James F. Ferguson.
Dublin.
[A volume of his poems was published anonymously by Dodsley, and entitled Odes and Epistles; containing an Ode on his own Conversion from Popery: London, 1739, 8vo., 2nd edit. There are also other pieces by him in Dodsley's Collection, and the New Foundling Hospital for Wit. He also published Faith, a Poem; a strange attempt to overturn the Epicurean doctrine by that of the Trinity; and Verses to the Queen; with a New Year's Gift of Irish Manufacture, 1775, 4to.]
Huntbach MSS.—Can you tell me where the Huntbach MSS. now lie? Shaw, in his History of Staffordshire, drew largely from them.
Ursus.
[Dr. Wilkes's Collections, with those of Fielde, Huntbach, Loxdale, and Shaw, as also the engraved plates and drawings, published and unpublished, relative to the History of Staffordshire, were, in the year 1820, in the possession of William Hamper, F.S.A., Deritend House, Birmingham.]
Holy Loaf Money.—In Dr. Whitaker's Whalley, p. 149., mention is made of holy loaf money. What is meant by this?
T. I. W.
[This seems to be some ecclesiastical due payable on Hlaf-mass, or Loaf-mass, commonly called Lammas-Day (August 1st). See Somner and Junius. It was called Loaf or Bread-mass, because it was a day of oblation of grain, or of bread made of new wheat; and was also the holiday of St. Peter ad Vincula, when Peter-pence were paid. Du Cange likewise mentions the Panis benedictus, and that money was given by the recipients of it on the following occasion:—"Since the catechumens," says he, "before baptism could neither partake of the Divine Mysteries, nor consequently of the Eucharist, a loaf was consecrated and given to them by the priest, whereby they were prepared for receiving the body of Christ.">[