Page:Notes and Queries - Series 12 - Volume 1.djvu/58

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NOTES AND QUERIES. [12 s. i. JAN. is,

he would jjprobably have en led his ciavs on the Episcopal bench.

No better description of him can be found than the following from the pen oi his friend the^late Dr. Thomas Hodgkin :

" An Evangelical and a mystic ; a theologian who was turned to Quakerism by the study of Hooker's ' Ecclesiastical Polity ' ; a treasure- house of Patristic lore reared outside the limits of that which is called the Catholic Church ; an eloquent preacher with halting tongue ; a learned and ingenious lawyer with the heart of a little child ; I believe one might add, a Jacobite Tory, all whose sympathies for many years were given to the Liberal Party in politics : these are some of the paradoxes in his mental history which made him so intensely interesting a study in character to all of his slightly younger contem- poraries."*

AMICOBTJM QUIDAM.

CROMWELL'S ALLEGED LEAGUE WITH THE DEVIL (11 S. xii. 281, 324, 472, 490). At the penultimate reference attention is drawn to 1 S. iii. 282, where is a reply to a note, ibid., 207. In that note the statement is made that " Echard says that his highness [Oliver Cromwell] sold himself to the devil, and that he had seen the solemn compact."

Laurence Echard, ' History of England,' vol. ii., 1718, p. 712, tells the story, but makes no positive assertion, and certainly says nothing about having seen the compact. After a short quotation from the ' History of Independency,' he gives

" a more full Account never yet publish'd, which is here inserted as a Thing more wonderful than probable, and therefore more for the Diversion than Satisfaction of the Reader."

At the end of the story he says :

" But how far Lindsey is to be believ'd, and how far the Story is to be accounted incredible, is left to the Reader's Faith and Judgment, and not to any Determination of our own." P. 713.

So much for B. B.'s statements. To this note S. H. H. sent a reply (p. 282), in which he gives a somewhat lengthy introduction to a copy of a MS. found among the papers of " a clergyman of the good old school," re- marking that " no date is attached to it nor any intimation of its history." This clergyman appears to have been born in or about 1740, and to have died in or about 1826.

The history of the MS. is not mysterious. Though carelessly written, it is a copy, almost verbatim, from Echard's ' History,' vol. ii. pp. 712, 713, published in 1718. The

1005.' By Thomas Hodgkin.
 * ' In Memoriam : J. B. Braithwaite, ob. Nov. 15,

The Friend (London), vol. xlv. No. 47, Nov., 1005, p. 765.

last three paragraphs, as given in the copy* are not taken from Lindsey 's narrative, and the last paragraph is certainly Echard's own writing. Evidently the " clergyman of the good old school " had taken his copy, not quite exactly, from Echard. In the copy of the MS. there is a curious mistake or mis- print : p. 283, col. 1, below the middle, " the other person plorily declared " should be " the other peremptorily declar'd." Again, 1. 8 from foot, " a sort of amaze " should be " a sort of a Maze." Again in col. 2, .1. 10, " I am sure " should be " I am assured." This last error is rather important : Echard does not say that he is sure, but that he ha& been assured.

I suppose that very few persons refer to Laurence Echard's * History of England r now, yet there is much in it which cannpt easily be found elsewhere.

I remember that I asked the late Mr. William E. H. Lecky what he thought of Echard's ' History.'. From his reply I gathered that he knew nothing about it.

According to Allibone's ' Dictionary of English Literature ' :

" Nothing did more to injure the work [' History of England '] than Echard's recital of Lindsey 's story of the conference and contract between Oliver Cromwell and the Devil on the morning of the battle of Worcester. Echard by no means endorses the truth of the narration, but he dis- misses the subject with a sly innuendo or perhaps intended pleasantry : ' How far Lindsey is to be believed,' &c."

May I remark that in MB. WABD'S reply at the last reference the meaning of "I think it must have been in Walker's book that I came upon the story " is not clear 2 What book of which Walker ?

ROBEBT PlEBPOINT.

BAKEB'S CHOP-HOUSE (11 S. xii. 500). Referring to the notes on the above, it may be of interest to state that the first circular letter addressed to Evangelical ministers of the Gospel in and about London was issued from Baker's Chop-House, Nov. 4, 1794 or 1795. It was signed by seven or eight ministers representing two or three different denominations having a common object, viz., to send the Gospel to foreign parts. The circular bore fruit, and meetings were subsequently held at the Castle and Falcon in Aldersgate Street, at one of which it is understood the society now known as the London Missionary Society had its origin. At that date the street was known as " Ex- change Alley."

I have before me a letter, written some thirty years ago, from the gentleman who