* * * * * {484}


QUERIES.

DR. RICHARD HOLSWORTH AND THOS. FULLER.

Can any of your readers inform me who was the author of _The Valley of
Vision_, published in 1651 as the work of Dr. Richard Holsworth, the
Master of Emmanuel College, and Dean of Worcester. In a preface to the
reader, Fuller laments "that so worthy a man should dye issulesse
without leaving any books behind him for the benefit of learning and
religion." He adds that the private notes which he had left behind him
were dark and obscure; his hand being legible only to himself, and
almost useless for any other. The sermon published as _The Valley of
Vision_ appears to have been prepared for publication from the notes of
a short-hand writer. When Fuller published, about eleven years
afterwards, his _Worthies of England_, he wrote thus:--

"Pity it is so learned a person left no monuments (save a
sermon) to posterity; for _I behold that posthume work as none
of his, named by the transcriber The Valley of Vision_, a
Scripture expression, but here misplaced.... This I conceived
myself in credit and conscience concerned to observe, because I
was surprised at the _preface_ to the book, and will take the
blame rather than clear myself, when my innocency is complicated
with the accusing of others."

If, as is probable, Dr. Holsworth, in this instance, preached other
men's sermons, which the short-hand writer afterwards gave to the world