In 1738 he published, on a separate sheet, "A general Account of the necessary Materials for an History of England, the Society and Subscriptions proposed for defraying the Expences thereof, and the Method wherein Mr. Carte intends to proceed in carrying on the same Work *." Of his progress in this business he thus wrote to Dr. Grey, dated from Mr. Ker's, at the Golden Head, in Great Newport-street, Oct. 4, 1738: "When I received the favour of your letter of July 26, I intended to have set out the week following for Madingley, and to have had the pleasure of waiting on you at Houghton Conquest in my way; but an unwelcome summons from Warwickshire calling me thither to appeal against being raised in the land-tax, broke my design, and indeed my journey, because I concluded Sir J. H. Cotton would be gone to Oxford before I could get to his house, when my appeal

copied); they have proposed a subscription of a thousand a year, for as many years as the work will require, to defray this expence. The subscription is begun, and will (I believe) be completed this winter; and then that work will employ all my time. One advantage I already find from the very talk of this design; having been offered several collections and memoirs of particular persons, considerable in their time, which I did not know were in being, and which would else no part of them ever see the light; and the manner of the History's being carried on will probably make every body open their stores. This is one reason, among many others, which makes me very desirous of having your judgment of the work I have now published, and that you would point out to me such faults as I would fain correct in my designed work. It will be a very particular favour to a person who is, with the greatest esteem and respect, Sir, your very obliged and obedient servant, THOMAS CARTE.

Many of the assertions, however, in the preceding letter are erroneous. Whoever will be at the pains of consulting that valuable treasure called Rymer's Foedera, will find that numberless treaties and other materials were collected from the records of the Exchequer, since removed into the Chapter-house, and also from the Cotton Library. Mr. Carte seems also to have been unacquainted with the condition of the State Papers, which were formerly kept in the old Gateway at Whitehall, but which are now deposited within the buildings of the Treasury.

* Reprinted in Gent. Mag, that year, p. 227. 364.

was

was over. However I wrote to Mr. Bettenham that I would take and dispose of ten copies of your Answer to Neal's fourth volume, as I did of your late Answer. I have since sent for them; but have not had them, I suppose because they are not yet published, or (as my bookbinder tells me from Mr. Bettenham's servant when I sent for them) because Mr. Bettenham does not print the book. I judge this last is a mistake of my bookbinder; but if Mr. Bettenham should not print it, I beg of you to send me word who does. I believe Oxford will fill by the end of this month; and then, I believe, about fifteen of the Colleges will subscribe towards my undertaking. As soon as that is done, I propose to try what those of Cambridge will do, in which I promise myself your good offices. I have sent one of my Proposals to your neighbour Mr. Ongley (who, I am told, is a very honest gentleman, of an ample fortune, and generous spirit), and have wrote to him on that subject. I do not know him personally; but he will consider the reason of the thing what is said in my letter, which possibly, with your reasoning with him thereon, may induce him to subscribe. I have now 600l. a year either subscribed or promised me by gentlemen at a distance, who will sign their names to the instrument when they come to town; so that I am in little doubt but the work will go on; and nothing troubles me but the delay in completing the subscription, that I may get a meeting of the contributors, and fall to executing my scheme. 'Tis a large sum to be raised by private persons; public bodies will, I hope, follow the example of the Chapter of Durham, who subscribed their 20 guineas a year, and make up the rest."

Soon after the date of this letter, he was resident at Cambridge, collecting materials for such purpose from the University and other libraries. His head-quarters were at Madingley, with the late Sir John Hinde Cotton, bart. whose great collection

of

of old pamphlets and journals, published during the great Rebellion (between 1640 and the Restoration) he methodized, and had bound in a great number of volumes, now in the Library there.

March 8, 1744, a cause was determined in his favour in Chancery, in which he was plaintiff, and his brother and sister, Samuel * and Sarah, defen

* Samuel Carte was admitted scholar of Trinity hall, Cambridge, May 5, 1704, and proceeded LL. B. He was afterwards a member of Symonds Inn, practised as a solicitor in Chancery in 1708, was eminent in his profession, and a learned Antiquary. Most of his MSS. and antiquarian papers (it is believed) were sold by his widow all together to the late learned Antiquary Sir Thomas Cave, bart. Mr. Samuel Carte assisted Dr. Jackson, school-master of Coventry, in his "Account of the Benefactions and Charities belonging to that City, particularly He also, though that of Sir Thomas White, Lond. 1733, 8vo †. his name does not appear, was the editor of the "Collectanea Ecclesiastica, by Samuel Brewster, esq. 1752," 4to; and added many learned notes to that curious work. In the latter part of life he had chambers in Symonds Inn, but resided opposite to Dr. Stukeley, in the passage which leads from Queen's-square to Southampton-row. He was alive in 1760, but died not long after. I have some valuable letters of his in MS. on various matters of Antiquity. - His brother John was admitted of the same Hall Jan. 9, 1707, where he took the degree of LL. B. He was chaplain to William the fifth Lord Digby; and was presented by his father (who possessed the advowson in right of his prebend) to the vicarage of Tachbroke, in the county of Warwick; and afterwards, by the Dean and Chapter of Westminster, to that of Hinckley, in Leicestershire, where he was inducted Dec. 20, 1720, and resided till his death, Sept. 17, 1785. He seldom failed to preach twice every Sunday in the church at Hinckley, and once in Stoke church, of which he enjoyed the rectory as annexed to the vicarage of Hinckley. The last time he preached was the Funeral Sermon of his Clerk James Merry, after which he never more was able to attend the duties of the church. The Sermon at his own funeral was preached by Dr. Jackson above mentioned to a crowded congregation at Hinckley, where Mr. Carte was buried, in the chancel, near the communion table; and where no other memorial remains to his memory than an inscription on a gallery, that it was erected in 1723, while he was vicar; though his surviving parishioners still speak of his learning, his probity, his simplicity of manners, and his unaffected piety, with a degree of veneration. He was a most zealous asserter of the rites and ceremonies of the Church

+ MS note by Dr. Richardson, communicated by the Rev. William Cole. VOL. II.

of

dants, occasioned by a doubt in his father's will. By the report in this case (Atkyns III. 174.) it ap

of England, which, he justly observed, were equally remote from the extremes of Popery and Fanaticism; and his opinions were founded on the film Basis of Scripture, with which he was so intimately acquainted, as to be able to repeat the greater part of the Bible. A favourite book of his was Bisse's Beauty of Holiness;" which, he said, was worth its weight in gold.Moses Emanuel, a Jew of uncommon learning, well known in that part of the country as a travelling pedlar, received always much pleasure from the conversation of Mr. Carte; who, in return, took amazing pains to convince him of the truths of Christianity. Their friendly altercations were long and frequent, and turned principally upon the fifty-first and fifty-third chapters of Isaiah. His absence of mind is recollected in many remarkable particulars. Some years before his death he paid his addresses to Miss Dugdale, of Blyth Hall, near Coleshill (a lineal descendant of the illustrious Antiquary), and the wedding-day was fixed; but he actually forgot to go till the day after that which was agreed on, when the lady with indignation refused her hand, and the match was broken off. Perpetually absorbed in thought, he was careless in his dress, and totally destitute of œconomy. He even carried his carelessness in money matters to such a degree, that when the inhabitants of Stoke have brought to him the tithes, which he never took the trouble to ask for, he has not uncommonly (if he chanced to be engaged with a book) requested them to come at a future time, though perhaps the next hour he was obliged to borrow a guinea for subsistence. The vicarage-house adjoins to the church-yard; yet he was frequently so engaged in study, that the sermon bell rang till the congregation were weary of waiting, and the clerk was under the necessity of reminding him of his duty.-During the fifteen years in which he was vicar of Hinckley, he neglected to make any demand for tithes of the hamlet of The Hyde in that parish; which his administrator discovering after his death, made a claim on the inhabitants of that hamlet for tithes in kind; and, to recover them, filed a bill in Chancery; which came to a hearing in Easter term 1747. The Defendants insisted that the vicarage was never endowed, and that a contributory payment of seventeen shillings which had formerly been made was in lieu of all tithes; and that tithes in kind were not paid within memory of man. Mr. Thomas Carte, being obliged to prove the endowment, as his brother was only vicar, and not rector, procured from the Abbot of Lyra in Normandy, to which abbey Hinckley had formerly been appendant as an alien priory, an attested copy of a grant, in 1209, to the vicar of that parish. This instrument, however, as Dr. Ducarel informed me, having been unluckily signed by the Abbot, and not by the Registrar of the Abbey, it was not admitted to be read in evidence; and as

the

pears that Mr. Samuel Carte the elder had made Thomas his eldest son executor and residuary le

the impropriators (the Dean and Chapter of Westminster) did not think proper to disclaim their right to the tithes, which might have put an end to the question in favour of Mr. Carte, an issue was directed, "to try whether the vicar of Hinckley is intitled to tithes in kind for the hamlet of Hide, in the parish of Hinckley." (Atkyns's Reports, III. 426.) This issue was afterwards tried; when the jury found that the vicar in his life-time was not intitled to tithes in kind; and on July 17, 1749, the bill was dismissed with costs. The arrears of the modus, however, were adjudged to Mr. Carte. (Vezey's Reports, I. 3.)

The following very interesting letter, addressed "To the Rev. Mr. John Carte, at Coleshill in Warwickshire," is transcribed from the original (amongst the MSS. of his brother Thomas) in the Bodleian Library, UUUU, No 110.

"SIR,

Sept. 18, 1716. "I now sit down to answer your last kind letter of the 16th of July, which I had done sooner but that I have been from home this vacation, and I know the nature of your unhappy accident will necessarily confine you a considerable time; so that I thought nothing was to be done in relation to the Monasticon as yet. I hope by this time Mr. Dugdale has sent to Mr. Bowyer for the plates of St. Paul's, so that he may be at liberty to put his intended book to the press, which it will be now as convenient a time as any to do; that it may be published before the new edition of Guillim's Heraldry; which, you may find by the advertisements, is hastening on apace. I should therefore be glad to have Mr. Dugdale's thoughts of the matter, and to have the manuscript (when he has added what he thinks proper) sent up to me, that the printer may cast it off, and see how much it makes, and what volume it will be best to print it in. I have now one of the Baronage by me; and, considering what large additions Sir William has made to it, I begin to think a Proposal for re-printing it cannot be amiss, in case we can pro cure a good hand to continue it to the present time, in Sir Wil liam's method. I have the same opinion of the Warwickshire, if it can receive any additions from any worthy hand that resides amongst you. It now grows scarce; and, as the plates are all in being, it will very much moderate the expence. printing of this Tract you mention will enable me to feel the pulse of the publick in relation to the two last works, as well as the Monasticon; the plates of which, for the first and third volumes, I look upon to be quite lost. I have renewed my enquiry about the Executors of Mr. Newcomb, and find he left his son executor; who died a great many years ago, and left his wife executrix, and one son a minor; who is since dead, and the wife old, and non compos mentis. The printing-house, and all the utensils, they sold to Mr. Jones, who formerly printed the

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The