Notes and Queries, Number 57, November 30, 1850

by Various

NICHOLAS FERRAR AND THE SO-CALLED ARMINIAN NUNNERY OF LITTLE GIDDING.

(Vol. ii., pp. 119. 407.)

Hearne, the antiquary, has preserved two curious documents relating to the Little Gidding establishment in the Appendix to his Preface to Peter Langtoff's Chronicle, Nos. IX. and X. See also Thomæ Caii Vindiciæ, vol. ii. The most complete account of this remarkable man is that by Dr. Peckard, formerly Master of Magdalen College, Cambridge, entitled Memoirs of the Life of Nicholas Ferrar, published in 1790, which has now become extremely scarce, but has been reprinted by Dr. Wordsworth, in his Ecclesiastical Biography, who has given in an Appendix an account of the visit of the younger Nicholas Ferrar to London, from a MS. in the Lambeth Library. The Life of Nicholas Ferrar, by Dr. Turner, Bishop of Ely, came into the hands of the celebrated Dr. Dodd, who published an abridgment

of it in the Christian Magazine of 1761. This account was again republished, with additions, in 1837, entitled Brief Memorials of Nicholas Ferrar, Founder of a Protestant Religious Establishment at Little Gidding, in Huntingdonshire, by the Rev. T.M. Macdonogh, Vicar of Bovingdon. Some further particulars of this family may be found in Barnabas Oley's preface to Herbert's Country Parson, and in Bishop Hacket's Life of Archbishop Williams. In Baker's MSS. (vol. xxxv. p. 389.) in the Public Library of Cambridge, is an article entitled "Large Materials for writing the Life of Mr. Nicholas Ferrar." Isaac Walton, in his Life of George Herbert, also notices Ferrar, and describes minutely his mode of life at Little Gidding. From an advertisement at the end of Francis Peck's Memoirs of Cromwell, it appears that Peck had prepared for publication a Life of Mr. Nicholas Ferrar, no doubt the manuscript collections noticed by MR. RIMBAULT (p. 407.):

"Little Gidding," it has been observed, "was in England what Port Royal was in France. Ardent devotion to the Redeemer characterised both. In each, peace, charity, good order, and love to the souls and bodies of men, were eminently exhibited; upon each the hand of persecution fell with unrelenting severity. Port Royal was destroyed by the Jesuits; Little Gidding by the Puritans."

J.Y.

Hoxton.

Arminian Nunnery in Huntingdonshire (Vol. ii., p. 407.).—Allow me to refer DR. RIMBAULT to Hacket's Life of Archbishop Williams, Part ii. p. 50.; Izaak Walton's Life of George Herbert; Peter Langloft's Chronicle, ed. Hearne, Preface, sect xi., Appendix to Preface, Nos. IX. and X.; Caii Vindiciæ Antiquitatis Academiæ Oxoniensis, ed. Hearne, vol. ii. p. 683. 693. 697. 702. 713.; and Memoirs of the Life of Mr. Nicholas Ferrar, by Peter Peckard, D.D., Cambridge, 8vo., 1790 (which is reprinted with additions from a manuscript in the archiepiscopal library at Lambeth, in Dr. Wordsworth's Ecclesiastical Biography). In Dr. Peckard's Preface will be found somewhat respecting "the loss (probably the unjust detention)" of Francis Peck's manuscript life of Nicholas Ferrar, apparently the same manuscript which DR. RIMBAULT states he has seen.

C.H. COOPER.

Cambridge, November 16. 1850.

In Nichol's Litterary Anecdotes, vol. ii. p. 519., it is stated that "a capital account of the family of Ferrar was compiled by Mr. Gough for the sixth volume of the second edition of the Biographica Britannica." Of the only two copies known to exist of the printed portion of this sixth volume Mr. Chalmers possessed one, and he seems to have used it in the preparation of the life of Ferrar for his Biographical Dictionary.

JOHN J. DREDGE.

DR. RIMBAULT will find many interesting particulars relating to the so-called "Arminian Nunnery," and the family of Ferrars, together with an account of the present state of the place, in a paper by C. Colson, B.A., Fellow of St. John's College, entitled "An Account of a Visit to Little Gidding, on the Feast of S. Andrew, 1840," published in the first part of the Transactions of the Cambridge Camden Society, Stevenson, Cambridge, 1841.

E.V.

Dr. Peckard appears to have had the use of some of Peck's MSS. (perhaps those referred to by DR. RIMBAULT), but he regrets the loss of a MS. which he had lent to the Rev. Mr. Jones, of Sheepshall, being, a Life of Nicholas Ferrar, by Peck, prepared for the press, but which, after near twenty years' inquiry, he had been unable to recover. This suggests the Query, Has it ever yet been recovered? DR. RIMBAULT'S inquiry regarding Thomas Hearne has been answered by Dr. Dibdin (Bibliomania, London, 1811, p.381.) who informs Dr. Peckard, Dr. Wordsworth, and his Quarterly Reviewer (p. 93), that Hearne, in the Supplement to his Thom. Caii Vind. Ant. Oxon., 1730, 8vo., vol. ii., "had previously published a copious and curious account of the monastery at Little Gidding," which he says "does not appear to have been known to this latter editor," meaning Dr. Wordsworth. I have not Hearne's work to refer to; but Dr. Dibdin versus Dr. Wordsworth and his Reviewer, as to ignorance of what so well-known an author as Tom Hearne has written, is a little curious. The word "Arminian," in DR. RIMBAULT'S Query, requires a remark. On reading the Memoir which Dr. Wordsworth has edited, he will find (Appendix, p. 247.) that the Ferrars complained of "a libellous pamphlet, entitled the Arminian Nunnery at Little Gidding in Huntingdonshire," and that they repudiated "Arminianism and other fopperies." This suggests a further Query: Is DR. RIMBAULT possessed of that pamphlet? The attachment to books manifested by the Ferrars family entitles them, I humbly think, to as much space as your "NOTES AND QUERIES" can afford them.

J.D.N.N.

Renfrewshire.

If DR. RIMBAULT or any of your correspondents could furnish a reply to any of the Queries inserted by you in Vol. ii., p. 119., relative to the memoir published by Peckard, and other matters connected therewith, I should feel obliged.

MATERRE.

Mr. Henning of Hillingden, a descendant of the Ferrar family, through his great-uncle, Dr. John Mapletoft, (see Ward's Lives of the Gresham Professors), who was the great-nephew of Nicholas Ferrar, possessed one of the three curious volumes arranged by members of the family,

viz.—A Digest of the History of our Saviour's Life, with numerous plates. One of these copies was presented to Charles I. on his going into the North; another to Charles II. at the Restoration; the third remained in the family. Can any of your readers tell us whether the copies given to the two kings exist, and if so, who are the present possessors of them?

J.H.M.

Bath

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