conceitedness with which she touches both upon his and her own character. No sympathy with the unmitigated devotedness of attachment with which it teems can avert our amusement at the overweening flattery which sometimes compares him to Julius Cæsar; and certes, right merrily did the worthy couple bandy the ball of flattery from one to the other. Pepys has given us the following droll account of his impressions on reading the work:

"18th of March 1668. Thence home and there in favour to my eyes staid at home, reading the ridiculous History of my Lord Newcastle, wrote by his wife, which shows her to be a mad, conceited, ridiculous woman, and he an asse to suffer her to write what she writes to him and of him."

But that our readers may judge of the sterling merit that exists in the work in spite of its eccentric absurdities, we quote the opinion of one whose refined taste and graphic criticism will never cease to claim our respectful and affectionate attention. Charles Lamb, in his 'Essays of Elia,' when speaking of the binding of a book, observes,—

"But where a book is at once both good and rare, where the individual is almost the species, and when that perishes,

We know not where is that Promethean torch,
That can its light relumine.

Such a book, for instance, as the Life of the Duke of Newcastle, by his Duchess, no casket is rich enough, no casing sufficiently durable, to honour and keep safe such a jewel.”

The romantic character of the Duke, his loyalty and well-tested bravery in the perilous times through which he had passed, his skill as a commander, and his attachment to literature, were well calculated to make him the subject of earnest and glowing laudation from his affectionate Duchess. We think Walpole perfectly just in the following comment on his character. He calls him

"A man extremely known from the course of life into which he was forced and who would soon have been forgotten in the walk of fame which he chose for himself. Yet as an author he is familiar to those who scarce know any other author-from his book of horsemanship. Though amorous in poetry and musick,' as my Lord Clarendon says, he was fitter to break Pegasus for a manage, than to mount him on the steeps of Parnassus. Of all the riders of that steed, perhaps there have not been a more fantastic couple than his grace or his faithful Duchess, who was never off her pillion."

He published a great number of comedies, one of which was the 'Humorous Lovers,' which Walpole asserts "was received with great applause, and esteemed one of the best plays of that time.' Pepys, however, seemed to think differently, but erroneously ascribed

it, as already shown in the extract we have given from his Diary, to the pen of the Duchess.

His 'Triumphant Widow' was so much admired by the Laureate Thadwell that he transcribed part of it into his 'Busy Fair,' one of his most successful plays. His matter was evidently suggestive, as it has supplied materials to other copyists, Langbaine among others, acknowledging his obligations to his works. He wrote many scenes for the plays which bear the Duchess's name, and divers of his poems are scattered amongst her works.

The literary labours of such an industrious life as that of the Duchess, especially when her sex is considered, deserve enumeration. To the following list are added some observations which, we believe, have never before appeared in print.

This work was for the most part written at Antwerp, before her ladyship's visit to England. At the end of a copy in the British Museum occur some verses, at the foot of which is written in her own hand,

"This copy of verses belongs to my Philosophical Opinions.'

In another copy is a beautiful full-length portrait by Diepenbeke, of Antwerp, representing the Duchess standing in a niche.

Orations of Divers Sorts, accommodated to divers places. London, 1662. Fol.
Playes. London, 1662. Folio.

Philosophical Fancies. London, 1653. 12mo.
Philosophical and Physical Opinions. London, 1655.

Folio.

To this volume was prefixed by the Duke a copy of verses and an epistle to justify the noble authoress. These were followed up by her grace with an address to the reader, another to the two universities, an epilogue to her 'Philosophical Opinions,' an epistle to her honourable readers, another to the reader for her book of philosophy, &c. These show her grace's solicitude, as Walpole says, to have the book considered as the produce of her own brain, "being the beloved of all her works and preferring it as her masterpiece."

Another edition, bearing the title, 'Grounds of Natural Philosophy,' with an Appendix, much altered from the first edition. London, 1663. Folio. Observations upon Experimental Philosophy; to which is added the Description of a New World. London, [1666] 1668. Folio.

We have already alluded to the attempted translation of these philosophical discourses into Latin by Mr. Bristow,

Philosophical Letters; or Modest Reflections upon some Opinions in Natural Philosophy, maintained by several famous and learned authors of this age, expressed by way of Letters. London, 1664.

Poems and Phancies. London, 1653. Folio.

Folio.

The copy in the British Museum has MS. Notes in the Duchess's hand. At the end of some prefatory verses is the

following:

k

'Reader, let me intreat you to consider only the fancyes in this my book of poems, and not the languagh, numbers, nor rimes, nor fals printing, for if you doe, you will be my condeming judg, which will grive me much."

Another edition. London, 1664. Folio.

CCXI Sociable Letters. London, 1664. Folio.

Observations upon Experimental Philosophy. London, 1666. Folio.
The Life of William Cavendish, Duke, Marquess, and Earl of Newcastle.
London, 1667.

Another edition.

Folio.
London, 1675. 4to.

Translated into Latin. London, 1668.

Folio.

The copy in the British Museum has MS. Notes in the Duchess's hand.

Plays never before printed. London, 1668. Folio.

Her plays alone are nineteen in number, and some of them in two parts. One of them, "The Blazing World,' is unfinished. In another, "The Unnatural Tragedy,' a whole scene is written against Camden's 'Britannia.' Walpole suggests that Her Grace thought a geographic satire in the middle of a play was mixing the utile with the dulce. Three unpublished MS. plays are reported by Cibber to have been in the possession of Mr. Thomas Richardson and Bishop Willis.

Last in the list of her productions, as containing the work with which we have at present most to do, is that entitled

'Nature's Picture, drawn by Fancy's Pencil' to the Life. London, 1656. Folio.

"In this volume (says the title) are several feigned stories of natural descriptions, as comical, tragical, and tragi-comical, poetical, romancical, philosophical, and historical, both in prose and verse, some all verse, some all prose, some mixt, partly prose and partly verse. Also, there are some morals and some dialogues, but they are as the advantage loaf of bread to the baker's dozen, and a true story at the latter end, wherein there is no feigning.

Upon this work Walpole remarks: "One may guess how like this portrait of nature is by the fantastic bill of the features." In the copy of this work in the Grenville library is the extremely rare and exquisite print by Diepenbeke of Antwerp, done while the noble pair were resident in that city, representing the Duke and

Duchess sitting at a table with some children (not her own, as described by Dr. Lort, for she had none), to whom the Duchess is telling stories. A proof of this print sold at Sir M. Sykes's sale for £64. 1s. This copy, as well as another in the British Museum, contains MS. Notes in the Duchess's own hand, pointing out the songs and passages written by the Duke, who was then Marquis of Newcastle. It is to this work that the memoir now under notice is attached, and even Lord Orford acknowledges it to be creditable to her in every point of view.

This memoir was reprinted separately in 1814 by Sir Egerton Brydges at the private press of Lee Priory, the impression being limited to one hundred copies, Sir Egerton, in his critical preface, remarking that these memoirs appear to him very eminently to possess the double merit of entertaining and instructing.

ઃ

Whether," says he, "they confirm or refute the character of the literary and moral qualities of her grace given by Lord Orford, I must leave the reader to judge. The simplicity by which they are marked will, in minds constituted like that of the noble critic, seem to approximate to folly; others, less inclined to sarcasm, and less infected with an artificial taste, will probably think far otherwise.

"That the Duchess was deficient in a cultivated judgment, that her knowledge was more multifarious than exact, and that her powers of fancy and sentiment were more active than her powers of reasoning, I will admit; but that her productions, mingled as they are with great absurdity, are wanting either in talent or in virtue, or even in genius, I cannot concede. There is an ardent ambition which may, perhaps, itself be considered to prove superiority of intellect."

As regards the vanity which may be considered as the most striking defect of her autobiography, we would remind the reader of the remark of Hume, that "it is difficult for a man (and we presume he did not exclude the other sex from the observation) to speak long of himself without vanity," and the Duchess wishing to defend herself from the accusation, gives us the following exculpation at the close:

:

"C I hope my readers will not think me vain for writing my life, since there have been many that have done the like, as Cæsar, Ovid, and many more, both men and women; and I know no reason I may not do it as well as they but I verily believe some censuring readers will scornfully say, 'Why hath this lady writ her own life? since none cares to know whose daughter she was, or whose wife she is, or how she was bred, or what fortune she had, or how she lived, or what humour or disposition she was of?' I answer that it is true, that 'tis to no purpose to the readers, but it is to the authoress, because I writ it for my own sake, not theirs: neither did I intend this piece for to delight, but to divulge; not to please the fancy, but to tell the truth,

lest after ages should mistake, in not knowing I was daughter to one Master Lucas of St. John's, near Colchester, in Essex, second wife to the Lord Marquis of Newcastle; for my lord having had two wives, I might easily have been mistaken, especially if I should die, and my lord marry again."

It is remarkable that her prognostic was really fulfilled. See 'The Lounger's Common Place Book,' vol. iii, p. 398.

Her death, which preceded that of the Duke by three years, took place in 1673. She was buried in Westminster Abbey, and upon the sumptuous monument which covers the remains of this wellassorted pair is inscribed the following epitaph, containing that remarkable panegyric on her family noticed by Addison in the Spectator.

"Here lyes the Royall Duke of Newcastle and his Dutches, his second wife, by whom he had no issue; her name was Margarett Lucas, youngest sister to the Lord Lucas of Colchester, a noble familie, for all the Brothers were Valiant and all the Sisters Virtuous. This Dutches was a wise, wittie, and learned lady, which her many bookes well testifie. She was a most Virtuous and a Loveing and carefull wife and was with her Lord all the time of his banishment and miseries, and when he came home never parted from him in his solitary retirements."

ART. III. Local Nomenclature.

Glossarium Antiquitatum Britannicarum, sive Syllabus Etymologicus Antiquitatum veteris Britanniæ atque Iberniæ Temporibus Romanorum. Auctore Willielmo Baxter, Cornavio, Scholæ Merciariorum Præfecto. Accedunt Viri Cl. D. Edvardi Luidii Cimeliarchæ Ashmol. Oxon., de Fluviorum, Montium, Urbium, &c., in Britanniá Nominibus, Adversaria posthuma. Editio Secunda. Londini, Impensis T. WOODWARD, &c., MDCCXXXIII. 8vo.

Codex Diplomaticus Evi Saxonici. Edited for the English Historical Society. By J. M. KEMBLE Esq. M. A. &c. &c. Vols. I-VI, 8vo. London, 1839-1848.

NEXT to the curiosity which nearly every one experiences in regard to the origin of his own personal name, that of the appellation of the locality where he resides naturally excites inquiry; and learned clerk and rustic wiseacre alike apply themselves to the task of discovering an etymon for town and village, valley and hill. This is not unfrequently accomplished with little difficulty, since the component parts of many names of places are but slight departures, if departures at all, from common every-day English words. For instance, the names of Hil-ton, Nor-ton, Heath-field,