THE LATE MR. TURNBITLL.
ENGLISH history has sustained a severe loss by the death of Mr. Turnbull, the late Calendarer at the Rolls. Originally an advocate at the Scotch bar, and, unfortunately for himself, the supporter of Lord Macaulay against Sir Culling Eardley in the Edinburgh election, he gradually aban- doned law and politics altogether for literature. One of his first publications was the "Legend of Saint Margaret, a litell boke of sayntly gestes," to which, being at the time a Protes- tant, he prefixed a rhapsodical preface, which was afterwards quoted against him as proof of his Popish bigotry. His editions for the Roxburglie Club attracted the notice of scholars by their singular accuracy. Having removed to London he published a selection from the letters of Mary Stuart and an edition of Southwell's poems. He edited the metrical translation of Hector lioece for the Record Commission, a work of sterling philological interest, and which, with one exception, has had the greatest sale of any book issued in that series. But his chief work was the "Calendar of Papers of the Reign of Edward VI." It is unsurpassed by anything of the kind, and it is melan- choly to reflect that the vast knowledge, the unremitting care, and the truthfulness displayed in its compilation received no better reward from the author's countrymen than his dis- missal from office on a sectarian cry. After leaving the Rolls, Mr. Turnbull, who had given up the remains of his small practice to take the situation, supported himself by arranging private libraries and doing hack-work for booksellers.
We regret deeply to be obliged to refer to an old story which, were it only for the country's credit, we should desire to see buried in oblivion. But the little body caliin. itself the Protestant Alliance has not been satisfied wit'', hunting Mr. Turnbull out of the position he was filling use- fully and honourably into obscure poverty ; it has slandered
into nto a premature grave. On the 16th of last March the secretaries issued a monthly letter, in which they notice that certain documents are missing from the series edited by Mr. Turnbull; observe that "it will afford much satisfaction to know that another document missing at the time of the action of Turnbull v. Bird has now been discovered," and quote a statement from Mr. Sardine to the effect that several docu- ments of importance concerning the Gunpowder Plot have 'een abstracted or lost. The inference insinuated, of course, is that Catholics are unfit to be entrusted witli State papers, and that grave suspicions may reasonably be formed whether Mr. Turnbull was honest. In consequence of the circulation of this "Monthly Letter," questions have been asked in Parliament about the papers said to be missing from the Public Record Office. The reply may easily be guessed by our readers. The documents described as missing have either never been in the Public Record Office, or have been transferred from one department to another, and are thus an:ming, indeed, from the series catalogued, but missing as mislaid, not as -Every paper ever given out to Mr. 'Turnbull was numbered, has been returned, and can be pro- duced at a moment's notice. Lastly, Mr. jardine's over-strong statements refer only to past times, when no special care was Von to preserve or catalogue public documents. They were piled away in bundles' and the collector like Cotton, the his- torian like Burnet, or the Master of' the Rolls like Lord Hard- wick, to whom some suspicion attaches, might carry off any -paper in which they were interested, were it only as a curiosity. Probably, now when there is no further occasion for stimulants to Protestant bigotry, the secretaries will withdraw the charges they have insinuated, or that part of them Which refers to Mr. Turnbull personally. As regards him their work has been well done. A punctiliously honourable man, fearing reproach like disgrace, he has sunk under a slight illness which, by the testimony of his physician, he might have overcome if his constitution had not been shattered by mental anxiety. He will probably serve his +blur& by his death more than he could have done by his life.
In his little way he has been the martyr of a persecution not the less real, because it attacked his income and his reputation, not his liberty or his life ; and foreign nations will not easily understand that his enemies were as false to Protestantism as to Christianity.
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