Languet had it with him at Prague, framed, as he asserts, and hung up in his room, in the year 1575. He remarks upon it, in one place, that it represented Sidney as too young (he was nineteen when it was taken); in another place he says that it has given him too sad an expression. I should add, that on Languet's death, his property passed into the hands of his friend Du Plessis.
I am led to write to you on this subject, by having observed, a few days since, in the collection at Blenheim, two portraits by Paul Veronese, of persons unknown. There may be many such, and that of Sir Philip Sidney may yet be identified.
STEUART A. PEARS.
Harrow, Sept. 6.
Confession.—You would much oblige if you could discover the name of a Catholic priest, in German history, who submitted to die rather than reveal a secret committed to him in confession?
U.J.B.
Scotch Prisoners at Worcester.—In Mr. Walcott's History of St. Margaret's Church, Westminster, I find the following extract from church wardens' accounts:—
"1652. P'd to Thos. Wright for 67 loads of soyle laid on the graves in Tothill Fields, wherein 1200 Scotch prisoners, taken at the fight at Worcester, were buried; and for other pains taken with his teeme of horses, about mending the Sanctuary Highway, when Gen. Ireton was buried."
I have taken the pains to verify this extract, and find the figures quite correctly given. I wish to put the Query: Is this abominable massacre in cold blood mentioned by any of our historians? But for such unexceptionable evidence, it would appear incredible.
C.F.S.