Various

“ It is surely something new to those who have directed their attention to the numerous devices upon seals to find that the husbandman had so low an opinion of his own social status as to reject the use of any emblematical sign upon his seal, when Thomas the smith, Roger the carpenter, and William the farrier, bore the elements of their respective crafts as proudly as the knight did his chevron or fess. ”

“ Hence the churchyard nearest the entrance into church would be most in request. The origin of the prejudice for the south side, which I believe to be of recent date, may, I doubt not, be ascertained from any superstitious cottager who entertains it. "It would be so cold, sir," said one to me, "to be always lying where the sun would never shine on me."
If your correspondent on this subject in Vol. iii., p. 125., would ask an old inhabitant of his parish which is the backside of their church, and why it is so called? he would probably come at the fact. ”

“ As a bell-man I am more interested in the virtues of the bell of Saint Guthlac, than in the hat of Saint Thomas, and I take this opportunity of asking assistance from the readers of "Notes and Queries" towards a collection of curious anecdotes and information about bells, which I am endeavouring to make. Any contributions will be thankfully received by me. ”

“ If we would awaken a sympathy and interest in our pursuits, we must gird up our loins like men, and be doing, and that right earnestly; for it is hopeless any longer waiting for the government, as a 'Deus ex machina,' to help us to rescue our antiquities from destruction. ”

“ He was somewhat fastidious, for I have seen him take a snail, put it to his tongue, and reject it as not of a good flavour, and select another more agreeable to his taste. We are strange creatures of habit, especially in our feeding. I am fond of oysters, muscles, and cockles; but I do not think anything could induce me to taste a snail, a periwinkle, or a limpet. ”

“ For some time its use was confined to this kind of seal; and fashion may perhaps have extended the practice to pendent seals, where, however, it was often efficacious in neutralising the bad quality of the wax so general in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries. The plaiting of the hay or straw sometimes assumed a fanciful shape. Although the impressions of seals of the time of Henry VII. are often very bad, there are generally traces of their existence; these may perhaps be discovered in Mr. Lower's seals if he looks more to the enclosure than to the substance forming it. ”

“ Obscurity is not a blemish but an excellence, if the pains of seeking are more than compensated by the pleasures of finding, the luxury of μαθησις, where the concentrated energy of a passage, when once understood, gives it a hold on the imagination and memory such as were ill sacrificed to more diluted clearness. ”

“ North Side of Churchyards.—Your correspondents seem to be agreed as to the facts, not as to the origin of the objection. I suspect Mr. Hawker (Vol. ii., p. 253.) is nearest the truth; and the following, from Coverdale on Praying for the Dead, may help to strengthen his conjecture:
"As men die, so shall they arise: if in faith in the Lord towards the south, they need no prayers; they are presently happy, and shall arise in glory: if in unbelief without the Lord towards the north, then are they past all hope." ”

“ Not without effort can one enter into the spontaneous thought of another, or even of himself in another mood. How much more when that other is distinguished from his fellows by the greatness and singularity of his thoughts, and by the extreme subtilty of their connecting links. ”

“ I should have preferred seeing the government performing the task of preserving manuscripts of all existing monuments; but it is the fashion in Britain for government to leave all apparently national undertakings to individual exertion. I will here conclude with a quotation from the report I have just published of the Transactions at the Congress of the British Archæological Association held in Worcester:
"Lamentation is, however, worse than useless: the spirit of the age forbids all idle mourning. ”

“ In my former communication I mentioned, that in this churchyard burial has been chiefly, till of late, on the north side of the church; and, since that communication, a vault has been made on the south side, which has convinced us the ground had never before been there broken up. The soil is chalk; whereas, whenever a grave is made on the north side, human dust and bones are so {333}abundant, that the chalk soil has almost lost its nature. ”

“ But let the work of collection and preservation be once fairly entered upon—let it be seen how valuable a collection of materials has been gathered ready to the hand of a Society which should undertake its publication, and there need be little fear that from the supporters of the various Antiquarian, Archæological, and Publishing Societies, now spread throughout the country, there would be found plenty of good men and true ready to lend their aid to the printings and publishing of the Monumentarium Anglicanum. ”

“ There is much curious illustration of the phrase Spick and Span in Todd's Johnson, s. v. Spick: and Nares in his Glossary says, "Span-newe is found in Chaucer:
'This tale was aie span-newe to begin.'—Troil. and Cres., iii. 1671.
It is therefore of good antiquity in the language, and not having been taken from the French may best be referred to the Saxon, in which spannan means to stretch. Hence span-new is fresh from the stretchers, or frames, alluding to cloth, a very old manufacture of the country; and spick and span is fresh from the spike, or tenter, and frames. ”

“ For our souls were refreshed one in another, though one another's faces we had never seen to the outward, and then we being kept in a holy fear not to do nor act one way nor other, but as we were moved of the Lord, least we should add to his bonds,—I say, being thus kept, we were delivered out of the snare of the fowler, who secretly lay in wait to betray our innocency ”

“ Christopher le Stocks only giving the name and date of burial. I found that when St. Christopher's was pulled down for the enlargement of the Bank of England, some kind antiquary had copied all the monuments. The book was found at the Herald's College; it contained an inscription proving the identity, and a verdict was obtained.
J. S. B.
Our last communication is, we have reason to believe, from an active and zealous Fellow of the Society of Antiquaries, who would heartily co-operate in carrying out the practical suggestions thrown out in his letter. ”

“ And as we have in the Society of Antiquaries a machinery already established for the proper collection of the materials, so we have an existing and most appropriate place for their preservation in the British Museum, where they may be consulted at all times, by all parties, with the greatest facility, and free of charge. ”

“ Alliteration (Vol. iii., p. 165.) —Your correspondent H. A. B., in quoting the seventh stanza from Phineas Fletcher's Purple Island, observes, that the second line,
"A life that lives by love, and loves by light,"
is "noticeable" for its alliteration. But the best specimen that I have met with in English—after having read much verse, and published a volume, which my partial friends call poetry—will be found in Quarles' Divine Emblems, book ii. emblem ii. ”

“ So excellent in art, and still so rising,"—
{319}
has no parallel in Shakspeare's works. To John Fletcher, indeed, at the close of the reign of Queen Elizabeth, these things were known; but scarcely to the attendant of Queen Katherine, who has but just narrated the circumstances, then newly happened, of Wolsey's fall. On maturer consideration, then, I am inclined to think that the whole of the scene (Act III. Sc. 2.) to which your correspondent refers, was originally written by Fletcher, although, as it now stands, it is strongly marked by the hand of Shakspeare. ”

“ The very curious and interesting work which is {324}now reprinted, and intended for a wide and gratuitous circulation, is also of uncommon rarity: there is not a copy of it in the Library of Trinity College, or in any of the other public libraries of this city [Dublin] , which have been searched on purpose. The profoundly-learned Vice-Provost, Doctor Barrett, never met with one; and many gentlemen well skilled in the literature of Ireland, who have been applied to for information on the subject, are even unacquainted with the name of the book. ”

“ All the seals, which are large and thick and more than two inches in diameter, have the impression of a signet ring inclosed with a "hayband" of parchment pressed into them. One of these coils being loose shows itself to be a thin strip of the label itself brought through the wax.
10 February, 14 Edward IV. Lease by Sir Thomas Urswyk, Knight, Chief Baron of the Exchequer, and Thomas Lovell, to John Morton and others, of the manor of Newhall, Essex, and other lands, &c. The seal of Lovell has his armorial bearings and legend ”

“ They serve to show how much interest the subject has excited among those best qualified to judge of the great utility of some well-organised plan for the preservation of a record of our still existing monuments.
Mr. Dunkin's letter (which was accompanied by a copy of the prospectus issued by him in 1844) claims precedence, as showing the steps which that gentleman has already taken. It is a communication highly creditable to his exertions in the cause, but does not alter our views as to the practicability of any successful attempt to accomplish this object by individual exertion. ”

“ It is therefore very probable that the work is seldom to be met with. I have a copy, but it is unfortunately imperfect; wanting a few leaves (only a few I imagine) at the end. There is no index, nor table of contents, by which I might ascertain the extent of the deficiency. The last page is 478, and contains a portion of Hymn 60, part iii. If any reader of "Notes and Queries" would kindly inform me what is the number of pages of the work, and where a copy may be seen, he will oblige
S. S. S. ”

“ Beyond all question, Quarles was a poet that needed not "apt alliteration's artful aid" to add to the vigour of his verse, or lend liquidity to his lines. Quarles is often queer, quaint, and querulous, but never prolix, prosey, or puling.
"We sack, we ransack to the utmost sands
Of native kingdoms, and of foreign lands:
We travel sea and soil; we pry, we prowl,
We progress, and we prog from pole to pole." ”

“ His conciseness, clearness (when relieved from the burden of interpolation) , and usual impartiality, point to a careful and spiritual study of Thucydides; but he could not attain to an equal degree of sweetness as the Greek historian, on account of the general character of their several languages differing. As far, however, as Roman could approach to Greek, I conceive Sallustius has approached to Thucydides. Tacitus (whose mind was impregnated with, and steeped in Sallustius) rarely enounces a sentiment in his numerous works the origin of which is not referable to the latter author. ”

“ Dawson Turner with whose works we have been acquainted for above half a century. Since, however, he has made the Query, I will answer it as succinctly as I can.
The Right Honourable Richard Fitzpatrick was the only brother of the last Earl of Upper Ossory, and prominent in fashion, in politics, and in elegant literature, and not undistinguished as a soldier. He sat in nine successive parliaments (in two which I knew him) . As early as 1782 he was Secretary for Ireland, and in 1783 Secretary-at-War, which office he again filled in 1806. ”

“ Weakness is popularly supposed to be caused by a thinness and want of blood; if wine be recommended for this, there is a deeply rooted prejudice in favour of red wine because the blood is red, and upon no better principle than that which prescribes the yellow bark of the barberry for the yellow state of jaundice ”

“ SNAIL-EATING. (Vol. iii., p. 221.)
Snail-eating is by no means uncommon. When I was a youth I took a dozen snails every morning to a lady who was of a delicate constitution, and to whom they were recommended as wholesome food. They were boiled, and mixed up with milk. They were the common snail, usually found about old garden walls. A friend of mine, in walking round his garden, was in the habit of picking the snails off his fruit-trees and eating them raw. ”

“ Sir John Davis married Lady Eleanor, only daughter of the Earl of Castlehaven, and sister of the infamous Earl. She remarried Sir Archibald Douglas, and died in 1652. She was the lady of the anagram celebrity, "Reveal, oh, Daniel," and "Never so mad a lady." There is no doubt that she and her brother were as mad as could well be.
In a letter from Mr. Edward Rossingham to Sir Thomas Puckering, dated 4th January, 1636, it is stated:
"Sunday before Christmas the Bishop, Dean, and Chapter of Lichfield sent up a complaint against the Lady Eleanor Davis. ”