Page:Notes and Queries - Series 11 - Volume 11.djvu/14

 NOTES AND QUERIES. in s. XL JAN. 2,1915.

publisher a very weak man, and those that set him on the work none of the wisest in employing so simple an animal in a businesse of so great con- cernment ; we shall instance but in one passage.

" Old Dolman, or Parsons, had said in the year 1594 that many were then living who had seen fc'ie severall coronations of King Edw. the 6, Queen Mary, and Queen Eliz. and could wit- nesse, &c. Now our young Dolman, or Walker, for that is the wiseman's name, supposing that all these people were alive still that were old men 54 years agoe, like a true transcriber affirmeth confidently, without the variation of a letter, in pag 43 of his addition, that many are yet living in England that have seen the severall coronations of King Edw. the 6, Queen Mary and Queen Eliz., to which he also addeth King James and King Charls, because they were crowned since. And this, we confesse, is new in him."

There is a great deal of comment on this book in Prynne's ' Speech ' of 4 Dec., 1648, but I do not set it out because Prynne does not mention Walker's name. The Man in .the Moon for 27 June-4 July, 1649, says that Cromwell

isme,*Walker, with 30Z., to reprint a book of one Doleman's, a Jesuit (that was formerly hang'd, drawn and quarter'd for the same) to justifie that unparallel'd and inhuman murder of butchering the King. The said book is new dipped by our blest reformers and entituled ' Severall Speeches,' &c \ut supra], and these coppies were cunningly conveyed into the hands of Bradshaw and the regicides as a catechism to instruct them in the devil's horn book, written in bloody characters, of the murdered Saints and servants of God. And the seeds of this crop of villainy was by perjur'd Noll committed to the care of that saffron bearded Judas, Walker, a villain sold to work mischief, tell lyes and print and divulge their rogueries. One that I am persuaded that for all parts in the science of Schisme cannot be matched in the three kingdomes. Nay not in Christendome, nor in Europe."
 * ' hired that factotum of villainous impostur-

10. (b) ' SEVERALL SPEECHES,' &c.

The history of the ' Conference about the Next Succession to the Crown ' does not end with Walker's fraud in 1648. On 30 May, 1655, he put forth a fresh and entirely different edition of it, in order to serve Cromwell's purpose of assuming the crown. The title of this new edition is as follows :

" A Treatise concerning the Broken Succession of the Crowne of England, Inculcated about the later end of the Reigne of Queen Elizabeth. Not Impertinent for the better compleating of the information intended. London. Printed Anno Dom. 1655."

There was a postscript to this edition, and it ran as follows :

" This manuscript [sic] treatise of broken successions of the Crown of England, coming from the hands of a Popish priest and comprehending

the substance of what was written and published by Father Parsons, the Jesuit, under the name of Doleman, for ends best known to themselves, but justly suspected to be no way for the freedom of the English nation, may give the greater occasion for the wisdom of later times to prevent those commotions towards confusion as might seem to threaten a second part of that horrid design of the Gunpowder treason, November 5. 1605."

The motive of this and of his attempt to stigmatize the Royalists as equally guilty with Guy Fawkes is shown by Walker's remark, made apropos of nothing at all, and simply slipped in among his general news in his Perfect Proceedings, No. 293, for 3-10 May, 1655 (last page): " I think we may beg his highnesse to take the Crowne."

Finally, Father Persons's unlucky book was reprinted in 1681, in order to support the enemies of James, Duke of York, after- wards James II. Never was there such an unlucky book for the House of Stuart.

J. B. WILLIAMS.

(To be continued.)

A BIBLIOGRAPHY OF THOMAS HOLCROFT.

(See 11 S. x. 1, 43, 83, 122, 163, 205, 244, 284, 323, 362, 403, 442, 484.)

1798. [Never published.] ' Indian Exiles.' Under this title Holcroft projected, at- tempted, and completed a translation of Kotzebue's play ' Die Indianer in England ' (1791). That Holcroft wrote such a play is fairly certain from the evidence of the ments concerning the work. On 12 Oct., 1798 (p. 196), he wrote :
 * Memoirs,' where there are definite state-

" Finished translating the first act of Kotzebue's ' Indian in England,' which has employed me five or six days ; and as I intend essentially to alter the character of Samuel or Balaam, more time will be employed in a revisal. This cha- racter has keeping in the original, but not enough of the vis comica."

On the 16th (p. 198) he wrote : " Finished translating the second act of the 'Indian.' " On the 19th (p. 198) he '^finished translating the 'Indian.'" On 14 Nov. (p. 201) he " wrote two songs for ' The Exiles,' the second of Balaam and the first of Harry." Two days later comes the entry :

" Read the first act and part of the second of ' The Indian Exiles ' to Bannister ; and am con- vinced by the effect it produced upon him that it is too dull for representation. I doubt how far it is worth the trouble of alteration."