appeared eminent by acts of charity to the parish, in building the fchool-house which her husband endowed; in giving 2001. to procure Queen Anne's Bounty; and 10 guineas in 1744, towards the fecond Augmentation. Nor was the unmindful of her friends and relations, but discharged all the duties of life with fuch propriety as to die full of good works in the 83d year of her age, and was buried on the 17th of May, 1756, by Mr. John Bree, her husband's executor.

On the fame South fide, a white marble tablet to

1

William Norcliffe, of the Inner Temple, Married Jane Miller of Hyde-hall, Herts. died 1733, aged 63.

Jane, to whom this parish, but particularly the curate, owes the greateft regard, died 1749, aged 60.

Jofeph Eberall, efq. lawyer at Warwick, died 1792, aged 59.

Thomas Bree, M. D. died 1749.
Rev. Thomas Bree, A. M. 29 years

a native of this parish,
eminent in his profeffion,
kind and generous to the poor;
in his practice,

of great and profperous induftry.
He departed this life,

a general lofs to his country,
the 5th day of April 1723, aged 64.
In memory of whom

this monument was erected by
Mary his mournful widow.

Thomas Bie M. B. of Warwick...

Arms, a chevron between three birds legs Sable.

Portraits on the windows by Eginton, of Cranmer and the Holy Lamb; Tillotfon and a Dove ;-Crucifixion; -Peter and Paul.

On the North fide of the chancel, in capital letters, on a marble, in imitation of the Antique (fee Plate I. fig. 2.) fupporting a cenotaph adorned with

flowers.

Feb. 2, 1771, aged 61.

John Bree, of Braunfeford, dled 1786. Hatton is only a curacy, formerly belonging to Wroxhall Priory. Now the clerk is nominated by the Trustees, and appointed by the owner of Prinley Farm Manfion-house. Bacon, p. 990. Yours, &c. P. Q.

Original Letter from the Hon. HORACE
WALPOLE to the Rev. WILLIAM
COLE, of Milton.
"Dear Sir,

66

Matfon, near Gloucefler,
Aug. 15, 1774.
SI am your difciple in Antiqui-

A ties (for you ftudied them when

I was but a fcoffer), I think it my duty to give you fome account of my journeyings in the good caufe. You will not diflike my date. I am in the very manfion where King Charles I. and his two eldeft fons lay, during the fiege; and there are marks of the laft's hacking with his hanger on a window, as he told Mr. Selwyn's grandfather afterwards. The prefent master has done due honour to the royal refi dence, and erected a good marble bust of the Martyr, in a little gallery. In a window is a fhield in painted glafs, with that King's and his Queen's arms, which I gave him; fo you fee I am not a rebel, when alma mater Antiquity hands god-mother.

"I went again to the cathedral, and; on feeing the monument of Edward II. a new hiftoric doubt started, which I pray you to folve. His Majefty has a longifh beard, and fuch were certainly worn at that time. Who is the first Hiftorian that tells the ftory of his being fhaven with cold water from a ditch, and weeping to fupply warm, as he was carried to Berkeley-castle? Is not this apocryphal? The house whence Bp. Hooper was carried to the fake is ftill ftanding tale quale. I made a vifit to his actual fucceffor, Warbur ton, who is very infirm, fpeaks with much

much hesitation, and, they fay, begins to lofe his memory. They have deftroyed the beautiful crofs. The two battered heads of Hen. III. and Edw. III. are in the poft-mafter's garden.

Yesterday I made a jaunt four miles hence, that pleafed me exceedingly, to Prinknafh, the individual villa of the Abbots of Gloucefter. I wished you there with their mitre on. It ftands on a glorious but impracticable hill, in the midst of a little foreft of beech, and commanding Elyfium. The houfe is fmall, but has good rooms, and though modernized here and there, not extravagantly. On the cieling of the hall is Edward the IVth's jovial device -A Faucon ferrurfe. The chapel is low and fmall, but antique, and with painted glafs, with many Angels in their coronation robes; i. e. wings and crowns. Henry VIII. and Jane Seymour lay here; in the dining-room are their arms in glass, and of Catherine of Arragon, and of Bray and Bridges. Under a window, a barbarous bas-relief head of Harry, young: as it is ftill on the fign of an alehoufe, on the descent of the hill. Think of my amazement, when they fhewed me the chapel plate, and I found on it, on four pieces, my own arms, quartering my mother-in-law Skerret's, and in a fhield of pretence thofe of Fortefcue; certainly, by mistake, for those of my fifter-in-law; as the barony of Clinton was in abeyance between her and Fortefcue Lord Clinton. The whole is modern and blundered: for, Skerret fhould be impaled, not quartered; and, inftead of our creft, are two fpears tied together in a ducal coronet, and no coronet for my brother, in whose time this plate muft have been made, and at whofe fale it was probably bought; as he finished the repairs of the church at Houghton, for which, I fuppofe, this decoration was intended. But the filver-fmith was no herald, you fee.

"As I defcended the hill, I found, in a wretched cottage, a child, in an antient oaken cradle, exactly in the form of that lately published from the cradle of Edward II. I purchafed it for five fhillings, but don't know whether I fhall have fortitude enough to tranfport it to Strawberry-hill. People would conclude me in my fecond childhood.

tire. It is much fmaller than I expected, but very entire, except a fmall part burnt about two years ago, while the prefent Earl was in the house. The fire began in the house-keeper's room, who never appeared more; but as the was ftrict over the fervants, and not a bone of her was found, it was fuppofed that he was murdered, and the body conveyed away. The fituation is not elevated, nor beautiful, and little improvements made of late, but fome filly ones à la Chinaife by the prefent dowager. In good footh, I can give you but a very imperfect account; for, instead of the lord's being gone to dine with the Mayor of Gloucester, as I expected, I found him in the midst of all his captains of the Militia. I am fo fillily fhy of ftrangers and youngsters, that I hurried through the chambers, and looked for nothing but the way out of every room. I juft obferved, that there were many bad portraits of the family, but none antient; as if the Berkeley's had been commiffaries, and raised themselves in the laft war. There is a plentiful addition of thofe of Lord Berkeley of Stratton; but no Knights Templars, or Barons as old as Edward the Firft; yet are there three beds, on which there may have been as frifky doings three centuries ago, as there probably have been within these ten years. The room fhewn for the murder of Edward II. and the 'fhrieks of an agonizing King,' I verily believe to be genuine. It is a difmal chamber, almoft at top of the houfe, quite detached, and to be approached only by a kind of foot-bridge; and from that defcends large flight of fteps that terminate on ftrong gates, exactly a fi tuation for a corps de garde. In that room they fhew you a caft of a face in plafter; and tell you it was taken from Edward's. I was not quite fo eafy of faith about that; for it is evi dently the face of Charles the Firft.

against

against Richard II, not Edward. But, in thofe days, Loyalty was not fo rife as at prefent.

"From Berkeley-cafile I went to Thornbury, of which the ruins are half ruined it would have been glorious if finifhed. I with the lords of Berkeley had retained the fpirit of depofing till Harry the VIIIth's time! The fituation is fine, though that was not the fashion; for all the windows of the great apartment look into the inner court. The profpect was left to the fervants. Here I had two adventures: I could find nobody to fhew me about. I faw a paltry house that I took for the fexton's at the corner of the clofe, and bade my fervant ring, and afk who could fhew me the caftle. A voice in a paffion flew from a cafement, and iffued from a Divine: What! what! was it his bufinefs to shew the caftle! go look for fomebody elfe! What did the fellow ring for, as if the houfe was on fire! The poor Swifs came back in a fright, and faid, the Doctor had fworn at him. Well, we fcrambled over a fione ftyle, faw a room or two glazed near the gate, and rung at it. A damfel came forth, and fatisfied our curiofity. When we had done feeing, I faid, Child, we don't know our way, and want to be directed into the London road; I fee the Duke's fieward yonder at the window; pray defire him to come to me, that I may confult him.' She went: he ftood faring at us at the window, and fent his footman. I do not think Courtney is refident at Thornbury. As 1 returned through the clofe, the Divine came running out of breath, and without his beaver, or band, and calls out, Sir, I am come to juftify myself; your fervant fays I fwore at him; I ain no fwearer-Lord blefs me! (dropping his voice) is it Mr. Walpoie!' Yes, fir, and I think you was Lord Beauchamp's tutor at Oxford; but I have forgot your name.' Holwell, fir.' 'Oh, yes. And then I comforted him; and laid the ill-breeding on my footman's being a foreigner; but could not help faying, I really had taken his houle for the fexton's. Yes, fir, it is not very good without; won't you pleafe to walk in?' I did, and found the infide ten times worse, and a lean wife fuckling a child. He was making an Index to Homer, is going to publifh the chief beauties; and, I believe, had just been reading fome of the delicate

6

Mr. URBAN, Elton, Oct. 12. IN. your Magazine for June, in the prefent year, I obferved fome plates of fections of wood fent by Dr. Lett fom to prove the truth of his late friend Mr. Forlyth's affertions refpecting the restoration of hollow trees to a flate of perfect foundnefs, by the application of his compofition; and I thould long ago have pointed out the errors of thofe plates, but that they appeared to myself and friends so extremely obvious as to render all cominent or explanation wholly unneceffary.

Subfequently, however, obferving in your Magazine of the fucceeding month a letter of one of your Correfpondents who figns himself J. REDWOL, and who appears a man of candour, as well as of fenfe and information, and who appears to have overlooked a part of thofe errors, I fend the following remarks, under the impreffion that if Dr. Lettfom's miftakes have efcaped the obfervation of that gentleman, they muft alfo have efcaped the obfervation of a large majority of your readers. But, before I proceed to point out the good Doctor's egregious miftakes, I muft beg leave to fay, that I entirely acquit him of all intention to mislead or deceive, his errors being much too obvious and palpable for any man to have committed himself by publishing.

In Fig. 1, the Doctor fays "A and B fhows the commencement of the junction of the new and old wood," which are readily distinguishable from each other by lines palling from the back towards the centre of the tree. Thefe lines, which the Doctor conceives to be formed by the commencement of the growth of the new wood, are really nothing more than waves or flections of the grain of the wood, and are common in almost all trees; and the wood on both fides of the Doctor's lines of divifion is formed of the fame annual layer, and is of course of the fame age in cach layer.

If the reader will confult the elaborate and excellent works of Du Ha

mel (Book 4, Plate 9, Phyfique des Arbres) or if he will examine in Nature the procelles which that great Naturalift has defcribed, he will immedi ately fee that no fuch junction between the new and old wood, as Dr. Lettfom has defcribed, could poflibly have taken place and he will alfo fee that the wounds of trees under Du Hamel's care clofed much more perfectly without any application whatever, than thofe in either of the delineations of Dr. Lettfom have done, with the fuppofed aid of Mr. Forfyth's compofition. The real wound was given when the tree was twelve years old, where the little D ftands in the Doctor's Plate, a large portion of its bark, extending half round the tree, having been loft at the fame time; and a portion of the old wood has fubfequently decayed, and has been removed. But the original wound (as in Fig. 2) is internally just as extensive as ever it was, and extends on each fide the letter D, covered, it is true, by the layers of wood of fucceeding years; but there is not the flighteft veftige of the union and incorporation of the new with the old wood, afferted by Mr. Forfyth, and attefted by Dr. Lettfom, to have taken place. The Doctor's Plate, therefore, proves every thing for which I ever contended for; and I cannot but admire his candour in giving a delineation of a fection of a tree with a hole through the middle of it, and which of courfe is fcarcely fit for any purpose whatever, to prove that his Friend's compofition renders “damaged Oak Trees as fit for the Navy as though they had never been injured.”

There is alfo, in Fig. 1, another moft curious and extravagant blunder : oppolite the letter A the Doctor has given a clear delineation of the annual layers of upwards of thirty fucceffive years, which moft happily proves the wound to have been almoft clofed before Mr. Forfyth came to Kenfington, and pretends to have used his compofition there. Any perfon who is at all intimately acquainted with the growth and ftructure of timber, will readily point out, in any OAK and ELM tree. of free growth, even at the distance of a century, or longer period of time, if the tree remain found, the year, and even the part of the year, in which any wound was inflicted; which circumftance Dr. Lettfom could not have known, or he could never have laid fuch a Plate before the publick,

pa

In the Doctor's remarks on the per figned by the Gentlemen deputed by the Houfe of Commons, he appears to have overlooked the expreflion that they give their teftimony only as far as the nature of their investigation admitted: that is, they were obliged, in a great meafure, to take Mr. Forlyth's word refpecting the former ftate of the trees: and, unlels their eyes were much bet ter than ever mine were, they must have found it difficult to fee the bottom of wounds of coufiderable depth, long after fuch wounds had been filled up with new wood, which could not be diftinguifhed from the old. I feel as great refpect for those Gentlemen as Dr. Lettfom does: they were all unquestionably men of honour, and fome of them I know to have been men of talents; but they were unfortunately no Naturalifts. And if Dr. Lettfom will inquire, I believe he will find that 15001. only was paid to Mr. Forsyth, and that another fum of 15001. was to be paid whenever proof fhould be adduced that thofe Gentlemen had not been impofed upon, and that the Com pofition had fucceeded, out of Kenfington-gardens, on Trees actually damaged. This evidence, I apprehend, the late Mr. Forfyth (poffibly owing to the exceffive modefty which Dr. Lettfom ftates to have been peculiar to his character) never adduced; and fince the Doctor has favoured the publick with his Plates, I will venture to predict that the fum thus conditionally granted will not be found to add to the amount of the taxes for fome time to come.

As every thing which only perfonally concerns Dr. Leufom and myself is of little confequence to the publick, I fall at prefent wave all mention of thofe things which merely relate to his or my own conduct in our controversy: but, as Dr. Lettfom and myfelf have completely committed our characters and veracity, in publifhing the mot pofitive affertions, founded on our own afferted actual knowledge, and as fuch affertions are in direct oppofition to each other, I cannot conclude my letter without an appeal to the publick, whether it be moft probable that Dr. Lettfom or myfelf be wrong.

Dr. Leufom, from his profeffional ftudies and experience, must have been infinitely better acquainted with the animal economy than I am; and it would have been highly arrogant in me, relative to the difeafes of animals,

to have put any opinions in oppofition to his: but relative to the vegetable world, the publick are not, I believe, in poffeffion of any facts to prove Dr. Lettfom's knowledge to be extenfive; very and he does not profefs to have made a fingle experiment. A very large portion of my time, after I had ceafed to be a fchool-boy, had been annually employed in experiments on Plants; and I could lay claim to fome difcoveries which have very often been honoured with a place in the annual publications of the Royal Society: I had repeated experiments perfectly fimilar to thofe of Mr. Forfyth, and I had annually examined his experiments during feveral fucceffive years: 1 had alfo a character as a Naturalift (on which I fet fome value) and as a Gentleman to lofe, when I came forward, in my own defence, to contradict the truth of Mr. Forfyth's statements; and therefore I cannot but think that Dr. Lettfom, in authorifing the publication of an atteflation accufing me of falfe ftatement, on the authority only of his confidence in the "inflexible integrity" of Mr. Forfyth, and relative to facts of which he muft have known himself ill-qualified to judge, from the curfory examination of a fingle morning, did not give any very extraordinary proof of an excefs of that liberality of fentiment, the want of which he fo much complains of in me.

I am, however, fatisfied that Dr. Lettfom conceived himfelf to be fupporting the caufe of Trnth, when he gave his atteftation to Mr. Forsyth, and that his errors have arifen from unbounded confidence in the inflexible integrity of his Friend a fomewhat extraordinary capacity of belief, and a very extenfive want of acquaintance with the fubject on which he most unfortunately undertook to inftruct the publick. I cannot but lament, that during the life of the late Mr. Forfyth, Dr. Letifom rejected, without alligning any juft caufe, the propofition I made him, through the public papers, to join me in a Petition to the Preftdent of the Royal Society, that he would appoint proper perfons to examine fuch portions of rettored Timber which Dr. Lettfom fhould produce, and to report the refult of fuch examination. I fubjoin a copy of my propofals*, which I rely on Mr. Urban's *Nearly milar to that in vol. LXXIV. p. 823.

T. A. KNIGHT.

Mr. Forfyth afferts (page 440, 3d edition) that wounds in Oak-trees can be of fuch trees rendered as fit for the Nacured by his Compofition, and the timber vy as though they had never been injured.' He afferts (p. 426) that in wounded Elms, where he cut away the decayed parts, 'the new wood is as completely united to the old, as if it had been originally formed with the tree * ;' and that (p. 440) he has restored Elms, where nothing remained but the bark, to health and vigour. He alfo afferts (p. 466) that he filled up a large tree, which was decayed and hollow from top to bottom, with new found wood, which has completely incorporated with what little of the old wood remained;' and that he has the timber of this tree in his poffeffion, to prove the truth of his affertion.

"I have, during feveral fucceffive years, examined the effects of Mr. Forsyth's Compofition; and I have pledged my veracity to the publick that it never produced the preceding union, restoration, or incorporation of parts in any tree, in any one inftance. You have attefted, that Mr. Forfyth's affertions ' contain nothing more than the truth.' I, therefore, propose to you, that you call on Mr. Forfyth to produce parts of trees, in which this afferted refloration, union, or incorporation of parts, has taken place; and

that you join me in a petition to the Prefident of the Royal Society, that he will appoint proper perfons to examine fuch timber, and report the refult of fuch examination. I am, &c.

T. A. KNIGHT."