"Anno 165-, at - (Leek?) in the Moorelands, in Staffordshire, lived a poor Old Man, who had been a long time Lame. One Sunday in the Aftern., he being alone, one knock'd at his Door. He bade him open it, and come in. The Stranger desir'd a Cup of Beer. The Lame Man desir'd him to take a Dish and draw some, for he was not able to do it himself. The Stranger ask'd the poor Old Man, how long he had been Ill? The poor Man told him. Said the Stranger, 'I can cure you; Take two or three Balm leaves steep'd in your Beer for a Fortnight or three Weeks, and you will be restor'd to your Health. But constantly and Zealously serve God!' The poor Man did so, and became perfectly well. This Stranger was in a Purple shag-gown, such as was not seen or known in those parts; and nobody in the street (after Even-song) did see any one in such a colour'd Habit. Dr Gilbert Sheldon (since Archbishop of Canterbury) was then in the Moorlands, and justified the truth of this to Elias Ashmole, Esq., from whom I had this account. And he hath inserted it in some of his memoirs, which are in the Museum at Oxford." Can any reader of "N. & Q." furnish me with the key to the above reference? One or two Oxford friends have searched in vain for it. Thornbridge, Bakewell. JOHN SLEIGH. WILLIS OF KIRKOSWALD, CO. CUMBERLAND.Is there ground for the assertion that this family (yeomen farmers) descended from Sir Thomas Willis, who was a Knight elect of the Royal Oak, and to whom the motto "Semper Fidelis," with an augmentation to the crest (a stag) of " an oak branch fructed or," was granted by King Charles? Branches of the above family are now seated in London, N. S. Wales, Victoria, and Tasmania, also in British India. Hobart Town. Queries with Answers. J. M'C. B. JOHN DAVY. - Can you give me any particulars of this musical composer? He died at the age of fifty-nine, in St. Martin's Lane, London. Amongst his compositions were, "The Bay of Biscay," and "The Death of the Smuggler." I should be glad to be referred to some account of his early life. Т. В. [John Davy was born of humble parentage in the parish of Upton Helion, eight miles from Exeter, in the year 1765. From his very early infancy he discovered a most remarkable musical bias. When between four and five years of age, his ear was so very correct that he could play any easy tune after once or twice hearing it. At an early age he was placed under the care of a blacksmith or farrier, for the purpose of working his way through life by that laborious employment. But his foster parent, Nature, had destined him for a more congenial pursuit. Instead of studying the toilsome mysteries of Vulcan, he amused himself at every convenient opportunity by "ringing the changes" on horse-shoes. His master, on one occasion, hearing some musical sounds, which seemed to come from the upper part of the house, proceeded up stairs, where he discovered our young musician with some of his missing property between the ceiling of the garret and the thatched roof. He had se lected eight horse-shoes to form a complete octave; had suspended each of them by a single cord clear from the wall, and with a small iron rod was amusing himself by imitating the chimes of Crediton. The dawning talent of young Davy fortunately attracted the notice of the celebrated William Jackson, organist of Exeter Cathedral, who had him removed from his humble station, and became his gratuitous musical preceptor and friend during the remainder of his life. On the decease of his benefactor, Mr. Davy was appointed his successor as organist of St. Peter's. Against the advice of his friends, our young composer quitted the western world, with the advantage it afforded, for the sands and shoals of a metropolitan life. His talents procured him a permanent engagement in the orchestra of Covent Garden Theatre, and he became a very popular dramatic composer, but he had not sufficient prudence in pecuniary matters to provide against the ordinary contingencies of sickness and old age. As Davy was naturally of mild, amiable, and unassuming manners, it is painful to find that his last hours were uncheered by comfort, and that he ended his days in penury without a friend to close his eyes. He died on Sunday, Feb. 22, 1824, at his lodgings in May's Buildings, St. Martin's Lane, and his remains were interred on the following Saturday in St. Martin's churchyard. Biographical notices of Mr. Davy will be found in the Gentleman's Magazine for March, 1824, p. 280; the Somerset House Gazette, i. 350; and Biographical Dictionary of Musicians.] RING SAID TO BE OF MARY, QUEEN OF SCOTS.Can any of your readers inform me for certain what British queen is indicated by the armorial bearings delineated on the accompanying impressions? The seal from which they are struck, being a fac-simile, made about sixty years ago, of one which was long in the possession of a noble family of Scotland, but which I understand has been lost (to them, at least,) about forty years, is a small cornelian of lozenge shape, affixed to a golden finger-ring. Not having sufficient technical knowledge on the subject, nor being endowed with microscopic eyes, I will not attempt to define all the minute and crowded heraldic devices which the shield (which is of the usual characteristic figure) exhibits: my object being to induce others, more competent, to identify and explain them. I may, however, here state that the English royal three lions, th the Scottish lion, and a harp, are clearly visible; that the letters "M. R." appear respectively on either side; and that an imperial crown surmounts the whole. Were it not for the harp (most probably symbolising Ireland), this signet-ring might be presumed to have been executed for, and worn by Mary, Queen of Scots, while in France; as tradition had frequently (but, I believe, erroneously) affirmed of it. Indeed, I have seen allusions to the original as such in print; and, if I am not mistaken, in "N. & Q.," about a year since. A high authority has latterly suggested that it may have belonged to Mary of Modena, when widow of King James II. Τ. Α. Η. [The arms on the seal are: 1. France and England quarterly; 2. Scotland; 3. Ireland; 4. France and Eng land quarterly; which are the royal arms of England as borne by all the Stuarts; but, as depicted on the seal, are the arms of a queen regnant, as Queen Anne might have borne them - but then the initials "M. R." will not do. The initial of James I.'s wife was "A."; those of Charles I.'s, "H. M.”; Charles II.'s, "C."; and James II.'s "M." But Mary of Modena could not have borne them without her own arms impaled. If intended to pass for the seal of Mary, Queen of Scots, it is obviously one of the many attempts to fabricate a seal for Mary Stuart. The insertion of the arms of Ireland, exposes the blundering of the attempt. Our correspondent will find some communications upon the supposed seal of Mary, Queen of Scots in our 1st S. vi. 36, 111, 210.] BERMUDA. What book gives the best and fullest account of Bermuda, especially as regards its climate, and present sanitary condition ? SELRAHE. [As no work is known to us which treats expressly on the climate of the Bermudas, we may as well give some of the conflicting opinions advanced by different writers respecting it: "The Summer Islands are situated near the latitude of thirty-three degrees: no part of the world enjoys a purer air, or a more temperate climate-the great ocean which environs them at once moderating the heat of the south winds, and the severity of the north-west. Such a latitude on the Continent might be thought too hot; but the air in Bermuda is perpetually fanned and kept cool by sea-breezes (as is affirmed by persons who have long lived there) of one equal tenor, almost throughout the whole year, like the latter end of a fine May; insomuch, that it is resorted to as the Montpelier of America." Bp. Berkeley's Works, 1837, p. 390. Wm. Frith Williams, in his Historical and Satirical Account of the Bermudas, 1848, p. 159, is of opinion that Berkeley's account is a little exaggerated. He says: "The south winds in Bermuda are moist and very oppressive. The official returns of the deaths among the prisoners, confined as they are to the unwholesome atmosphere of the hulks, and the troops, prove the place to be remarkably unhealthy." "The climate of the Bermudas is mild, genial, and salubrious, though somewhat humid during a south wind." - Knight's English Cyclopædia, "Geography," i. 1049. 194, and used 8,535,396 stamps; the Scotch provincial papers 54, using 2,654,438; and the Irish 78, using 5,144,582 stamps. From an earlier return, No. 548, of Session 1830, we learn that, in the year 1829, there were issued to thirty-one of the principal journals issued in London, 17,996,275 stamps - The Times alone using 3,275,311, and paying for stamp duty 54,5881. 10s. 4d. We do not think that our correspondent will succeed in obtaining any accurate or official return of the circulation of the newspapers now published in London.] JOHN CANNE. "A Necessitie of Separation from the Church of England proved by Nonconformist Principles. By John Canne, Pastor of the Ancient English Church in Amsterdam." Can any reader of "N. & Q." inform me when and where the book was published, and whether anything is known of the author ? С. К. [John Canne was originally a minister of the Church of England, but subsequently joined the Brownists, and is said to have succeeded Henry Ainsworth as teacher of a congregation at Amsterdam. All that is known of his personal history will be found in Wilson's History of Dissenting Churches, iv. 125-136; Brook's Lives of the Puritans, iii. 332; Hanbury's Memorials, i. 515; and Dr. Worthington's Diary, i. 266. Soon after the meeting of the Long Parliament, he returned to England, and ultimately subsided into a fifth monarchy man. After the Restoration he returned to Amsterdam, where he committed to the press the third edition of his Bible in 1664. When his death took place is unknown. His work, A Necessitie of Separation, was most probably printed at Amsterdam in 1634, 4to.] MERKYATE CELL. - Could you inform me of any book in which there is an account of Merkyate Cell, near Dunstable? It is a haunted house; and there is an ancient rhyme concerning it, which runs thus "By the town there is a cell, It was here that the notorious Lady Ferrers lived. She was found dead, pierced with wounds, upon the threshold of a secret stair. The door leading to the staircase was subsequently walled up. The present owner caused it to be opened: he had to strike the first blows with the pickaxe, as not one of the workmen would venture to raise a hand for the purpose. G. S. C. [The best account known to us of the Priory of St. Trinity in the Wood, otherwise Merkyate Cell, is in Clutterbuck's Hertfordshire, i. 346-348.] HENRY HOWARD, third son of Thomas, Earl of Berkshire, was Governor of Malmsbury for the King in 1643. He married Elizabeth, widow of John, Lord Craven, and daughter to William Lord Spencer. When did he die? In Waylen's History of Marlborough, p. 201, he is erroneously called eldest son of the Earl of Berkshire. S. Y. R. [According to Allen's History of the County of Lincoln, ii. 110, Henry Howard died in 1663, and a tablet to his memory is in the chancel of Revesby church, co. Lincoln. The date of his death in Henry Howard's History of the Howard Family, p. 59, is 1683, but we take this to be a misprint.] "CARFINDO." - What is the meaning of this word, which I find in one of Dibdin's songs? (Sea Songs and Ballads, 1863, p. 30.) An old friend of mine, fond of singing these ballads, always used the word carpenter "My friend he was a carpenter, J. [Dibdin says, that this word (Carfindo), clearly a corruption of carpenter, occasioned him at least forty anony "Them ashes over the common has got cold; it's time to warm up a bit on this side." After the second fire, wages rose again. With such encouragement, it is not surprising that "Swing" was active. Sometimes the farmer himself, when handsomely insured, was " Swing." That was a time of wild expectation. The labourers hoped to divide the land; the farmers to pay no more rent, or only "what was reasonable"; but I think the parcelling out all England into eight acres for each family was a subsequent project. Among the pamphlets of the time which are now becoming scarce are, The Life of Francis mous letters.-Songs, &c., edited by George Hogarth, Swing, the Kent Rick-burner Lond. 1830 (Carlile), 1842, p. 112.] I remember that in the newspapers and periodicals of 1830 to 1833, the "swing" fires were often ascribed to "revolutionary propagandists" and bands of incendiaries, who did their work scientifically. I inquired carefully, and had good opportunities of getting at the truth; but I never found any wider motive than personal hatred, or the hope of raising wages, nor any higher science than was necessary for lighting a pipe. I held several briefs for the prosecution, and two or three for the prisoners in cases of arson, and I watched many more. I was also a director of a fire-insurance office, which, I believe, suffered as much as any by "Swing." We inquired much, and the result confirmed the opinion which I had formed on circuit. At that time there was much excitement among labourers, and fear in the employers. Very often the wages of a whole parish were raised after a fire. In an Oxfordshire village, the name of which I do not now remember, some ricks had been burned, and wages rose about a week after. In about six months they were lowered again, and another fire speedily followed. One of the prisoners charged with this was proved to have said, pp. 24, and The Genuine Life of Mr. Francis Swing, Lond. 1831 (Cock), pp. 24. The first is ably written in a clear homely style, setting out the wrongs of the poor and the selfishness of the rich. The sufferings of "Swing" are told with irritating power; and if the book was much circulated, it most likely did mischief. He sets the parson's haggard on fire by accident, and after describing the fright to himself, he says: " I immediately left the place, and the next morning journeyed homewards, begging for subsistence along the road. Everywhere I went I heard of fires and notices signed 'SWING.' 'How happens this?' thought I. I am not the author of those burnings. What can have caused them?' A few minutes' reflection on the history of my own life, which without any alteration may stand for that of thousands of others, enabled me to give myself a satisfactory answer. Those fires,' said I, are caused by farmers having been turned out of their lands to make room for foxes; peaceable people assembled to petition Parliament butchered by the military; peasants confined two years' in prison for picking up a dead par tridge; English labourers set up to auction like slaves, and treated as beasts of burden; and pluralist parsons taking a poor man's only cow for tithe of his cabbage garden. These are the things that have caused the burnings, and not the unfortunate 'SWING.'"-P. 24. The second "Life" is also an autobiography. "Swing" confesses that he is the author of most of the fires and threatening letters. He had good parents, a good landlord, and was well brought up; but he began with poaching, and was drawn on to rick-burning and other crimes by his friend Jones. He was haunted by a ghost in the shape of an old woman, and to free himself from the spectre, at Jones' persuasion he sold himself to the devil. At the time of writing, he is going about, in his own gig, with Jones, distributing incendiary letters and setting ricks on fire. The writing of this pamphlet is good, but the matter was so absurd that in a few days after its publication it was suppressed, and a new edition issued without a ghost. AN INNER TEMPLAR. The leader of the Swing outrages was dubbed a "Captain," ex. gr.: I have some doubts whether the barley wine, which is often alluded to by the ancients, was always of the same potent quality as our potheen. Does not the following allusion to it in Æschylus (Suppl. 929, ed. Scholefield, 1830), seem to speak of it as if it had more of the deadening effects of our beer: ̓Αλλ ̓ ἄρσενάς τοι τῆσδε γῆς οἰκήτορας The king here contrasts the enlivening and inspiriting effects of generous Greek wine with the stupefying barley decoction of Egypt. Is this the earliest allusion to barley wine in Greek authors? Has anyone of our intoxicating liquors the effect of making the drunken always to fall on their back as Aristotle (Athenæus, x. 447, c.) assures us was invariably the case with those who drank to excess of barley wine? He adds, that those in toxicated with other inebriating liquors, topple over in any direction. The Pæonians of Thrace called it βρύτον. Are we to go back to these people for the origin of the word "bree," as exemplified in Burns "And ay we'll taste the barley bree?" It is no doubt the Anglo-Saxon briew, and German bruhe, and the cognate verb brauen, to brew. The Spaniards had a liquor which they called celia (Flor. ii. 18), made of triticum, wheat. Of what was their ceria (Plin. xxii. 82, ed. Lemaire) made? Ought we to read cedria, as has been suggested? Cider meant originally all kinds of strong drinks except wine, though it is now restricted to the juice of apples. It is the sidra of the Italians, the sidre or cidre of the French. The Italians of the middle ages may have got the word from their intercourse with the eastern parts of the Mediterranean. It may be the sicera, which is said in the Hebrew tongue to signify any intoxicating liquor. Are there any words in Hebrew connected with sicera? Pliny refers to the spuma, froth, which appears on all the beverages which he is mentioning. This suits our ale and beer, but scarcely our potheen. According to Hellanicus, βρύτον was made of roots. What is the root beer of the Americans? C. T. RAMAGE. THE DEVIL. (3rd S. iv. 246.) I have to thank EIRIONNACH, MR. DE MORGAN, and J. C. H. for their responses to my query concerning the Devil; and as I gather from various communications which have reached me privately that the subject interests many, I beg more definitely to announce that shortly I hope to publish a volume on "The Temptation of Our Lord," being a portion, independent and so separable, of a larger work, to which I propose to devote the leisure of a goodly number of years. I am not aware that in our own, or in any other language, there exists anything like a worthy, that is adequate, out-thinking of the subject of the Existence, Personality, and Attributes of the Being variously designated in our English Bible, the Devil, Satan, and the like. There have been many fugitive papers and compilations of the sort indicated by EIRIONNACH; but as a whole, the subject is virgin - by whole, meaning all belonging to it, outside as well as inside of Revelation, early and present, heathen and Christian and antiChristian, in Religious, semi-Religious, Traditions, Legends, Superstitions, Philosophies, Language, Literature, and Art. I have set it before myself to try to write such a book; and if I at all approximate to my ideal, I indulge the hope that not only will many portions of Holy Scripture be elucidated, but likewise light shed upon departments of the Philosophy of the Human Mind and processes of thought and belief, of the last interest. It is my purpose, too, to bring together all of value which others have written wherever I can find it, from the earliest Classics of Paganism on through the Christian Fathers and the Schoolmen, Divines, orthodox and heretic, Church and Puritan, Philosophers and Poets and Scholars. I need hardly say that it will be my endeavour to be thorough and at the same time reverent. I intend no mere light literature, much less a "sensation" book. Any books, larger or lesser, literary or art references or suggestions, will be gratefully acknowledged. That any wishing to correspond on the subject may know my address, I displace I by my name, &c. in full. 1st Manse, Kinross, N.B. REV. A. B. GROSART. P.S.-The following tractate having been sent me through the Editor of "N. & Q.," I am anxious to thank the donor, and to ask if any reader can oblige me with any information con" second" cerning its author? I cannot trace a part* [* The Second Part appeared in 1799, and was entitled "On the Political and Moral Uses of an Evil Spirit.' Mr. Leycester, who was Barrister-at-Law of Lincoln's Inn, had a few years before tried his skill at irony to amend the shortcomings of his contemporaries, by publishing "A Disputation in Logic, arguing the Moral and Religious Uses of a Devil. Book the First. By George Hanmer Leycester, A.M., of Merton College, Oxford. London, 1797, 8vo, pp. 45. In these days of light literature, it is quite a relief to find a person entering upon so wide a field as that which r. has proposed to himself, involving the terrible problem of the origin of evil and the mysteries of the unseen world. In the work of J. G. Mayer, mentioned by EIRIONNACH, Γ. will find numerous references to earlier treatises. There is also a work, in German, by G. F. Meyer, and a folio volume in English by Heywood, on the Hierarchy of Angels and the fall of Lucifer. This book was published in 1635. And it would be curious to inquire to what extent Milton has availed himself of it. Among the writers by whom the existence of the Devil is looked upon in a negative point of view, I may mention Dr. Bekker, in his Bezauberte Welt, published at Amsterdam in 1673. And Ashdowne, in his attem to show that the common opinion is not founded in Scripture, 1791. I also find, in Dr. Geddes's Critical Remarks on the Hebrew Scriptures (vol. i. p. 43), an essay of Eichhorn's on "Primæval History," referred to, as clearly showing that the writer of Genesis had no idea of such a being. MELETES. LAURENCE STERNE (3rd S. iv. 363.) - It might be worth while for P. F. to apply to the Rev. Geo. Scott, of Coxwold, who, I believe, is still living. Mr. Thos. Gill, in his Vallis Eboracensis, gives a piece of poetry by Sterne, which has not appeared, so far as I can find, in any of his works. It is entitled "The Unknown o. Verses occasioned by hearing a Pass-bell." Mr. Gill states that the poem "has been handed down in succession from the composer to the reverend gentlemen who have succeeded him in the living of Coxwold, and through the kindness of the Rev. George Scott is now presented to the public." It is not unlikely that other MS. documents of the author of Tristram Shandy may be in his possession, or in the possession of families in the neighbourhood. Sterne resided at Shandy Hall for seven years, and seems by his own letters to have been a special favourite among the gentry. The present generation know nothing of him, or of his history, or even works; "Some Observations on the Inconvenience of the Ten Commandments," 8vo, 1795; in which he endeavoured to show, "that the Ten Commandments which Moses brought down with him out of the burning mountain some time since, are not only of no sort of use, but a very great inconvenience to a gentleman in pursuit of his pleasures." Dr. John Hildrop, the Rector of Wath, had, however, previously availed himself of this experiment for the reformation of his parishioners in his "Proposal for Revising, &c. the Ten Commandments," 1754.-ED.] BINDING A STONE IN A SLING (3rd S. iv. 9.) -І cannot help thinking that a good deal of erudition has been rather wasted on this subject, and that the meaning of the phrase may be more literal than has been suspected. We know very little of these early weapons; but there seems every probability that the stone or other missile was "bound," that is, secured in its place till the moment of its discharge by some contrivance or other. It is, I believe, in the Museum at Boulogne, that an ancient sling is preserved, with a rather complicated mechanical apparatus of iron for this purpose. Thus, the slinger might carry his weapon loaded, without risk of losing the stone; just as the bolt was "bound" in an arblast, by a spring of horn, which fixed it in its place till discharged, when the resistance was overcome by the liberated string. W. J. BERNHARD SMITH. A GOOSE TENURE (3rd S. iv. 268.) - Your correspondent will be interested to know that in a record, dated 1471, there is mention made of a John De la Hay; who was bound to give William Barnaby, Lord of Lastres, in the county of Hereford, for a parcel of demesne lands, one goose, fit for the lord's dinner, on the Feast of St. Michael the Archangel. From the following extracts from G. Gascoigne's Poems (4to, 1575), it would appear, that a goose was a common present on Michaelmas Day from the tenant to the landlord: "And when the tenauntes come to paie their quarter's rent, They bring some fowle at Midsummer, a dish of fish at Lent: At Christmasse, a capon; at Michaelmas, a goose; And somewhat else at New Yeare's Tide, for fear their lease flie loose." |