LETTER XCI.

Dr. HICKES to Dr. CHARLETT.

Recommending Mrs. Elstob to his patronage and that of the University, with a great character of her

learning and abilities.

DEAR SIR,

Decemb, 23, 1712.

Ir writing were not very tedious to me, I had written before to you upon recovery from my last dangerous fit to thank you for the last vol. of Leland's Itinerary, and for the N. Almanack, which obliges me now to pray God to grant you a very happy new year. I suppose you may have seen Mrs. Elstob, sister to Mr. Elstob, formerly fellow of your Coll. and the MSS. she hath brought to be printed at your press. The University hath acquired much reputation and honour at home and abroad, by the Saxon books printed there, as well as by those printed in Latin and Greek, and the publication of the MSS. she hath brought (the most correct I ever saw or read) will be of great advantage to the Church of England against the Papists; for the honour of our Predecessors the English Saxon Clergy, especially of the Episcopal Order, and the credit of our country, to which Mrs. Elstob will be counted abroad as great an ornament in her way, as Madam Dacier is to France. I do not desire

you to give her all encouragement, because I believe you will do it of your own accord from your natural temper to promote good and great works. But I desire you to recommend her, and her great undertaking to others, for she and it are both very worthy to be encouraged, and were I at Oxford, I should be a great solicitor for her.* And had I acquaintance enough with Mr. ViceChancellor I had troubled him with a letter in her behalf. I will add no more but to tell you that the news of Mrs. Elstob's encouragement at the University will be very acceptable to me,†

At page ii. of the Preface to her Anglo-Saxon Grammar, she speaks of a work of larger extent in which she was engaged, and which, she says, had amply experienced Dr. Hickes's encouragement.

+ In Ballard's Collection of Original Letters, preserved in the Bodleian Library, are several to him from Elizabeth Elstob, and among them is the following brief memoir of her life, in her own hand-writing, inclosed in a Letter, dated Nov. 23, 1738.

"Elizabeth Elstob, Daughter of Ralph and Jane Elstob, was born in the Parish of St. Nicholas, in New-castle upon Tyne, September the twenty ninth, sixteen hundred and eighty three. From her childhood she was a great lover of books, which being observed by her mother, who was also a great admirer of learning, especially in her own sex, there was nothing wanting for her improvement, so long as her mother lived. But being so unfortunate as to lose her when she was about eight years old, and when she had but just gone thro' her accidence and grammar, there was a stop

because it will give her work credit here, where it shall be promoted to the utmost power by your

put to her progress in learning for some years. For her brother being under age when her mother died, she was under the guardianship of a relation, who was no friend to women's learning, so that she was not suffered to proceed, notwithstanding her repeated requests that she might, being always put off with that common and vulgar saying that one tongue is enough for a woman. However, this discouragement did not prevent her earnest endeavours to improve her mind, in the best manner she was able, not only because she had a natural inclination to books herself, but in obedience to her excellent mother's desire. She therefore employed most of her time in reading such English and French books (which last language she with much difficulty obtained leave to learn) as she could meet with till she went to live with her 'brother,† who very joyfully and readily assisted and encou

* Dr. Charles Elstob, Canon of Canterbury.

+ In Ballard's Collection there is a short account of Mr. Elstob'e life, written by his sister, the lady who is the subject of the above memoir. It states that he was educated at Eton, and afterwards "placed at Catharine Hall in Cambridge, in a station below his birth and fortune. This, and the air not agreeing with his constitution, which was consumptive, was the occasion of his removal to Queen's College, Oxford, under the tuition of Dr. Waugh, where he was a commoner, and continued, till he was elected fellow of University, by the friendship of Dr, Charlett, Master of that college, Dr. Hudson, &c. In 1702, he was presented by the Dean and Chapter of Canterbury to the united parishes of St Swithin and St. Mary Bothaw in London, Where, after he had discharged the duty of a faithful and orthodox pastor; with great patience and resignation, after a long and lingering illness, he exchanged this life for a better on Saturday, March 3, 1714-5," He was eminent for his proficiency in the Saxon Janguage.

Philo-Sax. and Philo-Goth. and most faithful,

humble Servt.

GEO. HICKES.

raged her, in her studies, with whom she laboured very hard as long as he lived. In that time she translated and published an Essay on Glory, written in French by the cele brated Mademoiselle de Scudery, and published an EnglishSaxon Homily on the Birthday of St. Gregory, with an English translation and Notes, &c. Also the Rudiments of Grammar for the English-Saxon Tongue. She designed, if ill fortune had not prevented her, to have published all Ælfrick's Homilies, of which she made an entire transcript, with the various readings from other Manuscripts, and had trans-' lated several of them into English. She likewise took an exact copy of the Textus Roffensis upon vellum, now in the library of that great and generous encourager of learning, the Right Honourable the Earl of Oxford. And transcribed all the Hymus, from an ancient Manuscript belonging to the Church of Sarum. She had several other designs, but was unhappily hindered, by a necessity of getting her bread, which with much difficulty, labour, and ill health, she has endeavoured to do for many years, with very indifferent suc-.. cess. If it had not been that Almighty God was graciously. pleased to raise her up lately some generous and good friends, she could not have subsisted, to whom she always was, and will, by the grace of God, be most faithful."

Mrs. Elstob is described by Mr. Rowe Mores (in his Diss. on Letter-founders. p. 28,) as the "indefessa comes of her brother's studies, a female student in the University." She was "a Northern lady of an ancient family and a genteel fortune; but she pursued too much the drug called learning, and in that pursuit failed of being careful of any

LETTER XCII.

T. HEARNE to BROWNE WILLIS.

A curious Shoe belonging to John Bigg.

MR. Prince told me you wanted

some account of the Buckinghamshire shoe in the Bodleian Repository. You have seen it more

*

one thing necessary. In her latter years she was tutoress in the family of the Duke of Portland, where we have visited her in her sleeping-room at Bulstrode, surrounded with books and dirtiness, the usual appendages of folk of learning. But if any one desires to see her as she was, when she was the favourite of Dr. Hudson and the Oxonians, they may view her portraiture in the initial G of The English-Saxon Homily on the Birthday of St. Gregory:† the countenance of St. Gregory in the Saxon I is taken from Mr. Thwaytes, and both ́ were engraved by Gribelin, tho' Mich. Burghers was at that time engraver to the University." Of Burghers, Mr. Mores says, " he lived in a tenement belonging to the Queen's college, and called Shoppa sexta, which, with the rest of the Shoppa, in number ten, is now taken into the site of the college, the front wall of which stands upon the foundations of the decem Shoppa. We knew his niece, Dutch-built and in mean condition; she ironed for us—so likewise one Fanny, a niece of Anth. Historiograph. was our bed-maker. More we could

* She died at an advanced age, in the service of the Portland family, May 30, 1756, and was buried at St, Margaret's, Westminster, This letter was also used in her Saxon Grammar.