various entertaining episodes of Puritans, and Methodists, and Gospel Preachers; episodes, made up of a strange admixture of truth and misrepresentation, unworthy of the cause which he has undertaken to advocate, and discreditable to the temper and spirit of a Christian minister.

I am, Sir, &c.

PAULINUS.

To the Editor of the Christian Observer, THE attestation respecting the author of The Whole Duty of Man, together with my accompanying query (inserted in Christian Observer, Vol. XV. p. 435.) not having produced any other notice from your correspondents than the laconic observations of R.W.D. (Vol, XV. p. 643.), allow me to claim a place in your columns for a slight attempt to solve my own problem, It is with some reluctance that I occupy your valuable pages with a discussion purely bibliographical; but the subject being at present imperfectly noticed in your work, I shall, as briefly as possible, com. municate the information which I have derived, and the ideas which have suggested themselves to my mind, by looking more closely into the question.

It is not difficult to ascertain the period in which The Whole Duty of Man appeared before the pub lic, although your correspondent expresses some doubt even on that point. R. W. D. mentions the edition of 1677, as the earliest which he has seen. I have seen an edition of eighteen years earlier date, which is undoubtedly the first. Ballard states, that the work appeared in 1657; but it is clear that he was misled by the date of Dr. Hammond's prefatory letter written in that year. It was published at the beginning of the year 1659; for Dr. Hammond, in a letter to Mr. Peter Stainenough, dated March 16, 1659, among other notices of CHRIST. OBSERV. No. 183.

new publications, observes; "Two excellent pieces there are from an unknown hand, The Whole Duty of Man, and The Gentleman's Calling."

A more knotty question arises in the inquiry respecting the author of this work; and Junius himself has scarcely called forth more improbable conjectures than this writer. The concealment, so successfully studied, appears to be the older editions, which represents alluded to in the frontispiece to Moses veiled holding the tables of the Law in his hands; this motto being subscribed," And till Moses had done speaking to them, he put a veil on his face." From this some have concluded (I think incorrectly), that Bishop Fell himself was not made acquainted with the name, till the last work of the author had been produced.

The ingenious method by which Bishop Fell would lead us to the author is not, it must be confessed, very agreeable in its process, or satisfactory in its result. "Let the pious reader live a whole age of great austerities, and maintain an undisturbed serenity in the midst of them, and lie will himself become a lively picture of our author."

Neither this work, nor the other pieces confessedly produced by the same hand, afford us any positive data by which we can ascertain the name of the writer. At the same time, there are some circumstances sufficiently marked to exclude certain pretensions; and others which, though more ambiguous, may serve as tolerable tests of the degree of probability which attaches to the contested claims of authorship.

I. The most decisive of these is, the period of the author's death. In the preface to the folio edition of the whole works (Oxford 1684), which has been ascribed without controversy to the pen of Bishop Fell, the author is stated to be dead. Consequently, we may safely Y

discard the pretensions of any person who was alive after that year.

II." The Decay of Christian Piety," a work by the same writer, was first published 1667; and from its contents it plainly appears that the author was alive in the year preceding. We are thus necessarily limited in our researches to some author whose death occurred in the period 1666–1684.

The two preceding remarks contain restrictions to the field of our speculations, as positive as the nature of the case admits: the following are less definite.

III. In the preface to "The Decay of Christian Piety," the author speaks of the plague and fire in London (1666) as scenes of desolation of which he himself was a witness.

IV. In "The Lively Oracles," (Section vii. paragraph 2.) he mentions having travelled in popish countries during the troublesome times of Charles I. and having been in France.

These general tests may be found convenient, chiefly in excluding the claims of many pretended authors of the Duty of Man. In the following concise (but I believe comprehensive) list of the writers, whose claims to this celebrated work have been advanced, it is intended to refer only to the two former observations.

1. Mr. William Fulman, the learned secretary of Dr. Hammond, has often been mentioned as the author. I cannot find that the claim which has been asserted for him rests on any probable arguments. Your correspondent R.W.D. advocates his name; but without assigning any reason whatever to sustain his opinion. He quotes, indeed, Dr. Oldfield*, Fulman's

* R. W. D. refers to "Oldfield's Divine Discourses, p. 74." I am not aware that Dr. O. published any work under that title. The intended reference, is, I presume, to a work of his entitled

school-fellow, who makes a similar assertion without bringing forward any thing in the shape of evidence. In short, to this eminent scholar we may apply test I., which excludes him, since he did not die till 1688.

2. That laborious antiquarian and philologist, Mr. Francis Peck, informs us, that he "once thought The Whole Duty of Man had been written by Dr. W. Chapel, Lord Bishop of Cork and Ross." This prelate having died in 1649, is excluded by remark II.

3. Dr. Frewen, Archbishop of York, has no better title, since he died in 1664.

4. Dr. Richard Sterne, Archbishop of York, is asserted to be the author by his biographer Mr. Drake.

5. Mr. Abraham Woodhead, of University College Oxford, was confidently reported as having written the work in question. Wood may well express his surprise at such a notion, for Mr. A. W. lived and died a zealous Roman Catholic. (See Athena Oxonienses, under Woodhead.)

6. The name of Mr. Basket was mentioned, in my former communication, as the reputed author, from a MS. note in an early edition belonging to the library of Queen's College, Cambridge. I have since traced this opinion, and the authority from which it was derived, to the learned author of Desiderata Curiosa. "Dr. R. Clavering," says Mr. Peck, " now (1738) Lord Bishop of Burgh St. Peter's, was some time ago pleased to inform me, that The Whole Duty of Man was written by one Mr. Basket, a clergyman of Worcestershire *."

7. Mr. Peck also mentions an idea which he had once entertained, that it was written by the famous Obediah Walker, master of Uni

"Mille Testes, by F. de Veteri Campo.” p. 74. marginal note.

* Nineteen Letters of Dr. Hammoud, by Francis Peck, p. 53.

versity College, Oxford. Mr. W., however, did not die till 1699, and his claim is consequently excluded by observation I.

8. None of the preceding names rely upon probable evidence; and some of them, it will be observed, are decidedly inadmissible. A greater degree of plausibility attaches to the opinion that Bishop Fell (who wrote the general preface) was himself the author of the minor pieces, if not of The Whole Duty of Man.

Sir William Morice heard Bishop Fell preach a sermon at the King's Chapel, which so pleased him that he requested a copy. Some years afterwards, "The Decay of Christian Piety" came out, in which he found the matter of the sermon in the same words.

Prideaux partly confirms the conclusion drawn from this statement. He is said (by his biogra pher*) to have declared, that he was attending the press at Oxford, when another of the works ascribed to the author of The Whole Duty of Man was reprinting, and that he saw whole lines blotted out and interpolated in Bishop's Fell handwriting. Prideaux adopted the opinion that the author of The Whole Duty of Man was unknown; but that the other pieces ascribed to this anonymous writer were composed partly by Dr. Fell, and partly by Dr. Állestry.

So far as this evidence is adduced to prove that Bishop Fell assisted the author by his corrections, and possibly by contributions of detached parts, it appears sufficiently conclusive. But the assertion that the Bishop is the writer of the smaller pieces ascribed by himself (in his preface to the works) to an author already dead, is to insinuate a charge which charity for bids us to prefer without some more direct proof. It might answer the purpose for which, it has been imagined, such a step was adopted, of better concealing

*Life of Prideaux, p. 17.

the name;" but it could not, by any explanation, be reconciled to the integrity of the Bishop's cha

racter.

9. I shall now briefly sketch the evidence by which Lady Pa-kington's may probably be established.

Dorothy Lady Pakington was wife of Sir John Pakington, of Westwood-house, Worcestershire, and daughter of Thomas Lord Coventry, Lord Keeper of the Great Seal of England. She was a lady of considerable talents, and of such exemplary conduct that she was proverbially called "the good Lady Pakington." Her residence afforded an asylum, during the stormy period of Charles I., to Bishop Morley, Bishop Fell, and Dr. Hammond, who died there in 1660. Dr. H. she considered as her preceptor, her adviser, and her spiritual guide; and with Bishop Fell she long enjoyed a close friendship, and an uninterrupted correspondence: thus she was intimately acquainted with two learned prelates, the latter of whom, in all probability, corrected and improved her work, while the former introduced it to the public. She died in 1679, a date which accords with the preliminary observations in this paper.

Thus far the evidence is merely consistent with the facts connected with the publication of this work. Some other circumstances must be mentioned which bear more immediately upon the question of her being the probable author.

(1.) In an anonymous pamphlet, published in 1702, entitled, "A Letter vindicating the Bill for the Prevention of the Translation of Bishops," it is asserted that Archbishop Dolben, Bishop Fell, and Dr. Allestry, declared, that Lady Pakington was the authoress of "the most masculine religious book in the English tongue (the Bible excepted), called The Whole Duty of Man." I quote this by no means as evidence, but merely to

shew how confidently her claim was vindicated at a period only twenty-three years after her death. (2.) But we may approach still nearer; and without the necessity of appealing to anonymous vindicators. Dr. Hickes, in the preface to his Saxon Grammar inscribed to Sir J. Pakington, has the following passage on the virtues and talents of his ancestor:-" In which she was so accomplished, that she deserves to be called and reputed the authoress of a book on the Duty of Man, published in English by an anonymous person, and well known through the Chris tian world as a work wonderfully perfect of its kind. *" Dr. Hickes, who came to Worcester only seven years after the death of Lady Pakington, was a favourite inmate of Westwood-house in thevicinity ofhis deanery. He had, therefore, abundant opportunity of ascertaining the opinion of Lady Pakington's family, as to the probability that she composed this work; nor is it likely that he would have so publicly recorded his conviction in an address to her descendant, had not the sentiments which he expresses been sustained by tolerably strong probablities, and been consonant with the feelings of his friend.

(3.) Her descendants without hesitation ascribed this work to Lady Pakington; for at the bottom of a monument erected near the family vault in the church of Hampton Lovett, there is a small memorial of her in which the following words occur:-"justly reputed the authoress of The Whole Duty of Man." (4.) The most decisive evidence, however, is the remarkable attes. tation of which a copy was in

* "Quibus adeo excelluit, út libri DE OFFICIO HOMINIS Anglice ab anonymo editi, et ob mirificam operis in suo genere perfectionem, per totum orbem Christianum notissimi auctrix et dici et haberi meretur." Gram. Anglo-Sax. Præf. p. 2.

This certificate was mentioned by me as having been hitherto unpublished.

serted in the Christian Observer, Vol. XV. p. 435. Upon the solemn declaration of a clergyman on his death-bed, a MS. of The Whole Duty of Man, in Lady Pakington's hand-writing, is traced to the pos session of Mrs. Eyre*, her daughter, only ten years after the reputed author's death. This MS. bore the marks of correction by Bishop Fell, who is known to have been the editor of the whole works, and whose handwriting was recognised by Prideaux in the interlinings of the copies reprinting at the Oxford press. Here is a concurrence of circumstances by no means unimportant or indecisive; and, in my opinion, the evidence arising from this certificate, when combined with other conspiring testimonies, is not so easily overthrown as R.W.D. imagines.

Omitting a vast number of ob jections to this evidence, which are too trivial to merit observation, I shall briefly notice two or three of the most plausible replies.

First. Some little difficulty arises from the statement in the attestation, which denies all the pieces, except one, ascribed to the author of The Whole Duty of Man, to have been written by Lady P.; whereas Bishop Fell inserts several other

Upon further examination, this assertion appears to be in some measure incorrect. It is noticed in Ballard (Memoirs of British Ludies, under Pakington, pp. 220235.); who gives it, however, without signature, and in so loose a manner that it was clearly written memoriter, document, from which the copy sent to and not from any authentic copy. The the Christian Observer was taken, is only Baker's transcript. I find the same certificate, as a loose paper (possibly the original), deposited among the MSS. in the Cambridge Public Library, and marked Dd. iii. 63.

This "Dame Ayre" (as R. W. D. familiarly terms her) was herself an authoress, and is styled, in the title to her posthumous publication," The pious and learned Mrs. Eyre." She was wife of Antony Eyre, of Rampton, in the county of Nottingham, Esq.