Who Simon Bache was, or how he came to be buried at Knebworth, I cannot tell. The name of "Bach" occurs in Chauncy several times, as that of mayors and assistants, at Hertford, between 1672 and 1689.
J. H. L.
Winifreda (Vol. iii., p. 108.).—It may perhaps interest Lord Braybrooke and J. H. M. to know, that I have in my possession the copy of Dodsley's Minor Poems, which belonged to John Gilbert Cooper, and which was bought at the sale of his grandson, the late Colonel John Gilbert-Cooper-Gardiner. The song of "Winifreda" is at page 282. of the 4th volume; and a manuscript note, in the handwriting of the son of the author of Letters concerning Taste, states it to have been written "by John Gilbert Cooper." The praise bestowed by Cooper on the poem, and which J. H. M. conceives to militate against his claim to the composition, is obviously intended to apply to the original, and not to Cooper's elegant translation.
A.
Newark.
Queries on Costume (Vol. iii., p. 88.).—Addison's paper in the Spectator, No. 127., seems to be
conclusive that hooped petticoats were not in use so early as the year 1651. The anecdote in connection with the subject related in Wilson's Life of De Foe, has always appeared to me very questionable, not only on that consideration, but because Charles was at the time a fine tall young man of more than twenty-one years of age, and at the only period that he could have been in the neighbourhood referred to, he was on horseback and attended by at least two persons, who were also mounted. Neither can the circumstances related be at all reconciled with the particulars given by Clarendon and subsequent writers, who have professed to correct the statements of that historian by authority.
J. D. S.
Antiquitas Sæculi Juventus Mundi (Vol. ii., p. 218.; Vol. iii., p. 125.).—Permit me again to express my opinion, with due deference to the eminent authorities cited in your pages, that the comprehensive words of Lord Bacon, "Antiquitas sæculi juventus mundi," were not borrowed from any author, ancient or modern. But it would be a compliment which that great genius would have been the first to ridicule, were we to affirm that no anterior writer had adopted analogous language in expressing the benefits of "the philosophy of time." On the contrary, he would have called our attention to the expressions of the Egyptian priest addressed to Solon, (see a few pages beyond the one referred to in his Advancement of Learning):
"Ye Grecians are ever children, ye have no knowledge of antiquity nor antiquity of knowledge."