Knights Hospitallers.—Where may a correct list be found of the names of the several persons who held the appointment of Master of the Knights Hospitallers in England, from the period of their first coming until the dissolution of their houses?
S. P. O. R.
[See Dugdale's Monasticon Anglicanum, new edition, vol. vi. pp. 796-798.]
Replies.
MESMERISM.
(Vol. iii., p. 220.)
I am much obliged to your correspondent A. L. R. for his kind notice of my pamphlet on Mesmerism, and equally so to yourself for inserting it; because it gives me an opportunity of explaining to him, and others to whom I am personally unknown, and who are therefore not aware of my circumstances and movements, why the work was not continued without delay. In doing this I will try to avoid trespassing on your goodness by one word of needless egotism. In my Preface I described my materials as a "number of fragments belonging to various ages and places," as "scattered facts and hints" which I had met with in books which were not suspected of containing such matter; and some of them books not likely to fall into the hands of anybody but a librarian, or at least a person having access to a public library. It may be easily understood that rough materials thus gathered were not fit for
publication; and that, without the books from which they had been "noted" and "queried," they could not be made so: and if I had anticipated the course of events (notwithstanding an inducement which I will mention presently), I should not have thought of publishing a Part I. But when I sent it to the press, I had no idea that I should ever return here, or be at an inconvenient distance from the libraries which were then within my reach, and open to my use. As it was, I regretted that I had done so, and felt obliged to hurry the pamphlet through the press, that I might pack up these papers, and many other things more likely to be hurt by carriage, for a residence an hundred miles off; and here they are in statu quo. I have not attempted to do any thing with them, not only because I have been very much occupied in other ways, but because I do not know that I could fit them for publication without referring to some books to which I have not access. At the same time I feel bound to add, that while I still think that some of the things to which I refer might be worth printing, yet I do not consider them so important as the matter which formed the subject of the Part already published. I did think (and that was the inducement to which I have already referred) that it was high time to call the attention of disinterested and reflecting persons to the facts alleged by mesmerists, and to the names by which they are attested. I have the satisfaction of knowing that I have in some degree succeeded in this design. I may perhaps some day find a channel for publishing the fragments alluded to; but in the mean time, I shall be very glad if I can supply anything which your correspondent may think wanting, or explain anything unintelligible in what is published, if he will let me hear from him either with or without his name. I am sorry to ask for so much space, knowing how little you have to spare; but I cannot resist the temptation to offer an explanation, which will be so widely circulated, and among such readers as I know this will be, if you can find room for it.
J. R. Maitland.