SIR BALTHAZAR GERBIER.

(Vol. ii., p. 375.)

Your correspondent J. Mt. has great reason to congratulate himself on the possession of the singularly curious tract which he describes, and which gives an autobiography of this extraordinary adventurer. I am not aware of any other copy in any public or private collection. I have a 4to. tract in nineteen pages, evidently printed abroad, the title of which is—

"Balthazar Gerbier, Knight,
to
All Men that love Truth."

This gives a very interesting life of him by himself, perfectly distinct from, and containing many particulars not given in the tract possessed by your correspondent, which also contains matter not in the above. I have likewise another tract, privately printed in Holland in English, French, and Dutch, in fifteen pages 12mo., the English title to which is—

"A true Manifest,
By S^r B. Gerbier.
Anno
1653."

In this, which gives some curious particulars as to "Mr. Hughe Peeters," and the book entitled The Nonsuch Charles, he refers to another "little manifest" published on the 2nd day of October, 1652, "that the world might take notice that he was not at all invested with any foreigne engagement." Of the tract so referred to, I regret to say no copy is known. None of the other three tracts appear to have been seen by Horace Walpole, who had collected a great number of Gerbier's pamphlets, and also the MS. next mentioned, which, at the Strawberry Hill sale, came together into my possession. The MS. contains the original appointments of Sir Balthazar to the offices he held while in England, a pedigree of his family beautifully emblazoned, and a large quantity of MS., prose and poetry, in his autograph; including a most extensive collection of projects and proposals, which seem to have been equally at the service of England or France. The best account we have of Gerbier is that which Horace Walpole has supplied in the Anecdotes of Painting (see Works, vol. iii. p. 189.); but his diplomatic negotiations, and his career as an artist and adventurer, never forgetting his academy at Whitefriars and Bethnal Green, would furnish matter for a very amusing volume. The general biography, however, to which he would be most appropriately remitted, and which is still a desideratum in literature, is that which is proposed by Dr. Johnson, in Chalmers's admirable parody:

"I think a good book might be made of scoundrels. I would have a Biographia Flagitiosa, the Lives of Eminent Scoundrels from the earliest accounts to the present day."

Jas. Crossley.