Minor Queries Answered.
Dr. Sacheverell.
—Was Dr. Sacheverell's speech on his trial (supposed to have been the work of Francis Atterbury, Bishop of Rochester) ever published? If so, when, and by whom?
COLLY WOBBLES.
[A printed copy of Dr. Sacheverell's speech is now on our table, but without any publisher's name. The following is a copy of the title: "The Speech of Henry Sacheverell, D.D., upon his Impeachment at the Bar of the House of Lords, in Westminster Hall, March 7. 1709-10. London, Printed in the year 1710." On the back of the title-page appears the following advertisement: "Just published, Collections of Passages referred to by Dr. Henry Sacheverell in his Answer to the Articles of his Impeachment, under four Heads. I. Testimonies concerning the doctrine of Non-resistance to the Supreme Powers. II. Blasphemous, irreligious, and heretical Positions, lately published. III. The Church and Clergy abused. IV. The Queen, State, and Ministry reflected upon.">[
Princess Wilbrahama.
—Advertisement of a pamphlet appearing in 1767:
"A plain Narrative of Facts relating to the Person who lately passed under the assumed name of the Princess Wilbrahama, lately detected at the Devizes: containing her whole History, from her first Elopement with the Hon. Mrs. Sc***ts, till her Discovery and Commitment to Devizes Bridewell; together with the very extraordinary Circumstances attending that Discovery, and the Report of a Jury of Matrons summoned on that Occasion, &c. London: printed for the Author."
I shall be very thankful for any elucidation of the above case. It appears to have been sufficiently popular to warrant the publisher in engaging, as he says, "the best artists" to illustrate it with a series of caricatures. I have never been able to meet with a copy in any public library.
J. WAYLEN.
[The notorious impostor noticed in the communication of our correspondent, performed her surprising feats of hazardous versatility between the years 1765 and 1768. On different occasions she assumed the names of Wilson, alias Boxall, alias Mollineaux, alias Irving, alias Baroness Wilmington, alias Lady Viscountess Wilbrihammon, alias Countess of Normandy. In 1766 her ladyship, "with gentle mien and accent bland," received for her dextrous lubricities something like a whipping at Coventry. In 1767 she was adjudged a vagabond at Devizes, and in the following year sentenced to transportation at the Westminster assizes. Alderman Hewitt of Coventry, in 1778, published some memorabilia of her ladyship in a pamphlet entitled, Memoirs of the celebrated Lady Viscountess Wilbrihammon, the greatest Impostress of the present age. The alderman does not notice the tract mentioned by our correspondent, so that it still remains a query whether it was ever issued, although it may have been advertised.]
Early Visitations.
—In Noble's College of Arms, it is stated, p. 25., that—
"Henry VI. sent persons through many of the counties of England to collect the names of the gentry of each; these lists have reached our time. It is observable, that many are mentioned in them who had adopted the meanest trades, yet were still accounted gentry."
Where are these lists to be found?
H. WITHAM.
[Noble's statements upon such points are extremely loose. We know not of any such lists, but would refer to Grimaldi's Origines Genealogicæ, under "Rolls and Visitations," where, in all probability, something may be found in reference to the subject, if there ever were any such lists.]