Various

“ Will some of your correspondents kindly inform me where I can meet with an authority to prove the Lord Mayor of London is styled mayor by virtue of crown charters, and lord as lord of the manor of Finsbury? ”

“ Every observant person, too, when he sees John Smith's name and full address, scratched with painful and elaborate accuracy upon the stern but noseless face of some alabaster knight, while he wonders at the gratuitous trouble which John Smith has taken, must deplore the want of education thus so lamentably evinced. ”

“ In Macaulay's essay on Southey's edition of The Pilgrim's Progress (Longman & Co., p. 184.) occurs a curious use of this expression:
"The types are often inconsistent with each other; and sometimes the allegorical disguise is altogether thrown off.... It is not easy to make a simile go on all-fours. But we believe that no human ingenuity could produce such a centipede as a long allegory in which the correspondence between the outward sign and the thing signified should be exactly preserved. Certainly no writer ancient or modern has achieved the adventure." ”

“ I perceive in one of your communications, there is mention of the English Cross, the Cross Nigth, which in Madox is called "the Cross Neytz." Perhaps some of your antiquarian correspondents will favour us with some explanation of this cross.
I should wish moreover to elicit some further particulars of Thomas Madox, the Historiographer Royal, who has so well deserved of all lovers of ancient English history by the four books in folio which he has left us: especially his Formulare Anglicanum, and that work of prodigious industry and research, his History of the Exchequer. ”

“ The date of the establishment of these marcherships is so ancient that, perhaps, no one may have actually seen any document to prove them but charters of confirmation and inquisitions post-mortem; still the law refers their origin to specific Crown grants, and not to the act or authority of a mere subject. ”

“ The artists of that time, in brasses as well as in painted glass, wood-carving, &c., may have sometimes desired to produce a portrait, but certainly they seldom succeeded: a religious severity of expression atoned for the deficiency. In English coins it is well known that there is no appearance of a portrait before the reign of Henry VII.
The particular costume, however, of the deceased was more attended to in monumental effigies; and it is this fact which renders the study of them so serviceable towards a knowledge of the manners and habits of our ancestors. ”

“ One of the most interesting antiquities of Jarrow Church, Northumberland, is the chair of the Venerable Bede. It is preserved in the vestry of the church, whither all brides repair as soon as the marriage service is over, to seat themselves upon it. This, according to the popular belief, will make them the joyful mothers of children; and the expectant mothers (as I have been informed) would not consider the marriage ceremony complete, until they had been enthroned in the Venerable Bede's chair. The chair is very rude and substantial; made of oak; in height, four feet ten inches ”

“ On the contrary, a pardon is attended with a good number of formalities, and without one I do not think that any convict would have been allowed to quit the vessel. In that class of prisoners, leave of absence on parole, or a "day rule," would have been something peculiar enough to make the turnkey ask, "Where did you get this?" In short, a convict who made his escape as described must be as extraordinary a person as the strong American, who could sit in a basket and lift himself upon a table by the handles. ”

“ If, therefore, Martin, who was a tenant in capite of the Crown, founded the lordship of Kemes, he must have done—as the military invaders of Ireland in a subsequent reign did—conquered the territory with his own arms, and obtained palatine jurisdiction over it, with the assent and by the authority of the King. ”

“ For when did you ever know a beast drink so?
'Tis when we drink the least, we drink the most like beasts;
'Tis when we carouse with six in hand;
'Tis then and only then, we drink about like men,
When we drink 'till we neither can go nor stand."
J. R. R.
Minor Notes. Boston and Bunker's Hill.
—In the plan of Boston, among the maps of the Useful Knowledge Society, is to be found, near Charleston, and on Breed's Hill (the real site of the battle usually misnamed as of Bunker's Hill) , the following notice, "Defeat of the British, 1775." ”

“ Hemans in the service of the Crown,—Sir Robert Peel, the man and the minister who could thus recognise the claims of Literature, [1] and not, like ministers of old, stipulate for a return in the political support of those whom he so distinguished, was surely a person whose memory the men of letters in this country should not be slow to honour.
[1] We have confined our remarks to Sir Robert Peel's patronage of Literature; but that patronage was as liberally bestowed upon Science and Art. ”

“ A witty rogue, the other day, who sent me a letter subscribed 'Detector,' proved me guilty of stealing a passage from one of Vida's Latin poems, which I had never seen or heard of; yet there was so strong a general resemblance as fairly to authorise 'Detector's' suspicion. ”

“ Whoever is acquainted with Irish history, or whoever has had opportunities of mixing with the natives of that country, cannot be ignorant that they claim a descent from a long race of Milesian kings, who reigned over them for thirteen centuries before the Christian æra. The stock from which this long line of monarchs emanated is traced to a pretended Milesian colony, supposed to have emigrated from Spain into Ireland under the conduct of Heremon and Heber. ”

“ Probably the number of private lordships of this kind is not now great; for, at the passing of the above statute, the majority were in the Crown; and if any have since been re-granted, it is most likely that their franchises and tenure would be so modified as to leave no vestige of the Marcher privileges in them.
The statement of your correspondent suggests to me another doubt. How could any Lordship Marcher be "erected by Martin of Tours?" Every such lordship must be of the creation of the Crown, either shown or presumed. ”

“ Every foreigner who has visited our churches and cathedrals cannot fail to remark how the English love of popularity glares forth in its most sickly form in this barbarous custom of writing and carving names upon monuments, or other works of art. ”

“ Monuments of De la Beche Family (Vol. v., p. 341.) .
—The monuments referred to by ÆGROTUS are in the church of Aldworth: the effigies are certainly [451] remarkable, especially one for its size and attitude. Another noticeable circumstance is that most of the figures are of older date than the tombs on which they lie, or than the church which contains them. The building consists of a nave and south aisle; and, at the time of its original construction, three canopied recessed tombs were introduced in each of the side walls to receive the effigies which must have existed in the older church. ”

“ Now I am well aware that a very large part of the Americans, from continually vaunting (and with good reason) the valour they displayed, and the honour they acquired, on that occasion, have gradually worked themselves into the belief that they were the victors, even though their own historians tell a different tale; and they have even placed inscriptions on the monuments standing on the site of the intrenchments from which they were forced by the British ”

“ The church of Breedon, in Leicestershire, stands alone on a high hill, the village being at its foot. The hill is so steep on the side towards the village, that a carriage can only ascend by taking a very circuitous course ”

“ Translation of Richard de Bury.
—Is the translation of Richard de Bury's Philobiblon, "with a memoir of the illustrious bishop," promised by W. S. G., Vol. ii. p. 203., yet published?
L. S.
[Our correspondent should remember, that "church work is slow work," as Addison facetiously makes Sir Roger de Coverley complain. From a prospectus recently issued, we learn that the Philobiblon is still preparing for publication; and that gentlemen who may wish to have copies are requested by the author to transmit their names to Mr. R. Robinson, Pilgrim Street, Newcastle-on-Tyne.] ”

“ Last Slave sold in England.
—Can any of your correspondents tell me the date of the last public slave sale in England? Till the establishment of Granville Sharpe's great principle, in 1772, announcements of these are by no means uncommon. The following, from the Public Ledger of Dec. 31, 1761, grates harshly upon the feelings of the present generation:—
"FOR SALE:
"A healthy negro girl, aged about fifteen years; speaks good English, works at her needle, washes well, does household work, and has had the small-pox." ”

“ The practice of worshipping the gods in woods and trees continued for many centuries, till the introduction of Christianity (Vid. Willibald, A.D. 786, in Vita Bonifacii) , and the converters did not disdain to adopt every means to raise Christian cultus to higher authority than that of Paganism, by acting upon the senses of the heathen, e.g. using white robes for those baptized, lighting of candles, burning of incense, &c.; and they erected the Christian churches, for the most part, upon the site of Pagan tree or temple ”

“ The latter will be cleared by the omission of the preposition 'to:' 'then no more remains [to be said] , but that your sufficiency, as your worth is able, and let them work.' This change, however, will only partially cure the defective measure; and even were we to omit 'that,' as well as 'to,' the line would not be perfect without reducing 'sufficiency' to a trisyllable. It has been thought best, therefore, to leave the text as it stands in the first folio. 'Sufficiency' is adequate authority. ”

“ They then emigrated and settled in Spain, whence, under the command of Milesius, a colony of them sailed from Brigantia in Galicia to Ireland, gained the ascendancy over the inhabitants, and gave laws and a race of monarchs to the island. The Milesian dynasty continued to govern Ireland without interruption till about the year 1168, when it ceased in the person of Roger O'Connor, and the sovereignty was assumed by our Henry II. Of this race of kings the first 110 were Pagan, the rest Christian.'"
Barlow's Hist. of Ireland, vol. i. ”

“ This name, so generally associated with vulgarity, is only a corruption, or rather a contraction, of the more dignified name of Sevenoaks. This town is generally called Se'noaks in Kent; and the further contraction, coupled with the phonetic spelling of former days, easily passed into S'nooks. This is no imaginary conclusion, for I am told by a trustworthy friend that Messrs. Sharp and Harrison, solicitors, Southampton, have recently had in their possession a series of deeds in which all the modes of spelling occur from Sevenokes down to S'nokes, in connexion with a family now known as Snooks. ”

“ The Stature of Queen Elizabeth.
—In a book entitled Physico-Theology, being the substance of sixteen sermons preached in St. Mary-le-Bone Church, London, at the Honourable Mr. Boyle's lectures in 1711 and 1712, with notes, &c., by the Rev. W. Derham (a second edition, with additions, published in 1714) , the authors, in treating of the stature and size of man's body, says there is great [441] reason to think the size of man was always the same from the Creation ”

“ Title of D.D. (Vol. ii., p. 13.) .
—The remark of your correspondent EYE-SNUFF, "that any lay scholar of adequate attainments in theology is competent to receive this distinction, and any university to bestow it upon him," is incorrect in two ways, as far as the university of which I am a member is concerned. A reference to the Oxford University Calendar, or to the Statutes of the University, will show him that no one can take the degree of B.D., or D.D., without first exhibiting his letters of priest's orders: and the theological attainments represented by the degree D.D. are next to nothing ”

“ The inquirer will consider himself extremely indebted to any one who will inform him of the existence of a set of Middle-Age Maps of the countries of Europe, of 8vo. or small 4to. size, published in England, France, or Germany, in print, or easily to be had second-hand, more or less accurate.
Koch's Révolutions de l'Europe, tome iii., Paris, 1814, gives seven maps of the whole continent and its adjacent islands, at the following periods of Middle-Age history:
(1.) ”

“ In Decker's English Villanies there are many curious particulars of the habits of this class of impostors. "She's all Abram," that is, quite naked. "What an Abram!" an exclamation for a ragged fellow. "An Abraham-man" was an impostor who personated a poor lunatic called Tom of Bedlam: one of this class is described by Shakspeare in his Lear, Act II. Sc. 3.:
"The basest and most poorest shape,
That every penury, in contempt of man,
Brought near to beast."
Among sailors, "An Abram" is being unwell, or out of sorts. ”

“ The heathen gods were represented as impotent, in opposition to the true God, though not as powerless in themselves, and were converted into inimical evil powers, which must submit, but could nevertheless exercise a certain hurtful influence. ”

“ In old writs of summons to attend the King in his wars, Kemes is associated with Dyvett or with Llandovery.
The statute referred to did, in fact, extinguish the most characteristic privileges of a Lordship Marcher, and reduced it nearly to the level of an ordinary lordship, with such royalties only as have often been granted, and are still enjoyed, by Lords of Manors, or honours in other parts of England and Wales. The franchises left to them are enumerated in sections 25. and 30., explained by the later statute 1 & 2 Phil. & Mary, ch. 15. ”