ERROR IN JOHNSON'S LIFE OF SELDEN.
In Johnson's (Geo. W.) Memoirs of John Selden, London, 1635, 8vo. pp. 128, 129, is a notice of Dr. Sibthorpe's celebrated Sermon preached at Northampton, and printed in 1627 with the title of Apostolike Obedience. After stating the difficult experienced in obtaining the necessary sanction for its publication, owing to Abp. Abbot refusing the requisite imprimatur, the author says that ultimately the licence was "signed by Land himself, and published under the title of Apostolical Obedience." A reference at the foot of the page to "Rushworth, p. 444," leads me to conclude that it is on his authority Mr. Johnson has made this statement; but not having access to the "Historical Collections," I am unable to examine. At any rate, Heylin, in his Cyprianus Anglicus, Lond., 1671 fol. p. 159., may be understood to imply the correctness of the assertion.
A copy of this now rare sermon before me proves, however, that the statement is incorrect. At the back of the title is as follows:—
"I have read over this sermon upon Rom. xiii. 7., preached at Northampton, at the assises for the county, Feb. 22, 1626, by Robert Synthorpe, Doctor of Divinity, Vicar of Brackley, and I doe approve it as a sermon learnedly and discreetly preached, and agreeable to the ancient Doctrine of the Primitive Church, both for Faith and good manners, and to the Doctrine established in the Church of England, and, therefore, under my hand I give authority for the printing of it, May 8. 1627."
GEO. LONDON.
It was therefore Bishop Mountague, and not Laud, who licensed the sermon.
JOHN. J. DREDGE.
POPE AND PETRONIUS.
I have read "Mr. RICH'S" letter with great interest, and I willingly allow that he has combated my charge of plagiarism against Pope, and discussed the subject generally with equal fairness and ability. "But yet," I think that he wanders a little from the point when he says, "the surmise of the plagiarism originates in a misconception of the terms employed by the Latin author, especially corcillum." Now the question, in my opinion, turns not so much on what Petronius said, as on what Pope read; i.e. not on the meaning that Petronius gave to the word (corcillum), but on that which Pope attributed to it. I cannot, without further proof, give him credit for having read the words as critically and correctly as "Mr. R." has done. I believe that he looked on it merely as a simple derivative of cor, and therefore rendered it "worth," i.e. a moral, not a mental quality.
C. FORBES.