114 



NOTES AND QUERIES. 



C2«>0S.VI-i -»EB.5.'69. 



the parish in which it took place. Till about three 

 yeai's ago, when the registration of births, mar- 

 riages, and deaths in Scotland was made compul- 

 sory by statute, such registration could not be 

 enforced, even in the case of regular marriages ; 

 but as these must have been preceded by procla- 

 mation of banns, they were generally (though not 

 universally) recorded in the Parochial Session Re- 

 gister simultaneously with the clerk issuing a cer- 

 tificate of the proclamation. G. 

 Edinburgh. 



Earliest English Almanack (2"* S. vii. 88.) — In 

 your notice of a passage from the Popular Ency- 

 clopcedia, it appears to be stated — 



" That the earliest English Almanacks were printed in 

 Holland on small folio sheets, and that these have been 

 occasionally preserved from having been pasted within 

 the covers of old books." 



The earliest English Almanack which I have 

 been made acquainted with was exhibited to the 

 Society of Antiquaries, June 16lh, 1842. The 

 late Dr. Bliss brought it with him from Oxford, a 

 newly-discovered Wynkyn de Worde. Its di- 

 mensions, which I took at the time, were two 

 inches and a half by two inches, a small unequal 

 square. It consisted of fifteen leaves. The title 

 (in black letter) was 



" Almanacke for 

 xii. yere." 



On the reverse of the third leaf — 



" lately corrected and enprynted at London in the 



Flete-strete by Wynkyn de Worde. In the j'ere of the 

 reygne of our most redoubted Sovereayne Lorde Kinge 

 Henry the vii." 



This unique book was found by a friend of Dr. 

 Bliss, among other things, in an old chest at Edin- 

 burgh, and was forwarded to him as a present for 

 the Bodleian Library. H. E. 



A. F. S. inquires respecting such as are said to 

 have " been preserved from having been pasted 

 within the covers of old books." He means, I 

 presume, such as were used by bookbinders for 

 " end-papers." He may find some account of such 

 a case in No. 9. of the " Fragments " described in 

 the List of Early-printed Boohs in the Lambeth 

 Library, p. 263. The date is a.d. 1500 : the 

 printer, or perhaps almanack-maker, " Jaspar 

 Laet de Borchloen." S. R. M. 



J. B. Greenshields (2"'i S. vii. 48.) — The exact 

 title of Mr. G.'s book is Home, a Poem. In my 

 List of Scotish Versifiers I have it noted as printed 

 at Edinburgh, by Ballantyne, in 1806; and, " Se- 

 cond Edition, corrected and enlarged," Edinburgh, 

 Mundell, 1808. 



This, latter I possess, — it is a small anonymous 

 octavo with a long preface, pp. xxvii. 175., upon 

 the title of which some one has written " by John 

 Greenshields, Esq., Advocate." J. D. 



Madame Du Barry's Portrait of Charles I. (2°* 

 S. vii. 66.) — The picture of Charles I. by Van- 

 dyke, referred to, was purchased by Madame Ba 

 Barry from the collection of M. de Crozat, Baron 

 de Thiers, in 1771, for 24,000 livres. It is now in 

 the Salon Carre of the Louvre, and represents the 

 king standing, accompanied by a page holding his 

 cloak, whilst an attendant reins back his horse. 

 The background is a landscape, and to the left a 

 vessel is seen. It is eight feet four inches high 

 and six feet four inches wide. Sir R. Strange 

 made an engraving of the picture. C. De Cosson. 



52. Chalcot Villas, Haverstock Hill. 



Oak Bedsteads, 8fc. (2°'^ S. vii. 69.) — I think 

 you would hardly like to burden your pages with 

 the mensuration of old furniture ; but perhaps 

 Centukion would consent to take off his mask, and 

 invite a private correspondence, by which he might 

 obtain abundant information on the subject. 



I have myself a famous old oak bedstead which 

 has never visited Wardour Street, and a chest 

 with the date 1676, born and bred, I believe, in 

 this parish, and now enjoying a dignified old age 

 in its native place. C. W. Bingham. 



Bingham's Melcombe. 



There are some fine old carved oak bedsteads 

 at Marple Hall, Cheshire, particularly one made 

 especially for President Bradshaw, to whom the 

 Hall belonged, and decorated with carved arms 

 and mottoes. The Hall is still in the possession of 

 Bradshaw's descendants, and the family have no 

 doubt as to the authenticity of that bedstead. 



W. T. 



Centukion will find a fine specimen of one in 

 the Hotel Cluni at Paris. Wm. Yates, Esq., of 

 Manchester, about 1820, had two of these pieces 

 of antiquity in fine preservation, which are most 

 likely to be still in that neighbourhood. I slept 

 upon one of them, and have some faint recollec- 

 tion that the massive foot pillars represented Adam 

 and Eve, and upon the tester was carved Noah's 

 Ark, with the animals in procession entering it. 

 In an extremely rare and curious old English 

 poem on " The Five Wounds of Christ," printed 

 on vellum, and printed to imitate the original, are 

 three drawings, — two of bedsteads complete, and 

 one, most elaborately executed, of a foot-board. 

 These were done for my friend Mr. Yates in 1815. 

 I shall feel pleasure in showing them to Centu- 

 rion if he will make an appointment. 



George OrroR. 

 Grove Street, South Hackney. 



Pilate's ''What is truth?'' (2°^ S. vii. 26.) — 

 Perhaps not all of your readers are acquainted 

 with the remarkable anagram connected with this 

 question of Pilate, "Quid est Veritas?" the letters 

 of which, if transposed, afford the answer, " Est vir 

 qui adest ! " Ithuriel. 



