Children by one Mother.—In Vol. ix., p. 186., I. R. R., in reply to a Query in Vol. v., p. 126.—"If there be any well-authenticated instance of a woman having had more than twenty-five children?"—sends an account of a case, which he "firmly believes" to be authenticated, of a farmer's wife who had thirty. I now send you a much better authenticated case of polyprogenitiveness, which utterly throws the farmer's wife into the shade.
In Palazzo Frescobaldi, in this city, the ancient residence of the old Florentine family of that name, there is, among many other family portraits, one full-length picture of a tall and good-looking lady with this inscription beneath it: "Dianora Salviati, moglie di Bartolomeo Frescobaldi, fece cinquantadue figli, mai meno che tre per parto" (Dianora Salviati, wife of Bartolomeo Frescobaldi, gave birth to fifty-two sons, and never had less than three at a birth). The case is referred to by Gio. Schenchio, in his work Del Parto, at p. 144.
The Essex lady, as well as I should suppose all other ladies whatsoever, must hide their diminished heads in presence of this noble dame of Florence.
T. A. T.
Florence.
Robert Brown the Separatist (Vol. ix., p. 494.).—Mr. Corner will probably find an answer to his question in the History of Stamford, by W. Harrod (1785), and in Blore's History of the County of Rutland, 1813, fol.; Bawden's Survey, 1809, 4to.; Wright's History of Rutlandshire, 1687 and 1714. The last descendant of Robert Brown died on Sept. 17, 1839, æt. sixty-nine, widow of George, third Earl of Pomfret; and as she had no issue, her house and estate at Toltrop
(i. e. Tolthorp), in Rutlandshire, about two miles from Stamford in Lincolnshire, probably passed to his heir and brother Thomas William, the fourth earl.
At the time of her marriage, her servants (as was believed by orders from their mistress) persevered in chiming the only two bells of the parish church, to the hazard and annoyance of the vicar's wife, just confined of her first child in a room hardly a stone's throw from it. His pupils were so indignant, that they drove away the offenders and took the clappers out of the bells: and the son of a near neighbour, then a member of St. John's College, Cambridge (Thos. Foster, A.B., 1792), made it the subject of a mock-heroic poem of some merit, called the Brunoniad (London, 1790, printed by Kearsley). So few copies were printed, that the queen and princesses could not procure one; and a lady employed at Court requested a young friend of hers, resident at Stamford, to make a transcript of it for their use. This your present note-writer can aver, as the transcriber was a sister of
Anat.
Hero of the "Spanish Lady's Love" (Vol. ix., p. 305.).—Concerning the origin of this interesting old ballad, the following communication appeared in The Times of May 1, 1846. It is dated from Coldrey, Hants, and signed Charles Lee: