Notes and Queries, Number 214, December 3, 1853

Оглавление

Various. Notes and Queries, Number 214, December 3, 1853

Notes

PETER BRETT

RICHARD'S "GUIDE THROUGH FRANCE."

WOMEN AND TORTOISES

WEATHER RULES

OCCASIONAL FORMS OF PRAYER

Minor Notes

Queries

PICTURES IN HAMPTON COURT PALACE

Minor Queries

Minor Queries with Answers

Replies

ATTAINMENT OF MAJORITY

LORD HALIFAX AND MRS. CATHERINE BARTON

MILTON'S WIDOW

ANTICIPATORY USE OF THE CROSS

DECORATIVE PAVEMENT TILES FROM CAEN

MOTTOS OF THE EMPERORS OF GERMANY

PHOTOGRAPHIC CORRESPONDENCE

Replies to Minor Queries

Miscellaneous

NOTES ON BOOKS, ETC

BOOKS AND ODD VOLUMES WANTED TO PURCHASE

Notices to Correspondents

WESTERN LIFE ASSURANCE AND ANNUITY SOCIETY

HANDBOOK. TO THE. LIBRARY OF THE BRITISH MUSEUM:

PRIVATELY PRINTED BOOKS, SOLD BY. JOHN RUSSELL SMITH,

36. SOHO SQUARE, LONDON

Отрывок из книги

Your correspondent T. K. seems to think that Scotchmen, and Scotch subjects, have an undue prominence in "N. & Q.:" let me therefore introduce to your readers a neglected Irishman, in the person of Peter Brett, the "parish clerk and schoolmaster of Castle-Knock." This worthy seems to have been a great author, and the literary oracle of the district over which he presided, and exercised the above-named important functions. His magnum opus appears to have been his Miscellany; a farrago of prose and verse, which, to distinguish it from the herd of books bearing that title, is yclept, par excellence, Brett's Miscellany. When Mr. Brett commenced to enlighten the world, and when his candle was snuffed out, I know not. My volume of the above work purports to be the fifth:

The parish clerk's bill of fares is of the most seductive kind. Under all the above heads he has something spicy to say, either in prose or verse; but the marrow of the book lies in the Preface. To say that a man, holding the important offices of parish clerk and schoolmaster, could be charged with conceit, would be somewhat rash; if, therefore, in remarking upon the rare instance of a parish clerk becoming an author, he lets out that "whatever cavillers may say about his performance, they must admit his extensive reading, and the great labour and application the concoction of these books has cost him," he is but indulging in a feeling natural to a man of genius, and a pardonable ebullition of the amour propre. Mr. Brett seems to have been twitted with the charge of taking up authorship as a commercial spec; he sullenly admits that his book-making leaves him something, but nothing like a recompense, and draws an invidious comparison between one Counsellor Harris and himself; the former having received 200l. per annum for collecting materials for the Life of King William III., while he, the schoolmaster of Castle-Knock, scarcely gets salt to his porridge for his Collections and Observations for perpetuating the Honour and Glory of the King of Kings.

.....

This was reprinted at York in 1644.

This is a reprint of the preceding form, with a scurrilous preface and observations. The prayers are given as they stand in the Royal form, but with parenthetical sentences of a most abusive character after almost every paragraph. Thus, after the clause, "Pity a despised Church," the authors add, "You mean the prelates and their hierarchy." After the next clause, "and a distracted State," they add, "made so by your wicked party." In one of the thanksgivings, after "Glory be to God," we have, "Your mock prayers defraud Him of His glory." Then, after the words "We praise thee, we bless thee," &c., from the Communion Office, we have, "Softly, lest you want breath, and thank the old Common Prayer Book for that."

.....