Gastras.
Cambridge, March 9.
Sword of Charles I.—Mr. Planché inquires (No. 12. p. 183.), "When did the real sword of Charles the First's time, which, but a few years back, hung at the side of that monarch's equestrian figure at Charing Cross, disappear?"—It disappeared about the time of the coronation of Her present Majesty, when some scaffolding was erected about the statue, which afforded great facilities for removing the rapier (for such it was); and I always understood it found its way, by some means or other, to the Museum, so called, of the notoriously frolicsome Captain D——, where, in company with the wand of the Great Wizard of the North, and other well-known articles, it was carefully labelled and numbered, and a little account appended of the circumstances of its acquisition and removal.
John Street.
[Surely then Burke was right, and the "Age of Chivalry is past!"—Otherwise the idea of disarming a statue would never have entered the head of any Man of Arms, even in his most frolicsome of moods.]
John Bull.—Vertue MSS.—I always fancied that the familiar name for our countrymen, about the origin of which "R.F.H." inquires (No. 21. p. 336.), was adopted from Swift's History of John Bull, first printed in 1712; but I have no authority for saying so.
If the Vertue MSS. alluded to (No. 20. p. 319.) were ever returned by Mr. Steevens to Dr. Rawlinson, they may be in the Bodleian Library, to which the Doctor left all his collections, including a large mass of papers purchased by him long after Pepys' death, as he described it, "Thus et odores vendentibus."
These "Pepys papers," as far as I can recollect, were very voluminous, and relating to all sorts of subjects; but I saw them in 1824, and had only then time to examine and extract for publication portions of the correspondence.
Braybrooke.
Audley End, March 25.