know of a certainty, that all my other circumstances are strictly true; because I was a spectator of the whole transaction, which passed on that very spot opposite, where you see a stone of the pavement a little raised above the rest.' 'Sir Walter,' says the friend, upon that very stone did I stand during the whole affair, and received this little scratch in my cheek, in wresting the sword out of the fellow's hand and as I shall answer to God, you are totally mistaken.' 'You grow warm, my friend, let us talk of other matters,' said Sir Walter; and, after some other conversation, his friend departed.

"Ralegh took up the manuscript of the second volume of his history, then just completed; 'How many falsehoods are here?' said he. 'If I cannot judge of the truth of an event that passes under my eyes, how shall I truly narrate those which have passed thousands of years before my birth; or even those that have happened since my existence? Truth, I sacrifice to thee!' The fire was already feeding on his invaluable work, the labour of years and he calmly sat till it was utterly consumed, and the sable ghost of the last leaf flitted up the chimney.

"From this anecdote I illustrate an opinion, which I have always held, that there is no such thing as truth of fact, or historical truth known to man." "'*

This anecdote appeared two years afterwards (1787) in the Journal de Paris (derived from Heron's work), and from this source was copied by the Rev. S. Baring-Gould in Curious Myths of the Middle Ages (1st S., 1868, 114-116.) The relation is circumstantially the same as Heron's, but much modified in phraseology. It forms the main incident upon which Mr. F. Jacox founded his excellent paper, entitled "At the Tower Window with Sir Walter Raleigh," that appeared in Bentley's Miscellany (LIV., 1863, 240-247), and by whom it is termed "the familiar but always instructive story;" but he obtained it from a lecture by M. Guizot, delivered in 1812, and the latter most likely from the Journal de Paris of 1787.†

Nearly the whole of this letter was printed in N. & Q. 3rd. S. XI. 201–2.) The history of this anecdote exemplifies the manner in which the original record became varied by successive writers. In a Review of one of Lamartine's works in Gent.'s Magazine, XLII. (1854), 419, there is a curious version of the occurrence. Immediately after Sir Walter had witnessed the murder, a friend called to see him, to whom he related what had transpired. "You must be dreaming, Raleigh,' replied the visitor, or want of air and exercise has [sic] turned your brain. I have been sitting in the cutler's booth opposite for the last half hour, and have seen no disturbance of any kind, though from my position nothing that occurred in the street could have escaped me!'" In this and the other accounts noticed only one visitor to Sir Walter is mentioned. A correspondent in N. & Q. (1st S., 1851, III. 105) affirms there were two visitors; while Thomas Carlyle, in his essay On History, augments the number to three. Here is the passage containing it: "The old story of Sir Walter Raleigh's looking from his prison window, on some street tumult, which afterwards three witnesses reported in three different ways, himself

How much these stories are based on truth is a question more easily asked than answered. The two leading ones agree as to the burning of the manuscript; but as to the causes which led to it there is a wide divergence of statement. That the later one of 1785 is simply a variant of the former is fairly evident. It was first narrated by John Pinkerton (under the nom de plume of Robert Heron) in Letters of Literature, and "it had been well for Mr. Pinkerton's reputation had they never been published at all," was the exclamation of Dawson Turner, the editor of his literary correspondence.* The Rev. S. Baring-Gould enquires, "Whence did Pinkerton obtain the anecdote?" To this I reply that it was not known prior to the date of his work; and that for the purpose of illustrating his opinion of there being "no such thing as truth of fact, or historical truth known to man," he drew upon his own imagination for a possible account of the leading occurrence, and added to it Winstanley's relation of the destruction of the manuscript by Ralegh.

Let us now consider the anecdote as related by Winstanley. On examination it will be found to contain the elements of its own condemnation.

some

a. The time of the occurrence is reported by him as few days before he [Ralegh] suffered," when the bookseller, W. Burre, informed him the work had sold "so slowly, that it had undone him." The incorrectness of this is easily demonstrated at the date of Sir Walter's re-committal to the Tower (Aug. 10, 1618), not only had the first edition of the History of 1614 been sold, but a second one had been published in 1617, the sale of which must have been progressing satisfactorily in the year of the author's death, as a third appeared in 1621.+

differing from them all, is still a true lesson for us."-Collected Works, 1869, II. 349-50. Of this Jacox remarks, Every modern writer who alludes to Sir Walter's Tower story utterly differs in details from every other."Op. cit. 247.

*Correspondence of Mr. Pinkerton, 1830, 2 vols. 8vo. The quotation is from Nichols' Illustrations of Literature, VIII. 99. Cowper wrote some satirical lines upon the Letters. The author himself admitted the work" contained many juvenile crude ideas, long since abandoned" by him. And it was termed by the Rev. J. Mitford the "paradoxical, superficial, and incorrect pseudonymous offspring of Mr. Pinkerton's brain."-Gent.'s Mag. 1839, I. 368. The work excited much attention at the time of publication, and was the subject of some angry correspondence in the Gent.'s Magazine of that year.-1785 II. Vide also Nichols' Illustrations, VIII. 91-150.

At the close of the following year (1622), “Mistris Burre," probably the widow of the original publisher, transferred her rights in the work to others, and ultimately it became the property of H. Lownes, G. Latham, and R. Younge, the publishers of the edition of 1628 (vide Registers of Stationers' Company ed. by Arber, IV. (1877) 49, 140, 144.

b. The statement that the MS. burnt by Ralegh contained the "other part of his History . . . which he had brought down to the times he lived in," can scarcely be correct. Sir Walter's own remarks as to other volumes than the first (his words are "which I also intended, and have hewn out") do not convey the idea that he had completed them ready for the press, but rather that he had been making collections for that purpose.*

c. Neither the words nor the action as related by Winstanley are consistent with what we know of Sir Walter's character. To the very last he was desirous that nothing should be said or done to tarnish his fame.†

+

d. Edwards tersely remarks, the story "has neither authority nor corroboration." It is remarkable, however, that this author after putting the pertinent question, "Why did the History of the World remain incomplete?" and condemning Winstanley's anecdote, does not allude to the reply to it given by Ralegh himself (already quoted from the closing lines of the History); viz. the death of Prince Henry.

But little reliance can be placed on any of Winstanley's statements. No clue is given by him as to the source of his information, nor is the anecdote mentioned by any writer previous to the date of his work.§

e. The mass of MS. for a single volume of 1200 pages must have been enormous, and would require a far longer time for burning, "till it was consumed," than the brief period implied in the relation of the story.

*

Oldys declares, "it seems plain enough that our author had only some plan, or perhaps a few rough draughts of some succeeding parts of the History at this time drawn up, and that he was discouraged from making any further progress in them," and that he had no time to complete them (Life in Works (1829) I. 455.)

+ On the scaffold, after he had made his farewell speech, he took his leave of those present, especially "the Lord of Arundel," whom "he thanked... for his company, and entreated him to desire the king that no scandalous writing to defame him might be published after his death." (Remains (1702) 209.) Op. cit. I. 541.

66

Granger (Biog. Hist. of England, V. (1824) 271) states he was "originally a barber," and alludes to him as "a fantastical writer, and one of the lowest class of our biographers." Oldys (not usually found to speak in dispraise of others) mentions him as a trifling and superficial writer, who produces no authority for his assertion." ("Life of Sir Walter Ralegh in Works, 1829, I. 458.) By Edwards he is called the author "of a very worthless book." (Op. cit. I. 541.) In commenting upon E. Phillips, the author of Theatrum Poetarum, Dr. Bliss declares that he "did unmercifully steal matter from T. Blunt's Glossography, . . . so afterwards came a certain scribler named Will. Winstanley who took all the characters of

the English poets mentioned in the said Theat. Poet, and remitted them into his book, entitled The Lives of the Most Famous English Poets." (Ath. Ox. ̧ IV. 1820, 763.

That Winstanley's anecdote is a fiction appears to be the only conclusion to which we can come. Nevertheless, it has been accepted by many authors as an historical fact. Shirley, in 1677,* related it as such; and so does a very recent writer, J. A. Langford. It is relied on as correct by Prince in his Worthies of Devon (ed. of 1810, 673, 674), and also by Wood in Athen. Oxon. (1691, I. 372); but Dr. Bliss, in the last edition of Wood's work, adds, "There seems little or no ground for this commonly-received assertion, that Ralegh burnt the remainder of his labours" (ed. of 1815, II. 241); and this is the opinion held by the recent historians of Ralegh.

13. Conclusion.

It may be remarked that this article, long as it is, might have been considerably extended by including such topics as the influence of the work upon many leading minds (such as, for example, on some of the principal Parliamentarians of that century); its effect upon and its position in English literature, of which, remarks a modern writer, "it constitutes an epoch in its historical department," &c. It is time, however, to bring these remarks to a conclusion, and in doing so I cannot refrain from mentioning that Professor E. Arber, who has done so much-perhaps more than any person living-to bring under the notice of the present generation all that is good and great and worthy of the writings of the seventeenth century, entertains such a high opinion of Ralegh's great folio work, as to express the hope that he may one day be able to reprint it as a monument of English prose."

ON THE OCCURRENCE OF HUMAN REMAINS IN

A BONE CAVE AT CATTEDOWN.

BY R. N. WORTH, F.G.S.

(Read at Plympton, July, 1887.)

A STATEMENT by Colonel Hamilton Smith excepted, the accuracy of which has been questioned without definite cause, there is no record of man or of his handiwork from the bone caves of the Plymouth district. Colonel Hamilton Smith asserted that among bones from the Oreston caves he "detected the upper portion of a humerus of man, which was immediately thrown away upon being pointed out to the possessor!" And he added in a note, "This is not the only instance of the kind. Collectors in the plenitude of ignorance and prepossession determined that human bones. were of no consequence.'

The facts I have to lay before the Association, touching the discovery of the remains of several human beings in a bone cave at Cattedown, are some evidence that this accomplished naturalist was not likely to have been mistaken.

The limestone quarries at Cattedown have been worked for ages. There is documentary proof that lime was supplied from Plymouth throughout a wide district of South Devon more than five centuries ago, and the stone was used as a local building material long before that. So far as Cattedown itself is concerned, a period of exceptional activity set in some ninety years since; and the cliffs were worked back from Cattewater at various points to some distance inland. In spots these operations were then abandoned; in others they have continued to the present day. One of the localities where excavation ceased became the site of Messrs. Hill's shipbuilding yard, recently acquired by Messrs. Burnard, Lack, and Alger for the extension of their Manure Works adjoining. The firm have made great changes on their waterside frontage in Cattewater by the construction of

Nat. Hist. Human Specics (1848), pp. 95-96.