LETTER from the late Mr. THORPE the Kentish Antiquary to Dr. DUCARELL, regarding JOHN TAYLOR'S Poem of The Needle, mentioned in Censura Literaria. "DEAR DR. "I HAVE the favor of your's, and am heartily glad to hear of both your healths; and shall be much obliged to you for an impression of the two Tradescants. The Needle's Excellency by Jn. Taylor is now a very scarce book; and besides the curious plates on that subject, contains some very good Poems in praise of the Needle, addressed to some of the stitching Ladies of Quality, and others, Temp. Car. 1 and 2. The lines you allude to are as follows. Nor do I derogate (in any case) Or de esteem of other teachings case For Tent-Work, Rais'd-Works, Laid-Work, Frost-Work, Net-Work, Most curious Pearls, or rare Italian Cut-Work. Fine Fern-stitch, Finny-stitch, New-stitch, and Chain-stitch, All these are good, and these we must allow, So much for the chapter of Stitching. It will raise a high laugh and titter, when you get among the Ladies; and you may advise 'em to study old Jn. Taylor, who will teach 'em the art in all its variety; and I am glad to hear Winchester and Liverpool are publish'd by good hands; and that our friend Hasted's work will soon have a beginning. I remain, with our joint Bexley, Nov. 30, 1773. Compliments, Dr Doct. Y' faithful humble Servt. The Reader is aware that Mr. THORPE was the learned Editor of Custumale Roffense. He lived at Bexley. His father, Dr. Thorpe, was a Physician at Rochester; and collected with indefatigable industry all the Epitaphs in that Diocese, which were afterwards printed in folio, under the title of Registrum Roffense. Kent has abounded in Antiquaries: Lambard, Milles, Philipot, Somner, Batteley, Kilburne, Harris, Hasted, Jacob, Boys, the two Thorpes, &c. &c. I am indebted for this letter to my friend Mr. NICHOLS, whose indefatigable labours in literature, age has not damped. Biographiana. Collectanea for Athena Cantabrigienses. 1. Mounsey, Fellow of Jesus College, 1779. R. COLE has drawn so very severe a character of this imprudent man, that, although with other transcripts from his Athene it was incautiously put into the Printer's hand, I find it necessary to cancel it in the proof, as too personal, and at the same time exposing a private character, with which the public have no concern, nor in which they would feel any interest. The object of it has, I believe, been many, many years since, laid in his grave; and I revolt from trampling upon his ashes. I remember him well myself between 1780 and 1783; when having an old schoolfellow and familiar friend at Jesus College, I spent much of my time there. One small part I shall let stand, as I shall let stand, as being the least offensive; and at the same time giving a specimen of the article. But let not the Reader's curiosity be raised: the rest are mere stories of intemperance, and the licence of language and opinions which naturally follows from it. "Mr. Tyrwhit, an anti-trinitarian, and most troublesome person in all University business, lives in the College, where they had in my time choir service in the chapel, and a good organ, all which is laid aside by this Master: these may be little things, but they all tend to the introduction of great ones; and it puts me in mind of a sensible toast, always given by an honest tory gentleman of Linton, Mr. Sutton John Cony, whom I often visited with Mr. Alexander of Baberham, which was--Prosperity to the true Church of England, exclusive of popery, fanaticism, and freethinking parsons. If ever there was a time when the last were to be deprecated, the time we live in is it, when free-thinking parsons overflow the Church, and will finally be the ruin of it. "On Nov. 12, 1779, I dined at Cambridge with Mr. Essex, where dined also a Fellow of Queen's, who said, that this man had sent lately one of his pupils to Queen's College; if he has instilled his principles into him, that hot bed will kindly cherish them: he further said, that this very day, a meeting of the Master and Fellows being called, he was put by from being tutor; which was all the punishment it was thought proper to inflict on a person who, last year, in a mixed company at his room, one of them praising the colour and flavour of his wine, he had the infamy to say, That it would be much higher was it the King's blood. This was known and publicly talked of; and since this other affair has been made public, his friends, to palliate it, give out that he is mad: if he was so two years ago, why did the College suffer him to take pupils, or the University to execute one of its important offices? If he is not so, why don't they expel him? When Blaco at Oxford proclaimed all over the kingdom the drunken frolic of a few riotous and inebriated young Fellow Commoners, who drank the Pretender's health on their knees at the market cross, it was so cried out on, and the fact so trumpetted throughout the kingdom, that nothing else was heard of, at that time, but the infamy and disaffection of the University of Oxford; so that the echo of it is yet heard from every whig pamphleteer and patriotic declaimer to this day, when they are in a humour to abuse that loyal and well-disciplined University! If they take no notice of it in the University, it ought to be stigmatized for ever, and the republican Head and his Fellows sent to Cambridge in New England, which climate seems to be better calculated for them. "In all University matters, none so busy an agitator as this person; and in the contested election for the University in Sept. 1780, no one so active; to the amazement of most who knew what had happened. Yet this man, who had he had common sense, would have kept himself quiet, as soon as his friend Mr. Townshend was elected, chose to make himself talked of as the publisher of the poll, and added a swaggering preface to it of one single octavo leaf, wherein, (like all true, genuine cowards in the dark and anonymous) after endeavouring to turn into ridicule part of the service of that Church, whereof he professes himself openly, at present, to be an (unworthy) priest, and abusing the primitive fathers for their penances, which were far different from those practised by himself at Ditton Plough, and near the conduit on the Market Hill, where he was found prostrate and drunk, and sent by a Fellow Collegian, Dr. Hallifax, who told it to me, who happened to pass by, to his own College. Such certainly were not the practices of the primitive fathers, whose penances (in such a dissolute and abandoned age as this we live in) whether they are, or are not, more to be wished for than expected, I will venture to say, that to all thinking and judicious people, they might be found more beneficial and salutary to the peace, comfort, and quiet of the world, mankind in general, and families in particular, than the practices of Mr. Mounsey, though now a Fellow and Tutor of a College, which used to be under other discipline and direction. After this ushering in his pamphlet or poll, with a boldness and impudence congenial to him, and giving some strictures on government, and his plan for a reformation, which, no doubt, it will pay due attention to, coming from so reverend a personage, he (with an assurance to which he has little pretence,) mounts his war-horse, claps on the morion or steel cap of the Divinity Professor (whom he would awkwardly imitate, he having the true ljon spirit and courage that he professed) who had for a time thrown |