"Rev. J. Sidden. I have put the work into the hands of a Protestant clergyman, who agrees with it; and it agrees with Archbishop Bramhall. I have often tried to discover who was the author.
"Rev. M. H. Seymour. It was written perhaps by a Roman Catholic Priest.
"Rev. J. Sidden. I think not, because the Hon. and Rev. Arthur Perceval, rector of East Horsley, borrowed the book of me, and he wrote to me, that he so much approved of it, that he meant to procure a copy of it. I do not know who wrote it."—Proceedings at a Meeting of the Guildford Protestant Association, 1838, p. 20.
Now, without discussing the theological points at issue between the two parties, it is desirable that the authorship of this work, as a literary production, should be finally settled, which I am inclined to think will be the case when it is brought before the numerous readers of "N. & Q." On its first appearance it was attacked by three Nonjuring clergymen, viz. Grascome, Stephens, and Spinckes. Grascome, it appears, knew the author; but his work, Concordia Discors, I have not been able to procure. (See Life of Kettlewell, p. 328.) It is not to be found in the catalogues of the Bodleian, British Museum, or Sion College. The replies by Edward Stephens and Nathanael Spinckes are both in the Bodleian. The first edition of the original Essay, 1704, is in the British Museum, and on the title-page is written in pencil, "By Thomas Dean, a papist," and underneath, in ink, "By Nathanael Spinckes, not a Roman Catholic." The latter entry is clearly a mistake.
After some investigation, it appears to me that the authorship rests between Thomas Dean and Joshua Bassett. It is attributed to the former by Dodd (alias Tootle) in his Certamen utriusqe Ecclesiæ; but Wood, who has given some account of Dean in his Athenæ Oxon., vol. iv. p. 450. (Bliss), does not include this Essay among his other works. In the Bodleian Catalogue its authorship is attributed to Joshua Bassett, Master of Sidney College, Cambridge, of whom our biographical dictionaries are perfectly silent. Fortunately, Cole has preserved some notices of him in his MSS., vol. xx. p. 117. It appears that he was a Roman Catholic, and had mass publicly said in his college; but upon King James revoking the mandamuses in 1688, he left Cambridge and settled in London, where, says Cole, "he lived to be a very old man, and died in no very affluent circumstances, as we may well imagine." Cole notices a work by Bassett published anonymously, viz. Reason and Authority; or the Motives of a late Protestant's Reconciliation to the Catholic Church. London: 1687, 4to. With this clue, probably, some of your readers can finally settle the question.
J. Y.
Hoxton.
NEW ARRANGEMENT OF THE OLD TESTAMENT.
I am engaged in preparing the Old Testament on the same plan, but with some alterations and additions, as the Chronological New Testament described in Vol. iv., p. 357.
I write to ask if any of your correspondents can aid me in my undertaking in the following points: