Replies to Minor Queries.
Exeter Controversy (Vol. v., p. 126.).
—Your correspondent A. N. will find, probably, that the "Exeter Controversy," to which Gifford alludes, was that between John Agate, of St. Mary Arches Church, in Exeter, and John Withers, a Presbyterian. The controversy commenced in 1707, and was carried on with great violence till 1715. The tracts are numerous, but many very scarce. Agate's chief tract was entitled Plain Truth, and is in three parts, Exon, 1708. Withers replied in a work of three parts also: Truth Try'd, or Mr. Agate's pretended Plain Truth proved an Untruth, Exon, 1708-9-10. This of course called forth a rejoinder, and so on. Although carried on with great personalities, the controversy shows considerable ability on both sides. I possess almost all the tracts, and shall be happy to send a list to A. N., if required. Withers, Trosse, and Pierce are all well-known Dissenting names in the history of Exeter at the beginning of last century, when that city was the stronghold of Arianism.
RICHARD HOOPER.
Coleridge's "Friend" (Vol. v., p. 297.).
—The passage quoted by your correspondent J. M. can refer to one man only, viz. Thomas Wedgewood. His introduction to that gentleman, and his brother Josiah, is related by Cottle. (Recollections of Coleridge, 1837, vol. i. p. 305.) Coleridge might well call the former his "munificent co-patron;" for we learn from Cottle that these brothers, soon after making the poet's acquaintance, settled upon him 150l. per annum, in order to prevent him sinking the man of letters in the Unitarian minister. Cottle adds:
"Mr. C. was oppressed with grateful emotions to these his liberal benefactors. He always spoke, in particular, of the late Mr. Thomas Wedgewood as being one of the best talkers, and as possessing one of the acutest minds of any man he had known."
The following details, which J. M. will not find in any book, may be interesting, to him:—Joseph Wedgewood, the illustrious potter, lived at Etruria, in Staffordshire; for such was the appropriate name of the house he built for himself. He had six children,—three sons, John, Thomas, and Josiah; and three daughters, Sarah, Catherine, and ****. John married a Miss Allen (one of four Devonshire lasses), who was accounted one of the most accomplished and excellent ladies in the county. Joshua married another of the sisters. Thomas never married. He was indisposed, both from ill health and taste, towards the pottery business, and took to philosophy. He was endowed with a rare genius, and enjoyed the society of the first literati of his day. But he died while he was still a man of promise.
Of his sisters, Sarah was an accomplished lady with a strong intellect, which captivated Basil Montagu, without reciprocity. Catherine was a first-rate horse-woman. The third daughter married the celebrated Dr. Darwin, of Shrewsbury. All of them, I believe, are dead.
C. MANSFIELD INGLEBY.
Birmingham.
Praying to the Devil (Vol. v., p. 273.).
—Bishop Hall, in his Cases of Conscience (Decade iii. Case 2. Lond. 1654), alludes to the fact of Satanic compacts, as indeed do many others of our old divines. The master work on the subject is, I believe, that entitled Disquisitiones Magicæ by Martinus Delrio. Let me particularly refer your correspondent R. S. F. to Lib. ii. of said volume, Quæst. 4. pp. 99., &c., and to Lib. v. sect. xvi. pp. 759., &c. (Coloniæ Agrippinæ, 1633, 4to.)
In turning over the leaves fortuitously, I stumbled upon the name of Catherine de Medicis, and perhaps in a connexion that will render the legend of the steel box not incredible:
"Sic ille ipse, Bodino non ignotus, faciebat Italus Parisiis, tam carus Catharinæ Mediceæ, qui chirothecis, globulis, vel pulveribus suave fragrantibus, alios solo necabat odore illæsus ipse, et hoc pacto à se interfectam Navarræ Reginam Albretham, veneni vi per nares in cerebrum penetrante, gloriabatur. Vera causa est, hæc ex pacto fieri per dæmonem," &c.
Lib. iii. pars i. quæst. 3. sect. 2. p. 394.
RT.
Warmington.
The Word "shunt" (Vol. iii., p. 204.).
—I can confirm what MR. WAY says on this word. I have looked for the word in all the dictionaries and glossaries I could lay my hands upon, both in this country and abroad, but in vain. Singular enough, however, I have found it in the small edition of Bailey, and in Dr. Ash's Dictionary.
In reading the other day Victor Hugo's Notre Dame, I met with the word Pignon, which has exactly the same signification as the Welsh word Piniwn, the gable or pine end of a house. Is the French word derived from the Welsh, or the Welsh from the French? or is the coincidence in sound and sense purely accidental? Perhaps some of your Welsh correspondents can explain this.
E. JONES.
Aberayron, Cardiganshire.
St. Paul's Quotation of Heathen Writers (Vol. v., p. 278.).
—Acts xiv. 17. Ὑετὸς does not occur, according to the Indexes, in Sophocles, Euripides, or Pindar.
The style of the Hellenizing Jews was sometimes very poetical, as in the Wisdom of Solomon: but in one of the most inflated passages in that book, it does not go so far as οὐρανόθεν. It says only ἀπ' οὐρανῶν. Nor does Wetstein quote οὐρανόθεν from any author but Homer. Hesiod might have been added (Passow), but that is the same thing. It seems a word unfit for prose.
Καιρὸς καρποφόρος is quoted by Wetstein from Achmet.
C. B.
Rex Lucifer.—It would be a most horrid barbarism to impute to such a Latin poet as Milton the use of this word for the devil; although in his theological poem he may have adopted that popular and discreditable gloss upon Isaiah xiv. The palace of the light-bringing king is no other than that known to our earliest school-days, in Ovid 1. ad fin. 2. ad init. Phaëthon passes the "positos sub ignibus Indos," and then "patrios adit impiger ortus," where
"Regia Solis erat sublimibus alta columnis," &c.
Milton uses the word as an adjective, as in Ovid, "luciferos, Luna regebat equos." Otherwise it would necessarily signify the Planet Venus, or morning star.
A. N.
Sir Edward Seaward's Narrative (Vol. v., p. 185.).
—Miss Porter's letter speaks of the piety and domestic concord of the Seawards. Your readers may be amused to know that this piety affords one proof of the fiction of the narrative. They sometimes give the dates both of the day of month and week, and derive together much comfort from the singular applicability of passages in the lessons for the day. When I was reading the book, the days of the month and week fell the same as in the narrative, and as it happened to be at the same time of year too, I made the unpalatable discovery, that, however suitable the passages might be, they were not as they professed to be, at least not always, from the lesson of the day.
P. P.
Spanish Verses on the Invasion of England (Vol. v., p. 294.).—
L. H. J. T. will find the Spanish verses which form the subject of his Query in Southey's Quarterly Review article on Lord Holland's Life and Writings of Lope de Vega (Quarterly Review, vol. xviii. p. 6.), together with the following lively version:
"My brother Don John
To England is gone,
To kill the Drake,
And the Queen to take,
And the heretics all to destroy;
And he will give me,
When he comes back,
A Lutheran boy
With a chain round his neck;
And Grandmamma
From his share shall have
A Lutheran maid
To be her slave."
Southey's reference is, Romancero General. Medina del Campo, 1602, ff. 35. The lines form part of "a child's poem, or, more properly, a poem written in the character of a child (a species of playful composition at that time popular among the Spaniards)," and are quoted by Southey, together with an Ode by Luis de Gongora, to show the exultant anticipation with which the success of the Armada, in which expedition Lope de Vega had entered himself as a volunteer, was expected by the Spaniards.
E. V.
In the second volume of Mr. Ticknor's admirable History of Spanish Literature will be found an English translation of the Spanish ballad referred to by your correspondent L. H. J. T. I am not quite sure whether the Spanish ballad is given by Mr. Ticknor or not; but the following is a part of the English translation:—
"And Bartolo, my brother,
To England forth is gone,
Where the Drake he means to kill;
And the Lutherans every one,
Excommunicate from God.
Their Queen among the first
He will capture and bring back,
Like heretics accurs'd:
And he promises, moreover,
Amongst his spoils and gains,
A heretic young serving-boy
To give me, bound in chains;
And for my lady grandmamma,
Whose years such waiting crave,
A little handy Lutheran,
To be her maiden slave."
These stanzas are cited by Mr. Ticknor to illustrate the state of public feeling which prevailed in Spain respecting Sir Francis Drake and his countrymen. Lope de Vega was also, it will be remembered, the author of a poem on Drake's last expedition and death, entitled La Dragontea.
F. L.
Temple.
Templars (Vol. v., p. 295.).
—With respect to the somewhat modern imposture of the Paris Templars, E. A. H. L. had better consult Thilo's Codex Apocryphus. In the generality of foreign masonic books he will find the derivation of the Freemasons from the Templars asserted as being their tradition. As to "the succession of Grand Masters kept up" by them, I question whether that is asserted by them, or elsewhere than in the Parisian imposture. The masonic formularies called Thuileur, and M. de Bonneville's Maçonnerie Ecossaise, may be consulted. But the history of the order subsequent to that worthy, Jacques de Molai, will not there, or elsewhere, be traced. The facts of common external history which relate to the abolition of that order, such as the foundation of the Portuguese Order of Christ, will all be found in Wilke's German History of the Temple Order.
A. N.
E. A. H. L. will find a valuable Note, with reference to the principal authorities, in Hallam's Supplemental Notes, p. 48. ff. See also Mill's History of Chivalry. The Grand Masters, since the suppression, seem to have been principally Frenchmen. The chief authority is, I believe, the Manuel des Templiers, which is only sold to members of the society.
E. S. JACKSON.
Saffron-Walden.
Story of the Greek referred to by Jeremy Taylor (Vol. iv., pp. 208. 262. 326.).
—It may interest those correspondents of "N. & Q." who, in answer to my Query on the above point, have given references to similar stories in Don Quixote, and the life of St. Nicholas in the Legenda Aurea, to learn that I have lately traced the story to its real source, on which probably the parallel versions in question were based. The name of the Greek was Archetimus of Erythræa; that of the victim of the artifice Cydias of Tenedos. The story is given at length in the Loci Communes J. Stobæi, Antonii Melissæ, et Maximi Monachi, cura Gesner, Serm. cxvi. p. 362. ed. fol. Francof. 1581.
ALEXANDER TAYLOR.
Emaciated Monumental Effigies (Vol. v., p. 247.).
—The legend repeated to me whilst viewing the tomb of John Baret, some few years since, is somewhat different from that related by your correspondent BURIENSIS. A portion of the roof over the tomb is elaborately diapered with stars of lead gilt, collars of SS., and a monogram of the letters I.B., together with the motto, "Grace me governe." (A specimen of the diaper is given in Collings' Gothic Ornaments, 4to., London, 1848.) The sexton informed me that the person commemorated by the emaciated figure had undertaken to diaper the whole roof of the church in a manner similar to the work above his tomb; but, on discovering that his life would be insufficient for the task, was so affected that he starved himself to death. I presume that Bant is a misprint for Baret, in p. 247. of your present volume.
The tradition alluded to by your correspondent has been, I believe, attached by some to the emaciated figure at St. Saviour's, Southwark. A good example of this kind of memorial is found in the ante-chapel of St. John's College Chapel, Cambridge.
What foundation is there for the account, that the superb roof of St. Mary's, Bury St. Edmund's, was constructed in France, and put together after it was brought to England?
W. SPARROW SIMPSON.
Deaths from Fasting (Vol. v., pp. 247. 301.).
—In the Oxford Manual of Sepulchral Brasses, pp. 168-175., will be found a curious list of monumental representations of skeletons and emaciated figures in shrouds (1472-1598), which may, perhaps, prove interesting to BURIENSIS. It is by no means improbable that some of the examples are intended to commemorate persons whose deaths occurred in consequence of fasting.
E. N.
London Genealogical Society (Vol. v., p. 297.).
—I presume your correspondent W. P. A. refers to the Heraldic and Genealogical Society of Great Britain and Ireland for the Elucidation of Family Antiquity, which issued a prospectus a few years ago; but whether or not it is still in existence I am unable to say. Gentlemen desirous of joining the society were requested to transmit their names to the secretary, "William Downing Bruce, Esq., K.C.J., F.S.A., United Service Institution, Whitehall, London," to whom all communications respecting it were to be addressed.
E. N.
Shortly after its establishment, I was appointed corresponding member to the London Genealogical Society, but on going to their rooms one morning, found the concern had "vanished into thin air."
METAOUO.
Martinique (Vol. v., p. 11.).
—There must be some inaccuracy in the reply of MR. PHILIP S. KING (p. 165.) to the Query of your correspondent W. J. C.
A reference to the few authorities to which I have access leads me to suppose that the period of the actual discovery of this island is involved in some obscurity. Washington Irving assumes its identity with the island called by its inhabitants "Mantinino," and that it was the first land made by Columbus on his fourth voyage to the West Indies in 1502. Mr. Major, in his Introduction to the Select Letters of Columbus, published for the Hakluyt Society, inclines to the same opinion. It is extremely probable that Columbus had heard reports of this island when he was among the group of the Caribbees in 1493, but he does not appear to have been then further south than the latitude of Dominica. Peter Martyr, however, alludes to Mantinino, an island of Amazons, as having been passed by the admiral to the north of Guadaloupe, when on his course to Hispaniola. Assuming this to be an error of position, and that the discovery of the island did not really take place until the year 1502, the period at which Columbus was there (June) could have had no influence on its new name, since the days of the two Saints Martin are in November.
I am inclined to think that the name "Martinico" may have been conferred by the Spaniards at some subsequent period; and, supposing it to be a diminutive of Martin, in honour of the lesser St. Martin, pope and martyr, and not him of Tours. Martinique is, of course, the same word Gallicised.
R. W. C.
"The Delicate Investigation," &c. (Vol. v., p. 201.).
—In answer to the Query of ELGINENSIS, as to the book which he calls The Trial of the Princess of Wales, meaning, I presume, the book generally known at the time by the name of The Delicate Investigation, I beg to inform him, that several years ago I was present when the sum of five hundred pounds was paid for a copy of it by an officer high in the service of the then government.
H. B.
Miserrimus (Vol. iv., p. 37.).
—It may be interesting to your correspondent F. R. A. to learn that there is a notice of the demise of the Rev. Thomas Maurice, not Morris, in the Gentleman's Magazine for 1748; but whether this is a typographical error of our old friend Sylvanus Urban or not I am unable to discover, although I have made every research in my power. The celebrated Wordsworth, with other minor poets, have drawn fanciful pictures of the old divine; but, from what little may be learned of his history in the paragraph of his decease above referred to, it is quite evident that all are very far from depicting the real character of the individual who chose such an eccentric epitaph as the sole word
"MISERRIMUS;"
for he is there said to have been "a gentleman very charitable to the poor, and much esteemed."
The original stone which covered his remains, having the word "Miserrimus" spelt with a single r, being nearly obliterated, was renewed many years since by, I believe, one of the gentlemen connected with the cathedral. Your correspondent is correct in stating the work alluded to as being written by the late F. M. Reynolds. I should feel obliged if any one could furnish further particulars of this individual.
J. B. WHITBORNE.
Cynthia's Dragon-yoke (Vol. v., p. 297.).
—For the satisfaction of your Boston correspondent H. T. P., I have been unable to find anything but the following note from Bishop Newton's edition of Milton's works:—
"Dragon-yoke.—This office is attributed to dragons on account of their watchfulness."
So Shakspeare, in Cymbeline, Act II. Sc. 2.:
"Swift, swift, you dragons of the night."
And in Troilus and Cressida, Act V. Sc. 14.:
"The dragon wing of night o'erspreads the earth."
Milton has somewhat of the same thought again in his Latin poem, In Obitum Præsulis Eliensis:
"Longeque sub pedibus deam
Vidi triformem, dum coercebat suos
Frænis dracones aureis."
TYRO.
Dublin.
I apprehend that Cynthia's Dragon-team is given to her as the reward of her concern in magical rites; of which especially she is the goddess, and the dragon the beast of burden and locomotion.
SAX.
Cromwell's Skull (Vol. v., p. 275.).
—I believe that, by inquiry at Mr. Donovan's the phrenologist, in or near the Strand, something may be heard of Cromwell's skull. I saw, sometime ago, a drawing of it in his window, in a serial publication on phrenology with which he was concerned.
SAX.
Almas-Cliffe (Vol. v., p. 296.).
—In the parish of Innerwick, East Lothian, is a farm named Aimlescleugh, supposed to be a corruption of Elms-cleugh, which may possibly have a common origin with the locality referred to by your Harrowgate correspondent. Strange to say, the first meaning of the word cleugh, or cleuch, as given in Jamieson's Dictionary, is "a precipice, or rugged ascent."
E. N.
Artificial Memory (Vol. v., p. 305.).
—The hexameters on English counties given by C. S. P. remind me of the following verses, which used to assist the oblivious student at Oxford when preparing for an examination on Scripture history. It will be observed that the prosody is not strictly correct.
1. The five Cities of the Philistines. (Josh. xiii. 3.)
Askelon, Azotus, Gath, Gazæque additur Ekron. (Azotus is the same as Ashdod.)
2. The six Cities of Refuge. (Josh. xx. 7-9.)
Bezer, Golan, Gilead, urbes oriente locatæ; Solis ab occasu, Kadesh, Hebronque, Shechem.
3. The seven Deacons. (Acts vi. 5.)
Diaconi Septem, Stephanus, Philipque, Nicanor, Parmenas et Prochorus, Nicholas atque Timon.
4. The seven Churches of Asia. (Rev. i. 11.)
Septem Smyrna, Ephesus, Philadelphia, Laodicea; Pergamos et Sardis, nec Thyatira deest.
E. N.
Punishment of Boiling to Death (Vol. v., pp. 32. 112. 184.).
—It may not be uninteresting to adduce an instance in this town:
"1531. This year here was a maid boiled to death in the Market-place for poisoning her mistress."
J. N. C.
King's Lynn.
Barnard's Church Music (Vol. v., p. 176.).
—In addition to the "odd parts" mentioned by your correspondent AMANUENSIS, may be included a tenor, and a counter-tenor part, in my possession.
MR. BERIAH BOTFIELD, in his Notes on the Cathedral Libraries of England, p. 439., mentioning the music-books in the Library of the Dean and Chapter of Westminster, says:
"I may here notice Day's Service Book, 1565, with music; the tenor, Morning and Evening Prayer, imperfect, but of which only three or four copies are known; Barnard's Cathedral Music, only found elsewhere at Berlin; and several English Music Books of great rarity."
I am tolerably well acquainted with the contents of the Westminster Library, but have not been fortunate enough to discover the copy here mentioned. Perhaps AMANUENSIS may be more lucky. At present I am under the impression that MR. BOTFIELD is in error as to the existence of a copy of Barnard at Westminster.
EDWARD F. RIMBAULT.
Portrait of Baskerville (Vol. iv., p. 211.).
—For the information of your correspondent W. CORNISH, I am enabled to inform him that there is a beautiful portrait of that celebrated typographist Baskerville in the possession of the Messrs. Longman of Paternoster Row, and painted too by that most exquisite of English artists, Gainsborough. Of this portrait there is also a private plate (copper), from which I happen to possess, through the kindness of a very old friend, an impression to add to a collection of Worcestershire portraits.
A former correspondent, Vol. iv., p. 40., states that Mr. Merridew assured him there was no portrait of Baskerville; but Mr. M., in his catalogue of Engraved Warwickshire Portraits, p. 4., notices a "woodcut" from an original picture in the possession of the late Thomas Knott, Esq.
J. B. WHITBORNE.
Autograph Music by Handel (Vol. v., p. 247.).
—I have the pleasure to inform the Rev. W. SPARROW SIMPSON, that the duet mentioned by him:
"Và, và, speme infida pur va non ti credo,"
forms the Fifth Number of Handel's celebrated Chamber Duets, and was first printed, I believe, by the late Dr. Samuel Arnold, in his noble edition of the Works of Handel.
The circumstances attending the composition of these chamber duets are thus alluded to in the anonymous Memoirs of Handel, 8vo., 1759, p. 85.:
"Soon after his [Handel's] return to Hanover [in the year 1711], he made twelve Chamber Duettos, for the practice of the late Queen, then Electoral Princess. The character of these is well known to the judges in music. The words for them were written by the Abbate Mauro Hortensio, who had not disdained on other occasions to minister to the masters of harmony."
I must, however, beg leave to express my opinion that MR. SPARROW's MS. is not an autograph of the great composer, on the ground that the original MSS. of the Chamber Duets are preserved in the Queen's library at Buckingham Palace. Handel used not to make more than one copy of his various pieces, unless (as was seldom the case) he made additions or alterations.
I should mention that a new edition of the Chamber Duets is now in the course of publication by the Handel Society.
EDWARD F. RIMBAULT.
Dr. Fell (Vol. v., p. 296.).
—Your correspondent, who inquires about the lines of which the above is the subject, may find some answer to his question in Life of Canning, by R. Bell, p. 193., where, after describing the various attempts of the Pitt party to get Addington to resign the premiership, it is said: "In vain Sheridan exhausted his wit upon Addington, and threw the House into convulsions by his parody on Martial:
"'I do not like thee, Doctor Fell,' &c."
E. B.
The author of the lines is Tom Brown, the witty and facetious writer of Dialogues of the Dead, in imitation of Lucian, &c., who being about to be expelled the University of Oxford for some fault, was pardoned by the Dean of Christchurch on the condition that he should translate extempore the epigram from Martial, xxxiii.:
"Non amo te, Zabidi, nec possum dicere quare;
Hoc tantum possum dicere, non amo te;"
which he instantly rendered:
"I do not love thee, Dr. Fell," &c.
R. I. S.
[We are indebted to BOSQUECILLIO VIEGO, and other correspondents, for similar replies.]
Fernseed (Vol. v., p. 172.).
—This was considered a charm of the highest potency. It not only preserved the fortunate possessor against the malignant influences of demon, witch, and sorcerer, but enabled him to render himself invisible at pleasure:
"We have the receipt of fern-seed, we walk invisible,"
quoth honest Gadshill (Henry IV., Part I. Act II. Sc. 1.). The difficulty and danger with which it could only be obtained, apparently tended much to enhance its magical value in the estimation of the cabalist. It was to be gathered, after solemn fasting, and the performance of mystic ceremonies now unknown, on Midsummer Eve, at the very instant in which the Baptist's birth took place. The spiritual world was arrayed in fierce hostility against the daring gatherer. The fairies used every effort to preserve it from human possession, with an inveteracy which showed what high value they put upon it. As to the danger resulting from their hostility, Richard Bovet, in his Pandæmonium (p. 217., London, 1684), gives curious evidence:—
"Much discourse hath been about gathering of fern-seed (which is looked upon as a magical herb) on the night of Midsummer Eve; and I remember I was told of one who went to gather it, and the spirits whisk't by his ears like bullets, and sometimes struck his hat, and other parts of his body; in fine, though he apprehended he had gotten a quantity of it, and secured it in papers, and a box besides, when he came home he found all empty. But, most probable, this appointing of times and hours is of the devil's own institution, as well as the fast; that having once ensnared people to an obedience to his rules, he may with more facility oblige them to stricter vassalage."
The fern-seed charm is amply discussed in Brand's Popular Antiquities, vol. i. p. 314. (Bohn's edition.)
R. S. F.
Perth.
Any of your readers who have access to an amusing book called The Radical, by Samuel Bamford, may see most appalling account of an adventure connected with the gathering of fern-seed, and other superstitions.
P. P.
Longevity and Rejuvenescency (Vol. v., p. 276.).
—I beg to refer your sceptical correspondent to Fuller's Worthies (county of Northumberland) for a remarkable instance of longevity; viz. Patrick Machell Vivan, Vicar of Lesbury, near Alnwick. Percival Stockdale, in his Memoirs, gives some further particulars respecting his predecessor; and I extract from that work (vol. i. p. 149.) a letter written by the venerable old man, wherein he gives an account of himself. It is dated Oct. 9, 1657, and addressed to one William Lialkus, a citizen of Antwerp.
"Whereas you desired a true and faithful messenger should be sent from Newcastle to the parish of Lesbury, to inquire concerning John Maklin; I gave you to understand that no such man was known ever to be, or hath lived there for these fifty years past, during which time I, Patrick Makel Wian, have been minister of that parish, wherein I have all that time been present, taught, and do yet continue to teach there. But that I may give you some satisfaction, you shall understand that I was born in Galloway in Scotland, in the year 1546, bred up in the University of Edinburgh, where I commenced Master of Arts, whence, travelling into England, I kept school, and sometimes preached, till in the first of King James I was inducted into the church of Lesbury, where I now live. As to what concerns the change of my body, it is now the third year since I had two new teeth, one in my upper, the other in my nether jaw, as is apparent to the touch. My sight, much decayed many years ago, is now, about the 110th year of my age, become clearer; hair adorns me heretofore bald skull. I was never of a fat, but a slender mean habit of body. My diet has ever been moderate, nor was I ever accustomed to feasting and tippling: hunger is the best sauce; nor did I ever use to feed to satiety. All this is most certain and true, which I have seriously, though overhastily, confirmed to you, under the hand of PATRICK MAKEL WIAN, Minister of Lesbury."
Mr. Stockdale adds, that there is a tradition that when the Plague visited Lesbury, in the reign of Charles II., those who were infected were removed to tents on the neighbouring moor, where the venerable pastor attended them with great assiduity, ministering to their wants temporal and spiritual. The date of his death is unknown.
E. H. A.
Indignities on the Bodies of Suicides (Vol. v., p. 272.).
—I much doubt whether burying in cross roads was originally meant as an indignity. I think this is nearly connected with my still unanswered Query, What is a Tye? Vol. iii., p. 263. I suspect suicides were buried in a cross road, because that was a place where a cross or crucifix stood, and only second in sanctity to the churchyard; and the stake driven through the body was perhaps first intended not as an insult, but to keep the ghost of the suicide from walking on the earth again.
I would willingly believe our ancestors were not always such savages as R. S. F. shows us the Scotch once were in this respect. I fear at that time we were not much better.
A. HOLT WHITE.
To my previous Note, I beg leave to append a passage from Arnot's Criminal Trials (p. 368.), which may tend to throw some light on this subject. In speaking of the witch prosecutions in Scotland, this writer says:
"If an unfortunate woman, trembling at a citation for witchcraft, ended her sufferings by her own hand, she was dragged from her house at a horse's tail, and buried under the gallows."
R. S. F.
Perth.
Large Families (Vol. v., pp. 204. 304.).
—To the instances of unusually large numbers of children by one mother given in "N. & Q." may be added that of a Lady Elphinstone, who is said, by tradition, to have had no less than thirty-six children, of whom twenty-seven were living at one time.
There is a story told of this lady and her husband, Lord Elphinstone, which seems to corroborate the tradition; it is, that they once asked a new and somewhat bashful acquaintance to visit them, telling him that he should meet no one but their family circle. Their guest arrived shortly before dinner, and, being shown through the dining-hall on his way to the drawing-room, was much disconcerted at seeing a long table laid for about twenty people. On remonstrating with his host and hostess for having taken him in, as he thought, he was quietly informed that he had been told no more than the truth, for that their family party, when all assembled, only fell short of thirty by one.
I believe that John eighth Lord Elphinstone and his lady, a daughter of the Earl of Lauderdale, who lived in the latter part of the seventeenth and beginning of the eighteenth centuries, are the pair to whom this story refers; and, though the Scotch peerages make no mention of any such phenomenon in the Elphinstone family, yet I am strongly inclined, from the goodness of the authority from which I derive the tradition, to believe it to be true; the more so, as it is now acknowledged that the Scotch peerages, not excepting Douglas's, which has hitherto been the chief book of reference respecting the noble families of Scotland, are so full of errors and omissions, that very little reliance can be placed on them.
Can any of your readers inform me whether any documentary evidence exists that a lady Elphinstone had this extraordinary number of children?
C. E. D.
Twenty-seven Children, &c.
—About fifty years ago, Mrs. Edwards, residing in Quickset Row, New Road, had her twenty-eighth child, each a single birth; they were all born alive, and all lived several months, but she never had more than ten living at a time.
A former pupil of mine knew a lady, of whom he wrote to me, that she had borne thirty children, all single births; seven only of them arrived at the age of manhood. He says, "This statement may be relied upon with the utmost confidence as a fact."
S. M.
The last of the Palæologi (Vol. v., p. 280.).
—This is a most interesting subject; I beg to refer your readers to Archæologia, vol. xviii. p. 93., and to Burn's History of Foreign Refugees, p. 230.
J. S. B.