Chapter C: W. B

[The ellipsis appears to have varied according to circumstances: hence
we find, in an original petition addressed to the Privy Council
(apparently temp. Jac. I.), the concluding formula given at length
thus:--"And yo^r sup^{lt}, as in all dutie bounden, shall daylie pray
for your good L^{ps}." Another petition, presented to Charles I. at
Newark, A.D. 1641, closes thus: "And your petitioners will ever pray
for your Majesty's long and happy reign over us." Another, from the
Mayor and Aldermen of London, in the same year: "And the petitioners,
as in all duty bound, shall pray for your Majesty's most long and happy
reign." Again, in the same year, the petition of the Lay-Catholic
Recusants of England to the Commons closes thus: "And for so great a
charity your humble petitioners {597} shall ever (as in duty bound)
pray for your continual prosperity and eternal happiness." We do not
believe that any petition would be rendered informal by such addition
as would make it more comprehensible.]

_Bibliography._--I am about to publish a brochure entitled _Notes on Books: with Hints to Readers, Authors, and Publishers_; and as I intend to give a list of the most useful bibliographical works, I shall feel much obliged to any one who will furnish me with a list of the various _Printers' Grammars_, and of such works as the following: _The Author's Printing and Publishing Assistant; comprising Explanations of the Process of Printing, Preparation and Calculation of MSS., Paper, Type, Binding, Typographical Marks, &c._ 12mo., Lond. 1840. I have met with Stower's _Printers' Grammar_, London, 1808.

MARICONDA.

[The following Printers' Grammars may be advantageously consulted; 1.
Hansard's _Typographia; an Historical Sketch of the Origin and Progress
of the Art of Printing_, royal 8vo. 1825. 2. Johnson's _Typographia; or
the Printers' Instructor_, 2 vols. 8vo. 1824. 3. Savage's _Dictionary
of the Art of Printing_, 8vo. 1841, the most useful of this class of
works. 4. Timperley's _Dictionary of Printers and Printing_, royal 8vo.
1839. Stower also published _The Compositors' and Pressmen's Guide to
the Art of Printing_, royal 12mo. 1808; and _The Printer's Price Book_,
8vo. 1814.]

_Peter Francius and De Wilde._--In a little work on my shelf, with the following title,

"Petri Francii specimen eloquentiae exterioris ad orationem M. T.
Ciceronis pro A. Licin. Archia accommodatum. Amstelaedami, apud Henr.
Wetstenium M DC XCVII.],"

occurs the following brief MS. note, after the text of the speech for Archias:

"Orationem hanc pro Archia sub Dno Petro Francio memoriter recitavi
Wilhelmus de Wilde in Athenaei auditorio Majore, a.d. xviii kal.
Januarias, a^{ni} 1699."

The volume is 12mo., containing about 200 pp.; the text of the speech occupying nearly 42 pp.

Who was Peter Francius? Did De Wilde ever distinguish himself?"

D.

[Peter Francius, a celebrated Greek and Latin poet, was born in 1645 at
Amsterdam, afterwards studied at Leyden, and obtained the degree of
Doctor of Laws at Augers. In 1674, the magistrates of Amsterdam
appointed him Professor of History and Rhetoric, which office he held
till his death in 1704. See _Biographie Universelle_.]

_Work by Bishop Ken._--

"A Crown of Glory the Reward of the Righteous; being Meditations on the
Vicissitude and Uncertainty of all Sublunary Enjoyments. To which is
added, a Manual of Devotions for Times of Trouble and Affliction: also
Meditations and Prayers before, at, and after receiving the Holy
Communion; with some General Rules for our Daily Practice. Composed for
the use of a Noble Family, by the Right Reverend Dr. Thomas Kenn, late
Lord Bishop of Bath and Wells. Price 2s. 6d."

I find the above in a list of "books printed for Arthur, Betterworth, &c.," at the end of the 7th edition of Horneck's _Crucified Jesus_: London, 1727. I do not remember to have seen any notice of this work in the recent biographies of the saintly prelate to whom it is here attributed.

E. H. A.

[This work originally appeared under the following title: _The Royal
Sufferer; a Manual of Meditations and Devotions, written for the use of
a Royal though afflicted Family_, by T. K., D. D., 1669, and was
afterwards published with the above title. It has been rejected as
spurious by the Rev. J. T. Round, the editor of _The Prose Works of
Bishop Ken_, l838.]

_Eugene Aram's Comparative Lexicon._--This talented criminal is said to have left behind him collections for a dictionary of the Celtic, Hebrew, Greek, Latin, and English languages, comprising a list of about 3000 words, which he considered them to possess in common. Was this ever published? and where are any notices of his works to be found?

E. S. TAYLOR.

[The following notice of Eugene Aram's Lexicon occurs in a letter
written by Dr. Samuel Pegge to Dr. Philipps, dated Feb. 18, 1760: "One
Eugene Aram was executed at York last year for a murder. He has done
something, being a scholar and a schoolmaster, towards a Lexicon on a
new plan. Hearing of this, I sent for the pamphlet, which contained
some account of his life, and the specimen of a Lexicon. He goes to the
Celtic, the Irish, and the British languages, as well as others; and
there are things, in the specimen that will amuse a lover of
etymologies." (_Gent. Mag._, 1789, p. 905.) Aram left behind him an
Essay relative to his intended work, from which some extracts are given
in Kippis's _Biographia Britannica_, s.v. The Lexicon does not appear
to have been printed.]

_Drimtaidhvrickhillichattan._--I should feel obliged through the medium of "N. & Q.," to be informed of the whereabouts of a locality in Scotland with the above euphonious name.

ALPHA.

[Drimtaidhvrickhillichattan is situated in the island of Mull, and
county of Argyle.]

_Coins of Europe._--Where can I find the fullest and most accurate tables showing the relative value of the coins in use in different parts of Europe?

ALPHA.

[Consult Tate's _Manual of Foreign Exchanges_, and the art. COINS in
M^cCulloch's _Dictionary of Commerce_.]

_General Benedict Arnold._--Can any of the readers of "N.& Q." inform me where General Arnold is buried? After the failure of his attempt to deliver up West Point to the English, he escaped, went to England, and never returned to his native {598} country. I have heard that he died about forty years ago, near Brompton, England; and would be glad to have the date of his death, and any inscription which may be on his tomb.

W. B. R.

Philadelphia.

[General Arnold died 14th June, 1801, in the sixty-first year of his
age. His remains were interred on the 21st at Brompton.]

* * * * *

Replies.

PARISH REGISTERS.--RIGHT OF SEARCH.

In Vol. iv., p. 473. a Query on this subject is inserted, to which, in Vol. v., p. 37., MR. CHADWICK replied.

The question, one of great importance to the genealogist, has recently been the subject of judicial decision, in the case of Steele _v._ Williams, reported in the 17th volume of the _Jurist_, p. 464. (the Number for Saturday, 28th May).

At the opening of the argument, the Court of Exchequer decided that the fees, &c. are regulated by the 6 & 7 Will. IV. c. 86., "An Act for registering Births, Deaths, and Marriages in England," which in the 35th section enacts--

"That every rector, vicar, curate, and every registrar, registering
officer, and secretary, who shall have the keeping, for the time being,
of any register book of births, deaths, or marriages, shall at all
reasonable times allow searches to be made of any register book in his
keeping, and shall give a copy, certified under his hand, of any entry
or entries in the same, on payment of the fee hereinafter mentioned;
that is to say, for every search extending over a period not more than
one year, the sum of 1s., and 6d. additional for every additional year;
and the sum of 2s. 6d. for every single certificate."

MR. CHADWICK seemed to consider this section only applied to "civil registration;" but this view is, I apprehend, now quite untenable.

The case was, whether a parish clerk had a right to charge 2s. 6d., where the party searching the register did not require "certified copies," but only made his own extracts; _and it is decided he has no such right_.

Mr. Baron Parke in his judgment says:

"I think this payment was not voluntary, because the defendant" [the
parish clerk] "told the plaintiff, that if he did not pay him for
certificates, in all cases in which he wanted to make extracts, he
should not make a search at all. _I think the plaintiff had at all
events a right to make a search, and during that time make himself
master, as he best might, of the contents of the book, and could not be
prevented from so doing by the clerk_ in whose custody they were; who
in the present case insisted that if he wanted copies he must have
certificates with the signature of the incumbent. For the 1s. he paid,
the applicant had a right to look at all the names in one year. He had
no right to remain an unreasonable time looking at the book; nor
perhaps, strictly speaking, was the parish clerk bound to put it into
his hands at all: for the clerk has a right to superintend everything
done, and might fairly say to a man, 'Your hands are dirty: keep them
in your pockets.' The applicant could therefore only exercise his right
of search during a reasonable time, and make extracts that way. _If a
man insists on taking himself a copy of anything in the books, that
case is not provided for by the statute_: but if he requires a copy
certified by the clergyman, then he must pay an additional fee for it.

"It was consequently _an illegal act_ in the defendant to insist that
the plaintiff should pay 2s. 6d. for each entry in the book, of which
he might choose to make an extract," &c.

Mr. Baron Martin says:

"With respect to the statute, counsel (Mr. Robinson) says, because
taking extracts is not mentioned in the statute, it is competent for a
parish clerk to take an extra payment for allowing them to be made.
Where a man is allowed by statute to receive money, it is, as it were,
by virtue of a contract that the statute makes for him, and he cannot
make a contract for a different sum. The defendant here is bound by the
entirety of the statute; _he may be paid for a search_, OR _for a
certified copy_, BUT THERE IS NO INTERMEDIATE COURSE."

This decision will, I hope, have the effect of removing the difficulties so often experienced in making searches for genealogical purposes. At all events, the person making such search can now _safely_ make his own notes, none daring _lawfully_ to make him afraid. I have to apologise for the length of this letter.

G. BRINDLEY ACWORTH.

12. King's Bench Walk, Temple.

* * * * *

THE HONOURABLE MISS E. ST. LEGER, A FREEMASON.

(Vol. iv., p. 234.)

There is an inquiry in Vol. iv., p. 234., as to whether there is any truth in the story, that the Honourable Miss E. St. Leger was made a freemason; and as no account of the circumstances has yet appeared in your pages, I send you the following statement, which has been extracted from _The Patrician_. Apart from its value as a record of this singular fact, it contains other particulars which you may deem worthy of preservation in "N. & Q."

"The Hon. Elizabeth St. Leger as the only female who was ever initiated
into the ancient and honourable mystery of Freemasonry. How she
obtained this honour we shall lay before our readers, having obtained
the only genuine information from the best sources.

"Lord Doneraile, Miss St. Leger's father, a very zealous mason, held a
warrant, and occasionally opened Lodge at Doneraile House, his sons and
some intimate friends assisting; and it is said that never were the
masonic duties more rigidly performed than by the brethren of No. 150,
the number of their warrant.

"It appears that previous to the initiation of a gentleman to the first
steps of masonry, Miss St Leger, {599} who was a young girl, happened
to be in an apartment adjoining the room generally used as a
lodge-room; but whether the young lady was there by design or accident,
we cannot confidently state. This room at the time was undergoing some
alteration: amongst other things, the wall was considerably reduced in
one part, for the purpose of making a saloon.

"The young lady having heard the voices of the Freemasons, and prompted
by the curiosity natural to all, to see this mystery so long and so
secretly locked up from public view, she had the courage to pick a
brick from the wall with her scissors, and witnessed the ceremony
through the first two steps. Curiosity gratified, fear at once took
possession of her mind; and those who understand this passage, well
know what the feelings of any person must be who could unlawfully
behold that ceremony. Let them then judge what were the feelings of a
young girl, under such extraordinary circumstances.

"Here was no mode of escape except through the very room where the
concluding part of the second step was still being solemnised; and that
being at the far end, and the room a very large one, she had resolution
sufficient to attempt her escape that way, and with light but trembling
step glided along unobserved, laid her hand on the handle of the door,
and gently opening it, before her stood, to her dismay, a grim and
surly _tiler_, with his long sword unsheathed. A shriek that pierced
through the apartment alarmed the members of the lodge, who all rushing
to the door, and finding that Miss St. Leger had been in the room
during the ceremony, in the first paroxysm of their rage, it is said,
her death was resolved upon; but from the moving and earnest
supplication of her younger brother, her life was spared, on condition
of her going through the two steps of the solemn ceremony she had
unlawfully witnessed. This she consented to do, and they conducted the
beautiful and terrified young lady through those trials which are
sometimes more than enough for masculine resolution, little thinking
they were taking into the bosom of their craft a member that would
afterwards reflect a lustre on the annals of Masonry.

"Miss St. Leger was directly descended from Sir Robert De St. Leger,
who accompanied William the Conqueror to England, and was of that high
repute that he, with his own hand, supported that prince when he first
went out of his ship to land in Sussex.

"Miss St. Leger was cousin to General Anthony St. Leger, Governor of
St. Lucia, who instituted the interesting race and the celebrated
Doncaster St. Leger stakes.

"Miss St. Leger married Richard Aldworth, Esq., of Newmarket, a member
of a highly honourable and ancient family, long celebrated for their
hospitality and other virtues. Whenever a benefit was given at the
theatres in Dublin or Cork for the Masonic Orphan Asylum, she walked at
the head of the Freemasons, with her apron and other insignia of
Freemasonry, and sat in the front row of the stage box. The house was
always crowded on those occasions.

"The portrait of this estimable woman is in the lodge room of almost
every lodge in Ireland."

HENRY H. BREEN.

St. Lucia.

* * * * *

WEATHER RULES.

(Vol. vii., p. 522.)

Your correspondent J. A., jun., invites further contributions on the subject to which he refers. Though by no means infallible, such prognostics are not without a measure of truth, founded as they are on habits of close observation:

1. "Si sol splendescat Maria Purificante
Major erit glacies post festum quam fuit ante."

Rendered thus:

"When on the Purification sun hath shin'd,
The greater part of winter comes behind."

2. "If the sun shines on Easter-day, it shines on Whit
Sunday likewise."

To this I may add the French adage:

"Quel est Vendredi tel Dimanche."

From a MS. now in my possession, dating two centuries back, I extract the following remarks on "Times and Seasons," as not wholly unconnected with the present subject:

"Easter-day never falleth lower than the 22nd of March, and never
higher than the 25th of April."

"Shrove Sunday has its range between the 1st of February and the 7th of
March."

"Whit Sunday between the 10th of May and the 13th of June."

"A rule of Shrovetide:--The Tuesday after the second change of the moon
after New Year's-day is always Shrove Tuesday."

To these I may perhaps be permitted to add certain cautions, derived frown the same source:

"The first Monday in April, the day on which Cain was born, and Abel
was slain.

"The second Monday in August, on which day Sodom and Gomorrah were
destroyed.

"The 31st of December, on which day Judas was born, who betrayed
Christ.

"These are dangerous days to begin any business, fall sick, or
undertake any journey."

We smile at the superstition which thus stamps these several periods as days of ill omen, especially when we reflect that farther inquiry would probably place every other day of the week under a like ban, and thus greatly impede the business of life--Friday, for instance, which, since our Lord's crucifixion on that day, we are strongly disinclined to make the starting-point of any new enterprise.

In many cases this superstition is based on unpleasing associations connected with the days proscribed. Who can wonder if, in times less enlightened than our own, undue importance were attached to the strange coincidence which marked the deaths of Henry VIII. and his posterity. They all died on a Tuesday; himself on Tuesday, January 28, 1547; Edward VI. on Tuesday, July 6, {600} 1553; Mary on Tuesday, November 17, 1558; Elizabeth on Tuesday, March 24, 1603.

JOHN BOOKER.

Prestwich.

It is a saying in Norwich,--

"When three daws are seen on St. Peter's vane together,
Then we are sure to have bad weather."

I think the observation is tolerably correct.

ANON.

* * * * *

SCOTCHMEN IN POLAND.

(Vol. vii., p. 475.)

In the debates about a union with Scotland in 1606, the "multiplicities of the Scots in Polonia" formed one of the arguments of the opposing party, who thought that England was likely to be overrun in a similar fashion. According to Wilson (_Hist. of James I._, p. 34.), the naturalisation of the Scots--

"Was opposed by divers strong and modest arguments. Among which they
brought in the comparison of Abraham and Lot, whose families joining,
they grew to difference, and to those words, 'Vade tu ad dextram, et
ego ad sinistram.' It was answered, That speech brought the captivity
of the one; they having disjoined their strength. The party opposing
said, If we admit them into our liberties, we shall be overrun with
them; as cattle, naturally, pent up by a slight hedge, will over it
into a better soil; and a tree taken from a barren place will thrive to
excessive and exuberant branches in a better,--witness the
_multiplicities of the Scots in Polonia_.

"To which it was answered, That if they had not means, place, custom,
and employment (not like beasts, but men), they would starve in a
plentiful soil, though they came into it. And what springtide and
confluence of that nation have housed and familied themselves among us,
these four years of the king's reign? And they will never live so
meanly here as they do in Polonia; for they had rather discover their
poverty abroad than at home."

This last "answerer" was Lord Bacon. In his speech "Of general Naturalisation" (_Works_, vol. v. p. 52.), he asserts that the "multiplication of Scots in Polonia" must of necessity be imputed

"To some special accident of time and place that draws them thither;
for you see plainly before your eyes, that in Germany, which is much
nearer, and in France, where they are invited with privileges, and with
this very privilege of naturalisation, yet no such number can be found;
so as it cannot either be nearness of place, or privilege of person,
that is the cause."

What these "special accidents" were, it would be interesting to ascertain. Large bodies of men were levied in Scotland during the latter half of the sixteenth century, for the service of Sweden, and employed in the Polish wars. Can these have turned merchants, or induced others to follow them? In 1573, Charles de Mornay brought 5000 Scots to Sweden. In 1576, whilst they were serving in Livonia, a quarrel broke out between them and a body of Germans also in the Swedish pay, and 1500 Scots were cut down. (_Geiger_, ch. xii.)

I believe MR. CUNNINGHAM will find some notices of Scottish merchants in Poland in Lithgow's _Travels_, which I have not at present by me.

RICHARD JOHN KING.

* * * * *

MR. JUSTICE NEWTON.

(Vol. vii., p. 528.)

Sir Richard Newton was Chief Justice of the Common Pleas from 1438 to 1444, and died Dec. 13th, 1444, and was buried in a chapel of Bristol Cathedral. (Collins's _Baronage_, vol. iii. p. 145.) He assumed the name of Newton, instead of Caradoc, from Newton in Powysland. (Collinson's _Somersetshire_, East Harptrie); and, as Camden, p. 60., says, the Newtons "freely own themselves to be of Welsh extraction, and not long ago to have been called Caradocks." These Caradocs were descended from the ancient kings of Wales. Sir Richard Newton was twice married: 1. to a daughter of Newton, of Crossland; and 2. to Emmett, daughter of John Harvey, of London, according to a MS. in the British Museum; but, according to Somersetshire and Gloucestershire Visitations, to Emma, daughter of Sir Thomas Perrott, of Islington. He had issue by both marriages, and from the second descended Sir John Newton, who was created a baronet 12 Car. II., and died in 1661. The baronetcy was limited in remainder, at its creation, to John Newton, of Hather, in Lincolnshire, and he became the second baronet. There are several pedigrees tracing the descent from Sir Richard to the first baronet; but I have not yet seen the descent to the second baronet, though there can be no doubt that he was also descended from Sir Richard, otherwise the baronetcy could not have been limited to him; and probably he was the next male heir of the first baronet, as that is the usual mode of limiting titles. In the Heralds' College there is a pedigree of Sir Isaac Newton, signed by himself, in which he traces his descent to the brother of the ancestor of the second baronet. It should seem, therefore, that Sir Isaac was himself descended from the Chief Justice. It would confer a great obligation on the writer if any of your readers could afford any assistance to clear up the pedigree of the second baronet.

As to the representatives of Sir Richard, I doubt whether his heir is discoverable, although there are many descendants now living who trace their descent through females.