Peter Allan (Vol. viii., p. 539.).—Your correspondent E. C. will find much interesting information respecting this person in an account of him reprinted from the Sunderland and Durham County Herald, and published (1848) by Vint and Carr, Sunderland, under the title of Marsden Rock, or the Story of Peter Allan, and Marsden Marine Grotto. He, his wife, eight children, and aged father and mother, are there described as being in a very flourishing condition: and (if I remember rightly) I saw them all, when I last visited the rock in 1850.
Cuthbert Bede, B.A.
Burial in an Erect Posture (Vol. viii., p. 5.).—The following passage, which I quote from Hearne's Collection of Antiquarian Discourses, vol. i. p. 212., may perhaps prove acceptable to Cheverells, as showing (on traditional authority) that this mode of burial was anciently adopted in the case of captains in the army:
"For them above the grounde buryed, I have by tradition heard, that when anye notable captayne dyed in battel or campe, the souldyers used to take his bodye, and to sette him on his feet uprighte, and put his launce or pike into his hand; and then his fellowe souldyers did by travell everye man bringe so muche earthe, and laye aboute him as should cover him, and mount up to cover the top of his pike."
I have a very curious print in my possession, illustrating the manners and customs of the Laplanders; and, amongst the rest, their modes of burial. In one case several bodies are represented standing in an upright posture, perfectly nude, with railings all round except in the front; and another, one body is represented in a similar condition, inclosed in a kind of sentry-box.
R. W. Elliott.
Clifton.
The Word "Mob" (Vol. viii., pp. 386. 524. 573.).—Roger North, speaking of the King's Head, or Green Ribbon Club, which was "a more visible administration, mediate, as it were, between his lordship (Shaftsbury) and the greater and lesser vulgar, who were to be the immediate tools," says:
"I may note that the rabble first changed their title, and were called the mob, in the assemblies of this club. It was their beast of burthen, and called first mobile vulgus, but fell naturally into the contraction of one syllable, and ever since is become proper English."—Examen, part III. ch. vii. p. 89.
H. Gardiner.