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formation passed through our pages, which is now conveyed in its own more direct and exclusive line. Nor is this a point to be viewed, without feelings of satisfaction: as all useful learning, like a well-constituted state, will flourish most amidst the prosperity of all around it. We have an ample supply of direct information in our own pages; and, like our rivals, we profit indirectly from the general progress of knowledge; nor do we fear lest the sources of our investigations should fail, while we possess the zealous cooperation of our present contributors, and the patronage of many new and enlightened correspondents and friends.

E PLURIBUS UNUM,

GENTLEMAN'S MAGAZINE.

JANUARY, 1842.

BY SYLVANUS URBAN, GENT.

CONTENTS.

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MINOR CORRESPONDENCE.

One of our correspondents wishes to be informed, from what writer the French extract on the Treaty of Westphalia in Gent. Mag. 1821, April, p. 319, is taken? Or, if that cannot be pointed out, can the information contained in that passage be supplied from any other writer?

The Rev. IRVIN ELLER, author of the History of Belvoir Castle, informs us that the portrait of Chaucer in that mansion, which he still judges to be of considerable antiquity, is not painted in oil (as inadvertently stated in our Oct. number, p. 870, note) but in crayons. Since our note was written, we have seen a fac-simile from the original in the British Museum, in Mr. Shaw's "Dresses and Decorations of the Middle Ages."

C. W. asks for information respecting the descendants of Odardus de Logis, who was baron of Wigton, in Cumberland, in the time of Henry I., and who, according to Camden, founded the Church there.

O. O. asks whose son was Robert Chaworth; whose daughter married Sir Nicholas Wilford, (Maitland writes it Wyfforde) Lord Mayor of London in 1450; and also the names of the father and mother, grandfather and grandmother of the said Robert Chaworth? He has examined Thoroton's Pedigree of Chaworth, under Annesley, but can find nothing relating to him, nor yet from the Pedigrees in the College of Arms.

M. A. L. will feel obliged to any reader of the Gentleman's Magazine for notices respecting Anthony St. Leger, Esq. of Slindon, co. Sussex, of whose will, dated 6 Oct. 1539, and proved at Chichester, the following is an abstract. Anthony Sentleger, Esquyer. My body to be buried in the church of Slyndon 'before the pict of o'r Lady.' I bequeath' to the church of Slyndon a basin and ewer of pewter. To the mother church of Pagham, xxd. To the cathedral church of Chichester, xx, and they to haue for my soll a solempne masse ther. I will haue xxti prists to say masses, dirige, at the day of my buriall, and eu'y of them to have viii. To the repairs of Houghton brige, x. To Antony Sentleger, my leases and lands in Slyndon, and xxli, and fyfty shelings in money to by hym a black gowne and cote, and xls in mony to by his wif a gowne of black.'"

Among the witnesses is Sir Anthony Seyntleger, Knyght (of the Garter, Lord Deputy of Ireland, temp. Hen. VIII., and an active agent in the dissolution of the monasteries.) M. A. L. is not aware of any previous settlement of the family in Sussex, and, as the testator ap

pears to have died sine prole (unless indeed the Anthony S. named in the will was his son), it is probable that the connection of the family with the county ceased on the death of this individual, who, doubtless, belonged to the house of the Viscounts Doneraile. Cartwright makes no mention of him.

SUSSEXIENSIS begs leave respectfully to suggest to the Registrary of the University of Cambridge the propriety of publishing a new edition of the Graduati Cantabrigienses. The last edition of this very useful book of reference was published with great care and ability, in 1823, by the late amiable and highly esteemed Registrary, Wm. Husler, Esq. M. A., Fellow of Jesus Coll. ; and when it is considered how large a number of Degrees has been annually conferred since that time, the necessity of such a republication will be at once apparent. The edition of 1823 begins from the year 1659, but in any future edition it would be highly desirable, for the purposes of biographical inquiries, that the work should be carried much higher, in fact, as far as any written records remain in the Archives of the University, of Degrees having been conferred.

CYDWELI says, as J. R. enquires for any account of the family of Robertson, of Strowan, in Perthshire, I would refer him to Mr. Napier's "Life and Times of Montrose," where some scattered notices may be found. It is there mentioned (p.` 267), that "the very day after he declared himself (in the Highlands) he was joined by eight hundred men of Athol, including the gallant Robertsons, commanded by the tutor of Strowan, the brother-in-law of young Inchbrakie," Patrick Graham, Montrose's cousin. At p. 401 occurs a letter to this person, where we are informed in a note, that he was Donald Robertson, and "one of Montrose's most faithful and efficient colonels throughout these wars. "" Mr. N. adds, that the commissions to him are yet extant. At p. 298 Mr. N. specifies some information he has. received, concerning the battle of Inverlochy, from James Robertson, Esq., lineal descendant of the tutor of Strowan, who led the Atholmen upon that occasion."

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The reply of CYDWELI to J. R. is again unavoidably postponed.

The communication of MISERRIMUS is very acceptable to the party to whom it was addressed, and he is requested to continue his assistance.

Dec. p. 562, line 1 of col. 2, for East Retford, read East Hendred,

THE

GENTLEMAN'S

MAGAZINE.

WORDSWORTH. POEMS OF THE FANCY. POEMS OF THE IMAGINATION.

FEW readers of English poetry can be ignorant of the distinction which the poet, whose name we have placed at the head of this article, endeavours to establish between the Fancy and the Imagination-as faculties or powers of the human mind: and some have perhaps exercised their critical perspicacity in attempting to ascertain with what consistent accuracy the poet, in the composition of the poems, arranged under the heads respectively of these two supposed faculties, may have observed his own distinction.

For our own parts, we must candidly confess, however the confession may derogate from our pretensions to a nice perception and lively sensibility, that if we had not chanced to entertain some long-cherished preconceptions of our own upon the classification of poetical imagery, we should have been so satisfied with the beauties so profusely scattered through these poems, and our minds so absorbed in the contemplation of them, that we should have cared little to investigate, whether they were intended by their author to be considered as the progeny of the one faculty or the other.

In the course of our brief dissertation, we shall have occasion to present (to the no small gratification, we doubt not, of many readers of the Gentleman's Magazine,) some few choice specimens of the passages with which we have been more particularly delighted.

That elegant and ingenious writer, Mr. Dugald Stewart,* appears to have been the first who, in modern days, proposed to place the Fancy and the Imagination over separate provinces, and to assign to each a peculiar jurisdiction. The professor, after a lapse of about forty years, was followed by Mr. Taylor,† of Norwich; who, without animadverting upon the refined speculation of Mr. Stewart, expounds to us a discrimination of his own. It is very remarkable-that this latter experiment is cited and commented upon by the POET, while the former, though an earlier and more elaborate effort, is not even referred to, and was, not improbably, either forgotten or unknown. If the POET had taken into his consideration the opinions of the Professor, he would, it may be believed, have found no occasion to start the objection, which he urges in limine against those of Mr. Taylor, viz. that the author's mind "was enthralled by etymology." Objections of this kind are too frequently intended (though they cannot here be suspected of being so) to supersede the trouble of a more careful and minute examination, and also to mark the mind of the individual, against whom they may be advanced, with the character of being too partial and limited in its views to deserve any greater share of attention. For our own parts, however, we should not be discouraged by any fear of a similar imputation from resorting to etymology, and availing ourselves of its assistance, if it would serve our purpose so to do, nor shall we, at

* Elements of the Philosophy of the Human Mind, ch. v.

+ English Synonyms discriminated.

any other time, when we think we can derive from it any advantage to the inquiries upon which we may be engaged.

Reverting to the supposition of Mr. Stewart's originality, it may be observed, in confirmation of it, that Dr. Reid, who is to be considered, though of a different university, to have been the prælector of Scotch moral and metaphysical philosophy, expressly states, that what he denominates the IMAGINATION, was formerly called the FANCY, or PHANTASY : and he suggests no change in the usage. Dr. Akenside introduces his eloquent poem on the Pleasures of Imagination, with an address to "indulgent Fancy," and in the progress of his work the names are interchanged, as it suited the taste or convenience of the author. Addison had before him, in his admirable essays under the same title, used the two names indiscriminately.

It is not at all necessary for our instant purposes to enter into a discourse on the doctrines maintained by sects of antient Greek philosophers with respect to Funcy, or Fantasy. The word (Davraσia) was, together with the philosophy of Greece, transferred to Rome by Cicero; but he renders it into Latin, not by Imaginatio, so long recognised by us as its synonym, but by Visum; and Quintillian by Visio. Imaginatio does not appear to have acquired in its native soil that "philosophical import " which has been bestowed upon its English descendant, but it becomes common in "that golden volume, not unworthy of the leisure of Tully or Plato," the Consolatio of Boethius.* It had probably acquired a current conversational familiarity in the English language long before the translation of this volume had been contemplated by the venerable Father of English Poetry; but we may very plausibly pretend that the pen of Chaucer enrolled it in our vocabulary in all the philosophic dignity with which he found it invested in the original Latin. It must not be omitted

that Alfred, "the most glorious of English Kings," had before translated the writings of the Roman senator and consul into the Anglo-Saxon of his own time.

It will be interesting, and may be instructive to our more curious readers, if we give them an opportunity of learning in what philosophic acceptation this same word, now so variously interpreted,† was thus introduced to the acquaintance of the English scholar.

Boethius was an Eclectic, and endeavoured to combine the philosophy of Plato with that of Aristotle. And, agreeably to the system which it was his ambition to construct, he severally explains the four termsSensus, ImaginATIO, Ratio, and Intellectus. (Lib. v. Pr. 4.)

SENSUS enim figuram in subjecta materia constitutam; IMAGINATIO vero solam sine materia judicat figuram: "For the WIT§ (Sensus) comprehendeth without the figure (of the body of man) that is unstablished ||

*Gibbon.

Johnson has (suo more) eight interpretations of the noun Fancy, and four of Imagination and (suo more) he says, Fancy, 1. Imagination; and Imagination, 1. Fancy. Webster has nine of Fancy, and five of Imagination. His first of the

:

verb" to imagine," is, to form a notion or idea in the mind; to fancy. We can imagine, he adds, the figure of a horse's head united to a human body. In this sense, fancy is the more proper word. And in the New English Dictionary, it is said that to the FANCY, as distinguished from IMAGINATION, may be ascribed the province of personifying, and of investing the personification with the qualities of real beings, supplied by memory or imagination.

Brucker, v. iii. p. 525.

§ And so the old expression, "Bless your Five Wits," i. e. Senses.

The original is constitutam, which requires us to explain unstablished, to mean

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