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LETTER 
 
 TO 
 
 THE RIGHT HONOURABLE 
 
 LORD FRANCIS EGERTON, 
 
 PRESIDENT OF THE CAMDEN SOCIETY, 
 
 ON THE PROPRIETY OF 
 
 CONFINING THE EFFORTS OF THAT BODY 
 
 TO THE 
 
 ILLUSTRATION OF A STRICTLY EARLY PERIOD 0¥ 
 HISTORY AND LITERATURE. 
 
 " BY OV^ 
 
 JAMES ORCHARD HALLIWELLf Esq. 
 
 FELLOW OF THE ROYAL SOCIETY; FELLOW OF THE SOCIETY OF 
 
 antiquaries; member of the royal SOCIETY OF literature; 
 
 FELLOW OF THE ROYAL ASTRONOMICAL SOCIETY; HONORARY FlfLLOW 
 OF THE ROYAL SOCIETY OF NORTHERN ANTIQUARIES AT COPENHAGEN ; 
 HONORARY SECRETARY OF THE CAMBRIDGE ANTIQUARIAN SOCIETY; 
 SCHOLAR OF JESUS COLLEGE, CAMBRIDGE, &C. &C. &e. 
 
 '^ Take care to have all in a new fashion or all in an old ; a modern chimney 
 and a lightning conductor on the top of a Roman tower mate the elFect 
 ridiculous." Smith's Essay on Btiildvig^ p. 16. 
 
 LONDON, 
 
 JAMES BOHN, KING WILLIAM STREET. 
 1839. 
 

 BAXTER, PniNTER, OXFORD, 
 
A 
 
 LETTER, 
 
 My Lord, 
 In the original Prospectus of the Camden Society, 
 the alleged object of the prospective Society was 
 stated to be the "publication of early historical 
 and literary remains." Had this promise of the 
 projectors of your Society, — I say, a promise, for 
 what is a proposed object to certain conditions 
 eventually fulfilled by those to whom the condi- 
 tions are proposed but a promise ;— had, I say, this 
 promise of the projectors of your Society been 
 kept, I should never have presumed to trouble your 
 Lordship with remarks from an obscure individual, 
 whose only inducement to offer them is from a 
 consciousness of the utmost good|willj towards the 
 
 A 2 
 
 ryi67243 
 
4 
 
 infant Society, from a desire that it should do its 
 best, and because he wishes to point out what he 
 considers to constitute a great error in its modus 
 operandi ; and, further, because he is convinced of 
 being actuated ])j only the most honest and best of 
 motives. 
 
 I am aware, my Lord, that in thus transgressing 
 the bounds of w^hat is usually considered individual 
 prudence, I do for the time run the risk of creating 
 myself powerful literary enemies among those lead- 
 ing members of the Camden Society who differ 
 from me ; and I, for that reason, and because I 
 should wish no one to bear malice against me upon 
 mere grounds of dissent in opinion, do earnestly 
 protest against the intention of the few following 
 remarks being considered as personal to any of the 
 members of the Camden Council : too happy and 
 honoured do I feel in being able to bear testimony 
 to the undeniable ability of every member of that 
 respectable body. 
 
 But, my Lord, when there evidently appears to 
 
5 
 
 be a desire among a certain portion of the Members 
 of the Society to transgress a conspicuous original 
 law of the Society, and it must be remembered, a 
 law under which all the Subscribers were obtained, 
 and when that law was not repealed at the General 
 Meeting of the Society, it certainly does appear to 
 me, that a Member of the Society has a right to 
 enter his caveat against the legality of such a 
 desire, when we find it supported sufficiently 
 strongly to receive the approbation of the Council. 
 Legality did I say ? — Honesty would have been a 
 far more appropriate term. 
 
 I would not, however, wish to indulge largely in 
 remarks of dissatisfaction, and therefore I pass 
 over, at any rate for the present, several matters 
 of fact, which would be far from pleasing to some 
 of the learned Members of your Society. Of the 
 first publication of the Society, the second, the 
 third, and the fourth, I have nothing now to re- 
 mark ; but I immediately proceed to point to the 
 last volume, Mr. Thoms's Anecdotes and Tradi- 
 
6 
 
 tions, as the book, the publication of which I con- 
 sider violates the very first law of the Camden 
 Society. 
 
 Now, in the first place, I profess my highest 
 esteem for the value of Mr. Thoms's work% and I 
 have done so to the learned Editor himself, whom 
 I have the honour of numbering among my personal 
 friends ; and, in the second place, were there always 
 a certainty of every volume violating that law being 
 as interesting as Mr. Thoms's collection appears to 
 be, no Member of the Society, I imagine, would 
 complain. I ought to add, that my various avoca- 
 tions have not yet allowed me sufficient leisure to 
 conclude my perusal of the whole of Mr. Thoms's 
 work, but I venture an opinion on that which I 
 have attentively read. 
 
 Can an historical book, the greater portion of 
 which belongs to the latter half of the seventeenth 
 
 » Why does Mr. Nichols, in his addition to this book, call 
 almost every anecdote he refers to trifling 9 I don't complain, 
 but why ? 
 
7 
 century, be considered in any way as early ? It 
 may be said that it is by comparison, and assuredly 
 so ; for four o'clock p. m. would be early for a 
 person in the habit of rising at five, and turning 
 night into day ; but in the natural order of things, 
 when we have a thousand years of field for our 
 general subject, can a period which relates to the 
 last century and a half be considered as early ? In 
 point of fact, then, my Lord, the Council of the 
 Camden Society have violated a law originally 
 emanating from themselves ! 
 
 Thus having briefly noticed the inconsistency 
 of sending forth such a volume to its Members, 
 let me be permitted to urge further my original 
 proposition to the Society — the propriety of con- 
 fining its future exertions to a more limited period, 
 and, if I might be permitted to suggest, to more 
 limited subjects. 
 
 Were the resources of the Camden Society suffi- 
 cient to enable them to publish inedited documents 
 indiscriminately, I should be the very last person to 
 
8 
 enter a negative, not only against the publication 
 of the penny histories of the seventeenth century, 
 but against any sort of trash ^ they might chance to 
 have offered to them, provided that they could pro- 
 cure persons ready to transcribe and correct the 
 press for the sake of immortalizing their name^^ 
 on the title-page. But when I consider the original 
 character of the Camden Society, at least as it has 
 always occurred to me from the expressed opinion 
 of many of those Members who were most instru- 
 mental in its formation, I think that we ought not 
 to print any work that would cover its expenses in 
 
 " I cannot help remarking here, that I think a succession of 
 puns and jokes, however splendid and imposing, rather unsuited 
 to a work with a head of the venerable Camden on the title-page 
 as its tutelar saint. Poor Camden ! how melancholy would 
 have been the prospect, could he have foreseen that the un- 
 fortunate name of his valuable book would have afforded a handle 
 for the facetious to make vulgar in the court of Momus his ve- 
 nerated manes ! But no one could have improved it, and its 
 author will be for ever immortalized, notwithstanding the opinion 
 of old Doctor Syntax ! Might not we take the liberty of adding 
 a mem. ? — Take care to pronounce manes as one syllable, or the 
 joke will not take> in spite even of the Italics. 
 
9 
 
 the common way of publication ; it does not show a 
 genuine love for the advancement of historical 
 literature for a man to press a popular work*" upon 
 the Society, which confessedly would have been 
 undertaken by almost any publisher, and when 
 many most valuable historical documents are lost 
 to the public, because in all probability, owing to 
 the necessarily high price of antiquarian works, five 
 or ten copies would be the extent of the circulation. 
 This is the grand ultimate point of the question, — 
 whether the Society, as some Members maintain, 
 would advance its true interests by flattering the 
 popular taste for fun*^? To make the Camden 
 
 • I am sorry to see " Kemp*s Nine Daies Wonder" proposed 
 for publication, when I should have thought that its Editor could 
 have chosen many things so much more suitable to the objects 
 of the Society: it would be desirable to transfer it to the pages 
 of the'* Mirror." 
 
 ^ Several newspaper puffs, inserted by the exertions, as I acci- 
 dentally learned, of an individual Member of the Council, contain 
 expressions of opinion which ought properly only to have ema- 
 nated from the Council as a body. The object of all this is, in 
 case of necessity, to have documents to show against the opinion 
 of the Council, as being documents of public opinion. 
 
10 
 
 Society a strictly popular Society would, I grant, 
 have the effect of increasing its number and its 
 funds ; but what object would be attained ? — an 
 accession of number to pay the expenses of an ex- 
 pected series of half-Pickwickian pseudo-antiquarian 
 publications, and a consequent increase in the im- 
 pression of all, thereby rendering those that are 
 really valuable works liable to the effects of the 
 fluctuations of a low book-market. 
 
 I am perfectly aware, that many Members of the 
 Society will be but ill-disposed to pay attention to 
 the suggestions of a hoy under nineteen, as an 
 honourable and learned Member of your Society, 
 with more truth than kindly feeling, lately taunted 
 me, when, in the purest innocence, and certainly 
 with the best intention, I ventured to point out 
 a most egregious and nepial error in one of 
 his recent publications. You, however, my Lord, 
 I am perfectly confident, will be the last person in 
 the world to treat with disdain this humble effort 
 for the attainment of what I really consider will 
 
11 
 
 greatly conduce to the future well-being of the 
 Society, merely because that a few summers, more 
 or less, have not yet lent their aid to ripen a judg- 
 ment, at best not at all equal to compete with 
 minds such as have shone forth in the alpha and 
 omega of the first year's publications. On any 
 other ground I am ready to maintain the position 
 I have taken. 
 
 I have the honour to remain. 
 My Lord, 
 With the highest respect. 
 Your Lordship's most obedient, and most 
 humble servant, 
 
 J. O. HALLIWELL. 
 
 Bodleian Library, Oxford^ 
 Aug, 10, 1839. 
 
POSTSCRIPT. 
 
 I am sure I must be the most good-natured person 
 living, or I should quarrel with nearly every anti- 
 quary under the sun. Hardly a day passes, but 
 what I am assaulted with some insult or another, 
 under the impression of an almost universal doubt — 
 What can a young person know of antiquarian 
 matters ? Had I not a very great dislike to the 
 system of publishing any letters which were not, at 
 the time they were penned, intended for the public 
 ear, I should have been induced to have added one 
 I received the other day, wherein the writer calmly 
 stated, that no person under age should allow his 
 name to appear in print ! I merely take the op- 
 portunity of mentioning this here to say, that I shall 
 not be so scrupulous in the event of receiving 
 another epistle, for I shall certainly not trouble 
 myself with answering the puerile though annoying 
 remarks of such a narrow-minded literary quack. 
 
 In an early number of the Gentleman's Magazine, 
 I shall fully expect, after the opinion the able con- 
 ductor of that periodical has expressed in his review 
 of one of the Camden publications, an attempt at a 
 
14 
 
 refutation of the preceding calm remarks ; and 
 I hope that the Editor will take care to attack the 
 proper points ; otherwise I cannot be considered 
 intruding to request, according to the invariable 
 custom of that periodical, the insertion of an 
 answer. 
 
 August 11, 1839. 
 
RECENTLY PUBLISHED. 
 
 L 
 
 A Brief Account of the Life, Writings, and 
 
 Inventions of Sir Samuel Morland. By J. O. 
 
 Halliwell, Esq. 
 
 IL 
 
 Appendix to the above. By the same. 
 
 III. 
 Two Essays : 1. An Enquiry into the Nature of the 
 Boetian Numerical Contractions. II. Notes on Early 
 Calendars. By the same, 
 
 IV. 
 Rara Mathematica ; or a Collection of Treatises on 
 the Mathematics, and subjects connected with them, from 
 ancient inedited MSS. With notes, &;c. By the same, 
 
 V. 
 
 A Few Hints to Novices in Manuscript Literature. 
 By the same. 
 
 VI. 
 
 Reliqui-e Antique : Scraps from Ancient Manu- 
 scripts, illustrative of Early English Literature and the 
 English Language. Edited by Thomas Wright, Esq. 
 M.A., F.S.A., and J. O. Halliwell, Esq. 
 
 VII. 
 
 The Voiage and Travaile of Sir John Maundevile. 
 Reprinted from the Edition of 1715. With an Introduc- 
 tion, Additional Notes, and Glossary, by J. O. Halli- 
 well, Esq. 
 
BAXTKRj PIIINTER, OXFORD. 
 
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