that it was translated into English in Recueil des Traitei de Politique ; London, 1705, torn. i. fol. An edition containing Part I., a La Ilaye, 1689, is in the British Museum. It may be well to add that, according io the title-page of the work as published in Jjie State Tracts, 1705, it professes to have been "written originally in Italian by the Count de Maiolo;" but the writer of another tract on the same subject in the same collection (p. 32.) says, " I do judge that the name of Count S' Maiolo was a kind of trick of the Abbe* Primi;" and he adds, that but for the interference of the English mi- nister, " we might, without question, have had several other important secrets published in the following books (for we have only two books often printed), which now we can only conjecture at."]

Publication of Banns. In an Oxford edition of the Book of Common Prayer, published in 1745, I find it states in the Communion Service, immediately after the Belief:

" The curate shall declare unto the people what holy- days, or fasting-days are in the week following to be ob- served ; and then also (if occasion be) shall notice be given of the Communion ; and the Banns of Matrimony published," &c.

In the modern editions of the Prayer Book, the six last words relating to the publication of banns are omitted in this portion of the service, directions given at the beginning of the marriage service that the banns should be published " immediately after the second lesson." Can any one state when this alteration was made, by what authority, and for what professed reason ? VINTOR.

[The alteration was made by the royal printers from the dubious reading of sect. 1., in 26 George II. cap. 33., 1753, commonly called the Marriage Act, in which it is provided, that " banns of marriage be published upon three Sundays preceding the solemnization of marriage, during the time of morning service, or of the evening


service, if there be no morning service, in the proper church or chapel on any of those Sundays, immediately after the second lesson." It is questionable whether this Act intended to direct the publication of the banns to take place after the second lesson in the Morning Service. It is read by several persons thus : " during the time of morning service, or of evening service (if there be no morn- ing sem'ce) immediately after the second lesson." As this Act was intended to prevent clandestine marriages, it was necessary to provide for these cases when there was no morning service. We have consulted several Prayer Books hereafter named, and give the results. The rubric in the books published at Oxford, 1753, 1760, 1762, 1801 ; Cambridge, 1770, 1815 ; Edinburgh (king's printer), 1812; all direct the banns to be read in the Communion Service. The rubric in the books published at Oxford, 1807 (8vo. and 4to.), 1816, 1821, 1825, 1826, 1827, 1831, 1836, 1838; Cambridge (folio), 1825; London, 1845; direct the banns to be published after the second lesson. The alteration appears to have been made without authority, or any great regard to uniformity ; and seeing that Convocation has never sanctioned the alteration, we must hand over the following Query to the doctors and proctors of our courts, ecclesiastical for their solution : namely, Whether the publication of the banns, after the second lesson in the morning, is perfectly legal? The Prayer Book of the American Church directs the banns to be read iu the Communion Service.]

Dr. But(s. J Where can I find any particulars about Robert Butts, D.D., Lord Bishop of Ely ? Whom did he marry ? &c. K. II. S.

[William Cole, in his MS. Cambridge Collections, vol. xviii. (Additional MS. 5819., British Museum) has given a long account of Bishop Butts, so very disparag- ing, that the less said about his many short-comings tho better. Cole's sketch reminds us of tho sarcastic legacy to this prelate in the Political Will and Testament of Robert Walpole, Earl of Orford : " My eloquence I leave to that good shepherd, the Bishop of Ely, to persuade the sheep to leave off their profaneness, to turn from the evil of their ways, and to follow the pious example of their leader." Cole informs us, that " whilst he was Bishop of Norwich, he lost his first wife in 1734, who was sister, 1 think, to Dr. Robert Eyton, of Shropshire. This lady he buried under the communion-table of the chapel in his palace, at Norwich [the inscription, with some account of the bishop, is given in Blomefleld's Norfolk, edit. 1806. vol. iii. p. 597.] Who would have suspected (continues Cole) that his right reverend lordship would ever have thought of taking another bedfellow, after such warm sentiments as these for his first wife? But this was the overflowings of a tender and amorous constitution ; and it is often observed that the greater the excess of grief upon these occasions at first, the sooner it is forgotten. It proved so in the instance before us, for at a very un- reasonable age for one of his character and profession, being then about sixty years old, at which time he had two sons, and two or three daughters, all of them of men's and women's estate, he took a fancy to a young wifp, and married the daughter of the Rev. Mr. Reynolds, of Bury. After the death of the bishop, his widow married Mr. Green, of Stoke Newington ; but things went so wrong- between her and her husband, that a separation was agreed on, and they lived asunder, ho at Stoke Newington, and she at Bath." 1 .

Harris's " Ware : " Carte s "Life of Ormonde" Allow me to send you a few notes from the