2»<» S. VII. Jan. 8. 59.] 



NOTES AND QUERIES. 



27 



and there he could not find it, there he never thought of 

 it more." 



It is hardly necessary to point out the coinci- 

 dence with the commencement of Bacon's Essay 

 on Truth : — 



" What is truth ? said jesting Pilate, and would not 

 stay for an answer." 



Donne's Sermon was preached Feb. 16, 1620. 

 I suppose there can be little doubt he had Bacon's 

 phrase in his mind, when he wrote the passage 

 which I have quoted. I do not know whether 

 this has been noticed before. S. C. 



Christian Names. — From an inquiry by J. G. 

 N. in " N. & Q." 2°'' S. iii. 508., you have obtained 

 a rare collection of cases in which female names 

 have been conferred, in baptism, on males. Anne 

 seems to have been largely dealt out in this odd 

 way, and Mary and others also have been so ap- 

 plied. The other day I was looking through an 

 old Army List, when my eye flashed on a feminine 

 prenomen, which, for uniqueness, eclipses all the 

 strange appropriations I have culled from your 

 columns. If your readers who are curious on the 

 subject will consult the Army List for 1786, they 

 will find, under the head of Royal Regiment of 

 Artillery, Captain Caroline F. Scott. Fancying 

 this was a misprint, carried through a series of 

 years, which Captain Caroline Scott did not care 

 to rectify, I looked elsewhere for proof, and found 

 it reproduced in Wilmot's Records of the Royal 

 Military Academy, Woolwich. 



It is even more singular to find females desig- 

 nated by masculine names. Not long ago, in 

 tracing the pedigree of the Viscounts of Kenmure, 

 I stumbled on a remarkable instance, perhaps un- 

 paralleled in baptismal nomenclature ; inasmuch 

 as the son of a nobleman married successively two 

 ladies having virile Christian names. In Douglas' 

 Peerage of Scotland, 2nd ed. 1813, the Hon. John 

 Gordon of Greenlaw, eldest son of Alexander, 

 fifth Viscount of Kenmure by his third wife, is 

 stated to have married Nicholas, daughter of 

 Stewart of Castle Stewart; and by another au- 

 thority (Genealogical Tree of the family of Lochin- 

 var and Kenmure from the year 1631), he is shown 

 to have wedded, secondly, Christian McBurney. 



The Hon. John Gordon succeeded to the estates 

 of his father in 1698. These baptismal eccentri- 

 cities are therefore old, but still deserving a cor- 

 ner in" N.&Q." M. S. R. 



OLIVEK ST. JOHN. 



Can any of the readers of " N. & Q." assist me 

 in the identification of Oliver St. John, called in a 

 contemporary document " Black Oliver St. John 

 of Wiltshire," who in April, 1615, was sentenced in 



the Star Chamber to a fine of 5000?. and impri- 

 sonment for life for writing a letter to the Mayor 

 of Marlborough dissuading him and the inhabit- 

 ants of that town from contributing to a Benevo- 

 lence ? It appears from his trial, as recorded in 

 Howell's Collection, vol. ii. 899., that he was a 

 member of Lincoln's Inn, and one of the prin- 

 cipal inhabitants of Marlborough ; and Bacon, in 

 his prosecution speech, speaks of him as a man 

 *' of ancient house and name." Lord Campbell 

 (Ch. Just. ii. 450.) supposes him to be the same 

 Oliver St. John who in the reign of Charles I. 

 was one of the prominent leaders of the republican 

 party in the House of Commons, and who, in 

 1640, was made Solicitor-General and afterward 

 Lord Chief Justice. The political sentiments and 

 general character of the latter would seem to 

 agree with the principles of the former. Claren- 

 don states that — 



" He was of Lincoln's Inn, that he was a man reserved 

 and of a dark and clouded countenance, very proud, and 

 conversing with very few, and those men of his own hu- 

 mour and inclination. That he had been questioned, 

 committed, and brought into the Star Chamber many 

 years before, with other persons of great name and repu- 

 tation, for communicating some paper among themselves, 

 which some men at that time meant to have extended to 

 a design of sedition, but that it being quickly evident 

 that the prosecution would not be attended with success, 

 they were all shortly after discharged." 



He states, moreover, that he was " a natural 

 son of the House of Bolingbroke." (Book III. 

 186.) It will be observed that the historical part 

 of this narrative does not agree with the case of 

 Mr. St. John in 1615, in which the prosecution 

 was quite successful : but if any doubt upon the 

 subject could exist, it is completely disposed of 

 by Mr. Foss, who shows that the Oliver St. John 

 who became Chief Justice was born about the 

 year 1598, and that he was admitted a pensioner 

 of Queen's College, Cambridge, on Aug. 16, 1615, 

 being then seventeen years of age. It is highly 

 improbable, therefore, that the letter to the Mayor 

 of Marlborough could be written by such a lad, 

 or that the prosecution of a mere boy would cause 

 such anxiety to the King as to cause the trial to 

 be deferred until the Lord Chancellor (Egerton), 

 who from age and infirmity was upon the point of 

 resigning the great seal, could attend the hearing. 

 Mr. Foss, however, upon the authority of Harris' 

 Lives, i. 286., states that " Black Oliver " of 

 1615 was Oliver St. John of Lydiard Tregose, 

 who in 1622 was created Viscount Grandison. 

 It appears to me that Mr. Foss is also mis- 

 taken. It is true that Lydiard Tregose is not far 

 from Marlborough ; but that circumstance, I con- 

 ceive, renders it the more improbable that its 

 owner should be residing in the town. The printed 

 genealogical accounts which we have of this gen- 

 tleman certainly state that in his youth he was 

 sent to Study the law in the Inns of Court, but, 



