of the sad event, and enlarging upon the raging fury and agonising screams of the little boy, which, she said, at length compelled the doctors to order him to be suffocated between two feather beds. Whether the strenuous denial of all this nonsense by the writer was believed, may, perhaps, be doubtful.

The notice taken in the "N. & Q." of these cases has induced the writer to make some recent

inquiries at Kensington about this case. After an interval of forty-seven years, few persons comparatively remember anything about it; but one gentleman remembers that his father was the principal medical attendant, and he recollects distinctly the being told, when he went to school a few years afterwards, that the child had been suffocated between feather beds, a story which all his schoolfellows appeared to believe. He has also ascertained that at one time the belief in the suffocation was extensive among the lower classes at Kensington. At present the case is rarely spoken of, but there is reason to fear that this marvellous story is not altogether abandoned.

S. M.

I have repeatedly heard the late John Dunkin, author of the Histories of Oxfordshire, Dartford, &c., relate that he knew of more than two hydrophobic patients in Oxfordshire being smothered. My own godfather, towards the close of the last century, after being bitten by a mad (or supposed to be mad) dog, was sent from Kensington, Middlesex, to a place in Surrey to be dipped, because a professed dipper resided there: although I have often heard the name of this then celebrated locality, I am unable to remember it at the present moment. The dippings, I believe, required to be performed thrice. If the dog was mad the cure was perfect, for the patient, a Mr. Foster, lived many a long year afterwards.

ALFRED.

In proof of the fact, that the practice of smothering hydrophobic patients was certainly carried on within living memory, I may cite the experience of a clergyman, a friend of mine. A good many years ago he was conversing with one of his parishioners who had survived two or three husbands, and having occasion to mention the particulars of their deaths, she said, "My first died in such and such a manner, and my second we smothered!" My friend was a little startled at so quiet an avowal of murder; but it appeared, on examination, that he had been seized with hydrophobia, and his widow evidently considered that he had met with the regular treatment for that malady. H. W.

EIKON BASILIKE.

(Vol. vi., p. 361.)

Perhaps it may assist the inquiries of MR. TAYLOR if I send some particulars of an edition of the "Eikon Basilike" which is in my possession. It forms part of a duodecimo volume, entitled Reliquiæ Sacræ Caroline, which contains, also, many of the king's letters, his papers on church government, an account of his trial and execution, with several elegies, one of which is that by Montrose, which is in MS. in MR. TAYLOR'S copy. It is dated 1648, and professes to have been printed abroad- Hague, printed by Sam. Browne;" yet there can be no doubt, I conceive, that it proceeded from an English press. The object of the work itself, and various expressions in it, will sufficiently account for the pretence of its being printed "beyond the seas," where "Sam. Browne" would be out of the reach of the speaker's warrant. In the "Eikon" is a print of Prince Charles, with the inscription "Natus Maij 29, Ano 1630, ætatis suæ 19." The Greek line is not in the title-page, but at the foot of a page which faces an emblematical engraving, and contains some Latin and English verses explanatory of the emblems. In my copy the Greek is incorrectly printed, having eduкnoe. This line MR. TAYLOR terms "the disputed motto," but I am unhappily so ignorant of the controversy, "Who wrote, &c. ?" that I do not know why the line is disputed, nor who are meant by the x and the . The emblematical engraving itself, I imagine, is well known, and it would seem was in those days very popular with the royal party. There is a large painting, precisely similar (if I recollect aright) in St. Martin's Church, Leicester, which is thus mentioned by Mr. Thompson in his Handbook of that interesting old town:

"Over the site of the altar, a picture of Charles I., the work of an artist named Rowley, has long been placed; it was painted in 1686."

The engraving and the painting it would seem, then, were copies from some common original, as the print is not later, I judge, than the date of the book, viz. 1648. What and where is the original? S. S. S.

TRAFALGAR.

(Vol. vi., p. 362.)

W. T. M. is assured that Trafalgár, with the accent on the last syllable, is the right pronunciation. I know this from the lips of my deceased connexion, the Rev. Dr. Scott, who was a learned linguist, and the chaplain and friend of Lord Nelson, who died in his arms. Dr. Scott met Mr. Canning at dinner at Fife House, and was mysteriously informed by that statesman, that he was about to publish a poem on the great naval victory, some lines of

which he repeated on approbation. Dr. Scott at once found fault with the accent being thrown on the middle syllable of Trafalgar. Mr. Canning defended this, by citing the example of Gibraltar: but Dr. Scott informed him that even this was wrong; and gave the right pronunciation, Gibral-tár, with the most delicate precision.

At Vol. vi., p. 333. the Rev. John Scott is named. This ought to have been, the Rev. Alexander John Scott. John Scott, Esq., was public secretary to Lord Nelson, and was killed, being nearly cut in two by a cannon-shot, at the beginning of the action. He was no relation to his namesake, the chaplain and foreign confidential secretary. Both men were highly esteemed by the commander-in-chief: and such was his power over the affections of those who were about him, that during the five-and-thirty years that Dr. Scott survived, he was weak as a woman at any mention of the death of Nelson. ALFRED GATTY.

Oct. 21., Anniversary of Trafalgár.

prejudicial to English interests. In his reply the king said "that he had been ill served in Scotland; but he hoped some remedies might be found to prevent the inconveniences which might arise from this act." This reply was disingenuous, for it may almost be said that the Scotch parliament had passed the act at the instigation of the king. On the 10th of May, at the opening of the Scotch parliament, the Marquis of Tweedale, his majesty's high commissioner, declared

"That if they found it would tend to the advancement of trade, that an act be passed for the advancement of trade; that an act be passed for the encouragement of such as should acquire and establish a plantation in Africa or America, or any other part of the world, where plantations might be lawfully acquired, his Majesty being willing to declare that he would grant to the subjects of this kingdom, in favour of these plantations, such rights and privileges as he granted in like cases to the subjects of his other dominions."

After this, it was a little too bad to say, that he had been "ill served in Scotland;" but perhaps

""Twas on a Grecian autumn's gentle eve
Childe Harold hail'd Leucadia's cape afar,
A spot he long'd to see, nor cared to leave:
Oft did he mark the scenes of vanish'd war,
Actium, Lepanto, fatal Trafalgár."

Childe Harold, Canto II. St. 40.
"The oak leviathans, whose huge ribs make
Their clay creator the vain title take
Of lord of thee, and arbiter of war;
These are thy toys, and, as the snowy flake,
They melt into thy yeast of waves, which mar
Alike the Armada's pride, or spoils of Trafalgár."
Childe Harold, Canto IV. St. 181.

"Nelson was once Britannia's god of war, And still should be so, but the tide is turn'd; There's no more to be said of Trafalgár, 'Tis with our hero quietly inurn'd, Because the army's grown more popular, At which the naval people are concern'd." Don Juan, Canto I. St. 4.

It must be confessed that, in common parlance, the accent is almost uniformly on the penultimate syllable. I doubt not, however, that Scott and Byron are right, and the populace wrong. Cambridge.

C. H. COOPER.

SCOTCH EAST INDIA COMPANY.

(Vol. vi., p. 342.)

This company was established by an act of the Scotch parliament in 1695. Towards the end of the same year the matter attracted the notice of the English parliament, and on the 17th of December the House of Commons, in an address to the king, complained of the Scotch Company as

statecraft in the difficulties of William's position, and the then temper of the House of Commons. On the 26th of the following January the House of Commons resolved that the directors of the Scotch Company were guilty of a high crime and misdemeanour, and ordered them to be impeached. An incident occurred, in connexion with this business, which is worth noting as indicative of the feeling of the House towards the king. In committee several resolutions had been passed, and amongst others one recommending that certain commissioners of trade, proposed to be appointed, should take an oath acknowledging King William as the rightful and lawful king of the realm; that the late King James had no right or title thereunto; and that no other person had any right or title to the crown otherwise than according to the Act of Settlement, &c. When these resolutions were reported to the House, his majesty's "dutiful commons," after a warm debate, rejected some of them, and, in particular, that recognising William as the lawful sovereign!

The Scotch Company occasioned King William further trouble in 1700, as appears from the parliamentary history. The Marchmont Papers, edited by Sir George Rose, also contain some letters on the subject, written at this time to King William, by Patrick Earl of Marchmont.

BARLOW FAMILY.

(Vol. vi., pp. 147. 392.)

C. Ross.

I cannot think that your correspondent MR. GEORGE BARLOW (p. 392.) can have any good reason for supposing himself to descend from Thomas Barlow of Sheffield, to whom arms were granted in

1691: and most certainly Mr. Thomas Barlow was not identical with the Mr. Barlow (p. 147.) who in 1676 invented repeating clocks.

The Thomas Barlow of Sheffield was born in 1666 he succeeded to the principal part of the property of his uncle Francis Barlow in 1690. He married in 1691, the year in which he had the grant of arms. His wife died in 1694, and has a handsome monument in the church of Eckington, in Derbyshire; Renishaw, in that parish, being for a time his place of residence. He finally settled at Middle Thorpe, near York, where he built for himself a house after the model of villas which he had seen abroad; and died in France in 1713, while travelling with his son.

His issue was one son and one daughter. The daughter was baptized at Sheffield, July 20, 1692, and buried there January 28, 1693. The baptism of the son I have not found, but it seems probable Francis, and as Francis Barlow, of Middle Thorpe, Esq., he served the office of high sheriff of the county of York in 1735. His will was made December 13, 1769.

that he was born at Renishaw. His name was

There is no reason that I know of to suppose that Thomas Barlow had any other son.

There is a monument in the chancel of the parish church of Sheffield for Francis Barlow, the uncle of Thomas; and in the Table of Benefactors his name appears as the founder of an annual dole, which I believe the poor of the place still enjoy.

The father of Thomas Barlow was named Samuel, and Samuel and Francis were sons of Humphrey Barlow of Sheffield, ironmonger, by Dorothy his wife, daughter of Gregory and Cassandra Sylvester, of Mansfield. JOSEPH HUNTer.

Edward Barlow, whose real name was Booth, was born near Warrington, and ordained in the English College at Lisbon. He took the name of Barlow from his godfather, Ambrose Barlow, a Benedictine, who suffered at Lancaster for his religion.

"He has often," says Dodd, " told me that at his first perusing of Euclid, that author was as easy to him as a newspaper. His name and fame are perpetuated for being the inventor of the pendulum watches; but according to the usual fate of most projectors, while others were great gainers by his ingenuity, Mr. Barlow had never been considered on that occasion, had not Mr. Thompson (accidentally becoming acquainted with the inventor's name) made him a present of 2001. He published a treatise on the origin of springs, wind, and the flux and reflux of the sea, 8vo. 1714, and died about two years afterwards, nearly eighty-one years of age."-Dodd's Church Hist., iii. 380.

Ambrose Barlow was one of the Manchester Barlows, born about 1585, and executed at Lancaster about Sept. 10, 1640. His original name was Edward Barlow, but he changed his Christian

The principle involved in the optical phenomenon, respecting which your correspondent C. MANSFIELD INGLEBY desires an explanation, though probably known to Babtista Porta as being exactly the same as that of the camera obscura invented by him in 1560, and described in his Magia Naturalis, was first satisfactorily explained by Maurolycas in his Theoremata de Lumine et Umbrâ, 1575:

"In his work," says Professor Baden Powell (History of Natural Philosophy, p. 127.), "he gives an explanation of the fact noticed by Aristotle, that the light of the sun passing through a small hole, of whatever shape, always gives a circular illuminated space on a screen at a little distance. The from the different rays parts of the sun's disk cross at the aperture (which we will suppose to be, for example, triangular), and each ray gives a small triangular bright spot on the screen; these being partially superposed, but arranged in the form of the sun's disk, will give an image sensibly circular; and the more accurately so as the hole is smaller, or the screen more distant."

In that section of his History of the Inductive Sciences which Mr. Whewell has devoted to an investigation of the "cause of the failure of the Greek school philosophy," he has made use of the speculations of Aristotle upon this question, as an illustration of the conclusion, that "the radical and fatal defect in the physical speculations of the Greek philosophical schools, was, that though they possessed facts and ideas, the ideas were not distinct and appropriate to the facts." Mr. Whewell proceeds:

"One of the facts which Aristotle endeavours to explain is this: that when the sun's light passes through a hole, whatever be the form of the hole, the bright image, if formed at any considerable distance from the hole, is round, instead of imitating the figure of the hole, as shadows resemble their objects. We shall easily perceive this appearance to be a necessary consequence of the circular figure of the sun, if we conceive light to be diffused from the luminary by means of straight rays proceeding from every point. But instead of this appropriate idea of rays, Aristotle attempts to explain the fact by saying that the sun's light has a circular nature, which it always tends to manifest: and this vague and loose conception of a circular quality employed, instead of the distinct conception of rays, which is really applicable, prevented Aristotle from

giving a true account even of this very simple optical phenomenon."

Now, with the utmost deference to the Savilian professor, and the equally learned and elegant Whewell, I presume to add a few remarks to their as it appears to me incomplete and unsatisfactory explanation. Both these gentlemen, indeed, while assigning a correct cause to the phenomenon, still seem to cling, in words at least, to the Aristotelian idea of the circular nature and tendency of the sun's light. They could not, in fact, be unaware that the bright images are not invariably round, but that, being produced by a luminous body, the rays from which proceed in straight lines, in all directions, and from every point, and which, moreover, cross one another beyond the apertures, they must necessarily resolve themselves into a more or less exact (according to the distance, size of aperture, &c.) and inverted representation of the luminous body itself. Thus, if the rays of the sun during a state of partial eclipse be allowed to pass through variously shaped apertures, the images are of a crescent form, like that part of the sun remaining visible. If the sun's light, however, be transmitted through a circular hole before being allowed to pass through the apertures, the images cease to represent the sun's visible form, and become representations of the apertures themselves. The general principle may be easily brought to the test of experiment, by cutting a small square aperture in a piece of paper, and placing a lighted taper behind it, so as to throw the shadow of the paper upon the wall of a room. At a certain relative distance of these objects, it will be found that the luminous spot in the shadow of the paper ceases to be square, and assumes the form of an inverted cone, which is in fact the image of the flame of the candle, as may easily be seen by blowing the latter, when a corresponding flickering will be perceived in the bright image.

I had intended to make some remarks upon the other optical phenomenon which has puzzled your correspondent, but must now defer them to a future opportunity. WILLIAM BATES. Birmingham.

SCANDINAVIAN SKULL-CUPS.

(Vol. iv., pp. 161. 231.)

I should be glad to be permitted again to revert to this subject. It involves a question of some importance, in a literary and ethological point of view; and is of especial interest to all those who, being conscious of a certain sensation of pride in persuading themselves that they come of the old northern stock, whether Anglo-Saxon or AngloDanish, would fain have their far-off Scandinavian progenitors appear on the page of history with no

one

other stigma upon their names than such as may attach to them by evidence of the most undeniable character. With this feeling, however, your correspondents W. B. R. and GEORGE MÉTIVIER have no sympathy. The latter, indeed, is quite angry with Mr. J. A. Blackwell, with " Magnusen" (we shall next hear of one Dr. Johnson, of one Prof. Porson, of one Niebuhr), and with "certain ironical dilettante of Cockneyland" whom he does not otherwise specify, for daring to controvert the assertion of Ole Worm, that the Northmen were wont to use the skulls of their enemies as drinking-cups. Whether or no such a practice prevailed elsewhere, is not the subject of disputation. I therefore pass over the long array of authorities and examples adduced by your correspondents in reference to other countries, and proceed to notice only the direct testimony upon which this "railing accusation" against the former inhabitants of Scandinavia is attempted to be founded. This testimony is comprised in a single couplet of the 25th stanza of the "Krákumál, er sumir kalla Lodbrókarkviðu :" a wild rhapsodical Skaldic lay, full of periphrasis, distorted metaphor, actions and death of the celebrated sea-king Ragand exaggerated expression; setting forth the nar Lodbrok, and presented to us as the composition of the hero himself: "verum non ipse, sed Bragius, Boddii filius, verus est carminis autor" (Thorlacius, Antiq. Boreal., sp. vii. p. 70.). Amid the horrors of his Northumbrian dungeon, the expiring chieftain is represented as exulting in the encouraging reflection, that he will soon participate in the joys of Valhalla, when

"Drekkum bjor at bragði

Or bjúgvidum hausa.' The question is, how are these words, or, rather the compound expression "bjúgvidum," to be interpreted? Ole Worm (Dan. Literat. Antiq.: Hafn. 1636) translates the entire passage: "Bibemus cerevisiam brevi ex concavis crateribus craniorum," or, as Bartholin (Antiq. Dan., 1689) renders the latter portion of it, 66 ex concavis craniorum poculis." Southey adopts the same reading: and James Johnstone (1782), with what Mrs. Malaprop would call " a judicious use of epitaphs," Englishes the couplet :

"Soon from the foe's capacious skull

We'll drain the amber beverage."

This is the traditionary account of the matter, without a doubt: or, rather, it is the interpretation first given by Ole Worm; sanctioned by Bartholin; to a certain extent supported by the laborious Dr. Grimm, in his Geschichte der Deutschen Sprache; and by other writers taken up and adopted. But is it the correct one? Is it not rather one of those long-received errors, upheld to support the tottering base of some favourite theory, which it is the peculiar province of "N. & Q."

--

to unmask and expose? A very brief inquiry suffices in reply to these queries. Setting preconception and prejudice aside, let us turn to our dictionaries, and discover what the terms in dispute, i. e. "Or bjúgvidum hausa," literally signify. Do they mean, "out of the skulls of our enemies," or out of the hollow skulls" at all, whether of man or beast? I would be equally positive with W. B. R. and GEORGE MÉTIVIER, and say that such is not their meaning. Hauss (Haus), indeed, is correctly rendered by caput, cranium; and bjug (bjugr), in bjúgviðum, is curvus, a beýgia, curvare, flectere; but what is vidum? Why vidr, in every Glossary and Lexicon I have had the opportunity of consulting, and I only wish the Old Norse Dictionary of the late (eheu!) most accomplished Icelandic scholar and linguist, Dr. Egilsson, were published to confirm the interpretation,-is arbor, sylva. And, to reduce poetical to common language, what are the arbores or sylvæ of an animal's cranium, but its branches or horns? The true meaning of the passage, then, divested of all "figures of speech," is: "Quickly will we drink beer out of the curved branches, or horns, of the skulls;" haply, of the elephant or buffalo: i. e. out of some such a drinking vessel as resisted all the attempts of god Thór to empty in the hall of Utgard Loki, for a description of which I must refer your correspondents to the Edda Snorra Sturlosonar - such a horn as that of Ulphus, in York Minster; or as that of Queen's College, Oxford; or as "The Giant Horn of Oldenburgh," preserved in the Castle of Rosenborg, a horn, in fact, of the form of that delineated at p. 61. of Lord Ellesmere's Guide to Northern Archæology. This, I repeat, is the meaning of the passage; and, accordingly, John Olafsen (Essai sur la Musique ancienne et moderne, tom. ii.: à Paris, 1780) renders the terms in dispute, "dans de cornes recourbées ;" Carl Christian Rafn, in his edition of the "Krákumál" (Copenh., 1826, pp. 36. 51.), ex curvis arboribus (cornibus) craniorum," or, "dans des branches recourbé es de crânes ;" and Augustin Thierry (Conquest of England by the Normans, Eng. edit. p. 22.), "in our overflowing cups of horn.' But if, unsatisfied with what is here advanced — and there are several other editions and translations of this "epicedium" which I have not the means of consulting - your correspondents still cling to their "fond tradition," then let them join the ranks of those " consecutive (?) and methodical readers," the contemplation of whose diminishing numbers calls forth from GEORGE MÉTIVIER "the passing tribute of a sigh;" and they will find, in the examination of that valuable series of ancient northern literary productions which have been published "studio et operâ" of such renowned critics, linguists, and scholars as those who form the "Arni-Magnæan Commission," and the "Royal Society of Northern Anti

66

quaries," that in this, as in other instances, even such men as Ole Worm and Thomas Bartholin are occasionally liable to that fallibility of judg ment, from which the most exalted geniuses are not wholly exempt. COWGILL

P. S.-The extract (Vol. iv., p. 161.) from the Völundar-goida (s. xxii.), in illustration of the term "Skalár," if it prove anything to the purpose, proves too much; for if, amongst the ancient Scandinavians, it was the usage to turn men's skulls into drinking-vessels, so was it their custom (s. xxiii.) to form pearls (Jarkna steinar) of children's eyes, and brooches (Brióst kringlur) of their another Norse myth, the apocryphal "Gunnars teeth. This term "Skál " (crater) occurs also in slagr" (s. xviii.), and as its meaning in this place, without a question, coincides with the conclusions

of

to give them the benefit of it. The entire passage your correspondents, I am happy in being able

is as follows, which, perhaps, it is better to adduce in the translation of one G. F. Thorkelin, than in the original Icelandic :

I have been much interested in reading DR. DIAMOND's valuable communications on photography. A considerable part of my first experiments in the calotype process has been with Le Gray's waxed paper process. I confess, although I was determined to give it a fair trial, I have not yet been able to produce one negative that will give a positive. There are other three amateurs in this locality who have also failed with the waxed paper and Le Gray's formula of sensitive solution. I shall feel much obliged if any of your correspondents, who may have succeeded in getting good pictures or negatives by Le Gray's process, or even a modification of it, if they would inform me, through the medium of your valuable journal, their mode of operating.

With respect to the method of taking views in the open air by a peculiar arrangement of the camera, I believe it to be rather a complicated affair. I would prefer a small tent, which might be so made as not to exceed much the weight of a large umbrella. The form of the tent, similar to the roof of a house; the ridge or top to be made of a piece of wood three feet long and ten inches broad. At one end a piece of yellow glass could be inserted, and at the other end a piece of wood to carry the lens. Between the yellow glass and the lens end there might be two brass rods, for a