Commons. The following account is from Malcolm's Anecdotes of London, 4to., 1808, p. 282.:

"The 3rd of December was appointed for this silly ceremony, which took place before the Royal Exchange, amidst the hisses and execrations of the mob, not directed at the obnoxious paper, but at Alderman Harley, the sheriffs, and constables, the latter of whom were compelled to fight furiously through the whole business. The instant the hangman held the work to a lighted link it was beat to the ground, and the populace, seizing the faggots prepared to complete its destruction, fell upon the peace-officers and fairly threshed them from the field; nor did the alderman escape without a contusion on the head, inflicted by a bullet thrown through the glass of his coach; and several other persons had reason to repent the attempt to burn that publicly which the sovereign people determined to approve, who afterwards exhibited a large jack-boot at Temple Bar, and burnt it in triumph, unmolested, as a species of retaliation."

I am not aware that what Mr. Malcolm terms a "silly ceremony" has been repeated since 1763. C. H. COOPER.

Cambridge.

cates, I say not one word; as a legal treatise it is simply despicable. H. GOUGH.

Lincoln's Inn.

The following extract is at the service of BAL

LIOLENSIS :

"In the seventh year of King James I., Dr. Cowel's Interpreter was censured by the two Houses, as asserting several points to the overthrow and destruction of Parliaments, and of the fundamental laws and government of the kingdom. And one of the articles charged upon him to this purpose by the Commons, in their complaint to the Lords, was, as Mr. Petyt says, out of the Journal, this that follows:

4thly. The Doctor draws his arguments from the imperial laws of the Roman Emperors, an argument which may be urged with as great reason, and with as great authority, for the reduction of the state and the clergy of England to the polity and laws in the time of those Emperors; as also to make the laws and customs of Rome and Constantinople to be binding and obligatory in the cities of London and York.'

"The issue of which complaint was, that the author, for these his outlandish politics, was taken into custody, and his book condemned to the flames: nor could the dedication of it to his then grace of Canterbury save

"Droit le Roy; or, A Digest of the Rights and Prerogatives of the Imperial Crown of Great Britain. By a Member of the Society of Lincoln's Inn. Dieu et Mon Droit.' [Royal Arms, with G. R.] London : printed and sold by W. Griffin, in Fetter Lane, MDCCLXIV."

Lord Mahon (History of England, vol. v. p. 175.) says:

"It was also observed, and condemned as a shallow artifice, that the House of Lords, to counterbalance their condemnation of Wilkes's violent democracy, took similar measures against a book of exactly opposite principles. This was a treatise or collection of precedents lately published under the title of Droit le Roy, to uphold the prerogative of the crown against the rights of the people. The Peers, on the motion of Lord Lyttleton, seconded by the Duke of Grafton, voted this book a false, malicious, and traitorous libel, inconsistent with the principles of the Revolution to which we owe the present happy establishment;' they ordered that it should be burned by the hands of the common hangman, and that the author should be taken

into custody. The latter part of the sentence, however,

no one took any pains to execute. The author was one Timothy Brecknock, a hack scribbler, who, twenty years afterwards, was hanged for being accessary to an atrocious murder in Ireland."

A copy of the book (an octavo of xii. and 95 pages) is in my possession. It was apparently a presentation copy, and formerly belonged to Dr. Disney; at whose sale it was purchased by the late Richard Heber, as his MS. note testifies. Against the political views which this book advo

Convocation, p. 7. of Preface.

Tor-Mohun.

WM. FRASER, B.C.L.

I possess a copy of The Case of Ireland being bound by Acts of Parliament in England stated, by William Molyneux of Dublin, Esq., which appears to have been literally "plucked as brand from the burning," as a considerable portion of it is consumed by fire. I have cut the following from a sale catalogue just sent to me from Dublin:

"Smith's (Matthew) Memoirs of Secret Service, Lond. 1696. Written by Charles, Earl of Peterborough, and is very scarce, being burnt by the hangman.

MS. note."

brute and human, generated insects; but of all sources of this equivocal generation, none was considered more potent than the_putrefaction or corruption of animal matter: as Du Bartas says: "God, not contented to each kind to give, And to infuse the virtue generative, By His wise power, made many creatures breed, Of lifeless bodies without Venus' deed."

Sixth Day. Pliny, after giving Virgil's receipt for making bees, gives similar instances:

"Like as dead horses will breed waspes and hornets; and asses carrion, turne to be beetle-flies by a certaine metamorphosis which Nature maketh from one creature to another."- Lib. xi. c. xx.

And soon after he says of wasps :

"All the sorte of these live upon flesh, contrarie to the manner of bees, which will not touch a dead carcasse.' This brings Shakspeare's lines to mind:

"'Tis seldom when the bee doth leave her comb
In the dead carrion."

Henry IV., Part II. Act IV. Sc. 4. The Belfast News Letter of Friday, Aug. 10, 1832, gives one of these rare occurrences:

"A few days ago, when the sexton was digging a grave in Temple Cranney (a burying-place in Portaferry, co. Down), he came to a coffin which had been there two or three years: this he thought necessary to remove. In this operation, he was startled by a great quantity of wild bees issuing forth from the coffin; and upon lifting the lid, it was found that they had formed their combs in the dead man's skull and mouth, which were full. The nest was made of the hair of the head, together with shavings that had been put in the coffin with the corpse."

This quotation is given in an interesting work of Mr. Patterson's, Letters on the Natural History of the Insects mentioned in Shakspeare's Plays: London, 1838.

Your correspondent R. T. shows that serpents were supposed to be generated by human carcases. Pliny says:

"I have heard many a man say that the marrow of a man's backebone will breed to a snake.". Hist. Nat., x. 66.

The story of the "fair young German gentleman" reminds me of one of a gentle shepherd and his beloved Amarante, told in De Britaine's Human Prudence, 12th edit., Dublin, 1726, Part I. p. 171. The corpse of the "Cæsar," seen by St. Augustine and Monica, was most probably that of Maximus, Emperor of the West, slain by the soldiers of Theodosius, A.D. 388.

Sir Thos. Browne-treating of the conceit that the mandrake grows under gallowses, and arises

from the fat, or obpov, of the dead malefactor, and hence has the form of a man- says:

"This is so far from being verified of animals in their corruptive mutations into plants, that they main

tain not this similitude in their nearer translation into animals. So when the ox corrupteth into bees, or the horse into hornets, they come not forth in the image of their originals. So the corrupt and excrementitious humours in man are animated into lice: and we may observe that hogs, sheep, goats, hawks, hens, and others, have one peculiar and proper kind of vermin.". Works, Bohn's edit., vol. i. p. 197.

The editor furnishes the following note:

"The immortal Harvey, in his De Generatione, struck the first blow at the root of the irrational system called equivocal generation, when he laid down his brief but most pungent law, Omnia ex ovo. But the belief transmitted from antiquity, that living beings generated spontaneously from putrescent matter, long maintained its ground, and a certain modification of it is even still advocated by some naturalists of the greatest acuteness. The first few pages of the volume entitled Insect Transformations (in The Library of Entertaining Knowledge) are occupied by a very interesting investigation of this subject."- See also Sir T. Browne's Works, vol. i. p. 378., vol. ii. pp. 523, 524. ; and Izaak Walton's Complete Angler, passim.

The equivocal generation of bees is copiously dwelt on in Bochart's Hierozoicon, London, 1663, fol., Part II. p. 502. Instances of their attaching themselves to dead bodies, in spite of their ordinary antipathy, are given at p. 506. EIRIONNACH.

VANDYKE IN AMERICA.

(Vol. viii., pp. 182. 228.)

To your correspondent C. I would say, that his observation that the Query was as to an engraving, whilst my answer was as to a picture is not true; as I am sure, from memory, that MR. WESTMACOTT used the word "portraits." But I plead in extenuation of my pretended grave offence, 1. That the Query was not propounded by C., but by a gentleman to whom the information given might be, as I supposed, of some interest; more particularly as I referred to the Travels of an Englishman, both of which, author and work, were accessible. 2. That, in common with the American readers of "N. & Q.," I regarded it as a journal of inter-communication," through whose columns information might be asked for, the request to be treated with the same consideration and courtesy as though addressed to each individual subscriber. I may add that LORD BRAYBROOKE and MR. WODDERSPOON (Vol. iv., p. 17.) have urged "the necessity for recording the existence of painted historical portraits, scattered, as we know they are," &c.

66

Now, as to the expression "worthies, famous in English history." I presume I need do no more concerning its application to Lord Orrery, Sir Robert Walpole, &c., than say, it was used as signifying "men of mark," without intending to endorse their "worth" either morally, mentally, or politically; its application to Colonel Hill and Colonel Byrd, as meaning "men of worth," might, did your limits permit, be defended on high grounds.

Then as to the possibility of Vandyke's having painted the portraits. If C. will have the kindness to look at C. Campbell's History of Virginia, he will find,

-

"1654. At a meeting of the Assembly, William Hatchin, having been convicted of having called Colonel Edward Hill an atheist and blasphemer,' was compelled to make acknowledgment of his offence upon his knees before Colonel Hill and the Assembly." This Colonel Hill, generally known as Colonel Edward Hill the Elder, a gentleman of great wealth, built the mansion at Shirley, where his portrait, brought from England, hangs in the same place, in the same hall in which he had it put up. It represents a youth in pastoral costume, crook in hand, flocks in the background. By a comparison of dates, C. will find it possible for Vandyke to have painted it. (See Bryan's Engravers and Painters.) It has descended, along with the estate, to his lineal representative, the present owner. Its authenticity rests upon tradition coupled with the foregoing facts, as far as I know (though the family may have abundant documentary proof), and I doubt very much whether many Vandykes in England" are better ascertained. I would add that several English gentlemen, among them, as I have heard, a distinguished ambassador recently in this country, recognised it as a Vandyke. This picture, amongst others, was injured by the balls fired from the vessels which ascended the James river, under command of General Arnold, then a British officer. On the younger Mr. Hill's tomb at Shirley is a coat of arms, a copy of which, had I one to send, would probably point out his family

66

in England.*

I

As to Colonel Byrd's portrait. There were, believe, three gentlemen of this name and title,

* It is curious to observe how matters of history appear and disappear as it were. "The mighty Tottipottimoy," says Hudibras (part ii. cant. ii. 1. 421.),—on which the Rev. Dr. Nash has this note: "I don't know whether this is a real name or only an imitation of North-American phraseology; the appellation of an individual, or a title of office: Tottipottimoy was king of the warlike and. powerful Parnunkies, and was defeated and slain by the Virginians, commanded by Colonel Hill, in the action from which Bloody Run takes its name.

66

66

*

more or less confounded in reputation, the second of whom, generally known as "Colonel Byrd the Elder," by reason of his son's history, was born in 1674. The picture is of his father, that is, of old," or "the first Colonel Byrd," and is in the same style as that of Colonel Hill's, representing a shepherd lad. He was an English gentleman of great wealth, and certainly of some benevolence. In Campbell's Virginia, p. 104. (see also Oldmixon, vol. i. p. 427.), it is stated, 1690, a large 66 The body of Huguenots were sent to Virginia. refugees found in Colonel Byrd, of Westover, a generous benefactor. Each settler was allowed a strip of land running back from the river to the foot of the hill (Henrico County). Here they raised cattle," &c. He sent his son to England to be educated under the care of a friend, Sir Robert Southwell. The son became a Fellow of the Royal Society, "was the intimate and bosom friend of the learned and illustrious Charles Boyle, Earl of Orrery," was the author of the Westover MSS. (mentioned in Oldmixon's preface, 2nd ed.), portions of which, "Progress to the Mines," History of the Dividing Line," &c., have been printed, others are in the library of the American Philosophical Society. His portrait is "by Kneller, a fine old cavalier face," says Campbell. The letters received at Westover might prove not uninteresting even to C., seeing that there were so many titled people among the writers; and to a gentleman of education and intelligence, the Westover library would have been a treasurehouse. In the Loganian Library in this city is a large MS. folio, whose title-page declares it to be a catalogue of books in the library at Westover, belonging to William Byrd, Esq.," from which it appears that in Law there were the English reporters (beginning with Y. B.) and text-writers, laws of France, Scotland, Rome (various editions of Pandects, &c.); Canon Law, with numerous approved commentators on each. In Physic a great many works, which, as I am told, were, and some Planter's Physician interleaved. This, to every still are, of high repute: I note only one, Poor one who has been upon a great Virginia plantation, bespeaks the benevolence characteristic of the proprietors of Westover. In Divinity, besides pages of orthodox divines, Bibles in various languages (several in Hebrew, one in seven vols.), tallurgy, Natural History, Metaphysics, Military are Socinius, Bellarmine, &c. The works on MeScience, Heraldry, Navigation, Music, &c., are very numerous; and either of the collections of history, or entertainment, or classics, or political science, would form no inconsiderable library of itself.

66

* There is a curious passage in the Westover MSS. concerning William Penn, of which Mr. Macaulay should have a copy, unless one has been already sent to him.

to have been only children. One of them married the Prince of Stolberg, and the other the Prince of Salm. One of the descendants of this family was an annuitant on the estate of the Marquis of Aylesbury, as recently as twelve or fourteen years ago. Information on any part of this descent would confer an obligation on PATONCE.

A Legend of the Hive (Vol. ix., p. 167.).-With every feeling of gratitude to EIRIONNACH, I cannot receive praise for false metre and erroneous grammar. In the fifth line of the first stanza of the quoted verse, the first of the above legend, "are" is redundant: and in the first line of the next

stanza, "bore" should be "bare." I remember that in more cases than one the printer of my published rhymes has perpetrated this latter mistake.

Suffer me to reply to a question of the same courteous critic EIRIONNACH, in Vol. ix., p. 162., about a "Christ-cross-row." This name for the alphabet obtained in the good old Cornish dameschools when I was a boy. In a book that I have seen, there is a vignette of a monk teaching a little boy to read, and beneath

"A Christ-Cross Rhyme.

I.

"Christ his cross shall be my speed !
Teach me, Father John, to read:
That in church, on holy-day,
I may chant the psalm and pray.

II.

"Let me learn, that I may know
What the shining windows show ;
Where the lovely Lady stands,
With that bright Child in her hands.

III.

"Teach me letters one, two, three, Till that I shall able be

Signs to know and words to frame,
And to spell sweet Jesu's name!

IV.

"Then, dear master, will I look Day and night in that fair book, Where the tales of saints are told, With their pictures all in gold.

V.

"Teach me, Father John, to say
Vesper-verse and matin-lay;
So when I to God shall plead,
Christ his cross will be my speed!"
H. OF MORWENSTOW.

Hoby Family (Vol. viii., p. 244.; Vol. ix., pp. 19. 58.).— Sir Philip Hoby, or Hobbie, who was born in 1505, and died in 1558, was not only Gentleman of the Privy Chamber to Henry VIII., but, while he held that office, was attached to the embassy of Sir Thomas Wyatt to the Emperor

Charles V. in 1538. He was himself ambassador to the same Emperor in 1548, being sent by the Protector Somerset to replace the Bishop of Westminster. It may be interesting to state that two volumes of papers containing instructions and other letters transmitted to Sir Philip during these embassies, and copies of his replies, together with his correspondence with some eminent reformers, were in the possession of Wm. Hare, Esq., M. P. for the city of Cork in 1796. An account of them, drawn up by the Rev. T. D. Hincks, was read before the Royal Irish Academy on December 17 in that year, and printed in the sixth volume of its Transactions. It is probable that these papers had formerly belonged to Rev. Sir Philip Hoby, Bart., who was Dean of Ardfert and Chancellor of St. Patrick's; and died without an heir in 1766. He was descended from Sir Thomas Hoby, younger brother of Sir Philip; who was born in 1530, and died in 1566. The father of these two knights was William Hobbie of Leominster. I presume the two volumes of papers referred to are in the possession of the Earl of Listowel, great-grandson of the gentleman who possessed them in 1796.

E. H. D. D.

Anticipatory Use of the Cross (Vol. viii. passim).

"It is strange, yet well authenticated, and has given rise to many theories, that the symbol of the Cross was already known to the Indians before the arrival of Cortez. In the island of Cozumel, near Yucatan, there were several; and in Yucatan itself there was a stone cross. And there an Indian, considered a prophet amongst his countrymen, had declared that a nation bearing the same as a symbol should arrive from a distant country! More extraordinary still was a temple, dedicated to the Holy Cross by the Toltec nation in the city of Cholula. Near Tulansingo there is also a cross engraved on a rock with various characters, which the Indians by tradition ascribe to the Apostle St. Thomas. In Oajaca, also, there existed a cross, which the Indians from time immemorial had been accustomed to consider as a divine symbol. order of the Bishop Cervantes it was placed in a sumptuous chapel in the cathedral. Information concerning its discovery, together with a small cup, cut out of its wood, was sent to Rome to Paul V.; who received it on his knees, singing the hymn Vexilla regis,' &c." - Life in Mexico, by Madame Calderon de la Barca, Letter XXXVII.

Longevity (Vols. vii., viii., passim). —

By

E. H. A.

"Amongst the fresh antiquities of Cornwall, let not the old woman be forgotten who died about two years since; who was one hundred and sixty-four years old, of good memory, and healthful at that age; living in the parish of Gwithian by the charity of such as came purposely to see her, speaking to them (in default of English) by an interpreter, yet partly understanding it. She married a second husband after she was eighty,