Page:Notes and Queries - Series 2 - Volume 1.djvu/197

 <i S. NO 10., MAR. 8. 56.]

NOTES AND QUERIES.

189

we hope thereby our King may return to you, as safe as he came to us.

" His active and invincible courage gave us horrid frights, finding that he acted in the field, rather as a couragious captain, than a great king. This success may, we hope, justly entitle him to the character of the greatest monarch in the European world.

" Our enemy is run in that hast, that they have left vaster stores than we could have imagined than they had, not only of war, but of provisions behind them.

" Not an hour but we have some news of loss to them and gain to us. I am under those straits of time, that I can neither be so full or methodical in account of persons and things, as I wish. I have sent you enclosed the copy of a prophecy, which you may put into English, having onely time to write it ; and that 1 am

" Your affectionate friend and servant." (No signature.)

The enclosure is

" A prophesie found near one hundred years since in Chancellor Loftus his studdy, and since this war shewed often to King James his ministers here."

Beneath the broadside is this very significant adver- tisement :

" The Secret History of the Dutchess of Portsmouth. Giving an Account of the Intreagues of the Court during her Ministry. And of the Death of King Charles the Second. Printed for Richard Baldwin, in the Old Bailey."

Although these letters are not communicated with the compliments of the Secretary of the War Department, they evidently came from an official source, and are worthy of record in " N. & Q."

WM. DURRANT COOPER.

The Escape of James II. Macaulay, at the end of his 9th chapter, vol. i., states that King James II. on leaving London " repaired to Sheer- ness, where a hoy belonging to the Custom- House had been ordered to await his arrival." When I was at Sheerness, in 1853, there was in the dock- yard there a hoy called the " Royal Escape," which was said to be the identical one in which James II. escaped to France. R. R. A.

Macaulay' s "England" and Dr. Routh. Can any of your readers inform the world what has become of the work or pamphlet which the late President of Magdalen College was said to be en- gaged upon for some time before his death, in reply to several statements in the first and second volumes of Macaulay's History of England? Should the venerable and learned president have left his thoughts in too disjointed and unfinished a state to be fit for publication in a separate form, permit me to suggest to his executors that they would confer a benefit on the literary world by permitting the disjecta membra to appear in a " Macaulay Number " of " N. & Q."

CERTAMEN.

VERSES BY THOMAS BROOKE.

The following is taken from a black-letter ori- ginal, copied by Leland from a very old roll, partly manuscript, partly printed, in the Bodleian Library. It is attached by paste to the roll, and is adduced by Leland as a proof that the art of printing was practised much sooner at Norwich than is generally imagined.

The author of the verses was Thomas Brooke, Gent., being written by him just before his exe- cution for high treason, he being one of those that were engaged in the plot hatched in Norfolk in the year 1570 against Queen Elizabeth.

" Certayne Versis, writtene by Thomas Brooke, Gentleman, in the tymeofhis imprisonment, the daye before his deathe, who sufferyd at Norwich the 30 of August, 1570. j

" All languishing I lye, And death doth make me thrall To cares which death shall sone cut of, And sett me quyt of all.

" Yet feble flesh would faynt, To feale so sharpe a fyght, Save fayth in Christ doth comfort me, And sieithe such fancy quyght.

" For fynding forth howe frayle Each worldly state doth stande,' I hould him blyst that, fearyng God, Is redd of such a band.

" For he that longest lyves, And Nestor's yeares doth gayne, Hath so much more accompte to make, And fyndeth lyfe but vayne.

" What cause ys then to quayle ? I called am before,

To tast the joy.es which Christis bloode Hath bowght and layde in store.

" No, no, no greter joy, Can eny hart posses,

Then thorowgh the death to gayne a lyfe, Wyth him in blyssednes.

" Who sende the Queen long lyfe, Much joy and contries peace, Her councell health, hyr fryndes good lucke, To all ther joyes increase.

" Thus puttyng uppe my greaves, I grownde my lyfe on God, And thanke him with most humble hart, And mekelye kisse his rodde.

" Finis, quod Thomas Brooke.

" Seane and allowd, accordyng to the Quenes Majestyes injunction.

" GOD SAVE THE QUENE.

" Imprynted at Norwich, in the Paryshe Saynte Andrewc, by Anthony de Solempne. 1570."

HENRY KENSINGTON.

flftt'nor

Impoverished Covers of certain Old Calf Bind' ings : its Cause. I dare say many of your biblio- graphic readers arc well aware of the processes