with its production, seeing that he was an infant of five years of age when Handel published the book containing the piece. This was in June, not November, 1720. It is difficult to imagine the possibility of the growth of a name like the 'Harmonious Blacksmith,' and we have distinct proof that the piece was first so called by Lintern, the music publisher of Bath. Up to the present time not one tittle of evidence has been produced to show that the tune was not composed by Handel; various composers' works have been searched, but all in vain. I am, therefore, content to give Handel the credit which he claimed in the preface to his book, where he says: "I have been obliged to publish some of the following lessons because surreptitious and incorrect copies of them had got abroad. I have added several new ones, favourable reception, I will still proceed to publish more, to make the work more useful, which, if it meets with a reckoning it my duty with my small talent to serve a nation from which I have received so generous a protec GILT-EDGED WRITING-PAPER (8th S. ix. 208, 237).-Though unable to mention the date of the introduction of this, let me cite an early allusion to its use. The Rev. Robert Nares, afterwards Archdeacon of Stafford, who succeeded Bishop Percy, the editor of the 'Reliques of Ancient English Poetry,' in the vicarage of Easton Maudit, Northamptonshire, says, in a letter dated 23 June, 1782, addressed to his future wife," No gilt paper at Easton Maudit." The entire letter, an amusing one, was printed by me in a little "Memoir of Bishop Percy," prefixed to vol. i. of 'Bishoption.-G. F. HANDEL." Percy's Folio Manuscript,' published in 1867, and edited by Messrs. Furnivall and Hales. About 1840 it used to be considered complimentary to write to people in position on gilt-edged letterpaper; note-paper was then almost unknown, and steel pens were only just coming in. JOHN PICKFORD, M.A. Newbourne Rectory, Woodbridge. In my collection of franks and autographs there are several, very early in the present century, which are written on gilt-edged paper. Lord Byron writes of it as a fashion; doubtless, therefore, recent : "St. James' Street, Dec. 8, 1811. Dear Harness, Behold a most formidable sheet, without gilt or black edging, and consequently very vulgar and indecorous." E. WALFORD. Ventnor. In reply to an inquiry in 'N. & Q.,' 4th S. iii. 20, a correspondent reported that the will of Raphe Lovell of Richmond allis West Lhyne" dated June, 1588, is written on gilt-edged foolscap paper. At that time (1869) the will was deposited at Doctors' Commons, but it has since been removed to Somerset House. EVERARD HOME COLEMAN. WILLIAM H. CUMMINGS. LEONINE VERSES (8th S. ix. 246).-Sir A. Croke says, in his 'Essay on Rhyming Latin Verse': "The name Leonine, given to these verses, was derived not from any supposed resemblance to a lion, but from Leonius or Leoninus, a canon of the order of 8. Benedict at Paris, and a monk of S. Victor at Marseilles, who lived about the year 1135; and although not the inventor, was a celebrated composer in this kind of verse." I myself have, for now many years, seen a lion annually behind the bars of a cage. Perhaps the lion was not properly made; but its resemblance to any kind of Latin verse never once struck me. The kind of verses to which ST. SWITHIN refers seem to be versus cristati." "The proper Leonine was the couplet in which two verses rhymed only at the end and the second was sometimes a pentameter" (Croke, p. 21). E. S. A. ENGLISH REFLECTIVE VERBS (8th S. ix. 206). I am glad that MR. LYNN has drawn attention to the fact that there are still some persons who, when they have to read passage where "endeavour ourselves" occurs, persist in emphasizing the 71, Brecknock Road. "ourselves." I once knew an Anglican clergyman, regarded by some of his acquaintances as a HANDEL'S "HARMONIOUS BLACKSMITH" (8th great authority on all things relating to the Book S. ix. 203, 230, 311).—Mr. G. MARSHALL'S state- of Common Prayer, who persisted in this practice, ments are erroneous and misleading. Handel was and, when corrected for it, was in the habit of makDirector of Music to the Duke of Chandos ating an elaborate defence of his error. Canons. The domestic chapel at Canons formed an integral part of the palace, and was pulled down when the mansion was demolished. It stood half a mile away from the present parish church, with which Handel was never officially connected. The music of the 'Harmonious Blacksmith' has been assigned to Wagenseil ; but it is impossible that he could have composed it or had anything to do Many persons whose reading lies mainly in the books of the present do not know how very common this form was in earlier days. The following references may therefore be useful. They might be very much increased by any one whose studies lead him to the literature of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. E. P. Shirley, 'Hanley and the House of Lechmere,' p. 16; 'The Burden of a Loaden Conscience,' 1699, p. 33; D. Rock, D.D., 'Church of Our Fathers,' vol. iii. part ii. p. 194; 'The Book of Oaths,' 1715, p. 203; Thomas Otway, 'The Atheist,' V. i.; Archeologia, vol. xxvii. p. 186; Stone, 'Faithful unto Death,' EDWARD PEACOCK. p. 65. FORM OF OATH OF A BISHOP IN THE TIME OF HENRY VIII. (8th S. ix. 268).-It was an ancient privilege of bishops, granted by Justinian, that when their testimony was taken in private they were not obliged to give it upon oath, but only upon their word. A later Council extended the same privilege to priests; see particulars and authorities in Bingham's Antiquities of the Christian Church,' 1709, ii. 204-5. Thus Mountagu, in his 'Appello Cæsarem,' 1625, p. 11, says: "I must and doe protest before God and his Angels, idque in verbo Sacerdotis." W. C. B. CHILD COMMISSIONS IN THE ARMY (8th S. viii. 421, 498; ix. 70, 198).-In connexion with this subject, the following may be of interest; for although the child mentioned was not commissioned, he was placed on the roll of a regiment as if he had been an active and able-bodied soldier. I copied the particulars from the Military Records at Ottawa in 1890. regiment, in order that the widow (the child's mother) might get the benefit of the pay and allowances to which the boy would be entitled. The boy afterwards (9 June, 1797) got a commission as ensign in the Royal Canadian Volunteers, and took part in the Canadian campaign of 18121815. He was at the battle of Chateauguay, and received the medal for that engagement. became lieutenant-colonel in the active militia (of Canada), and died at St. Eustache, in the province of Quebec, in 1859. JOHN MACKAY. Corstorphine, Midlothian. He PHILIPPINA WELSER (8th S. ix. 268).-The beautiful portrait is in the castle at Ambras, near Innsbruck, where many interesting relics of W. D. MACRAY. Philippina are preserved. VINCENT (8th S. viii. 428; ix. 235).—An interesting point herein is the descent by marriage of the pension of 500l. per annum, awarded to Sir Thomas Clarges in 1673, to Viscount St. Vincent, A. H. as his heir general. MUSIC AND WORDS OF SONG WANTED (7th S. x. 167, 315).-It seems to have escaped notice that two lines of the nursery song given at the latter reference by MR. F. C. BIRKBECK TERRY are verbatim et literatim identical with couplet in Burns's 'Tam o'Shanter.' MR. TERKY'S Song goes thus :— Stephen Mackay, when a child of about two years of age, was entered by General Sir Frederick Haldimand, Commander-in-Chief and Governor of Canada, as a volunteer on the establishment of the King's Royal Regiment of New York. The regiment was disbanded in 1784, and the receipt given in the name of the child for his pay, dated Mont-As real, 24 June, 1784, is as follows: Hath "His Majesty's Provincial Regiment, called the King's Royal Regiment of New York, second battalion, whereof Sir John Johnson, Knight and Baronet, is LieutenantColonel Commandant. These are to certify that the bearer hereof, Stephen Mackay, volunteer in Captain Morrison's Company of the aforesaid Regiment, born in Montreal, Province of Quebec, aged 4 years : served honestly and faithfully in the said Regiment two years, and in consequence of His Majesty's order for disbanding the said Regiment, he is hereby discharged, and is entitled by His Majesty's late order, to the portion of land alloted to each private of His Provincial Corps who wishes to become a settler in this Province: He having first received all just demands of pay, clothing, &c., from his entry into the said Regiment, to the date of his discharge, as appears by his receipt on the back hereof." The curious point is that a receipt should be given for the pay of a child only four years of age, and that the child, at that age, had served in a regiment for two years. But there is an explanation. Capt. Samuel Mackay, the child's father, had raised a company at his own cost, in support of the Government, at the time the North American colonies revolted in 1776. He died about a month before his son Stephen was born, and left his family in poor circumstances, so General Haldimand had the child placed on the strength of the The moon behind yon tree was lost, Tam o' Shanter approached the scene of the Dryden's periphrastic version of Virgil's "intonnere poli"( Æneid,'i. 90) may have stimulated Burns's swinging and resonant lines; but it is curious to find the very same idea embodied in the same words in a Yorkshire nursery song. Perhaps MR. BIRKBECK TERRY, or some other competent scholar, will look into the matter further, in order to see whether any elucidation is possible. Helensburgh, N.B. THOMAS BAYNE, FRENCH PRISONERS OF WAR IN ENGLAND (8th S. ix. 289).-By four communications to ' N. & Q.' it would appear that the statements made in the If your Catholic News of 14 March are correct. correspondents will turn to 5th S. vii. 108, 216, 312 they will find that French prisoners were detained at Norman Cross, and that the Bishop of Moulines was an inmate of the barracks in which they were confined. Extracts from a newspaper of 1808 and a volume of tracts confirm these facts. EVERARD HOME COLEMAN. 71, Brecknock Road. The huge prison at Norman Cross is described in Borrow's best manner in 'Lavengro,' chap. iv. Borrow estimates that it occupied about sixty acres of land. Of the matters concerning which N. M. & A. particularly inquire he says nothing; but your correpondents would doubtless read his account of the place with interest. C. C. B. Mr. ARRESTING A DEAD BODY FOR DEBT (8th S. ix. 241). At Brandeston, Suffolk, there is a wellauthenticated story of the body of the "old squire," Mr. John Revett, or Rivett, who died in 1809, being removed secretly, at night, by some of the servants and tenantry, from the library of Brandeston Hall, where it lay, to the Church of Brandeston, which is in the park, close to the hall. Revett, like many of the family, had been very extravagant, keeping his own pack of hounds, &c.; and what with elections and unlimited hospitality had got heavily into debt, and had involved the old family estate so that Brandeston and Cretingham, which had been in the Revett family from 1480, got into Chancery after his death, and passed out of the family in 1830, or thereabouts. The belief of the people, with whom the old squire was very popular, was that if the body was not removed to the sanctuary, it would be seized for debt; hence their action. A son of one of the old servants, whose father assisted in carrying the body to the church, told me the story last autumn at Brandeston, and it is well known in the village. Schloss Wildeck. J. H. RIVETT-CARNAC. An instance of this being attempted occurred in Stirlingshire so late as 1824. In that year the Rev. James Lapslie, minister of the parish of Campsie, died, and in 'The Parish of Campsie,' by John Cameron (Kirkintilloch, 1892), the proceedings of the creditor are stated thus: "On the day of the funeral the body was arrested at the mouth of the open grave, and further procedure barred by some legal process, until the arresting creditor had satisfaction given him for the payment of debt owing by the deceased. Sir Samuel Stirling, sixth baronet, became surety to the arresting creditor, and the body was then consigned to the grave. This incident greatly annoyed his friends."-P. 25. LARMER RUSHMORE (8th S. ix. 286).—A correction is needed. The meres here referred to are lakes or pools, not "boundaries." The A.-S. mere, a lake, has nothing to do with A.-S. gemare, a boundary; they are, of course, from different roots, as the old vowels show. See mere in Stratmann; and then see mær in the same. WALTER W. SKEAT. TRUE DATE OF THE FIRST EASTER (8th S. viii. 465; ix. 135, 175, 256, 309).—I regret the tone of the first part of MR. JONAS's letter at the last reference, because it seems to imply that I had boasted of the amount which I had written on the subject. Nothing could be further from my thoughts; I merely referred to my letters because it seemed to me that MR. JONAS had not read them, and I could not ask for space to repeat what I had said. In my earliest papers I took a different view; subsequent investigation compelled me to abandon it, and accept that of Greswell, Clinton, and other modern commentators, that St. Luke reckoned the years of the reign of Tiberius not from the death of Augustus in A.D. 14 (year of Rome 767), but from the associateship of the former in the principate, about three years before. (See my letter in 6th S. xii. 334.) Astronomy makes it impossible to accept B.C. 3 (year of Rome 751) as that of the birth of Christ. This preceded by some months the death of Herod the Great. Now Josephus tells us of an eclipse of the moon in that king's last illness, who died in the spring of the year, not long before the Passover. No such phenomenon took place in B.C. 3. One occurred, indeed, on 9 Jan., B.C. 1, and that bas been sometimes thought to have been the one in question; but it is far more likely it was the one of 13 March, B.C. 4, whence we may conclude that the Nativity was towards the end of B.C. 5 (year of Rome 749). This brings the by far most probable date of the Crucifixion to 7 April, and of the first Easter to 9 April, in the year A.D. 30 (year of Rome 783). MR. JONAS says that I have overlooked the fact that "the 1st of Nisan that year fell on Thursday evening, 23 March, and that therefore 5 April." Astronomy here again comes to our the 14th of Nisan began on Wednesday evening, aid. Calculation shows (see Dr. Grattan Guinness's 'Astronomic Tables,' for which the information was supplied at the Nautical Almanac Office) that 1 in A.D. 30 a new moon took place on 23 March at half-past nine in the morning by Jerusalem time. This could not have been visible until the evening of the next day, 24 March, which was, therefore, the 1st of Nisan. The 14th of that Jewish month (the day of the Paschal full moon) was 6 April, which was a Thursday, on the evening of which the Passover would be sacrificed. With Matt. xxvi. 17 before me, I cannot doubt that our Lord ate a real, and not an anticipatory, Passover with His disciples that evening, the first day of unleavened bread. The expressions in St. John's Gospel which speak of eating the Passover on the following evening may well apply to subsequent parts of the feast, which lasted in all eight days, whilst (as I said before) the expression in John xiii. 1 shows that the Lord and His disciples partook of the Paschal feast in the evening before the betrayal. It is difficult to see the relevance of much which MR. JONAS has written. Undoubtedly Julius Cæsar invaded Britain in the years B.C. 55 and 54, meaning not before the date of Christ's birth, but before that which was formerly erroneously believed to be such. Blackheath. W. T. LYNN. PLOT TO CAPTURE WILLIAM PENN (8th S. ix. 243, 313). The story of the plot to capture William Penn first appeared in this country more than twenty-five years ago. It has been contradicted over and over again, but it still reappears periodically in the newspapers. It is nothing less than a miserable forgery, intended to deceive the public, either for the purpose of putting its credulity to a test or of creating a prejudice against the early founders of New England. The name of Mr. Judkins is entirely unknown at this library; no such chest of old papers as is alleged to have been deposited in the archives of the society has ever been received; and no such person as the one said to have made the deposit is known to the members. At the date of the document Cotton Mather was only nineteen years old, which fact alone would be presumptive evidence that he was not connected with any such piratical scheme. Furthermore, I doubt whether the word "scampe" was in use at that period. An official contradiction of the whole story is found in the Proceedings (xi. 328) of this society for June, 1870. SAMUEL A. GREEN, Librarian. Massachusetts Historical Society, Boston. CRAMP RINGS (8th S. ix. 127, 253).-Your correspondent under the first reference says that these rings are still made and believed in, in some of the southern counties. I may mention, as a cognate subject, that during my residence in Salisbury, many years ago, a plumber had to do some repairs in my house. I noticed that he wore on the fingers of both hands a number of leaden rings, and on inquiring about them was informed that Highgate, N. AWOKE (8th S. ix. 265).—In the Noctes Ambro sianæ for December, 1828 (Wilson's' Noctes,' ii. 153), Tickler, after complaining that toothache, headache, earache, &c., have set upon him with combined force and individual virulence, at length finds comfort for his troubles in long and profound slumber. When ultimately roused by the animated dialogue of his companions, he gradually realizes his position, and wearily exclaims, I have awoke to all my 'aitches."" As Wilson has an easy command of fluent and idiomatic prose, this example of pp. awoke is noteworthy. THOMAS BAYNE. Helensburgh, N.B. SKULL IN PORTRAIT (8th S. ix. 109).-Having some modest experience of portraits by the older masters, in almost every gallery from Naples to St. Petersburg, I venture to think that the practice respecting which AYEAHR inquires was never common enough to be considered a custom, most of the skulls appearing not in portraits, but in devotional compositions. Among exceptions, however, I especially recall a fine three-quarter portrait of a gentleman in "solemn black," by the always interesting Lorenzo Letto, in the gallery of Prince Borghese. The subject presses his left side, as if mindful of recent suffering, with his left hand, while his right hand rests on a table whereon is a rose, full-blown, in the centre of which is placed a tiny skull, presumably signifying that death has nearly approached the personage represented in the fulness of life. The date of the picture may be 1530 or earlier, but it is unnamed. The picture of The Ambassadors,' in the National Gallery, by Holbein, may be considered to come under this heading; and one is perhaps tempted to conclude that the idea of introducing this grim accessory into portrait pictures may have originated north of the Alps, possibly with the great Nuremberg master Albertus Magnus the second. ST. CLAIR BADDELEY. BOOKING PLACES AT THEATRES, &c. (8th S. ix. 244).-I scarcely think MR. PEACOCK is justified in assuming as he does that the custom of booking places prior to the date of performance is an ancient one, from the quotation he gives from the reprint of Paris and Vienne.' Our ancestors were a robust race in 1485, and would submit to inconvenience, unendurable to our enervated civilization, whenever a public show was announced which seemed to them of sufficient interest to warrant the infliction. Forty-eight hours appears to us a long wait, but it was in no wise remarkable, many similar instances being on record. At the beginning of this century and later hundreds patiently waited from a Sunday afternoon and through the hours of the night in order to witness an Old Bailey execution on the Monday morning; and at the time of the Queen's Jubilee celebration the newspapers gave some remarkable instances of the trouble people gave themselves in order to obtain early possession of some coign of vantage on the route the procession was to take. F. A. RUSSELL. "FANTIGUE" (8th S. viii. 326; ix. 36, 90, 254). I doubt whether this word is the same as fantod, the latter being, to my knowledge, used in quite a different sense from the other in the Midland Counties, where both are current. The word fantod (which is, however, not very common) indicates a weakness, possibly nervous in its origin, akin to one of those discussed by Montaigne in the essay De la Force de l'Imagination' (livre i. chap. xx.)—a weakness, I may add, to which one of Elizabeth's courtiers is said to have owed a long self-banishment from England. C. C. B. THE WYCH ELM (8th S. ix. 288).-The superstitions attaching to this tree lend some colour to Prof. Max Müller's theory that mythology originates in a “disease of language.' The word wych has really no reference to witches, but comes from the A.-S. wice, and means bending or drooping. See Skeat's 'Dictionary.' It is, however, probably partly due to its association with the hazel in the sacred groves of the Saxons that the elm has come to be regarded as a preventive of witchcraft; and it is noteworthy that Gerard classes the witch hazel among elms, or rather that he calls the broadleaved elm witch hazel. In this neighbourhood "the witch" is kept out of the churn by sprinkling salt first in the churn, then in the fire. Epworth. C. C. B. It were a pity that such a misleading note as PROF. TOMLINSON's should go without remonstrance. Wych " "elm contains not the remotest reference to witchcraft, but, as explained by Prof. Skeat, the Anglo-Saxon wice was the name of a tree, a derivative of wican, to bend. I cannot, however, endorse the further suggestion that this meant the weeping" or "drooping" tree. That is not the DATED BRICKS (8th S. ix. 267).—Ancient Roman bricks were dated. Mr. St. John Tyrrwhitt, in 'Greek and Gothic Progress and Decay in the Three Arts of Architecture, Sculpture, and Painting' (1881), says, p. 249 : "Roman bricks are often historical documents, on which dates and questions on other issues may depend. mark of its maker, down to the time of Justinian, at Every tetradoron, or pentadoron, had its date and the earliest. The monogram of our Lord is often found on bricks used in church building; for secular architecture, the names of the consuls or emperors were used. We have seen how this settles a really interesting question of date in the Catacombs. A German scholar, Mr. P. E. Weiner, has traced the twenty-second legion in its movements through a great part of Germany by the bricks which bear its name; and Roman bricks have been found among the Silures, our friends of Shropshire, and the Welsh marches, with the inscription, LEG. II. AVG., stamped upon them." I quote at second-hand through the Antiquary for November, 1881, p. 200. G. L. APPERSON. 331).-In my reply at the last reference, I gave THE WHITE Boar as a Badge (8th S. ix. 267, tusks and bristles or. the supporters of Richard III. as two boars ar., This I did on the authority of Burke, Ulster King of Arms (see Burke's 'General Armory,' in that part of it entitled 'The Royal Armory'), supposing that he could hardly be mistaken on such a subject as this. I now find that in another part of the same work, in an article on "Supporters," Burke, on the authority of an heraldic document, compiled by Cooke, Clarenceux, in 1572, in which the various supporters borne by the sovereigns of England from Edward III. to Elizabeth are indicated, eets down the supporters of Richard III. as a lion and |