Replies.

THE EARL OF ERROLL.
(Vol. v., p. 297.)

I am somewhat of opinion that your correspondent PETROPROMONTORIENSIS is correct, about this nobleman being by birth the first subject in Scotland, only he has apparently omitted the word "hereditary" before those of Great Constable of Scotland, or Lord High Constable of Scotland. Indeed, some writers make him by birth, not only the first subject in Scotland, but also in England. Dr. Anderson, the learned and laborious editor of The Bee, at p. 306. of vol. v. of that publication, in the article on James, Earl of Erroll, who died 3rd June, 1778, says:

"As to rank, in his lordship's person were united the honours of Livingston, Kilmarnock, and Erroll. As hereditary High Constable of Scotland, Lord Erroll is by birth the first subject in Great Britain, after the blood royal, and, as such, had a right to take place of every hereditary honour. The Lord Chancellor, and the Lord High Constable of England, do indeed take precedence of him, but these are only temporary honours which no man can lay claim to by birth; so that, by birth, Lord Erroll ranks, without a doubt, as the first subject of Great Britain, next after the Princes of the blood royal."

It would appear that the personal appearance of Earl James was in good keeping with his high rank. He was accounted the handsomest man in Britain, and at the coronation of George III. he attended in his robes, and by accident neglected to take off his cap when the king entered. He apologised for his negligence in the most respectful manner; but his majesty, with great complacency, entreated him to be covered, as he looked upon his presence at the solemnity as a very particular honour.

The Earl of Erroll's charter of appointment to this high office, is dated at Cambuskenneth, 12th November, anno 1316; and is still preserved in the charter room of the family seat, Slains Castle, Cruden, Aberdeenshire. The youthful inheritor of this high office is the Right Honourable William Harry, Earl of Erroll, Baron Hay of Slains, Baron Kilmarnock of Kilmarnock, in the county of Ayr, Captain in the Rifle Brigade, born in 1823, succeeded his father, seventeenth Earl, in 1846.

INVERURIENSIS.

GENERAL WOLFE.
(Vol. iv., p. 438.; Vol. v., p. 185., &c.)

Although not affording answers to the Queries in Vol. iv., p. 438. et infra, the following may not be uninteresting to your correspondent. There is much concerning Wolfe in the Historical Journal of Campaigns in North America, by Captain Knox, dedicated by permission to Sir Jeffery Amherst, who commanded that part of the expedition against Canada which, striking on the lower end of Lake Ontario, descended the St. Lawrence to Montreal, whilst Wolfe, ascending the river, operated against Quebec. Thus it appears that General and Sir Jeffery Amherst were one and the same person. The frontispiece to the 1st vol. is a portrait of General Amherst, that of vol. 2nd is a portrait of General Wolfe; both so characteristic, that I should presume they are likenesses, although no authority is given.

In 1828, I saw at Quebec the man who attended Wolfe as orderly-serjeant on the day of his death; and what may be considered a curious coincidence was, that he bore the same name as Wolfe's mother, viz. Thompson. Mr. Thompson was a very respectable and much-respected old man; and, I believe, was occasionally a guest at the Governor's table. He had a son in the Commissariat department, who is no doubt in possession of all his father knew concerning Wolfe.

According to Mr. Thompson, Wolfe always addressed his men "brother soldiers;" and their pet-name for him was, "The little red-haired corporal." Thompson was not the only remnant of Wolfe's army in 1828, as appears by the following:—

"General Orders, Head Quarters, Quebec, 7th Aug. 1828.

"1. The Commander of the Forces is pleased to authorise the payment of a pension, at the rate of 1s. per diem from 25th May last, to Robert Simpson, a veteran, now ninety-six years of age, who fought on the plains of Abraham under Gen. Wolfe," &c. &c.

On the 12th Jan. 1829, died at Kingston, U. C., John Gray of Argyleshire, N. B., aged ninety-six. He had served at Louisburg, Quebec, &c. &c. under Sir Jeffery Amherst and General Wolfe.

A. C. M.

Exeter.

I send the following extracts from the newspapers respecting Wolfe, scarcely knowing whether it may be worth while. Such as they are, they are at your service:—

"Hoc ultimum opus virtutis edens in victoria cœsus."

"To the highest military merit undoubtedly belongs the highest applause, but setting aside the froth of panegyrick—

"Who formed the 20th regt. of foot, exemplary in the field of Minden, only by practising what was familiar to them?

"Who at Rochefort offered to make a good landing, not asking how many were the French, but where are they?

"Who, second then in command, was second to none in those laborious dangers which reduced Louisburgh?

"Who wrote like Cæsar from before Quebec?

"Who, like Epaminondas, died in victory?

"Who never gave his country cause of complaint except by his death?

"Who bequeathed Canada as a triumphant legacy?

"Proclaim, 'twas WOLFE!"—Newcastle Courant, Oct. 27, 1759.

"The late brave General Wolfe was to have been married on his return to England to a sister of Sir James Lowther, a young lady whose immense fortune is her least recommendation. She had shown so much uneasiness at the thoughts of his making his campaign in America, that nothing but the call of honour could have prevailed with him to accept of that command in the discharge of which he fell so gloriously."—N. C. Journal, 1759.

"His mother is, we hear, so much afflicted for the loss of her son that 'tis feared she will never get the better of her disorders. The inhabitants in her neighbourhood sympathised with her so much that they did not make any public rejoicings, lest it should add to her grief. Even the mob of London discovered by their behaviour the night of the illuminations for the victory, what they felt for so brave a man.

"They mourn Quebec; for Wolfe our sorrows flow;

Victors and vanquish'd felt the twofold blow.

To both perpetual let each loss remain;

If Quebec be restored, Wolfe fell in vain."

Newcastle paper, 1759.

E. H. A.

You have lately published some inquiries relative to Wolfe's early career. Is the following fact worth stating? Tradition points to an old house, once an inn, at the back of the Town-hall at Devizes, where the young officer resided while enlisting soldiers into his regiment.

WILTONIENSIS.

JAMES WILSON, M.D.
(Vol. v., pp. 276. 329.)

This writer will be one instance of the use of such an organ of inquiry as "N. & Q." MR. CORNEY'S reply to my Query reminds me of Wilson's History of Navigation, with which I have long been acquainted: but I had quite forgotten, or perhaps never remarked, that this Wilson was James, and M.D. Baron Maseres reprinted the History of Navigation in the fourth volume of the Scriptores Logarithmici: it is an elaborate summary, of wide research, and puts the author's learning and judgment beyond a doubt. Maseres, in his Preface, gives a mention of Wilson, and, in addition to the facts now brought out, states, in his own curiously explicit style, that Dr. Pemberton's Epistola ad Amicum J. W. de Cotesii inventis, "was addressed to this Dr. James Wilson, who was the person meant by the word Amicum, with the two letters J. W., which were the initial letters of his name." I happen to possess Brook Taylor's copy of this Epistola (4to. 1722), and its Supplement (4to. 1723), in which Taylor has written, "E libris Br. Taylor, ex dono eximii paris amicorum, autoris D. H. Pemberton atque editoris D. J. Wilson." Thus it is established that the author of the dissertation on the fluxional controversy appended to Robins's tracts, lived in friendship with some of the most distinguished parties to that quarrel. It is also established that he was fully conversant with the mathematics of the day; for Pemberton's letter, called out by Wilson's own queries, could have been read by none but a previous reader of Cotes and the highest fluxionists. As to Wilson's age, he says (Robins's Math. Tr., vol. ii. p. 299.) he was a fellow-student of Pemberton at Paris: the latter was born in 1694, and the former was probably of nearly the same age. They were close friends to the end of their lives, and Wilson published Pemberton's Course of Chemistry, delivered at Gresham College, 8vo. 1771, according to Hutton and Watt. These last-named authorities both attribute to Pemberton himself the dissertation on the fluxional controversy in Robins's Tracts: but it certainly has Wilson's name to it; or rather, it is said to be by the publisher (which we now call editor) of the volumes. It is very likely that Pemberton gave help: assuredly he must have been consulted by his intimate friend on facts the truth of which was within his own knowledge. Accordingly, the following assertions, made by Wilson, are not to be lightly passed over: first (which also Robins assumes again and again), that Newton wrote the anonymous account of the Commercium Epistolicum (Phil. Trans., No. 342.) usually attributed to Keill, which, in Latin, forms the Preface to the second edition of that work. Secondly, that Newton wrote the criticism on John Bernoulli's letter at the end of the second edition. Thirdly, that Newton himself, and not Pemberton, omitted the celebrated Scholium from the third edition of the Principia. Montucla, in the second edition (1802, vol. iii. p. 108) of his History of Mathematics, gives statements on these points from a private source, to the effect that the notes of the original edition of the Comm. Epist. were Newton's, and that the informant had seen the matter which was substituted for the Scholium, in Newton's handwriting, among the proof-sheets preserved by Pemberton. If Wilson were the informant, which may have been, for Montucla's first edition was published in 1758, Montucla must have confounded the two editions of the Comm. Epist. If not, it must have been some one who did not draw his account from the dissertation, in which there is nothing about the proof-sheets. Montucla, however, has lowered the credit of his informant by making him assert that the second edition of the Principia was managed by Cotes and Bentley, without communication with Newton. This, which all the world knows to be untrue of the book, is true of the prefatory parts; and Wilson gives an account of Newton's dissatisfaction with those parts. If Wilson were the informant, Montucla has again misunderstood him.

A. DE MORGAN.

OLIVER CROMWELL.—THE "WHALE" AND THE "STORM" IN 1658.
(Vol. iii., p. 207.)

B. B. may see, in the British Museum library, a tract of four leaves only, the title of which I will transcribe:

"London's Wonder. Being a most true and positive relation of the taking and killing of a great Whale neer to Greenwich; the said Whale being fifty-eight foot in length, twelve foot high, fourteen foot broad, and two foot between the eyes. At whose death was used Harping-irons, Spits, Swords, Guns, Bills, Axes, and Hatchets, and all kind of sharp Instruments to kill her: and at last two Anchors being struck fast into her body, she could not remoove them, but the blood gush'd out of her body, as the water does out of a pump. The report of which Whale hath caused many hundred of people both by land and water to go and see her: the said Whale being slaine hard by Greenwich upon the third day of June this present yere 1658, which is largely exprest in this following discourse. London, printed for Francis Grove, neere the Sarazen's head on Snowhill, 1658."

Surely after reading the above, your sceptical correspondent can no longer hesitate to accept as a matter of veritable fact this story so very like a whale.

Evelyn, who lived near Greenwich, and was most probably one of the wonder-struck spectators of the huge monster of the deep which had been so rash as to visit our shores, notes in his Diary under the above-mentioned date—

"A large whale was taken betwixt my land butting on the Thames and Greenwich, which drew an infinite concourse to see it by water, horse, coach, and on foote, from London and all parts. It appear'd first below Greenwich at low water, for at high water it would have destroyed all ye boates; but lying now in shallow water encompass'd with boates, after a long conflict it was kill'd with a harping yron, struck in ye head, out of which spouted blood and water by two tunnells, and after an horrid grone it ran quite on shore and died. Its length was 58 foote, height 16; black skin'd like coach leather, very small eyes, greate tail, onely 2 small finns, a picked snout, and a mouth so wide that divers men might have stood upright in it: no teeth, but suck'd the slime onely as thro' a grate of that bone which we call whale-bone; the throate yet so narrow as would not have admitted the least of fishes. The extreames of the cetaceous bones hang downewards from the upper jaw, and was hairy towards the ends and bottom within side: all of it prodigious, but in nothing more wonderfull then that an animal of so greate a bulk should be nourished onely by slime thro' those grates."

Having disposed of this matter, I shall now turn my attention to the great storm that immediately preceded the death of that "arch rebell Oliver Cromwell, cal'd Protector," which, be it remembered, took place on Friday the 3rd of September, 1658.

"Toss'd in a furious hurricane,

Did Oliver give up his reign."

So saith the witty author of Hudibras; and to these lines his editor, Grey, adds the note—

"At Oliver's death was a most furious tempest, such as had not been known in the memory of man, or hardly ever recorded to have been in this nation. (See Echard's History of England, vol. ii.) Though most of our historians mention the hurricane at his death, yet few take notice of the storm in the northern counties on that day the House of Peers ordered the digging up his carcase with other regicides. (See Mercurius Publicus, No. 51. p. 816.)"

Cotemporaneous proof of the occurrence is afforded by S. Carrington in prose, and by Edmund Waller in verse.

"Nature itself," says Carrington, "did witness her grief some two or three days before by an extraordinary tempest and violent gust of weather, insomuch that it might have been supposed that herself had been ready to dissolve ... all which is so lively set forth by the quaintest wit of these times (E. Waller), who expresseth it more elegantly and copiously than my rough prose can possibly reach to."

"Upon the late Storm, and his Highness' Death ensuing the same.[6]

"We must resign; Heaven his great soul doth claim

In storms as loud as his immortal fame.

His dying groans, his last breath shakes our isle,

And trees uncut fall for his funeral pile;

About his palace their broad roots were tost

Into the air—so Romulus was lost.

New Rome in such a tempest mist their King,

And from obeying fell to worshipping.

"Nature herself took notice of his death,

And sighing swell'd the sea with such a breath,

That to remotest shores her billows rould,

The approaching fate of their great Ruler told."

[6] Vide Three Poems upon the Death of his late Highnesse Oliver, Lord Protector, written by Waller, Dryden, and Sprat. 4to. London, 1659.

The ensuing night, Carrington adds, was serene and peaceful. (See his Life of Cromwell, 1659, p. 223.) Ludlow, in his Memoirs, also notices the storm. On the afternoon of Monday, August 30, he set out for London. He says:

"On the Monday afternoon I set forward on my journey (from Essex); the morning proving so tempestuous that the horses were not able to draw against it; so that I could reach no further than Epping that night. By this means I arrived not at Westminster till Tuesday about noon."

A. GRAYAN.

AUTHENTICATED INSTANCES OF LONGEVITY.
(Vol. v., pp. 178. 296.)

O. C. D. has avowed himself incredulous as to the reality of the reported remarkable ages of the old Countess of Desmond, Jenkins, Parr, &c., and he suggests that there should be unquestionable evidence of such extraordinary deviations from the usual course of human life before we credit them. I confess myself of the same way of thinking; and perhaps my doubts have been strengthened from the circumstance, that, although the longevity of members of the Society of Friends is well known at the insurance offices, I do not recollect an instance of any one attaining one hundred years in the United Kingdom. Upwards of ninety is not uncommon, from eighty to ninety common; and more than one-third of the whole deaths are from seventy upwards. There was a well-authenticated instance of a "Friend" in Virginia, named William Porter, who attained one hundred and seven years, who could hoe Indian corn a year previous to his death; but it was considered a rare occurrence in America.

As some of the readers of "N. & Q." may be curious in such matters, the following is an accurate statement of the ages at the time of death of members of the Society of Friends in the past two years. The extra number of females arises from the greater number of males who leave the society, or are excommunicated or emigrate. The average duration of life in these two years appears about 52 years 6 months 4 days. The number of members in the society in the United Kingdom is computed at 19,000 or 20,000. In America they are far more numerous.

Deaths in the Society of Friends in 1849-1850, 1850-51.
Males.Females.
Under5 Years3327
From 5 to 10 5 13
" 10-15 1 3
" 15-20 11 11
" 20-30 21 16
" 30-40 16 24
" 40-50 18 24
" 50-60 31 38
" 60-70 44 54
" 70-80 64 84
" 80-90 38 37
" 90 upwards 4 7
—— ——
286 338

A MEMBER OF THE SOCIETY OF FRIENDS.

I noticed, within the last week, the following inscription on a tombstone in Conway churchyard:

"Also, Here Lieth the Body of

Lowry Owens, the wife of

William Vaughan, who

died May the 1st, 1766,

aged 192."

The round of the "9" was above the line; the figures were in their natural places, and had evidently not been altered; but as the inscription was remarkably clear for its age, the only explanation that occurred to me was that it had been recut by some ignorant person, when nearly defaced. Immediately above it was the following, referring, I presume, to her husband:

"Here Lyeth ye Body of

William Vaughan, who

Dyed ye 16 day of A Pril,

1735, aged 72."

If so, and the age of Mrs. Vaughan be correct as stated, she must have been nearly a hundred or so when married. Can any of your correspondents living in the neighbourhood explain how the mistake arose?

AGMOND.

59. Catherine Street, Liverpool.