—The beautiful old church of St. John in the Wilderness, near Exmouth, is in ruins. Having in 1850 asked the old man who points out its battered beauties, why there were still books in the reading desks, he informed me that marriages and funeral services were still performed there. This, however, is my only authority on the subject.
SELEUCUS.
Death of Cervantes (Vol. iv., p. 116.).
—No doubt now exists that the death of Cervantes occurred on the 23rd of April, 1616, and not the 20th of that month, which Smollett represents as the received date. In the Spanish Academy's edition, the magnificent one of 1780, as well as in that of 1797, it is so affirmed. In the former we read that on the 18th he received the sacrament of extreme unction with great calmness of spirit. It then adds:
"Igual serenidad mantuvo haste el último punto de la vida. Otorgó testamento dexando por albaceas á su muger Doña Catalina de Salazar, y al Licenciado Francisco Nuñez, que vivia en la misma casa: mandó que le sepultasen en las Monjas Trinitarias; y murió á 23 del expresado mes de Abril, de edad de 68 años, 6 meses, y 14 dias."
The coincidence, however, of the renowned Spaniard's death with that of our Shakspeare, who certainly died apparently on the same day, the 23rd of April, 1616, on which, at a singularity, Mr. Frere, with others, dwells, wholly fails; for, in fact, that day in Spain corresponded not with the 23rd, but the 13th, in England. It is forgotten that the Gregorian or Reformed Calendar was then adopted in Spain, and that between it and the unreformed style of England a difference in that century existed of ten days:—thus, the execution of Charles I., in our writers, and in the Book of Common Prayer, is always dated on the 30th of January, while on the continent it is represented as on the 9th of February. The Reformed Calendar was adopted and promulgated by Pope Gregory XIII. in 1582, while rejected by England, though acknowledged to be correct, until 1751, because coming from Rome. This disgraceful submission to prejudice in repudiation of a demonstrated scientific truth, practically sanctioned by a Napier, a Newton, a Halley, &c., is still pursued in the Greek church and Russian empire, where the present day, the 17th of September, is the 5th.
J. R.
Cork, Sept. 17.
Story referred to by Jeremy Taylor (Vol. iv., p. 208.).
—Although unable to point out the source whence Jeremy Taylor derived the story to which A. TR. alludes, I may be excused for referring your correspondent to Don Quixote, Part II. book III. chap. xiii., where the story, somewhat amplified, is given; but with this difference, that the staff is not broken by the injured person, but by Signor Don Sancho Panza, Governor of Barataria, before whom the case is brought for adjudication. That the story was founded on an older one may be well inferred, from its being stated that "Sancho had heard such a story told by the curate of his village; and his memory was so tenacious, in retaining everything he wanted to remember, that there was not such another in the whole island."