Curious Custom of ringing Bells for the Dead.—In Marshfield, Massachusets, it has been customary for a very long period to ring the bell of the parish church most violently for eight or ten minutes, whenever a death occurs in the village; then to strike it slowly three times three, which makes known to the inhabitants that a man or boy has expired, and finally to toll it the number of times that the deceased had numbered years of existence.
The first settlers of Marshfield having been Englishmen, may I ask if this custom ever did, or does now, exist in the mother country?
W. W.
Malta.
Unpublished Essay by Lamb.—Coleridge is represented in his Table Talk (p. 253. ed. 1836), to have said that "Charles Lamb wrote an essay on a man, who had lived in past time." The editor in a note tells us he knows "not when or where." I do not find it in the edition of his works published in 1846, nor have I been able to discover it in any of the journals, to which he contributed, that have fallen in my way. Have any of your correspondents met with it?
R. W. Elliott.
Peculiar Ornament in Crosthwaite Church.—On lately visiting Crosthwaite Church, Cumberland, I was exceedingly struck with the great peculiarity of a carving, pointed out to me by the sexton, on the left jambs of all the windows in the north and south aisles, both inside and out. It is in the form of a circle with eight radiations, and always occurs about half-way between the shoulder of the arch and the sill. During the late restoration of the church, it has been covered with plaster in every case in the interior, save one in the north aisle, which is left very distinct. It does not appear on any of the windows at the east end or in the tower. I noticed a similar figure over the stone door-way of the old inn at Threlkeld, with the letters C G inscribed on one side, and the date 1688 on the other. The sexton said, he had never been able to obtain any intelligence as to its symbolical meaning or history, although he had inquired of nearly every one who had been to see the church. Can any of your correspondents throw a light upon the subject?
R. W. Elliott.
Cromwell's Portrait.—In the Annual Register, 1773, "Characters," p. 77.; in Hughes's Letters, ii. 308.; in Gent. Mag., xxxv. 357.; and in Noble's House of Cromwell, i. 307., is a statement, originally made by Mr. Say, of Lowestoft, in his account of Mrs. Bridget Bendish, importing that the best picture of Oliver which the writer had ever seen, was at Rosehall (Beccles), in the possession of Sir Robert Rich. Where is this portrait? Has it ever been engraved?
S. W. Rix.