Page:Notes and Queries - Series 9 - Volume 8.djvu/166

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NOTES .AND QUERIES. [9* s. vm. AUG. 24, 1901.

It does not appear that any proceedings were taken against Lord Buckhurst and Sir Thomas Ogle. This trial was almost the last held before Sir Robert Foster, who died 4 October, 1663, and was succeeded as Chief Justice of the King's Bench by Sir Robert Hyde. The "Cock Tavern" in Bow Street, where the orgie took place, rivalled its near neighbour, the "Rose" in Russell Street, as the headquarters of riot and dissi- pation among the young bloods of the Resto- ration.

I have always felt that Sedley was a much misunderstood man. He has been regarded as the typical rake of the days of Charles II., whereas he was no worse than the majority of his friends and contemporaries. His fate, compared with that of Buckhurst, exemplifies the common saying that one man may steal a horse while another is hanged for looking over the hedge. Johnson, in his 'Life of Dorset,' quotes Rochester's remark, "I know not how it is, but Lord Buckhurst may do what he will, yet is never in the wrong." Poor Sedley, on the other hand, was never in the right. So far as I know, no charge can be laid against his conduct in his later years. He became a steady Parliament man, and his speeches display ripe judgment and sound common sense. Many of the principles laid down by him are of more than temporary application. Politics have rightly no place in these columns, but there can be no great harm in quoting from a speech which was delivered more than two hundred years ago:

" We must save the King Money wherever we can ; for I am afraid the War is too great for our Purses, if things be not managed with all imagin- able Thrift: When the People of England see that all things are saved that can be saved ; That there are no exorbitant Pensions nor unnecessary Salaries: and all this applied to the Use to which they are given, we shall Give, and they shall cheerfully Pay, whatever his Majesty can want to secure the Pro- testant Religion, and to keep out the King of France."

It will be seen from this extract that Sedley knew his countrymen, though it may be that he did not thoroughly know his Parliament. W. F. PRIDEAUX.

THE AUTHORSHIP OF 'THE BRITISH

APOLLO.'

(Concluded from p. 09.)

AT chap. xiv. the account of Martin's philo- sophical researches is interrupted by a love episode. There is no chap. xiii. in the first edition of the ' Memoirs.' Chap, xiv., * The Double Mistress,' and chap, xv., 4 Of the Strange Process at Law and the

Pleadings of the Advocates,' have been omitted by all editors since Warburton, except Bowles, for no more apparent reason than to make an already incomplete work still more fragmentary. The original chap, xvi. appears in the castrated editions as

chap, xiii., 'Of Martinus, and some Hint

of his Travels.'

Happening to stroll into a show where the Bohemian Twins Lindamira and Indamora were being exhibited, he became enamoured of the former. After a series of adventures he succeeded in effecting her escape, and they were married by a Fleet parson. The show- man then seized on the Bohemian ladies by a warrant, and being determined to have revenge on Martin whom he looked upon merely as a rival showman anxious to secure an attractive exhibit commenced a suit against him for bigamy and incest. He even contrived to alienate Indamora's affection from him, and enticed her into an intrigue with a negro "prince," another of his exhibits, to whom she was married while her sister Lindamira was asleep. Martin now required to turn plaintiff, and commenced a suit in the Spiritual Court against the black prince for cohabitation with his wife. He was advised to insist on the point "that Lindamira and Indamora together made but one lawful wife." Randal, the showman, then forced Lindamira to petition for aliment, which was no sooner allowed her by the Court than he obliged her to allege that "it was not sufficient to maintain both herself and her sister, and if her sister perished she could not live with a dead body about her." Martin was now ordered by the Court to allow aliment to both, the black prince appearing insolvent. The Court then proceeded to try the main issue. Dr. Pennyfeather appeared for the plaintiff Martin. He made a long speech in which he maintained the proposi- tions (1) that Lindamira and Indamora made but one individual person ; (2) that if they made two individual persons, yet they consti- tuted but one wife. He also maintained there were anatomical disabilities for the accept- ance of two husbands. Finally the judge was besought not to "let a few heads, legs, or arms extraordinary " bias his judgment. Dr. Leatherhead replied at some length also, and insisted that Lindamira and Indamora were not anatomically debarred from having a duality of husbands, and craved that a jury of matrons be asked to determine the point. The matrons having made their report, which was in support of Dr. Leatherhead's conten- tion, the judge took time to deliberate, and next day delivered the following verdict :