of tombstone is sufficient to show that he was a person of some property, and yet he has not only no "Esq." affixed to his name, but it is without the prefix "Mr." One can scarcely doubt that the name is not a real one. Browns, Blacks, Whites, and Greens there are in abundance, but nobody ever heard of a "Blue;" nor, so far as I know, did anybody ever christen his child "True." Yet what could have been the incidents of a life that required the fiction to be carried even to the grave?
G. J. De Wilde.
[The foregoing monumental inscription is given in Lipscomb's Bucks, vol. iv. p. 76., to which is subjoined the following note:—"The singularity of this name has occasioned much curiosity; but no information can be obtained besides that of True Blue having been a stranger, who settled here, and acquired some property, which after his decease was disposed of. It has been conjectured that he lived here under a feigned name. One Hercules True, about 1645, kept a house at Windsor, to which deer-stealers were accustomed to resort; and he uttered violent threats against a person, whose son, having been killed in attempting to resist the deer-stealers in the Great Park, Thomas Shemonds prosecuted the murderers, and True declared he would knock his brains out, and is believed to have afterwards absconded.">[
Charge of Plagiarism against Paley.—Has any reply been made to the accusation against Paley, brought forward some years ago in The Athenæum? It was stated (and apparently proved) that his Natural Theology was merely a translation of a Dutch work, the name of whose author has escaped my recollection. I suppose the archdeacon would have defended this shameful plagiarism on his favourite principle of expediency. It seems to me, however, that it is high time that either the accusation be refuted, or the culprit consigned to that contempt as a man which he deserved as a moralist.
Fiat Justitia.
[We have frequently had to complain of the loose manner in which Queries are sometimes submitted to our readers for solution. Here is a specimen. The communication above involves two other Queries, which should have been settled before it had been forwarded to us, namely, 1. In what volume of the Athenæum is the accusation against Paley made? and, 2. What is the title of the Dutch work supposed to be pirated? After pulling down six volumes of the Athenæum, we discovered that the charge against Paley appeared at p. 803. of the one for the year 1848, and that the work said to be pirated was written by Dr. Bernard Nieuwentyt of Holland, and published at Amsterdam about the year 1700. It was translated into English, under the title of The Religious Philosopher, 3 vols. 8vo., 1718-19. The charge against Paley has been ably and satisfactorily discussed in the same volume of the Athenæum (see pp. 907. 933.), and at the present time we have neither "ample room nor verge enough" to re-open the discussion in our pages.]
Weber's "Cecilia."—Can you inform me whether a work by Gottfried Weber, entitled Cecilia, is to be had in English or in French? I find it constantly referred to in the said Weber's work on the Theory of Musical Composition, and in Müller's Physiology.
For any information you can give me on the subject I shall feel much indebted.
Philharmonicus.
Dublin.