_Pope and Buchanan._--I beg to suggest as a Query, whether Pope did not borrow the opening of his _Essay on Man_ from that of the second book of Buchanan's Latin poem _De Sphærâ_. Let us compare them.
"Jam mihi Timoleon, animo majora capaci Concipe; nec terras semper mirare jacentes; Excute degeneres circum mortalia curas, Et mecum ingentes coeli spatiare per auras."
"Awake, my St. John, leave all meaner things To low ambition and the pride of kings; Let us, since life can little more supply Than just to look about us and to die, Expatiate free o'er all this scene of man."
I do not remember the comparison to have been made before.
_Scarce MSS. in the British Museum._--In Cotton MSS., Titus, B 1., will be found a curious and valuable collection of papers entitled "Cromwell's Remembrances." These comprise:
1. A period from about the death of Anne Boleyn to his attainder.
2. They are very miscellaneous, consisting of memoranda of subjects for conference with the king. Notices of persons to be remembered for offices. Sale of lands. Diplomacy, and various other particulars. Notes relative to the dissolution of monasteries; their riches, revenues, and pensions to abbots, &c. The reception of Anne Cleves, and the alteration of the royal household thereupon. Privy council and parliamentary notes. Foreign alliances. Scotch and Irish affairs, consequent on the dissolution of abbeys, &c.
These curious materials for history are in the rough and confused state in which they were left by their author, and, to render them available, would require an index to the whole.
The "Remembrances" are in some degree illustrated by Harl. MS. 604., which is a very curious volume of monastic affairs at the dissolution. Also by 605, 606, and 607. The last two belong to the reign of Philip and Mary, and contain an official account of the lands sold by them belonging to the crown in the third and fourth years of their reign.
_The Royal Garden at Holyrood Palace._--I cannot help noticing a disgraceful fact, which has only lately come to my knowledge. There is, adjoining the Palace of Holyrood, an ancient garden of the old kings of Scotland: in it is a curious sundial, with Queen Mary's name on it. There is a pear-tree planted by her hands, and there are many other deeply interesting traces of the royal race, who little dreamed how their old stately places were to be profaned, after they themselves were laid in the dust. The garden of the Royal Stuarts is now _let_ to a market gardener! Are there no true-hearted Scotchmen left, who will redeem it from such desecration?