METEOROLOGICAL DIARY, BY W. CARY, STRAND. Fahrenheit's Therm. Fahrenheit's Therm. .in. pts. 62 63 Weather. 30,16 cloudy 61. 29, 90 do. 66 cloudy 67 do. rain 68 86 do. do. 56 97 rain 49 30, 08 do. 49 12 cloudy do. 49 18 fair , 20 do. J. J. ARNULL, Stock Broker, 1, Bank Buildings, Cornhill, MINOR CORRESPONDENCE. Birthplace of Bishop Marsh.-Martinet.-Fa- milies of Harvey and Medhope.-Nursery Rhymes, &c. &c. MILMAN'S LIFE AND CORRESPONDENCE OF GIBBON. Verses by Mr. Fox, 340.-Mr. Milman's Character of Hume. Comparison of the Gaelic and Welsh Languages The Grotto della Regina, near Tuscania (with a Plate) The New General Biographical Dictionary-Arthur Agard-Radolph Agas-Dr. Enigmatical Epitaph at Lavenham explained.... ADVERSARIA.-Kid, or Kiddy.-Sir W. Jones and Welsh Literature.-The Bethgellert Legend in Hindostan.-The Sultan's Jester, &c. &c. Notices of the Castle and Lordship of Laugharne (continued). Pirates in the British Channel and at Sandy Island... Origin and History of the Family of O'Connell...... GOETHE'S TABLE-TALK.-Prose and Verse.-Schiller.-The March of Intel- lect.-Life compared to a Watering-place.-Prince Eugene Beauharnois.- Spoliation of Sepulchral Brasses in Westminster Abbey and elsewhere.. Family of De Vere.-Expenses of the Abbess of St. Trinité at Caen on a Visit to The Bayeux Tapestry.--Effigy of Robert Curthose.-William of Poitiers... RETROSPECTIVE REVIEW.-Old French Poetry--The Carlovingian Romances 373 Wright's Essay on Anglo-Saxon Literature, 377; Archæologia, vol. XXVIII. Part I. 382; Mrs. Postans' Sketches of Cutch, 386; Standish's Shores of the Mediterranean, 387; Mushet's Trinities of the Ancients, 388; Moles- worth's Domestic Chaplain, 389; Cranmer, by a Member of the Roxburghe Club, 390; Gwaith Lewis Glyn Cothi, 390; The Mabinogion, Part II. 392; Thoms's Anecdotes and Traditions, 393; Miscellaneous Reviews.... 398 FINE ARTS.-Hayter's Portrait of the Queen.-Monument to Nollekins.- Window at Upwell.-Statue of Sir Walter Scott LITERARY AND SCIENTIFIC INTELLIGENCE.-New Publications, 401. -British Association for the Advancement of Science, 402.-The Antarctic Expedition, 405.-Royal Institute of British Architects ANTIQUARIAN RESEARCHES. Roman Altar at Stanhope, county of Durham ;-Roman Altar at Hardriding; - Old House at Doncaster; French Antiquities;-Mummies at Durango, Mexico;-Tesselated Pave- ment at Bridlington ;-Subterranean Forest at South Stockton.;-Human HISTORICAL CHRONICLE.-Proceedings in Parliament, 411.- Foreign News, 413.-Domestic Occurrences .... Promotions and Preferments, 418.-Births, Marriages. OBITUARY; with Memoirs of Lord Walsingham; Lord Rendlesham: Lady Hester Stanhope; Sir John Ramsden, Bart.; Sir Robert Grierson, Bart.; Sir R. J. Buxton, Bart.; Lieut.-Gen. Sir D. L. T. Widdrington; Admiral Douglas; Capt. Woollnough; William Wilkins, Esq.; Edgar Taylor, Esq.; John Chambers, Esq.; Henry Singleton, Esq.; Mr. Abraham Saunders Embellished with a View of the GROTTO DELLA REGINA, near TUSCANIA. MINOR CORRESPONDENCE. "A very ancient Native of Faversham" has favoured us with the information that the late Bishop of Peterborough was born, not at London, but at Faversham, being the son of the Rev. Richard Marsh, A.M. who, at the time of the Bishop's birth, and many years before and after, was the resident vicar of that place; and on searching the parish register of Baptisms, the following entry has been found: "1757. Jan. 3, Herbert, son of Richard Marsh, A. M. Vicar, and Elizabeth, his wife, was born Dec. 10."-N.B. The date Jan. 1757 is old style for 1757-8. L. P. J. suggests that, in page 200 of last month's Magazine, "the last descendant of this honourable name (Harvey) was the late Sir Eliab Harvey, an Admiral, and Member for Essex," should be "the last male descendant," as Sir Eliab Harvey, the Captain of the Temeraire at Trafalgar, left several daughters, one of whom is married to Mr. Bramston, Member for one of the divisions of Essex (see the Admiral's memoir in the Gentleman's Magazine for 1830, Part i. p. 366.) In answer to an inquiry (p. 218) for the origin and meaning of the word Martinet, CYDWELI remarks, that the term originated, as will appear by the following extract, with an officer in the army of Louis XIV.: "A discipline, which has become still stricter, had introduced a new order into the army. There were then no inspectors of cavalry and infantry, such as we have since seen, but two men, each unique in his way, performed those functions. MARTINET then placed the infantry on the same footing of discipline as exists at this day. The Chevalier De Fourilles did the same for the cavalry. A year before, Martinet had introduced the use of the bayonet into some of the regiments. Hitherto it had not been in constant and uniform use. This, perhaps the last effort of the most fearful inventions of military art, was known, but little employed, because pikes were most in use. He had also designed pontoons of copper, which were easily carried in carts."-Voltaire, Age of Louis XIV. ch. xi. Such, there can be no doubt, is the origin of the word, especially when we consider that it is a military term. The name of Martinet, however, occurs in literary as well as in martial strictness. An advocate at the Parliament of Paris, in the reign of Louis XIII. was distinguished by his pleadings, "in which there are found a judgment and a purity of taste which were rare at that period among persons of his profession."-Beau vais, Dictionnaire Historique, art. Martinet, where the former person is not mentioned. Mr. HALLIWELL would feel obliged for any information relative to local nursery rhymes, or for any versions of the common ones different from the generally received texts. He has in preparation a work to be entitled "Nursery Rhymes and Nursery Stories; their nature and history." H. P. would be much obliged to any of our correspondents who could give him information respecting the Yorkshire family of Medhope or Midhope, one of whom, Edmund Medhope, Clerk of the House of Commons in Ireland, married Elizabeth, fifth daughter of Sir John Philipps, Bart., of Picton Castle, county Pembroke. According to the Philipps' pedigree in the Heralds' College, the lady was living in 1628, but the date of her marriage, which the writer wishes to ascertain, is not known. Her husband is designated as of Thona in King's County. AUCTOR remarks: "We are told in Ritson's Bibliograph. Poetica,' that a metrical version of the 13th Psalm by Queen Elizabeth, was published in a work by Bale; could any of your readers inform me where or how I could obtain a sight of the work in question, or whether her Majesty's version of the Psalm is to be met with in any other book?" It was a saying of Arthur, Lord Capel, the celebrated Royalist, that "a gentle acceptance of courtesies is as material to maintain friendly neighbourhood as bountiful presents." Pennant derives the phrase, to bear the bell, from the custom of giving a bell as the prize at running-matches. A little golden bell was given at York, as the reward of victory, in 1607.-Pennant's Tours in Wales, vol. i. p. 257, edit. 1810. Are not Milton's celebrated lines, "Fame is the spur that the clear spirit doth raise, (That last infirmity of noble minds,)" taken from Tacitus? He says, Etiam sapientibus, cupido gloriæ novissima exuitur. ERRATA. P. 208, for Penrill, read Pendrill. P. 209, for Whatley, read Whalley. P. 288, for Henry Melville, A.M. read the Rev. Henry Melvill, B. D.; 1. 44, for form, read force; col. 2, 1. 21, for Preparation, read Proportion. P. 305, b. 15, for co. Sligo, read co. Kerry; line 54, read Henslowe. THE MAGAZINE. GENTLEMAN'S The Life of Edward Gibbon, Esq. with Selections from his Correspondence, and Illustrations, by the Rev. H. H. Milman. Svo. 1839. HAD Mr. Milman assumed the office of the Biographer of Gibbon, he would doubtless have given a life of that eminent writer which would have been the result of deep research and various inquiry,-which would have been distinguished at once for the acuteness of its criticism, the soundness of its philosophy, and the correctness and elegance of its style: but he has preferred the humbler task of re-editing the Memoirs which Gibbon composed; occasionally illustrating them from his own stores of reading; correcting what was erroneous, and supplying such additional information as has been collected subsequently to the time when the Historian drew his pleasing and animated portrait of himself. We think that Mr. Milman's decision was altogether sound and just. For Gibbon's narrative is composed throughout with great skill in the selection and arrangement of his topics, and with an elaborate and finished elegance in the composition. No doubt he views the mental portrait of himself which he has sketched, in the flattering mirror of self-vanity; and he speaks of his own projects, his pursuits, and his attainments with a satisfied complacency that may provoke a smile; yet in this self-love and admira * As when (v. p. 95) he says, " he made himself complete master of the French and Latin languages." At p. 37, his "verbosity" is somewhat longer than his " argument." "As soon as the use of speech had prepared my infant reason for the admission of knowledge, I was taught the arts of reading, writing, and arithmetic: so remote is the date, so vague is the memory of their origin in myself, that, were not the error corrected by analogy, I should be tempted to conceive them as innate." Whatever may have been Mr. Gibbon's acquaintance with the language of the people whose history he wrote, we are indebted to him for a very elegant and probable emendation of a passage in a Roman poet (Lucan)— Tingit solennia campi Et non admissæ diribet suffragia plebis. The common editions read "dirimit." "Diribere" was a word peculiar to the Comitia, and signifies to poll the votes in the regular divisions. With regard to the passage in Virgil's Georgics, lib. iv. v. 287, on which Gibbon has written a very ingenious dissertation, it is evidently corrupt, and the verses probably transposed; perhaps some interpolated. Well may the critic exclaim-" Ce passage a bien couté des veilles aux scavans!" Heyne calls it "locus vexatissimus ;" but Gibbon's supposition that the Parthians were alluded to under the words "Vicinia Persidis" was anticipated by Burman, and afterwards by Heyne. Mr. Gibbon's modesty may incline him to say of his historical researches, "that he doubts whether he has carried the torch of criticism and philosophy into the darkness of history;" but we may receive with confidence the assertion of one of the most accurate and enlightened of modern scholars, and one who was peculiarly competent to estimate Mr. Gibbon's qualifications with exactness. "I have sometimes (says Dr. Vincent) by way of amusement traced Mr. Gibbon through his authorities in several detached portions of his History, and on every subject but one I have found the extent of his acquisitions, the adjustment of his evidences, the accuracy of his deductions, and the comprehensive view of his subject, such as to place him in the very first rank of historians."-V. Misc. Works, v. iii. p. 505, tion all is well dressed, and has an air of gentlemanly good breeding; while his enthusiasm in his literary enterprises quite captivates the mind of the reader, and seems to inspire him with a kindred emulation. Compared with such a narrative, fresh with life and motion and truth, animated by the author's own feelings, and sketched by his own pencil, the ablest composition of another writer would appear devoid of interest. Gibbon, indeed, left little or nothing untold which another person could venture to supply: his autobiography is both personal and literary: it is copious enough in its outline, and minute enough in its details, to satisfy the most ardent curiosity; he is seen both in his library and at his table; alone and in society; in his days of boyhood and in his declining life; and if he has held a reserved and becoming silence on one subject, it is, as he justly observes, because a person's pecuniary affairs can be seldom imparted to the world without exciting feelings either of envy or contempt. He has left his readers to believe that his life was passed, if not in affluence, yet in the easy enjoyment of every reasonable desire: and he wisely shut the door of his cabinet against any more private or inquisitive research. But on no other part of his life or history is a similar restriction imposed -patet omnis tabula vitæ-we observe no signs of concealment or disengenuousness in any part; and if he speak of himself in a more sustained and high-toned style than the modesty of authors would allow ; yet he never attempts to elevate himself by the unjust degradation of his adversaries; he measures his own strength and theirs, and he feels the respect which he pays to them, reflects an additional dignity and value on himself. ''Liberè de eruditis loqui et judicare, si cum hac re conjunctus est summus amor veritatis, est res præclara et magni facienda; at sine veritatis amore, est effrenata turpisque licentia et petulentia." We shall now add a few observations to the narrative, which Mr. Milman has enriched with his notes; not with the foolish ambition of a rival, but rather to shew our respect for his labours, and the interest which we feel in his admirably arranged and executed work. P. 7. Thuanus de vita suâ. This interesting autobiography was translated into French, and the work enriched with portraits. See Jugleri Bibl. Histor. Lit. tom. ii. p. 1398. Niceron, Vies des Hommes Illustres, p. x. p. m. 207, says that P. Puteanus and Rigaltius composed this work. It contains much curious literary history as well as political. It speaks, at p. 106, of the great picture now in our National Gallery (the Resurrection of Lazarus), as altogether designed by Mich. Angelo, and only painted by Seb. del Piombo :-" Le dessein est de M. Ange.' From p. 208 (ed. 1713) Goldsmith borrowed his story of the Bishop of Mande and his singular Purveyor of Game, which he has told in his Animated Nature. P. 8. On Jortin's Life of Erasmus consult Coleridge's Friend, vol. i. p. 226; and H. Walpole's Letters to Lord Hertford, p. 250-252. Jortin's materials were too scanty and imperfect ;-Burigny's volumes may be read with advantage ;-but for the literary history of Erasmus the scholar should consult Heumanni Conspectus Reipub. Lit. t. ii. p. 278, and Dissertatio J. A. Fabricii, 1717. Milton, in his well-known system of education, seems to have been anticipated by Erasmus. See Vie par Burigny, vol. i. p. 580. P. 9. For a curious anecdote on Cibber's Provoked Husband see Miss Hawkins's Memoirs, vol. ii. p. 303; on the Careless Husband see Armstrong's Miscellanies, vol. ii. p 246. The Memoirs of Grub-street, vol i. p. 239, and vol. ii. p. 63, should not be overlooked. On the Double Gallant see a |