to whom Pope alludes, was Thomas Pitt, Esq., (ancestor of the Earl of Chatham), who was by Queen Anne appointed Governor of Fort St. George in the East Indies, and purchased there for the sum of 20,400l., or 48,000 pagodas, a diamond weighing 127 carats, which he sold to the King of France about 1717, and is now known as the Pitt diamond. I suppose it is at present in the possession of the Republic of France.
DE H.
Temple, July 5. 1851.
Banks Family (Vol. iii., pp. 390. 458. 507. 524.).
—I am obliged by your inserting my note on this subject. I can inform L.H. that the present owner of the lead mines in Keswick is related, though distantly, to John Banks the philosopher, who was born at Grange in Borrowdale. Can any of your correspondents give any reason why the crest of this branch of the family should be exactly similar in every respect to that of the Earl of Lonsdale?
BAY.
Dies Iræ, Dies Illa (Vol. ii p. 72. Vol. iii., p. 468.).
— Although some time has elapsed since the Query on this hymn appeared, yet as no very definite reply has been given, I send the following.
This hymn is one of the four "proses" or verses without measure, made use of in the services of the Roman Catholic Church. The invention of these proses is attributed to Nolker, a monk of the Convent of St. Gall, who wrote about the year 880; and who says in his work that he had seen them in a book belonging to the Convent of St. Jumièges, which was destroyed by the Normans in 841. Of the many proses which were composed, the Roman Catholic Church has retained but four, of which the above is one. Who the author really was, is very uncertain; the majority of writers on the subject appear to concur in the opinion that Cardinal Frangipani, a Dominican, otherwise called Malabrancia, a Doctor of Paris, and who died at Pérouse in 1294, was the composer but it has also been assigned to St. Gregory and St. Bernard. Bzovius, an. 1294, states the author to have been either Cardinal Orsino or Cardinal Frangipani, and other writers maintain it to have been the production of Agostino Biella, who died 1491; or of Humbertus, General of the Dominicans. The original consists of fifty-six lines, and may be found in almost every book of Catholic devotion.
R.R.M.