St. Lucia.
Cock and Bull Story.
—As the expression of a "cock and bull story" has sometimes puzzled me, so it may have puzzled others, and I therefore send the following Note, if worthy of notice:
"I have used the expressive proverbial phrase Cock-on-a-Bell, familiarly corrupted into Cock-and-a-Bull, in its true and genuine application to the fabulous narratives of Popery. There is some measure of antiquarian curiosity attendant upon it, which may rival the singular metamorphosis of the Pix und Ousel into the familiar sign of the Pig and Whistle. During the Middle Ages, as we learn incidentally from Reinerius, Gallus-super-campanam was the ecclesiastical hieroglyphic of a Romish Priest: and as the gentlemen of that fraternity dealt somewhat copiously in legends rather marvellous than absolutely true, the contempt of Our English Protestantism soon learned proverbially to distinguish any idle figment by the burlesque name of a Cock-on-a-Bell story, or, as we now say, a Cock-and-a-Bull story."—From An Inquiry into the History and Theology of the Ancient Vallenses and Albigenses, by George Stanley Faber, B.D., 1838, p. 76. n.
J. R. R.
Mary Queen of Scots—Her Monument and Head.
—I find in Grose's Antiquarian Repertory, 2nd edition, vol. iii. p. 388., an account of a monument which was formerly to be seen in the Church of St. Andrew, at Antwerp, to the memory of Mary Queen of Scots; and it is therein related, on the authority of "an ancient MS.," shown to the author by "a Flemish gentleman of consequence and learning," that two of Mary's attendant ladies, named Barbara Mowbray and Elizabeth Curle, buried the head of their unfortunate mistress there, having been permitted, on leaving England after her execution, to carry her head with them.
Can any of your readers inform me whether this monument still exists, and whether anything is known of a portrait of Mary said to have been placed by these ladies near the monument? Also, whether there is any truth whatever in the above strange story.
C. E. D.