allusion. In speaking of the offensive composition, well known to sailors, the word revenge, and not defend, was used by Bramhall.
R. G.
Longevity (Vol. viii., p. 113.).—I do not think any of your correspondents has noticed the case of John Whethamstede, Abbot of St. Albans, who wrote a Chronicle of the period between 1441 and 1461: "He was ordained a priest in 1382, and died in 1464, when he had been eighty-two years in priest's orders, and was above one hundred years old." Surely this is a case sufficiently authenticated for your more sceptical readers. (Henry's History of Great Britain, 2nd ed., Lond. 1788, vol. x. p. 132.)
Tewars.
Chronograms (Vol. viii., pp. 42. 280.).—The following additional specimen of this once popular form of numerical puzzle is not, I think, unworthy a corner in "N. & Q."
On the upper border of a sun-dial, affixed to the west end of Nantwich Church, Cheshire, there appeared, previous to its removal about 1800, the undermentioned inscription:
"Honor DoMIno pro paCe popVLo sVo parta."
Now, seeing that Nantwich was, during the civil dissensions which culminated in the murder of Charles I., a rampant hot-bed of anarchy and rebellion, we should hardly be prepared for such a complete repudiation of those principles as is conveyed in the line before us, did we not know that the same anxiety to get rid of the "Bare-bones" incubus universally prevailed. The numerals, it will be seen, make up the number 1661, which was the year of the coronation of King Charles II.; and, no doubt, also the year in which the dial in question was erected.
T. Hughes.
Chester.