{433}

NOTES AND QUERIES:

A MEDIUM OF INTER-COMMUNICATION FOR LITERARY MEN, ARTISTS, ANTIQUARIES, GENEALOGISTS, ETC.

* * * * *

"When found, make a note of."—CAPTAIN CUTTLE.

* * * * *

No. 57.] SATURDAY, NOVEMBER 30. 1850. [Price Threepence. Stamped Edition 4d.

* * * * *

CONTENTS.

NOTES:— Portrait of Cardinal Beaton 433 On the Pointing of a Passage in "All's Well that Ends Well" by A. Roffe 434 Folk-Lore:—The bigger the Ring, the nearer the Wet —Power of prophesying before Death—Change in the Appearance of the Dead—Strange Remedies—Mice as a Medicine—Omens from Birds 434 Mode of computing Interest 435 On the Cultivation of Geometry in Lancashire 436 Minor Notes.—Sermon's Pills—An Infant Prodigy— A Hint for Publishers—"He who runs may read"— The Rolliad—The Conquest 438

QUERIES:— Bibliographical Queries 440 Minor Queries.—Dr. Timothy Thruscross—Echo Song—Meaning of Thwaites—Deus Justificatus— Death by Burning—Irish Bull—Farquharson's Observations on Aurorae—Defender of the Faith— Calendar of Sundays in Greek and Roman Churches— Dandridge the Painter—Chaucer's Portrait by Occleve— John o'Groat's House—Dancing the Bride to Bed—Duke and Earl of Albermarle 441

REPLIES:— Julin, the Drowned City 443 Nicholas Ferrar and the so-called Arminian Nunnery of Little Gidding 444 Vineyards 446 Treatise of Equivocation, by J. Sansom 446 Riots in London 446 Replies to Minor Queries:—Osnaburg Bishoprick— Death of Richard II.—Scottish Prisoners sold to Plantations—Lachrymatories—Querela Cantabrigiensis— "Then" for "than."—Doctrine of the Immaculate Conception— Letters of Horning—Dr. Euseby Cleaver—Mrs. Partington—"Never did Cardinal bring good to England"—Florentine Edition of the Pandects—Master John Shorne—"Her Brow was Fair"—Dodd's Church History—Blackwall Docks— Wives of Ecclesiastics—Stephens' Sermons—Saying of Montaigne—Scala Coeli—Red Hand 447

MISCELLANEOUS:— Notes on Books, Sales Catalogues, &c. 453 Books and Odd Volumes Wanted 453 Notices to Correspondents 454 Advertisements 454

* * * * *

NOTES

PORTRAIT OF CARDINAL BEATON.

A portrait of this eminent Man was engraved by Pennant, from a picture at Holyrood House, in Part II. of his Tour in Scotland, p. 243. 4to. Lond. 1776. Lodge has an engraving from the same portrait in his collection of Illustrious Personages. This is a strange circumstance; because, when Pinkerton was about to include this portrait in his collection, Pennant wrote to him, on 30th April, 1796, as follows:

"Give me leave to say, that I suspect the authenticity of my Cardinal Beaton. I fear it is Cardinal Falconer or Falconieri. I think there is a genuine one somewhere in Scotland. It will be worth your while to inquire if there be one, and engrave it, and add my suspicions, which induce you do it."—Pinkerton's Correspondence, vol. i. p. 402. 8vo. Lond. 1830.

Pinkerton made inquiry, and on Dec. 1st, 1797, writes to the Earl of Buchan:

"Mr. Pennant informs me the Cardinal Beaton is false. It is, indeed, too modern. A real Beaton is said to exist in Fife."—Pinkerton's Correspondence, vol. ii. p. 17.

Lord Buchan writes to him that Mr. Beaton, of Balfour, believes himself to have a genuine portrait of the Cardinal, and offers it for engraving. The authenticity of this portrait, however, appears not to have been established, and it was not engraved. Another was found at Yester, and was at first concluded to be a genuine original: but Lady Ancram soon discovered that it possessed no marks of originality, but might be a good copy: it was, however, certainly not one of the six cardinals purchased by the third Earl of Lothian. Finally, it was rejected altogether. A copy of a portrait from the Vatican was also rejected as undoubtedly spurious. It appears, therefore, that Pinkerton, in this case at least, exercised caution in the selection of his subject for engraving, so far as concerned authenticity. His criticism, that the Holyrood House portrait is "too modern," will be agreed in by all who will take the trouble to compare the portrait in Lodge with undoubted portraits of the time: the style is too modern by a hundred years. But the portrait is of a man upwards of sixty years old: Beaton was murdered in 1546, in the fiftieth year of his age. The portrait is of a dark haired man without beard.

I now come to a portrait of Beaton which there appears reason to think is genuine, and I beg the favour of your correspondents to give me any information in their power regarding it. This portrait is in the Roman Catholic College at Blairs, near Aberdeen. It was in the Scotch College at Rome down to the period of the French occupation of that city in 1798, and formed part of the plunder {434} from that college. It was subsequently discovered in a sale-room by the late Abbe Macpherson, rector of the same college, who purchased it and sent it to Blairs, where it has been for, now, a good many years. That it is a portrait of Beaton's time is certain; but the artist is unknown, and the picture has sustained damage. It is attributed, by a competent judge, who has himself painted two careful copies of it, to Titian, not only from its general style and handling, but from certain peculiarities of canvas, &c., on which latter circumstances, however, he does not lay much stress, taking them only as adminicles in proof. The portrait is a half-length, about 2 ft. 6 in. by 2 ft.: it is that of a fresh-coloured, intellectual man, of forty-five or upwards; hazel eyes; hair slightly reddish, or auburn, just becoming tinged with grey; a thin small beard; costume similar to that of Holbein's Cardinal Wolsey, in the hall of Christchurch, Oxford. It bears this inscription, painted at the bottom of the portrait, and over the original finished painting, and therefore of a subsequent date:

"David Betonius, S.R.E., Card. Archiep. S. Andreae in Scotia, ab Hostibus Fidei Barbare Trucidatus."

Beaton was elected to the Cardinalate in Dec. 1538; did he visit Rome after that? He was at all events in Paris. The Scotch College at Rome was a natural habitat for a portrait of a Scottish churchman so famous as Cardinal Beaton, and it would be strange indeed if they had not one of him where they affected a collecion of portraits of British prelates. I propose to have this portrait engraved, if its probable authenticity cannot be shaken. Did Pinkerton engrave any portrait of Beaton? There is none in my copies of his Iconographia Scotica, 1797, and his Scottish Gallery, 1799. These contain several duplicates; but it is rare to meet with copies that can be warranted perfect. If the portrait be published, it will probably be accompanied by a short memoir, correcting from authentic documents some of the statements of his biographers: any information either as to the portrait or his life will be thankfully acknowledged. One or two letters from Lord Buchan, on the subject of Scottish Portraits, appeared in the Gentleman's Magazine, vol. lxv., but not relating to this particular one.

SCOTUS.

* * * * *

ON THE POINTING OF A PASSAGE IN "ALL'S WELL THAT ENDS WELL."

Lafeu. "They say miracles are past: and we have our philosophical persons, to make modern and familiar, things, supernatural and causeless."—Act ii. Scene 3.

So the passage is pointed in Johnson and Steevens, that is, with a comma after the word "things;" and the same pointing is used in the recent editions of Mr. Knight, Barry Cornwall, and Mr. Collier.

It occurred to me that this pointing gave a meaning quite out of harmony with what directly follows, and also with the spirit in which Lafeu speaks. Let the comma be placed after "familiar", and the whole passage be read thus:

Lafeu. "They say miracles are past; and we have our philosophical persons to make modern and familiar, things supernatural and causeless. Hence is it, that we make trifles of terrors; ensconcing ourselves into seeming knowledge, when we should submit ourselves to an unknown fear."

Lafeu apparently is speaking somewhat sarcastically of those who say miracles are past, and who endeavour to explain away the wonderful into something common and well-known. Subsequently I found that Mr. Coleridge, in his Literary Remains (vol. ii. p. 121.), had adduced the above-mentioned passage, placing the comma after "familiar." He does not, however, make any observation on the other pointing; but remarking, that Shakspeare often uses "modern" for "common," proceeds thus:

"Shakspeare, inspired, as it might seem, with all knowledge, here uses the word causeless in its strict philosophical sense; cause being truly predicable only of phenomena,—that is, things natural, and not of noumena, or things supernatural."

It is, perhaps, rather curious, that although Mr. Collier, in his note on Lafeu's speech, has quoted the above from Mr. Coleridge, the improved pointing should have escaped that gentleman's notice.

Looking into Theobald's Shakspeare, I find that he also had placed the comma as Mr. Coleridge has. Mr. Theobald adds this note:

"This, as it has hitherto been printed, is directly opposite to our poet's and his speaker's meaning. As I have stopped it, the sense quadrates with the context: and surely it is one unalterable property of philosophy to make seeming strange and preternatural phenomena familiar and reducible to cause and reason."

Does not Mr. Theobald, in his closing remark, turn what in Lafeu is really an ironical outburst on would-be philosophers, into something like a serious common-place?

A. ROFFE.

Query, In a work entitled Philosophy of Shakspeare, by W.H. Roukin, Lafeu's speech is quoted, and one word changed; "and we have our philosophical persons," &c., becomes "yet we have," &c. Is there any authority for such a change?

A.R.

* * * * *

FOLK LORE.

The bigger the Ring, the nearer the Wet.—On Sunday evening, the 20th Oct., the moon had a {435} very fine ring round it, which apparently was based near the horizon, and spread over a considerable area of the heavens. This was noticed by myself and others as we returned home from church; and upon my mentioning it to my man-servant, who is a countryman, he said he had been noticing it, and that it reminded him of the old saying, "the bigger the ring, the nearer the wet." On the next day, however, it was fine and windy, and my faith began to be shaken as to the truth of the saying; but the almost incessant rain of the four or five subsequent days fully proved its correctness.

J.A.

Power of prophesying before Death.—To the passages on this subject lately supplied by your correspondents (Vol. ii., pp. 116. 196.) may be added the following from Tertullian, De Anima, c. 53. (vol. ii. col. 741., ed. Migne, Paris, 1844):

"Evenit saepe animam in ipso divortio potentius agitari, sollicitiore obtutu, extraordinaria loquacitate, dum ex majori suggestu, jam in libero constituta, per superfluum quod adhuc cunctatur in corpore enuntiat quae videt, quae audit, quae incipit nosse."

J.C.R.

Change in the Appearance of the Dead.—A woman near Maidstone, who had had much experience as a sick-nurse, told me some years ago that she had always noticed in corpses a change to a more placid expression on the third day after death; and she supposed this to be connected with our Lord's resurrection. I omitted to ask her whether the belief were wholly the result of her own observation, or whether it had been taught her by others, and were common among her neighbours.

J.C.R.

Strange Remedies.—I find some curious prescriptions in an old book entitled The Pathway to Health, &c. (I will not trouble you with the full title), "by Peter Levens, Master of Arts in Oxford, and Student in Physick and Chirurgery."... "Printed for J.W., and are to bee sold by Charles Tym, at the Three Bibles on London Bridge, MDCLXIV." The first is a charm

For all manner of falling evils.—Take the blood of his little finger that is sick, and write these three verses following, and hang it about his neck:

'Jasper fert Mirrham, Thus Melchior Balthazar Aurum, Haec quicum secum portat tria nomina regum, Soleitur a morbo, Domini pietate, caduca.'

and it shall help the party so grieved."

"For a man or woman that is in a consumption.—Take a brasse pot, and fill it with water, and set it on the fire, and put a great earthen pot within that pot, and then put in these parcels following:—Take a cock and pull him alive, then flea off his skin, then beat him in pieces; take dates a pound, and slit out the stones, and lay a layer of them in the bottom of the pot, and then lay a piece of the cock, and upon that some more of the dates, and take succory, endive, and parsley roots, and so every layer one upon another, and put in fine gold and some pearl, and cover the pot as close as may bee with coarse dow, and so let it distill a good while, and so reserve it for your use till such time as you have need thereof."

I could select some exceedingly ludicrous prescriptions (for the book contains 400 pages), but the most curious unfortunately happen to be the most indelicate. Besides this, I am afraid the subject is scarcely worthy of much space in such an important and useful work as "NOTES AND QUERIES."

ALEXANDER ANDREWS.

Abridge, Essex.

Mice as a Medicine (Vol. i., p. 397.).—An old woman lately recommended an occasional roast mouse as a certain cure for a little boy who wetted his bed at night. Her own son, she said, had got over this weakness by eating three roast mice. I am told that the Faculty employ this remedy, and that it has been prescribed in the Oxford Infirmary.

J.W.H.

Omens from Birds.—It is said that for a bird to fly into a room, and out again, by an open window, surely indicates the decease of some inmate. Is this belief local?

J.W.H.

* * * * *

MODE OF COMPUTING INTEREST.

The mode of computing interest among the ancient Greeks appears to have been in many respects the same as that now prevailing in India, which has probably undergone no change from a very remote period. Precisely the same term, too, is used to denote the rate of interest, namely, [Greek: tokos] in Greek and taka or tuka in the languages of Western India. [Greek: Tokoe epidekatoi] in Greek, and dus take in Hindostanee, respectively denote ten per cent. At Athens, the rate of interest might be calculated either by the month or by the year—each being expressed by different terms (Boeckh. Pub. Econ. of Athens, i. 165.). Precisely the same system prevails here. Pono taka, that is, three quarters of a taka, denotes 3/4 per cent. per month. Nau take, that is, nine take, denotes nine per cent. per annum. For the Greek mode of reckoning interest by the month, see Smith's Dictionary of Greek and Roman Antiquities, p. 524. At Athens, the year, in calculating interest, was reckoned at 360 days (Boeckh, i. 183.). Here also, in all native accounts-current, the year is reckoned at 360 days.

The word [Greek: tokos], as applied to interest, was understood by the Greeks themselves to be derived from [Greek: tikto], "to produce," i.e. money begetting money; the offspring or produce of money lent out. Whether its identity may not be established with the word in current use for thousands of years in this country to express precisely the same meaning, is a question I should like to see discussed {436} by some of your correspondents. The word taka signifies any thing pressed or stamped, anything on which an impression is made hence a coin; and is derived from the Sanscrit root tak, to press, to stamp, to coin: whence, tank, a small coin; and tank-sala, a mint; and (query) the English word token, a piece of stamped metal given to communicants. Many of your readers will remember that it used to be a common practice in England for copper coins, representing a half-penny, penny, &c., stamped with the name of the issuer, and denominated "tokens," to be issued in large quantities by shopkeepers as a subsidiary currency, and received at their shop in payment of goods, &c. May not ticket, defined by Johnson, "a token of any right or debt upon the delivery of which admission is granted, or a claim acknowledged," and tick, score or trust, (to go on tick), proceed from the same root?

J.S.

Bombay.

* * * * *

ON THE CULTIVATION OF GEOMETRY IN LANCASHIRE.

If our Queries on this subject be productive of no other result than that of eliciting the able and judicious analysis subsequently given by MR. WILKINSON (Vol. ii., p. 57.), they will have been of no ordinary utility. The silent early progress of any strong, moral, social, or intellectual phenomenon amongst a large mass of people, is always difficult to trace: for it is not thought worthy of record at the time, and before it becomes so distinctly marked as to attract attention, even tradition has for the most part died away. It then becomes a work of great difficulty, from the few scattered indications in print (the books themselves being often so rare[1] that "money will not purchase them"), with perhaps here and there a stray letter, or a metamorphosed tradition, to offer even a probable account of the circumstances. It requires not only an intimate knowledge of the subject-matter which forms the groundwork of the inquiry, both in its antecedent and cotemporary states, and likewise in its most improved state at the present time; it also requires an analytical mind of no ordinary powers, to separate the necessary from the probable; and these again from the irrelevant and merely collateral.

MR. WILKINSON has shown himself to possess so many of the qualities essential to the historian of mathematical science, that we trust he will continue his valuable researches in this direction still further.

It cannot be doubted that MR. WILKINSON has traced with singular acumen the manner in which the spirit of geometrical research was diffused amongst the operative classes, and the class immediately above them—the exciseman and the country schoolmaster. Still it is not to be inferred, that even these classes did not contain a considerable number of able geometers anterior to the period embraced in his discussion. The Mathematical Society of Spitalfields existed more than half a century before the Oldham Society was formed. The sameness of pursuit, combined with the sameness of employment, would rather lead us to infer that geometry was transplanted from Spitalfields to Manchester or Oldham. Simpson found his way from the country to London; and some other Simpson as great as Thomas (though less favourably looked upon by fortune in furnishing stimulus and opportunity) might have migrated from London to Oldham. Or, again, some Lancashire weaver might have adventured to London (a very common case with country artisans after the expiration of apprenticeship); and, there having acquired a taste for mathematics, as well as improvement in his mechanical skill, have returned into the country, and diffused the knowledge and the tastes he took home with him amongst his fellows. The very name betokens Jeremiah Ainsworth to have been of a Lancashire family.

But was Ainsworth really the earliest mathematician of his district? Or, was he merely the first that made any figure in print as a correspondent of the mathematical periodicals of that day? This question is worthy of MR. WILKINSON's further inquiry; and probably some light may be thrown upon it by a careful examination of the original Ladies' and Gentleman's Diaries of the period. In the reprints of these works, only the names, real or assumed, of those whose contributions were actually printed, are inserted—not the list of all correspondents.

Now one would be led to suppose that the study of mathematics was peculiarly suited to the daily mode of life and occupation of these men. Their employment was monotonous; their life sedentary; and their minds were left perfectly free from any contemplative purpose they might choose. Algebraic investigation required writing: but the weaver's hands being engaged he could not write. A diagram, on the contrary, might lie before him, and be carefully studied, whilst his hands and feet may be performing their functions with an accuracy almost instinctive. Nay more: an exceedingly complicated diagram which has grown up gradually as the result of investigations successively {437} made, may be carried in the memory and become the subject of successful peripatetic contemplation. On this point a decided experimental opinion is here expressed: but were further instances asked for, they may be found in Stewart, Monge, and Chasles, all of whom possessed this power in an eminent degree. Indeed, without it, all attempts to study the geometry of space (even the very elements of descriptive geometry, to say nothing of the more recondite investigations of the science) would be entirely unproductive. It is, moreover, a power capable of being acquired by men of average intellect without extreme difficulty; and that even to the extent of "mentally seeing" the constituent parts of figures which have never been exhibited to the eye either by drawings or models.

That such men, if once imbued with a love for geometry, and having once got over the drudgery of elementary acquisition, should be favourably situated for its cultivation, follows as a matter of course. The great difficulty lay in finding sufficient stimulus for their ambition, good models for their imitation, and adequate facilities for publishing the results at which they had arrived. The admirable history of the contents of their scanty libraries, given by MR. WILKINSON, leaves nothing more to be said on that head; except, perhaps, that he attributes rather more to the influences of Emerson's writings than I am able to do.[2] As regards their facilities for publication, these were few, the periods of publication being rarely shorter than annual; and amongst so many competitors, the space which could be allotted to each (even to "the best men") was extremely limited. Yet, contracted as the means of publication were, the spirit of emulation did something; from the belief that insertion was an admitted test of superiority, it was as much an object of ambition amongst these men to solve the "prize question" as it was by philosophers of higher social standing to gain the "prize" conferred by the Academie des Sciences, or any other continental society under the wing of Royalty, at the same period. The prize (half a dozen or a dozen copies of the work itself) was not less an object of triumph, than a Copley or a Royal medal is in our own time amongst the philosophers of the Royal Society.

These men, from similarity of employment and inevitable contiguity of position, were brought into intercourse almost of necessity, and the formation of a little society (such as the "Oldham") the natural result—the older and more experienced men taking the lead in it. At the same time, there can be little doubt that the Spitalfields Society was the pattern after which it was formed; and there can be as little doubt that one or more of its founders had resided in London, and "wrought" in the metropolitan workshops. Could the records of the "Mathematical Society of London" (now in the archives of the Royal Astronomical Society) be carefully examined, some light might be thrown upon this question. A list of members attending every weekly meeting, as well as of visitors, was always kept; and these lists (I have been informed) have been carefully preserved. No doubt any one interested in the question would, upon application to the secretary (Professor De Morgan), obtain ready access to these documents.

The preceding remarks will, in some degree, furnish the elements of an answer to the inquiry, "Why did geometrical speculation take so much deeper root amongst the Lancashire weavers, than amongst any other classes of artisans?" The subject was better adapted to the weaver's mechanical life than any other that could be named; for even the other favourite subjects, botany and entomology, required the suspension of their proper employment at the loom. The formation of the Oldham Society was calculated to keep alive the aspiration for distinction, as well as to introduce novices into the arcanium of geometry. There was generous co-operation, and there was keen competition,—the sure stimulants to eminent success. The unadulterated love of any intellectual pursuit, apart from the love of fame or the hope of emolument, is a rare quality in all stages of society. Few men, however, seem to have realised Basil Montagu's idea of being governed by "a love of excellence rather than the pride of excelling," so closely as the Lancashire geometers of that period—uncultivated as was the age in which they lived, rude as was the society in which their lives were passed, and selfish as the brutal treatment received in those days by mechanics from their employers, was calculated to render them. They were surrounded, enveloped, by the worst social and moral influences; yet, so far as can now be gathered from isolated remarks in the periodicals of the time, they may be held up as a pattern worthy of the imitation of the philosophers of our own time in respect to the generosity and strict honour which marked their intercourse with one another.

Mathematicians seldom grow up solitarily in any locality. When one arises, the absence of all external and social incentives to the study can only betoken an inherent propensity and constitutional fitness for it. Such a man is too much in earnest to keep his knowledge to himself, or to wish to stand alone. He makes disciples,—he aids, encourages, guides them. His own researches are fully communicated; and this with a prodigality proportioned to his own great resources. He feels no jealousy of competition, and is always gratified by seeing others successful. Thus such bodies of men are created in wonderfully short periods by the magnanimous labours of one ardent {438} spirit. These are the men that found societies, schools, sects; wherever one unselfish and earnest man settles down, there we invariably find a cluster of students of his subject, that often lasts for ages. Take, for instance, Leeds. There we see that John Ryley created, at a later period, the Yorkshire school of geometers; comprising amongst its members such men as Swale, Whitley, Ryley ("Sam"), Gawthorp, Settle, and John Baines. This, too, was in a district in many respects very analogous to Lancashire, but especially in the one to which the argument more immediately relates:—it was a district of weavers, only substituting wool for cotton, as cotton had in the other case been substituted for the silk of Spitalfields.

We see nothing like this in the agricultural districts; neither do we in those districts where the ordinary manufacturing operations themselves require the employment of the head as well as the hands and feet. With the exception, indeed, of the schoolmaster, and the exciseman, and the surveyor, there are comparatively few instances of persons whose employment was not strictly sedentary having devoted their intellectual energies to mathematics, independent of early cultivation. To them the subject was more or less professional, and their devotion to it was to be expected—indeed far more than has been realised. It is professional now to a larger and more varied class of men, and of course there is a stronger body of non-academic mathematicians now than at any former period. At the same time it may be doubted whether there be even as many really able men devoted to science purely and for its own sake in this country as there were a century ago, when science wore a more humble guise.

Combining what is here said with the masterly analysis which MR. WILKINSON has given of the books which were accessible to these men, it appears that we shall be able to form a correct view on the subject of the Lancashire geometers. Of course documentary evidence would be desirable—it would certainly be interesting too.

To such of your readers as have not seen the mathematical periodicals of that period, the materials for which were furnished by these men, it may be sufficient to state that the "NOTES AND QUERIES" is conceived in the exact spirit of those works. The chief difference, besides the usual subject-matter, consists in the greater formality and "stiffness" of those than of this; arising, however, of necessity out of the specific and rigid character of mathematical research in itself, and the more limited range of subjects that were open to discussion.

The one great defect of the researches of those men was, that they were conducted in a manner so desultory, and that the subjects themselves were often so isolated, that there can seldom be made out more than a few dislocated fragments of any one subject of inquiry whatever. Special inquiries are prosecuted with great vigour and acumen; but we look in vain for system, classification, or general principles. This, however, is not to be charged to them as a scientific vice, peculiarly:—for, in truth, it must be confessed to be a vice, not only too common, but almost universal amongst English geometers; and even in the geometry of the Greeks themselves, the great object appears to have been "problem-solving" rather than the deduction and arrangement of scientific truths. The modern French geometers have, however, broken this spell; and it is not too much too hope that we shall not be long ere we join them in the development of the systems they have already opened; and, moreover, add to the list some independent topics of our own. The chief dangers to which we are in this case exposed are, classification with incomplete data, and drawing inferences upon trust. It cannot be denied, at all events, that some of our French cotemporaries have fallen into both these errors; but the abuse of a principle is no argument for our not using it, though its existence (or even possible existence) should be a strong incentive to caution.

These remarks have taken a more general form than it is usual to give in your pages. As, however, it is probable that many of your readers may feel an interest in a general statement of a very curious intellectual phenomenon, I am not without a hope that, though so far removed from the usual topics discussed in the work, they will not be altogether unacceptable or useless.

PEN-AND-INK.

[Footnote 1: Although at one period of our life we took great pains to make a collection of the periodicals which, during the last century, were devoted wholly or partially to mathematics, yet we could never even approximate towards completeness. It was not, certainly, from niggardly expenditure. Indeed, it is doubtful whether a complete set exists, or could even be formed now.]

[Footnote 2: See Philosophical Magazine, Sept. 1850.]

* * * * *

MINOR NOTES.

Sermon's Pills.—In Guizot's Life of Monk, Duke of Albermarle, translated and edited by the present Lord Wharncliffe, it is stated (p. 313.) that when the Duke was suffering from the diseases which afterwards proved fatal to him,

"One of his neighbours, at New Hall, formerly an officer in his army, mentioned to him certain pills said to be sovereign against the dropsy, which were sold at Bristol by one Sermon, who had also served under his orders in Scotland as a private soldier. This advice and remedy from ancient comrades, inspired the old general with more confidence than the skill of the physicians. He sent for Sermon's pills, and found himself so much recovered by them for a time, that he returned to London at the close of the summer."

Having "found," in the newspapers of the day, the following paragraphs illustrative of this passage in the great General's history, I think them sufficiently interesting "to make a Note of."

"London, July 13. 1669.—His Grace the Lord General, after a long and dangerous distemper, is (God {439} be praised) perfectly recovered and restored to his former health, to the Great rejoycing of their Majesties and the whole court, by the assistance of one William Sermon, of Bristol, whose pills have had that excellent success as to restore him perfectly to his sleep and appetite, and wholly abate all the symptoms of his disease. Yesterday his Grace, as being perfectly cured, dismissed his physicians from their farther attendance."

"London, July 17. 1669.—The 13th instant, Mr. William Sermon, the practitioner in physick, who so happily performed that excellent cure upon his Grace the Duke of Albermarle, was presented to His Majesty in St. James's Park, where he had the honor to kiss His Majesty's hand, and to receive his thanks for that good service."

September 9. 1669.—"Advertisement: These are to give notice that William Sermon, Dr. of Physick, a person so eminently famous for his cure of his Grace the Duke of Albermarle, is removed from Bristol to London, and may be spoken with every day, especially in the forenoon, at his house in West Harding Street, in Goldsmith's Rents, near Three Legged Alley, between Fetter Lane and Shooe Lane."

Can any of your correspondents give an account of the subsequent career of Dr. Sermon?

[Greek: D]

An Infant Prodigy (Vol. ii., p. 101.).—There are parallel cases in the hagioloists (Hist. de l'Eglise Gallicane, par Longueval, tom. iii. p. 430. 1782):

"S. Amand apres cette mission etant repasse dans la Gaule, eut bientot occasion de montrer l'intrepidite de son zele ... L'amour des femmes, ecueil fatal des jeunes princes, fit en peu de temps oublier a Dagobert les lecons qu'il avoit recues de S. Arnoux et de S. Cunibert. Il se livra a cette passion avec tant de scandale, qu'il eut jusqu'a trois femmes a la fois qui portoient le nom de reines, sans parler d'un grand nombre de concubines ...

"Amand, apres un assez long exil, 'refusa d'abord l'honneur de baptiser' l'enfant de son maitre: 'mais les instances que le roi lui fit faire par Ouen et Eloi firent ceder sa modestie a l'obeissance. L'enfant fut aussitot apporte le saint eveque l'ayant pris entre ses bras, lui donna sa benediction, et recita les prieres pour le faire catechumene. L'oraison etant finie, comme personne ne repondoit, Dieu delia la langue du jeune prince, qui n'avoit pas plus de quarante jours, et il repondit distinctement amen.'"

This happened in 630 at Orleans, and the holy abbot who attests the miracle was present when it occurred. Had St. Amand learnt ventriloquism during his missionary excursions?

And now permit me to tell your correspondent CH. that Abp. Bramhall's Dutch is quite correct. "Mevrouw" is still the title of empresses, queens duchesses, Countesses, noble ladies, ministers of state's and other great men's wives.

G.M.

Guernsey.

A Hint for Publishers.—Many, like myself, have no doubt experienced the inconvenience of possessing early impressions of books, of which later editions exist with numerous emendations and errata.

Would it not be practicable for publishers to issue these emendations and errata in a separate form and at a fair price, for the benefit of the purchasers of the preceding editions?

Were this plan generally adopted, the value of most books would be materially enhanced, and people would not object, as they now do, to order new publications.

HERBERT.

"He who runs may read."—There appeared in Vol. ii., p. 374., a new, and, in my opinion, an erroneous, interpretation of part of ver. 2., chap. ii. Habakkuk. It appears to me probable that a person reading the vision might be struck with awe, and so "alarmed by it" as not to be able "to fly from the impending calamity" in the way which your correspondent imagines. I prefer Archbishop Newcome's explanation:—"Let the characters be so legible that one who hastily passeth on may read them. This may have been a proverbial expression."

If you be pleased to insert this, readers may judge for themselves which is the right interpretation.

PLAIN SENSE.

The Rolliad.—The following memoranda relative to this word were given to me by one who lived during the period of its publication, and was, it is believed, himself a contributor. Wraxall, in his Memoirs, states that the work was nearly all written by Richardson; this is not true. The principal writers were Gen. Fitzpatrick, Lord John Townshend, Dr. Lawrence—he had the chief control. They met in a room at Becket's, the bookseller; they had a secretary and copyist.

None of the contributions went to the newspaper in the original handwriting. The Morning Herald was the paper it is believed, in which they first appeared, although that journal was on the eve of going over to the opposite party. The "ode" to Wraxall, was written by Tickell, author of "Anticipation.".

W.A.

November, 23. 1850.

The Rolliad.—

From The Times, about 1784.

ROLLIAD.

Political Eclogues.

ROSE.

Line 21. ed. 1795.

"Mr. Rose, Mr. Rose, How can you suppose I'll be led by the nose, In voting for those You mean to propose, Mr. Rose, Mr. Rose?"

The above epigram is inserted in my copy of the Rolliad.

Can any of your readers give the names of the {440} authors of the numerous pieces in the second part of "Political Miscellanies."

F.B.R.

The Conquest.—Permit me to point out the erroneous historical idea which obtains in the use of this phrase. Acquisition out of the common course of inheritance is by our legists called perquisitio, by the feudists conquisitio, and the first purchaser (he who brought the estate into the current family) the conquereur. The charters and chronicles of the age thus rightly style William the Norman conquisitor, and his accession conquaestus; but now, from disuse of the foedal sense, with the notion of the forcible method of acquisition, we annex the idea of victory to conquisition,—a title to which William never pretended.

W.L.

Twickenham.

* * * * *

QUERIES.

BIBLIOGRAPHICAL QUERIES.

(Continued from page 421.)

(18.) What could have induced the accurate and learned Saxius (Catal. Lib. Mediol., edit. p. DXC.) to give the name Elucidarium to the first part of the Mariale of Bernardinus de Bustis? This writer, who has sometimes erroneously been reputed a Dominican, and who is commemorated in the Franciscan Martyrology on the 8th of May (p. 178.), derived his denomination from his family, and not "from a place in the country of Milan," as Mr. Tyler has supposed. (Worship of the Virgin, p. 41. Lond. 1846.) Elsewhere Saxius had said (Hist. Typog.-Liter. Mediol., col. ccclii.) that the Mariale was printed for the first time in 1493, and dedicated to Pope Alexander VI.; and Argelati was led by him to consider the Elucidarium to be a distinct performance; and he speaks of the Mariale as having been published in 1494. (Biblioth. Scriptor. Med., tom. i. p. ii. 245.) Unquestionably the real title assigned by the author to the first part of his Sermonarium or Mariale was "PERPETUUM SILENTIUM," and it was inscribed to Alexander's predecessor, Pope Innocent VIII.; and, in conjunction with De Bustis's Office of the Immaculate Conception of the Virgin Mary (sanctioned by a Brief of Pope Sixtus IV., who in 1476 had issued the earliest pontifical decree in favour of an innovation now predominant in the Church of Rome), was primarily printed "Mli," that is, Mediolani, "per Uldericum scinzenzeler, Anno dni M.cccc.lxxxxij" (1492). Wharton, Olearius, Clement, and Maittaire knew nothing of this edition; and it must take precedence of that of Strasburg named by Panzer (i. 47.).

(19.) Can any particulars be easily ascertained relative to reprints of the acts of the canonisation of the Seraphic Doctor in their original small quarto shape?

(20.) To whom should we attribute the rare tract entitled Lauacrum conscientie omnium sacerdotum, which consists of fifty-eight leaves, and was printed in Gothic letter at Cologne, "Anno post Jubileum quarto?"

(21.) Where can information be met with as to the authorship of the Dialogus super Libertate Ecclesiastica, between Hugo, Cato, and Oliver? Fischer (Essai sur Gutenberg, 79.) traces back the first edition to the year 1463; but I know the treatise only in the form in which it was republished at Oppenheim in 1516.

(22.) Who was the compiler or curator of the Viola Sanctorum? and can the slightest attempt be made at verifying the signatures and numbers inserted in the margin, and apparently relating to the MSS. from which the work was taken? One of two copies before me was printed at Nuremberg in 1486, but the other I believe to belong to the earliest impression. It is of small folio size, in very Gothic type, perhaps of the year 1472, without date, place, or name of printer, and is destitute of cyphers, catchwords, and signatures. There are ninety-two leaves in the volume, and in each page generally thirty-three (sometimes thirty-four, rarely thirty-five) lines. (See Brunet, iii. 547.; Kloss, 280.; Panzer, i. 193.)

(23.) By what means can intelligence be procured respecting "Doctor Ulricus," the author of Fraternitas Cleri? A satisfactory reply to this inquiry might probably be found in the Bibl. Spenceriana; but I have not now an opportunity of determining this point.

(24.) A question has been raised by Dr Maitland, from whose admirable criticism nothing connected with literature is likely to escape, as to the meaning of the letters "P.V." placed over a sudarium held by St. Peter and St. Paul. (Early printed Books in the Lambeth Library, pp. 115. 368.) Any person who has happened to obtain the Vitas Patrum, decorated with the curious little woodcuts of which Dr. Maitland has carefully represented two, will cheerfully agree with him in maintaining the excellence of the acquisition. In a copy of this work bearing date 1520, eleven years later than the Lambeth volume (List, p. 85.), the reverse of the leaf which contains the colophon exhibits the same sudarium, in company with the words "Salve sancta Facies." This circumstance inclines me to venture to ask whether my much-valued friend will concur with me in the conjecture that Pictura Veronicae may be the interpretation of "P.V.?" Though the pseudo-Archbishop of Westminster declared, in the simplicity of his heart (Letters to John Poynder, Esq., p. 6.), that he had "never met" with the sequence "quae dicitur in Missa Votiva de Vultu Sancto," doubtless some of his newly-arrested subjects are {441} well aware that it exists, and that its commencement (see Bona, iii. 144.) is,—

"Salve sancta Facies nostri Redemptoris, In qua nitet species divini splendoris, Impressa panniculo nivei candoris, Dataque Veronicae signum ob amoris."

R.G.

* * * * *

MINOR QUERIES.

Dr. Timothy Thruscross.—What is known of the Rev. Dr. Timothy Thruscross, Thirscross, or Thurscross? I am in possession of the very little related by Wood, Ath. Oxon. et Fasti, Walker's Sufferings of the Clergy, Life of Barwich, and the interesting notices scattered in several parts of Sir H. Slingsby's Diary; but this only renders me anxious for more, and I should be glad to receive other references.

W. DN.

Echo Song.—Meaning of Thwaites.—Would you be kind enough to insert the inclosed poem as I am very desirous of being made acquainted with the name of the writer. I expect, from various reasons, that it was written about the year 1645:—

AN ECHO.

"What wantst thou, that thou art in this sad taking? A King. What made him first remove hence his residing? Siding. Did any here deny him satisfaction? Faction. Tell me wherein the strength of faction lies? On Lies. What didst though when the king left his parliament? Lament. What terms wouldst give to gain his company? Any. What wouldst thou do if here thou mightst behold him? Hold him. But wouldst thou save him with they best endeavour? Ever. But if he come not, what become of London? Undone."

I also wish to know (if any of your readers will enlighten me I shall be obliged) what is the meaning of the name "Thwaites." It is a very common name, there being Thwaites, Thornthwaites, Hawthornthwaites, Haythornthwaites, in abundance through all part of England.

LLYD RHYS MORGAN.

Deus Justificatus.—Can any of your readers give any information respecting the authorship of the book entitled:—

"Deus Justificatus, or the Divine Goodness vindicated and cleared, against the Assertors of Absolute and Inconditionate Reprobation. Together with some Refections on a late Discourse of Mr. Parkers concerning the Divine Dominion and Goodness. London, 1668." 8vo. pp. xxxii. 280. iii.?

My copy (which has the autograph of Richard Claridge, the quaker) has written on the title in an old hand "By H. Hallywell." In the Biographia Britannica vol. iv., p. 546., 2d edit., it is said to be by Ralph Cudworth. If so, it has escaped Birch and the other editors of this celebrated writer.

JOHN J. DREDGE.

Death by Burning (Vol. ii., p. 6.).—In the Mendip mining district in Somersetshire, I am credibly informed that within seventy years a person has been burned alive for stealing ore from the pit mouth. There must be some old inhabitant who can attest this fact, and it would be desirable to obtain its confirmation.

J.W.H.

Irish Bull.—What is the exact definition of an Irish bull? When was the term first applied to the species of blunder which goes by that name?

GRIFFIN.

Farquharson's Observations on Aurorae.—A translation of the Course of Meteorology, by Professor Kaenitz, of Halle, by Mr. C.V. Walker, was published at London in 1845, in one volume 12mo. The work was written in German, and afterwards translated into French, and the English work is derived from the French translation. In p. 459. the following passage occurs:

"It is chiefly to the shepherd Farquharson, at Alford, in Aberdeenshire, that we are indebted for a long series of observations on aurorae; and he endeavoured to prove that their height is inconsiderable."

Lower down it is said:

"At the same time, another Protestant minister, Mr. James Paull, at Tullynessle, four kilometres from Alford, saw that the aurora possessed an unusual clearness in the zenith, so that its height did not perhaps exeed 1300 metres."

I have neither the original German work nor the French translation at hand to refer to; but I have a strong suspicion that the word translated shepherd is pasteur, and that it is used to designate Mr. Farquharson as minister of Alford.

L.

Smith's Vitae Eruditissimorum et Illustrium Virorum.—In his Life of Sir Peter Young he quotes Ex Ephemeride Cl. V.D. Petri Junii, but does not say where it was preserved. This (so-called) Ephemeris was written by Sir Peter in his later years, partly perhaps from memory, partly from notes, and, as might be expected, is not free from errors of date which admit of correction from other sources. Smith, following Camden, places Easter Seatown, Young's chief residence, in Lothian, whereas it is in Forfarshire, about a mile from Arbroath, and was part of the property of the great Abbey to which that town belonged. Is it known whether this Ephemeris is extant? and, if so, where?

SCOTUS.

{442}

Defender of the Faith.—In Banks' Dormant and Extinct Baronage, pp. 408-9., vol. iv., I find the following:—

"He ( Henry VIII.) was the first English monarch who obtained the title of Defender of the Faith, which was conferred upon him by Pope Leo X., for a book written by him against Martin Luther."

To which the following note is subjoined:—

"But in a letter from Christopher Wren, Esq., to Francis Peek, M.A. (author of the Desiderata Curiosa), it is thus stated, viz., 'that King Henry VII. had the title of Defender of the Faith, appears by the Register of the Order of the Garter in the black book, (sic dictum a tegmine), now in my hands, by office, which having been shown to King Charles I., he received with much joy; nothing more pleasing him than that the right of that title was fixed in the crown long before the Pope's pretended donation, to all which I make protestation to all posterity.' [Greek: Autographo], hoc meo. Ita testor. Chr. Wren, a memoria, et secretis Honoratissimi Ordinis. Wrexham, 4 March, 1736-7."

In support of this note, I find in Chamberlayne's Present State of England, 1669, p. 88., this statement:

"Defender of the Faith was anciently used by the Kings of England, as appears by several charters granted to the University of Oxford, &c."

As the word anciently, I conceive, applies to a period anterior to 1521, may I express a hope that some of your learned subscribers at Oxford will favour your readers with the dates of the charters alluded to; and, if possible, some information as to the circumstances which led to the adoption of the title "Defender of the Faith" by the kings of England previous to the reign of Henry VIII.

ROBERT ANSTRUTHER, Lieut.-Col.

Bayswater.

Calendar of Sundays in Greek and Romish Churches.—Where can I find good authority on the calendar of Sundays in the Greek Church, and in the Roman? As to the latter, the missals and directories only give the current year: as to the former, there is no work I know of which gives anything.

M.

Dandridge the Painter.—At Osterley Park (Lord Jersey's) is the only example of the pencil of Dandridge, bearing his signature and the date 1741.

Through neglect and the effect of time this able work has been dried up, so that we may say—

"The wine of life is drawn, and nothing Left but the mere lees:"

but there's savour of merit and signs of goodly craft for the dark age of its birth. In the group of three children of life-size we have a rare work of the period when few men of genius wielded the brush or daubed canvas, even through the inspiring patronage of a wealthy banker, whose progeny they are—and this is executed too before academies and societies offered their fostering aid, and when Hogarth struggled on probably side by side with Dandridge. Some of your readers may have traces of him and of his works, and may be able to trace his memory to the grave. All that Walpole has of him is (p. 439.):

"Son of a house painter; had great business from his felicity in taking a likeness. He sometimes painted small conversations, but died in the vigour of his age."

QUESTOR.

Athenaeum, Nov. 20. 1850.

Chaucer's Portrait by Occleve.—Is the portrait of Chaucer which Occleve drew in his translation of Egidius de Roma to be found in all the MSS. of that work? and, if so, has it ever been engraved. I have not Urry's Chaucer by me, or perhaps he could save you the trouble of answering the question.

On reference to Watts, I find he does not even mention this work of Occleve, but contents himself with a piece of supercilious criticism; whereas the notices which Occleve takes of passing events (of which the character of Chaucer is one) are at least valuable (although his poetry may not be the best in the world), and his work is also valuable in giving us the phraseology of the fourteenth century.

P.

John o'Groat's House.—Does any authenticated view of the building called John o'Groat's House in Caithness exist, and are any traditions respecting it known beyond the certainly ridiculous account in the fifth volume of Beauties of Scotland, p.83.?

Can any of your readers point out an engraving of the old Konigs or Kaiserstuhl, at Rheuse, on the Rhine, as well as of its restoration in 1848, after being destroyed by the hordes of revolutionary France, in 1792? It is not in Merian or Zeiler. I have seen it, but cannot call to mind the author. Perhaps Alsatia Illustrata?

WILLIAM BELL, Phil. Dr.

Dancing the Bride to Bed—Old Hewson the Cobler.—I have a tune called "A round dance to dance the bride to bed." Can any of your readers favour me with notices of such a custom prevailing? The tune dates about 1630 or earlier, and resembles that of "The Hunt is up."

Another, printed about 1730, is called, "My name is Old Hewson the Cobler." Is this a cavelier's song in ridicule of the Roundhead Colonel Hewson; and are the words to be found?

WM. CHAPPELL.

[We trust these Queries may be regarded as a sign that Mr. Chappell is preparing a new edition of his valuable collection of National English Airs.—ED.]

Duke and Earl of Albemarle.—Albemarle has given a title of duke to the celebrated General Monk, and that of earl to the family of Keppel. Will some of your correspondents tell me where {443} there is any place called Albemarle, which gives rise to these dignities, or why this title was assumed by these families?

J.

* * * * *

REPLIES.

JULIN, THE DROWNED CITY.

(Vol. ii., p. 282.)

It does not at all follow, that if a city perished by the encroachment of the sea, it was a very striking event at the time: it might have happened gradually, not suddenly. Instances both ways seem to have occurred on the shores of the German Ocean (see Lyell's Principles of Geology, ch. 16.). A great flood happened in 1154 (Helmold, p. 216. b. ii. c. 1. s. 5.), but it is mentioned with respect to the oceanic rivers only, and not as to the Baltic, or destruction of houses or buildings.

But was Julin drowned at all? Helmold does not say that it was (his account is in Book i. c. 2. s. 5.); and he does say that it was not, but destroyed by a certain Danish king. It is most inconceivable that he should not have known who the Danish king was, if it happened in his own time. The passage savours of much later interpolation.

Koch, Rivol. vol. i. p. 280., states positively that Julin was Wollin, and was destroyed by Waldemar I. in 1175, for which he seems to rely upon Helmold, or at least his continuator, Arnold. Helmold himself died in 1170.

Saxo Grammaticus lived at that time, and was probably well acquainted with the events, since he was intimate with Archbishop Absolon, who took part in them in a military as well as ecclesiastical sense. In p. 333. he says:

"Waldemar the 1st, goes with a fleet through the month of the river Zwina, then to the river which adjoins Julin and Camin, and has its mouth divided into two. There was a long bridge joining the walls of Julin. The king having landed 'ex adverso urbis in ripa Australi, pontem disjici jussit.' The king cleared the way for his fleet; got to an island Chrisztoa; crossed the river and went to Camin. He went out to sea by that mouth."

This is given very much at length.

All this is the geography of the present day, and the names, if you read Wollin for Julin. The Oder expands into a wide lake, shut off from the sea by a bar of land, through which there are three channels. The Zwein is the middle one of the three; that which passes by Wollin and Kimmin is the eastern one.

In p. 347. he says:

"Rex ... classem ... Zuinsibus ostiis inserit, Julinique vacuas defensoribus aedes, incendio adortus, rehabitatae urbis novitatem, iterata penatium strage, consumpsit.... Juilinenses, cum urbis uae recenses ruinas, ferendae obsidioni, inhabiles cernerent, perinde ac viribus orbati, deserta patria, praesidium Caminense petiverunt, aliena amplexi moenia, qui propria tueri diffiderent."

In p. 359. he says: The king "per Suinam invectus, Julinum oppidum, incolarum fuga desertam, incendio tentat."

Saxo mentions Julin, p. 182-24.: "Nobilissimum illius provinciae oppidum," under Harold Blatand, King of Denmark, who reigned in the latter half of the ninth century. He put a body of troops into it, who became dreadful pirates.

In p. 225. he says that the Danes compelled them to give up their pirates, who were punished. In p. 381., in the reign of Canute, son of Waldemar, there is an expedition against the Julinenses, the result of which is expressed "Julinensium rebus absumptis."

In p. 382., the king sets out for Julin, but seems to have attacked only Camin. Waldemar died in 1182, Canute, 1202 (Koch.)

Arnold (b. iii. c. 8. s. 4.) speaks of the Sclavi as finally subdued and made tributary, about 1185.

In the notes to Saxo (p. 197.) there is a long extract about Wollinum, from Chytraeus, a writer who lived 1530-1600, taken from the information of a learned old man whose uncle was born there. He says he went there to see, accompanied by many of the principal inhabitants, the remains of Julin, destroyed in 1170 by Waldemar. Wollin he calls "mediocris civitas." From the ruins, it had been more than a German mile round. Part of it was "ineditiore paulum colle." He speaks of four montes, which had castles. He says Wollin is "non aspernenda civitas," but not a thirtieth part of the ancient size.

C.B.

I regret that my questioner V., from Belgravia (Vol. ii., p. 379.), should have felt aggrieved that, upon his request for my story, I should have been compelled to reply, in the words of the Ancient Mariner:

"Story! bless you, sir, I have none to tell."

As he seems, however, so assured that some account of the destruction of a city of such opulence and renown as Vineta must exist, I shall be extremely happy to learn it from him. I can assure my friend V. that neither Kanzow nor Microelius (who has, however, a plan of the stone pavement of its streets at the bottom of the Baltic), nor Giesebrecht, in his Wendische Geschichten (Berlin, 1844, 3 vols. 8 vo.), know anything beyond what I have stated. And as to a great port disappearing in the ocean, without any cotemporary notice, the instances are frequent; as remarkable a one as any occurs in our own island, and at a much later period:—Ravenspur, which was a sea-port of the greatest importance, where certainly Henry IV., and, as some say, Henry VII., landed from the opposite continent, to claim and conquer their crowns, and where the father of De la Pole, {444} Duke of Suffolk, was a merchant, is now so totally lost from memory and the earth, that its very site is unknown, whether within the Humber, or outside the Spurn; possibly where now the reef called Stony Binks at the mouth of that aestuary is situated.

So far, however, as an actual legend is concerned with the destruction of a great emporium of commerce, I am happy I can supply your correspondent with one, possibly the more acceptable as it is of another famous city, not very remote from Vineta, and is not without relations belonging to the latter: I allude to the town of Wisby, Visbuy, Visbye, Visburgum, on the island of Gothland, of which the following account is found in an old Latin description of Sweden:

"Insulae unica civitas, olim potentia splendore et magnitudine celebris, tantarum rerum jactura fracta in exiguos fines se contraxit et oppiduli speciem refert, ut Jansonii Atlas docet. Arx prope portum satis valida. Emporiis illis Pomeraniae clarissimis Wineta et Julin pessum euntibus, Visbya inter omnia Regionum oppida floruit. (Olaus Magnus, l. 10. cap. 16.) Licet urbs vetustissima Visbycensis potentissima ac opulentissima quondam fuerit et pro minima occasione, nempe fractionis unius fenestralis vitri vix valoris obolaris, humiliata sit, tamen leges maritimae et decisiones omnium controversiarum singulariter longe lateque observantur. Ex distructa autem Vineta Gothlandos incolas marmor, ferrum, cuprum, stannum, argentum, et inter alia duas aenei portas grandis ponderis petiisse, et secum in Gothlandum avexisse ferunt."

I need not remind your readers that the maritime code of Wisby even now influences many of the most important decisions affecting our present mercantile shipping, it having been the model of the Laws of the Acquitanian Islands of Re and Oleron, which Richard I. ordered to be observed in England, and which are still frequently acted on. It is, however, to the notice which I have marked in Italics that I would call the attention of V.,—the destruction of the city on account of a small pane of glass not the value of an obolus: and as he, no doubt, has interested himself on these northern histories, request him to explain the circumstance more in detail. I myself have often determined on searching Pontanus, and other ancient Danish authorities, but hitherto neglected, and therefore know nothing about the matter.

As to the gates, which are more especially mentioned amongst the spoils of the ruined Wineta, we find them also noticed in the same work, at its account of Wineta:

"Urbem frequentabant Graeci aut potius Russi multarumque aliarum nationum mercatores, quorum affluxus frequens civibus ingentes divitias et facultates conciliavit: adeo ut portae civitatis ex aere paratae, et argentum tam vulgare ibi esset ut ad communium et vilium rerum usum adhibetur."

To go, however, completely into the history of these gates would require a volume. It would be necessary to commence with the great veneration for gates in general throughout the north: whether the name of their great god Thor (a gateway) is cause or consequence would have to be considered, and his coincidence, in this respect, with Janus and Janua, the eldest deity of the Italians, which I have more largely discussed in an Essay on a British Coin with the Head of Janus, in the 21st No. of the Journal of the British Archaeological Association. Next, the question would arise, whether these gates have not been migratory, like those of Somnauth, which Mahmoud took to Gazni from a similar principle of deeply-rooted ancient veneration,—relics of sanctity rather than trophies of victory, and which Lord Ellenborough was so unjustly ridiculed for endeavouring to restore. Thirdly, therefore, also whether the famous gates of the cathedral of Novogorod may not be identical with those which have successively adorned Vineta's and Wisby's portals; and whether those which are still the ornament of the west door of the cathedral of Hildesheim, (which, according to the inscription which crosses their twenty scriptural bas-reliefs, were cast by Bereward, the thirteenth bishop, in 1015), may not be an existing and beautiful example; as is the bronze column, with the bas-reliefs of passages of the New Testament winding round it, and placed in the same cathedral close. It would not be too much to surmise, that even the beautiful gate of the Florence baptistery are from the same atelier, as an old Italian author sings:

"O Germania gloriosa, Tu vasa ex aurichalcis Ad nos subinde mittes."

WILLIAM BELL, Phil. D.

* * * * *

NICHOLAS FERRAR AND THE SO-CALLED ARMINIAN NUNNERY OF LITTLE GIDDING.

(Vol. ii., pp. 119. 407.)

Hearne, the antiquary, has preserved two curious documents relating to the Little Gidding establishment in the Appendix to his Preface to Peter Langtoff's Chronicle, Nos. IX. and X. See also Thomae Caii Vindiciae, vol. ii. The most complete account of this remarkable man is that by Dr. Peckard, formerly Master of Magdalen College, Cambridge, entitled Memoirs of the Life of Nicholas Ferrar, published in 1790, which has now become extremely scarce, but has been reprinted by Dr. Wordsworth, in his Ecclesiastical Biography, who has given in an Appendix an account of the visit of the younger Nicholas Ferrar to London, from a MS. in the Lambeth Library. The Life of Nicholas Ferrar, by Dr. Turner, Bishop of Ely, came into the hands of the celebrated Dr. Dodd, who published an abridgment {445} of it in the Christian Magazine of 1761. This account was again republished, with additions, in 1837, entitled Brief Memorials of Nicholas Ferrar, Founder of a Protestant Religious Establishment at Little Gidding, in Huntingdonshire, by the Rev. T.M. Macdonogh, Vicar of Bovingdon. Some further particulars of this family may be found in Barnabas Oley's preface to Herbert's Country Parson, and in Bishop Hacket's Life of Archbishop Williams. In Baker's MSS. (vol. xxxv. p. 389.) in the Public Library of Cambridge, is an article entitled "Large Materials for writing the Life of Mr. Nicholas Ferrar." Isaac Walton, in his Life of George Herbert, also notices Ferrar, and describes minutely his mode of life at Little Gidding. From an advertisement at the end of Francis Peck's Memoirs of Cromwell, it appears that Peck had prepared for publication a Life of Mr. Nicholas Ferrar, no doubt the manuscript collections noticed by MR. RIMBAULT (p. 407.):

"Little Gidding," it has been observed, "was in England what Port Royal was in France. Ardent devotion to the Redeemer characterised both. In each, peace, charity, good order, and love to the souls and bodies of men, were eminently exhibited; upon each the hand of persecution fell with unrelenting severity. Port Royal was destroyed by the Jesuits; Little Gidding by the Puritans."

J.Y.

Hoxton.

Arminian Nunnery in Huntingdonshire (Vol. ii., p. 407.).—Allow me to refer DR. RIMBAULT to Hacket's Life of Archbishop Williams, Part ii. p. 50.; Izaak Walton's Life of George Herbert; Peter Langloft's Chronicle, ed. Hearne, Preface, sect xi., Appendix to Preface, Nos. IX. and X.; Caii Vindiciae Antiquitatis Academiae Oxoniensis, ed. Hearne, vol. ii. p. 683. 693. 697. 702. 713.; and Memoirs of the Life of Mr. Nicholas Ferrar, by Peter Peckard, D.D., Cambridge, 8vo., 1790 (which is reprinted with additions from a manuscript in the archiepiscopal library at Lambeth, in Dr. Wordsworth's Ecclesiastical Biography). In Dr. Peckard's Preface will be found somewhat respecting "the loss (probably the unjust detention)" of Francis Peck's manuscript life of Nicholas Ferrar, apparently the same manuscript which DR. RIMBAULT states he has seen.

C.H. COOPER.

Cambridge, November 16. 1850.

In Nichol's Litterary Anecdotes, vol. ii. p. 519., it is stated that "a capital account of the family of Ferrar was compiled by Mr. Gough for the sixth volume of the second edition of the Biographica Britannica." Of the only two copies known to exist of the printed portion of this sixth volume Mr. Chalmers possessed one, and he seems to have used it in the preparation of the life of Ferrar for his Biographical Dictionary.

JOHN J. DREDGE.

DR. RIMBAULT will find many interesting particulars relating to the so-called "Arminian Nunnery," and the family of Ferrars, together with an account of the present state of the place, in a paper by C. Colson, B.A., Fellow of St. John's College, entitled "An Account of a Visit to Little Gidding, on the Feast of S. Andrew, 1840," published in the first part of the Transactions of the Cambridge Camden Society, Stevenson, Cambridge, 1841.

E.V.

Dr. Peckard appears to have had the use of some of Peck's MSS. (perhaps those referred to by DR. RIMBAULT), but he regrets the loss of a MS. which he had lent to the Rev. Mr. Jones, of Sheepshall, being, a Life of Nicholas Ferrar, by Peck, prepared for the press, but which, after near twenty years' inquiry, he had been unable to recover. This suggests the Query, Has it ever yet been recovered? DR. RIMBAULT'S inquiry regarding Thomas Hearne has been answered by Dr. Dibdin (Bibliomania, London, 1811, p.381.) who informs Dr. Peckard, Dr. Wordsworth, and his Quarterly Reviewer (p. 93), that Hearne, in the Supplement to his Thom. Caii Vind. Ant. Oxon., 1730, 8vo., vol. ii., "had previously published a copious and curious account of the monastery at Little Gidding," which he says "does not appear to have been known to this latter editor," meaning Dr. Wordsworth. I have not Hearne's work to refer to; but Dr. Dibdin versus Dr. Wordsworth and his Reviewer, as to ignorance of what so well-known an author as Tom Hearne has written, is a little curious. The word "Arminian," in DR. RIMBAULT'S Query, requires a remark. On reading the Memoir which Dr. Wordsworth has edited, he will find (Appendix, p. 247.) that the Ferrars complained of "a libellous pamphlet, entitled the Arminian Nunnery at Little Gidding in Huntingdonshire," and that they repudiated "Arminianism and other fopperies." This suggests a further Query: Is DR. RIMBAULT possessed of that pamphlet? The attachment to books manifested by the Ferrars family entitles them, I humbly think, to as much space as your "NOTES AND QUERIES" can afford them.

J.D.N.N.

Renfrewshire.

If DR. RIMBAULT or any of your correspondents could furnish a reply to any of the Queries inserted by you in Vol. ii., p. 119., relative to the memoir published by Peckard, and other matters connected therewith, I should feel obliged.

MATERRE.

Mr. Henning of Hillingden, a descendant of the Ferrar family, through his great-uncle, Dr. John Mapletoft, (see Ward's Lives of the Gresham Professors), who was the great-nephew of Nicholas Ferrar, possessed one of the three curious volumes arranged by members of the family, {446} viz.—A Digest of the History of our Saviour's Life, with numerous plates. One of these copies was presented to Charles I. on his going into the North; another to Charles II. at the Restoration; the third remained in the family. Can any of your readers tell us whether the copies given to the two kings exist, and if so, who are the present possessors of them?

J.H.M.

Bath

* * * * *

VINEYARDS.

(Vol. ii., p. 393. 414.).

CLERICUS will find some information in the Gentleman's Magazine for the year 1775 (vol. xlv. pp. 513. 632.) which will direct him to a still fuller discussion of the subject in the third volume of the Archaeologia.

N.B.

At Rochester there is a field so called; it is a very favourite walk. In the neighbourhood of the Cathedral at Bath, there is one side of a street so called.

S.S.

A part of the town of Richmond (Surrey) is called "the Vineyard." The name, of the origin of which I am ignorant, is applied to a collection of small houses between the Roman Catholic Chapel and the Rose Cottage Hotel.

W.A.G.

In the fields between Buckden and Diddington, in the county of Huntingdon, there is what is called "the Vineyard" at the present day; and connected therewith is what is called, and evidently from the shape has been, a "fish pond." In Buckden is the abbot's house, with the original door; and there is no doubt but what the above was, in olden times, belonging to a religious house in that part.

M.C.R.

A small close of land adjoining the churchyard at Oiston, Nottinghamshire (due west of the church), goes by the name of "the Vineyard."

P.P.

There is also a street at Abingdon called "the Vineyard," from the land having been formerly used for that purpose by the Benedictines of Abingdon Abbey. If my memory do not betray me, there is some interesting information on the early cultivation of the vine in England, in an article by Mr. T. Hudson Turner, in the Archaeological Journal, which I have not now at hand.

H.G.T.

There was a vineyard belonging to Ely Place, Holborn: and another probably in the Abbey grounds at Westminster. A portion of the estate of the late Chas. Powell, Esq., of Hinton Court, near Hereford, was called the "Vineyard" and the Vineyard of the Monks of St. Mary's is yet pointed out by the good folks of Beaulieu in Hampshire. The vineyards of Bath are in the heart, not the suburbs of the present town.

MACKENZIE WALCOTT, M.A.

* * * * *

TREATISE OF EQUIVOCATION.

(Vol. ii., p. 168.).

As supplementary to J.B.'s valuable paper on the Treatise of Equivocation, I transcribe the following from the Smith Manuscripts (num. lxix. 5. p. 35.), thinking it may leave an interest for some of your readers:—

"Apud, D.P. 13th of May, 1597.

Gerard the Jesuite, his Defence of AEquivocation.

John Gerard, the Jesuite, being told that, upon the arraignment of Sowthwell the priest of high treason, one of the witnesses being asked upon her oath by one of the judges, in open court, whether Sowthwell were ever in Bellamie's house, said that she had been perswaded by Sowthwell to affirme upon her oath, that she did not see Sowthwell in Bellamie's house and to keep this secret in her mind, of INTENT TO TELL YOU, whereas in truth she had seen him diverse times in Bellamie's house; and Sowthwell being charged therewith, openly confessed the same, and sought to justifie the same by the place out of Jeremie, that a man ought to swear in judicio, justitia, et veritate. Now, this John Gerrard, being asked what his opinion and judgment was concerning Southwell's opinion above said, said that he was of the same opinion, and seemed to justifie the same by the example of our Saviour Christ, who said to His disciples, that you shall go to Jerusalem, Ego autem non ascendam, keeping this secret to himself, of INTENT TO TELL YOU. And also sayeth that our Saviour Christ said, that the Son of Man did not know of the day of judgment, keeping this secret to himself, OF INTENT TO TELL YOU; for he sayeth, that as he was Son of Man he knew it, and could not be ignorant of any thing: and furder sayeth, that a witness being examined, juridice and of temporal things, not concerning religion or Catholics, cannot answer with such aequivocation as is above said. And, forasmuch as this opinion and the defence thereof seemed to be damnable and blasphemous, he was required to sett down his own opinion therein, least he should be mistaken; but he denied the same, not because it is untrue, but because he would not publish it. Then being required to subscribe the same, denied the same also.

RICHARD BARKLEY. WILLIAM WAAD. EDWARD COOK. THOMAS FLEMING."

The reference "Apud. D.P.," which stands as I have placed it above, may perhaps enable some of your contributors to point out the source from which this account is derived. The date at the top appears to have been added by a later hand.

J. SANSOM.

Oxford, Nov. 1850.

* * * * *

RIOTS IN LONDON.

(Vol. ii., pp. 273. 332.)

Will you do me the favour to insert the following attempt to set right and disentangle the thread {447} of my narrative respecting the death of young Allen. Certain it is that I was not "an actor nor spectator," in the riots of 1768, for they occurred some little time before I was born! It is equally certain that a man well remembered by me as our servant, whose name was "Mac," was a soldier concerned in the affair of Allen's death. As all the three soldiers had the prefix of "Mac" to their names, I cannot tell which of them it was, but it was not the man who really shot Allen, and was never again heard of; for "Mac," whom I so well remember, must have lived with my father after the affair of 1768, or I could not have known him. In my youthful remembrance, I have blended the story about him with the riots which I had witnessed in 1780: this is the best and only explanation I can give. Sure I am, that all my father related to me of that man was true. I presume the "Mac" I knew must have been Maclane, as your correspondent E.B. PRICE thinks probable, because of his trial and acquittal, which agrees with my father's statement; and especially as he was singled out and erroneously accused of the crime—as the quotation above referred to states. All I can say is, I can relate no more; I have told the story as I remember it, and for myself can only apologise that (though not so old as to witness the riots of 1768) I am old enough to experience that Time has laid his hand not only on my head to whiten my locks, but in this instance compels me to acknowledge that even the memories of my early days are, like the present, imperfect. The failure is with me, not with my father.

This vindication of my honourable parent's undoubted veracity reminds me of a circumstance that I have read or heard in a trial with regard to a right of way across an inclosure. Several aged men had given their evidence, when one said, "I remember that a public footpath for more than 100 years." "How old are you?" said the counsel. "Somewhere about eighty," was as the reply. "How then do you remember the path for 100 years?" "I remember (said the old man firmly), when a boy, sitting on my father's knee, and he told me of a robbery that took place on that footpath; and so I know it existed then, for my father never told a lie." The point was carried, and the footpath remains open to this day, to tell to all generations the beauty of truth.

SENEX.

In Malcolm's Anecdotes of the Manners and Customs of London during the eighteenth Century, 4to. 1808, there is a

"Summary of the Trial of Donald Maclane, on Tuesday last, at Guildford Assizes, for the murder of William Allen Jun. on the 10th of May last in St. George's Fields."

Upon the trial mention was made of the paper stuck up against the walls of the King's Bench Prison, from which it appears that it contained the following:

"Let * * * Judges, Ministers combine, And here great Wilkes and Liberty confine. Yet in each English heart secure their fame is In spite of crowded levies at St. J——'s. Then while in prison Envy dooms their stay, Here grateful Britons daily homage pay."

The inscription upon the tomb of William Allen was visible in 1817, and in addition to the inscription on the north side, which has already been printed in "NOTES AND QUERIES" (Vol. ii., p. 333), was as follows:—

South Side.

"O disembody'd soul! most rudely driven From this low orb (our sinful seat) to Heaven, While filial piety can please the ear, Thy name will still occur for ever dear: This very spot now humaniz'd shall crave From all a tear of pity on thy grave. O flow'r of flow'rs! which we shall see no more, No kind returning Spring can thee restore, Thy loss thy hapless countrymen deplore.

East Side.

"O earth! cover not thou my blood."—Job. xvi. 18.

West Side.

"Take away the wicked from before the King, and His throne shall be established in righteousness."—Prov. xxiii. 5.

Fifteen months afterwards the father of William Allen presented a petition to his majesty for vengeance on the murderers of his son.

O. SMITH.

* * * * *

REPLIES TO MINOR QUERIES

Osnaburg Bishopric (Vol. ii. p. 358.).—By the treaty of Osnaburg, in 1624, it was stipulated "that the alternate nomination to the Bishopric of Osnaburg should be in the catholic bishops, and in the protestant branches of the house of Luneburg." Thus, the Princes Ernest Augustus, the father of George I., Ernest Augustus, brother of the same monarch, and the late Duke of York, became sovereign-bishops of Osnaburg. But by the treaty of Vienna, in 1815, the bishopric became an integral part of the kingdom of Hanover. (Vide Halliday's House of Guelph, 4to. 1820, pp. 134, 135, 335.)

F.E.

Death of Richard II. (Vol. ii., p. 391.).—Otterburn tells us (pp. 228, 229.) that Richard II.'s death took place at Pontefract Castle, on St. Valentine's day, and adds, that the body was exposed to public view in all the principal towns through which it passed on the road to London. See also Walsingham (p. 363.):

"Clausitque diem extremum apud castrum de Pontefracto, die Sancti Valentini."

{448} The Keeper of the Wardrobe, moreover, received 100 marks for the conveyance of the king's body from Pontefract to London. (Issue Rolls, 1 Henry IV.)

It was the belief of many contemporaries—and arguments have been adduced by modern writers in support of the supposition—(see a very interesting treatise on the subject in the second volume of Tytler's History of Scotland), that Richard II. escaped from his prison, and lived for several years in Stirling Castle. But be that as it may, Froissart, I think, is clearly wrong in stating that he died in the Tower of London.

O.P.Q.

In answer to your Query relative to the death of Richard II., and his dying at Pontefract, I beg to refer you to Devon's printed Pell Records, Hen. III. to Hen. VI., p. 275, for the following entry:

"17 February. To Thos. Tuttabury, clerk, keeper of the king's wardrobe, In money paid to him by the hands of Wm. Pampleon, Esq., for expenses incurred for the carriage of the body of Richard, late king of England, from the town of Pomferait to London, by Writ, &c., 66l. 13s. 4d."

Again, at page 276.:

"To a certain other valet, sent from London, by direction of the king's council, to Pontfreyt Castle for the protection and safe custody of the body of Richard II., late king of England, In money paid to his own hands for his wages and expenses, 6s. 8d."

This seems to be decisive of the question; but there are several other interesting entries bearing on the same point.

D.P.R.

Scottish Prisoners sold to Plantations (Vol. ii., pp. 297. 350. 379.).—

"The judgements of heaven were never so visible upon any people as those which have fallen upon the Scots since [the sale of Charles I.]; for, besides the sweeping furious plague that reigned in Edinburgh, and the incredible number of witches which have increased, and have been executed there since; besides the sundry shameful defeats they have received by the English, who carried away more of them prisoners than they were themselves in number; besides that many of them died of mere hunger; besides that they were sold away slaves, at half a crown a dozen, for foreign plantations among savages; I say besides all this chain of judgements, with diverse others, they have quite lost their reputation among all mankind; some jeer them, some hate them, and none pity them."—Howell's German Dict., p. 65., 1653.

Echard, in Hist. Eng., vol. ii. p. 727., speaking of the prisoners taken at Worcester, says that Cromwell

"marched up triumphantly to London, driving four or five thousand prisoners like sheep before him; making presents of them, as occasion offered, as of so many slaves, and selling the rest for that purpose into the English plantations abroad."

W. DN.

Lachrymatories.—There is absolutely no authority in any ancient author for this name, and the best scholars speak of these vessels as the bottles usually called lachrymatories, &c. It would be curious to discover when the name was first used, and by whom first this absurd use was imagined. It [illegible] that their proper use was to contain perfumes, scents, and unguents, as sweet odours to rest with the departed. Becker says:

"Bottles, filled with perfumes, were placed inside the tomb, which was besprinkled odoribus. These are the tear-flasks, or lachrymatories, so often mentioned formerly."—Gallus, p. 413. Eng. Tr.

A wasteful use of perfumes at funerals (sumptuosa respersio, Cicero de Legibus, ii. 23.) was forbidden by the Twelve Tables. The eighth verse of the fifty-sixth Psalm,

"My flight thou numberest: put my tears in thy bottle: stand they not in thy book?"—Hengstenberg, Clarke's Tr. Edinb.

is, I believe, the only evidence that can be brought in favour of the old opinion; but we surely cannot take the highly figurative language of Eastern poetry to establish a Roman custom of which we have no hint elsewhere. This verse admits of a much simpler interpretation; see Arndt, quoted by Hengstenberg ad locum. From a review of Museum Disneianum, which appeared in No. XXIII. of the Classical Museum, it seems that Mr. Disney has devoted to this subject some pages of the introduction to Part II. of the above work, of which a summary is given by the reviewer.

ED. S. JACKSON.

Torreridge, Herts, Oct. 23.

Querela Cantabrigiensis (Vol. ii., pp. 168. 205.).—MR. SANSOM is sustained by Anthony Wood in assigning the Querela to Dean Ryves; but it may be doubted whether he were anything but the editor, publishing it as an Appendix to the Mercurius Rusticus. The title of the work is Querela Cantabrigiensis: or A Remonstrance by way of Apologie for the banished Members of the late flourishing University of Cambridge, by some of the said Sufferers. Now Dean Ryves was a member of the University of Oxford. In Wood's Fasti, it is stated that he took the degree of B.A., Oct. 26, 1616, being then of New College. On June 9, 1619, he was admitted of Magdalen College, as a member of which he took his B.D. in 1632, and proceeded to D.D. in 1639. He had nothing therefore to do with the sufferings of the members of the University of Cambridge. In the Life of Dr. Barwick, the account given of the Querela Cantabrigiensis is:—

"But Mr. Barwick's no inconsiderable part of this tragedy, together with others of the university, groaning under the same yoke of tyranny, and each taking a particular account of the sufferings of his own college, {449} gave a distinct narrative of all these barbarities, and under the title of Querela Cantabrigiensis, or the University of Cambridge's Complaint, got it printed by the care of Mr. Richard Royston, a bookseller of London, who did great service to his king and country, by printing and disposing, in the most difficult times, books written in defence of the royal cause." pp. 32-33.

In the Appendix (p.495. note), Dr. Bruno Ryves is mentioned, and spoken of as the author of Mercurius Rusticus; but no notice is taken of his being one of the authors of the Querela. Of Dr. Ryves, who assisted in the Polyglot, a good account is given in Todd's Life of Bishop Walton, vol. i. pp. 306-309.

Barwick was upon another occasion assisted in a work against the League and Covenant, published in 1644, by William Lacy of St. John's, Isaac Barrow of Peter-House, Sethward of Sidney College, Edmund Baldero, and William Quarles of Pembroke Hall, and Peter Gunning of Clare Hall. It is not an improbable conjecture that some of these distinguished men assisted in the composition of the Querela.

A.B.R.

Easton.

"Then" for "than."—At the end of Selden's Titles of Honour (edit. 1631), after the list of "Faults escapled in print," occur the words, "may with no less difficulty be amended then observed?" Was the word then commonly used in the sense of than; or is it a misprint?

P.H.F.

[Dr Latham, in English Language, p. 377. (3d ed.), observes. "As to the word than, the conjunction of comparison, it is a variety of then; the notions of order, sequence, and comparison, being allied. This is good; then (or next in order) that is good, is an expression sufficiently similar to this is better than that to have given rise to it."]

Doctrine of the Immaculate Conception (Vol. ii., p. 407.).—"The Papal decision" referred to may probably be found in the Popes Letters of 2nd Feb. 1849, and of 20th May, 1850. The former professes to seek for information on this question from the priests and bishops of the whole Catholic world, but at the same time it enunciates clearly the Pope's opinion in favour of the doctrine.

J.H.M.

Bath.

In the Catholic Annual Register for the Year ended 30th June, 1850, published by Dolman, will be found the recent Allocution of his Holiness Pius IX., a Pastoral of the Cardinal Wiseman, and one from the bishops of America on this subject; from which your correspondent L. will be fully able to discover the present state of the doctrine of the Catholic Church on this mystery.

FESTE.

Letters of Horning (Vol. ii., p. 393.).—Letters of Horning, in the law of Scotland, are writs issuing under the signet of the sovereign (used in the Supreme Court, or Court of Session, for signifying the sovereign's assent to writs issuing from that court) obtained by creditors, commanding messengers at arms

"To charge the debtor to pay or perform his obligation within a day certain." ... "If payment be not made within the days mentioned in the horning, the messsenger, after proclaiming three oyesses at the marketcross of the head borough of the debtor's domicil, and reading the letters there, blows three blasts with a horn, by which the debtor is understood to be proclaimed rebel to the king for contempt of his authority."

Sec. 26. "Denunciation, if registered within fifteen days, either in the sheriff's books or in the general register, drew after it the rebel's single cheat, i.e. forfeiture of his moveables to the crown. So severe a penalty, with the character of rebel affixed to denunciation on civil debts, was probably owing to this; that anciently letters of horning were not granted but to enforce the performance of facts within one's own power, and when afterwards [in 1584] they came to be issued on liquid debts, the legislature neglected to soften the penalty. Insomuch that those who were denounced rebels, even for a civil cause, might be put to death with impunity till 1612. Persons denounced rebels have not a persona standi ne judicio. They can neither sue nor defend in any action."

I have preferred, to any explanation of my own, to make the preceding extracts from Erskine's Principles of the law of Scotland, Book ii., Title 5., Sections 24, 25, 26.,—a standard institutional work of the highest authority.

For those who are disinclined to examine the subject too gravely, I must refer to another authority equally worthy of credit, viz. Sir Walter Scott's Antiquary, where, in Chapter xviii.,

"Full of wise saws and modern instances."

the subject of imprisonment for debt in Scotland is discussed most ably by Jonathan Oldbuck, Esq., of Monkbarns, who proves to his nephew, Captain McIntyre, that in that happy country no man can be legally imprisoned for debt. He says,—

"You suppose now a man's committed to prison because he cannot pay his debts? Quite otherwise; the truth is, the king is so good as to interfere at the request of the creditor, and to send the debtor his royal command to do him justice within a certain time; fifteen days, or six, as the case may be. Well, the man resists, and disobeys; what follows? Why, that he be lawfully and rightfully declared a rebel to our gracious sovereign, whose command he has disobeyed, and that by three blasts of a horn, at the market-place of Edinburgh, the metropolis of Scotland. And he is then legally imprisoned, not on account of any civil debt, but because of his ungrateful contempt of the royal mandate."

I have only quoted what was absolutely necessary to answer the Query; but there is much more to be found on the subject in the same place.

I cannot suppose that there is any one of your readers so illiterate as not to have read the Antiquary, {450} there are few memories which are not the better for being from time to time refreshed. My own is not of the best, which is sometimes disadvantageous to me, but not in a case like this. I have frequently read over the Antiquary, again and again, and have always derived much pleasure and amusement from so doing, and that pleasure I hope still again to enjoy.

J. S——s.

Dr. Euseby Cleaver (Vol. ii., p. 297.).—Your correspondent H. COTTON, Thurles, Ireland, is mistaken with reward to Dr. Euseby Cleaver. He was never Bishop of Cork and Ross. He was Bishop of Ferns and Leighlin, and translated thence to the archbishopric of Dublin about the year 1805. No doubt the transaction will be found in the Registry of Ferns, but I do not know the date of his consecration.

I was acquainted with that good man, and my mother was his first cousin.

R.S.

Belgave, Nov. 15. 1850.

Mrs. Partington (Vol. ii., pp. 377. 411.).—In the Rev. Sydney Smith's speech at Taunton, on the Lords' rejection of the Reform Bill, October, 1831, is this passage:

"The attempt of the Lords to stop the progress of reform, reminds me very forcibly of the great storm of Sidmouth, and of the conduct of the excellent Mrs. Partington on that occasion. In the winter of 1824, there set in a great flood upon that town—the tide rose to an incredible height—the waves rushed in upon the houses, and everything was threatened with destruction. In the midst of this sublime and terrible storm, Dame Partington, who lived upon the beach, was seen at the door of her house with mop and pattens, trundling her mop, squeezing out the sea-water, and vigorously pushing away the Atlantic Ocean. The Atlantic was roused. Mrs. Partington's spirit was up; but I need not tell you that the contest was unequal. The Atlantic Ocean beat Mrs Partington. She was excellent at a slop or a puddle, but she should not have meddled with a tempest."

This speech is reprinted in the collected editions of Sydney Smith's Works. Unless an allusion to Mrs. Partington of a prior date to October, 1831, is produced, we may fairly consider that the celebrity of that lady is owing to Sydney Smith.

I doubt if Lord Brougham ever alluded to Mrs. Partington. Certain it is he never made any speech in the House of Commons on the Reform Bill, as he was raised to the peerage some months before that bill was brought forward.

C.H. COOPER.

"Never did Cardinal bring good to England" (Vol. ii., p. 424.).—Your correspondent O.P.Q. refers to Dr. Lingard's History of England, in which this exclamation of the Duke of Suffolk, on the adjournment of the legatine inquiry into the validity of the marriage of Henry VIII. and Catharine of Arragon, is termed an "old saw," and remarks that he should be glad to know if this saying is to be met with elsewhere, and what gave rise to it. Before we enter upon the inquiries suggested by O.P.Q., it seems to me that we have to consider a previous question—what authority is there for terming it an "old saw." Dr. Lingard refers to "Cavendish, 434.; Herbert, 278." as his authorities for the whole paragraph. But Herbert does not contain anything of the kind and Cavendish relates the matter very differently:

"With that stepped forth the Duke of Suffolk from the king, and lay his commandment spoke these words with a stout and an hault countenance, 'It was never merry in England,' quoth he, 'whilst we had cardinals amongst us!'"—Cavendish's Wolsey, pp. 232, 233, Singer's edition.

Is Dr. Lingard the authority for these words being an "old saw", or has he merely omitted to give a reference to the place from whence he really derived them?

BERUCHINO.

Pandects, Florentine Edition of (Vol. ii., p. 421.).—Your correspondent R.G. will find copies of the Florentine edition of the Pandects of 1553, both in the British Museum and in the Bodleian library at Oxford. It is described in the catalogues of both under the title of Pandecta.

C.L.L.

Master John Shorne (Vol. ii., p. 387.).—Mr. Thoms, in his curious notes on this personage, has expressed much regret that fuller details relating to a representation of Magister Johannes Schorn at Cawston, Norfolk, communicated to the Archaeological Institute by the Rev. James Bulwer, had not been preserved in the Archaeological Journal. I believe that the omission was solely in deference to Mr. Bulwer's intention of giving in another publication the results of his inquiries, and those persons who may desire detailed information regarding Master John will do well to peruse Mr. Bulwer's curious memoir in the Norfolk Archaeology, vol. ii. p. 280., published March 1849, where representations of the figure at Cawston, and of another at Gateley, Norfolk, are given. There seems to be no evidence that Sir John, although in both instances pourtrayed with nimbus, had been actually canonized and it is deserving of notice that in no ancient evidence hitherto cited is he designated as a Saint, but merely as Master, or Sir John. I am surprised that Dr. Husenbeth, who is so intimately conversant with the examples of hagiotypic symbols existing in Norfolk, should not have given him even a supplementary place in his most useful manual of the Emblems of Saints, recently published. (Burns, 1850, 12mo.) I have sought for Sir John in vain, in either section of that valuable work. It occurs neither under the names of saints, nor in the series of emblems.

ALBERT WAY.

"Her brow was fair" (Vol. ii p. 407.).—The author of the passage quoted by J.M.B. is Barry Cornwall. It occurs in one of the delicious {451} little "Miscellaneous Poems" attached to the volume entitled Dramatic Scenes. The quotation is not quite accurate, the last two words of the first line, "and look'd," being carried into the second, and thus destroying the metre of both. The Dr. Armstrong alluded to by J.M.B. is, I suppose, a modern celebrity of whom I must plead guilty of being ignorant. The lines could, of course, only occur in the writings of the Dr. Armstrong who wrote The Art of Preserving Health, and who was the friend of the poet Thomson, through the interpolation of some modern editor, within the last thirty years. Barry Cornwall's poems have never been collected, in this country at least; and as the volume which contains the one in question is to be met with only occasionally, on the book stalls, I send you the entire poem:—