(Vol. iv., p. 133.; Vol. v., pp. 66. 280.)
Since the Notes, kindly transmitted from Holland in answer to my Query
respecting the family of the Rev. John Paget, appeared in "N. & Q.," I
have discovered that the Pagets to whom my Query related, as well as the
others alluded to by your correspondents, were all of the family of
Paget of Rothley, Leicestershire, of whom a (partially incomplete)
pedigree is given in Nichols's _Leicestershire_, vol. iv. p. 481. I was
led to this conclusion by finding that Robert Paget (the writer of a
preface before alluded to "from Dort, 1641") mentions in his will
Roadley (Rothley) in Leicestershire as his birthplace, and speaks of his
brother George as residing in his "patrimoniall house" there: he is
probably the Robert, son of Michael Paget, and great-grandson of the
Rev. Harold Paget, vicar of Rothley in 1564, who is mentioned in the
pedigree as born at Rothley in 1611: he died at Dordt in 1684. The
pedigree gives him an uncle named Thomas, born in 1589 (two indeed of
that name, and both born the same year!); this will do very well for the
Rev. Thomas Paget, incumbent of Blackley, and rector of Stockport; and
another named John, who died, aged seven, in 1582: still I cannot help
believing that John Paget, the writer, was this Robert's uncle, and feel
mightily disposed to metamorphose one of the two Thomases into John. The
Rev. Thomas Paget died in October, 1660, leaving his property to his two
sons, Nathan M.D., and Thomas a clergyman. What relation was he to that
Mr. Paget to whom Dee, the astrologer (see his _Diary_, p. 55. Camden
Society, 1842), sold a house in Manchester in 1595? His son, Dr. Nathan,
in a _Thesis on the Plague_, printed at Leyden in 1639, describes
himself on the title-page as Mancestr-Anglus. According to Mr. Paget's
will, dated May 23, 1660, he was then minister at Stockport, Cheshire;
and I am inclined to think him identical with Thomas Paget, rector of
St. Chads, Shrewsbury, from 1646 to 1659, although Owen and Blakeway
(_History of Shrewsbury_, 2 vols. 4to. 1825) consider the latter to be
son of John (James?) Paget, Baron of the Exchequer, temp. Car. I.: this
descent is, I am confident, erroneous. Thomas Paget appears to have gone
to Amsterdam in 1639 on the death of the Rev. John Paget, and to have
returned to England in 1646, in which year his son John (who must have
been much younger than his two other sons, and is, moreover, not
mentioned in his will dated 1660) was baptized at Shrewsbury. Dr. Nathan
Paget was an intimate friend of Milton, and cousin to the poet's fourth
wife, Elizabeth Minshull, of whose family descent (which appears to be
rather obscure) I may, at another time, communicate some particulars.
Whilst the subject of the Pagets (a very interesting one to me), I
cannot refrain from noticing, even at the risk of encroaching on your
space, a singular mistake of Anthony à Wood respecting another writer
(though of an entirely different family) of the name of Paget. Speaking
of the Rev. Ephraim Paget (_Athen. Oxon._, vol. ii. p. 51.) he says:
"One of both his names (his uncle I think) translated into English
_Sermons upon Ruth_, Lond. 1586, in oct., written originally by
Lod. Lavater; but whether the said Ephraim Paget was educated at
Oxon, I cannot justly say, though two or more of his sirname and
time occur in our registers."
Had Anthony ever _seen_ the book in question, he would have been aware
that the title-page informs him that it was translated by Ephraim
Pagitt, a child of eleven years of age; and as, according to the said
Anthony's account, Ephraim was born in 1575, he would also at once have
seen that Ephraim himself--not that ideal personage, his "uncle of the
same name"--was the translator.