—I shall feel obliged to any one who can refer me to a good history or histories of Brittany; more especially to those which relate to the genealogies and heraldry of the Breton families, or which contain pedigrees.
T. H. KERSLEY, B.A.
Serjeants' Rings.
—T. P. would be obliged to any of your antiquarian readers who could inform him, through the medium of your paper, whether the custom of serjeants-at-law presenting rings with mottoes, on taking the coif, prevailed so long back as A.D. 1670-80, and, if so, whether there are any records, or other sources, from which he could ascertain the motto used by an individual who was admitted to that degree about that period?
The Duchess of Cleveland's Cow-pox.
—In Baron's Life of Jenner, Vol. i. p. 123., there occurs the following note, extracted from one of Dr. Jenner's note-books of 1799:
"I know of no direct allusion to the disease in any ancient author, yet the following seems not very distantly to bear upon it. When the Duchess of Cleveland was taunted by her companions, Moll Davis (Lady Mary Davis) and others, that she might soon have to deplore the loss of that beauty which was then her boast, the small-pox at that time raging in London, she made a reply to this effect,—that she had no fear about the matter, for she had had a disorder which would prevent her from ever catching the small-pox. This was lately communicated by a gentleman in this county, but unfortunately he could not recollect from what author he gained his intelligence."
Can any reader of "N. & Q." supply this missing authority for a fact which is very important in the history of medicine—if true?
ONETWOTHREE.