THOS.  H. DYER.

London, Jan. 20. 1851.

Early Culture of the Imagination, (Vol. iii., p. 38.).—­The interesting article to which MR. GATTY refers will be found in the Quarterly Review, No.  XLI.  Sir Walter Scott, in a letter addressed to Edgar Taylor, Esq. (the translator of German Fairy Tales and Popular Stories by M.M.  Grimm), dated Edinburgh, 16th Jan. 1823, says—­

“There is also a sort of wild fairy interest in them [the Tales] which makes me think them fully better adapted to awaken the imagination and soften the heart of childhood, than the good-boy stories which have been in later years composed for them.  In the latter case, their minds are, as it were, put into the stocks, like their feet at the dancing-school, and the moral always consists in good moral conduct being crowned with temporal success.  Truth is, I would not give one tear shed over Little Red Riding-Hood for all the benefit to be derived from a hundred Histories of Jemmy Goodchild....  In a word, I think the selfish tendencies will be soon enough acquired in this arithmetical age; and that, to make the higher class of character, our wild fictions—­like our own simple music—­will have more effect in awakening the fancy and elevating the disposition, than the colder and more elaborate compositions of modern authors and composers.”

F.R.R.

Milnrow Parsonage.

Early Culture of the Imagination (Vol. iii., p. 38.).—­MR. ALFRED GATTY will find what he inquires for in the 74th volume of the Quarterly Review, “Children’s Books.”  With the prefatory remarks of that article may be compared No. 151. of the Rambler, “The Climacterics of the Mind.”

T.J.

William Chilcot (Vol. iii., p. 38.).—­MR. HOOPER is referred to the History of Tiverton, by Lieut.  Col.  Harding, ed.  Boyce, Tiverton; Whittaker, London, 1847, vol. ii., B. III., p. 167., for an account of the family of Chilcot alias Comyn; to which most likely the author belonged, and was probably a native of Tiverton.  As MR. HOOPER many not have ready access to the book, I send the substance of an extract.  Robert Chilcott alias Comyn, born at Tiverton, com.  Devon, merchant, and who died, it is supposed, at Isleworth, com.  Middlesex, about A.D. 1609, “married Ann, d. of Walter Cade of London, Haberdasher, by whom he had one son, William, who married Catherine, d. of Thomas Billingsly of London, Merchant, and had issue.”  Certain lands also in Tiverton, A.D. 1680-90, are described as “now or late of William Comyns alias Chilcott.”—­Ibid. p. 61.

If the first edition of the work were in 1698, most likely the author was a grandson of the above-named William Chilcot and Catherine his wife, which the Tiverton registers might show.  If the search prove unsuccessful there, try that of Watford, Herts, where a branch of the same family was settled, and to which there are monuments in Watford churchyard.