WILLIS'S CURRENT NOTES. No. XXXVII.] "Takes note of what is done- MEMORABLE RESIDENCES. NEWTON'S HOUSE, ST. MARTIN'S STREET. No circumstance so readily assists topographical researches, or so indelibly impresses the memory of persons, as the connecting their names with things which are permanent, thus the designating the home of genius, as in this instance, 'Newton's house,' conveys a determinate idea, that would have long since ceased but from this circumstance. Dr. Johnson has not only expressed the wish, that the dwelling of every author should be known, but he seems to have been pleasurably employed in tracing and recording the local situation of Dryden, and also the residential transitions of Milton. The general opinion of the public, it must be admitted, is in full accordance with that of the great lexicographer, (JANUARY, 1854. but not unfrequently opportunities of submitting such notices in periodical literature occurring but inopportunely, a slight inattention on the part of the observer, to minute particulars, very frequently rendered almost inscrutable to the most acute, occasions a total loss of all details of notice, accelerated by the rapid annihilation that is occasioned by Time, and the almost worse unobserved engulphment of periodical spoliation and destruction. Genius, or more properly speaking inspiration, dignifies every spot on which its energies have been elicited; the home of the philosopher becomes in record academical; and its site may be termed classic ground. Let us then, for a moment, consider the situation of the present pictorial illustration, that the once abode of Newton has rendered pre-eminently conspicuous. The house, the first on the left hand, on entering St. Martin's Street from Leicester Square, was in 1709 the residence of the Danish Envoy. In 1710 it became tenanted by the ever memorable Sir Isaac Newton, his official house as Master of the Mint, being in Haydon Square in the Minories; and as Astronomer Royal at Flamstead House in Greenwich Park. Here he built the Observatory, the square turret shown in the woodcut, and associated with Halley, held frequent disquisitions on the appearances in the starry firmament. He never married, being wholly busied in profound studies during the prime of life, and afterwards engaged in the important business of the Mint; Sir Isaac Newton seemed quite occupied here with the company of distinguished individuals that his merit drew to him, that he was insensible of any vacancy in life, or of the want of a companion at home; in fact, his housekeeper was his niece, Mrs. Catherine Barton,* with The writer of Some Reminiscences of Peter Pindar' relates-I mentioned to Wolcot, that I had known a lady so late as 1814, who had been in a ball room with Pope. "I knew a lady," said Wolcot immediately, "who was grand-niece of Sir Isaac Newton. Her name was Burr, she died at Bath in 1790, about eighty years old. She lived with an aunt for some time, when young, in Newton's house. I asked, if it was true, that he was apt to fly into it with the well known story of the dog, that threw down a passion with those around him, as I could not reconcile the candle, and burned his manuscript, the labour of years, and yet he only reproved the animal with a few words. She replied, both statements were true; that her great relative esteemed a dumb animal not responsible for its actions, but that he considered the case was different with rational creatures." B whom through life he appears to have been happily associated. Sir Isaac Newton died in this house on Monday, March 20, 1726-7, in his eighty-fifth year, leaving property amounting to 32,0007. but made no will, because, as Fontenelle relates, he thought a legacy was no gift. After his decease, the house appears to have been immediately abandoned by Mr. Conduitt, who had married his niece, Mrs. C. Barton; in the rate-books of St. Martin's, the house in 1727 is declared 'empty.' The next tenant was Paul Dominique, Esq. Dr. Charles Burney appears to have resided here some years, probably from before 1770. On Jan. 10, 1774, he announced some particulars for publishing his History of Music, that was subsequently comprised in four quarto volumes; and his Account of the Handel Commemoration, is also dated from St. Martin's Street in July, 1784. Here, too, his daughter Frances, since more generally known as Madame D'Arblay, wrote the once highly popular novels of Evelina and Cecilia. In 1811 it was occupied as a Family Hotel, but the appellation of "the Newton Hotel," has been transferred to Bertolini's establishment lower down, at the corner of Orange Street. The lower part of the house has been occupied for the last ten years by a printer named Lavers, whose sign-board elbows forth above the parlour windows; and in the observatory, once fraught with celestial enquiries, and honoured by the frequent visits of profound astronomers and philosophers, snobs now cobble shoes, and in place of scientific instruments, are strewed hammers, lap-stones, leather cuttings, and useless lengths of waxed ends-sic transit gloria mundi. The freehold of the house, formerly the residence of Newton; the house behind, and the Chapel of the Independents extending the depth of the two houses, in Orange Street, was recently purchased by the Deacons of the congregation, for the apparently low sum of 32001. BEWICK'S CHILLINGHAM WILD BULL.-What are the facts connected with the rarity of this print; and where are the fullest particulars of Bewick's numerous graphical productions recorded? S. F. The fullest and most minute account is John Gray Bell's "Catalogue of Works, illustrated by Thomas and John Bewick, 1851," printed in imperial octavo. To which we refer all collectors of the works of these celebrated woodcutters; but as few copies were printed, the edition is nearly, if not all, sold and dispersed. A second edition has been intimated, but declining health on the part of the author, has hitherto retarded its appearance. At p. 18, of the work referred to, are detailed particulars of the Chillingham Bull print, that Bewick considered his chef-d'œuvre. In the first state, it has a richly ornamented border, four impressions were taken off, on thin white vellum. Considered as proofs, they were printed on a Saturday afternoon, when the block was incautiously left; on the next day Sunday, the sun had "shed its influence" over it, and on the Monday morning, the block was found split into two pieces. A junction was effected, and a few more impressions worked from it, but all these show a ragged white line, where the block split. This circumstance occasioned the vellum proofs to be eagerly sought, and Earl Spencer, it is said, paid twenty guineas for his impression. Another was sold by Messrs. Puttick and Simpson, in April 1849, for 197. 108. While working the joined block, that may be called the second state of the print, it again split, and was laid aside till 1817, when the border was cut off, and impressions in a third state effected. The white line is not observed in this state, and the impressions, from the few printed, being almost all equally fine; renders it as desirable as the former, of 1789. CERTAIN CURES FOR HYDROPHOBIA. MAD DOGS.-I remember hearing many years since that it had been formerly the practice, in cases of hydrophobia, to put the patient between two feather beds and smother him, by way of cure, for this otherwise supposed incurable disease; but I did not, I confess, quite attain to such a point of credibility as to believe it true. I am, however, rather staggered in my scepticism by having met with, in the London Chronicle, many accounts of mad dogs, and marvellous remedies for hydrophobia. Amongst these, in particular, in that for August 23, 1760, is the following article of news. "About three weeks ago as Mr. Hedgeabout, belonging to the Custom House, was playing with his dog, he jumped up and bit his master by the nose, which made Mr. Hedgeabout strike him with his hand, that the dog seized and bit; soon after the dog was discovered to be mad, and ever since Mr. Hedgeabout has been attended by two eminent physicians; but about four days ago some degrees of madness appeared, and every day he grew worse, often desiring his friends to keep from him, for fear he should hurt them, and on Thursday in the afternoon, being so very bad, was bled to death." Can this be true? Perhaps some of your readers may be enabled to afford some information upon the subject. Dorchester, January 9. JOHN GARLAND, FOR JANUARY, 1854. BURGER'S LEONORA. Cecil Calvert, Baron Baltimore, being thus Lord of OBSERVING in Current Notes, for November, that Maryland, in 1633, constituted his brother Leonard, the Hon. W. R. Spencer was the author of a transla-second son of George the first Baron, the first governor; tion of this beautiful though wild poem, and happening to have a copy of it, as also translations by Sir Walter Scott, H. J. Pye, Poet Laureate, and Mr. J. T. Stanley, I should feel obliged to any of your Correspondents who could favour me with a list of all the translations which have appeared, mostly, I believe, in 1796 and 1797. I am aware of a very fine one by Taylor of Norwich, and I have an etching by Landseer, with the following lines, but whether they form part of a translation of the whole poem or not, I am not aware They hurry off with furious bound, Stones, sparks, and sand fly from the ground, Daventry, January 12. T. O. GERY. MARYLAND PATTERN SHILLING. GEORGE CALVERT, M.P. for Bossiney, in the first. Parliament of King James the First, 1603, became Secretary to Sir Robert Cecil, when Secretary of State; was subsequently appointed Clerk to the Privy Council, and in 1617 received the honour of Knighthood. In 1618 he was Secretary of State, and was employed by the King in his most important affairs. In the third Parliament, 1620, Sir George was returned for the County of York, and the King granted him a pension of one thousand pounds per annum beyond his salary. In the fourth Parliament, 1623, Sir George sat as Member for the University of Oxford, when he changed his religion, turned a Roman Catholic, and resigned his office of Secretary of State. The King nevertheless retained him in the Privy Council, and having made him large grants of land in Ireland, created him Baron Baltimore of Baltimore, co. Longford, Feb. 20, 1624-5. While Secretary of State he obtained from the British Solomon a grant of the province of Avalon, in Newfoundland, with most extensive privileges; he expended, as he asserted, 25,000/. on the settlement, and went thither three times during James the First's reign, but the encroachments of the French compelled him to abandon it altogether. Lord Baltimore then contrived to obtain from King Charles the First, a grant of a large tract of land in America, named by the King, Maryland, in compliment to the Princess Royal, named Mary, after her mother Queen Henrietta Maria. While the patent was preparing, Lord Baltimore died on April 15, 1632; but the same was granted to his son Cecil, and to his heirs, of the provinces of Maryland and Avalon, the patent dated June 20, 1632. The grant was to hold Maryland with the same title and royalties as in Avalon, to hold in common soccage as of the Manor of Windsor, paying yearly as an acknowledgment to the Crown, two Indian arrows at Windsor Castle on Easter Tuesday; and the fifth part of the gold and silver ore. conjointly with Jeremy Hawley and Thomas Cornwallis, Esqs. A coinage of money appears to have been intended, the dies of a shilling, sixpence, and groat were engraved by Nicholas Briot, but are of such extreme rarity, that it is evident few were struck, only as pattern pieces, as the circulation is nowhere alluded to among the incidents of the commencement of the settlement of St. Mary's in 1634, by Leonard Calvert, and about two hundred other persons. CILIVS The shilling here engraved is from a choice specimen, in the possession of Mr. Chaffers, Old Bond Street. KENNEDY.-Who was William Kennedy, author of a lyric, entitled "Ned Bolton;" and where are his collected poems to be found? W. A. THE ELECTRIC TELEGRAPH NOT A NEW IDEA. In Blagrave's Astrological Practice of Physic, 1689, 8vo. p. 112, the principle of the Electric Telegraph is elicited in the intimation. each other's mind at a distance, it being done by sympathy of motion, as followeth : How to know Let there be two needles made of one and the same iron, and by one and the same hand, and touched by one and the same load-stone; let them be framed North and South, when the Moon is in Trine to Mars, and applying unto one of the Fortunes. The needles being made, place them in concave boxes, then make two circles answerable unto the diameters of the needles, divide them into twentyfour equal parts, according unto the number of letters in the Alphabet; then place the letters in order round each cirele. Now, when you desire to make known each other's mind, the day and hour being first concluded on beforehand; you must upon a table, or some convenient place, fix your boxes with the needles fitted therein, then having in readiness pen, ink, and paper, and with each party a loadstone, he that intends first to begin, must with his loadstone gently cause the needle to move from one letter unto another, until a word is perfected, according unto which motion the other needle will answer; and then after some small stay they must begin another word, and so forward, until his mind is known, which being done, the other friend with his loadstone must do as before, moving gently from letter to letter until he hath returned answer accordingly. This will hold true if rightly managed. Dublin. A. S. WIVES INIMICAL TO LITERARY STUDIES. THOMAS COOPER or COWPER, Bishop of Lincoln, was the compiler of a Latin and English Dictionary, printed in 1578, and highly popular in its day; the publication was retarded some years by the anxiety of the Bishop's wife, who fearing so much study might prejudice his health, one day in his absence entered his study, and taking all his papers and notes he had been busied eight years in gathering, burned them. Delighted with her achievement, on the Bishop's return she apprised him of the act, his reply was, Woman, thou hast put me to eight years study more.' COFFEE-HOUSE CIVILITIES.-Charles Dormer, second Earl of Carnarvon, being in a Coffee-house in discourse with a Doctor of Physic, the latter told him he lied. The Earl, though a person of much honour and courage, without appearing in the least disconcerted, mildly replied, Doctor, I had rather take the lie of you a thousand times, than physic once.' 6 THE DODO.-Current Notes, vol. iii. p. 82. It is true I discovered more of the skeleton of this bird than was previously known, but not a perfect skeleton. I have also described the bones of two nearly allied species, which I found with the bones of the Dodo. My paper upon this subject will be published in the Proceedings of the Zoological Society. Dulwich. A. D. BARTLETT. STATUTES.-Current Notes, vol. iii. p. 92. The Institutions were first printed by Nicholas Hill, 1546, but the name of the author has not transpired. There were several subsequent editions, and so late as 1625 it was reprinted by the Company of Stationers as a book of instruction for law students. ROBERTSON'S FABULOUS HISTORY OF CHARLES V. THERE are few persons who have perused Robertson's narrative of the Emperor Charles V.'s abdication, and his subsequent retirement into monastic life, without deep emotion, simply, because doubts were created that the once all powerful monarch was, at the close of his life neglected by his son, Philip II., the husband of our Mary the First; and unpleasant suspicions engendered, that he had been destroyed by the policy of his son. But all these highly wrought particulars, these speculative enrichments which have so often "pointed a moral or adorned a tale," are all fiction; and in the words of the legend on the coins of our Mary-Veritas TEMPORIS FILIA; the truth by the lapse of time has been elicited, and documentary evidence is extant to negative the assertions hitherto current in reference to Charles V. The following is the subject of a letter by Henry Wheaton, Esq. formerly Minister from the United States, at Berlin, in 1843. You will doubtless recollect the remarkable incidents related by Robertson in his History of Charles V. respecting the retirement of the Emperor into the Convent of St. Justus in Estramadura, after his abdication, and to which narrative the historian has lent the strong colouring of his graphic pencil. We are told that Charles renounced, not only the substantial power he had inherited or acquired, but the pride, pomp, and circumstance of imperial sovereignty, for the quietude and solitude of a monastic life, devoting himself for the residue of his days to religious exercises and practices of self-mortification, until he fell into a state of melancholy dejection that nearly deprived him of the use of his mental faculties. This gloomy scene is dramatically hand-closed by his resolving to anticipate the celebration of his own obsequies, and according to the historian, the his attendants, laid himself in a sarcophagus placed in the ex-Emperor, wrapped in a sable shroud, and surrounded by middle of the convent chapel. A funeral requiem was then performed, and Charles mingled his own with the voices of the clergy, who prayed for the repose of his soul. After the close of the ceremony the spectators withdrew, and the church doors were shut; Charles remained some time in the coffin, then rose, and retired to his cell, where he spent the night in solitary meditation. This sad ceremony is supposed to have hastened his dissolution, as he is stated to have been immediately attacked by a fever, of which he died on the 21st of September, 1558. BYRON.-The original manuscript of The Curse of Minerva,' formerly in the possession of R. C. Dallas, at whose sale it sold for 167. 10s, and passed into the library of the late Smyth Piggott, Esq. of Brockley Hall, Somerset; was purchased on the 24th ult. by Mr. Boone of Bond Street, for 221. 10s. C. R., Dundee. The Apollo statue that is now the theme of general admiration at Paris, is the one found at Lillebonne, of gilded bronze and not marble. The naming it an Apollo was without the slightest consideration; and the French sçavans will doubtless soon determine whether it is an Antinous or not. VOLTAIRE having asked Fontenelle, then more than ninety years old, what he thought of Mahomet? the latter replied, "Il est horriblement beau!" BARRIER TREATY Vindicated, 1712, 8vo.-Who was the author of this interesting historical volume? S. M. Charles, second Viscount Townshend, supplied the papers but John, Lord Somers, was the editor. According to authentic information just received here from a German traveller, now engaged in making historical researches in Spain, all this turns out to be a fabulous legend. Don Tomas Gonzales, well known as the learned author of an Essay on the relations subsisting between Philip II. of Spain, and Mary of England, printed in the seventh volume of the Transactions of of the royal archives at Simancas, and occupied himself the Royal Academy of History, at Madrid; was keeper to the latter years of his life with a history of Charles V., from his abdication till his death, compiled from original | drawn altogether from worldly concerns; those docu- It seems the Emperor's daughter, Donna Juana, widow of Prince John of Portugal and Regent of Spain, during the absence of Philip II. in Flanders, had instructed Don Luis Quijada, major-domo, and Don Juan Vasquez de Molina, the Emperor's private secretary, to send her a daily journal respecting the state of the Emperor's health, his actions, his conversations, and in short, particulars of every thing that passed at St. Justus. These despatches are all carefully preserved in the archives of Simancas, and Don Tomas Gonzales, has made copious extracts from them. He has also made use of the correspondence between Charles and his son Philip, the other members of his family, and different distinguished personages of the time. Among these papers are several letters from the infant Don Carlos, son of Philip II., unfortunately celebrated in poetry and in history, addressed to Charles V,, and from the latter to the infant's tutor, Ruy Gomez de Silva, in which he bewails the errors of his grandson, and advises how he might be reclaimed. These trustworthy documents demonstrate beyond all question, that the ex-emperor, far from having lived a monastic life in the cloister of St. Justus, or associated as a lay brother on an equal footing with the monks of that convent, very seldom participated even in their religious exercises. Their total silence respecting the extraordinary scene of his funeral obsequies, related by Robertson, on I know not what authority-affords of itself a strong negative proof against the reality of this act "as wild and uncommon as any that superstition ever suggested to a weak and disordered fancy." It can hardly be supposed, that the responsible personages whose official duty it was to report daily and confidentially to the Queen Regent every act of Charles's life, and who have in fact, recorded the minutest circumstances preceding and attending his death, should have dared to omit an incident so striking in itself, and the most important of all, since it is supposed to have hastened his dissolution. From the reports of Quijada and Vasquez, it also appears, that Charles was for several months before his decease confined to his room with the gout, so as to have been physically incapable of assisting as the principal actor in such a trying scene. Robertson dwells upon the small number of attendants whom Charles took with him into his modest retirement as an additional proof of his having with In short, it appears that Charles remained Emperor de facto up to the time of his death, still directing by his advice and general superintendence the complicated affairs of the vast dominions, he had nominally conferred on his son. Philip, so far from thwarting his father's intentions, as in this respect he has been accused of so doing, frequently in his correspondence laments his inadequacy from want of experience for the task of government, and entreats his father to leave his cloister, and resume the sceptre. 66 Charles continued to busy himself especially with ecclesiastical affairs. Robertson, on the contrary, tells us how the Emperor amused himself in his retirement in studying the principles of mechanical science, and in constructing curious works of mechanism, of which he had ever been remarkably fond. He was," says the historian, "particularly curious with regard to the construction of clocks and watches; and having found, after repeated trials, that he could not bring any two of them to go exactly alike, he reflected, it is said, with a mixture of surprise, as well as regret, on his own folly, in having bestowed so much time and labour on the more vain attempt of bringing mankind to a precise uniformity of sentiment concerning the profound and mysterious doctrines of religion." This account of his sentiments is so far from being correct, that the truth is-he was never more zealously engaged in stimulating the work of persecuting the Protestants by the civil power, than during this period of his life. It is well known that the principles of the Reformation had at this time made considerable secret progress in Spain. The Grand Inquisitor informed the Emperor of the alarming fact, and accused Dr. Cazalla, Charles's own confessor, of being infected with heresy. He did not hesitate to instantly surrender the accused to the holy office, and in his answer to the Grand Inquisitor, exclaimed, "Have I then spent my whole life in endeavouring to root out heresy, in order to discover at last the director of my own conscience is an apostate?" Charles, doubtless, considered the Protestants as the enemies not only of heaven, but of the State-and feared the destruction of the vast possessions he had left to his son, from their machinations. He had early crushed the civil liberties of Spain in the plains of Vilalar, and in all his letters from St. Justus he advises Philip to pursue the heretics with fire and sword, as more dangerous enemies than the political partizans of Padilla. He thus infused into the soul of Philip his own deadly hate of the Reformers, and his counsels were subsequently followed by that monarch with the spirit and activity of a demon. The work of Don Tomas Gonzales contains many highly important letters on this subject from the Emperor to the Archbishop of Seville, then Grand Inquisitor, which throw new light upon the religious and |