Reading for a different purpose in the domestic papers of Charles
II.'s reign in the State Paper Office, I came upon a letter from
Thomas Skinner, dated Colchester, Jan. 30. 1677, of which I will give
you what I have preserved in my notes; and that is all that is of any
interest.
It is a letter to the Secretary of State, asking for employment, and
recommending himself by what he had done for Monk's memory. He had
previously written some account of Monk, and he describes an interview
with Lord Bath (the Sir John Grenville of the Restoration); in which
his Lordship expressed his approval of the book.
"He [Lord Bath] professed himself so well satisfied, that he
was pleased to tell me there were two persons, viz. the King
and the Duke of Albemarle, that would find some reason to
reflect upon me."
Lord Bath gives Skinner a letter to the Duke of Albemarle (Monk's
son), who receives him very kindly, and gives him a handsome present.
"I have since waited on his Grace again, and then he proposed
to me (whether upon his own inclination or the suggestion of
some about him) to use my poor talent in writing his father's
life apart in the universal language; to which end, he would
furnish me with all his papers that belonged to his late
father and his secretaries. The like favour it pleased my Lord
of Bath to offer me from his own papers, some whereof I had a
sight of in his study."
Now if any of your readers who are interested in Monk's biography,
will refer to the author's and editor's prefaces of _Skinner's Life
of Monk_, edited in 1723, by the Rev. William Webster; and to Lord
Wharncliffe's introduction to his Translation of M. Guizot's _Essay
on Monk_, they will see the use of this letter of Skinner's.
1. The life is ascribed to Skinner only on circumstantial evidence,
which is certainly strong, but to which this letter of Skinner's is
a very important edition. This letter is indeed direct proof, and the
first we have, of Skinner's having been employed on a life of Monk, in
which he had access to his son's and his relative Lord Bath's papers;
and there can be no serious doubt that the life edited by Mr. Webster
was a result of his labours.
2. This letter would show that Skinner was not on intimate terms with
Monk, nor so closely connected with him as would be implied in Mr.
Webster's and Morant's, the historian of Colchester, description of
him, that he was a physician to Monk. Else he would not have required
Lord Bath's letter of introduction to the son. Lord Wharncliffe has,
I have no doubt, hit the mark, when he says that Skinner was probably
Monk's Colchester apothecary. Skinner says himself, in his preface,
that "he had the honour to know Monk only in the last years of his
life."
3. The previous account of Monk, which gained Lord Bath's approval,
and led to Monk's son soliciting him to write a life, is probably
Skinner's addition of a third part to Bate's _Elenchus Motuum_, to
which he also probably refers in the opening of his Preface to the
_Life of Monk_:--
"I have heretofore published something of a like nature with
the following sheets, though in another language, wherein
several things, through want of better information, were
imperfectly described."
4. It appears from Skinner's letter, that his original intention was
to write a Life in Latin. Webster edited the Life which we have,
from a copy in English found in the study of Mr. Owen, late curate at
Bocking in Essex, and supposed to be in Skinner's handwriting; and
he had seen another copy, agreeing literally with the former, which
had been transcribed by Shelton, formerly rector of St. James's in
Colchester; and which, after Mr. Shelton's death, became the property
of Mr. Great, an apothecary in Colchester. (Webster published in
1723.)
Now, Query, as these may have been copies of a translation, can any
Colchester reader help to settle affirmatively or negatively the
question of a Latin _Life of Monk_ by Skinner?