THE " ARMADA MERCURIES."
(To THE EDITOR or THE " SPECTATOR."] see that the Armada Mercuries, written by Philip Yorke, afterfirards the second Lord Hardwicke, have again come to the fore. These printed sheets were not " a notorious forgery," as your reviewer styles them in your issue of April 1st, but merely a jeu d'esprit, and probably were never intended to deceive, and never did deceive, anyone till, about half a century after their composition, they were found among the papers at the British Museum of Thomais Birch, a lifelong friend and correspondent of Hardwicke, and then with too little judgment accepted as authentic journals and proclaimed as the first newspaper in the world. Disillusion followed, and with disillusion indignation of the dupes against the innocent author who had unwittingly beguiled them into error, The Mercuries were now styled "a clumsy and impudent forgery," and "no language could stigmatize in sufficiently strong terms" the conduct of their fabricator. One wonders which would have been the greater, the amazement of this gifted and highly respectable person at seeing his handiwork styled" in your columns as " a notorious forgery," or his satis- faction at the compliment paid to his historical talents by the many dupes who have so long accepted his compositions as authentic records? This subject has been dealt with by Mr. Wood, of the MSS. Department of the British Museum, in the Nineteenth Century, February, 1914, and also in my Life of Hardwicke, I., 212.—I am, Sir, &c., P. C. YORKE. The Athenaeum, Pall Mall, S.W.1.
[The second Lord Hardwicke's motives may be a matter of controversy. The fact remains that his fabricated English Mercuries have deceived many innocent people, including the author of Queen Elizabeth's Maids of Honour.—ED. Spectator.]
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