_Blue Boar Inn, Holborn_.--The reviewer in the last "Quarterly" of Mr.
Cunningham's _Handbook for London_, makes an error in reference to the
extract from Morrice's _Life of Lord Orrery_, given by Mr. Cunningham
under the head of "Blue Boar Inn, Holborn," and transcribed by the
reviewer (_Qu. Rev._ vol. lxxxvi., p. 474.). Morrice, Lord Orrery's
biographer, relates a story which he says Lord Orrery had told him,
that he had been told by Cromwell and Ireton of their intercepting a
letter from Charles I. to his wife, which was sewn up in the skirt
of a saddle. The story may or may not be true; this authority for it
is not first-rate. The Quarterly reviewer, in transcribing from Mr.
Cunningham's book the passage in Morrice's _Life of Lord Orrery_,
introduces it by saying,--"Cromwell, in a letter to Lord Broghill,
narrates circumstantially how he and Ireton intercept, &c." This is
a mistake; there is no letter from Cromwell to Lord Broghill on the
subject. (Lord Broghill was Earl of Orrery after the Restoration.)
Such a letter would be excellent authority for the story. The mistake,
which is the Quarterly reviewer's, and not Mr. Cunningham's, is of
some importance.