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with reverence and the rites of the Church provided for him. Had he neglected to do this, I make no doubt that he would have incurred ecclesiastical censure. A pauper's funeral, such as we read of in books, and such as I have myself witnessed, would have shocked the feelings of the men and women of the Middle Ages, much as certain heathen death customs do ours. Now that we have a rural police, the duty of caring for dead bodies of this kind usually falls on them; but I cannot doubt that if the policeman were to neglect his duty the churchwarden would be bound, in virtue of his office, to intervene.

EDWARD PEACOCK.

mentioned by MR. MARSHALL. It utterly forbad usury by Jews, but one of its provisions was that they should live "in the King's own cities and Boroughs where the Chest of Chirographs of Jewry are wont to be," and another permitted them to buy houses and farms, and hold them for fifteen years. Milman explains that, usury being forbidden by this statute, with the object of forcing the Jews to engage in ordinary traffic, they were not satisfied with so comparatively unprofitable a pursuit, but betook themselves to clipping the coin, &c., on account of which practices the whole of the Jews in the kingdom were arrested on one day. For the account of the treatment they received from the people and from the king, until time when that ill-treatment culminated in their expulsion from the kingdom, I would refer to the pages of Milman (immediately following p. 258, already referred to), only remarking that in relation to Milman's description of the effect of the Act there must have been some mistake in the reference, as will be seen on reading the passage again. W. S. B. H.

STAFFORD HOUSE (7th S. v. 447).-The follow-the ing passage from Don Manoel Gonzales's Voyage to Great Britain, containing an Account of England and Scotland,' may interest MR. WARD:

"That part of the town which is properly called the city of Westminster contains no more than St. Margaret's and St. John's parishes, which form a triangle, one side whereof extends from Whitehall to Peterborough House on Millbank; another side reaches from Peterborough House to Stafford House, or Tart Hall, at the west end of the Park; and the third side extends from Stafford House to Whitehall; the circumference of the whole being about two miles."

G. F. R. B.

The approximate date, though not the exact year, of the demolition of Tart Hall can be found in Old and New London,' by comparing vol. iv. p. 25 and vol. v. p. 47. MUS IN URbe.

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THE STUDY OF DANTE IN ENGLAND (7th S. v. 85, 252, 431, 497).-MR. BOUCHIER is right in saying that Coleridge considered Guy Mannering' and Old Mortality' the best of Scott's novels. At least, we have the authority of the Table Talk' for this assertion, for on the second page of that work we read, "I think "Old Mortality and 'Guy Mannering' the best of the Scotch novels." How ardent an admirer of Scott Coleridge was we may infer from the following declaration, which is likewise to be found in the Table Talk ':

"When I am very ill indeed, I can read Scott's novels, and they are almost the only books I can then read. I cannot at such times read the Bible; my mind reflects on it, but I can't bear the open page."

WILLIAM SUMMERS.

THE EXPULSION OF THE JEWS BY EDWARD I. (7th S. v. 328, 492).-I am obliged to the various correspondents whose replies are given at the latter reference. It seems probable that there really was no Act passed expressly decreeing the expulsion of the Jews. I may point out that the Statute of Jewry, to which I am referred by the REV. E. MARSHALL, does not contain any such provision. It is given in the 'Statutes of the Realm,' at the reference mentioned, by Lingard, and its enactments are well summarized by Milman, on the very page

STEEL PENS (7th S. v. 285, 397, 496).-MR. DOBLE repeats, word for word, the passage from Dr. Jessopp's Autobiography of Roger North' which I quoted in N. & Q.' last year, on Oct. 15. J. DIXON.

DEATH BELL (7th S. v. 348, 417).—The Ettrick Shepherd, with characteristic quickness of perception regarding what touched the supernatural, utilized the popular superstition about the death bell in his 'Mountain Bard.' According to him, however, the actual ringing of a bell is not indispensable in the process, but a mere singing in the ears is an adequate cause :

"By the dead bell [he says] is meant a tinkling in the ears, which our peasantry in the country regard as a secret intelligence of some friend's decease. Thus this natural occurrence strikes many with a superstitious awe."

He then relates an anecdote showing how he prevented his two maidservants from going out one night after they had expressed their intention of paying a visit at a distance contrary to his wish. He secretly made a sound with a drinking-glass, and then listened as the girls told each other that they had heard the dead-bell, and agreed that on no account they would venture over the threshold that night. "I would not go for all the world," said the more demonstrative of the two. "I shall warrant it is my poor brother Wat. Who knows what these wild Irishes may have done to him?” In 'Marmion,' III. xiii., Scott introduces the superstition with striking effect in connexion with the troubled and restless mood of his hero. After Fitz-Eustace sings his significant song of doom, Marmion and the Palmer bring matters to a point in these terms:

"Is it not strange, that, as ye sung,
Seem'd in mine ear a death-peal rung,
Such as in nunneries they toll
For some departing sister's soul!

Say what may this portend 1"-
Then first the Palmer silence broke
(The livelong day he had not spoke),
"The death of a dear friend."

Scott refers to Hogg in his note on the passage.
THOMAS BAYNE.

Helensburgh, N.B.

Before I had heard anything about this superstition I had noticed on every occasion when I had been called to be many days near a death-bed that I heard the sound of a bell or clock which was certainly not that of any in the house. "A sure sign of a death," I was afterwards told by more than one person, though whether they were of Scotch extraction or not I cannot now remember.

I have since convinced myself that some bell or clock next door, whose sound at other times one had not noticed, became audible during an hour of extra quiet and extra strained attention, and I called to mind that I had never been present at a death in a detached house, whether here or in Italy. Later, again, it has more than once happened to me to notice a similar "mysterious" sound during illness when the sick person has not died, though I will not say that the recollection of the omen did not give me an unnecessary pang of apprehension, for more coincidences happen than can be accounted for (6th S. x. 358; xi. 118). SEXAGENARIAN does not tell us (7th S. v. 348) whether the coincidence of a death followed the bell-ringing instance he narrates. R. H. BUSK.

16, Montagu Street, Portman Square. While I am not desirous to alarm a SEXAGENARIAN, his question can be answered only in the affirmative. The belief that a so-called spontaneous ringing of a bell is a portentous omen is very far from being peculiar to Scotland, and must, I am sure, be known to many readers of 'N. & Q.' besides myself. H. J. MOULE.

Dorchester.

AUTHORS OF QUOTATIONS WANTED (7th S. v. 389, 518).

As for the women, though we scorn and flout 'em,
We may live with, but cannot live without 'em.

Dryden, The Will,' V. iv. (H. E. Bohn).
The above couplet, the first line varied thus,
That, let us rail at women, scorn and flout them, &c.,
is in the comedy by F. Reynolds mentioned by the REV.
W. E. BUCKLEY at the latter reference; but instead of
The Will,' the play is published under the title that it
is played under, that of My Grandfather's Will.' The
comedy is in five acts, and Act III. (not V. as above)
concludes with the couplet, though whether it be the
playwright's own or a quotation (it is not marked as one)
may be, from the words which precede it, an open ques-
tion.
FREDK, RULE.

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Would this quotation from Goethe's 'Faust' do for MR. T. R. PRICE's query? Prologue :

Miss

Gieb ungebäudigt jeue Triebe,

Das tiefe Schmerzenvolle Glück,

Des Hasses Kraft, die macht der Liebe,
Gieb meine Jugend neir zurück!

Swanwick's translation :

Give me unquelled those impulses to prove ;-
Rapture so deep, its ecstasy was pain,

The power of hate, the energy of love,
Give me, oh, give me, back my youth again!
E. C. HULME.

montanus,

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Octogesimus octavus mirabilis annus, Lord Verulam, in his 'Essays,' on "Prophecies," has, in reference to the Armada, "The prediction of RegioOctogesimus octavus mirabilis annus, was thought likewise accomplished in the sending of that great fleet, being the greatest in strength, though not in The eight number, of all that ever swam upon the sea,' prophetic metrical lines of which this is the third have been given in 'N. & Q.,' 3rd S. xi. 476, 6th S. ix. 277, at length. Regiomontanus (or John Müller) whose family name was the subject of several communications in 34 S. iv. 110, 178, 256, 277, was invited to Rome by Sixtus IV. to assist in the reformation of the calendar. He was bishop designate of Ratisbon by his appointment. His death took place at Rome in 1476, when he was of the age of forty. It is uncertain whether it was by assassination or sickness. Regiomontanus was famous for his skill in curious mechanism; so Sir T. Browne has, "Who admires not Regio-Montanus his fly more than his eagle?" (R. M.,' p. 26, with Greenhill's note, p. 250, Lond., 1881). ED. MARSHALL.

Octogesimus octavus mirabilis annus is quoted by Lord Bacon in his essay Of Prophecies' as the prediction of Regiomontanus. Who Regiomontanus was, or what the occasion of the prediction, I cannot say. C. S. H. (7th S. v. 429, 499.)

The lines, Our deeds still follow us, &c., ascribed by a correspondent to Miss Evans, are, like many another thing ascribed to her, but a réchauffé by either a halting or plagiaristic memory. In this case it is doubtless the well-known line in Marc Anthony's speech that is the original. I remember, however, an earlier réchauffe (?) by Jeremy Taylor, but with an inversion of the second line, for instead of saying that men's good deeds are interred with their bones, it told that they went before them to the throne of God, or some words of similar import. R. H. BUSK.

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fant,' of which the last two lines of the last stanza are
these:-

Then hush thee, my darling, take rest while you may,
For strife comes with manhood, and waking with day.
See 'Scott's Miscellaneous Poems,' p. 476 in the "Chandos
Classics" ed., Warne & Co., 1868. FREDK, RULE.

(7th S. vi. 9.)

Sir John of Hyndford! 'twas my blade
That knighthood on thy shoulder laid.
Scott, 'Lady of the Lake,' v. 27.
JONATHAN BOUCHIER

Miscellaneous.

NOTES ON BOOKS, &o.

Lancashire Inquisitions. Stuart Period, Part II.,
12-19 Jas. I. Edited by J. Paul Rylands, F.S.A.,
Treasurer, Record Society. (Printed for the Society.)
Index to the Wills and Inventories, Court of Probate,
Chester, 1660-80. With Appendix of "Infra" Wills
(under 401.), Same Period. Edited by J. P. Earwaker,
F.S.A., Honorary Secretary, Record Society. (Same
Society.)

lant little Wales" naturally has a fair share of Joneses
and Ap Johns, as also of Ap Edward, Ap Ellis, Ap Evan,
Ap Richard, Ap Thomas, to say nothing of the Angli-
cized forms of patronymic, Edwards, Evans, Hughes,
Price, Pritchard, &c. American readers will seize upon
Thomas Washington, 1672, and we remark in both volumes
names which may be tracked in other parts of the North
as well as in that officina gentium, Middlesex. Thus, the
names of Calveley (Calverley), Cokayne, Gerard, Lawton,
Maire, Ratcliffe, Spencer, &c., will be found not only in
the Lancashire Inquisitions' and Chester Wills,' but
also in Foster's 'Durham Pedigrees' and in his' Visita-
tion of Middlesex, 1663.' The Sir William Cockaine,
Knt., Citizen and Alderman of London, from whom
John Dicconson, Gent. (Inq. April 12, 1621, Lanc. Inq.,'
p. 233), had purchased the reversion of lands in Walton
in le Dale, 1618, we take to have been the Sir William
Cockain, of London, Knt., whose daughter Jane married
James Sheffield, Esq., of Kensington, eldest of the sons
of Edmund, Earl of Mulgrave, by his second wife,
Marian, daughter of Sir William Irving ('Vis. Middx.
1663,' p. 5). Sir William Cockaine appears also as lord
of the manor of Walton in le Dale (Lanc. Inq.,' p. 156,
Jan. 13, 1619/20).

The Story of the Nations.-The Goths, from the Earliest
Times to the End of the Gothic Dominion in Spain.
By Henry Bradley. (Fisher Unwin.)

MR. BRADLEY is a man of wide and varied learning, and
therefore well fitted to deal with a subject which, though
fascinating, is at the same time one of extreme diffi-
culty. We wish he had not been confined within limits
so narrow, and that he had been permitted to give refer
ences to his statements. Although when under Mr.
Bradley's care we know ourselves to be in safe hands,
yet in reading his story there has hardly been a page on
which we have not longed to turn to his authorities.

THE two volumes now under our notice are both in continuation of previous labours of the same editors in the same useful field, in which both are honourably known. Of the former volume of 'Lancashire Inquisitions,' Stuart Period, Part I., we spoke, at the time of its issue, in the terms which the careful work of Mr. Rylands appeared to us to deserve. And we have only now to repeat our high appreciation of such work, when done in the spirit of the Record Society, a spirit which appears thoroughly to animate those of its editors whose volumes have from time to time come before us. The extreme value to genealogists of the two classes of records here dealt with, What was the original home of the Gothic race? Was Inquisitions post mortem and wills and administrations, Alaric a mere savage, or had he received with Arianism needs no words of ours to set it in relief. Mr. Earwaker some sort of Christian culture? Is the picture of the tells us that his present volume constitutes an index to great Theodoric a true likeness, or are we dealing with a about eighteen thousand documents. Such a fact speaks fancy portrait, like the Cyrus of Xenophon? Such quesfor itself, as well as for the society by whose agency it is tions as these cross our minds at every turn in dealing accomplished, and entitles Chancellor Christie and his with this marvellous history. They are queries which able fellow-workers to our best thanks for directing their can never be answered in a way which shall satisfy the energies into these most useful bypaths of historical re- critical intellect. The two preliminary chapters dealing search. Indeed, when we read of the Royalist Com- with the Gothic races before they became historical are position Papers for Lancashire, 1644-52, having already excellent. They condense all the knowledge we have, been transcribed for the society to an extent sufficient and do not confuse the mind with conflicting guesses. for two or three yearly volumes, we feel the interest The picture of Theodoric, too, is really very fine. His and the importance of the work undertaken by the crimes are not glossed over; but the great Arian king, society to be alike national and deserving of national the man who was for years, in all but name, the Emperor recognition. The volumes now before us, though not, of the West, stands before us as a noble barbarian, strivperhaps, likely to be supposed of more than local interest, ing with all his might after the best that he knew. We do, as a matter of fact, illustrate family history in every agree with Mr. Bradley in thinking that the murder of part of the United Kingdom. Taking some names at Odovacer has not come down to us with its details corrandom from both volumes, we are able to point to the rectly reported. With him, "we would fain hope that following facts as affirming our position. Thus, Manx- some of the circumstances of treachery and brutality men cannot but have an interest in John Christian, of have been exaggerated." A cold-blooded murder of a Liverpool, 1687; Anglo-Irish family history may be guest by the hand of one who had so many of the nobler elucidated by John Burton, 1679, and Sarah Bushell, human virtues is at least improbable; and the additional spinster, 1665, both of Dublin, while the possible rela- horror of the starving of Sunigilda, Odovacer's queen, to tion of the Lancashire and Cheshire Butlers who occur death in prison, one would fain trust is impossible. in the Chester wills to the great Irish house, might be Theodoric was an Arian, and as such he was but too worth investigating. Scottish hearts must warm at the likely to have falsehoods told of him by the orthodox. name of a Bruce and a Douglas, the latter of whom is, On the other hand, we must not measure his days by in the wills, somewhat oddly described, from a Chester ours. In that terrible time which intervened between point of view, as "of Boston in the North of England." the fall of the Western empire and its reconstruction by As a matter of latitude, we take Chester to be north of Charles the Great cruelties of the most revolting kind Boston, Besides these, we make a passing note of Cald- were so common that men's minds became hardened, well, Galloway, Lithgoe (i. e., Lithgow), and Sandilands and the good and virtuous seem to have tolerated deeds among names of interest for the Scottish reader. "Gal-which our nature shrinks from now.

Mr. Bradley is so accurate a writer that it is dan-tember following Nicholas writes to the Marquis of Orgerous to call in question any statement of his. We mond that Rosseter was among those who "will now atthink, however, we have detected one slip. Speaking of tempt anything for the King to prevent the ruin of the the mission of Pope John I. to Constantinople, to inter- nation." He was knighted very soon after the Restoracede with the Eastern emperor for the Arians, he says tion. that "he achieved the distinction of being the only Roman pontiff who ever pleaded with a Catholic monarch

for the toleration of heretics." Is there not evidence

that in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries the Popes protested against the cruelties towards "heretics" in Spain?

The lack we suffer from the want of notes presses upon us heavily when we come to the account of the death of Theodoric. He was buried in a well-known marble tomb in a coffin of porphry, but his remains were not permitted to rest in peace. As the ashes of a heretic, they were cast forth, and no one knew what became of them. It 1854, it seems, a skeleton in golden armour was found near the tomb, which there are reasons for believing were the bones of the great Goth. The golden armour was most of it destroyed, but some portions of the cuirass were recovered. We should much like to be referred to a full account of this interesting discovery. We trust the skeleton was preserved. Calendar of State Papers, Domestic Series, 1659-1660. Edited by Mary Anne Everett Green. (Longmans & Co.)

THIS Volume includes the transactions of eleven months only a short period, but one fraught with the gravest interests to England and to the world. The Commonwealth, which had seemed so stable when Oliver was ruling, had on his death become unworkable. Life was not extinct; but, like a whale stranded on a mud-bank, the colossal flounderings only showed the absolute weak ness of the organization which had been but a few months ago all-powerful. Sir George Booth's rising in favour of the king was a premature attempt. Booth was a man of high principle, who, in the early days of the war, had zealously fought for the Parliament, but he had come to see, what all England discovered somewhat later than he, that the present Government was unworkable. He had recourse to arms too soon. The wild adventure went very near costing him his life, delayed the Restoration, and may probably have been one of the causes why the Parliament consented to receive back the exiled king without conditions. No one can write an account of these times for the future without consulting Mrs. Green's volume at every step in the narrative; but it is of value for local as well as for general history. A glance down the columns of the index shows that there is not an important town of which mention is not made. For the biography of the men of the Civil War time these pages are simply invaluable. They seem to us to be singularly free from errors and misprints. We have looked out for them carefully, and have found but one. The Col. Lilburne who was on April 8, 1660, "engaged for Scotland" was not, as it is stated in the index, John, but his brother Robert. John, the patriot or fanatic, died in August, 1657; Robert, the regicide and majorgeneral, lived till 1665. He was tried among the other regicides, but his life was spared, and, if we may trust the inaccurate Noble, he died a prisoner in the Isle of St. Nicholas, near Plimouth, There are two interesting entries concerning Col. Rossiter of Somerby, who had been, as it was thought, an Independent of a somewhat extreme type. He had fought for the Parliament at Naseby and in many other gallant actions, the most noteworthy incident in his life being the scattering the wild Pontefract raiders under the command of Sir Philip Monckton in 1648. In August, 1659, his fidelity to the ruling powers was evidently doubtful, and in the Sep

4 Dictionary of Lowland Scotch. By Charles Mackay, LL.D. (Whittaker & Co.) A HANDY dictionary of Lowland Scotch is necessarily welcome. Apart from the vexed question of derivation, in regard to which Dr. Mackay speaks with a less assured instances of use which is afforded is in itself of interest utterance than in some previous works, the collection of and value. Under such words as "Sunkets," "Nugget," &c., however, some very startling views are enunciated. Le Livre for July contains a long and an interesting notice by M. Eugène Asse of Les Bourbons Bibliophiles,' which is accompanied by an illustration by M. F. Courboin containing five members of this illustrious family. M. Roger Marx writes on Les Estampes Originales'; and M. Jean Richepin supplies an appreciative criticism of Toute la Lyre,' by Victor Hugo.

THE catalogue of Mr. Richard Cameron, 1, St. David Street, Edinburgh, contains, among other desiderata, a curious collection of chap-books and a fine set of Archaica and Heliconia.

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Notices to Correspondents.

We must call special attention to the following notices: address of the sender, not necessarily for publication, but ON all communications must be written the name and as a guarantee of good faith.

We cannot undertake to answer queries privately.

To secure insertion of communications correspondents must observe the following rule. Let each note, query, or reply be written on a separate slip of paper, with the signature of the writer and such address as he wishes to appear. Correspondents who repeat queries are requested to head the second communication "Duplicate."

child").—See 7th S. v. 486. H. G. KEENE, Jersey ("Baron Nathan de Roths

M. L. M. ("King Charles ").-Send address; we have a letter for you.

R. HUDSON ("Childe Harold ").-Anticipated. See 7th S. v. 335.

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We beg leave to state that we decline to return communications which, for any reason, we do not print; and to this rule we can make no exception,

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