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.

STAFFORD HOUSE (7th S. v. 447).-The following 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.

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 ':

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

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 rethe time when that ill-treatment culminated in ceived from the people and from the king, until 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.

STEEL PENS (7th S. v. 285, 397, 496).-MR. DOBLE repeats, word for word, the passage from Dr. Jessopp'sAutobiography 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 :—

66

"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 :—

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 407.), Same Period. Edited by J. P. Earwaker, F.S.A., Honorary Secretary, Record Society. (Same Society.)

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, Inquisitions post mortem and wills and administrations, needs no words of ours to set it in relief. Mr. Earwaker tells us that his present volume constitutes an index to about eighteen thousand documents. Such a fact speaks for itself, as well as for the society by whose agency it is accomplished, and entitles Chancellor Christie and his able fellow-workers to our best thanks for directing their energies into these most useful bypaths of historical research. Indeed, when we read of the Royalist Composition Papers for Lancashire, 1644-52, having already been transcribed for the society to an extent sufficient for two or three yearly volumes, we feel the interest and the importance of the work undertaken by the society to be alike national and deserving of national recognition. The volumes now before us, though not, perhaps, likely to be supposed of more than local interest, do, as a matter of fact, illustrate family history in every part of the United Kingdom. Taking some names at random from both volumes, we are able to point to the following facts as affirming our position. Thus, Manxmen cannot but have an interest in John Christian, of Liverpool, 1687; Anglo-Irish family history may be elucidated by John Burton, 1679, and Sarah Bushell, spinster, 1665, both of Dublin, while the possible relation of the Lancashire and Cheshire Butlers who occur in the Chester wills to the great Irish house, might be worth investigating. Scottish hearts must warm at the name of a Bruce and a Douglas, the latter of whom is, in the wills, somewhat oddly described, from a Chester point of view, as "of Boston in the North of England." As a matter of latitude, we take Chester to be north of Boston. Besides these, we make a passing note of Caldwell, Galloway, Lithgoe (i. e., Lithgow), and Sandilands among names of interest for the Scottish reader. "Gal

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 Anglicized 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' Visitation 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 song 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 difficulty. 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.

What was the original home of the Gothic race? Was Alaric a mere savage, or had he received with Arianism some sort of Christian culture? Is the picture of the great Theodoric a true likeness, or are we dealing with a fancy portrait, like the Cyrus of Xenophon? Such questions as these cross our minds at every turn in dealing with this marvellous history. They are queries which can never be answered in a way which shall satisfy the critical intellect. The two preliminary chapters dealing with the Gothic races before they became historical are excellent. They condense all the knowledge we have, and do not confuse the mind with conflicting guesses. The picture of Theodoric, too, is really very fine. His crimes are not glossed over; but the great Arian king, the man who was for years, in all but name, the Emperor of the West, stands before us as a noble barbarian, striving with all his might after the best that he knew. We agree with Mr. Bradley in thinking that the murder of Odovacer has not come down to us with its details correctly reported. With him, "we would fain hope that some of the circumstances of treachery and brutality have been exaggerated." A cold-blooded murder of a guest by the hand of one who had so many of the nobler human virtues is at least improbable; and the additional horror of the starving of Sunigilda, Odovacer's queen, to death in prison, one would fain trust is impossible. Theodoric was an Arian, and as such he was but too likely to have falsehoods told of him by the orthodox. On the other hand, we must not measure his days by ours. In that terrible time which intervened between the fall of the Western empire and its reconstruction by Charles the Great cruelties of the most revolting kind were so common that men's minds became hardened, and the good and virtuous seem to have tolerated deeds which our nature shrinks from now.

Mr. Bradley is so accurate a writer that it is dangerous to call in question any statement of his. We think, however, we have detected one slip. Speaking of the mission of Pope John I. to Constantinople, to intercede with the Eastern emperor for the Arians, he says 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 inter

esting 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

tember following Nicholas writes to the Marquis of Ormond that Rosseter was among those who "will now attempt anything for the King to prevent the ruin of the nation." He was knighted very soon after the Restoration.

LL.D. (Whittaker & Co.)

A Dictionary of Lowland Scotch. By Charles Mackay, 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.

MR. HENRY FROWDE has issued specimens of the series of reproductions of remarkable MSS, and exceptionally rare printed books contained in the Bodleian, which he will shortly publish. The series will be of exceptional interest and value.

A NEW edition of 'The Chameleon,' Mr. Dunphie's delightful volume of essays, is already announced.

MR. WM. CUDWORTH, the author of Round about Bradford,' has written A Life and Correspondence of Abraham Sharp, the Yorkshire Mathematician and Astronomer.' The base of this is found in Sharp's correspondence with Flamsteed. The book will be published by Messrs. Sampson Low, Marston, Searle & Rivington.

Notices to Correspondents.

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

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

NOTICE

Editorial Communications should be addressed to "The Editor of Notes and Queries'"-Advertisements and Business Letters to "The Publisher "-at the Office, 22, Took's Court, Cursitor Street, Chancery Lane, E.C.

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,