Notes and Queries, Number 75, April 5, 1851, page 29 by Various Authors
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n opened and found to be blank!'[1]
"This trick is so obvious a one that in all probability it is extensively practised."]
[Footnote 1: Letters, Conversations, and Recollections of S. T. Coleridge, vol. ii. p. 114.]
The quotations of your correspondent G. P. P., from Polwhele's Cornwall, relate to the same individual, and a more general construction must, I think, be put upon the expression "our countryman," than that it inferred a native of the county. The family of Prideaux was one of great antiquity, and originated in Cornwall (their first seat being at Prideaux Castle there), and had estates there in the time of the above Edmund. His father, Sir Edmund Prideaux, of Netherton (the first baronet), studied the law in the Inner Temple, where he became very eminent for his skill and learning. He is stated to have raised a large estate in the counties of Devon and Cornwall. He married * * *; secondly, Catherine, daughter of Piers Edgecombe, of Mount Edgecombe, Esq., by whom he had two sons, Sir Peter his successor, and Edmund, the subject of your correspondent's Queries, who is thus described in Prince's Worthies of Devon, p. 509.:--
"This gentleman was bred to the law, and of so great a reputation, as well for zeal to religion as skill in the law, it is not strange he was chosen a Member of that which was called the Long Parliament, wherein he became a very leading man; for, striking in with the prevailing party of those times (though he never joined with them in setting upon the life of his Sovereign), he grew up to great wealth and dignity. He was made Commissioner of the Great Seal [1643. Rushworth, vol. iii. p. 242.], worth 1500l. a-year and by ordinance of Parliament practised within the bar as one of the king's counsel, worth 5000l. per annum. After that he was Attorney General, worth what he pleased to make it [!!], and then Postmaster General ... from all which rich employments he acquired a great estate, and among other things pu