G. Steinman Steinman.
Ben Jonson's adopted Sons.—They are said to be twelve in number. Alexander Brome was one; Bishop Morley another. Can any of your correspondents give the names of the other ten? By doing so, it will oblige an
Inquirer.
Kyrle's Tankard at Balliol.—A very beautiful silver tankard, bearing the following inscription, with the arms of the donor engraved in the centre of the body of the cup; the first two words above, the others beneath the arms, was presented to Balliol College, Oxford, by that celebrated and excellent man, John Kyrle, Esq., better known by his world-wide appellation, "The Man of Ross." It will be perceived from the inscription that he was a gentleman commoner of that society:
"Poculum Charitatis.
Ex dono Johannis Kyrle, de Rosse, in agro Herefordiens, et
hujus Collegii Socio Commensalis."
It weighed upwards of five pounds, and the cover was lifted up by his crest, a hedgehog. It is said to have been always produced at table when a native of Herefordshire favoured the society with his company. Can any of your correspondents favour me with the following particulars:—Is the tankard still in existence, and has it been ever engraved? If so, in what work? Is there any record in the college books to show in what year, and upon what occasion, it was presented?
J. B. Whitborne.
Irish Language in the West Indies.—The atrocities which Oliver Cromwell committed in Ireland are fresh in the memory of the poorest Irishman, and his memory held in the deepest execration: every ruined fortress that we pass is ascribed to the great castle-killer, and the peasant's bitterest malediction is, "Mallachd Crumwell ort" (The curse of Cromwell on you).
The particular atrocity of Oliver's that we have to do with at present is thus stated by Dodd, vol. iii. p. 58.:
"At Drogheda all were put to the sword together with the inhabitants, women and children, only about thirty persons escaping, who, with several hundreds of the Irish nation, were shipped off to serve as slaves in the island of Barbadoes, as I have frequently heard the account from Captain Edw. Molyneux, one of that number, who died at St. Germains, whither he followed the unfortunate King James II."