[Footnote 5: Except _x_ (=_cs_). Compare _flax_, _wax_, _ox_.]
[Footnote 6: From serv-us (after the French) we form _serf_.]
[Footnote 7: _Rebus_, _overplus_, and _surplus_ may, if not satisfied, take
an _omnibus_, bring their action at the _Nisi Prius_, and meet there with a
_nonplus_.]
* * * * *
"INQUIRY INTO THE STATE OF THE UNION, BY THE WEDNESDAY CLUB IN FRIDAY
STREET."
(Vol. vii., pp. 261. 409.)
This very able and valuable work, as to which your correspondent inquires,
was written by Wm. Paterson, the projector of the Bank of England and the
Darien scheme; a great and memorable name, but which, to the discredit of
British biography, will be sought for in vain in Chalmers's or our other
biographical dictionaries. The book above noticed appears to be a
continuation of another tract by the same author, entitled _An Inquiry into
the Reasonableness and Consequences of an Union with Scotland, containing a
brief Deduction of what hath been done, designed, or proposed in the Matter
of the Union during the last Age, a Scheme of an Union as accommodated to
the present Circumstances of the two Nations, also States of the respective
Revenues, Debts, Weights, Measures, Taxes, and Impositions, and of other
Facts of moment: with Observations thereupon, as communicated to Laurence
Philips, Esq., near York_: London, printed and sold by R. Bragg, 1706,
8vo., 160 pages. This was preceded by an earlier tract by the same author:
_Conferences on the Public Debts, by the Wednesday's Club in Friday
Street_: London, 1695, 4to. The last is noticed, with a short account of
the author, by Mr. M^cCulloch (_Lib. of Political Economy_, p. 159.), but
he has not mentioned the two other works previously adverted to. In all of
them the author adopts the form of a report of the proceedings of a club;
but, without attempting to deny the actual existence of a Wednesday's club
in Friday Street (the designation he assumes for it), nothing can be more
clear to any one who reads the three tracts than that the conversations,
proceedings, and personages mentioned are all the creatures of his own
fertile invention, and made use of, more conveniently to bring out his
facts, arguments, and statements. The dramatic form he gives them makes
even the dry details of finance amusing; and abounding, as they do, in
information and thought, these works may always be consulted with profit
and pleasure. The _Inquiry into the State of the Union_, 1717, 8vo., for
which Walpole is said to have furnished some of the materials, was
answered, but rather feebly, in an anonymous pamphlet entitled _Wednesday
Club Law; or the Injustice, Dishonour, and Ill Policy of breaking into
Parliamentary Contracts for public Debts_: London, printed for E. Smith,
1717, 8vo., pp. 38. The author of this pamphlet appears to have been a Mr.
Broome. Those who would wish see one of the financial questions discussed
in the _Inquiry_ treated with equal force and ability, and with similar
views, by a great cotemporary of Paterson, whose pamphlet came out
simultaneously, may read _Fair Payment no Spunge; or some Considerations on
the Unreasonableness of refusing to receive back Money lent on public
Securities, and the Necessity of setting the Nation free from the
unsupportable Burthen of Debt and Taxes, with a View of the great Advantage
and Benefit which will arise to Trade and to the Landed Interest, as well
as to the Poor, by having these heavy Grievances taken off_: London,
printed and sold by Brotherton: Meadows and Roberts, 1717, 8vo., pp. 79.
This is one of the pamphlets which, though it has been sometimes
erroneously assigned to Paterson, both on external and internal evidence
may be confidently attributed to Defoe, but which has unaccountably escaped
the notice of all his biographers.