The Waverley novels, by Sir Walter Scott, complete in 12 vol., printed from the latest English ed., embracing the author's last corrections, prefaces & notes.

PREFACE TO WOODSTOCK. 23
With his history the reading part of the world are well acquainted; and
we might refer the tyro to honest Anthony a Wood, who looked up to him
as one of the pillars of High Church, and bestows on him an exemplary
character in tie Athence Oxonienses, although the Doctor was educated at
Cambridge, England's other eye.
It is well known that Doctor Rochecliffe early obtained preferment in the
Church, on account of the spirited share which he took in the controversy with the Puritans; and that his work, entitled Malleus Hceresis, was
considered as a knock-down blow by all except those who received it. It
was that work which made him, at the early age of thirty, Rector of Woodstock, and which afterwards secured him a place in the Catalogue of the
celebrated Century White;-and worse than being shown iup by that fanatic,
among the catalogues of scandalous and malignant priests admitted into
benefices by the prelates, his opinions occasioned the loss of his living of
Woodstock by the ascendency of Presbytery. He was Chaplain, during
most part of the Civil War, to Sir Henry Lee's regiment, levied for the service of King Charles; and it was said he engaged more than once personally in the field. At least it is certain that Doctor Rochecliffe was repeat.
edly in great danger, as will appear from more passages than one in the
following history, which speaks of his own exploits, like Caesar, in the. third
person. I suspect, however, some Presbyterian commentator has been
guilty of interpolating two or three passages. The manuscript was long in
possession of the Everards, a distinguished family of that persuasion.*
During the Usurpation, Doctor Rochecliffe was constantly engaged in one
or other of the premature attempts at a restoration of monarchy; and was
accounted, for his audacity, presence of mind, and depth of judgment, one
of the greatest undertakers for the King in that busy time; with this trifling
drawback, that the plots in which he busied himself were almost constantly
detected. Nay, it was suspected that Cromwell himself sometimes contrived
to suggest to him the intrigues in which he engaged, by which means the
wily Protector made experiments on the fidelity of doubtful friends, and
became well acquainted with the plots of declared enemies, which he
thought it more easy to disconcert and disappoint than to punish severely.
Upon the Restoration, Doctor Rochecliffe regained his living of Woodstock,
with other Church preferment, and gave up polemics and political intrigues
for philosophy. He was one of the constituent members of the Royal Society, and was the person through whom Charles required of that learned
body solution of their curious problem, "Why, if a vessel is filled brimful
of water, and a large live fish plunged into the water, nevertheless it shall
not overflow the pitcher?" Doctor Rochecliffe's exposition of this phenomenon was the most ingenious and instructive of four that were given in;
and it is certain the Doctor must have gained the honour of the day, but
for the obstinacy of a plain, dull, country gentleman, who insisted that the
experiment should be, in the first place, publicly tried. When this was
done, the event showed it would have been rather rash to have adopted the
facts exclusively on the royal authority; as the fish, however curiously
inserted into his native element, splashed the water over the hall, and destroyed the credit of four ingenious essayists, besides a large Turkey carpet.
Doctor Rochecliffe, it would seem, died about 1685, leaving many papers
behind him of various kinds, and, above all, many valuable anecdotes of
secret history, from which the following Memoirs have been extracted, on
which we intend to say only a few words by way of illustration.
The existence of Rosamond's Labyrinth, mentioned in these pages, is
attested by Drayton in the reign of Queen Elizabeth.
"Rosamond's Labyrinth, whose ruins, together with her Well, being
paved with square stones in the bottom, and also her Tower, from which
* It is hardly necessary to say, unless to some readers of.very literal capacity, that Dr. Rochecliffe and hii
manuscripts are alike apocryphal.