BISHOP BURNET, H. WHARTON, AND SMITH.
The following curious piece of literary history is quoted from pp. 145-147. of Smith's De Re Nummaria:
"But having thus owned the bishop's generosity, I must next inform the reader what occasion I have to make some complaint of hard usage, partly to myself, but infinitely more to Dr. H. Wharton, and that after his decease also. The matter of fact lies in this order. After Ant. Harmer had published his Specimen of Errors to be found in the Bishop's History of the Reformation, there was a person that frequented the coffee-house where we met daily at Oxon, and who afterwards became a prelate in Scotland, that was continually running down that History for the errors discovered in it, many of which are not very material, and might in so large a work have been easily pardoned; and in order to obtain such a pardon, I acquainted his Lordship with some more considerable errata to be found in the first volume of Anglia Sacra, out of which I had drawn up as many mistakes as I could possibly meet with, and had descanted upon them, as far as I was able, in the same method Ant. Harmer had drawn up his, and without acquainting the Bishop who was the author, sent them up to his Lordship with license, if he thought fitting, to print them. But when the collection was made, I had prefixed a letter to his Lordship, and next an epistle to the reader. In the former it was but fitting to compliment his Lordship, but the latter was altogether as large a commendation of Dr. Wharton's skill, diligence, and faithfulness in viewing and examining the records of our English church history. The disgust that this last gave his Lordship obliged him to stifle the whole tract; but yet he was pleased to show part of it to many by way, as I suppose, of excuse or answer for his own mistakes; but as I take it, after the Doctor's decease, he made it an occasion of foully bespattering him as a man of no credit, and all he had writ in that Specimen was fit to go for nothing; which practice of his lordship, after I came to read both in the preface and introduction to his third volume, I was amazed at his injustice both to the living and the dead. For I had acquainted his Lordship that the faults were none of Dr. Wharton's own making, who had never seen the MS. itself, but only some exscript of it, writ by some raw and illiterate person employed by some of his Oxford friends to send him a copy of it. I once threatened my Lord Bishop's son that I had thoughts of publishing this and some other facts the Bishop had used to avoid the discovery of some other errata communicated to him by other hands; but I forbore doing so, lest I should seem ungrateful for kindnesses done and offered to me."
E. H. A.
EARLY PHILADELPHIA DIRECTORIES.
The first Philadelphia Directories were published in the year 1785, when two appeared: White's and M'Pherson's. The latter is a duodecimo volume of 164 pages, and contains some things worth making a note of.
Some persons do not seem to have comprehended the object of the inquiries made of the inhabitants as to their names and occupations; supposing, perhaps, that they had some connexion with taxation. The answers given by such are put down in the Directory as the names of the respondents. Thus:
"'I won't tell you,' 3. Maiden's Lane."
"'I won't tell it,' 15. Sugar Alley."
"'I won't tell you my name,' 160. New Market Street."
"'I won't have it numbered,' 478. Green Street."
"'I won't tell my name,' 185. St. John's Street."
"'I shall not give you my name,' 43. Stamper's Alley."
"'What you please,' 49. Market Street."