According to the popular belief, the gift was never bestowed on usurpers, or on the illegitimate sons of lawful sovereigns. Yet the Protestant zeal of some good people, during the insurrection in 1685, boiled over so far as to assign this virtue to Monmouth. They could scarcely have believed that Lucy Barlow, Monmouth's mother, had been married to King Charles. However, in a paper published at that time, Harris's Protestant Intelligencer, it is gravely asserted, not only that Monmouth touched for the disease, but also that the effort was successful. We are told by Whiston, that King William was prevailed upon once to touch for the King's Evil. The passage is very curious, and may be quoted. "I have been very lately informed, that King William was prevailed upon once to touch for the King's Evil; praying God to heal the patient, and grant him more wisdom at the same time; which implied he had no great faith in the operation. Yet was the patient cured notwithstanding."* Whiston was himself a believer in the efficacy of the royal touch, alleging that the instances were so well authenticated, that the evidence could not be rejected. We now come to the reign of Queen Anne. She began to exercise this power in the very first year of her reign; and the service was, at a later period, remodelled and moulded into the following form : Lord have mercy upon us. Our Father which art in heaven, &c. Then shall the infirm persons, one by one, be presented to the Queen upon their knees, and as every one is presented, and while the Queen is laying her hands upon them, and putting the gold about their necks, the chaplain that officiates, turning himself to her Majesty, shall say these words following: God give a blessing to this work; and grant that these sick persons, On whom the Queen lays her hands, may recover, through Jesus Christ, Our Lord. * Whiston's Memoirs, 653. After all have been presented, the chaplain shall say!! These answers are to be made by them that come to be healed. Res. Who put their trust in thee. Vers. Send them help from thy holy place. Resp. And evermore mightily defend them. Vers. Help us O God of our salvation. Resp. And for the glory of thy name, deliver us, and be mèrciful unto us sinners, for thy name's sake. Vers. O Lord hear our prayers. Resp. And let our cry come unto thee. Let us pray. i O Almighty God, who art the giver, &c. [As in that of Charles I.] Then the chaplain, standing with his face towards them that come to be healed, shall say, The Almighty Lord, who is a most strong, &c. [From the Visitation of the Sick.] The Grace of our Lord, &c." The above form was printed at the end of some editions of the Book of Common Prayer, during the reign of Queen Anne, but not until several years after her accession. It occurs, in various books after 1708, though by no means in all; yet it was ever an unauthorized service. Miss Strickland has evidently fallen into an error in saying-alluding to the Jacobites that they were proportionably displeased, when they found that Queen Anne, in order to assert her claims as the heiress of both branches of the Saxon royalty, through Plantagenet and Stuart, meant to treat her brother as a nonentity, and add the rite of the royal healing service to the Common Prayer in English, just after the thanksgiving for her Accession, where it exists to this day in all copies printed in the year 1703-4, to the end of her reign." This is altogether erroneous. It is doubtful whether the form appeared in any edition previous to 1708: and then it had no connexion whatever with the Accession Ser vice. In many copies even subsequent to that year, it is not found.* Yet Miss Strickland has given the Order in Council authorizing the Accession Service, as though it had some connexion with the Form for the Healing. She has also appended the following singular note. "The Book of Common Prayer, from whence this curious service is extracted, is in the posses Undoubtedly the form is to be found in various editions of the Book of Common Prayer during this reign, sometimes occupying one leaf, as if it had been inserted after the book was printed, and in other cases forming a part of the same sheet with the XXXIX Articles. Becket has the following note: In the late queen's reign these ceremonies received some alterations, but they having been printed in some editions of the Common Prayer Book, I refer the reader to them." sion of Bernard Gilpin, Esq., Ulverstone, who has kindly permitted it to be copied. It is of the edition of 1709; but the contents evidently refer to 1703-4." It is not easy to account for this singular note. Miss Strickland had previously stated that the Form for the Healing occurs in all the prayer-books of this reign: yet here she copies, by permission, from a book, as though it were of the greatest rarity. The truth is, that the Order in Council had no connexion with the Healing Service. It was merely intended to authorize that for the Accession, which does appear in all subsequent editions of the Common Prayer during the reign of Queen Anne. Miss Strickland strangely connects the two services together. The supposition, too, that Queen Anne used the service of Queen Elizabeth during her first year, is altogether improbable. The form adopted by Elizabeth was in Latin; but Queen Anne probably used that of Charles I. In some instances, the new service of this reign stands on the same page with the commencement of the Thirty-Nine Articles, which were frequently printed with the Common Prayer, though they were no part of the book.* In one edition of the reign of George I., the form was printed, but I have met with no evidence that his Majesty ever touched persons affected with the King's Evil. The edition referred to is of the year 1715; and the Form stands on the same page with the Declaration before the Articles, as in the previous reign. It is probable that it appeared in other editions. Considerable numbers of persons were touched by Queen Ame, and especially during the latter portion of her reign. On her visits to Bath and other places, due notice was given of the days on which the sick might approach her majesty. In this respect she copied the example of her uncle, King Charles II. One of the last authenticated cases was that of Dr. Johnson, who in very early life was touched by Queen Anne in London. To Mrs. Piozzi he said, " he had a confused, but somehow a sort of solemn recollection of a lady in diamonds, and a long black hood." It appears that this occurred in the year 1714, and on Miss Strickland evidently regards the form, "At the Healing," as a part of the Book of Common Prayer during this reign; and because it follows the Accession Service, she oddly imagines that there must be some connexion between the two. A little inquiry would have shown that the Accession Service was no new thing, but merely an old form revived.-Lives, xii. 108-110. Miss Strickland, alluding to a letter in the State Paper Office from the Pope to Queen Anne, mentions, as an naccountable circumstance, that in the Prayer-book from which she quotes there is the hymn commencing, "Preserve us, Lord, &c." and containing a prayer against the pontiff. It seems strange that Miss Strickland did not know, that the lines occur im every edition of Sternhold and Hopkins from the reign of Queen Elizabeth. This version was usually bound up with the Prayer-book, consequently it would have been strange if they had been omitted. at Boswell's Johnson. the 30th of March, on which day two hundred persons were touched by Queen Anne.* It is remarkable, that the old and the young Pretenders, the son and the grandson of James II., claimed the power of healing the King's Evil; or, at all events, several persons went over from England to submit to the touch: and it was reported that cures were effected. Mr. Chambers mentions that an ancient nonjuror, who was living at the period of the publication of his work in 1827, assured him that an English gentleman applied to George I. in behalf of his son, and that, on being peevishly desired to go to the Pretender, he took the hint, and repaired to the Continent. The result was a cure, and the conversion of the father to the cause of the exiled family. The Young Pretender, the grandson of James II., actually touched a child at Edinburgh, in 1745. Charles Edward was unwilling at first to listen to the intreaties of the mother, but at last he allowed the child to be brought before him. A circle was formed by his attendants, the child was introduced, as also a clergyman, who offered up appropriate prayer." The prince approached the kneeling girl, and on touching the diseased parts pronounced the words with great solemnity, "I touch, God heal!" Another prayer was then offered up and the ceremony concluded. In twenty-one days the child was completely cured. This statement was also made to Mr. Chambers by a nonjuring gentleman, who had received the account from the individual herself, and had touched the spots, which had previously been touched by the Prince. The woman stated that she had received many valuable presents from the Jacobites, to whom she was, subsequent to her recovery, presented by her mother.+ It is hoped that these particulars respecting a practice once generally adopted by our sovereigns, though now altogether discontinued, may not prove uninteresting. THE POOR-LAW IN IRELAND. [THE following remarks on the effects of the introduction of a legal provision for the poor in Ireland, are from the pen of a clergyman resident in that country, who has an intimate knowledge of the working of the system, particularly in an extensive district in the south of Ireland. They will, we doubt not, be read with great interest by all who are anxious for the fate of that unhappy country. In the conclusion will be found some * Nichols's Literary Anecdotes, ii. 502. † Chambers's History of the Rebellion in Scotland in 1745, 1746, vol. i. 183, 184. statements with regard to a question on which most persons will be thankful to receive information-namely, the effects produced on the minds of the lower classes in that part of Ireland, by the benevolent assistance they received from this country during the late famine. No just estimate, we have all along been assured, can be formed of the state of popular feeling from the speeches and writings of the Romish priesthood, or their allies, the leaders of the physical and moral force parties. It is the interest of those who are labouring to incite the populace to treason and rebellion, to represent the feeling of the people as being with them in their movement against England. Undoubtedly, they may be able to muster a number of willing adherents, and to coerce a still greater number of reluctant ones by means of that system of terror by which the Romish clergy have long governed their miserable flocks; and thus they may create a vast deal of confusion, and do more mischief than years of peace and order can undo. But, that the Irish peasantry are so insensible of the advantages of British connexion, or so anxious to be placed under the rule of an Irish republican directory, as the priests and demagogues would persuade the public, we do not believe, and we are happy to have our views corroborated by one who is on the spot, and in circumstances which enable him to form a correct opinion.] WHEN it was decided by her Majesty's Government, a few years ago, that the system of relieving the poor by means of a poor-law, should be tried in Ireland, it was little anticipated that in centuries from that time matters would have reached the state in which they now are. The new workhouses, large and expensive semi-Elizabethan buildings, were ridiculed by all parties; for it seemed as if they were constructed for ten times the number of paupers that would ever seek admission into them. Many foretold that the first time they would ever be filled would be when troops should be quartered in them, for the purpose of quelling the rebellion which would be raised against the collecting of the poor's rate. Various were the plans devised by theoretical architects, by which houses might have been erected to contain a score or two of paupers, and capable of enlargement from time to time, in case the number of paupers should at any period increase. Little was it then thought, that in so very short a time, these huge buildings should be filled to overflowing and suffocation :-nay, that accommodation should be required for thousands outside of the walls of the workhouses, and that many more should be fed at their own houses by a con |