5th Report, pages 67. 69.; 23rd Report, pages 56. 450.; 31st Report, pages 754. 757.
There is a slight allusion to the doctor in the Returns of Corporate Offices and Charitable Funds, &c., p. 375.
H. Edwards.
Touching for the Evil (Vol. iii., p. 93.).—St. Thomas Aquinas refers the practice of touching for the evil by French kings to Clovis. See a work published in 1633, by Simon Favoul, entitled, Du Pouvoir que les Rois de France ont de guérir les Ecrouelles; also a work by Du Laurens, entitled, De Mirabili Strumas sanandi vi, regibus Galliarum Christianis divinitus concessa, libri duo, Paris, 1609, in 8vo.
Edward the Confessor is said to have been the first English king who touched for the evil. Consequently the English can hardly be said to have owed their supposed power to their pretensions to the crown of France.
E. J. R.
[We are indebted to Mr. J. B. Ditchfield and Mr. Joseph Sulley for very elaborate notices of the custom of the French kings touching for the evil; but the principal facts contained in those communications have already been laid before our readers by Mr. Cooper (Vide No. 69. p. 148. et seq.)]
Drax Free School (Vol. ii., p. 199.).—It appears by the will of Charles Read, dated July 30, 1669, that that gentleman had at his own charge erected a school-house at Drax, which he designed for a free school, and for the habitation of a schoolmaster, to instruct the children of the inhabitants of that parish gratis, to read, write, and cast accounts, and in Latin, Greek, and Hebrew, as occasion should require; and that he had erected six almshouses at Drax, for six aged and impotent people at that parish, and the lodgment of six poor boys; and for the support and maintenance of the said school, master, alms people, and poor boys, he directed his executors to lay out 2000l. in
the purchase of freehold land of 120l. per annum in or near Drax, to be conveyed to trustees to let such land at the best improved rent, for the purposes and uses mentioned in his will; and he appointed the lord mayor and aldermen of York, visitors of the school and almshouses.
At the time of the inquiry by the charity commissioners, the estates purchaser in pursuance of the directions of Mr. Read's will amounted to 391 acres of land, let at 542l. per annum, and there was an accumulation of stock of 12,700l. in the Three per Cents, the whole income being 924l. 9s. 6d. per annum.