Voyci un Corps mort. Royde come un Baston, Froid comme Martre, Leger come un Esprit, Levons te au nom de Jesus Christ.' "He saw four little girls, very young ones, all kneeling each of them, upon one knee; and one begun the first line, whispering in the eare of the next, and the second to the third, and the third to the fourth, and she to the first. "Then the first begun the second line, and so round quite through; and putting each one finger only to a boy that lay flat upon his back on the ground, as if he was dead: at the end of the words, they did with their four fingers raise this boy as high as they could reach. And Mr. Brisband, being there, and wondering at it, as also being afraid to see it, for they would have had him to have bore a part in saying the words, in the room of one of the little girls that was so young that they could hardly make her learn to repeat the words, did, for fear there might be some slight used in it by the boy, or that the boy might be light, call the cook of the house, a very lusty fellow, as Sir G. Carteret's cook, who is very big and they did raise him just in the same manner. This is one of the strangest things I ever heard, but he tells it me of his own knowledge, and I do heartily believe it to be true. I inquired of him whether they were Protestant or Catholique girles; and he told me they were Protestant, which made it the more strange to me." : In illustration of this passage LORD BRAYBROOKE adds, at vol. v. p. 245., the following note, which we insert, as it serves to bring before our readers evidence of this, at present, inexplicable fact on the authority of one of the most accomplished philosophers of our day | "The secret is now well known, and is described by Sir David Brewster, in his Natural Magic, p. 256. One of the most remarkable and inexplicable experiments relative to the strength of the human frame is that in which a heavy man is raised up the instant that his own lungs, and those of the persons who raise him, are inflated with air. This experiment was, I believe, first shown in England a few years ago by Major H., who saw it performed in a large party at Venice, under the direction of an officer of the American navy. As Major H. performed it more than once in my presence, I shall describe as nearly as possible the method which he prescribed. The heaviest person in the company lies down upon two chairs, his legs being supported by the one, and his back by the other. Four persons, one at each leg, and one at each shoulder, then try to raise him; and they find his dead weight to be very great, from the difficulty they experience in supporting him. When he is replaced in the chair, each of the four persons takes hold of the body as before; and the person to be lifted gives two signals, by clapping his hands. At the first signal, he himself, and the four lifters, begin to draw a long full breath; and when the inhalation is completed, or the lungs filled, the second signal is given for raising the person from the chair. To his own surprise, and that of his bearers, he rises with the greatest facility, as if he were no heavier than a feather. On several occasions, I have observed, that when one of the bearers performs his part ill by making the inhalation out of time, the part of the body which he tries to raise is left as it were behind. As you have repeatedly seen this experiment, and performed the part both of the load and of the bearer, you can testify how remarkable the effects appear to all parties, and how complete is the conviction, either that the load has been lightened, or the bearer strengthened, by the prescribed process. At Venice the experiment was performed in a much more imposing manner. The heaviest man in the party was raised and sustained upon the points of the forefingers of six persons. Major H. declared that the experiment would not succeed, if the person lifted were placed upon a board, and the strength of the individuals applied to the board. He conceived it necessary that the bearers should communicate directly with the body to be raised. "I have not had an opportunity of making any experiments relative to these curious facts: but whether the general effect is an illusion, or the result of known principles, the subject merits a careful investigation."] Can you inform me if these "veiwe bowes" were cross-bows; or, if not, what other bows they were? J. O. B. Old English Divines. — It has been said of our late king, George III., that in a conversation with a learned man of the day respecting the English divines of the seventeenth century, he made a happy and correct application of the first clause of Genesis vi. 4., by observing that "there were giants in the earth in those days." To whom did the king make this observation? and on what occasion? The eminent and accomplished editor of Boswell's Johnson asked this question some years ago of his literary friends, but, I believe, did not receive a satisfactory answer. H. Lord Viscount Dover, Colonel of the First Troop of Guards in the Service of James II. in Ireland, 1689-1690.I am engaged in displaying, with genealogical illustrations, the titles and names of the officers of all the regiments of this ex-monarch, having in my possession a full copy of his Army List, classified in regiments, with columnar rolls of their several officers, according to their rank. The importance of publishing these memorials in aid of pedigree searches must be apparent from the fact, that this list comprises members of all the old aristocracy of Ireland up to that day, to the rank and estates of whom the accession of King William introduced more adventurous, but long less respected successors. In the opening list of colonels the first I encounter is styled as above: now, what was the name and lineage of this Viscount Dover? Henry, Lord Dover, was appointed one of the Commissioners of the Treasury to that king in 1686; and again, in 1688, a short time before his abdication, was especially chosen to advise the queen. In 1689 the "Earl of Dover" was one of those recorded as having fled with the royal exile to France, and afterwards accompanied him to Ireland. On James' arrival there Lord Viscount Dover appears as above, and was a Privy Councillor, but did not sit in the Parliament of Dublin. In July 1689 he was joined in Commission for the Treasury with the Duke of Tyrconnel, Lord Riverston, and Sir Stephen Rice. Norris says (Life of King William, p. 281.) that this Viscount applied in 1690 for a pass out of the country: on which he retired to the Continent. He was afterwards, with his joint commissioners, outlawed. Now, according to the Peerage Books, the earldom of Dover became extinct on the death, in 1671, of John Cary, the second Earl, son of Henry, the first Earl, without issue male; and I am not aware of any recognised or otherwise mentioned Viscount Dover. JOHN D'ALTON. 48. Summer Hill, Dublin. Lines on Woman's Will. Old Satchells. In Lockhart's Life of Scott, vol. i. p. 63., there occurs the following passage: "He owed much to the influence exerted over his juvenile mind by the rude but enthusiastic clan-poetry of old Satchells, who describes himself on his title-page as Captain Walter Scott, an old souldier and no scholler.'" Can any of your readers inform me why this ancestor of Sir Walter's was called old Satchells? Whether, as is most probable, from his residence, some house or hamlet bearing that name, or from some family, should there be any of that surname. What editions have there been of his "true history," &c.? SIGMA. "Pretty Peggy of Derby, O!"-Who was the author of this ballad, and where shall I meet with a copy of it, my copy being imperfect? R. S. “Noose as I was," and "Noose the same," were frequent replies, in my younger days, to inquiries from persons relative to another's state of health; and occasionally I have heard, in answer to a general inquiry of "How do "How you do?" or, do you find yourself?" the reply "Tightish in a noose. Now, this not having been confined to one particular locality, I should be much pleased if any of your correspondents would throw a light on the unde derivatur of the phrase. W. R. Surbiton. Earl of Dunbar, secretary to Prince Charles Ed- Is not this a mistake? The great Chief Justice, as all the world knows, was the younger son of a Perthshire peer, Viscount Stormont. Was not James Murray of Broughton the representative of a family in Kirkcudbright, which was either not at all, or very remotely, connected with the Stormont-Mansfield Murrays ? C. (2.) Portsmouth. "La Garde meurt," &c. (Vol. v., p. 425.). — In a late number of "N. & Q." reference is made to the famous saying ascribed to the Duke of Wellington at Waterloo: "Up guards, and at them!" I beg to call the attention of your readers to the equally famous words said to have been uttered by the brave Murat, who, when summoned to surrender, is reported to have answered, "La garde meurt, et ne se rend pas." I have heard it stated on good authority that these were not the words of Murat, but that he merely answered the summons with the emphatic monosyllable "Merde!". -a response which, though no wise so elegant, conveys the same idea as the commonly received version, and is much more characteristic of the man. I shall be delighted to receive some light as to the historical fact, what Murat's answer really was? R. C. B. Coral Charms.- On the little bunches of coral charms, imported from Italy, amid hands to avert the evil eye, &c., there generally hangs a rather unmeaning-looking one, like a single finger. Is not this neither more nor less than the veritable fascinum? If not, what is it? A. A. D. Maturin Laurent. -I wish to learn where, when, and what, Maturin or Mathurin Laurent was. He was the author of a work rather indecent and irreligious, somewhat learned, and not altogether undull, entitled Le Compere Mathieu. It is an imitation of the manner of Rabelais. I can find his name in no biographical dictionary. A. N. Mons. Cahagnet. -Dr. Gregory, in his Letters on Animal Magnetism, p. 222., says: "Mr. Cahagnet is since dead, or I should have endeavoured to see his experiments." But I am credibly assured he has just published James Murray, titular Earl of Dunbar.- Lord Minor Queries Answered. in whose days the churches were of so poor structure that the candles were blown out set before the relics, the wind getting in not only ostia ecclesiarum, ingenious prince was put to the practice of his dexterity, but per frequentes parietum rimulas: insomuch that the and by the occasions of this lanternam ex lignis et bovinis cornibus pulcherrime construere imperavit; or by an apt composure of their horns and wood he taught us the mystery of making lanthorns." I do not remember ever to have met with this origin of those useful articles before. C. REDDING. [The substance of the passage will be found towards the close of Asser's Life of Alfred.] A Popular Book censured in the Pulpit, in the time of Queen Anne. — "The face of a Book in vogue, looks indeed with a sowre aspect against the Priesthood only, but intends (if we may turn aside its disguise) a wound and stab to the Revelation that once settled and still upholds it. Nor would it fare so ill, I verily believe, with the characters of Priests either among the Authors or Admirers of that Treatise, if it were not for Tithes and Offerings, the Lands and Revenues, which the Law and Gospel both allow for the support of that Order.”—Pp. 24, 25, of A Sermon preached by Rev. Richard Barker, M. A. Fellow of Winchester College, before Jonathan, Lord Bishop of Winchester, Sept. 22, 1707. What is the book alluded to, and who was the author? F.R.R. [Most probably Matthew Tindal's treatise, The Rights of the Christian Church Asserted, against the Romish and all other Priests who claim an independent Power over it, published in 1706. The work, which is an elaborate attack upon what are commonly called High-Church principles, caused a great commotion. It is related that, to a friend who found Tindal one day engaged upon it, pen in hand, he said that he was writing a book which would make the clergy mad, Replies to it were published by the celebrated William Wotton, Dr. Hickes, and others.] Legend respecting the Isle of Ely.-Can any reader of "N. & Q." inform me which of the Popes it was who, according to a legend I have somewhere met with, effected the unique metamorphosis of changing the wives and children of the clergy of the Isle of Ely into eels, and thus gave it its present name, as a punishment for refusing to comply with his edict for the celibacy of the clergy? I think the legend is referred to in some part of Dr. Prideaux's works, but I have no means of certifying the fact. J. R. C. Cambridge. [According to Prideaux, the edict was issued by St. Dunstan. He says, "From Heli some think the Isle of Ely took its name; others say no, but from a multitude of eels, into which the married priests with their wives were transformed, that refused to obey St. Dunstan's ordinance that priests should live single." Mathias Prideaux's Introduction for Reading all Sorts of Histories, p. 276. edit. 1672.] Replies. THE TRUSTY SERVANT AT WINCHESTER. (Vol. v., p. 417.) The author inquired for by M. Y. R. W. is Gilbert Cousin, of Nozeroy, in Franche Comté (better known under his Latin name of Cognatus), whose collected works were published at Basle in 3 vols. folio, 1562. He was one of the restorers of literature in the sixteenth century, and having filled the office of secretary to Erasmus, acquired such enlightened sentiments in regard to religion, as to render him at a later period of life suspected of a tendency to Protestantism; in consequence of which a Bull was obtained from Pius V. for his imprisonment, and he died in the course of his trial before the Inquisition in 1567,—another victim to the merciless system of the papal creed. In his treatise entitled "Okerns, sive de Officio Famulorum," composed at Freiburg in Brisgau (a city of the Grand Duchy of Baden, in the upper circle of the Rhine), in the year 1535, and addressed to Ludovicus à Vero, Abbot of the Convent of Mons S. Mariæ et Charitatis, he thus writes on the subject of painted figures of the Trusty Servant (Opp. vol. i. p. 223.) :— 66 "De famulo dicendi finem faciam, venerande Me canas, si pro coronide adjecero Probi Famuli imaginem, quem Galli quidam effingunt conclavibus suis. Hæc ad hunc habet modum. Pileum rubrum et elegans erat in capite, nec inelegans interula tegebat corpus ; rostrum erat suillum, aures asininæ, pedes cervini, Dextra manus erecta, et in palmam explicata; humero sinistro pertica librabat duas aquæ situlas, quarum altera pendebat à tergo, altera à fronte. Sinistra palam gestabat plenam vivis pruinis. Addita erat singulorum interpretatio. Bono famulo debetur elegans cultus. Suillum rostrum admonebat, non decere famulum esse yλoxpòv ac fastidiosi palati, sed quovis cibo oportere contentum esse. Auriculæ designabant, famulum oportere patientibus esse auribus, si quid forte dominus durius dixerit. Dextra erecta admonebat fidei in contrectandis rebus herilibus. Cervini pedes, significabant celeritatem in Situlæ et ignis, industriam ac peragendis mandatis. celeritatem in multis negotiis simul peragendis.” The description here given is quoted, nearly in the same words, by Laur. Beyerlinck, in his Magnum Theatrum Vita Humana, tom. iii., Venet. 1707, p. 525., under the title of "Famuli Probi Schema;" and it will, I think, readily be admitted, that the figure at Winchester College, although differing in some respects from the one described by Cousin, yet in its general features and purport is the same. It is therefore highly probable that the figure was originally painted in the sixteenth century, and the design borrowed from our Gallic neighbours. The costume in which this figure at present appears, would not give it an antiquity of much more than a century and a quarter; but in the Memorials of Winchester College, published by D. Nutt in 1846, an entry is quoted from a Compotus of the year 1637 in the following words, "Pictori pingenti Servum et Carmina, 13s. Od.;" and the writer justly remarks, "It may be considered doubtful whether this entry accounts for the original execution, or only a restoration of the work." A more diligent examination of the old College accounts would probably throw further light on the subject, and also show at what periods tered according to the fashion and ideas of the the figure had been repainted, and, no doubt, altime. This view is borne out by the earliest engraving of the figure in my possession, entitled, "A Piece of Antiquity painted on the wall adjoining to the kitchen of Winchester College, which has been long preserved, and as oft as occasion requires, is repaired." This print is in folio, and was published in 1749, and has the verses both in Latin and English. In one corner may be read the faint traces of the engraver's name, Mosley sculp. It has been recently republished from the original plate, with the addition of the name "H. C. Brown, Winchester." The next engraving, in point of date, is inserted in the History and Antiquities of Winchester, 12mo. 1773, vol. i. p. 91., entitled "The Trusty Servant," W. Cave del. Winton, without the verses. I have also an which the English verses only are given, and the 8vo. print of rather later date, badly engraved, in scoop or dustpan omitted in the left hand of the figure (as it is seen in the earlier copies). Subsequent to this is a small and very incorrect representation in the Gentleman's Magazine for 1812, vol. i. p. 114.; and more recently (but before 1842) is a large and handsome engraving_(both plain and coloured) published by James Robins and D. E. Gilmour, at Winchester, in which & background of landscape and cottages is intro duced, and, in the upper left-hand corner, the arms of William of Wykeham, the founder of the college, surmounted by the episcopal mitre. Below are the Latin and English verses engraved in capitals. In this engraving, in addition to the shovel, pitch-fork, and broom held in the left hand of the figure, is inserted a square instrument with bars, the use of which is not very obvious, and which appears joined on to the shield suspended from the arm. The coat, also, has the addition of a collar, not seen in the earlier prints. The coloured figure, as represented in this last engraving, has been copied and prefixed to the Polka composed in 1850 by William Patten, and entitled The Trusty Servant. I might here close my reply to the Query of M. Y. R. W., but must entreat the patience of your readers a little longer, in order to introduce a counter-Query on the subject. In Hoffman's Lexicon Universale, published at Leyden in 1698, under the word Asinina, occurs the following curious comment: “Asininæ aures digitis formatæ, stupidum aliquem et asinum denotabant. Salmas. in Tertullian. de Pallio, ubi de variis digitorum ad aliquem deridendum formationibus, p. 338. Sed et asinine aures attentionis ac obedientiæ symbolum, in celebri Apellis pictura, quâ officia servorum auribus hujusmodi, naribus porcinis, manibus omni instrumentorum genere refertis, humeris patulis, ventre macilento, pedibus cervinis, labiisque obseratis, repræsentavit, etc.” The words in Italics would seem to be a quotation, and I would fain inquire from what author they are taken, and also the authority for ascribing this famous picture to Apelles, and the writers by whom it is mentioned? It is remarkable that in this, as in the Winchester figure, the lips are locked, a peculiarity that is unnoticed by Cousin in his account of the French usage of depicting such representations. I should likewise be glad to receive information, whether any traces of this usage still exist in France, or whether it is mentioned or alluded to by any other writers of that country in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries ? Before I conclude, I am bound to acknowledge that the references to the works of Cognatus, Beyerlinck, and Hoffman were given to me by the late C. F. Barnwell, Esq., of the British Museum, a gentleman gifted with a large amount of information on curious topics connected with early literature, and whose urbanity and readiness to impart his knowledge to others will ever cause his memory to be deeply respected by his friends. He is, perhaps, the individual alluded to by your querist M. Y.R.W. F. MADDEN. British Museum, June 29. THE EARL OF ERROLL, (Vol. v., pp. 297. 398.) I saw, with some interest, the observations made by your correspondents PETROPROMONTORIENSIS and INVERURIENSIS on the position and status of the Earl of Erroll, who, with his peerage, holds the office of Great Constable of Scotland, conferred upon his ancestor by King Robert the Bruce in 1314. But I cannot come to the same conclusion which they appear to have arrived at. This matter is worthy of further elucidation. That the present Earl of Erroll holds the honours of his house undoubtedly and without dispute, is clear from the decision of the House of Lords, given in favour of George Earl of Erroll, the grand-uncle of the present Earl, in 1797. The then Earl of Lauderdale had questioned Earl George's right to vote at an election of the peers of Scotland; and the House of Lords, after a full inquiry, decided in favour of the right so questioned. One of the objections made to the title was, that it was claimed through a nomination, which Gilbert Earl of Erroll, who died without issue in 1674, had made in favour of his kinsman Sir John Hay, a short time before his death. This was one of the peculiarities in the Scottish law of Peerage, that a party might, by a resignation to the Crown, and a charter following upon such resignation, obtain power to nominate the heirs to succeed him in his honours and dignities. Some of the highest of the Scottish peerages are held under such nominations, at the present day. It was decided in the case of the earldom of Stair (in 1748) that this power of nomination could not be validly exercised after the Union. It is true that the Earl of Erroll is the heir (though barred by attainders) of the earldoms of Kilmarnock, Linlithgow, and Calendar, which have been held by his direct ancestors. But none of these facts and circumstances, nor all of them together, could (as stated by your correspondents) make "the Earl of Erroll, by birth, the first subject in Great Britain after the blood royal, and, as such, having the right to take place We have higher of every hereditary honour." authority upon this subject than "Dr. Anderson, the learned and laborious editor of The Bee," to whom one of your correspondents refers. There was nothing in the Scottish peerage to which its members were more anxiously and tenaciously attached than to their rights of precedency. This often produced among them the most unseemly contentions at Parliaments and Conventions. For avoiding of these contentions King James VI., in 1606, granted a royal commission to certain of the Scottish nobility to call their brethren before them, and "according to their productions and verifications to set down every man's rank and place." |