"SEPT, an inclosure; the multitude of the same name in Ireland."
In ancient Rome certain classes of voters were called Septs, from the septa or inclosures in which they were arranged.
C.
Many Children (Vol. v., p. 204.).
—I am indebted to the Rev. J. Sanford, orderly preacher at the Rolls chapel, for the subjoined curious statement, which you may add, if you please, to the instances of female fecundity already recorded in your pages.
The Marchese Frescobaldi, the representative of one of the most ancient Florentine families, is still possessed of a portrait of his ancestress, Dionora Salviati, wife of Bartolomeo Frescobaldi of the same house. She gave birth to fifty-two children, never less than three at a time; and there is a tradition in the family that she once had six, and that twelve were reared. The portrait was painted by the celebrated Bronzino, who died in 1570, and has recorded the remarkable circumstance in the following inscription placed under the picture, and in some degree has thus made himself responsible for the authenticity of the story:—
"Dionora Salviati moglie di Bartolomeo dei Frascobaldi, fece 52 figli, e mai meno di tre per parto, come riferesce Gio. Schenzio nei libri delle osservazioni amirabili, cioe nel libro quarto de Parto a carta 144."
BRAYBROOKE.
Relative to extraordinary births, I may mention that within half a dozen miles of this city, and not more than six weeks since, a poor woman gave birth to four children, two of each sex, and all, with the mother, doing well. Some millions are born without such, as I may term it, a phenomenon.
In a very late Brussells paper I find it stated, that in nine years the wife of a tradesman had twenty-four children, three on each delivery,—"chose désespérante (it is added) pour le mari, qui désirait transmettre son nom, car c'étaient toutes des filles." Mercier, in his Tableau de Paris (1786) quotes L'Histoire de l'Académie des Sciences of the preceding century for a similar fact, where it is asserted that a baker's wife had twenty-one children in seven years, three at each birth, and that he had again three children at a birth by a servant maid.