feeling on their part to declare in the Preface' that

they who put forth this History dare not take upon "them to make any alterations in a work of this kind,

66

solemnly left with them to be published, whenever it "should be published, as it was delivered to them." It is true that by Lord Clarendon's will no alteration appears to have been sanctioned, but the time of publication and the power of suppression were committed to their judgment and discretion; and it seems that, when the Chancellor Clarendon revised his ninth book in the summer of 1671, it was his own opinion that the " pre"sent age would hardly be a fit season for its publica“tion." That Lord Rochester, however, was peculiarly scrupulous as to making any change in his father's MS. is confirmed by a memorandum written by Dr. George Clark, and deposited in the library of Worcester College.

Memorandum, 21st April, 1726.

Dr. Terry, Canon of Christchurch, came to see me, and, knowing that he supervised the edition of Lord Clarendon's History of the Rebellion,' and corrected the press, when that book was printed, I asked him what became of the copy from which it was printed. He said that he thought it was returned to the Earl of Rochester. I mentioned to him what Sir Joseph Jekyl said lately in the House of Commons, viz. he believed it was not printed faithfully. The Doctor assured me that he knew of nothing left out besides an imperfect account of a bull-feast, which happened when the author was Ambassador at Madrid, and little or nothing concerned the

1 Written by the Earl of Rochester.

purpose of the History; nor added, besides some circumstances of King Charles's remove from Brussels to Breda, which the Earl of Rochester declared he took from his father's papers. As for the rest, it was exactly printed from the copy, and the Earl of Rochester was so nicely scrupulous in following it, that he would not suffer any small variation, though only to make the sense clearer and the composition less intricate, which also I have at several times heard confirmed by Dr. Aldrich, Dean of Christchurch, and Mr. Richard Hill, who both have been by when proposals have been made to change a word or two in order to make the sense clearer; and the Dean sometimes proposed the doing it himself, but the Earl always refused it, saying it was his father's book, and he had solemnly promised to print it as he received it, and so he would, by the grace of God. I asked Dr. Terry who wrote the preface to the first volume? He said he supposed the Earl of Rochester, for it was delivered him in the Earl's hand, and printed from that copy.

1

G. C.

To this memorandum of Dr. Terry's should be added a summary of Mr. Wogan's narrative, to the truth of which he made affidavit; who, having been the person employed in transcribing Lord Clarendon's work, had it in his power to give important evidence as to the manner in which the work was prepared for the press:

Memorandum, 29th April, 1732.2

1. Mr. Wogan, who lives in Spring Garden, was kept a year longer than ordinary at Westminster School, to tran

Sce Burton's 'Genuineness of Clarendon.'

2 MS. at the Grove.

scribe the first four books of Lord Clarendon's History for the press. He avers that there were not any material alterations made in it, and that he does not remember the sense was ever changed, or any minute part of any character.

2. Most of the rest of the transcript for the press is in the handwriting of Mr. Low, who was secretary to the Bishop of Rochester, Dr. Sprat.

3. The Earl of Rochester, Bishop Sprat, and Dean Aldrich were the persons who compared and revised the transcript before it was sent to the press.

4. The right to the copy was given to the University of Oxford, and it was printed at the Theatre, without any alterations, as may appear from the transcript which they received, if compared with the book in print. This is also attested by Dr. Terry, Canon of Christchurch, in Oxford, who corrected the press, except some few sheets at the beginning, which were done by Dr. Stratford.

5. The few erasures in the twelfth book of the transcript were made before it came to Oxford to Dr. Terry's hands, to the best of his remembrance.

6. The erasures relate to some things concerning the embassy to Spain, in which Lord Cottington and Lord Chancellor Hyde were employed; particularly an account of some persons of distinction at that time in the Court of Spain, which being foreign to the affairs of England is supposed to be the reason it was struck out.

7. Dr. Terry says that there was not any addition that he knows of, but a passage in the sixteenth book, page 740 of the 8vo. edition, of Galleway's giving notice of the design the Spaniards had to stop the King at Brussels. The Doctor was sent for one day to the Deanery, and heard the late Earl of Rochester declare that he found that passage among his father's papers, and that they were his own words; that he thought so material a circumstance ought not to be omitted, and ordered Dr. Terry to transcribe it, which he did; and at

this day it remains in the Doctor's handwriting, in that part of the transcript where it was to be inserted.

8. Dr. Terry says that, as far as he remembers and believes, Edmund Smyth had not a sight of the transcript while it was in his custody.

9. It is notoriously known in the University, and particularly in Christchurch, that Edmund Smyth was very far from being employed or trusted by Dean Aldrich, who had a power given him by the Chapter to expel him, whenever he thought fit, for his misbehaviour in the College.

10. Some sheets of the History, in Lord Chancellor's handwriting, have been found among the papers of the last Earl of Clarendon, and in one of them is the character of Mr. Hampden, as printed, lib. vii., p. 265, of the octavo edition, in which are those very words that are pretended to be foisted in by Edmund Smyth. They are also in the MS. 'Life' of Lord Chancellor, of his own handwriting, now in the possession of the present Earl. They are likewise in the body of the transcript sent down to Oxford, from London, by which the History was printed.

·

11. Bishop Tanner has the copy of a receipt, in Archbishop Sancroft's own hand, which his Grace gave the Earl of Clarendon in 1685, when his Lordship left the History' with him, at his going to be Lord-Lieutenant of Ireland. This receipt particularly takes notice of the number of quires and pages of which the History' consisted, and that it was wrote in Mr. Shaw's hand. It is probable this copy was burnt at New Park. It appears by this receipt that it was at that time styled the "History of the Rebellion.'

When Lord Clarendon's History again appeared, in 1826, with all the suppressed or corrected passages restored, the work was noticed, together with the old controversy on the subject, by Sir James Mackintosh, in

a postscript to an article on a different subject.1 Sir James Mackintosh does full justice to the University, both in admitting that "it was in no degree answerable” for the faults of the first publication, "and that, on the "other hand, they had the unalloyed merit of restoring "the true text of the noble historian." But his observations on the editors are scarcely marked with his usual candour: indeed, he even treats the fact of there being omissions in the work as a suppression of evidence " "very "blameable in itself, and by no means calculated to inspire confidence in the general good faith of the first "editors." These observations might naturally apply to the conduct of the editors, had they not been specially left with a discretionary power to suppress or publish" as they shall be advised," and the friends being also named with whom they were to consult on these points; and of the anxiety of the editors that the text should be strictly followed there remains first the testimony of the many competent witnesses that have been already cited, and next the careful collation by Dr. Bandinel of the original MS. with the first edition of the work. Whether the first editors exercised wisely their discretionary power; whether they were unnecessarily scrupulous of publishing their father's opinions of individuals to whose family the publication of such opinions might be offensive or injurious; whether, in fact, their judgment was on all occasions equal to the task of selection,-must remain an open question: and

On the 'Icon Basilike.'-Ed. Rev., No. 87.