In menez Libra, ALWAI gan ascende,
As we were entrying at a towne's end."
Perhaps A. C. M. would be good enough to cite his authorities for the word "mene," "menez"—in the signification of "summit" or "margin"—with examples, if possible, of its use in these or kindred senses.
And perhaps some Arabic scholar will explain the name "Min al auwâ," and show in what way the absence of the prefix "Min" would affect it?
A. E. B.
TRADITIONS FROM REMOTE PERIODS THROUGH FEW LINKS.
In some of your former numbers ([Vol. iii., pp. 206.]; [237.]; [289.]) allusions have been made by your correspondents, showing that traditions may come down from remote periods through very few links. Having myself seen a man whose father lived in the time of Oliver Cromwell, I trust I shall be excused for stating some particulars of this fact, which I think will be considered by your readers as one of the most remarkable on record. In the year 1844 died James Horrocks, a small farmer, who lived at Harwood, a short distance from Bolton, in Lancashire, having completed his hundredth year. This circumstance, however, was not so remarkable as that of his own birth, his father, William Horrocks, having been born in 1657, one year before the death of Cromwell, and having married in 1741, at the advanced age of eight-four, a second wife, a young and buxom woman of twenty-six, by whom he had one child, the above James Horrocks, born March 14, 1744, and baptized at Bradshaw Chapel, near Bolton.
It is believed that the first wife of William Horrocks had been employed in the well-known family of the Chethams, at Castleton Hall, near Rochdale (a branch of that of Humphrey Chetham), by whom they were both much respected; and soon after the second marriage, he and his youthful wife were sent for to Castleton Hall by the Chethams, by whom they were treated with much kindness; and the remarkable disparity of years in their marriage having no doubt created great interest, a painter was employed to take their portraits, which are still in existence, with the ages of the parties at the time, and the dates, when taken, painted upon them.
I paid the son, James Horrocks, more than one visit, and on the last occasion, in company with James Crossley, Esq., of Manchester, the Reverend Canon Parkinson, Principal of St. Bees' College, and one or two other gentlemen, I took my son with me. It happened to be the very day on which he completed his hundredth year, and we found him full of cheerfulness and content, expecting several of his descendants to spend the day with him. I possess a portrait in crayons of this venerable patriarch, taken on that day by a very clever artist, who accompanied us on our visit, and which is an extremely faithful likeness of the original. Should it please Providence to spare my son to attain to his seventieth year, he also will be enabled, in the year 1900, to say that he has seen a man whose father lived in the time of Oliver Cromwell; thus connecting events, with the intervention of one life only, comprehending a period of very nearly two centuries and a half.
P.S. A very interesting narrative of all the facts of this case was published in the Manchester Guardian a few years ago, comprising many curious particulars not noticed by myself, a copy of which I shall be glad to send you, if you think it worthy of insertion in "NOTES AND QUERIES".