[PETER STERRY AND JEREMIAH WHITE.]
(Vol. iii., p. 38.)
Your correspondent's inquiry with respect to the missing MSS. of Peter Sterry, which were intended to form a second volume of his posthumous works, published without printer's name in 1710, 4to., and of which MSS. a list is given in vol. i., does not seem to have led to any result. As I feel equal interest with himself in every production of Sterry, I am tempted again to repeat the Query, in the hope of some discovery being made of these valuable remains. I have no doubt the editor of the "Appearance of God to Man," and the other discourses printed in the first volume, was R. Roach, who edited Jeremiah White's Persuasion to Moderation, Lond., 1708, 8vo.; and afterwards published The Great Crisis, and The Imperial Standard of Messiah Triumphant, 1727, 8vo.; and probably Sterry's MSS. may be found if Roach's papers can be traced. It is curious that a similar loss of MSS. seems to have occurred with regard to several of the works of Jeremiah White, who, like Sterry, was a chaplain of Cromwell (how well that great man knew how to select them!), and, like Sterry, was of that admirable Cambridge theological school which Whichcot, John Smith, and Cudworth have made so renowned. Neither of these distinguished men have yet, that I am aware of, found their way into any biographical dictionary. White is slightly noticed by Calamy (vol. ii. p. 57.; vol. iv. p. 85.). Sterry, it appears, died on Nov. 19, 1672. White survived him many years, and died in the seventy-eighth year of his age, 1707. Of the latter, there is an engraved portrait; of the former, none that I know of; nor am I aware of the burial-place of either. The works which I have met with of Sterry are his seven sermons preached before Parliament, &c., and published in different years; his Rise, Race, and Royalty of the Kingdom of God in the Soul of Man, 1683, 4to.; his Discourse of the Freedom of the Will (a title which does not by any means convey the character of the book), Lond., 1675, fol.; and the 4to. before mentioned, being vol. i. of his Remains, published in 1710. Of White I only knew a Funeral Sermon on Mr. Francis Fuller; his Persuasion to Moderation, above noticed, which is an enlargement of part of his preface to Sterry's Rise, &c.; and his Treatise on the Restoration of all Things, 1712, 8vo., which has recently been republished by Dr. Thom. To his Persuasion is appended an advertisement:
"There being a design of publishing the rest of Mr. White's works, any that have either Letters or other Manuscripts of his by them are desired to communicate them to Mr. John Tarrey, distiller, at the Golden Fleece, near Shadwick Dock."
This design, with the exception of the publication of The Restoration, seems to have proved abortive. White entertained many opinions in common with Sterry, which he advocates with great power. He does not however, like his fellow chaplain, soar into the pure empyrean of theology with unfailing pinions. Sterry has frequently sentences which Milton might not have been ashamed to own. His Discourse of the Freedom of the Will is a noble performance, and the preface will well bear a comparison with Cudworth's famous sermon on the same subject.
Jas. Crossley.
[PHOTOGRAPHIC NOTES AND QUERIES.]
Colouring Collodion Portraits.—I shall be obliged if any brother photographer will kindly inform me, through the medium of "N. & Q.," the best method of colouring collodion portraits and views in a style similar to the hyalotypes shown at the Great Exhibition.
We country photographers are much indebted to Dr. Diamond for the valuable information we have obtained through his excellent papers in "N. & Q.," and perceiving he is shortly about to give us the benefit of his experience in a compact form, under the modest title of Photographic Notes, I suggest that, if one of his Notes should contain the best method of colouring collodion proofs, so as to render them applicable for dissolving views, &c., he will be conferring a benefit on many of your subscribers; and, as one of your oldest, allow me to subscribe myself