C. R. M.
Ace of Diamonds—the Earl of Cork.—In addition to the soubriquets bestowed upon the nine of diamonds of "the Curse of Scotland," and that of "the Grace Card," given to the six of hearts (Vol. i., pp. 90. 119.), there is yet another, attached to the ace of diamonds, which is everywhere in Ireland denominated "the Earl of Cork," the origin of which I should be glad to know.
E. S. T.
Closing of Rooms on account of Death.—In the Spectator, No. 110., July, 1711, one of Addison's papers on Sir Roger de Coverley, the following passage occurs:
"My friend, Sir Roger, has often told me with a good deal of mirth, that at his first coming to his estate he found three parts of his house altogether useless; that the best room in it had the reputation of being haunted, and by that means was locked up; that noises had been heard in his long gallery, so that he could not get a servant to enter it after eight o'clock at night; that the door of one of his chambers was nailed up, because there went a story in the family that a butler had formerly hanged himself in it; and that his mother, who lived to a great age, had shut up half the rooms in the house, in which either her husband, a son, or daughter had died. The knight seeing his habitation reduced to so small a compass, and himself in a manner shut out of his own house, upon the death of his mother ordered all the apartments to be flung open, and exorcised by his chaplain, who lay in every room one after another, and by that means dissipated the fears which had so long reigned in the family."
The practice of shutting up rooms in which members of the family had died was retained up to the end of the last century. I learn from a friend that, in a country house in the south of England, his mother's apartment, consisting of a sitting-room, bed-room, and dressing-room, was closed at her death in 1775. The room in which his grandfather had died in 1760 was likewise closed. These four rooms were kept locked up, with the shutters shut, till the year 1793, when the next owner came into possession, who opened them, and caused them to be again used. Probably other cases of the same sort may be known to your correspondents, as having occurred in the last century; but the custom appears to be now extinct.
L.
Standfast's Cordial Comforts.—I have lately procured a copy of an interesting book, entitled
"A Little Handful of Cordial Comforts: scattered throughout several Answers to Sixteen Questions and Objections following. By Richard Standfast, M.A., Rector of Christ Church in Bristol, and Chaplain in Ordinary to King Charles II. Sixth Edition. Bristol, 1764. 18mo. pp. 94."
Can any of your readers give me further particulars of Mr. Standfast, or tell me where to find them? In what year was the work first published? It was reprinted in Bristol in 1764, "for Mr. Standfast Smith, apothecary, great-grandson of the author." Has any later edition appeared?