374 



NOTES AND QUERIES. 



[2'"« S. VII. May 7. '59. 



may occasionally observe a curved oblong close, 

 its side fences retaining the original serpentine 

 lines, and, more often than not, narrower at one 

 end than the other. Now this form is of frequent 

 occurrence, and, I am told, not only over England, 

 but also in some parts of Germany, — that there 

 must have been a reason for it, and for the pecu- 

 liar nature of the curve, like that of a plough- 

 handle. The late lamented Saxon scholar, J. M. 

 Kemble, in his elaborate treatise on the mode of 

 distribution of land amongst our Saxon fore- 

 fathers, and the divisions of the hide {Saxons in 

 England, vol. i. ch. iv., and the Appendix B.) gives 

 a satisfactory explanation of the side-by-side dis- 

 position of these strips of land and their oblong 

 form ; but nowhere, to my recollection, does hie 

 allude to the arc described by the boundary lines. 

 An intelligent agriculturist some time since asked 

 me, as a F.S.A. and a member of several Archaeo- 

 logical Societies, for an explanation; but none 

 have I been able to give, or to find in any work 

 to which I have reference. The form is doubtless 

 one of remote antiquity, and the solution of the 

 question may throw light upon the agricultural 

 system of the Saxons. I beg to submit the Query 

 to the learned correspondents of " N. & Q." 



G. A. C. 



BBUCE OF BBOOMHALL. 



Robert Bruce of Broomhall, 2nd son of Sir 

 George of Carnock, and uncle to Edward and 

 Alexander, 1st and 2nd Earls of Kincardine, had 

 two sons, viz. Alexander, -who became 4th Earl, 

 and another, who is unnamed in Mr. Drummond's 

 History of the Family of Bruce. It is respecting 

 this son that I wish to make inquiry. Mr. Drum- 

 mond says of him, — 



" A younger son of Bruce of Broomhall, being a student 

 of Philosopliie in St. Andrews, went away with ane Agnes 

 Allane, a comon woman, daughter to the deceased John 

 Allane, taverner ther, to the Border to be maried at the 

 Halfe Marke Church, as it is commonlie named ; hot att 

 his returne his elder brother meade search for him and 

 hir, and after found them out togither. When he abused 

 his brother for such a lewde prancke, and did weipe hir 

 with his rodde. Att this tj'me this j'ounge man began 

 to repent of his fawit and decline hir, bot she affirmed 

 that they were now maried. After this he was put into 

 the tolbuith in Edib, for debt, for money she had got from 

 divers persons. This prancke was in 1663." 



Was he the George Bruce mentioned in the 

 following inscription at Wath, near Ripon ? By 

 this it would appear that he was born in 1642, 

 and therefore would be twenty-one at the time of 

 the above occurrence. This George Bruce was 

 instituted to the rectory of Wath, 22nd October, 

 1716, on the presentation of the Hon. Robert and 

 James Bruce, acting for their brother Thomas, 

 Earl of Ailesbury and Elgin, the patron, who was 

 residing abroad. And he was probably the same 



George Bruce who had been instituted, 10th De- 

 cember, 1674, to the vicarage of Middleton Tyas 

 in Richmondshire, in the patronage of the Crown, 

 and vacated it in 1690-91 : — 



" Geo. Bruce, Rector de Wath, Vir tam ingenio et doc- 

 trina quam natalibus, Clarus, Alex<i" Comitis de Kincar- 

 den frater germanus. Obiit 27 Maii, 1723, ^tat. 81. 

 MemoriaB sacrum insculpendum curavit Joh» More, Rector 

 de Tanfield." 



Patonce. 



^tn0r HMtxiti, 



Nuncio at Brussels. — Can F, C. II., or some one 



else versed in such matters, inform me who held 



this office in 1628 ? It was an archbishop, but I 



do not know of what see. A. C. 



* Wisdom of the Cornwallises. — In Ray's Collec- 

 tion of English Proverbs, under the head of Nor- 

 folk, the following proverb occurs : " There 

 never was a Paston poor, a Heydon a coward, nor 

 a Cornwallis a fool." Is anything known as to 

 the origin of this proverb ? The account of the 

 Cornwallis family in Collins's Peerage shows that 

 many of its members, before Charles, the first 

 Marquis, distinguished themselves by various 

 public services. L. 



Wotton Queries. — 1. Sir Henry Wotton wrote 

 two Apologies relating to his Album aphorism, 

 " An ambassador is an honest man, sent to lie 

 abroad for the good of his country," one to King 

 James I. and the other to Marc Welser, prefect 

 of Augsburg. The latter is printed in Reliquiae 

 WottoniancB : is the one sent to James I. extant ? 



2. Why did Sir Dudley Carleton, in his letters 

 to John Chamberlain, give the sobriquet of Fa- 

 britio to Sir Henry Wotton ? See The Court and 

 Times of James the First,'\. 182. et passim. 



3. Has any record of the date of the knight- 

 hood of Sir Henry Wotton been discovered ? 



4. On Sir Henry Wotton's appointment to the 

 provostship of Eton, Walton says, " he quitted the 

 King of his promised reversionary offices, and a 

 piece of honest policy, which I have not time to re- 

 late." In Stephens's Life of Lord Bacon, p. xxvi. 

 ed. 1724, it is stated that Wotton's appointment 

 was obtained " by honest artifice." What was 

 this " piece of honest policy or artifice ? " 



5. What is the date of the death of Edward 

 the first Baron Wotton of Marley in Kent? 

 Nicolas, in his Peerage, leaves it blank ; Court* 

 hope, in the new edition of the Peerage, says 

 "circa 1604;" wliereas Lodge {Illustrations, iii. 

 387.) says he died in 1628. J. Yeowell. 



Hot Cross Buns are' round in shape, and owe 

 their peculiar flavour to the admixture of cori- 

 ander seeds. They have a certain resemblance 

 (on a large scale) to the wafer breads anciently 

 used for the Holy Eucharist, and are eaten with 



