I have been requested by the Rev. Richard Bingham, Jun., to state that he has in his possession autograph sermons by his illustrious ancestor, in some of which are notes only or heads of subjects, and which are therefore unfavourable to the suspicion expressed (p. 42.), that the author of the Antiquities of the Christian Church was prejudiced against extempore preaching.
BIBLIOTHECARIUS CHETHAMENSIS.
Replies to Minor Queries.
The Authoress of "A Residence on the Shores of the Baltic" (Vol. iv., p. 113.).
—As in a publication such as "NOTES AND QUERIES" the most precise correctness, even in matters of secondary importance, is, above all things, to be desiderated, I am sure J. R. will be glad to be corrected in a statement made by him, in the concluding sentence of his interesting communication, "Traditions from remote Periods through few Hands," concerning the above accomplished lady. This elegant writer was not "one of four congenital children," though it is quite true that such a birth occurred in her family. The following account of so unusual an occurrence is taken from Matchett's Norfolk and Norwich Remembrancer and Vade Mecum, a work compiled principally from the columns of The Norfolk Chronicle, of which Mr. Matchett was for many year a co-proprietor and assistant editor:—
"August 15, 1817. At Dr. R.'s house, at Framingham (a small village four miles from Norwich), Mrs. R., who in 1804 had first brought him twins, was safely delivered of four living children, three sons and a daughter, who were privately baptized by the names of Primus John, Secundus Charles Henry, Tertius Robert Palgrave, and Quarta Caroline. They were weighed with their shirts on by Dr. Hamel, physician to the Grand Duke Nicholas of Russia, who paid Dr. R. a visit a few days after the quadruple birth, and were found to be 21 lbs. 2 oz. One lived eighteen days; the other three from eight to ten weeks. Dr. R. being a grandfather at the time, the children were born great-uncles and a great-aunt."
They are buried in Framingham Earl churchyard, where is a table monument over their remains, setting forth the above particulars in full, with the respective periods of their deaths.
Dr. R. was Mayor of Norwich in 1805, and, as J. R. states, an eminent physician of that city. He was the author of An Essay on Animal Heat, On the Agriculture of Framingham and Holkham, and of other works on Midwifery, Medicine, and Agriculture. He died Oct. 27, 1821, aged seventy-three years.
COWGILL.