Chapter I: Front Matter

Transcriber's note: on page 399, "Yule College" in the original is corrected to "Yale College".

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NOTES AND QUERIES:

A MEDIUM OF INTER-COMMUNICATION FOR LITERARY MEN, ARTISTS, ANTIQUARIES, GENEALOGISTS, ETC.

"When found, make a note of."--CAPTAIN CUTTLE.

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No. 208.] SATURDAY, OCTOBER 22. 1853. [Price Fourpence. Stamped Edition 5d.

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CONTENTS.

NOTES:-- Page

A Prophet 381

FOLK LORE:--Folk Lore in Cambridgeshire--New
Brunswick Folk Lore--North Lincolnshire Folk
Lore--Portuguese Folk Lore 382

Pope and Cowper, By J. Yeowell 383
Shakspeare Correspondence, by Patrick Muirson, &c. 383

MINOR NOTES:--Judicial Families--Derivation of
"Topsy Turvy"--Dictionaries and Encyclopædias--
"Mary, weep no more for me"--Epitaph at Wood
Ditton--Pictorial Pun 384

QUERIES:--

Sir Thomas Button's Voyage, 1612, by John Petheram 385

MINOR QUERIES:--The Words "Cash" and "Mob"
--"History of Jesus Christ"--Quantity of the Latin
Termination -anus--Webb and Walker Families--
Cawdrey's "Treasure of Similes"--Point of Etiquette
--Napoleon's Spelling--Trench on Proverbs--Rings
formerly worn by Ecclesiastics--Butler's "Lives of
the Saints"--Marriage of Cousins--Castle Thorpe,
Bucks--Where was Edward II. killed?--Encore--
Amcotts' Pedigree--Blue Bell: Blue Anchor--
"We've parted for the longest time"--Matthew
Lewis--Paradise Lost--Colonel Hyde Seymour--
Vault at Richmond, Yorkshire--Poems published at
Manchester--Handel's Dettingen Te Deum--
Edmund Spenser and Sir Hans Sloane, Bart. 386

MINOR QUERIES WITH ANSWERS:--The Ligurian Sage
--Gresebrok in Yorkshire--Stillingfleet's Library--
The whole System of Law--Saint Malachy on the
Popes--Work on the Human Figure 389

REPLIES:--

"Namby Pamby," and other Words of the same Form 390
Earl of Oxford 392
Picts' Houses 392
Pronunciation of "Humble" 393
School Libraries 395

PHOTOGRAPHIC CORRESPONDENCE:--Albumenized Paper
--Cement for Glass Baths--New Process for Positive
Proofs 395

REPLIES TO MINOR QUERIES:--The Groaning Elmplank
in Dublin--Passage in Whiston--"When
Orpheus went down"--Foreign Medical Education
--"Short red, good red"--Collar of SS.--Who first
thought of Table-turning--Passage of Thucydides on
the Greek Factions--Origin of "Clipper" as applied
to Vessels--Passage in Tennyson--Huet's Navigations
of Solomon--Sincere--The Saltpetre Man--
Major André--Longevity--Passage in Virgil--Love
Charm from a Foal's Forehead--Wardhouse, where
was?--Divining Rod--Waugh, Bishop of Carlisle--
Pagoda 397

MISCELLANEOUS:--

Books and Odd Volumes wanted 401
Notices to Correspondents 401
Advertisements 402

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Notes.

A PROPHET.

What a curious book would be "Our Prophets and Enthusiasts!" The literary and biographical records of the vaticinators, and the heated spirits who, after working upon the fears of the timid, and exciting the imaginations of the weak, have flitted into oblivion! As a specimen of the odd characters such a work would embrace, allow me to introduce to your readers Thomas Newans, a Shropshire farmer, who unhappily took it into his head that his visit to the lower sphere was on a special mission.

Mr. Newans is the author of a book entitled _A Key to the Prophecies of the Old and New Testament_; showing (among other impending events) "The approaching Invasion of England;" "The Extirpation of Popery and Mahometisme;" "The Restoration of the Jews," and "The Millennium." London: printed for the Author (who attests the genuineness of my copy by his signature), 1747.

In this misfitted key he relates how, in a vision, he was invested with the prophetic mantle:

"In the year 1723, in the night," says Mr. Newans, "I fell into a
dream, and seemed to be riding on the road into the county of Cheshire.
When I was got about eight miles from home, my horse made a stop on the
road; and it seemed a dark night, and on a sudden there shone a light
before me on the ground, which was as bright as when the sun shines at
noon-day. In the middle of that bright circle stood a child in white.
It spoke, and told me that I must go into Cheshire, and I should find a
man with uncommon marks upon his feet, which should be a warning to me
to believe; and that the year after I should have a cow that would
calve a calf with his heart growing out of his body in a wonderful
manner, as a token of what should come to pass; and that a terrible war
would break out in Europe, and in fourteen years after the token it
would extend to England."

In compliance with his supernatural communication, our farmer proceeded to Cheshire, where he found the man indicated; and, a year after, his own farm stock was increased by the birth of a calf with his heart growing out. And after taking his family, of seven, to witness to the truth of {382} what he describes, he adds with great simplicity: "So then I rode to London to acquaint the ministers of state of the approaching danger!"

This story of the calf with the heart growing out, is not a bad type of the worthy grazier himself, and his _hearty_ and burning zeal for the Protestant faith. Mr. Newans distinctly and repeatedly predicts that these "two beastly religions," _i. e._ the Popish and Mahomedan, will be totally extirpated within seven years! And "I have," says he, "for almost twenty years past, travelled to London and back again into the country, near fifty journies, and every journey was two hundred and fifty miles, to acquaint the ministers of state and several of the bishops, and other divines, with the certainty, danger, and manner of the war" which was to bring this about. Commenting on the story of Balaam, our prophet says: "And now the world is grown so full of sin and wickedness, that if a dumb ass should speak with a man's voice, they would scarce repent:" and I conclude that the said statesmen and divines did not estimate these prophetic warnings much higher than the brayings of that quadruped which they turned out to be. Mr. Newan professes to gave penned these vaticinations in the year 1744, twenty-one years after the date of his vision; so that he had ample time to mature them. What would the farmer say were he favoured with a peep at our world in 1853, with its Mussulman system unbroken; and its cardinal, archbishops, and Popish bishops firmly established in the very heart of Protestant England?

J. O.

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FOLK LORE.

_Folk Lore in Cambridgeshire._--About twenty years ago, at Hildersham, there was a custom of ringing the church bell at five o'clock in the leasing season. The cottagers then repaired to the fields to glean; but none went out before the bell was rung. The bell tolled again in the evening as a signal for all to return home. I would add a Query, Is this custom continued; and is it to be met with in any other place?

F. M. MIDDLETON.

_New Brunswick Folk Lore_:--_Common Notions respecting Teeth._--Among the lower orders and negroes, and also among young children of respectable parents (who have probably derived the notion from contact with the others as nurses or servants), it is here very commonly held that when a tooth is drawn, if you refrain from thrusting the tongue in the cavity, the second tooth will be golden. Does this idea prevail in England?

_Superstition respecting Bridges._--Many years ago my grandfather had quite a household of blacks, some of whom were slaves and some free. Being bred in his family, a large portion of my early days was thus passed among them, and I have often reverted to the weird superstitions with which they froze themselves and alarmed me. Most of these had allusion to the devil: scarcely one of them that I now recollect but referred to him. Among others they firmly held that when the clock struck twelve at midnight, the devil and a select company of his inferiors regularly came upon that part of the bridge called "the draw," and danced a hornpipe there. So firmly did they hold to this belief, that no threat nor persuasion could induce the stoutest-hearted of them to cross the fatal draw after ten o'clock at night. This belief is quite contrary to that which prevails in Scotland, according to which, Robin Burns being my authority, "neither witches nor any evil spirits have power to follow a poor wight any farther than the middle of the next running stream."[1]