Read Ebook: Notes and Queries Number 179 April 2 1853. A Medium of Inter-communication for Literary Men Artists Antiquaries Genealogists etc. by Various Bell George Editor

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REPLIES:-- Hamilton Queries, by Lord Braybrooke, &c. 333 The Wood of the Cross 334 Edmund Chaloner, by T. Hughes 334 "Anywhen" and "Seldom-when:" unobserved Instances of Shakespeare's Use of the latter, S. W. Singer 335 Chichester: Lavant, by W. L. Nichols 335 Scarfs worn by Clergymen, by Rev. John Jebb, &c. 337 Inscriptions in Books, by Russell Gole, George S. Master, &c. 337 PHOTOGRAPHIC NOTES AND QUERIES:--Head-rests-- Sir W. Newton's Explanations of his Process--Talc for Collodion Pictures 338 REPLIES TO MINOR QUERIES:--Portrait of the Duke of Gloucester--Key to Dibdin's "Bibliomania"--High Spirits a Presage of Evil--Hogarth's Works--Town Plough--Shoreditch Cross and the painted Window in Shoreditch Church--Race for Canterbury--Lady High Sheriff--Burial of an unclaimed Corpse--Surname of Allan--The Patronymic Mac--Cibber's "Lives of the Poets"--Parallel Passages, No. 2.: Stars and Flowers--Schomberg's Epitaph--Pilgrimages to the Holy Land--Album--Gesmas and Desmas--"Quod fuit esse"--Straw Bail--Pearl--Sermons by Parliamentary Chaplains, &c. 338

MISCELLANEOUS:-- Notes on Books, &c. 345 Books and Odd Volumes wanted 346 Notices to Correspondents 346 Advertisements 346

NOTES.

JACK.

JOHN JACKSON.

MYTHE VERSUS MYTH.

THOS. KEIGHTLEY.

WITCHCRAFT IN 1638.

I inclose you an extract from an old document in my possession, which appears to be the examination of two witnesses against one Mary Shepherd for witchcraft. The nature of the offence is not specified. Perhaps it may be interesting to some of your readers.

JONE COWARD.

Joane Coward de Warh, spinster ?xx,

To appear and give evidence at the next assizes ag Ma. Sheapheard.

Who sayth, y't on ye 16th of March last past she saw Mary Shep. come into ye house of Joh. Gillingame, and likewise saw Ed. Gillingame come down bare-footed very well, without any lamnesse or sickness at all, and p'esently after ye sayd Mary Shep. had pulled on the legginge upon the legge of ye s'd Ed. Gill., he fell instantly both lame and sick. Further, the Ex asked the s'd Ed. Gill. what Ma. Shep. did unto him, who answered, she did put her hand upon his thigh.

ANN TREW.

Anne Trew de Warh, spinster ?xx,

To appear and give evidence at next assizes ag M. Shepheard.

I should like to know if the effect of her supposed sorcery could be attributed to mesmerism. The document in my possession appears to be original, as Jone Coward's signature is in a different hand to that of the examination.

J. C. M.

Spetisbury.

ST. AUGUSTIN AND BAXTER.

I am not aware that any author has pointed out a remarkable coincidence in the Confessions of St. Augustin and of Baxter:

"Divers sins I was addicted to, and oft committed against my conscience, which, for the warning of others, I will here confess to my shame. I was much addicted to the excessive and gluttonous eating of apples and pears, which, I think, laid the foundation of the imbecility and flatulency of my stomach.... To this end, and to concur with naughty boys that gloried in evil, I have oft gone into other men's orchards and stolen the fruit, when I had enough at home.... These were my sins in my childhood, as to which conscience troubled me for a great while before they were overcome."

"How is it possible," he says, "to forgive Baxter for the affectation with which he records the enormities of his childhood?... Can any one read this confession without thinking of Tartuffe, who subjected himself to penance for killing a flea with too much anger?..."

It probably did not occur to the biographer, that no less illustrious a saint than Augustin, to whom Puritanism can hardly be imputed, had made a parallel confession of like early depravity many centuries before. Enlarging on his own puerile delinquencies, and indeed on the wickedness of children in general, he confesses that, in company with other "naughty boys" , he not only stole apples, but stole them for the mere pleasure of the thing, and when he "had enough at home":

In comparing the two cases, the balance of juvenile depravity is very much against the great Doctor of Grace. He does not seem to have had even a fondness for fruit to plead in extenuation of his larceny. He robbed orchards by wholesale of apples, which, by his own admission, had no attractions either of form or flavour to tempt him. Yet the two anecdotes are so much alike, that one would be inclined to suspect one story of being a mere recoction of the other if it were possible to doubt the veracity of Richard Baxter.

The incident, however, is one too familiar in schoolboy life to make the repetition of the story a matter of surprise. The property in an apple growing within the reach of a boy's hand has from time immemorial been in peril, and the law itself has not always regarded it as an object of scrupulous protection. The old laws of the Rheingau, and of some other states, warranted a wayfaring man in picking apples from any tree, provided he did not exceed the number of three.

E. SMIRKE.

FOLK LORE.

J. W. M.

Hordley, Ellesmere.

Why, a Pythagorean would have eaten a peacock sooner than one of us would have injured a robin.

R. P.

JOHNSONIANA.

I inclose you a transcript of a letter of Boswell's which I think worthy of being permanently recorded, and am not aware of its having been before in print.

Edinburgh, 11th April, 1774.

Dear Sir,

JAMES BOSWELL.

To David Garrick, Esq., Adelphi, London.

W. P.

MINOR NOTES.

"Monday being the anniversary of the White Roses, some persons who had a mind to boast that they had bid defiance to the government, put them on early in the morning; but the mob not liking such doings, gathered about them, and demolished the wearers; which so terrified the crew, that not one of them afterwards would touch a white rose."

Can you, or any of your correspondents, explain this curious allusion? Is it to the emblem of the House of York, or the badge of the Pretender?

E. G. B.

Pronounced

This strange mode is not altogether confined to the most illiterate portion of the people. My query is, Does this peculiarity obtain in any other portion of Scotland?

Paisley.

Au quartier g?n?ral du Parc, le 6 F?vrier, 1810.

A son Excellence

Le G?n?ral Beckwith, Commandant en chef les forces de sa Majest? Britannique aux isles du Vent.

Monsieur le G?n?ral,

J'ai ?t? pr?venu que Votre Excellence se proposait de venir au Parc demain dans la matin?e. J'ose esp?rer qu'elle voudra bien me faire l'honneur d'accepter le diner que lui offre un G?n?ral malheureux et vaincu, mais qu'il pr?sente de tout coeur.

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