Page:Notes and Queries - Series 11 - Volume 3.djvu/11

 11 S. III. JAX. 7, 1911.]

NOTES AND QUEKIKS.

What was the date of the " Commission fo examination into the state of timber in Ireland," and where could the names o the Commissioners be seen ?

H. G. ARCHER.

ANGLO-AMERICAN MAIL SERVICE : ITS BICENTENARY. So many centenary anc bicentenary celebrations of various kinds take place in these days that it is somewha 1 strange that none appears to be contem plated of one which would make a particu larly wide and human appeal, that being the bicentenary of the establishment of a regular Anglo-American mail service. Th( beginnings of such a service can be traced of course, to the seventeenth century ; but it was not until the closing months of the first decade of the eighteenth that these seem to have settled into the periodic. In The Daily Courant for 8 January, 1711, appeared the following :

" Bristol, Jan. 6. This Day arri v'd here the Roya Anne Packet Boat, Captain Shorter, from New York, with a Mail of Letters from Her Majesty's Dominions on the Continent of America, which made her Passage from Bristol to New York in 50 Days, and her Passage home in 28 Days. This is the first Mail in return from the Continent since the erecting the Correspondence to and from this Kingdom and the said Continent."

The information here given was supple- mented by the subjoined advertisement, published in the same newspaper on the following 15 June, showing that this regular mail service had taken a firm hold upon the public :

" For New York.

"The Harley Packet-Boat from Bristol, Joseph Palmer, Commander, will be ready to Sail the last of this Instant June, (Wind and Weather per- mitting) with the Mail of Letters for the Continent of America, which will be taken in at the General Post-Office in London, or at any of the Post-Offices in Great-Britain, at any time between this and the last Day of this Instant June, 1711. And other lackets will be successively provided to depart monthly, with such Letters which shall be in the General Post-Office in London or Post-Office in Bristol, by the last Thursday in every Month. All Merchants and others, who have Occasion to send Goods or small Parcels, and are desirous to " us Passengers to New- York, New-England, Long-Island, Rhode-Island, East or West-Jersey, lensilvania, Maryland, Virginia or Carolina applying themselves to William Warren, or Jonathan Scarth Merchants, at the 3 Crowns in bracious- Street, London ; or to Richard Champion, Charles Hartford, Merchants, in Bristol, may be Accommodated on reasonable Terms. P. S JNote, That there are already Posts, and other Conveyances, from New- York to the several above- mentioned Places, And that the Reason why the

late Packets have not duely kept their Cours, hath been occasioned by the Death of Sampson Mears ^ late Proprietor of the said Packets."

More about this earliest Anglo-American periodic service is doubtless to be found, and would be w r elcome.

ALFRED F. ROBBINS.

SOUTH AFRICAN BIBLIOGRAPHY. As so many readers of ' N. & Q.' are devoted to the study of bibliography, a note should be made of that valuable contribution, ' South African Bibliography,' by Mr. Sidney Mendelssohn, published by Messrs. Kegan Paul, Triibner & Co., the first volume of which contains an Introduction by Mr. I. D.. Colvin. Mr. Mendelssohn has devoted the best part of eleven years to the compilation of his two noble volumes, the last five yeara having been almost entirely given to the work. The Bibliography was at first con- fined to the author's library of works relating to South Africa, but has been, extended to other sources. His own collec- tion he has left by his will to the Union Parliament of South Africa. He states in the preface, "It is not presented now, as I have by no means finished collecting" ; and he is afraid that he could not work without his collection at hand. A. N. Q.

SAMUEL RICHARDSON AND THE ENGLISH PHILOSOPHERS. Richardson's novels con- tain numerous and characteristic references to 'the English philosophers. It is worth while to collect them, as they have not been noticed by his biographers.

Lovelace, who has the greatest philosophi- cal knowledge of any of Richardson's characters, refers once to the contents of Shaftesbury's ' Essay on the Freedom of Wit and Humour ' (' Characteristicks/ vol. i,. Treatise II.) :

" I always called another cause, when any of ny libertine companions, in pursuance of Lord Shaftesbury's test (which is part of the rake's creed, and what I may call the whetstone of nfidelity ), endeavoured to turn the sacred subject nto ridicule." ' Clarissa', iii. 147, ed. 1902.

Lovelace also mentions Shaftesbury's ' Letter concerning Enthusiasm,' which contains an account of the French prophets (' Character- sticks,' i. 26-8) :

" \Yhat we have been told of the agitations and vorkings, and sighings and sobbings of the French >rophets among us formerly, was nothing at all o the scene exhibited by these maudlin souls, at he re.-iding of these letters." ' Clarissa,' vii. 301 ; Iso cp. Shaftesbury, edited by Hatch, i. 378-81.

In ' Sir Charles Grandison, 1 iii. 75-6, s an allusion to the title of Shaftesbury's.