JAS. CROSSLY.
Minor Notes.
Traditions of remote Periods through few Links (Vol. iv., p. 484.).
—One evening, very soon after his accession, George IV. said that he had done that morning an extraordinary thing, namely given (to Lord Moira) a garter which had been but once disposed of since the reign of Charles II. This, considering that men (except in royal cases) never obtain the garter when under age, and seldom till they are somewhat advanced in life, seemed surprising; but his Majesty thus explained it. Charles II. gave the garter to the Duke of Somerset in 1684; the duke died at the end of 1748, and (Frederic, Prince of Wales, being alive) his son, afterwards George III., received, a few days after, the vacant garter as an ordinary knight, and though he subsequently became sovereign, he always dated his rank in the Order from 1749; and when George IV. succeeded as sovereign, his own stall, which was in fact that of George III., was filled by Lord Moira. Thus it is certainly true that two knights of the garter occupied the whole period between the reigns of Charles II. and George IV.
I may add on this same topic of tradition, that I had a grand-uncle born early in the reign of Queen Anne, who was intimate with Pope, Swift, and Arbuthnot, from 1730 to their respective deaths; he used to tell me anecdotes of their society, about which I was, I dare say, at the age of sixteen or seventeen, old enough to propose Queries, but not to make Notes, which I much regret.
Preservation of Life at Sea.
—On the road between Yarmouth and Gorleston is a small obelisk or monument, with a device of a ship in a storm, a rocket with a rope attached just passing over it. The inscription on it may interest some of your readers:
"In commemoration of the
12th Feb. 1808, on which DAY,