good reason to doubt that the wife was Elizabeth Wrottesley and that the fatherin-law was Walter Wrottesley, as given in the Visitations. R. STEWART-BROWN.

THE STEAM PACKET (12 S. x. 207).-In your issue of March 18 there is an interesting reference to the Steam Packet Inn, in Lower Thames Street, by MR. ALECK ABRAHAMS. It is a curious coincidence that shortly after 4 p.m. on March 17, whilst probably your issue was actually being printed, the upper part of the inn collapsed and the barman was buried in the ruins, being afterwards rescued alive. I have photographs of the scene of the disaster, and should your correspondent care to see them I shall be glad to show them to him.

C. J. Fox

(Lieut.-Colonel), Chief Officer, London Salvage Corps. ['N. & Q' goes to press on Wednesday afternoon. The number with the account of the Steam Packet was on its way to its various destinations when the disaster occurred.]

EDWARD STEPHENSON (12 S. x. 230). A biographical notice of Edward Stephenson, An Unrecorded Governor of Fort William,' who held office for a little over a day, will be found in The Journal of the Asiatic Society of Bengal, vol. lxvii. Pt. I., 1898. For details of Stephenson's services under the E.I. Co. in Bengal (1711-1728) and the share he took in the embassy to the Emperor Farrukhsiyar in 1715-1717, see C. R. Wilson's Early Annals of Bengal,' vol. ii., Pt. I., and vol. iii.

L. M. ANSTEY.

The word is probably derived from souhaiter, and was presumably learned in billets.

F. J. M. STRATTON.

Notes on Books.

Johnsonian Gleanings. Part III.: The Doctor's Boyhood. By Aleyn Lyell Reade. (Privately printed for the Author at The Arden Press, Stamford Street, London.)

in pursuit of the item of evidence required to comTHE zeal of the antiquarian and the genealogist plete a case is similar to that of the sportsman who pursues a fox. Both are equally prodigal of time and indifferent to fatigue, and to the unsympathetic onlooker both are equally mysterious. Mr. A. L. Reade displayed that enthusiasm for In his first book, The Reades of Blackwood Hill,' research which descries the possibility of sensa

tional discovery in the registers of a remote parish or the lumber of an obscure attorney's office, and his enthusiasm certainly adds charm to work intrinsically valuable. In any case, we might be glad to follow him in his investigations, but it is because they are a labour of love that we are able to do so with such unflagging interest. He told us of his first book that he "spared neither expense nor labour to perfect the work," and during the 16 years that have elapsed since its

completion he does not seem to have slackened in to Johnsonian students, and their debt to him is diligence. His name is already very well known sensibly increased by the appearance of vol. iii. of his Johnsonian Gleanings. Vol. ii. was entirely devoted to a study of Francis Barber, Dr. Johnson's negro servant, and his relations formation regarding Dr. Johnson and his environment in the form of notes. In his present work Mr. Reade has drawn from these and from his first and larger book, he has added fresh has arranged the whole with infinite care, and produced a chronicle of which the great importance is unquestionable.

with his master. Vol i. contained a mass of in

material as the result of subsequent research, he

Ninety years ago, Lord Macaulay lamented the years of Samuel Johnson, but it seems that it is dearth of information with regard to the early

not too late for the deficiency to be made good, and possibly Mr. Reade does not himself deplore

the negligence which has left so much unbroken

the qualifications for his task. ground to await his excavations. He possesses No doubt as he is a born genealogist he is not exempt from the temptation to diverge widely from his chosen subject presented by the marriages of aunts and

uncles (only those who share his tastes realize that every alliance suggests alluring possibilities of new discovery). But if the temptation assailed which is not to be found in the various editions him he resisted it. His book tells us a great deal of the great biography about the early years of Samuel Johnson, about his parents, and about life in Lichfield two centuries ago, and it contains very little, even in the copious footnotes, that is irrelevant. We commend it to the general reader for its easy style and skilful arrangement of new and curious information. To the stud it will appeal even more strongly, first as 1

veritable storehouse of Johnsonian lore, and then because it conforms to the best standards of exhaustive and scholarly research.

Journal of the Travels of Father Samuel Fritz. Translated from the Evora MS. and edited by the Rev. Dr. George Edmundson. (The Hakluyt Society.)

ON a July day of the year 1692 there entered the city of Lima a tall, spare, ruddy man, with a curly beard. He wore a short cassock of palm fibre reaching to the middle of his leg, and hempen shoes; in his hand he carried a cross. The people of Lima flocked to gaze upon him with astonishment, thinking they saw St. Pachomius come from the Thebaid to visit them, so venerable was his aspect. This remarkable person was Father Samuel Fritz, a member of the Company of Jesus, who, at that date, had spent some six years on the Amazon, principally in going up and down among the islands in the upper reaches of the river between the mouths of the Napo and the Putumayo, teaching the Christian religion to Omaguas, Jurimaguas and other Indian tribes; but having been also constrained by a grievous sickness to make his way down to the Portuguese city of Parà at the river's mouth and journey back again. The courage and endurance of Father Samuel, his force of character, which caused the Indians to believe him to be divine, his endless compassion towards his people in their numerous afflictions, and his statesmanlike grasp of the conditions of the country make him a truly apostolic figure; but he was even more than one of the best of missionaries. He had the eye and hand of a master craftsman, a markedly scientific turn of mind, and such alertness of intellect that in the midst of hard toil and bodily suffering he could make careful observations of the then little-known and scarcely surveyed country which he traversed. His most important work is his map founded upon the observations, reckonings and inquiries of his journey down the Amazon and up again; but his Journals contain a great number of interesting particulars of the superstitions and customs of the Indians, of the treatment of the Indians by the Portuguese, and of the methods and progress of trading and other intercourse both between different tribes and between the tribes and white men. The Indians of the Amazon, as he depicts them, are simple and ingenious people having considerable ability in handicrafts, and easily amenable to suggestion. Portuguese exploitation of them makes one of the most shameful of the tales of old oppressions. Forbidden directly to make the Indians slaves, the settlers compelled them to go to war with one another, then ransomed the captives from the victor.

Father Samuel's map had been published in a reduced form in 1707. His Journal had long been lost, and its discovery in 1903 is due to the persistence and acumen of Dr. Edmundson. He found it in a codex in the Biblioteca Publica at Evora a document entitled Mission de los Omaguas, Jurimaguas, &c.' This turned out to be a history of the life and labours of Samuel Fritz, incorporating long passages from Fritz's Journals and, in particular, the Journal of the descent of the Amazon. The writer never reveals his name; but there can be no doubt that he be

longed to the Company of Jesus. He writes with intimate knowledge of the Mission affairs, and with great insight and admiration and considerable charm of the character of Samuel Fritz.

Fritz was by birth a Bohemian. As a youth his brilliance in study aroused the greatest hopes of him. At the age of 32-having been a Jesuit for some thirteen years he was sent to Quito, and thence after a short time, alone, to preach the Gospel in a vast tract of country which no missionary had yet entered. He died in the spring of 1724, within a few weeks of completing his 70th year, still labouring as a missionary though he had seen the greater part of his work destroyed by the Portuguese in their attempts to establish themselves on the Upper Amazon.

Dr. Edmundson summarizes and explains the contents of the MS. in his Introduction and supplies a good deal of illustrative matter in the appendixes. We are given an excellent reproduction of the map as published in 1707. The translation runs easily, and apart from its value to the historian and the geographer this volume, both from its manner and its matter, should attract also those who read chiefly for imaginative pleasure.

The Oxford University Press, 1468-1921. (Oxford, Clarendon Press. 58. net.) THIS beautifully printed and illustrated book should certainly find a place on the shelves of a lover of Oxford. There is a strong touch of réclame about it: but, for once, this admission need not be derogatory, for both in its history and in its services the Oxford Press possesses the right to speak well of itself. The first book printed at Oxford bears the date MCCCCLXVIII., but this is agreed to be an error, and it is supposed that an "x has dropped out from the true figure, which should be 1478. The book is a commentary on the Apostles' Creed attributed to St. Jerome. For sixty years or so in the sixteenth century the history of the Oxford Press is blank. Then Leicester revived it; followed in time by Laud, Fell, and Clarendon. It is needless to remind lovers of books of the beauty and interest of the Fell types, of which specimens are given here. There are also excellent reproductions of early title pages, wood-cuts, oriental types, headpieces and initials, and imprints with, to conclude, a very curious cut of a supposed OXford" with Osney in the distance, taken from Hearne's edition of Roper's Life of More (1716). The historical sketch is followed by sections-full of good detail-on the Press as it is to-day, both in England and abroad, and ou Oxford books.

CORRIGENDA.

'AN EARLY ROYAL CHARTER' :-At ante, p. 242, col. 1, line 19, for "castum" read castrum; ibid.. last line, for "suggestion" read conjecture; p. 243. last line but two of the article, for "Somerset read Wilts. On pp. 242-3, omit Testa de Nevil. Precise reference mislaid.

At ante, p. 228, col. 1, last line, for "1864" rea: 1684; col. 2, line 3, for "Byland's" read Ryland”. ibid., line 27, for "Holbeache" read Holbeech.

Secretary Thurlo's chamber, tho' then very late; where, with the greatest concern of mind, he told him what a wrong step he had made, in his discourse with Richmond, and how much he feared the person he employed as his spy about the King (naming him at the same time) might run the hazard of being discovered through so unlucky a piece of inadvertence. When Cromwell first came in, he had both enquired and was told by Thurlo, there was nobody but them two in the room. But while Cromwell was walking up and down in the chamber, in the restlessness of mind this affair had put him in, he espies one of Thurlo's clerks sitting in a sleeping posture at a writing desk in a little closet off the end of the room; who, indeed, Thurlo had forgot was there. Cromwell, fearing this young man might have heard what had passed betwixt him and Thurlo and thereby have come to know the name of his spy in Brussels, instantly pulls out a dagger (which he wore, for the most part, under his doublet) with a design to kill him dead on the spot, had not Thurlo, with great importunity, dissuaded him from it, by assuring him it was next to an impossibility that the young man could hear what he had spoke, by reason of the lowness of his voice and, withall, that having sat up late some four days before, all of them together, without rest, it was to be supposed he was then fast asleep all the time of their discourse. Thus did that person escape and lives in England to this day, who confesses he heard all that passed betwixt Cromwell and Thurlo at that time, but used that artifice to deceive so jealous a master and save his own life.

Sir Samuel Morland died in London in 1695, so that it is fairly evident that Welwood was very much better informed than Eachard, who was a country clergyman and did not publish the volume in question of his history until 1718. J. G. M.

GLOUCESTER JOURNAL,' 1722-1922.

(See 12 S. x. 261.)

designation. At a proper time of life he was initiated into the employment of his father, which was not limited to the business of a journalist, but extended itself to other branches of typography: and, though I will not compliment my hero by comparing his literary attainments with those of a Bowyer or a Franklin, yet I can venture to pronounce, that he entered on his line of business with acquirements superior to the nature of his employment; which, however, has always been considered, when conducted by men of science and education, as very respectable; and in which he is not less remarkable for his accuracy, than he is for his fidelity and integrity in every part of his conduct.

In August, 1758, the offices had been removed to Southgate Street, where the paper was published until 1802. In 1762 (April 12) the publishing day was changed from Tuesday to Monday, which was continued for over sixty years. By 1763 the typemeasure had been increased to 15 by 10, and on April 4 the page was divided into four columns instead of three, a change announced by the editor in verse, which begins :

It is agreed-the question's o'er,

From columns three, I'm changed to four.
At this time the revenue derived from the

advertisements and sale of quack medicines must have been considerable, and supplements were issued entitled

CATALOGUE of MEDICINES SOLD, Wholesale and

Retail, At the Printing-Office in Glocester, with authentic Certificates of the great Cures by them performed.

ments.

The first exact knowledge we have of the earlier days of Robert Raikes the younger is the entry in the school register of the King's School (the Cathedral School), Gloucester, where he is described under the year 1750, old style (i.e., 1751) as

Robertus Raikes Annorum 141 Feb: 16. Dom: Roberti Raikes de Civitate Glouc: ffilius. Dr. Glasse (Gentleman's Magazine, 1788, Iviii., Pt. 1., p. 12) says that

The education which this excellent man received was Illa val and well adapted to his future

reports of performances at Covent Garden and Drury Lane theatres. Important debates in Parliament on such matters as the Thirtynine Articles (two issues were devoted to this), extracts from political pamphlets, articles on "The means of procuring Plenty of Provisions"-in which it is interesting to see that small holdings were advocated and other subjects of public moment were discussed.

The editorship of Robert Raikes is distinguished by his efforts to introduce better conditions in the life of those less fortunately placed. In 1761 he supported an appeal made for marriage portions for girls of good character, in 1768 he took up the cause of the prisoners in Gloucester