MINOR CORRESPONDENCE.-Boaden's History of the Theatres Royal.-Wace's Barrows opened in Dorsetshire Roll of the Norman Chiefs.-The Rykenild Street.. NOTES TO BOSWELL'S LIFE OF DR. JOHNSON. Poems of the Rev. W. L. Bowles. Memoir of Sir Thomas Lunsford, Bart. Bishop of Bath and Wells on the Distresses of the Poor, 386.-Debrett's Peerage, 394.-Japhet in search of his Father, 395.-Margaret Ravenscroft, 396.-My Aunt Pontypool, 397.-Lady E. S. Wortley's Travelling Sketches, 398.-Guide through Shrewsbury, 401.-Juvenal's Satires, by Dr. Nuttall, 402.-Memoirs of Mirabeau, 403.-Sharpe's Nomenclator Poeticus; Caun- ter's Romance of History, 404.-De la Beche on Geology; Yates's Account New Publications, 409.-Learned Societies, Literary Institutions, &c.. ANTIQUARIAN RESEARCHES.-Society of Antiquaries, &c. HISTORICAL CHRONICLE.-Proceedings in Parliament, 416. — Foreign OBITUARY; with Memoirs of the Earl of Egmont; Dr. Van Mildert, Bishop of Durham; Lord Stowell; Lady F. W. Wilson; Rt. Hon. Sir John Sin- clair, Bart.; Sir James Colquhoun, Bart.; Sir J. J. S. Douglas, Bart.; Lieut.-Gen. Sir W. Inglis; Capt. Clement, R.N.; D. Ronayne, Esq.; Pel- ham Warren, M.D.; John Gillies, LL.D.; Mrs. Whitlock; and Dr. John Clergy Deceased, 439.-DEATHS, arranged in Counties. And a Representation of an ANCIENT RELIQUARY at Shipley, Sussex. MINOR CORRESPONDENCE. It is with pleasure that we inform the public, that Mr. BOADEN is engaged upon a Biography, relating to the Theatres Royal of England; being his reminiscences for half a century, of their managers, authors, and performers, from personal knowledge and authentic documents. This work will be comprised in two octavo volumes; and we can scarcely imagine a book of greater or more exciting interest. Among the authors, will doubtless appear Colman, Sheridan, and Tobin; the list of actors will include both the Kembles, Cooke, and Kean, under the chapter which may be called Melpomene; that distinguished as Thalia, will grace its pages with the comic humour of Banister, and Suet, and Quick, and Munden, and Emery, and Faucit, and Mathews. What a goodly race of laughterloving souls! Nor will Mr. Boaden forget that part, of equal interest, which shall fix in his pages the too-fleeting emotions, whether of pain or pleasure, excited by the talents of Siddons, Jordan, Miss Farren, Miss O'Neill, Mrs. Mattocks, and Miss Pope. Thus shall we have a work, which will, in an authentic manner, secure the later history of the stage; and form a necessary companion to the entertaining volumes of Davies, Victor, Cibber (par excellence! the first), and, we will add, our old after-dinner companion, Tate Wilkinson. We trust Mr. Boaden will summon all the strength of his memory to this very engaging work: we consider him to be the Ultimus Romanorum,'—and if he breaks his promise, we know no one who can supply his place. -We are sorry this correspondent did not favour our printers with his address, as it would have been a great satisfaction to them to bave submitted to him a proof: and we shall still feel obliged by his communicating it in private confidence, as we reserve for the present the other points he mentions. J. F. R. remarks: "The following notices may be useful to your correspondent J. W.Higden, in his Polychronicon, which he finished up to the year 1342, speaking on the Royal Roads' of England, says: of the four, the fourth was called Rykenild-Street, and stretcheth forth by Worcester, Wycombe, Brymingham, Lychefelde, Derby, Chestrefelde, York, and forth unto Tynemouth.' This is from De Woorde's edition; and that of Oxford, in Latin, begins it at Manovia in West Wallia,' and proceeding by the same route ends it at Tynemouth. Higden was a Cheshire man, and a monk in the city of Chester. The Eulogium Historiarum in the British Museum (Galba, E. vII.) gives it also the same line; but between Menavia and Wygornia makes it pass 'per Herefordiam.' Harrison, in his Description of England, says, some call' Erming Street The Lelme,' and then describes the Ikenild, or Rikenild, as beginning some way in the south, and passing toward Cirencester and Worcester, and thence by Wycombe, &c. to the mouth of the Tyne. Drayton also begins it in Cambria's farther shore' at St. David's, makes it overtake the Fosse, and decline into the German sea at the Fall of Tyne.' I will add to these notices, that the foundation charter of the Abbey of Hilton in Shropshire, describes a boundary of property granted to it, as ascendendo per Richinild Street, et per Villam de Mere.' Selden, in his notes on the Polyolbion, says, Ricen-ild Street is mentioned in Randal of Chester (Higden), as beginning at St. Dewies in Pembroke, going through Hereford, and ending at Tinmouth. The Additions to Camden mention a survey of the county of Derby, of the 7th century, which calls it, as it passes over Tupton Moor, Rignal Street' and Lysons, in his Derbyshire, says, that an old survey of Sir H. Hunloke's property in Derbyshire, says, that Rikenild Street was there called Rignal Street, as well as in other estates in Warwickshire and Staffordshire, where it is described as a boundary. Rickenhall, in the parish of Aycliffe, in the county of Durham, probably had its name from this road passing near it; and it is still, in its course from the top of Gateshead Fell to the mouth of the Tyne, in many places, very visible, still used as a road, and called Wrecken-dyke. And here, in writings of the 12th and 13th centuries, I have found lands upon which it abutted, called Wrackenned-berge, and itself written Wrakyndik and Wraken dyke. Should J. W. wish to know more on this subject, he will find in the Archæologia Eliana a paper expressly upon it." The additional remarks of the writer of the article in our last month's review, on the Agricultural Reports, shall be inserted in our next number. Erratum-P. 243. In the Latin lines, for cava read cara. THE GENTLEMAN'S MAGAZINE. P. 21. NOTES TO BOSWELL'S LIFE OF JOHNSON, VOL. II. (Continued from p. 458.) "Meeke died about September 1743. C." but he is described in the text as being alive in 1754. P. 30. The account of Dr. William King is not so complete as it should be. It should be mentioned that his works are collected in a 4to volume called "Opera Gulielmi King, Aula B. M. C. apud Oxonienses olim Princip." This contains his poem of the Toast; for which previously ten guineas had been given at a sale, only sixty copies of it having been preserved and his "Miltonis Epistola ad Pollionem*;" (for which consult Warton's Pope, Vol. iv. p. 309.) with other Latin Poems, The Monitor, &c., his Latin Orations. He published "An Apology, or vindication of himself from the several matters charged on him by the Society of Informers; Oxf. 1755." This, with some of his political squibs, are not included in the volume of his collected works. We shall give one extract from King's "Oratio die Dedicationis Bibliotheca Radclivianæ, Apr. 1749." not only as a specimen of his style and manner, but in order to place beside it a passage from a Poem by the late Public Orator, which was written to be recited in the same theatre : Itaque verbis exprimere non possum, quantum debeamus doctissimis et munificentissimis illis viris, qui ad constituendas Academias, ad ædificandas ornandasque bibliothecas, atque literarum domi cilia tantum laborem, curam, pecuniam impenderunt. Quid commemorem amplissimam eam Alexandrinam bibliothecam? quid Attalicam? quid Grecas omnes? quid Romanas, tum veteres, tum recentes ? * Dr. King's works stand in great need of a Key, to decypher the allusions, initials, characters so thickly scattered through his satirical works. The Latin lines at the end of Dr. King's Apology, are translated, and form the end of Paul Whitehead's Epistle to Dr. Thomson, p. 91. 'My reasons, Thomson! prithee ask no more ;- The lines are as follows: Libera si pretio quantovis otia vendam Cui non insanus videar? sed apertius audi, Quæ juvenem, infirmumque animi captare nequibant Posse putes hominem, cui climactericus annus Si mihi non dextram tetigisse, aut limina regum Churchill alludes to Dr. King in his poem of The Candidate : King shall arise, and, bursting from the dead, Shall hurl his pie-bald Latin at thy head.' Hoc autem memoratu dignissimum esse puto-primam apud Romanos bibliothecam publicam instructam fuisse in atrio templi Libertatis, quo significari voluit nobilis et eruditus senator (Asinius Pollio) qui atrium refecit, et eam bibliothecam dicavit, ibi solum esse litteris locum, ubi libertate est locus. Hujus viri et horum omnium memoriam, horum vero præcipue qui hanc Academiam, qui tantum congeriem librorum, qui disciplinam nostram tam pulchra et præclare fundatam nobis reliquerunt, semper inviolatè servemus, ut quos ornamenta sui sæculi, et decora humani generis et illustrissimos orbis heroas esse confiteamur: semper quidem anteferendos heroibus istis, exteris scilicet (nostros enim, uti par est, semper excipio) qui quum cæde hominum, et eversione urbium maxime delectentur, et non modo hostibus, sed suis moliantur exitium, inde tamen nomen et gloriam quærunt: et sane expectant, postulantque, ut summâ observantiâ, etiam sumptuose, ab omnibus colantur. Hoscine ut colat populus ? Hoscine vero ut nos Oxonienses colamus? qui celeberrimæ huic academiæ, cujus honore invident, ut literis ipsis, quas nesciunt, sunt inimicissimi, qui antiquissima hujus loci monumenta spoliare, in possessiones nostras irruere, et pulcherrima hæc ædificia in æquorum stabula convertere optarent. Quam me pudet, igitur, turpis istius oratorum et poëtarum assentationis, quæ in heroicis istis ætatibus, et in omnibus ætatibus, tales viros, immanitate naturæ insignes, semideos fecit et prædicavit, quos ego quidem et mecum sentiunt boni omnes, vix unquam animum induxi, ut homines putarem!' Now compare the following fine and animated lines which were intended to have been spoken in the theatre, to the Duke of Portland, at his installation as Chancellor of the University of Oxford, in 1793; and which we shall not curtail, as the Poem is short, and perhaps not generally known: In evil hour, and with unhallow'd voice, Did he begin to sing :-He, first who sang With bloody spoil and tyrannous conquest, dares Hath paid unseemly reverence;-yea, and brought If those that made the cause, might taste th' effect, To do their bidding. Ah! who then regards As at an altar wet with human blood; And, flaming with the fires of cities burnt, Sing their mad hymns of triumph !-hymns to God, |