2°<> S. VII. April 9. '69.] 



NOTES AND QUERIES. 



305 



Druidical Circles (2"« S. vii. 218.) — W. may 

 find some useful information relative to his Query, 

 on the subject of Druidism, &c., in a Philosophical 

 Survey of the South of Ireland, in a Series of Let- 

 ters to John Watkinson, M.D., 8vo., Dublin, 1778. 

 See from pp. 223—236. The book is anonymous, 

 but I am informed by Dr. Sconlar of Glasgow 

 (eminently skilled in Irish historical antiquities), 

 that it was written by one Campbell, and is of 

 considerable merit and authority. About ten 

 miles north of Glasgow, near the village of Strath- 

 blane, were to be seen till lately (as I am in- 

 formed, some sordid Goth having broken them up 

 to build walls) three immense blocks of freestone 

 in a remote field, reputed to be Druidical, which 

 went under the name of the " Auld Wives' Lifts." 

 Two of the stones lay together, and the third 

 transversal on the top, with an aperture to creep 

 through, by the doing or not doing of which 

 strange rewards and penalties were the conse- 

 quence. There is no similar kind of. rock near the 

 place. The surrounding ground is generally cold 

 and infertile, and could not be said to be favour- 

 able for the growth of oaks or other trees ; but 

 there are evidences from the extensive peat mosses 

 and beams of hlack oak dug up, that in ancient 

 times, in the neighbourhood of these stones, there 

 had existed large forests of oak, supposed by some 

 to have been destroyed by the Romans who had 

 possession of the spot, or by the Caledonians in 

 their struggles with that power. G. N. 



Rev. James Bean : Rev. T. F. Dibdin, D.D. 

 (2°^ S. vii. 148. 227.) — 



1. There is no tablet to the memory of Mr. 

 Bean in Welbeck chapel. In the Biog. Diet, of 

 Living Authors, 1816, he is described as " Vicar of 

 Olney, Bucks ; Curate of Carshalton, Surrey; and 

 Assistant Librarian at the Brit. Mus." 



2. Dr. Dibdin died in 1847, and was buried in 

 the Kensal Green Cemetery. A tablet was placed 

 to his memory in St. Mary's church, Bryanstone 

 Square 5 the inscription on which is as follows : — 



" Sacred 



to the Memof}' of 



Thomas Frognall Dibdin, D.D., 



first Rector of this Church, 



Vicar of Exning, Suffolk, 



and Chaplain in Ordinary to 



their Majesties 



King William the Fourth and 



Queen Victoria. 



This Monument 



is erected hy his Friends 



as a tribute of respect to his Learning, 



His Literary Talents as an Author, 



His Urbanity and Zeal 



in discharge of his Ministerial Duties 



during an Incumbency of 24 years, 



and to his firm Support of 



The- Established Church. 



He died Nov-- 18"', 1817, 



In the 72^' year of his age." 



S. H. H. 



Seashore Sand (2"'> S. vii. 236.) — The privilege 

 of taking away the sea-sand under high water- 

 mark was given to all persons whatsoever resident 

 and dwelling within the counties of Devon and 

 Cornwall, by the statute of 7 James I. cap. xviii., 

 which has never been repealed. The preamble of 

 the statute is as follows : — 



" Whereas the sea-sand, by long trial and experience, 

 hath been found to be very profitable for the bettering of 

 land, and especiallj' for the increase of corn and tillage 

 within the counties of Devon and Cornwall, when the 

 most part of the inhabitants have not commonly used any 

 other manure for the bettering of their arable grounds 

 and pastures, notwithstanding divers having lands ad- 

 joining to the sea-coast there, have of late interrupted the 

 bargemen and such others as have used their free wills 

 and pleasures to fetch the said sea-sand, to take the same 

 under the full sea-mark as they have heretofore used to 

 do, unless they make a composition with them at such 

 rates as they themselves set down, though they have 

 very small or no damage or loss thereby, to the great 

 decay and hindrance of husbandry and tillage within the 

 said counties." 



In a well-known case on the right of the subject 

 to take fish found upon the seashore between high 

 and low water-mark, which was decided at the 

 commencement of the present century, it was dis- 

 puted at the bar whether this statute was not in 

 fact declaratory of the general right of the sub- 

 ject throughout the realm, but the Court gave no 

 opinion on the point. Hodi, 



Dublin. 



Rev. Timothy Sheppard (2"* S. vii. 90. 155. 

 265.) — Timothy, son of Thomas Sheppard, "died 

 young in 1733;" and therefore could not have 

 been elected pastor of a church at Jewry Lane in 

 1697. Z. may test the accuracy of my statement 

 at pp. 155-6., and obtain some little additional in- 

 formation by referring to Gorham's Hist, of St. 

 Neots, p. 177.; Palmer's Nonconformists Memo- 

 rial, 1802, i. 285.; Coleman's Northamptonshire 

 Independent Churches, 1853, pp.85. 257.; Pro- 

 testant Dissenting Magazine, vi. 467. ; and Biogra- 

 phical Sketches of the Pastors . . . at Baching, 

 Braintree, 1829, from the Congregational Maga- 

 zine (probably of 1828 or 1829). In a letter from 

 the late Rev. G. C. Gorham, dated 25th June, 

 1845, is this passage : — 



" Mr. * * * of Lancaster, who is about to publish some 

 account of Thomas Sheppard, the nonjuror, states that 

 he finds in Bishop Burnet (qu. which work ?) that he 

 had a controversy with Sheppard." 



Whether the account ever was published, I 

 know not. Joseph Kix, 



St. Neots. 



" Pizarro" (2""* S. vi. 91.) — Pizarro, a tragedy 

 in five acts, 8vo., 1799, by a North Briton. In 

 Genest's History of the Stage, the author's name 

 is said to be Ainslie. I presume the author to 

 have been Sir Whitelaw Ainslie, M.D. 



E. Inglis. 



