204 



NOTES AND QUERIES. 



[2'"» S. VII. Mar. 5. '69. 



ported on hanging irons, and then formed seats 

 or benches all round. One such bedstead I have 

 seen in actual use in modern times, with both 

 these peculiarities; but this was the loftiest and 

 handsomest of the kind I ever saw, being elabor- 

 ately carved, painted, and gilded, and was of the 

 time of King James I. 



A fine original specimen of a very ancient oak 

 bedstead may be seen at the Swansea Museum ; 

 which I mention because of its great massiveness 

 and bold carved figures, armorial bearings, &c. 

 On the bed's head of one of mine is carved a 

 unicorn butting at a lion. Will this device aflbrd 

 any indication of its date or age ? P. H. Fishee. 

 Stroud. 



Warren Hastings^ Impeachment (2°*^ S, vii. 145.) 

 — If your correspondent P. H. F. will refer to p. 

 451. of vol. i. octavo edition of Moore's Life of 

 Sheridan^ he will find that there exists no report 

 of the celebrated speech delivered by Mr. Sheri- 

 dan on the 7th Feb. 1787, in the House of Com- 

 mons, " whose effects upon its hearers," as Mr. 

 Moore observes, " had no parallel in the annals 

 of ancient or modern eloquence." This was the 

 speech which Mr. Burke declared to be " the 

 most astonishing effort of eloquence, argument, 

 and wit united, of which there was any record 

 or tradition." Mr. Fox said, " All that he had 

 ever heard, all that he had ever read, when com- 

 pared with it, dwindled into nothing, and vanished 

 like vapour before the sun ; " — and Mr. Pitt ac- 

 knowledged " that it surpassed all the eloquence 

 of ancient and modern times, and possessed every- 

 thing that genius or art could furnish, to agitate 

 and control the human mind." 



The notes of Mr. Gurney, the Lords' Reporter, 

 to which your correspondent refers, were taken 

 when Mr. Sheridan delivered his second great 

 speech as one of the managers " to make good 

 the articles " of the Impeachment, in Westminster 

 Hall, 3 June, 1788. It was on the occasion of 

 this second great effort of eloquence being made, 

 that Mr. Burke pronounced at its conclusion the 

 other flattering eulogium quoted by Mr. Moore, 

 p. 481. of the same volume. " As some atone- 

 ment to the world," he adds in the next page, 

 ^'' for the loss of the speech in the House of Com- 

 mons, this second masterpiece of eloquence on 

 the same subject has been preserved to us in a 

 report from the short-hand notes of Mr. Gurney, 

 which was for some time in the possession of the 

 late Duke of Norfolk, but was afterwards re- 

 stored to Mr. Sheridan, and is now in my hands." 

 It would be very desirable to learn what has be- 

 come even of this Report, as it certainly was not 

 returned by Mr. Moore to the family of Mr. 

 Sheridan with tbe rest of his papers. S. B. 



Title of Esquire (2"'' S. vii. 158.)— The Query 

 as to who are legally entitled to the appellation of 

 esquire was sufficiently answered in your first 

 series (iii. 242.) by a reference to Blackstone's 

 Commentaries ; but the following extract from 

 Feme's Blazon of Gentrie, which I " found and 

 made a Note of" the other day in Dallaway's 

 Heraldry, may be new to your querist and others 

 of your readers : — 



" We Englishmen borrowing of the French tongue 

 many wordes, especially in matters appertaining to gentry, 

 do imitate the forme of their language euen in this word. 

 For we cal it the degree of JEsquier, and the French 

 terme him escuire of the bearing of a shielde. Now as 

 this was the beginning and originall of this degree, that 

 is to saye, due onely to seruitours in warres, yet so by 

 tract of time it is come to passe, that in the dayes of 

 peace, to the intent men well deseruing in the Common- 

 wealth to the administration of publique and worshipfull 

 offices, might be honoured with some title aboue the 

 estate of a simple gentleman, the degree of esquier is 

 through custome tollerated to manye other sorts of gen- 

 tlemen. But they all, or the most of them, be such as be 

 in function of some oifices of iustice or gouernment in 



the Kinge's pallace But that the same shoulde 



discende from the father to the sonne as the estate of 

 gentry doth is meere fabulous." — Dallaway, p. 30. 



J. Eastwood. 



I quote from a privately printed work by Sir 

 Charles Young, Garter, entitled Order of Prece- 

 dence with Authorities and Remarks, 1851 (pages 

 53. 55. 57. 59, and 60.) : — 



" Esquires. It is extremely difficult to define accu- 

 rately or satisfactorily the persons included by or entitled 

 to this designation. Lord Coke, in his exposition of the 

 statute 1 Hen. V. cap, 5. of Additions, says, ' The sons of 

 all the Peers and Lords of Parliament in the life of their 

 fathers are in law esquires, and so to be named.' By this 

 statute the eldest son of a knight is an esquire. 



" Camden, who was himself a Herald, reckons up four 

 sorts of them. 1. The Eldest sons of Knights and their 

 eldest sons in perpetual succession. 2. The Eldest sons 

 of younger Sons of Peers and their Elder Sons in like 

 perpetual succession. 3. Esquires created bj' the King's 

 Letters Patent or other investiture and their eldest sons. 

 4. Esquires by virtue of their offices as Justices of the 

 peace, and others who have any office of trust under the 

 Crown. To these may be added the Esquires of Knights 

 of the Bath and all foreign, nay, Irish Peers, for not only 

 these, but the Eldest Sons of Peers of Great Britain, 

 though frequently titular Lords, are only Esquires in the 

 Law, and must be so named in all legal proceedings." — 

 (Blaekstone, vol. i. 406.) 



Blackstone, vol. i. p. 404., says, that before 

 esquires the heralds rank colonels, serjeants-at- 

 law, and doctors in the three learned professions ; 

 but the authorities he cites in his note do not 

 seem to support the statement that the several per- 

 sons forming these classes are but esquires ; and 

 to them may be added many others, viz., dt-puty- 

 lieutenants, judicial officers, mayors of towns, 

 barristers, officers of the army and navy, and 

 members of parliament, who come under the 

 designation of esquire, but who in point of fact 

 have no peculiar precedency in general society 



