And, after my decease,
I leaves this to my son."
Whether this testamentary disposition ever passed through Doctors' Commons, I know not.
C. W. B.
Richard III. (Vol. iii., pp. 206-7.).—The statement by Mr. Harrison, that Richard was not a "hunchback," is curiously "backed" by an ingenious conjecture of that very remarkable man, Doctor John Wallis of Oxford, in his Grammatica Linguæ Anglicanæ, first published in 1653. The passage occurs in the 2d section of chapter 14, "De Etymologia." Wallis is treating of the words crook, crouch, cross, &c., and says:
"Hinc item croisado de militibus dicebatur ad bellum (quod vocant) sanctum conscriptis (pro recuperanda terra sancta) qui à tergo gestabant formam Crucis; et Richardus olim Rex Angliæ dicebatur crouch-backed, non quod dorso fucrit incurvato, sed quod à tergo gestare gestiebat formam Crucis."
G. F. G.
Edinburgh.
Lines by Pope.—On the back of a letter in my possession, written by the poet Gray, are the following lines in the handwriting of his friend Mason:—
"By Mr. Pope.
"Tom Wood of Chiswick, deep divine,
To Painter Kent gave all this coin.
'Tis the first coin, I'm bold to say,
That ever Churchman gave to Lay."
"Wrote in Evelyn's book of coins given by Mr. Wood to Kent: he had objected against the word pio in Mr. Pope's father's epitaph."