Page:Notes and Queries - Series 10 - Volume 4.djvu/122

 98 NOTES AND QUERIES, no* s. iv. JULY 29,1005. printed for Tho. Wotton, 1741, vol. i. p. 112. There is an account of the family, beginning with John Cope, Esq., "a very eminent person in the reigns of K. Rich.1 II. and Hen. IV." His great-grandson William, in or about 1505, purchased the manor of Han- well, after selling the lordships and manors of Wormleighton and ' Fenny - Coinpton to John Spencer, Esq. (ancestor of the Duke of Marlborough). Sir Anthony Cope, first baronet, was the great-grandson of William. 'The English • Baronetage' gives (p. 113) the inscription on ,tihe monument of William Cope and Jane his wife in the church of Banbury, and (p. 116) that of Sir Anthony in the church of Han- well. Both are in Latin. The latter is very long; it contains more than twenty elegiac verses. On p. 119 is given the Latin epitaph of Sir Anthony,-fourth baronet, who was buried at Han well. There is no mention of the purchase of Brainshill, but "Bramsell, near Hertford- Bridge, in Hampshire," appears as the " seat" of the present (1741) baronet. The same book (iy. 152) says that Jonathan, younger son of Sir Anthony, had a son Jonathan, whose son Jonathan was created a baronet 1 March, . 1714,' Sir Jonathan Cope of Brewern (or Brewerne), Oxfordshire* "Seats: At Brewern, near Banbury, and Hanwell in Oxfordshire,, and Ranton-Abby, in Staffordshire." The fourth baronet of this creation, Sir Jonathan, second son of Jonathan, the eldest son of the first baronet, died without issue, and the title became extinct in 1821. See 'Synopsis of the Extinct Baronetage,' by William Courthope, 1835, p. 50. ROBERT PIEKPOINT. JJlwrcIhnrotts. . . -NOTES ON BOOKS, ftc. Memoin of a Royal Chaplain, l<2i>-ltG3. Edited by Albert Hartshorne. .(Lane.) THIS work, which may be regarded as the first of a possible series, is of a kind to appeal with more than usual directness to our readers. It consists of the correspondence of Edmund Pyle, D.D., Chap- lain in Ordinary to George II., with Samuel Ker- rich, D.D., vicar of Dersingham, £c., and casts a bright light upon existence in East Anglia during Georgian days. Not wholly confined to the district mentioned is the interest of the contents, and there are large portions which are of much more than local value. From the preface we learn that the correspondence printed constitutes a portion of a collection of about seven thousand letters, which have been arranged by the' owner in no fewer than twenty-eight, folio volumes. One or two go back to 1633; the latest, which extend to 1828, comprise two volumes of letters from Fraucis Douce, the famous antiquary, Keeper of the MSS. in the British Museum. Thomas Kerrich, the only son of the afore-mentioned. Samuel, also a noted antiquary and ecclesiastic, is responsible for a large portion of a collection the value and extent of which we are not as yet in a position to gauge. The families most closely concerned with the entire correspondence are those of Rogerson, Postle1- thwayt, Gooch, and Kerrich. The letters now given are addressed by Edmund Pyle, Archdeacon of York and Prebendary of Winchester, to the aforementioned Samuel Kerrich, and constitute but a fraction of the collection. Their chief value consists, probably, in the light they cast upon history and politics, but there is. abundance of interest in domestic record. Much ia heard con- cerning sickness. Cancer is direfully prevalent, gout is the bone of the ecclesiastic and the scholar, and the ravages of the smallpox are terrible. Owing to the Methuen Port Wine Treaty of 1703 the relative proportions of Portuguese and French wine imported into England were 95 per cent, of the former and 5 per cent, of the latter. Hence, says the editor, " gout became the hereditary appana^ of the English gentleman." Among other subjects treated are the injurious effects of the augmented window tax, the trouble caused by the Marriage Act of '26 George II., and the grumbling against the New Style. A picturesque incident is the slaying in a duel of Lord Leicester by George, Viscount Townshend, a man thirty years his junior and accustomed to arms, a murder which Mr. Harts- home compares with that of the Duke of Hamilton by Mohun and Macartney. Concerning the suicide of Lord Montford, who had "an expensive and Ealtry fellow for his son," Pyle says, "It is a pity ut he had done this twenty-five years ago, for h« has made all the young nobility mad after gambling." Much curious gossip is supplied, as the false report that " the Duke of Bedford had caught his duchess napping with a gallant & shot the man upon the spot." Pyle's avidity after preferment, and his general regard for the main chance, are abundantly shown. He does not refrain on occasion froni coarse speech. Some occasional light upon the evil lives of the clergy is, indeed, shed. " The Eagle Stone" of Rogerson is a curious relic of super- stition. An amusing story, almost supplying a plot for a comedy, is told, p. 110, concerning Mrs. Clarges and her daughters Penelope and Suky. Another curious piece of scandal is the elopement of Lord Townshend's daughter with Capt. Orme, p. married man. Reflecting on our national manners, it is said then, as it has often since been repeated, that " n:e are mad and considered nationally net worth saving." The death of Dean Clerke is attri- buted to " an ague; caught by living in that vile damp close of Salisbury, which is a mere sink ; and going to a church, daily that is as wet as any vault; and which has destroyed more, perhaps, than ever it saved." Whatever be the tastes of the reader, especially if they be antiquarian, he will find abundance to recreate and delight him. Portraits of Kerrich, Pyle, Bishops Hoadly, Gooch, and Sherlock, the Duke of Newcastle, Pitt, George Townshend, and Lord Walpole add to the attrac- tions of a captivating volume. Scotland .in the Time of Queen Mary. By P. Hume Brown, LL.D. (Methuen & Co.) THIS excellent and deeply interesting volume con- sists of six lectures delivered by Dr. Hume Brown