"The person addressed in these verses, John Maxwell, Esq., of Terraughty and Munches, was a leading public man in the county of Dumfries. He was on several accounts very remarkable, but particularly for his birth, and the proximity into which his family history brings us with events comparatively remote; for Mr. Maxwell was grandson's grandson, and no more, to the gallant and faithful Lord Herries, who on bended knees entreated Queen Mary to prosecute Bothwell as the murderer of her husband, and who subsequently fought for her at Langside. One cannot learn without a pleasing kind of surprise, that a relation in the fifth degree of one who was Warden of the West Marches in 1545, should have lived to the close of the French Revolution wars, which was the case of Mr. Maxwell, for he died in January 1814."
[4] Middle of December, 1791.
C. D. LAMONT.
Greenock.
There is now living in the village of Headley, Hants, a man whose father was born in the time (though not in the reign) of James II.; viz. 1697. As a curious instance of the space of time included in the lives of a father and son (although there is nothing wonderful in the number of years attained by either separately), I have thought it worth recording in "N. & Q." I may add that the age of the man now living at Headley is eighty-three, and he was born when his father was seventy-two years old.
L. G.
TWENTY-SEVEN CHILDREN, AND MORE, OF ONE MOTHER.
(Vol. v., p. 126.)
Happening to have made notes from time to time of several such instances, I beg to present them to the readers of "N. & Q.":—
Sixty-two Children:—
"A weaver in Scotland had by one woman 62 children, all living till they were baptized, of wch ther wer but fower daughters onely who lived till they were women, and 46 sonns, all attaining to man's estate. During the time of this fruitfullnes in the woman, the husband, at her importunity, absented himself from her for the space of 5 years together, serving as a soldier under the command of Captaine Selby in the Low Countries. After his return home his wife was againe delivered of three children at a birth, and so in due time continued in such births till, through bearing, she became impotent. The certainty of this relation I had from John Delavall of Northumb', Esq., who, ann. 1630, rid about 30 miles beyond Edenburrough to see this fruitfull couple, who were both then living. Ther statures and features he described to me then more fully. Ther was not any of the children then abiding with ther parents. Sir John Bowes & 3 other men of qualitie have taken at severall times ten of ther children apeece from them, and brought them up. The rest wer disposed of by the other English & Scottish gents, amongst wch 3 or 4 out of them are now alive & abiding at Newcastle, 1630."