Page:Notes and Queries - Series 11 - Volume 6.djvu/323

 ii s. vi. OCT. 5, i9i2.] NOTES AND QUERIES.

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to enable Count de Bournon to publish his elaborate monograph on carbonate of lime, and the necessary sum readily collected. This object being accomplished, other meet- ings were held for the joint purpose of friendly intercourse and mutual instruction. From such small beginnings sprang the Geological Society. How earnest these men were may be seen in the fact that they held their meetings at seven in the morning, as it was the only time in the day that Dr. Babington's professional engagements al- lowed liim to devote to this work, which he regarded in the light of a recreation. The meetings were held in the first instance in a back room at " The Freemasons' Tavern," and subsequently in rooms which they rented in the Temple.

In reference to the early purposes of the Society, Lyell (' Principles of Gology,' seventh edition, p. 61) states them to have been

" to multiply and record observations, and patiently to await the results at some future period. .. .and it was their favourite maxim, that the time was not yet come for a general system of geology ; but that all must be content for many years to be exclusively engaged in furnishing materials for future generalizations. By acting up to these principles with consistency they in few years disarmed all prejudices, and rescued the science from the imputation of being a dangerous, or, at best, but a visionary, pursuit."

In March, 1809, Weld says, " a plan was proposed by the Right Hon. Charles Gre- ville, which was supported by Sir Joseph Banks, Sir Humphry Davy, and others, to make the Geological Society " an Assistant Society to the Royal Society, and the "Plan" u was submitted at a special general meeting of the Geological Society which took place at " The Freemasons' Tavern " on the 10th of March, 1809 ; but the proposals were rejected as " having a direct tendency to render the Society dependent upon, and subservient to, the Royal Society." The Geological Society, however, " deeply and sincerely regretted that any circum- stances should have occurred to implicate in the preceding resolutions the name of the Royal Society," and the opportunity '' thus accidentally offered " was " cheerfully em- braced "

" to declare the high respect and deference they entertain towards that learned and scientific body, and their most earnest wish to contribute in any degree, and in proportion to their humble ability, to the welfare and prosperity of the Royal Society."

Weld truly remarks that

the .scientific world can have 110 reason to regret that the geologists preferred pursuing

their course independently, for there is probably no Society of this century that has done so much to advance its particular science, as the Geological Society of London."

What Weld wrote in 1848 will be fully endorsed by readers in 1912.

JOHN COLLINS FRANCIS.

(To be continued.)

HUGH PETERS. (See ante, p. 221.)

II. PETERS'S MADNESS AND IMMORALITY.

THE ' D.N.B.' states of the contemporary charges made against Peters's moral cha- racter that

" they rest on no evidence, and were solemnly denied by Peters. In one case the publisher of these libels was obliged to insert a public apology in the newspapers (Severall Proceedings of Parlia- ment, 2-9 Sept., 1652)."

Severall Proceedings was Henry Walker's newsbook. No apology can be found at any other time in this newsbook. No other apology was ever at any time inserted in any other newsbook. Never at any time did any tvriter apologize to Peters, and we are concerned here with a printer only,, one of the poorest, Robert Eeles (for details of his life see H. R. Plomer, ' A Dictionary of Printers,' &c., 1641 to 1666).

In 1652 a person called Acton wrote a somewhat scurrilous little tract, and em- ployed Eeles to print it. It was published, without a licence, on 6 September, and was entitled

' A new Hue and Cry after Major-General Massey and some others who by help of Peters keys escaped from the Tower of London August the 30,' &c.

Nominally concerned with Massey, it was really a short biography of Peters, and detailed the story of the teaman's wife told by The Man-in-the-Moon in 1649, as well as that of the butcher's wife (to be corro- borated later on).

At the same time Walker himself was attacked in Mercurius Democritus for 18-25 August, 1652, p. 166 (Walker was then pastor of Knightsbridge). In Severall Pro- ceedings for 2-9 September Walker refers as follows to both these attacks :

" There is a justice of the Peace sent this night a recantation in writing under his own hand to Mr. Peters for scandalizing of him, and divers more declare their sorrow for abusing him by reporting those lies which they heard from others concerning him. And, truely, where grace is, those that have spoken anything against so