Note 210 — ANNALS OF THE BODLEIAN LIBRARY. (continued 3)
Reading edition
Memorandum by Owen himself, in reply to a question from Rawlinson, Rawl. MS. C. 989, f. 142. This volume contains a collection of letters to Owen, chiefly from Browne Willis and Rawlinson, between the years 1748-1756. It affords proof that Owen was what his correspondents would call an 'honest' man, i.e. a Jacobite. In one letter, Willis sends him a Latin inscription in praise of Flora Macdonald, which he says is 'on a fair lady's picture, in an honest gentl. seat in the province of St. David's;' in another, Rawlinson sends him, as a contribution to the Oxford collection of verses on the death of Frederick, Prince of Wales, this Jacobite epitaph:—
'Here lies Fred., Down among the dead; Had it been his Father, Most had much rather; Had it been his Brother, Better than any other; Had it been a Sister, More would have mist her; Wer't the whole generation, Happy for the nation; But since it is only Fred., There is no more to be said.'