Page:Notes and Queries - Series 2 - Volume 1.djvu/43

 S. X 2., JAN. 12. '56. J

NOTES AND QUERIES.

35

Bibliotheca Hibernicana : or a Descriptive Cata- logue of a Select Irish Library, collected for the Right Hon. Robert Peel (the late Sir Robert), of which there were only fifty copies printed, in 1823, and which is, consequently, a rare little volume. The author is known to be William Shaw Mason, and in his note on Harris's Ware, he says :

" The first two [vols.] only were printed ; they contain the Antiquities, the Lives of the Bishops, and the Irish Writers continued to the beginning of the eighteenth century. He did not live to complete the third, which was to comprehend the Annals of Ireland. A most valuable collection for this purpose, consisting of several closely- written folios, was' purchased by the late Irish Parlia- ment, and is deposited in the library of the Dublin So- ciety," pp. 1-2.

Is this valuable collection still in the library of the Society, and is it likely to be ever published, so as to form the intended third volume of Har- ris's edition of Ware's Works f

Again, under the heading of Carte's Life of the Duke of Ormonde, and Letters, at p. 19., we read :

" A collection of original letters and papers concerning the affairs of England from 1641 to 1660, found among the Duke of Ormonde's papers, was published by Carte in 1739. They are said to have been printed at the expense of the Society for the Encouragement of Learning. None of them are to be found in the folio edition of the letters attached to Carte's Life of Ormonde."

Is this collection, as a printed volume, easily obtainable, and is it uniform with the three pre- ceding volumes, published in 1735 and 1736 ?

R. H.

[Carte's Collection of Letters, 1739, makes 2 vols. 8vo., and is not uniform with his Life of Ormonde.']

SUylietf.

9 THE DE WITTS.

(1 st S. xii. 69. 244. 310. 438.)

I cannot agree with P. that Burnet " completely frees the Prince of Orange from the imputation of complicity " in the murder of the De Witts. His words are :

"Some furious agitators, who pretended zeal for the Prince, gathered the rabble together. And by that vile action that followed they did him more harm than they were ever able to repair. His enemies have taken ad- vantage from thence to cast the infamy of this on him and on his party, to make them all odious ; though the prince spoke of it always to me with the greatest horror possible." Burnet, Own Time, vol. i. p. 455., ed. 1766.

Macbeth speaks of his dear friend Banquo with the greatest kindness possible, and drinks his health in his absence. The prince, who was a very good judge of his own interest, would not have pensioned and promoted the chief assassins had he thought that they had done him harm.

Hume's statement seems exaggerated. I cannot trace his authority for saying that Cornelius de Witt was " torn to pieces by the most inhuman torments," or that he "frequently repeated" the Ode of Horace. Ramsay (Memoires de Turennc, t. ii. p. 467. ed. Paris, 1735.) says, "Pendant qu'il subissoit la question, il chantoit 1'ode d'Horace," &c. la the Histoire de la Vie et de la Mart des deux illustres Freres J. et C. de Witte, Utrecht, 1709, the word is " recita." Basnage says he recited the first four lines. I do not find any mention of this in the accounts printed while the matter was fresh.

As to the severity of the torture. He was put to the " question ordinaire " on the 20th of Au- gust ; what that was I cannot ascertain, but on the 22nd he was at dinner when the mob broke in, and able to walk down the prison stairs. Tiche- laer told the mob that the torture had been merely a form, and the judges were afterwards taunted by the Orange party for the leniency with which it had been inflicted ; more severity, they said, would have wrung a confession from him. In the British Museum is a pamphlet entitled Vervoelg van de Catalogun der Boecken in de Sibliotheque van M. Jan de Wit, 1672. One is called :

" Tractatus amplissimus de Tortttrd, door den selben autheur (Jan) sijende een vervolg von gunt Johan Grcevius Arminianische Predikunt, F Amsterdam om het rasphuis sit- tende omtrent die materia geschreven heft."

" Vervattende eene heyligsame maxime om Princen- Moorders, als sijn Broer kreelis, wel op de pijn-banch te leggen, en de eyserne bandt om 't lijf te doen, en dan strengelijk te pijnigen met twee houtchens tusschen twee vingers, ofte een scheen houten te adhiberen, gelijck men noch daagelijks de kinderen malkander sietdoen; ende schrijkelijk feyt dan noch niet bekennende en niet wil- lende klappen, den selven wederom terstont los te laten, dat men ook bij sijne Rechte'rs Jvoor een torture kan doen valideren ; trouwens men sonde de man seer gedaen hebben en dat was crimen ISESSK majestatis geweest." P. 7.

This pasquinade is not an authority for the fact, but the rumour. I have a small 4to. volume entitled Binnen-landtse Borgerlyhe Berocrten in Hollandt en Zeeland in den Jure, 1672, Amsterdam, 1676. It consists of authenticated documents connected by a brief narrative, which is singularly impartial in one who describes events so exciting and so recent. The author, who was disposed to do justice to the De Witts, compares their deaths with that of Caesar. As to the torture, he says :

" Men dreyghde dan den Ruart met de Pyn-bank ; Tichelaer zeyt dat hy gepynight zou zijn, maer t'is niet te vermoeden, dat zulks in zyn tegenwoordigheyt ges- chiedt is, dies onzeker. Want of den Ruart schlechts met de Torture, alleen gedreyght, of in der daer gepij- night is, en hoe zwaar of licht, kan men niet wel te weten koinmen, alzoo men doenmaals zeyde, dat den scherp- rechter of komende, al lachende gezeydt zou hebben, dat hy, om een halve Rijks-daalder, zoodanigh wel gepijnight wilde zijn." P. 132.

On the title-page of the last-mentioned work