"There did come to me, whom I did both see and hear, one Isabel Malt, a woman dwelling in Aldersgate Street, in Horn Alley, who before witness made this declaration unto us: That she being delivered of a man-child upon Whitsunday in the morning, which was the 11th day of June, 1555, there came to her the Lord North, and another Lord, to her unknown, dwelling then about Old Fish-street, demanding of her if she would part with her child, and would swear that she never knew nor had any such child. Which, if she would, her son, they said,. should be well provided for, she should take no care for it; with many fair offers if she would part with the child.

"After that came some women also, of whom one they said should have been the rocker; but she in no wise would let go her son, who at the writing hereof being alive, and called Timothy Malt, was of the age of 13 years and upward."

I shall be glad to know whether any credence should be given to this testimony; and whether any documents exist which would tend to throw light upon this matter.

THRELKELD.

Dean Wotton, temp. Henry VIII.-In Wordsworth's Ecclesiastical Biography (vol. iv.), when speaking of Dean Nicholas Wotton, he states as a singular fact that so few of the Dean's letters and papers should be known to exist, considering the numerous and important negotiations in which he was engaged, but states that

"Two very curious volumes of historical and genealogical collections, in the handwriting of the dean, are preserved in the British Museum, and the late Sir George Nayler possessed a similar volume.* These volumes

[The editor of the fourth edition of Wordsworth's Eccles. Biography, the late Mr. John Holmes of the British Museum, states that the volume, formerly in the possession of Sir George Nayler, is now (1852) in the library of Sir Thomas Phillipps, Bart. - ED.]

sufficiently attest the writer's great knowledge and research."

Can any of your readers enable me to discover these books? The first two named I have in vain searched for in the British Museum, but I pre-sume they must be there. W. (Bombay). London.

"Entitled" or "Intituled." Are we quite right in speaking of a work as being entitled soand-so, e.g. The Paradise Lost? Should we not (as I believe is the case in acts of parliament) say intituled? And again, in asserting ownership, instead of saying, "he is entitled to an estate," would it not be more correct to say intituled, i. e. in him is vested the title, titulus, to it? Y. B. N. J.

Capt. R. Browne of Gually's Dragoons. — In the Army List of 1810, under the heading of "List of the Officers of the Land Forces and of the Royal Marines on Half-Pay," p. 501., I find the first name entered to be that of Capt. Robert Browne, who is described as 66 en second" of Gually's Dragoons, disbanded in 1712-13. There is a similar entry in the Army List of 1809; and in those of 1811 up to 1815, this same Captain Browne figures as being still on half-pay. From these entries it would seem that after becoming a captain, the gallant officer enjoyed half-pay for 104 years! Can any of your correspondents give information regarding either Gually's Dragoons, or this Nestor of half-pays?

W.

Symbols of Saints. I have an old painting which represents the half-length figure of a female, vested in a dark cloak, drawn over the head like a hood, with the edge of a plain cap showing below, and a crown of thorns wreathed outside it. The neck is swathed in white linen. The hands are pressed on the breast, and the right holds a crucifix; the cross blossoming out on either side in flowers resembling lilies, and its top shooting up into a stem of flowers, amongst which a paper bearing J. N. R. (probably Jesus noster Redemptor) is seen. The features appear deeply clouded with grief, and the eyes are intent upon an open book supported by a scull. I shall be obliged if some correspondent should be able from the above description to inform me what saint in the Kalendar is intended. Y. B. N. J.

Mental Condition of the Starving. References are requested to accounts (particularly if they de scribe the mental condition) of persons who have experienced long-continued deprivation of food, either during travel or after shipwreck, or who by any accident have been separated from their fellows. SCOTT OF S-.

Sarah Isdell.-Can any of your Irish readers give me any information regarding Sarah Isdell,

author of The Irish Recluse, or a Breakfast at the Rotunda, a novel in three volumes, London, 1809; The Vale of Louisiana, published in or about 1808; The Poor Gentlewoman, a comedy, acted at Dublin in 1811; The Cavern, or the Outlaw, an opera, acted at Dublin in 1825, the music by Sir John Stevenson? Miss Isdell is said to have been a near relative of Oliver Goldsmith. R. J.

Showers of Wheat.-I have lately met with two notices of showers of wheat. What is the real nature of this phenomenon?

The first notice occurs in Oldys' Catalogue of Pamphlets in the Harleian Library. (Harl. Miscell., vol. x. p. 359., 4to., 1813):

"A wonderful and straunge newes which happened in the countye of Suffolke and Essex, the first of February being Friday, when it rained wheat the space of vi or vii miles compas; a notable example to put us in remembraunce of the judgments of God, and a preparative sent to move us to a speedy repentance. Written by Stephen Averell, student in divinitie. Imprinted at London for Edward White, 1583." [Octavo, in 14 leaves black letter.]

Peter Newby.-Can any of readers furnish your me with any information regarding Peter Newby, author of Poems, two volumes 8vo., printed for the author by H. Hodgson and W. Nevett & Son, Liverpool, 1790? The author (of whom there is a portrait in the first volume by T. Barrow) dates his preface, Haighton, Aug. 1790. Among the poems in the first volume, there is "A Poetical Epistle to his much respected uncle, Mr. John Carter." The second volume contains the following dramas: "Seduction," a tragedy; Shepherd of Cornwall," a dramatic poem'; Force of Friendship,” a dramatic tale.

"The

"The

R. J.

Thorolds.-Is there any authority for the deSheriff of Lincolnshire, or his sister the Lady Godiva, as intimated by Burke? I am inclined to disbelieve the story. J. P. P.

The second notice is in Thoresby's Diary (vol. i. 86.):

"1681. June 11. Walked with Dutch cousin to Woodhouse hill; where, in cousin Fenton's chamber, I gathered some of the corn that was rained down the chimney the Lord's day seven-night, when it likewise rained plentifully of the like upon Hedingley moor, as was confidently reported: but those I gathered from the white hearth, which was stained with drops of blue where it had fallen, for it is of a pale red or a kind of sky colour, is pretty, and tastes like common wheat, of which I have 100 corns."

Minor Queries with Answers.

doubt that the coffin taken to Westminster AbIreton's Burial Place. Is there any reasonable bey, and said to contain the body of Ireton, really did contain it? I remember, when a boy, to have gone with a party to see a small stone in the church of Great Yarmouth, in Norfolk, said to be the burial-place of some distinguished general, I think Ireton. Is there anything certainly known on this subject?

G. L.

[We have the following testimony of Evelyn, Pepys, and Rugge to the burial of Ireton in Westminster Abbey, as well as to the subsequent exhumation of his corpse: - Evelyn says, "March 6, 1653, Saw the magnificent funeral of that arch-rebel, Ireton, carried in pomp from Somerset House to Westminster, accompanied with divers regiments of soldiers." Again, "Jan. 30, 1661. This day were the carcases of those arch-rebels, Cromwell, Bradshaw, and Ireton, dragged out of their superb tombs in Westminster among the kings to Tyburn, and hanged on the gallows there from nine in the morning till six at night, and then buried under that fatal and ignominious monument in a deep pit, thousands of people who had seen them in all their pride being spectators." Pepys has the following entry under Jan. 30, 1661: "To my Lady Batten's, where my wife and she are lately come back again from being abroad, and seeing of Cromwell, Ireton, and Bradshaw hanged and buried at Tyburn." Rugge's account is more circumstantial. He says, "Jan. 30. This morning the carcases of Cromwell, Ireton, and Bradshaw (which the day before had been brought from the Red Lion Inn in Holborn), were drawn upon a sledge to Tyburn, and then taken out of their

Ordinary of Newgate. Why is the clergyman charged with the duty of the metropolitan prison styled the ordinary, and not chaplain? Is it a mere difference of title, or does it infer any difference of position? Y. B. N. J.

[We take the title Ordinary, as connected with Newgate, to signify common, usual, like an ambassador, envoy, or physician in ordinary. Hence formerly there was an Ordinary of Assizes and Sessions, who was a deputy of the bishop of the diocese, appointed to give malefactors their neck-verse, (Miserere mei, Deus,) and judge whether they could read or not; to perform Divine service for them, and assist in preparing them for death.] Works on Glass Manufacture. - What works are most suitable for the acquisition of a thorough knowledge of the manufacture of glass? J. R. S. [There is a popular modern treatise by G. R. Porter, published in Lardner's Cabinet Cyclopædia, entitled, "A Treatise on the Origin, Progressive Improvement, and Present State of the Manufacture of Porcelain and Glass," 1832. Consult also Apsley Pellatt's Curiosities of GlassMaking, sm. 4to., 1849.]

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Replies.

MORTUARIES.

(2nd S. ii. 172. 279.)

I have taken some interest in reading the replies elicited under this head to the Queries of your correspondents, as they reminded me of an inquiry which I once prosecuted with the view of obtaining some information from mortuary tax registers if such were extant - but this I could not discover to be the case. I was certainly under the impression that the statute concerning the taking of mortuaries, or demanding, receiving, or claiming the same (21 Hen. VIII. c. 6.), had fallen into complete disuse. It appears, however, from the answers of your correspondents, that such is not the case, and that our clergy in some places amerce the public in this tax.

The statute is so far shaped in the fashion of popery, that its Section V. legalises bequests to high altars of churches.

It is not in accordance with uniform justice, as it perpetuates discrepancy of custom in various parishes.

Its scale of

The law of assessment of the impost is quite unsuited to the present age. Will any ingenious correspondent tell us how, for example, modern wayfarers are to be taxed under Section IV. of the statute, which sets forth:

"For no woman being covert baron, nor child, nor for any person not keeping house, nor for any wayfaring man not dwelling nor making residence in the place where he happens to die [shall any mortuary be given or demanded except at the rate above referred to], but the mortuary of such wayfaring person shall be answerable at the rate in Section III., in the place where they have most habitation, and no where else."

I have seen a statement that an act of parliament, 12 Queen Anne, abolishes mortuaries in some places which were excepted from the statute of Henry VIII.; but a clean sweep of all mortuaries would appear to be desirable. Legislation stantial advance since the time when John Young, on mortuaries really seems to have made no subor Yonge, addressed Queen Elizabeth (New Year's Day, 1558, vide my notice of his treatise on Banking in "N. & Q.," 1st S. xi. 224.). He remarks at the commencement of his treatise:

"There was a custome not longe tyme passed used in England, that whosoever died, should paye to his parson or curate, the best of his quicke cattell, and in default of quicke cattell, ye best of his moveable goodes. And this was called a Mortuarie, and was paied by all sortes of people bothe poore and riche. Which payemēt first begyning of devocōn, and after by tyme turned into custome, was so extremely exacted by the Clergie upon the poore, that youre moste prudent Father kynge henry the eight moved with pitie made an Acte of parliament, to abolishe and take awaie that kynde of exaction. And suerly not without cause, for it happened many tymes that a poore householder, whiche had but one cowe, for the sustenaunce of him and his nedie famylie, was enforced to give that cowe for his Mortuarie to the sterving of his poor Widowe and children left behynde. Some of late were of opynyon to have the same custome revived, but so was not I, who nevertheless can well agree instede of the same, to have another kynde of Mortuarie set up. A mortuarie I meane not for the fedynge of suche as be fatt ynoughe alredie, but a Mortuarie for common necessitie, and of all as well poor as riche bothe of ye Clergie as Laytie. A mortuarie I saie not of exaction but of devocion, not of extremitie, but of charitie, not geven to preestes perticulerly, but to all the people univsally," &c. &c.

I take the present opportunity to thank your correspondents MR. GEORGE ROBERTS of Lyme Regis, and MR. J. SANSOM, for their Replies to my Queries as to John Yonge (vide "N. & Q.," 1st S. xi. 330, 331.). It is very likely he was the Devonshire man they take him for.

FREDERICK HENDRIKS.

MEANING OF LECKERSTONE.

(2nd S. ii. 247.)

There is scarcely a doubt that this word has the same derivatives as Lichfield, lich-gate, &c., i.e. from

Ang.-Sax. lich, dead; and that the tradition which assigns the stone as a resting-place for the coffin may be correct; or that the stones actually mark graves. Such rude stone memorials are common enough. In Welsh they are called llech, i.e. any flat stone, tablet; as at Trelech, near Monmouth, where there are three erect stones called Harold's Grave. Or another derivation may be given from Celtic, llech, llechen, a stone, and Saxon stan, a stone such tautological etymologies not being uncommon, as Llech-vaen, near Brecknock, from llech and maen, i.e. stony-stone. Also a stone nine feet high in Anglesey, called Maen Llechgwenvarwydd, i. e. the stone of the stone of St. Cyn

varwy.

Licker Inch was probably an island used for funereal purposes, like St. Coln's Inch or Iona. EDEN WARWICK.

Birmingham.

P. C. observes that the Leckerstones near Dunfermline are said to have been used as restingplaces for the coffins at funerals. May not leckerstone, then, be simply Leichstein, the body-stone? The Gothic leik, the Anglo-Saxon lic, the Swedish lik, the German leiche and leich-nam, all signify a body-the human body made like or in the image of the Creator. Leichstein is commonly used for grave-stone or monument, cippus; but cippus also signified a stone for a mark, set up as the boulder leckerstones seem to have been. As we have leichahdankung for a farewell speech over a dead body, leichbitter for a prayer over such body, leichgesang, leickerze, leichmahlzeit, leichtuch, and this very word in its form of leichstein, I venture to suggest that leckerstone may be so named, less in reference to the lectures given at the stone, than to the leiche, or body, which rested upon it.

J. DORAN.

I would suggest to P. C. that the word lecker is a corruption of the German leiche (of which we have other forms in lyke-wake and lich-gate), and that the stone was so called from the circumstance of the corpse being rested thereon, and not from any lesson or lecture delivered then and there. GEO. E. FRERE. Royden Hall, Diss.

CROMWELL HOUSE, OLD BROMPTON.
(2nd S. ii. 208.)

I was well acquainted with this old house and the pleasant lanes by which it was surrounded, now, alas! no more. The traditions of the neighbourhood I have often listened to, but could never gain any satisfactory information as to the house having been the residence of any of the Cromwell

family. On the contrary, all the stories fell to the ground upon examination.

The house was known as Hale House in 1596, when a rent charge of 20s. per annum was laid upon it for the poor of Kensington parish. In 1630 it was purchased by William Methwold, Esq., of the executors of Sir William Blake, who died in that year. This gentleman seems to have been its constant occupant till the period of his death, which occurred in 1652. He is described of Hale House in his will.

On May 10, 1653, immediately after his return from Ireland, "Mr. Henry Cromwell was married to Elizabeth Russell, daughter of Sir Thomas Russell," at Kensington Church; after which, according to Noble, "he chiefly resided at Whitehall." In the following year (1654) he returned to Ireland, and upon his taking his leave of that kingdom, he retired to Spinney Abbey, near Soham, in Cambridgeshire, where he died in 1673. The chances of Henry Cromwell's having resided at Hale House are therefore but slender.

In 1668 Hale House appears to have been inhabited by the Lawrences of Shurdington in Gloucestershire; in 1682 it was in the occupation of Francis Lord Howard of Effingham, the birth of whose son is thus recorded in the parish registers:

"July 7, 1682. The Honble Thomas Howard, son of the Rt Hon. Francis Ld Howard, Baron of Effingham, and the Lady Philadelphia, was born at Hale House in this parish.""

Hale House was still the property of the Methwold family, who in 1754 sold it to John Fleming, Esq., afterwards created a baronet; and in 1790 it was the joint property of the Earl of Harrington and Sir Richard Worsley, Bart., who married his daughters and coheirs. Such is the brief history of the proprietors and inhabitants of Cromwell House.

The tradition that it was the residence of the Lord Chief Justice Hale has probably no foundation, as we see the house was designated Hale House before he was born.

Cromwell's gift to Kensington parish is not recorded in the parochial books; and Mrs. Hall's assertion that Richard Cromwell was a ratepayer in the same is in a like predicament. The Pilgrimages to English Shrines is a book got up for sale, and ought never to be quoted as an authority. I have merely to add that these few particulars are chiefly derived from one of Pennant's MS. note-books, formerly in my possession. EDWARD F. RIMBAULT.

INSCRIPTION FOR A WATCH.

(2nd S. ii. 109.)

The excellent verses, for such they really are, concerning the author of which inquiry is made by