Page:Notes and Queries - Series 11 - Volume 6.djvu/130

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NOTES AND QUERIES. en s. vi. AUG. 10, 1912.

The Sun (Taylor, ' Records of my Life,' passim). His guests comprised, in addition to Taylor, Sir John St. Aubyn, the last baronet of that creation, Rev. William Peters, R.A., Charles Townley (of the Townley Marbles), Rev. John Warner, D.D., Rev. Thomas Maurice (of the British Museum), Major Grose, Dr. Wo loot, Rev. Michael Tyson, and John Nicholls, M.P. It was to Penneck that Warner addressed from abroad those " highly diverting, but somewhat too free letters " which had to be burnt when they had been read to the company ; and he was one of the adventurous friends of Townley who on a very windy night removed his Jacobite uncle's head from the pole on the top of Temple Bar.

All his life Penneck was a martyr to the gout, and these dinners could not have improved his health. Still he lived to be 75 years old. He died unmarried in his apartments at the British Museum on 29 January, 1803 (Gent. Mag., 1803,pt. i. pp. 94, 189-90*; 1811, pt. i. p. 239). His will, dated six days previously, was signed, but unwitnessed. Richard Bowyer of Highwood in the parish of Hendon, and Harvey Christian Combe of Great Russell Street, Bloomsbury, swore in March, 1803, to the handwriting of the deceased, and the will was proved on 29 April by the Rev. Samuel Ayscough, power being reserved for the other executors, the Rev. Dr. Thomas Taylor and John Taylor of The Sun, on their application.

The estate was sworn under 6001. He bequeathed to John Taylor 201., his miniature of Garrick, and any six books which he might choose ; and to Dr. Taylor 201., the Glasgow edition of Homer, and Hunter's edition of Evelyn's ' Sylva.' To Ayscough he left his plate, gown, cassock, and scarf, and any six books of his selection ; and Townley obtained an " Arabic MS. in an ivory case." He desired to be buried in the most private and least expensive manner, and wished his manuscripts to be destroyed. His bequest to his niece Eliza Wroughton consisted of his " pellice lined with fur"; another niece, Susannah Wroughton, obtained his linen, and she was his residuary legatee. His servants received small pecuniary legacies, and one of them, Francis Barnard, had, in addition, the saddles and horse furniture. The two watchmen were left a guinea each. Penneck had much sympathy with servants and the distressed. In a letter to John Nichols, editor of the Gent. Mag., he asked for the loan of John Hunting- ford's work, ' The Laws of Masters and Servants Considered,' which was reviewed

in that periodical, 1790, pt. i. p. 429 (Bodl. MS. 31,344, fol. 95). He was one of a small but distinguished set of men who clubbed their resources together for charitable pur- poses.

The testimony of John Taylor was that " Penneck was an irritable but an honourable man ; a good classical and French scholar." The proofs of his kindness are many. Dr. Johnson, though but slightly known to him, wrote on 3 March, 1768, soliciting his vote for Thrale as a candidate for Southwark at the ensuing election (' N. & Q.,' 5 S. vii. 101-2 ; ' Letters,' ed. Hill, i. 133-4). Goldsmith asked for a transcript of "an old Saxon poem" in the Harleian MSS. ('N". & Q.,' 5 S. vii. 102 ; 'Works,' ed. Gibbs, i. 462-4). By the kindness of Mr. Wood of the MSS. Department at the British Museum, I am enabled to identify it as of the fourteenth century and the Harleian MSS. 913, f. 31s, and 7358, f. 12B. It begins, as Goldsmith stated, with the words,

Lollai lollai litil child whi wepistou so sore, and is reprinted with a preliminary note in ' Die Kildare Gedichte,' ed. W. Heuser ("Bonner Beitrage zur Anglistik," Heft xiv. r 1904), pp. 172-6.

Penneck " sent Dr. G. the MS.," and received in return warm thanks for his attention, and an invitation to join Sir Joshua Reynolds, Mr. Bickerstaff, " and a friend or two more " at dinner next Sunday at the poet's lodgings : " Farmer Selby's at the Six Mile stone, Edgware Road." Pen- neck is said to have been acquainted with the particulars of Goldsmith's excursion to Windsor, " but they were never printed and have now perished " (' Sir James Prior,' ii. 438). Sir Joshua knew him, for he sat for his portrait in November, 1768, and Septem- ber, 1769 (Graves and Cronin, iv. 1384).

Gray, a frequent visitor at the Museum Library, must have known him. His assist- ance in the preparation of the Percy ' Reliques ' is several times acknowledged by Dr. Percy (' N. & Q.,' 4 S. iii. 26-7 r 53-4). He furnished Daines Barrington with some additional information on the continuance of the Cornish language (Archceologia, v. 81); he obtained free access to the Museum Library for Charles Dibdin the elder, who in return inscribed to him two of the letters in his ' Obser- vations on a Tour in England' (i. 118-34, 164) ; the Rev. John Brand was indebted to him for help in his ' History of Newcastle upon Tyne ' (preface, I. p. viii) ; and he assisted Dr. Kippis in the ' Biog. Britannica * (ii. 421).