The name of Picts, is said, though erroneously, to have been given by the Romans to the Caledonians, who possessed the East coast of Scotland, from their painting their bodies. This circumstance has made some imagine that the Picts were of British extraction, and a different race of men from the Scots.
That more of the Britons who fled northward, from the oppression and tyranny of the Romans, settled in the low lands of Scotland, than among the Scots of the mountains, may be easily imagined, from the very nature of the country. It was these people who introduced painting among the Picts, From this circumstance, some antiquaries affirm, proceeded the name of the latter, to distinguish them from the Scots, who never had that art among them, and from the Britons, who discontinued the practice of tattooing after the Roman conquest.
The inhabitants of the South Sea Islands, at this day, paint upon their bodies various grotesque figures, for the purpose of striking terror into their enemies, in the day of battle. J. S.
From the Classical Journal.
This eminent naturalist and excellent man, was justly admired both at home and abroad for his virtues and knowledge in every branch of human learning, more particularly in natural history. He was the son of Sir Francis Willoughby, Knt. of Wollaton Hall in the county of Nottingham. Observing in the busy and inquisitive age in which he lived, that the history of animated nature had in a great measure been neglected, he made the study and illustration thereof his unceasing object. For the promotion of this branch of science he went abroad with Mr. Ray, for the purpose of searching out and describing the several species and productions of nature. He travelled over most parts of France, Spain, Italy, Germany, and the Netherlands, in all which countries he was so diligent and successful, that not many sorts of animals described by others escaped his observation.
He drew them with a pencil, and they were afterwards engraven on copper-plates, at the expense of his widow. His labours were printed in latin under the title of “Ornithologiæ libri tres, &c. London, 1676,“ folio. This work was afterwards translated into English by Mr. Ray, with an appendix, and printed at London, in 1678. Mr. Willoughby also wrote the “History of Fishes,” which was published by Mr. Ray, at London, in 1686, in folio. He likewise printed several papers in the Philosophical Transactions. Mr. Willoughby died on the third of July, 1672, leaving issue by his wife, Emma, daughter and co-heir of Sir Henry Bernard, Knt. two Sons, Francis and Thomas, and one daughter Cassandra, married to the Duke of Chandos. The second son Thomas was in 1712 created Lord Middleton, from whom is descended the present peer of that title.
51. He was an alderman of London, and after the Exchequer was shut retired to Holland, where he died, and was brought over to be interred in the church of Tyringham, in Buckinghamshire, where he lies embalmed. A glass is placed over his face, so that it is likely he may even be seen at this time. There is a small portrait of him at Tyringham House, in which he is represented in long hair and a flowered gown, with a table by him.
52. A part of the national debt, amounting to £664,263, is as old as this iniquitous transaction of Charles the second and his ministers. This sum was all that those persons received, who had placed their property and their confidence in that monarch, for the loss of £1,328,526, and 26 years interest thereon at 6 per cent. about £2,100,000 more.
53. Tradescant was the first English collector of curiosities in a private rank. Thoresby was the second. Gough’s Topogr.
54. The late James West, Esq. told Mr. Bull, that one of the family of Roelans, of which there are four or five prints by Hollar, lived a long while at Lambeth, in the house that afterwards belonged to Tradescant, to whom Roelans sold it. Granger’s B. II. 2. 371.
55. In the year 1656 the younger Tradescant, published a small volume, entitled “Museum Tradescantianum, or a Collection of Rarities preserved at South Lambeth. London, 1656, small octavo.”
This book is divided into two parts, the first containing a catalogue of the museum, and the second an enumeration of the plants, shrubs, and trees, growing in the garden at South Lambeth. Among the natural curiosities here preserved are “a dragon’s egg—the claw of the bird Rock, which, as authors report, is able to trusse an elephant,” &c. &c.
56. These drawings are engraven in the Philosophical Trans. vol. 63, p. 88; and printed from the same plates, in Bibl. Topogr. Brit. vol. 2. in Dr. Ducarel’s Hist.
