and who volunteer in the caufe of prejudice, and become advocates for mifreprefentation, the most exquifite paintings, the fineft productions of the fculptor or the fiatuary, even the celebrated Venus of Medicis or the Apollo of Belvidere, appear deformed.

MR.

ANTHONY SINNOT.

ORIGINAL LETTER FROM THE LATE REV. SAMUEL BADCOCK. Mr. URBAN, July 4, 1789. R. CHAPPLE, of Exeter, was for many years engaged in writing the hiftory of Devonhire. He died, and left the mott unfinished. The papers collected for that purpofe are very curious and ample; but they were confuled and undigested. Sir Robert Palk purchafed them of Chapple's daugh ter, and fent them to me with mott liberal offers, if I would undertake the work on Chapple's plan, and publish a complete history of this County. I declined fo arduous an undertaking for niany reafons; but offered to arrange and methodize the, various articles, and write a catalogue of the MSS. and a general review of their contents.

I have finished what I undertook; and the collection is now a noble depofit for the affiftance of fome future hiftorian. It will be lodged in Sir Robert's library, and any antiquary or cur us perfon have acces to it.

may

I intend to publifh a gencral account of it in the Monthly Review and your Magazine, if I can get Sir Robert's leave; and I think I fhall eafily procure it, as he is a friend to both thofe publications.

*

The paper I now lend you was found among the correfpondence of Mr. Chapple and the Rev. Mr. Lewis, a very learned clergyman, of Honiton.

Mr. Lewis had been reading an antient MS. in vellum, written in 1260, and originally belonged to

See this paper in vol. LVI. p. 553.

SHOULD be greatly wanting in gratitude towards X a. tiop LXX. p. 816,) if I did not in return, for the handfome compliments he has paid me, give the information defired, concerning the: cantharis or common glow-worm.

I have perufed Thomfon too of-·. ten, and too attentively, not to have. obferved the trifling lapfe in his enchanting pen noticed by A. X. ;` and never could account for it in any other manner than by fuppofing that the divine poet expreffed, himilf in the manner quoted, be-, caufe Dr. Hill afferts the male glow-worm to have wings; yet I: apprehend, that, like the cricket, lady-cow, and many other infects, the glow-worm makes very littleufe of its wings; for I never faw it in any fituation more elevated than the fummit of a barley.ear or a ftunted furze-buth. As A. X. has done, I have in general found them on banks under hedges, and fometimes in the interftices of ruggedelm-roots, and the foundations of buildings. I obierve it to be common for feveral years together

to elapfe, without any being feen'; and then a year occurs, when, in the month of Augut, the earth is almolt as thickly fpangled with. them as the cope, of heaven is with fars. I have heard people fay, that they abound most in dry feafous but I do not think that wet is inimical to them, becaufe I have feen them thining as bright in rainy nights as in fine ones; and I faw many in the wet fummer of 1792, but could not difcover one in the extreme hot fummer of lift year. The laft I faw was in Auguft 1797, when I was returning home late in the evening through a very heavy rain, which did not affect the fplendour of the worm in the leaf. The luminous appearance of the cantharis has caufed it to attract the notice. of. • mott of our rural poets; and all of them, except Thofon, have confidered it as a crawling. reptile, in habitant of the herbage on the earth. The third of the timply-elegant fables written by More, for the "Female Sex," (and which I with, the young ladies of the prefent day would attend to,) is intitutled, "The Nightingale and Glowworm;" and in it the author makes the fongiter, previous to devouring the boatting infe&, addrefs it thus: "Deladed fool, with pride elate, Know 'tis thy beauty brings thy fate: Lefs dazzling, long thon might'ft have lain Unheeded on the velvet plain; Pride, Goon or late, degraded mourns, And beauty wrecks whom the adorus."

In compoting and illuftrating this fable, the order of Nature has been clofely obferved, both by the author and the draughtfman. The nightingale is almoft the only bird that could have been chofen with propriety to be the punifier of the reptile's vanity; as (except the wood-lark) it is the only one awake in thofe hours when the glowworms are vifibly luminous, and it is one that feeds on infects.

In the plate illuftrative of the fable, Hayman, the draughtiinan, has very judicioully delineated the

glow-worm lying on a bank under a tree, and in the fhade, The moon behind the tree flings light on the tranfaction, without diminifhing the brilliancy of the worm; and Grignion, the engraver, has done ftriét juice to the truth and tafte of the defign. For farther particulars concerning the cantharis, I mutt refer A. X. to the

Hiftory of Animals," compofed by Dr. Hill, who has enumerated and defcribed twelve kinds of them. I alto take the liberty of referring Stella (p. 1045,) to the fame work, as I have a fufpicion, that the infects obferved by her were the cicindela volens, or flying glow-worms, which are alfo treated of by Mr. Waller, in Phil. Trans. No. clxvii. p. 841.

Now I am treating on luminous infects. I will trefpafs farther on your Magazine, Mr. Urban, to mention an incident that may ferve to guide curious perfons in their refearches for them. As I was walking, a few fummers ago, on a fea-beach, I faw fome peafants, (for the purpofe of making fences to fome neighbouring inciofures, where hedge-wood would not stand the fea-air,) gathering up the weeds that had been recently flung up by an high fea. Obferving many tolerable fpecimens of marine plants among thefe weeds, I made a boy overturn a bufhel-basket full of them in the garden belonging to my lodging, that I might examine them at my leifure. Being engaged from home all the afternoon, I thought no more of my weeds till I paled through the garden after it was quite dark, when I was furprized to fee them studded with innumerable vivid fparks. To difcover the caufe of this beautiful phænomena, I kicked the weeds about with my foot, and perteived that by fo doing I flung an hoft of minute lucid animals into as much confufion as a neft of ants is in when difturbed. It was only from this activity of the fparklers that I judged them to be infects,

for they were too small to be difcernable either by day-light or candlelight. For feveral nights that I watched them, I found their numbers diminish gradually, till at last they all became totally extinct, which, I fuppofe, was owing to their being no longer able to furvive out of their native element the fea. One reads accounts, in voyages, of the fea fometimes appearing luminous, and of that phe nomena being attributed to infects; and, poffibly, the fhining appearance on ftinking whitings, lobfters, &c. &c. may be imputable to infects likewife, and that my fparklers might be of that race.

I

A SOUTHERN FAUNIST.

Mr. URBAN, Crediton, Jan. 1o. OBSERVE, in your last Obitutuary, an account of the death of Mr. Parr, formerly a furgeon in Exeter, and your quære refpecting the probability of his having been a defcendant of the OLD PARR. I knew the father of the gentleman, whofe death you record, well. He was a Diffenting minifter, of talents and acquirements highly refpectable, and was equally known as a gentleman and a fcholar. He was an intimate friend of the famous bithop Hoadly, who offered to ordain him on his own terms; and when the character of the bishop is confidered, it will not be fuppofed that any thing which could be difpenfed with would have been infifted on. At this time alfo, Mr. Parr poffeffed two livings in very defirable fituations, near Exeter, thofe of Rewe, and St George's Clift, now worth 200l. per ann. each! But to the point.

From this gentleman's youngest fon, Mr. William Parr, of Moreton, I have heard the fame ftory of the family having defcended from the Shropshire labourer. Yet, on tracing his documents, I could not find any striking proof of this opinion. The family, he told me, were not originally from Devonfhire, but from Shropshire; and elaimed a descent from a lord La

a

timer, whofe arms, tranfmitted from a very early period, on a gold ring of antique workmanthip, was ftill preferved, as having belonged to one of their ancestors. I found, however, from his papers, which he obligingly fhowed me, that Robert Parr, from whom the genealogy is regularly deduced, was merchant in Exeter, in about 1585, born in 1567, when the Old Parr was 84 years old; and it is not probable that the labourer of Shropfhire could have had a fon in this fituation, in a town fo diftant; nor have we ever heard of any collateral defcendant, or even of any other branches of the family at that time. It is probable therefore, though we may admit of the origin of the family from another county *, that no connexion with the Old Parr can have exifted. Mr. Parr, the furgeon, lived to the age of 87, and his father one year longer; but I do not find any of the other branches of the family remarkable for longevity.

I thall, however, be glad to hear the opinions of those who may be better informed, and am

Yours, &c. ANTIQUARIOLUS. I have great reason to add, that the Rev. Mr. Parr was a conftant reader and purchafer of your Magazine from its commencement, as well as an occafional correfpondent. He was alfo one of the laft furviving correfpondents of the Spectator, of which he usually claimed two or three papers of no inconfiderable merit.

H

Mr. URBAN, Slawfton, Jan. 11. "AVING, fometime fince seen under an arch in a very antient church, the effigies of a man in armour, fculptured in oak wood, now much decayed by worms, &c.; allow me to atk of what age is this kind of feulpture, and how long fince it gave place to carving effigies in ftone, &c. Yours, &c. J. T.

* One argument in fupport of this is, that there is no other family of this name in Devonshire, though common in Shropmire, Lancashire, &c.