MINOR CORRESPONDENCE. W. H. B. observes that, if the characters on the Nevern Cross are exactly represented on the plate in the last number, they are the antient characters of the numerals 1266, and may have been cut in that year: these Indian, or (as they are commonly but improperly called) Arabic numerals, having been brought into use in this country shortly before that time. The Cross, however, appears much more antient; and its ornaments bear a striking resemblance to the Arabesque illuminations in the Gospel-books and other rich MSS. of the seventh and eighth centuries. On the same subject OBSERVATOR refers to Mr. O'Brien's Essay on Pillar Towers. J. T. M. remarks, "It is surprising that so little has been done for the history of our Public Schools. We want a series of such works, undertaken by persons who have been educated at the respective schools, and who consequently take an enthusiastic interest in every thing concerning them. I write with particular reference to WESTMINSTER SCHOOL, a good history of which is much required. It would be interesting to trace what various changes its internal regulations have undergone; what customs have prevailed at different times; what books have been used at different periods in the school; and what anecdotes are preserved in the printed letters of eminent persons, or in the private papers of families. A person who undertakes to make such collections, will find some curious particulars in Malone's Life of Dryden, the Life of Philip Henry, the Life of Bishop Pearce, and Welsh's List of Westminster Scholars. There are some regulations in the College Buttery Book, signed by Bishop Atterbury. Appended to the edition of Stil. lingfleet "On Christ's Satisfaction," published in 1697, is a list of school-books sold by Henry Mortlock, among which may be noticed, in usum Schola Westmonasteriensis, "Greca Grammatices Rudimenta," Busby's Apollodorus,' "Nomenclatura Brevis Reformata, "Græca Epigrammata," Martialis Epigrammata, Juvenal, An English Introduction to the Latine Tongue, for the Use of the Lower Forms in Westminster School. There is also advertised, A General Examination of the common Greeke Grammar, according to Dr. Busby's Method, chiefly intended for young Beginners in the Greek Tongue, in the Free-school at Newark-upon-Trent."-South, who happened to be monitor on the day of the execution of Charles I. read the usual 46 prayer for the King.-Life by Curl, p. 3. J. M. of Sutton Coldfield, informs us that he is possessed of a MS. of Bede's Ecclesiastical History, having on a blank leaf at the beginning the following inscription: "Hunc librum legavit Will'm's Dadington, quondam Vicarius de Barton super Humbre, eccl'ie Lincoln, ut esset sub custodia Vicecancellarii." Then follows in the same hand, "Scriptum per manus Nich's Bolytt Vicecancellarii, iiiit die mensis Octobris, anno D'ni millessimo quincentessimo decimo quinto et L'ra Dominicalis, G anno r. r. Henrici Octavi Sexto." The last autograph is: "Nunc e libris Joh'is Thoresby de Leedes, empt: Executor. Tho. D'ni Fairfax, 1673," This was the father of the celebrated Ralph Thoresby, and our Correspondent will find his volume mentioned as No. 10 in the Catalogue of Thoresby's manuscripts affixed to the History of Leeds. Mr. W. F. PRATT, of Howden, preparing for the press a History of Howden, and the Wapentake of Howdenshire, from the earliest times, requests any useful hints on the subject, especially on the early history of the Manor, and how and by what means it was severed from the Monastery of Peterborough, and how and when it came to the Crown before the Conquest. As also, where the endowment of the collegiate church is to be found; and if the monthly assessments paid by the different individuals during the Civil Wars are yet in existence. H. W. asks for particulars respecting the life and family of John Welles, who was Lord Mayor of London in 1431, and was buried in the old Guildhall Chapel, to which he was a great benefactor. Mr. MARTIN would be obliged by any information relative to the following Members of the Royal Academy, viz. John Baker, painter of flowers; John Gwynn, architect, a native of Shrewsbury; Richard Yeo, medallist; Edmund Garvey; Elias Martin, Stephen Elmer, and Theophilus Clarke, Associates; Canot, Chambars, and Ravenet, Associate Engravers. We are obliged by Mr. SCATCHERD'S communication of the antient Seal of the Burdets. We are compelled to defer for another month the Correspondence between Spon and Pere la Chaise; together with the Memoir of the Rev. John Harriman; and some other articles. We have not room for the letter signed ISCARIUS. larly deluded and spiritually ignorant people the Shakers,' who exist at Mount Lebanon, and whose worship consists of dancing to the praise and glory of God. The sect was founded by Ann Lee, the daughter of a blacksmith at Manchester, who went to America with eight other disciples in 1774. In 1787 having gained many converts, they established themselves at Lebanon, and they have now about a dozen Unions scattered over the states, particularly New England. They denounce matrimony, and establish a commonalty of goods. They hold that the Saviour has made his second appearance, and that the Bride, the Lamb's Wife, is their founder, Ann Lee; that she was called forth from the world in order to manifest the spirit of Christ in the female line-that the image and likeness of the eternal Mother was formed in her, as the first-born daughter, as really as the image and likeness of the eternal Father was formed in the Lord Jesus, the first-born son. That she was constituted the second heir in the Covenant of Promise, and was placed in a correspondent connection with Jesus Christ as the second pillar of the Church of God in the new creation.' In short, they not only believe that Christ has appeared the second time on the earth, under the form of Ann Lee, but that it was absolutely essential to the salvation of womankind that such second appearance should be exhibited in one sex, since the first coming of the Saviour, in the form of man, was only effectual for the redemption of the latter. They hold that the Millennium has already commenced, and that their Church is the only millennial Church, and consequently the only true Church of God. They deny that the guilt of our first parents is entailed on their offspring. They assert that the exterior ceremonies of Baptism and the Lord's Supper are wholly unnecessary; with regard to the latter, they say that though it might be done to commemorate the Lord's death, yet after the second coming of Christ in the person of Ann Lee, it could no longer be necessary, because the reality must then be manifest. They deny the resurrection of the body, and insist that the resurrection of the spirit, and the day of judgment, have already commenced. They insist on the perfectibility of man. They say God declared Job to be a 'perfect and upright man;' Noah a just man, and perfect in his generation ; and that Paul saith, We speak wisdom to them that are perfect; and again,' Let as many as be perfect be thus minded.' They say, the light of Divine truth, and the operations of Divine power, increased among them, until they were involuntarily led by the mighty power of God to 'go forth and worship in the dance. They spake with new tongues, and prophesied (Mr. Irving has not yet added the dancing to the prophesying in his Church); that in these operations they were filled with melodions and heavenly songs, especially while under the operation of dancing; that these involuntary operations of singing and dancing were repeated from time to time in their assemblies, though often intermixed with other spiritual gifts, till by Divine revelation they became an established exercise in the worship of God. Their prototypes in this practice are to be found in Miriam and the women who went out with her with timbrels and dances; and that when Jepthah returned from his victory over the children of Ammon, his daughter came out to meet him, with timbrels and dances; and after the victory of David, the women came out of all the cities of Israel singing and dancing; and the daughters of Shelah came out to dance in dances. The faculty of dancing,' they say, as well as that of singing, was undoubtedly created for the honour and glory of the Creator, and therefore it must be devoted to his service, in order to answer that purpose. Lastly, they ask 'What among all the variety of religious devotions by which mankind attempt to worship the eternal God, is more calculated to inspire the soul with heavenly sensations, and give us an idea of the worship of angels? How far from this harmonious worship are the dull attempts of a congregation wherein but a small portion of the people are engaged, while the far greater part are entirely silent, inactive, and unconcerned. After having thus given the outline of the tenets maintained by this community, we cannot withhold affording a glance at the practice that accompanies them, which for singularity and absurdity surpasses every thing we ever remember, and seems to show that there is no limit to the caprices of their imaginations, or to the wildness of unenlightened fanaticism, which thus bursts forth equally in the distant solitudes of the New World, and in the long-civilized metropolis of the greatest empire in the Old. "We arrived (says Mr. Tudor) just in time to see the procession of these fanatics pass along, in solemn line, to their places of worship. The men dressed in drab, after the fashion of Quakers, whom they much resemble in appearance, walking two abreast, led the way, followed by a long train of females attired principally in white, and the rest in gray, with close white caps on their heads, gowns without shape, high-heeled shoes, neckerchiefs, and white pocket handkerchiefs hung very formally over one of their arms. On reaching the church the men filed off through one door, and the women through another, and immediately arranged themselves on parallel benches on each side of the room, in separate and opposite divisions. A considerable space in the centre of it, dividing the two foremost benches of each sex. The men and women thus dressed and thus seated, and with a solemnity of aspect and deportment heightened by perfect silence, and with an absolutely motionless attitude of body, presented an appearance and excited a feeling of something mysterious and supernatural. The women in particular, many of whom were elderly, very meagre in figure, and of a sickly and cadaverous hue, and withal dressed in ghostly white, looked like beings of another world. There was something about them that inspired a sensation of awe. The spectacle was altogether startling. One might almost have imagined it, as indeed the thought so struck me at the moment, to have been a scene of the Day of Judgment, and that these were departed spirits just risen from their graves, shrouded in their sepulchral garments, and awaiting their final doom. After a death-like pause of some duration, one of the elders slowly arose from his seat for the purpose of addressing the meeting, on which the whole assembly immediately stood up. During the continuance of the vocal part of the service, they were incessantly moving their feet, alternately raising each foot in a kind of dancing step, but without changing their position. This was accompanied by a grotesque inclination of their bodies from side to side, in a manner so truly ludicrous, though carried on with the utmost gravity, as to require, on the part even of those who were more inclined to weep than laugh, the strongest exertions of self-command in the repressing their risible faculties.* *After a pause of two or three minutes, one of the elders exclaimed Let us labour,' when they all suddenly stood up, and now commenced an exhibition that beggars all description. Each sex began immediately to remove their own benches from the centre of the apartment where they had been seated, to the side of it, placing them together as closely and compactly as they could, so as not to impede the extraordinary evolutions that were on the point of beginning. This being accomplished, the men walked up to a range of pegs, lining the wall on their side of the room, and to my utter astonishment, nay I may almost say consternation, as being done in a church, though belonging to the Shakers, every man pulled off his coat with the greatest coolness imaginable, and appeared in his shirt sleeves. This utterly unlooked for circumstance startled me, that I literally thought they were going to burlesque their own religion, and I instantly turned my eyes towards the female portion of these strange worshippers, naturally expecting no less than to see them, in imitation of the men, divest themselves of some part of their habiliments, and that their gowns at least would be dispensed with; however, I am happy to say, for the sake of decency, that the example was not followed. The men having now retired to the side of the room previously occupied, formed themselves into parallel lines as if in military column, the women observing the same order on their side, and with their faces SO |