Grimsby.
[Tanner states, the house was called Thorneton Curteis, and Torrington. It was founded by William le Gros, Earl of Albemarle, and Lord of Holderness, about the year 1139, for Austin Canons, and was dedicated to the Virgin Mary. Dugdale says, that when first founded it was a priory, and the monks were introduced from the monastery of Kirkham; but was changed into an abbey by Pope Eugenius III., A.D. 1148. Though Henry VIII. suppressed the Abbey, he reserved the greater part of the lands to endow a college, which he erected in its room, for a dean and prebendaries, to the honour of the Holy and Undivided Trinity. From the remains it must have been a magnificent building. Originally it consisted of an extensive quadrangle, surrounded by a deep ditch, with high ramparts, and built in a style adapted for occasional defence. To the east of the gateway are the remains of the abbey church. The chapter-house, part of which is standing, was of an octangular shape, and highly decorated. On the south of the ruins of the church is a building, now occupied as a farm-house, which formerly was the residence of the abbots. It was afterwards the seat of Edward
Skinner, Esq., who married Ann, daughter of Sir William Wentworth, brother to the unfortunate Earl of Strafford. The estate was purchased from one of the Skinner family by Sir Richard Sutton, Bart.; it is now in the possession of Lord Yarborough. In taking down a wall in the ruins of the abbey, a human skeleton was found, with a table, a book, and a candle-stick. It is supposed to have been the remains of the fourteenth abbot, who, it is stated, was for some crime sentenced to be immured—a mode of capital punishment not uncommon in monasteries. Four views of the abbey are given in Allen's History of Lincolnshire, vol ii., and some farther notices of its ancient state will be found in Dugdale's Monasticon, vol. vi. pl. i. p. 324.; Tanner's Notitia, Lincolnshire, lxxvii.; and Beauties of England and Wales, vol. ix. p. 684.]
Bishop Wilson's "Sacra Privata."—In the new edition of this work, p. 381., there is given a table of "The Collects, with their Tendencies." Under the head of Fasting, references are made to the First Sunday in Lent, and the Tenth and Twenty-third after Trinity.—There must be some mistake in this, as the last two collects refer to prayer. This for your correspondent Mr. Denton, to whom I understand the Church is indebted for the redintegration of the good bishop's journal.
A. A. D.
[We have submitted the above to the Rev. William Denton, who expresses his obligations to A. A. D. for pointing out the error, which seems to have escaped the notice of all the previous editors of the Sacra Privata. The second edition is now at press, and, if not too late, the correction will be made. Mr. Denton doubts whether the list after all is the bishop's; but thinks it was only copied by him from some work. Can any one point out the source? It is singular that another mistake of the bishop's should have escaped the notice of all previous editors, namely, the tendency of the collect for Whit-Sunday being described as Humiliation instead of Illumination.]
Derivation of "Chemistry."—Are there any historical reasons for deriving the word chemistry from Chemi, the name of Egypt, as is done by Bunsen and others?
T. H. T.
[Dr. Thomson, the writer of the article "Chemistry" in the Encyclopædia Britannica, thus notices this derivation: "The generally received opinion among alchymistical writers was, that chemistry originated in Egypt; and the honour of the invention has been unanimously conferred on Hermes Trismegistus. He is by some supposed to be the same person with Chanaan, the son of Ham, whose son Mizraim first occupied and peopled Egypt. Plutarch informs us that Egypt was sometimes called Chemia: this name is supposed to be derived from Chanaan. Hence it was inferred that Chanaan was the inventor of chemistry, to which he affixed his own name. Whether the Hermes of the Greeks was Chanaan, or his son Mizraim, it is impossible to decide; but to Hermes is assigned the invention of chemistry, or the art of making gold, by almost the unanimous consent of the adepts." Dr. Webster says, "The orthography of this word has undergone changes through a mere ignorance of its origin, than which nothing can be more obvious. It is the Arabic kimia, the occult art or science, from kamai, to conceal. This was originally the art or science now called alchemy; the art of converting baser metals into gold." Webster says the correct orthography is chimistry.]
Burning for Witchcraft.—When and where was the last person burned to death for witchcraft in England?