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LONDON, SATURDAY, JULY 6, 1867.

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CONTENTS.-No 288. NOTES:-Original MS. of Eixwv Baotλirn, 1- English Cardinals, 2-William D'Avenant on Shakspere, 3-Shakspeariana: "Hamlet"- Hamlet to Guildenstern-"The Merry Wives of Windsor "-"King Henry VI. Part II," Ib.-A Relic of Waterloo -Trivet: John of BolognaIrish Etymology-Lake Habitations - " Imperiale, a Tragedy by Sir Ralph Freeman," 4.

QUERIES:-John Peep: Different Versions of Stories, 5Who killed General Braddock? Ib.- Agnus Dei - Articles to be Observed," 1549-Rev. Dr. Blomberg - Robert Browning's" Boy and Angel". "The Chessboard of Life," by Qais-The Word "Dole"-Dryden Queries - John Scotus Erigena-Flaxman's Design for Ceilings - Ghosts in the Red Sea-The Hindu Trinity-The Irish Greyhound of Celtic Times-"Magius de Tintinnabulis' Master-Marks on China- Parc aux Cerfs-Quotations wanted Scottish Romance - Strelley of Strelley, co. Nottingham The Tomb at Barbadoes The Valley of Mont-Cenis "Vir Cornub." Seth Ward, Bishop of Salisbury, 6.

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ORIGINAL MS. OF ΕΙΚΩΝ ΒΑΣΙΛΙΚΗ. Some time ago (3rd S. viii. 396) I ventured to ask a question as to the original MS. of the Icon mentioned by Sir Thomas Herbert. I still hold the opinion, that the inquiry after this MS. has been singularly neglected; so much so, as almost to give point to Mr. Hallam's sneering implication that it never had any real existence. That such a MS. did exist, and in a handwriting nearly resembling the king's, there can be no doubt; and it certainly is very strange, that, while so much inquiry has been made about the account of the Icon in Sir Thomas's narrative, no one seems to have thought of seeking for the MS. of the Icon itself.

We possess a series of facts which seem, at any rate, to encourage inquiry.

Wagstaffe says that the original MS. account of the last two years of King Charles I., written by Sir Thomas Herbert, and afterwards published, was in 1697 in the possession of his widow, who was "married to Henry Edmonds, Esquire, living in the town of Worsborough, in Yorkshire." It is, therefore, not unreasonable to suppose that such books and papers as Sir Thomas possessed at his death, among which appear to have been some given him by King Charles, were also in her hands; and hence it is not impossible but that the precious MS. of the Icon may have been there also.

Now, certainly to within the last few years, Worsborough Hall has continued in the possession of the direct descendants of this gentleman, Henry Edmonds, Esq. The Rev. Joseph Hunter, in his History of the Deanery of Doncaster, published in 1831, gives the genealogy of the family, notices the picturesque old hall, and says that an old cabinet belonging to Sir Thomas Herbert, and brought there by his widow, is still preserved; and he goes on-with that gentle humour which appears peculiar to topographers, from Pennant downwards-to say, that he has never heard that the MS. of the Icon has been found in a secret drawer within it.

Thomas Allen also, in his History of the County of York, published in the same year as Hunter, mentions the hall and the Edmonds family.

Is it too much to ask that some member of this family will inform us whether any such papers or books still exist-books given by the king would, doubtless, be preserved with great care; or whether anything was ever known in the family of such a manuscript?

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Anthony Wood says that Sir Thomas sent him the account (called "Carolina Threnodia") of the last two years of King Charles, about three years before his death. This might make us fancy that Sir Thomas distributed his MSS., &c., carelessly, if it was not clear from Wagstaffe's statement which describes the MS. as "a book in folio, well bound, fairly written, and consisting of 83 pages," and which is attested by five clergymen and two esquires, who themselves saw the book at Worsborough-that it must have been a copy only which was sent to Wood. Sir Thomas deposited papers in more than one public library, viz. the Bodleian, and that belonging to the cathedral at York (not the action of a careless man); and though it is not likely that the MS. of the Icon was among these, yet a search even here, by some one on the spot, might not be entirely a useless waste of time.

It is no doubt quite possible that this precious MS. may have gone astray, with those "short notes of occurrences," which Sir Thomas says "are either lost or so mislaid in this long interval of time, and several removes of my family, that at present I cannot find them;" and the fact that he omits to state, that he actually possessed the MS. at the time he wrote his narrative, may strengthen this supposition. I am also unacquainted with the exact circumstances of the publication of his own MS., independently of Wood, in 1702; and cannot, therefore, say whether the circumstances which led to it were such as would be likely to bring to light, or to cause the dispersion of other MSS.; but I think we have here a series of interesting and important facts. We have a positive assertion of Sir Thomas, that he possessed this MS.; we have the certainty that books

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