Page:Notes and Queries - Series 2 - Volume 5.djvu/481

 The latter sentence admits of application to homoeopathy, mesmerism, and other modern pseudo-scientific impostures.

Anecdote respecting the great Artist, the late W. M. Turner, R.A. Mr. Tomkison, the emin- ent pianoforte maker, called on me one morning in the year 1850. I had shown him a small pic- ture by Constable. This led to remarks on the merits of landscape-painters ; and Turner, of course, was alluded to in the way his great excel- lence deserved. Mr. Tomkison then observed : "My father was the first to discover the boy's talents. My father was a jeweller, and lived in Southampton Street, Covent Garden. Turner's father was a hair-dresser, and lived in Maiden Lane, a corner house in a little court ; he operated on my father. On one occasion Turner brought his child with him ; and while the father was dressing my father, the little boy was occupied in copying something he saw on the table. They left, and after a few minutes they returned. Tur- ner apologised for troubling my father, and begged to know what his son had been copying. On being shown the copy, my father said, ' your son never could have done it.' He had copied a coat of arms from a handsome set of castors, which happened at that time to be on the table. Some time after a gentleman died, who had been long under Turner's razor, and left him a legacy of 100/. The moment my father heard this, he begged Turner to allow him to dispose of the 100/. for the benefit of the boy by articling him to Malton, the distinguished architectural draftsman of that day this was done accordingly."

Your correspondent, MR. EDITOR, begged Mr. Tomkison to repeat the anecdote, and to allow him to write down the words as they proceeded from his lips. Mr. Tomkison then read the statement, and approved of it ; and were he now alive, would, I am sure, give it his imprimatur. A. M.

The Situation of the Garden of Eden. I was talking with a respectable old couple, when the wife suddenly asked me (apropos, I suppose, to something she had been reading) : " Where was the garden of Eden, Sir ?" Taken by surprise, I answered rather loosely : " It is supposed to have been somewhere down Persia way." The husband pricked up his ears. " Gawd bless me ! " he said ; " down Pershore way won it ? Why I must ha' bin by it a score o' times ! " Though living in Staffordshire, yet he was Worcestershire born and bred ; and he called to mind the large market- gardens round and about Pershore. CUTHBERT BEDE.

John Bell. With reference to the article "Great Chancery Lawyer" (2 nd S. v. 417.), allow me to say, that Lord Eldon was always glad of the opportunity to speak favourably of u the great Bell of Lincoln's Inn" When the late Vice- Chancellor Sir Lancelot Shadwell was at the Bar, in a conversation with Lord Eldon, he asked his lordship, " In the event of a vacancy in the Great Seal, who do you think most able to fill it?" On which Lord Eldon replied, " The man who can neither walk, nor write, nor speak, is the man of all others best qualified for the office." Mr. Shad- well concurred with his lordship, and said, " I cordially assent that Mr. Bell is the man." I knew Mr. Bell ; his language was broad Cumber- land, his handwriting very difficult to read, and he liked to fondle a lame leg on his knee. I fre- quently consulted him. His opinions I received as solemn judgments, and allow me to say that I never was mistaken in my adviser. JOHN FENWICK. Newcastle-on -Tvne.

NONJURORS ROGER LAURENCE; A NEGLECTED BIOGRAPHY, ETC.

There appears to be no biographical account of the above nonjuring clergyman; at least I have never succeeded in discovering any in either Chalmers, ''Biogr. Brit., Bayle, or Knight's Biograph. Cyclop.; Rose's work is not accessible to me at present, so I cannot say if his name occurs there ; but, while asking for additional information regarding him, I may give the few facts I possess from my MS. Fasti'' of the Nonjuring English Bishops.

Roger Lawrence, or Laurence, (I am not certain as to the correct orthography of his name ), was a learned layman, baptized and bred among the Dissenters during the latter part of the seventeenth century: being dissatisfied concerning the validity of his own baptism, he was rebaptized by a clergyman of the Church of England (who was the celebrant?), and wrote the following learned and ingenious treatises, or tracts, in defence of what he had done : one entitled Lay Baptism Invalid, 1711; a Defence of it, also in 1711; and another tract in 1712, entitled Dissenters' Baptism null and void. There arose in 1711 an unhappy controversy concerning the validity or invalidity of lay baptism, in which some of the bishops and learned divines of the day were divided in opinion. Bishop Thomas Brett published, in 1711:—

This tract, with so lengthy a title, is not mentioned by Lowndes, though it is by Chalmers (Biogr. Dict., vol. vi. edit. 1812, p. 501., art.