—The name of the Durham monk referred to by W. S. W. is more probably "Swallwell" than "Wallwell," because the former is the name of a township or vill in Durham county.
E. S.
The Winchester Execution (Vol. iv., p. 191.).
—The narrative related from memory of M. W. B. bears on its face strong indications of fiction: according to that statement a sheepstealer was "some years ago" condemned to death; a "warrant" for his execution was made out, but mislaid, by whom does not appear. After the lapse of years, during which the prisoner had been employed in "executing commissions in distant places" for the gaoler, and in obtaining a high character for his amiable and moral conduct, the fatal warrant arrives, and is "forwarded to the high sheriff, and to the delinquent himself," who is forthwith hanged.
Any one acquainted with the course of practice at assizes at the period to which this anecdote refers, must be aware that no "warrant," in the sense in which the word is here used, was ever made out in such cases. The prisoner is legally in the custody of the sheriff when sentence is passed in court, and he leaves the court in that same custody. The judgment so pronounced is itself the warrant, though a short memorandum or note of it is officially made at the time; unless the judge reprieves or suspends the sentence, no sheriff waits for any further authority, and as for the unfortunate delinquent, no judge, sheriff, or gaoler ever supposed that any copy of a warrant was to be handed to the prisoner himself! During the interval between sentence and execution, if there be no reprieve or release from imprisonment by the authority of the executive, the prisoner is, and always has been, kept by the sheriff in salvâ et arctâ custodiâ in the county gaol. The idea of an employment for years in rambling about the country on the gaoler's errands, is a preposterous figment, composed by some novelist who was unacquainted with the needful machinery for giving an air of verisimilitude to his story. The legend seems to be a version of the fate of Sir W. Raleigh adapted to low life; as in his case the scene is laid at Winchester, but the machinery and decorations are not contrived with a due regard to probability.
"Quodcunque essendis mihi sic, incredulus odi."
E. S.
Locke's MSS. (Vol. iii., p. 337.).
—A good account of Locke's MSS. is to be found in Blakey's History of Metaphysics. They were in the possession of the Forster family, whose representative, Dr. Forster, M.D., is now, or was very lately, residing at Bruges.
ÆGROTUS.