Page:Notes and Queries - Series 10 - Volume 7.djvu/265

 10 S. VII. MARCH 16, 1907.] NOTES AND QUERIES.

217

and best Blackwood essays, ' The Beggar's Legacy ' (Blackwood 1 s Magazine, March, 1855 ; ' Essays,' ed. 1857, pp. 490-501).

ALFRED SYDNEY LEWIS. Library, Constitutional Club.

' The Journal of Llewellin Penrose ' was first published in 1815. John Eagles was the editor, and in the dedication to Benjamin West, the celebrated painter, he gives a clear intimation that the journal was in existence in 1805. If D. J. will refer to the original dedication, he will find it is stated that John Eagles's father (Thomas Eagles, 1746-1812), seeing that Williams (or Pen- rose ?) was in a state of poverty, " supplied his immediate wants. Subsequently he was enabled to place him comfortably in the Mer- chants' Almshouse in this City [Bristol], endowed for the reception of decayed mariners." I think there is very little doubt that Ben- jamin West knew Williams in his early days in Philadelphia ; that Williams was a -traveller or sailor who was able to sketch or paint ; and that West, who himself had a reputation for wild adventure in his youth (it is stated that he learnt the art of making certain colours from a Cherokee Indian), adventures. It is further stated in the dedication that
 * had been told by Williams some of his

"it was a subject of pleasing recollection to my father [Thomas Eagles] that this extraordinary ^Narrative first led him to make your acquaintance ; .and I am happy that the honour has been extended to myself [John Eagles]."

It has been pointed out in The Bristol Times and Mirror, by the Rev. A. B. Beaven, of Leamington, that Benjamin West was dead when the " new edition " quoted by D. J. was issued in 1827. It is inconceiv- able that John Eagles, who was a man of probity, would have brought West's name into the dedication in the original issue of 4 The Journal ' without his permission. All narrator, if not the actual writer of some part of ' The Journal ' ; but it is more probable that Thomas Eagles was the original editor of the MS., in the form in which it existed in 1805 ; in fact, he may have written it himself from statements made by Williams, and it is by no means improbable ithat Thomas Eagles invented the name of Penrose. Thomas Eagles was the possessor -of considerable literary attainments (see original publication of ' The Journal,' who was an honoured contributor to Blackwood's Magazine, and the author of several pub- lished works, was a master in the art of
 * the circumstances point to Williams as the
 * D.N.B.'). John Eagles, the editor of the

description, and most fertile in the faculty of imagination. Unless it should happen that the MS., which was in existence in 1805, is still in existence, it will probably never be known to what extent John Eagles altered or added to the original narrative ; it is, however, certain that no more com- petent editor for such a work could easily have been discovered.

An editorial note in The Bristol Times and Mirror sums up the matter as follows :

" Penrose is evidently the second Alexander Selkirk who came to Bristol, and whose story was taken up by a gifted editor, not lacking in some of the qualities of Defoe."

I may add that the late William George, a former contributor to ' N. & Q.,' always treated Thomas Eagles as the author of ' The Journal.' G. E. WE ARE.

Weston-super-Mare.

AUTHOR OF QUOTATION WANTED (10 S. vii. 169). I transcribe for MR. WELLS BLADEN the quotation from the ' Life of Charles Kingsley,' vol. ii. chap, xxviii. :

"Some say thus he spoke in the chapel of Windsor Castle some say that the age of chivalry is past, that the spirit of romance is dead. The age of chivalry is never past, so long as there is a wrong left unredressed on earth, or a man or a woman left to say, ' I will redress that wrong, or spend my life in the attempt.' The age of chivalry is never past, so long as we have faith enough to say, ' God will help me to redress that wrong, or if not me, He will help those that come after me, for His eternal will is to overcome evil with good.' "

H. S R.

BENJAMIN KENNET, VICAR or BRADFORD (10 S. vii. 127). In a 'List of Vicars of Bradford Parish Church,' in Yorkshire Notes and Queries, I find the following : " Instituted 1720, Benjamin Kennet, A.M. Patron Francis Buller, vacated by death, successor instituted 1752."

A pedigree of White Kennett, Bishop of Peterborough, shows a sister married to Vicesimus Gibson.

' D.N.B.' gives an antiquary, Kennet Gibson, 1730-72. B, J. FYNMOBB.

Sandgate.

PUBLIC OFFICE = POLICE OFFICE, POLICE COURT (10 S. vii. 47, 90). Mr. and Mrs. Webb's recent work on ' English Local Government ' relates (pp. 337-42) the cir- cumstances connected with the institution of the Bow Street Office, apparently about 1730, by Sir Thomas de Veil. In a later chapter (p. 573) details are given of the development, under Sir John Fielding, of the Bow Street Office, " unknown to the Constitution," and his efforts from 1768-